Does being satisfied with God’s love in Christ mean that one should not desire marriage or enjoy it? Is Christ meant to replace the earthly hope of marriage with Himself alone?
The answer is a firm, gracious, and liberating no.
To think otherwise is to confuse the reality with the picture, the substance with the shadow. This is a subtle form of asceticism—a religious idea that says, “The spiritual thing is to deny the earthly thing.” But that is not Paul’s gospel. It is not the heart of God revealed in the mystery of Christ and the church. God created marriage. He called it good. To view a good gift He created with suspicion or as a second-rate distraction is to misunderstand why He created it in the first place.
Marriage on earth is a glorious, God-given picture. But it is only a picture. The reality is Christ and the church.
The Loneliness of Adam and the Heart of God
The pattern is set in Genesis, in the restful perfection of the seventh day: “And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him” (Genesis 2:18). Adam, as a type of Christ, is in a paradise of provision, yet God declares a lack. It is not good for him to be alone.
God brings every creature to Adam. He names them, exercises dominion, but finds no counterpart. “But for Adam there was not found an help meet for him” (Genesis 2:20). There is a loneliness in the type that points to a deeper reality. Christ, the unique Son, walked among us. He was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). He had no place to lay His head. In all creation, there was no suitable counterpart for the heart of God’s Son.
God wants this pang to be felt in the story because it reveals His eternal purpose. His intention was never for Christ to be alone. He purposed a counterpart, a suitable match, a bride.
The Sleep of Adam and the Creation of the Church
How does God solve the problem? “And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man” (Genesis 2:21-22).
This is the pivotal moment. Adam’s sleep is a type of death—but crucially, it is a creative death, not a punitive one. It has nothing to do with sin. God takes something from Adam’s side and builds a woman. The word is build. Adam awakens and declares the profound mystery: “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man” (Genesis 2:23).
Paul unveils this mystery in Ephesians: “For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:30-32).
The church is not a second party entering into a contract with Christ. It is not a covenant partner who bargained with God. The church is the product of a creative act from His death and resurrection. We were in Him, and we were brought out from Him. Just as Eve was built from the rib taken from Adam’s side, the church was built from the life released through Christ’s pierced side. “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (John 12:24). His death was the release of His unbreakable life to produce His bride.
This is why our union is indissoluble. It is not a covenant between two who were separate. It is the union of a man with his own flesh. “No man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church” (Ephesians 5:29). God only knows us in Christ. He does not deal with us as if we ever had a history apart from Him. We are bone of His bone, flesh of His flesh.
The Picture and the Reality
Genesis 2:24 gives the earthly pattern: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” This is the picture. In the old creation, a man leaves and cleaves. Two individuals become one through covenant commitment.
But this is not how Christ relates to the church. He never left His Father. He said, “I am not alone, because the Father is with me” (John 16:32). And we did not “cleave” to Him in a vow-based commitment. When we believed, we were baptized into His death. Our old self was terminated. Any vows, any commitments we could muster were nullified. “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2:20). Our oneness with Him is not the result of mutual commitment; it is the result of a creative miracle. We are from Him.
Earthly marriage, then, is a beautiful, God-instituted picture of this unbreakable, heavenly reality. It is a shadow cast by the substance. To enjoy marriage is to enjoy a gift that God created to point to the profoundest truth in the universe: Christ’s intimate, nourishing, cherishing union with His people.
Should Marriage Be Desired?
Marriage should be desired and enjoyed as a gracious gift from God that provides companionship, reflects His creative heart, and proclaims the gospel mystery to a watching world. To reject the gift in the name of “spirituality” is to reject the testimony of the gift-Giver. It is a subtle law, a religious demand to prove devotion by denying what God calls good.
Yet it is crucial to keep the picture and the reality in order. Never make the picture the source of ultimate fulfillment. That is idolatry. A spouse, as wonderful as they may be, is not life itself. Christ is life. The deepest need for companionship, understanding, and union is fully met in Him. He is the reality. Marriage is the signpost.
When marriage is seen as the signpost, it can be enjoyed without demanding it to be what it can never be. One can love a spouse without the crushing weight of expecting them to be “everything.” Contentment in singleness is not a second-class spiritual state but a direct opportunity to display that Christ alone is the satisfying portion of the heart.
Too often, believers have been told to deny good things to prove their love for God. That is religion. That is law. Grace gives gifts and points through them to the Giver. God said it was not good for Adam to be alone, and He made a helper for him. In that, He showed His heart for His Son. He has given Christ, and in Christ, believers are forever His counterpart, His bride, His own flesh. The pictures He gives are to be enjoyed and the gifts cherished—but never confused with the glorious, all-satisfying Person they were meant to reflect.
