Biblical Counseling - Marriage & Family Counseling - Part II - Premarital...
Vern Peterman · Aug 24, 2008
Biblical Counseling, No. 21
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/41026163003776

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

What we have here are some slides essentially out of the New Testament. And what we're doing is kind of going side by side. Ephesians 5, 22 through 33. has the comparison, about half the passage, the comparison of the relationship between Christ and the church, and describing that, and that being the model for a husband and wife. What you see about the other half of the passage is then the direct instructions to a husband and wife. And so one of the things we begin to do as we look at that is say, okay, how many indications do we have in the New Testament, even aside from the passage there in Ephesians 5, 22-33, how many other indications do we have that the church is the bride of Christ. And we don't have, in fact, all of them listed here, but we have a number of them. And so I'd like to kind of get a sense of that.

What Jesus was doing was He was using the Jewish marriage customs that were common in Israel and using the words and word pictures from that to convey the relationship between Christ and the church. Even in the last week of his life before the crucifixion, he was communicating these things.

And let's take a for instance here, starting in Ephesians chapter 1, 3 through 4. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him in love. It says, just as He chose us in Him.

The Father did the choosing of the bride. See, here's the Jewish marriage custom. The Father is actually the one that does the arrangement, right? So the father does the choosing of the bride, the church for the son, just as was done in Jewish families. The Lord chose us in him before the foundation of the world. He arranged the marriage. How about that? And this phrase, holy and blameless, before Him in love.

If we look and compare that in the next slide over here to Ephesians 5.27, that He might present to Himself, this is before Him, the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be what? Holy and blameless. Exact same word set there.

Colossians 1.22 has a similar kind of thing, and we'll look at, make reference here to 2 Corinthians 11.2. We'll look at that a little later on here.

So here the father did the choosing of the bride. At the appointed time, the father would send the prospective bridegroom from the father's house to the home of the prospective bride. So here's, the father would choose the bride. The groom would go to the bride's house.

But the father would send the son there. That would be the pattern in the typical Jewish wedding arrangement. And so what do you find in the Gospel of John? The father himself who sent me. We look at that and we say, okay, the father sent the son. That's fine. We don't typically look at that kind of a passage and say, well, it's the father himself who sent me and that Father who did the sending was just like was the practice in the Jewish wedding customs, where the father would send the son to the bride's home. And we see that same thing repeated in John 20, 21, the father who sent me.

The next slide over, here it says, then he would negotiate with the father of the woman to determine the purchase price of the bride. For us, the church, the bride price was Christ's death on the cross. Was He happy to pay the price? How do we know that? For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross. He says, I'm happy to pay the price. Why? This is the purchase price for the bride. I'm happy to do so. Isn't that something?

The next one over, once the bridegroom paid the purchase price, the marriage covenant was thereby established and the young man and woman were then to be considered husband and wife, but it was betrothed. It was more like engagement, but more serious than our modern engagement, which has no particular legal import. in the customs of the day, to break an engagement required an official legal divorce and divorce proceedings and all that.

Yes. Oh yeah, that was throughout Israel. Yeah, throughout Israel. The U.S. Oh, in the southern U.S., yeah. Yeah, different customs than we have now, you're saying. Yeah. So here is this practice. Yes, Art? Was there any legal from a state point of view, Israel, like in our own marriage license, Yes, and strangely enough, the Jews had a two-court system. I won't go into the details on that, but yes, it was actually a legal system set up within Israel that was observed. It was enforced within the synagogues, but it was a two-court system. You could choose whichever court you wanted to work with, and one of them had more strict understandings of what qualified for a divorce, and one was liberal. No fault. But anyway, we can't go into that because we could take up the whole time. But yes, it was within Israel a legal proceeding from engagement to marriage to divorce. The whole thing was a legal proceeding with recorded documents.

Since Christ the bridegroom has paid the price, the marriage covenant has been established and the church is now, at this point in time, right now, the church is betrothed to Christ. The church is not now wedded. The marriage has not taken place, but we are betrothed to Christ. That's the status that we have. Then the bridegroom would declare to the bride before the father of the bride that she was consecrated, sanctified, and set apart exclusively for her bridegroom. That was the declaration before the father of the bride there.

That is why Paul would say in Ephesians 5.25 that Christ paid the bride price so that he might sanctify the church. His bride.

You see, as these various words fall into place, a lot of times we're prone to just read them and, okay, I think I know what sanctified is. Not recognizing as you go through these various passages, these are marriage custom words and marriage custom things that are being said.

So here's Paul, he writes to the church in Corinth. The church in Corinth has problems, from A to Z. They have piles of problems. He starts off the very beginning and he writes to them, and he writes in the perfect tense, which means it's completed, it's a done deal. To this messed up church, he says, you have been sanctified. You've been sanctified. That's this, okay? The Lord has already declared you His, made holy by His declaration. All right, let's take a look at the next page there, page 62.

As a symbol of the covenant relationship that had been established, the groom and the bride would drink from a cup of wine over which a betrothal benediction had been pronounced. And he would say there, this is the new covenant. That's what the bridegroom would say. This is the new covenant, he would say over the cup. And so what do we have in our Lord's table? This is the New Covenant. And why would He say, do this until I come?

Pardon? We're to remember Him. He paid the bride price. And we're to remember Him. We are betrothed. He says, don't forget it. Okay? He says, I paid the price. You're sanctified. I said these words. You're betrothed to Christ. That's what He's saying. Until I come. And by the way, what's the coming? Until I come. Why did He say that? Until He comes. Why would that be said? Yeah, that would be it.

He would be coming for the marriage. Yeah, that's what's happening. Let's take a look at the next slide over here. Then the betrothed bridegroom would begin preparing a place for the bride and the bridegroom to live in which they would live together. The typical thing is after that event, the bridegroom's project until they were married is get that place ready. So, I mean, that's what he's working on. And so what does it say here in John 14, 3-4? And I go and prepare a place for you and I will come again and receive you to myself that where I am you may be also.

They're hearing this stuff. They're not thinking, oh, those are nice Jesus words. It's not in isolation. What are they thinking? They're hearing that and they're saying, what's he talking about? Whoa, those are wedding words. Those are the things you'd say to a bride. This must have just blown their circuits to hear this stuff. But that's what he said.

I go to prepare a place for you. This must have grabbed them. Can you imagine? From then until the time of the wedding, the father was to keep the bride consecrated, sanctified, and set apart exclusively for her bridegroom. Here's the deal. Catch on to this. Family and friends were expected to help in this task. So what does that mean here?

Here's Jesus in John 17, 17. Jesus praying to the Father said, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. And as He was praying for us in John 17, 17. That's our Lord's prayer before He's about ready to pay the bride price, right? 2 Corinthians 11, 2, which we'll get to in a little bit. Paul does exactly the same thing. He says, I wanted to present you as a pure and spotless bride before the Lord.

Yeah. Everybody, everybody, in other words, all their friends, all the family, was expected to help in this task and be a part of the presenting. In somewhat in comparison to what we typically do. Ever have, you know, friends of the bride, friends of the groom? Hopefully they're friends of somebody. But, you know, we kind of have that custom.

The idea was to get everybody that was a part of preserving her purity. to maintain that obligation through the year, through the time. And then when it was finally done and the wedding was to take place, the gathering together was not simply to witness the wedding, but to be there as continuing testimony, yes, I was a part of preserving her purity. You can imagine with that mindset, what it was like during that time, in that environment, for Mary to become pregnant. It meant that the family and friends had done what?

Failed! Yes, see, so I mean that's why it was such a catastrophe. Because in the Jewish wedding custom, everybody, basically everybody in Nazareth, had a responsibility to keep her pure, right? Because everybody's either family or friends in the whole town. And for it not to happen, it was just a terrible, outrageous tragedy. Can you imagine blaming? Oh, a little town like that? I grew up, you know, partly in a little town. Oh, man. Oh, wow. What a mess, okay? Electricity can't keep up with that kind of news, okay? Pardon? Oh boy, yep, that's all it took. Oh yeah, yes.

But see the thing is, and this is something that's gotten lost because a lot of times in our customs, because we've got mixtures of all sorts of customs, a lot of times in our customs we'll have these bachelors parties that are sort of a last fling. And I've even run across situations where the bachelorette party is sort of a last fling.

Whereas the mindset here was, boy, we are bound to keep this lady pure. And so that was the thought. Boy, we all have an obligation to participate in her purity here. The thing is, that was assumed and in part because he was busy preparing. You got no time because you're busy preparing, right? And besides that, typically his preparing wasn't too far away from everybody else. So it was assumed he's under everybody's eye. The bride was also to prepare for the wedding day. Certainly the groom had preparing a place, but she was to prepare herself. She was in preparation for the wedding to take a customary bridal bath, not just so she was physically clean, but that was to picture her moral cleanliness.

So here in 1 Corinthians 6.11, just like we studied a few weeks ago, but you were washed. You were sanctified. the bridal bath, the declaration of the groom. You were sanctified, but you were justified, declared righteous in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God.

On the wedding day, the father of the bridegroom would say to the bridegroom, go get your bride. And here we have the pictures. Who knows when the Lord is coming? The father. And the father is going to tell the Lord Jesus Christ, go get your bride. Go get your bride. That'll be the day. I hope it's today. I hope we don't get to finish. Go get your bride. That's what he would say. And then the bridegroom would take off to go get his bride. Mike?

When was the wedding feast? The wedding feast was held afterwards and was typically, let's ask this, this is one of these things where what we have revealed in scripture is not abundantly clear on this point because the wedding feast is described towards the end of the tribulation period. But interesting, the wedding feast was typically, classically, at least seven days long. How many years is the tribulation period? So, I would not want to jump to too many conclusions there, but the wedding feast was afterwards.

Now, the bridegroom would go to receive his consecrated, sanctified, set-apart bride unto himself. Now, here's the interesting thing, is to be presented to him by the bride's father and by the family and friends. Everybody there is there to present the bride to the bridegroom and the bridegroom was looked upon as presenting the bride to himself as well. Everybody was involved in the mindset that the bride was being presented to the bridegroom by everyone. She was the focal point, but everyone was involved in presenting her. That was the viewpoint. She being holy and blameless.

That was the terminology. This being sanctified is a word that keeps being dropped here. That's why when we see in the New Testament the word sanctified, or we see the word holy, or even saint. That's all part of the same family of words. And instead of thinking of those separately, as if they were separate things, holy, sanctified, saint, look at them all as part of the same family of words, and then look at them in the marriage context. So to call someone a saint means, oh, you're one who is set apart as a part of the Bride of Christ. for that day when Christ will come for His bride. If you're a believer, that's what being a saint means. The fact that you're sanctified means you have been set apart for Christ. So this is a phenomenal perspective when you start seeing the places where sanctified, sanctify, saint, holy, holiness.

That whole family of words is speaking of You are of the bride of Christ to be presented to Christ on that day when the father says, go get your bride. Go get your bride. We have on the last slide there, in the past all believers were made saints, that is, they were sanctified based on belief in Christ. This is 1 Corinthians 1, 1 and 2.

Based on their irreversible position in the heavenlies. The next one, in the present, believers are being sanctified as they behold Christ through the Word of God and their present condition. Why are we being sanctified? Because we are betrothed. We're betrothed. That's our position now, waiting for that wedding day when the Father says, go get your bride.

And in the future, believers will all be completely and irreversibly sanctified when they see Christ, when their condition will be made to permanently conform to their eternal position, that day when we see Him face to face. Let's take a look at the last page there, page 63. In Romans 7, 4 and 5, and we don't have time to go through all the detail of that passage, but we'll jump to just those verses. Therefore, my brethren, you were also made to die to the law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined, and the King James has married, to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that you might bear fruit to God.

Now, here's an interesting thing. If we died to the law in order to be joined to Christ, how much sense does it make for us to cling to the law? It doesn't, right? Yeah, it doesn't. Clinging to some portion of the law or, okay, but I've got to hold on to this group. No, this says you died to the law so that this marriage that we've been talking about can take place. So that you're eligible to be betrothed.

Here is 2 Corinthians 11.2 that we made multiple reference to. It actually has multiple connections to things that we've said. Let me read it. For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy, for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin. Jealous for you with a godly jealousy.

What does that mean? What's that talking about? Remember the family and friends had an obligation to keep the bride pure? That's that part. Okay? He says, I'm looking very carefully over you. He says, I want you... Now you imagine, here's this messed up church. He says, I want you pure.

Presented before the Lord. For I betrothed you to one husband. So that's speaking of this betrothal period. I betrothed you to one husband, Christ, so that to Christ, that's the bridegroom, I might present you as a pure virgin. And why? That purity was something that the family and friends were all committed and obligated to keep and pursue. It was their job to ensure and watch over her purity during this betrothal period.

So that's what he's talking about. He says, you're betrothed to Christ? And he says, and my having been the one to establish the church there, I did the initial introduction here. And it is my place looking forward to that day when I present you to Christ pure. That's what I put myself in. So you begin to see a verse like this and you start to see all the connections.

He is making definite reference to these marriage customs here. Yeah? So in this context, who is the family and friends to the church? Ah, okay. Interesting thing. Let's take a situation. Family and friends. We're speaking in the big picture. Christ and the church, right? Who's the family and friends? Well, that would be in a personal situation, but in terms of if the church is the bride, with relationship to the larger sense, the church, who's the family and friends? Pardon? Well, think of the situation. What did he just say here? As an apostle, he kind of has a place in that, doesn't he? Didn't he just say that? Right. But who else? Pardon? Yeah, and that would be true in a sense, but also those pastors and elders, including Paul, are also a part of the church itself. Ultimately, who's all these other people who have a contribution and are being made holy?

Okay, so here's Jesus praying to the Father, sanctify them, keep them set apart and holy. So the Lord prayed to the Father that that would be the case through what? Through sanctify them through thy word. OK, so so so a part of what the Lord is going to use is his own word. He prayed to the father. So the father actually has a responsibility.

OK. All right. And we're not done. Where else? The Holy Spirit also has a place. OK. The washing, one of the pictures of the washing and water throughout both the Old and New Testaments is the Holy Spirit, right? But we're not done. Who else? All the Old Testament saints. That's right. What is fascinating here is the Old Testament saints. Here we're studying Abraham, okay? Abraham has an investment in us being presented pure and holy. Wow! Yes, they're the wedding guests, okay? They'll be there, you know, celebrating through the wedding feast. You have all these Old Testament saints. That's why Hebrews talks about, by faith this, by faith that.

What were these guys doing? As Paul wrote both to the Romans and the Corinthians, these things are written for our instruction. These people lived things out, went through things so that it might contribute to our being presented as the pure and spotless bride to Christ. So we're studying through Genesis, and we're not just studying about something that happened 4,000 years ago. We're studying wedding preparation.

Things that were recorded. Oh, the church is going to need that. Those guys didn't even know it at the time, but that's their contribution. Yes, certainly, yeah. Angels as well. Every ministry to believers, even in time past, will have a part in this being part of family and friends. Excellent question. Excellent question.

Do we not benefit from reading inspired things about even the life of Abraham? Do we not benefit from what has been recorded out of God's Word for our benefit? Sanctify them with your Word. What does the Word tell about? It tells about people like Noah. It tells about people like Abraham. It tells about Isaiah.

Daniel. All those people. Those are all part of the family and friends. Let's look at Revelation 19. Here we are getting towards the very end here. Verses 7 and 8. Let us rejoice and be glad and give glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready.

It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Amazing. How do righteous acts of the saints come about? It's the Lord's doing. I think that's a good thing to do. I think I'll do that. But it is the Lord's doing in and through us. It's the good works that He has prepared. Those are the things that are the fine linen, bright and clean. It's what He does. The bride has made herself ready. This is the preparation of the bride.

So what's amazing, and actually there are other passages I could have put in here as well, so this is not exhaustive, but as we go through the New Testament, because this really comes out starting from about the end of the Gospels on to the very last chapters. I could look to the very last chapter of Revelation. I didn't include that. The Spirit and the Bride say, Come. He was thirsty. Drink. Drink of the water of life. On to the very last verses of the Bible, this message keeps coming through loud and clear.

And it is really cool, because then when you see, we look at Ephesians 5, we're not just, okay, Christ in the church, what does that look like? We've been having verse after verse after verse all the way to the last verses of the New Testament, telling you what's that like. And it provides an entirely different mindset when we say, okay, now we come to Ephesians 5 and here's Christ and the church as the example and begin to see how much of a thing it was in Christ's mind for him to look forward to that marriage with the bride.

How much of a thing it was in his mind. How much of a thing it was in the Apostle's mind. Even Paul, as he said, I betrothed you. I had this part in here. I longed to present you as a pure and spotless virgin. All this was in their mind as they were writing these things.

The relationship between Christ and the church just keeps coming out of the pages of the New Testament. So when we look at this passage of Ephesians 5, which we will do in weeks to come here, there's all this perspective that keeps coming out of the pages of the New Testament. When they use the word saint. When they use the word sanctified. Set apart. Holy. Holy and blameless. All those words. They all of a sudden bring on a huge significance.

And when we talk about marriage, marriage being the eternal romance expressed of Christ in the church, the physical, visible expression of the eternal romance of Christ in the church, boy, that takes on a whole different picture, an entirely different picture. How's this striking people? Anybody bruised yet? No. Yeah. One thing that strikes me is when you, all this stuff about everyone is involved in keeping that bride sanctified. Yeah.

It kind of reminds me of what we talked about before, how the church body is there to help that perspective, right? How do we prepare them? It just kind of reiterates that. We talked about how we tend to isolate them. marriage couple from the church. The church has that responsibility to prepare them. That's right. The bride prepares herself. And that's really what we talk about biblical counseling. Biblical counseling is the bride preparing herself. See, that's the ministry we're talking about here. It's not just, hey, let's go off in a room and talk because we've had an appointment.

And by the way, how are you going to pay the bill? But it's instead a matter of looking at that we're carrying out something that Christ had from the very beginning. Sanctify them by your word. And the bride in the Jewish marriage customs had also, not just the family and friends, but also herself a responsibility to prepare herself. So she was involved as well.

And that's exactly what we're doing. This is preparation time, folks. That's what this is. It's preparation time. And so coming to church is not just, okay, we got this church day and we got this church time and we do our church thing. But it's preparation time for eternity. It's forever. That's what's really major cool. This is prep time for what's going to last forever and ever and ever. And that's what's so important about this stuff.

And that's where you start seeing things like, I go to prepare a place for you. Well, that's not just, all right, he's going to make some mansions in heaven. That's cool. But this is a part of the wedding. That's what this is about. When he said, you know, this is the new covenant. And it wasn't just, okay, I wonder what that means. No, this is, hey, we're betrothed now. The bride price is locked in.

I'm going to pay it with joy. to see all these things and begin to see what's happening. This is a huge perspective. This is major. And if you're a Christian and you're single and you were married and you're not now or you're never getting married or whatever, this has huge implications. And if you're getting married, it has even more implications. But it's big. It's huge.

And it lasts forever. I was thinking of this place that he's referring for us. If you look at the creation of the universe in about six days, it's been 2,000 years. It must be some place. Oh boy, yeah, yeah. This is no small preparation. This is amazing stuff. And to think of all the involvement that's taking place here now.

Well, this is just a carpenter. Pardon? Yeah, there we go. There's a carpenter. There's a lot of nails to set. Yeah. What's that? I don't think it's going to be anything that we can even imagine. Well, yeah, I think our sense of preparing is probably a little tough to even figure on. That's right. Now think about this.

We've got in our own culture a lot of wedding customs, don't we? And what happens is we tend to attach our own meaning to those, even if the original meaning was something else. A typical, at least generalizing, typical wedding dress is what color? White. That changed a little less than two centuries ago. Prior to that, it was red. was the popular wedding dress color. During biblical times, particularly in the New Testament times, they like to put a lot of blue in the wedding dress because blue was the color of purity. So culturally that's changed over time. But the idea of purity is still there, isn't it? Still there.

Not everybody does it. This is our wedding ring. This is actually Nancy's grandfather's. Right now I can't get it off, but anyway. A wedding ring, we put certain significance on it. That's about a 5,000, we're talking about pre-dating Abraham, 5,000 year old custom from Egypt. It certainly is not a Christian custom, but it's one that we've adopted. We don't think of the significance based on what the Egyptians thought. Okay, we put our own significance on it, right?

How about the wedding party? You know, you have the bridesmaids and the groomsmen and all that kind of thing. What kind of picture does that have in our modern wedding traditions? What part do they play? cheerleading squad okay what else the songs are thought of as a bachelor party really strange what's that Attendance, yeah. I will kind of use the umbrella term, attendance.

Even in a Christian sense, I would say that the guys who were my groomsmen played this part, and that's that they actually had in mind some of the idea that they had a spiritual place alongside me. And yeah, they threw a bachelor party, but it was just fun. It ended with a pie fight, but anyway. But there was a sense of companionship there. The actual tradition started with the idea of bridesmaids and groomsmen was to confuse the evil spirits so that they couldn't pick, you know, pick out who was the bride and groom. That was the original intent for picking the, you know.

We don't attach that meaning to it. So one of the things that's key is looking at what are, you know, what's our meaning? What are we doing with our wedding traditions, you know? What are we saying? And what significance do we attach on to it? Not just what did it mean back originally. And I think it's probably worth doing some thinking in terms of, you know, what do these various things mean to us? And should we make it deliberately have some particular significance?

We do various things, and there's certainly a lot of wedding traditions. I don't know, something about borrowed and blue, or I don't know. But all sorts of strange little wedding traditions, and a lot of times we don't know where they came from. And a lot of them do have strange origins.

But it's important to look at it. What's interesting here is Jesus was not saying that the Jewish wedding traditions were sacrosanct. That is, he's not freezing those in place. That's what everybody has to do. But he used the traditions that he had to communicate wonderful truths about the relationship between Christ and the church.

And that's the key thing for us to get and the key thing for us to take away. not just so that we can learn about marriage, although yes, we certainly will in the weeks to come here, from those traditions that are spelled out in Scripture, but so that we might understand the character of the relationship between Christ and the Church, because that is forever. Now, and I think this is key, remember this time between the betrothal and the wedding was preparation time for the bride? in the groom.

So now it's just prep time. People have this crazy mindset, oh this is all you get and life is all you get here and then when you're done, you're done. No, this is prep time. The world's got it all wrong. This is all prep time. It's what happens afterwards that we're getting ready for. And to keep that mindset. Thoughts, questions, exasperations? Anybody want me to break a glass goblet or something?

What's that? Well it's interesting because they've got their own customs and that one was not carried out in New Testament times because that was about the destruction of the temple. Pardon? Good question. There are several steps in it and I think this one was about the second destruction, but I'm not certain of that. But I don't believe they broke glasses because glass wasn't invented until a few decades before Christ was born. So hadn't worked out. Pardon? Yeah, come in with a sandal on glass. That's not a good idea. Yeah. Yeah.

And there are modern traditions that have been added to the Jewish wedding ceremony that weren't necessarily a part of it. Those are additional traditions that have been piled on top of it. Other thoughts, questions? So the parable of the ten virgins has nothing to do with the church.

They are the guests. These are the guests. Right. Yeah. And that's a lot of things in the New Testament get mixed up because people don't understand that, you know, the church is the bride of Christ. And so you get all sorts of interpretations mixed up. It's not directly about us. Right. Okay, let's pray.

Lord, as we look at this, how exciting. The Father could tell the Son, go get your bride, even before we're done here this morning. And Lord, we do hope it's today. And Lord, as we also look at this, we know that you have even promised a crown for the person who has in his or her heart this longing for the bridegroom to come. Looking for his coming is something that you reward. And we just pray that you would fix that in place in our hearts as our ever-present hope, looking for your coming. Looking for the day when the Father says to the Son, go get your bride. And we just thank you for what you've revealed to us. We thank you for your love and care for us. And we just pray you bring these truths home to our hearts. In Jesus' name, Amen.