Here’s why: According to Scripture, the number-one
purpose of marriage—more than even the unique, time-
honored partnership it creates between a man and woman,
more than even the conceiving and raising of children, more
than any Prince Charming fairy tale in any little girl’s head—is
how it represents the mystery of the gospel in active, living
form.
That’s what a beloved professor of mine, Dr. Dwight
Pentecost (who’d also been a professor to my father decades
earlier) said to Jerry and me in a typewritten letter that I still
treasure in a keepsake box of wedding memories. “I scarcely
need remind you,” he wrote, “that marriage was instituted by
God to be an object lesson to the world of the relationship of a
believer to Himself. Each of you will play a significant role in
living out this lesson.”
A man chooses a bride, loves her, makes a covenant with
her, and gives himself completely to her. The woman responds
by receiving his love, surrendering to him, entering into this
covenant bond with him, and becoming one flesh with him. It’s
not a perfect representation, of course, since the best marriage
we can possibly make on earth still involves a pair of fallen,
broken people. But in its deepest sense, at its deepest level,