Dearly loved by God in Christ Jesus,
What is better than one person telling us good news? Right. It is two people telling us the same good news. Last week through Jeremiah, we heard the Lord tell the exiles and us the good news that he knows the plans he has for us; to give us the expected end of hope and a future. Now we hear the prophet Ezekiel bear the same good news.
As I read the Lord’s words of salvation in Ezekiel, they struck me as being parallel in several ways to God’s Word in the Scripture about marriage. Mother’s Day is a good time to think about marriage and family. We will do that as we consider the Parallels Between Marriage and Salvation. A change in dwelling; a change in heart; a change in relationship.
The LORD promised the remnant of Israel he would one day deliver them “from the nations..from all the countries.” He would return them to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. The LORD would take them from dwelling in foreign lands to dwell in “the land I gave your forefathers.” This also is a type of Christ returning as the disciples saw him go in his Ascension. Jesus will take us from our dwelling place of this earth, perhaps in the grave, to our eternal dwelling in heaven.
There is a parallel between marriage and salvation. Marriage most often means a change in dwelling place as God and a man and woman establish a new family. Moses first mentioned this in Genesis, “a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife.” When a couple marries, they usually leave the dwelling of their parents and family. Together as one now, they establish a new dwelling, a new family. With God’s blessing, they become parents.
This family is a new dwelling for a man and woman. This is true not just in location but also in responsibility. No longer are attitudes and concerns primarily directed from or toward parents and siblings, but for one another as husband and wife now one flesh. If they become parents, they add concern for their children. They are a new family unit. At the same time, we do not severe our former relationships but continue our ties with parents and siblings in different ways.
Salvation and marriage are not only about outward change of place. They also are about an inner change, a change in heart. God the Holy Spirit works that change through the good news of our forgiveness of sins in Christ. The LORD told the exiles in Babylon that he had and would continue to remove their “heart of stone” and give them “a heart of flesh.” He would “sprinkle them with clean water.. and cleanse them from all impurities and idols.”
These words remind us, don’t they, of David’s prayer in Psalm 51 that we still use in our liturgy? We ask God to create in us a clean heart and renew a right spirit in us. We ask God to remove from us a heart crusted over and hard with unbelief and sin, and give us a new heart that trusts in him, loves him and cares about one another.
God has cleansed us and purified us through Holy Baptism. Paul uses the illustration of marriage when he wrote to the Ephesians in chapter 5 about the Father cleansing us “through water and the Word” in order to be the holy Bride of his Son, our Bridegroom. The LORD’s reference in Ezekiel to cleansing reminded the people of the cleansing with water that made them ceremonial clean.
This clean new heart is the beating heart of our salvation. No longer do we have a hard natural heart of unbelief and love for sin. God has given us a new heart of faith in Christ and love for God’s commands. No longer are we unclean in sin and unable to approach God. He has purified us from every sin and made us worthy of being united with Christ in the marriage of believers with our Savior.
Parallel to this new heart in our salvation is the new heart a man and woman bring to marriage and family. No longer does the heart focus on self but on my spouse. No longer do I seek first the desires of my heart but the benefit of the one flesh I am with my spouse. Love for self replaced by Christ’s love for me now is the love I extend sacrificially to my spouse and children.
It is the new heart in Christ that leads us to daily repentance of our sins and the striving to live a holy life pleasing to our heavenly Father. It is that new heart in Christ that is the beating heart of the life that is Christian marriage. A Christian marriage and family do not mean merely having lots of religious sayings hanging in frames on the wall, but family members having new hearts not hard hearts toward one another.
With that changed heart comes a changed relationship. The LORD told the remnant, “You will be my people, and I will be your God.” The LORD described that relationship to which he has called them and us. We were not the people of God because of our unbelief and sins in our natural condition. By grace in Christ, the Father called us by giving us the Holy Spirit and bringing us into that family relationship with him. We are the children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
This is a new relationship God established in our hearts. John writes in the first chapter of his gospel, “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God-children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision, or a husband’s will, but born of God.”
We enjoy this change of relationship from strangers and foreigners to the children of God, members of his family, brothers and sisters of Christ. Marriage and children are a parallel special relationship that exists. God leads us to promise our love and faithfulness to each other before him in the marriage ceremony. God blesses us with children, to become fathers and mothers, as he grants us children through natural birth and adoption.
Just as our relationship with God changes through faith in Christ, so our relationship to family changes through marriage. Our marriages and our families are very parallel to the special blessings we enjoy in our salvation. Married to Christ our heavenly Bridegroom, and the children of God our heavenly Father.
To all of our families- single or married, with or without children, and especially today to all our mother’s, may God continue to bless us in those families and with our hope and future of eternity with him in heaven. Amen. <SDG>