On Marriage and Christ

If you've escaped the recent controversy surrounding The Gospel Coalition and their publishing of an article on sex as an icon of the gospel, well done.  This post is a very limited response to a part of that controversy, but should make sense even if you didn't follow it at all.  The point I want to respond to is the claim by a number of people that the problem with the article was that it over-extended a metaphor.  That is to say, it is true that Scripture draws a metaphorical connection between marital union and the spiritual union of Christ and his people, but by reflecting explicitly sexual language the article had stretched that metaphor beyond its biblical usage, and thus invalidated it.

My response here is simple: I do not think the Bible presents marriage as a metaphor for the gospel.  As I understand it - and I confess freely that I am no literary theorist - metaphor is a way of relating two things or concepts which have no (or at least no necessary) real (that is, ontological or conceptual) connection; it is allusive, linking two things which are not directly linked in order to shed light on one or the other.  Metaphor is limited in what it implies, and is essentially linguistic.  It does not imply or establish any real or ongoing link between the two items.  Rather, it uses language to appropriate one thing or concept as a means of 'opening up' another.

My contention, then, is that this is not the sort of link Scripture envisages between human marriage and the gospel.  In Ephesians 5, the apostle Paul is not casting around looking for a great illustration of the gospel and arriving at marital love.  Nor is he looking about for some justification for the institution of marriage and chancing upon the gospel - that direction of thought would be impossible for him.  Look at the way he uses the quotation from Genesis.  His argument depends on there being a real link between human marriage and the relationship between Christ and his church.  It depends, in fact, on finding the primary application of the "one flesh" saying from Genesis in the gospel, with the obvious historical sense of the saying in its Genesis context becoming a secondary application.  This makes sense in a world where primary ontology is about God and his actions, and creation represents a kind of secondary ontology, a derived, contingent being which is dependent on the Lord God for both existence and meaning.  This latter is crucial.

The question, then, is this: is created reality inherently ordered towards the gospel?

There is another way of approaching this which asks a question which is similar, but in the end totally different: does created reality have inherent meaning and structure?  If we're asking this question, we're in the territory of natural law, and perhaps in territory which envisages a natural end to human life and created existence apart from the gospel.  I don't want to go into this territory.  I don't think it's a good place to be.  I am proceeding on the assumption that the heart of created reality is the Incarnation of the Son of God, and the underlying reason of human existence and indeed the whole created order is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

What is at stake here?

On the one hand, the grounding of Christian ethics is at stake.  I mean this is in a very particular way.  The essential ground of Christian ethics is the command of God.  As believers we ought to wholeheartedly commit ourselves to being impaled on one horn of the Euthyphro dilemma - the morally good is determined by the will of God, and God himself is bound by no external standard of goodness.  In that sense, when we are asked about sexual ethics and why we hold particular positions we can simply respond 'God says so', and point to the relevant commands in Scripture.  But the doctrine of creation means that we can say something more about the particular way in which Christian ethics is grounded.  The divine commands do not hang in the air, because the God who commands is also the God who structures reality.  What he commands is morally good because he determines moral goodness, but we can also say that this goodness reflects the structure of created reality - or more accurately, perhaps, that it is reflected in the structure of created reality.  Once we pull in the doctrine of redemption - that the God who commands and creates is also the God who save - we can argue that the divine command is reflected in creation which is itself oriented toward the gospel.  The gospel, then, reveals the significance of created reality, and thus of the divine commands.  Far from being arbitrary rules, they reflect both creation and redemption, because God is one and his goal and purpose is one.

Grounding Christian ethics in this way binds it together with the gospel, in a way which seems to me central to New Testament thinking.  The Christian sexual ethic is good news because it signifies The Good News.  We joyfully submit to this ethic and call others to do so because the end goal of created reality is the marriage supper of the Lamb.

On the other hand, our ability to think and speak about the Christian life in a way which reflects the full richness of Scripture is at stake.  When Scripture tells us that the 'one flesh' relationship of husband and wife is oriented towards the relationship between Christ and the church, that opens up the reading of - for example - the Song of Songs as a beautiful representation of spiritual communion with Christ.  The question 'is this about marriage or is it about Christ' is, in the end, a non-question if human marriage is itself always related to Christ and his gospel.  We can read the Song in a perfectly natural way as a collection of beautiful human love songs, and indeed as a celebration of erotic love, and therefore as having reference to the relationship between Christ and his people.  And in fact we can see this latter as in a sense primary for a canonical reading of the book.

Simone Weil points out that real things exist in three dimensions, and can therefore be viewed from different perspectives.  If there is a real, ontological link between human marriage and the gospel, then it becomes legitimate to look from different perspectives at both.  I think the Song legitimates us in seeing the sexual as one such perspective.  The 'one flesh' union of marriage is enacted in sexual intercourse; the spiritual union of Christ and the church also has moments of 'enacted' reality, most notably perhaps in the sacraments.  I don't intend to particularly develop this here, but just to note that the real link between marriage and the gospel enables and perhaps even mandates this sort of reflection, whereas a metaphorical link would shut this down.

One warning: we must always continue resolutely to say No! to natural theology.  (Should we so desire, we can say it in German).  That means that revelation, the Word of God, Christ as witnessed by the Scriptures, remains in control.  I take it this was one of the key complaints against the TGC article: that the direction of thought which is so obvious in Paul - from the gospel to marriage first, and only subsequently and indirectly from marriage to the gospel - was in danger of being reversed.  Revelation interprets created reality, not vice versa.  Wherever spiritual reflection on marriage and sex approaches this line - and it must in a sense approach it - we need to be on our guard that the line is not crossed.  If it is appropriate to describe marriage as an icon of the gospel - and I think it is - we need to be careful that we are looking 'along' the icon to the reality and not stopping short at the content of the image, or worse projecting aspects of the image into our thinking about the reality in an uncontrolled way.

Another warning: we know marriage and sexuality only in a fallen mode.  There is a sense in which everything we experience of it is tainted.  This introduces a sad requirement for theology: just at the point at which we would like to speak rapturously of Christ and his love for his people, we must stress very carefully the limitations of our thoughts.  We know it is easy for people to abuse the Scriptures - to take, say, the teaching in Ephesians 5 and twist it to abusive ends.  How much more so our secondary spiritual reflections on marriage and sexuality!  In one sense this is just the movement of all theology: we draw analogies, show that Christ is like something in our experience, but then immediately have to qualify it, because he is also unlike anything in our fallen world.  This is also true of the icon of marriage.

All of which is to say, these are dangerous waters - but beautiful to sail if navigated carefully!  What a wonderful bridegroom is our Lord Jesus.  What grace it is that he should welcome us, sanctify us, call us his bride.  What a high privilege it is to enjoy spiritual communion with him.  (And husbands should love their wives).

An update on what I'm doing

 An excerpt from the newsletter I've sent today - if you'd like to get regular updates, please let me know and I can add you to the distribution list.

At the beginning of February, I officially started a full-time PhD with Union School of Theology. The project I am undertaking looks at a systematic theology of preaching.  There are lots of books out there about how to preach, but I want to look more carefully at the why and the what of preaching, starting from the doctrine of the Trinity and the Word of God as the second Person of the Godhead, and working through the earthly ministry of Christ as the supreme Prophet of Israel, the Scriptures and their role as God’s word written, and finally the situation of the preacher in the local church today.  I want to think carefully about how God communicates himself to his world and particularly his assembled people, and how preaching fits into that.

I’m excited about the project; it’s something that has come out of my experience of preaching weekly, and feeling the need to understand more deeply just what it was I was doing, or trying to do.  I’ve also had a chance to run my ideas past some people who really know what they’re talking about on preaching and on theology, and it’s been encouraging to hear that they also think this is a worthwhile piece of research.  There is certainly a gap in the market, so to speak, and it seems like one worth filling.

In the evangelical church generally there is, it seems to me, a need to recover a vision for preaching which clearly links it to God’s activity and communication.  We need preachers with confidence and authority.  The New Testament calls those who speak to do so as if speaking God’s own words (the very oracles of God!) - but how do we do that when we know our weakness as preachers?  We also need preachers who step up into the pulpit with fear and trembling, understanding the awesome weight of their task, knowing that they are called to speak from and for God.  No method or formula can bring God’s word to God’s people, and if our confidence rests in those things perhaps we need shaking up!

I hope this project might be a small contribution to a deeper understanding of what preaching is, and therefore to a greater expectation of what God is able and willing to do through the preaching of the gospel.  At some point I hope the research will turn into a book, but even before then I am looking for opportunities to share what I’m learning, particularly with pastors.

Right now, day to day study looks like trying to read everything I can get my hands on to do with preaching, especially anything that approaches it from a systematic theology perspective.  It is important to get a solid understanding of the current state of research in the field, and this will form part of the literature review at the beginning of the study.  So far I have been confirmed in my initial impression that there isn’t that much material out there which tackles preaching in a systematic way from a theological point of view.