The Bride of Christ

Unless you have dozed off at every wedding you attended, you have heard the famous passage about God making two people one. When God first set the foundation for marriage in the book of Genesis, He said that two people will become one flesh (Gen. 2:24).

God is describing the depth of a relationship where a man and woman become completely united physically, emotionally, and spiritually. He is describing a relationship where they can finish each other’s sentences and know each other fully. For God, marriage unites two people completely. They become one.

Earthly marriage is a reflection of our eternal relationship with God. Just as God made man in His own image, God created marriage in the image of His relationship to us. The apostle Paul compares our relationship with God to marriage:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to him- self as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.” (Eph. 5:25–32 niv)

The profound mystery of the passage is that you are now the body and bride of Christ. When you became a Christian, you were united with Christ. You are one with Him. He cares for you as He cares for His own body because you are His body. And His bride.


Adapted from Identity (2008, B&H Publishing Group)