Marriage, the plan of God for His Son As Determined Before Time Began – Titus 1:1-3
Titus 1:1-3, the origin of marriage:
1 Paul, a bond-servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness, 2 in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago, 3 but at the proper time manifested, even His word, in the proclamation with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior,
Where? In the counsel room of God’s Holy sinless, always existent world of heavenly purity and love.
When? Before time began.
How? By the Sovereign, Creator infinite mind and will of God.
Why? To give His Holy Son a Holy bride in a New Heaven and a New Earth.
As I gratefully and joyfully contemplated the wonder of our blessed God and Father having chosen me to be one of that multitude of heavenly citizens He chose before the foundation of the world (Jn. 6: 44,65; Ephs. 1:3-14; I Ptr 1:3-6a), there came to my mind the wondrous realization that the most intimate, most sacred human relationship that God created in the beginning of human life on this earth (Gen.1 & 2), namely human marriage, was not conceived at this beginning point of human existence. As I contemplated that thought, it became very clear to me that the place of conception of this blessed relationship, founded on and in perfect love and commitment, was, indeed, in the Trinitarian counsel room of that world of perfect, immutable, sinless love — that third heaven described in scripture as the dwelling place of God (Titus 1:1-3; II Tim. 1:7-9). Thus human marriage is representative of a God ordained and created type of that heavenly original. Human marriage is indeed sacred because it is the precious gift of God’s Holy favor (Pro. 18:22) created by Him to be, for the entirety of human history, an ever present “type” or “picture” of His having determined, in eternity past, to give His Son a Holy bride, chosen by Him, for the Son, out of the slave market of rebellious, hostile, sinful sons of the first Adam – indeed, a redeemed Holy bride (Is. 55:6-7,8,9-13). As I joyfully embraced with fuller understanding this glorious testimony of the Father’s Holy love for His Holy Son, I was struck by the realization that our Sovereign, Holy, Creator, had righteously determined to speak into perfect existence, out of nothing, the entire universe and all created things therein (Gen. 1:31), for the sole purpose of securing His Son’s Holy bride. The pinnacle of this glorious event (creation) was/is man, lovingly created by God in His image to know Him intimately, to fellowship with Him continuously, and to enjoy Him each day and forever (Jn. 17:3), all of this for the sole purpose of securing that Holy bride for His beloved Holy Son.
As Moses, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, recorded in Genesis 1:1, God first created time (“In the beginning…”) — future, present, and past, and then, in the first six days, He Sovereignly put in place, in time and space, the rest of His glorious creation. The linear progression (having a beginning and a future ending) of this predestined continuum of time as recorded in time past, is what man knows as human history. This continuum began on the first day of creation, as recorded in Genesis 1, and has continued, in God’s Sovereign, sustaining power and perfect order, to unfold in the fullness of time, one glorious good, new day at a time (Ps. 118:24), serving as the stage on which God is carrying out His predestined, foreordained, immutable, unassailable, irrevocable, perfect plan (Prov. 16:1,4,9; 21:1-3; Is. 46:8-10) for the completed fulfillment of His promise to His Holy Son — the redeeming, out of the slave-market of sin, those whom He chose (Ephs. 1:3-14; I Peter 1:3-6a), in His infinite love and mercy and grace, to lavishly bestow His Holy, perfect forgiving, sanctifying, and ultimately glorifying love on — those chosen to be that Holy bride of Christ (Rev. 21:9; 19:7-9).
The marriage of one man to one woman is the most intimate, special, unique, sacred human relationship God created. This is clearly manifested by the fact that it was not only the first human relationship He created, but was also, then and now, the only human relationship He created to last the entire lives of that man and woman, being founded in/on a covenant love and commitment to one another as husband and wife, “til death do us part.” (This is the supernatural, uncreated, always existent love of God for His chosen ones is perfect, irrevocable covenant love, meaning it is love willfully, intentionally, rationally given, eternally fixed, never to be revoked love – Jeremiah 31:3; Romans 8). God’s command for husbands to love their wives as Christ loves His Holy bride, the church (Ephs. 5:25), is indeed, a command that holds every husband accountable to love his wife before every other human being, apart from every other being, and finally, above every other human being — he is to love her with that love of Christ described by Paul in I Corinthians 13:4-8a; Ephesians 5:17-33; Philippians 2:3-4; I Peter 3:7.