Marriage - A Living Gospel

 We all have a testimony of how we were “saved” and our lives were transformed from our former ways (of being "lost") to a “Spirit-filled life” (having been "found").  This new way brought us in contact with others, who like us were now reading the Word and getting together in what is called “the church”. As for me, my hunger for the word was like a newborn baby whose instinct to survive was to get as much of the “El Shaddi” as I had time for. 

After the first ten years of playing in the sandbox with other like-minded Christians adhering to the Charismatic expression, at age 37 I suddenly found myself under a hupa in northern Israel committing myself and my life to a lovely Israeli woman.  We have now been together for almost 42 years.  As you probably noticed, I did not use the word “married”, because marriage is a process of unification, that is, of becoming one, as were the male and the female in the beginning.

In those first ten years of being a believer, I probably read or listened to the book of Ephesians thousands of times.  But there was a small section in chapter 5 that didn’t apply to a nice loving bachelor like me.  However, now that I was a husband, I had to take a closer look at what the word of Elohim was saying to husbands:

 ^“Husbands, love your wives, just as Messiah also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word,  that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.  So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.  For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.  For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.  "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.  Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband” (Ephesians 5:25 -33 emphasis added).

After one week of this so-called marriage, all my ideas of how it should 'work' were simply obliterated.  From then on, the above has been a prayer, as accomplishing it seemed to be an impossible task. How do you “give yourself up”? Yeshua gave Himself to sanctify and cleanse us. Therefore, I thought to myself, 'His sacrifice was sufficient to do that for my wife and I'.  So how is it that we husbands have to also do what He did?  This did not make any sense to me. My religious fervor and frustration to try and “wash her by the water of the word”, meaning to correct her behavior by using scripture, only turned out to be a legalist effort to demand submission. I’m sure we all know the result of that!

We cannot escape Paul's comparison of the relationship between husband and wife to Yeshua’s relationship with the Kahal of Elohim.  Therefore, what Paul is saying is that the reality of the Gospel is lived out in a marriage 24/7.  This is not about religion. The key to understanding a living Gospel is seen in the beginning of Chapter 5.   "And walk in love, as Messiah also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to Elohim for a sweet-smelling aroma” (Ephesians 5:2 emphasis added). I am not sure how many marriages produce a sweet-smelling aroma of the presence of Messiah. But here again, we read “gave Himself ".  The Greek word “paradidomi” means to hand or deliver one's self over as an expression of loving one's wife.  But before we can do that notice the first three words, “walk in love”, just as the Messiah walked.  The Hebrew word for "walk" is “halach” and can mean the way one lives life. 

One of the scriptures that mystifies us the most, giving room to much pondering, is Galatians 2:20: "I have been crucified with Messiah; it is no longer I who live, but Messiah lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of Elohim, who loved me and gave Himself up for me" (emphasis added). Here again we read, “gave Himself up”.  Yeshua’s giving of Himself or delivering Himself up to death is what the living Gospel is all about. Therefore, as husbands who love their wives, we demonstrate that same 'delivery' of ourselves which is paramount to laying down our lives for our spouses.  In doing so we become a vessel or channel of the living waters of the Father’s love that will work His power to sanctify and cleanse, so that together we become a fragrance of Messiah as Paul indicates in 2 Corinthians 2:15-16:  "For we are a fragrance of Messiah to Elohim among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life".  Amazingly, the marriage is the testimony, the witness of the reality of the Gospel of the Kingdom on earth.  If it is not seen in the family then how can it be in a nation?

Perhaps the best way to conclude this letter is to take the counsel of Romans 12: “I urge you therefore, brethren/husbands, by the mercies of Elohim, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to Elohim, which is your spiritual service of worship.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of Elohim is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.  For through the grace given to me, I say to everyone/husbands among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as Elohim has allotted to each a measure of faith” (verses 1-3).