CRUSADE
11
Three observations can be made in regard to our text:
First, It is a logical conclusion that what is true of the whole (Christ the Bridegroom marrying His Bride, the Church) can legitimately be seen as true for the parts of that whole (that each individual member of the Bride can be seen as marrying the Bridegroom).
Second, In the Eph 5 passage, Paul uses Gen 2:24 as his proof text, which uses the idiom "two becoming one flesh" for which The MacArthur Study Bible footnote reads: "One flesh speaks of a complete unity of parts making a whole."
And lastly, it is common to find multiple levels of meaning in biblical texts, especially metaphorical ones.
There has been a tradition throughout the Christian era, especially in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, of seeing an individual "mystical marriage" as part of the greater corporate marriage between God and man. I am not suggesting, as pagan religions have done, that we are to unite sexually with God. God is a spirit and the realms of heaven transcend earthly sexual need or behavior. What I am suggesting is that the metaphor of Christ marrying the Church can be taken individually by believers as well as the more common understanding of it being a corporate union.
This explains why in heaven we are no longer married or given in marriage. The final and eternal wedding has occurred and there is only one Bridegroom—Christ Himself. My contention is that what is true of the whole body of Christ (we are His bride) is also true of the individuals that make up that body—that we can individually experience a oneness with Him that is only dimly prefigured in human sexuality and which transcends it.
In Eph 5:32, in speaking of a man and woman becoming one flesh, Paul says:
This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the Church.
In this verse, Paul delivers the coup de grâce, the final brilliant stroke and focal point of the epistle, whose thematic roots go all the way back to the first chapter. Like a swordsman making a final flourish before dispatching his foe, Paul shockingly and brilliantly rips the veil that had hidden the answer to the mystery of the supreme purpose and end for God having saved us, as well as the mysteries behind God having made us male and female, sexual beings, called into faithful, monogamous, heterosexual relationships that were to personify the virtue of sacrificial love.
This is the overarching theme and teaching of the Book of Ephesians—the great and high calling of the believer, the primary reason for creating