Most of us are familiar with Paul’s portrayal of the marriage relationship in Ephesians 5:22-33.

We observe that Paul argues from the greater to the lesser, from the reality to the painting. The reality is Christ’s loving relationship with His bride, the church, and the painting is a husband’s relationship with his wife.

Consequently, we observe:

• Christ’s love – He loved the church.
• Christ’s substitution – He gave Himself up for her.
• Christ’s sanctification – He sanctifies her.
• Christ’s glorification – He presents to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be holy and blameless.
• Christ’s feeding and tending – He nourishes and cherishes His church.
• Christ’s union – The church is His body.

Christ’s love for the Church, His bride, is set in a rich context of the book of Ephesians. In Ephesians 2, the apostle Paul paints a picture of the dark gorges and valleys of sin.

In chapter 4, Paul describes “alienation from the life of God” (4:18), “hardness of heart” (4:18), “sensuality” and “impurity” (4:19). He holds back no punches, but continues to describe “bitterness,” “wrath,” “anger,” “clamor,” and “slander” (4:31).

This is the material Paul uses to set the context for instruction regarding Christian living in a Christian marriage. The readers of Ephesians have just come out of the dark tunnels of these Pauline reminders regarding sin and are then whisked to the heights of God’s great love for us in the work of Christ and called as both husbands and wives to serve as Christ served and to love as Christ loved.

This Pauline marriage instruction does not seem to fit today’s modern marriage counseling, does it? We could really sum up Paul’s instruction for marriage under one heading: Remember the gospel of Jesus in view of your sinfulness.

Let’s look at the necessity for the gospel and the power of the gospel for marriage.

The Necessity of the Gospel – In View of Sin

It is impossible for rebellious creatures to promote the glory of God in a Christian marriage apart from the saving work of Jesus Christ. In our sinfulness, we are inclined to practice greediness in marriage by using our spouses to fulfill, promote and serve ourselves, which will not promote the sacrificial love of Christ but rather harm the marriage relationship.

Our sinful hearts harden under the deception of thinking that we can be fulfilled by finite, mortal creatures, that we can find our meaning and identity in finite, mortal objects, and we can find momentary salvation in the finite, mortal promises of the world.

The Power of the Gospel – the glory of Christ’s Person and Work

Ephesians not only diagnoses our sinful hearts as idolatry, but it also provides the true Savior of our hearts, namely, Jesus Christ!

Read Ephesians 1:7: “In Him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.”

Ephesians 1:7 tells us that God has provided a redemption plan through the provision of His Son Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ added to His eternal divine nature, a human nature so that He might stand in the believing sinner’s place as their substitute.

As a substitute, He does what the sinner cannot do. Christ lived the perfect life, obeying the demand of God’s Law to love God with all of the heart, soul, mind, and strength.

The Bible promises that through faith in Christ, God credits the perfect righteousness of Christ to the sinner’s account, so that viewed in Christ, the sinner stands perfect in the righteousness of Jesus.

“In Him” is such a glorious truth for our hearts today for God devised a salvation plan through a salvation, marriage covenant called the New Covenant. Believing sinners bring their liabilities of sin and guilt to God in Christ and Christ brings His perfect assets to the salvation covenant on behalf of the believing sinner.

Christ, the ultimate groom pays for our liabilities – guilt and sin – and Christ, our groom clothes us with His perfect righteousness!

Why do we make much of Christ’s gospel work for sinners in marriage counseling?

Paul reminds the Ephesians that walking like Christ requires daily trusting in the work of Christ. That is, the promise of the gospel is the power you will need to love your spouse and your children.

Just as the gospel is the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16) so the gospel is the power of God for your sanctification and growth in conformity to Christ.

When you sin personally in your relationship with your spouse or your spouse sins against you, remember the good news of the gospel. Instead of surrendering to the pride of self-righteousness by requiring payment because of your spouse’s failure or surrendering to the self-deception of seeking moral improvement in your life to outweigh your personal guilt, rest in Christ’s obedience for you that has secured for you a righteous position before God – you have been clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

Rest in Christ’s payment for your sin at the cross where He satisfied God’s wrath for you. You see, the gospel secures the glory of Christ by barring out your self-righteousness and self-redemption from the picture!

The promise of the gospel for your life is that as you stand daily in the gospel you will experience a daily dying to your self-identity and consequent self-effort and will find that the glorious person of Christ will radically recalibrate your identity and the glorious work of Christ will powerfully procure a joyous resting in His grace that will bear the fruit of loving treasuring, cherishing and nourishing in your marriage relationship.

The gospel is for the Christian as the sun is to the rose, the vine to the branch, and oxygen to the life for apart from Christ, we can do nothing (John 15:5).