What God Has Joined Together

Already when God was establishing the original marriage, he was providing a portrait of Christ and his church. Adam’s bride was taken from his side and was flesh of his flesh. In a sense, Christ’s bride, the church received its being from Jesus’ side, pierced on a cross for his people, and the church is flesh of his flesh. Adam got a bride by being put to sleep and raised up again. Christ got his bride, the church, by entering the sleep of death and rising again.

There is a beautiful unity and consistency in the Bible from beginning to end. Let’s not violate this unity and separate what God has joined together. This happens when someone breaks up a marriage, but it also happens whenever we separate realities that belong together. If we treat creation as one idea, the Trinity as an entirely separate idea, the church’s salvation through Christ as another separate idea, and male-female relations as yet another idea that’s entirely separate from the rest, we are separating what God has joined together. All truth, all reality, is joined together in Christ. “Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

How should you respond to all this? Believe the Bible. Take the original marriage as your pattern for what marriage is, and isn’t. Repent of all sins which violate this pattern, asking God’s pardon and power to change. Believe in the Lord Jesus as the second person of the Trinity and as the Savior and Head of his church, and make your marriage a picture of this.