Gospel-Shaped Marriage › Lesson 2
Chapter 2 of 9History and Marriage
Where your marriage sits in God's story, and why that changes everything.
Suppose a friend asked you, "What is the most important thing to understand about marriage?" Marriage books will reach for psychology: are you a glass-half-full person or a glass-half-empty person? They will reach for biology: are you a man or a woman? Both matter. But the Van Dixhoorns insist that the most overlooked perspective on marriage is older and deeper than either. It is historical. Not the history of nations, but the history of God's redemption of his people, and our place inside it.
So this lesson asks one question and answers it with a map. The question: where does your marriage stand in God's story? The map: four stages, drawn from Augustine and recovered by the Van Dixhoorns, that together make up what theologians call the fourfold state. Once you can see all four, you will know why your marriage is the way it is, and you will have real hope for what it can become.
The map to memorize
Marriage has moved through four stages in God's history. Each one is defined by a relationship to sin:
- The garden — able not to sin.
- The fall — not able not to sin.
- Grace — able not to sin, but imperfectly.
- Glory — not able to sin.
Your marriage is not in stage one, and thank God it is not stuck in stage two. If you are in Christ, you are in stage three: on the way. The rest of this lesson walks the map.
Stage one: the garden-variety marriage
In the beginning marriage was as perfect as it could be. Adam and Eve were able to sin, but they were also able not to sin, and for a time they chose well. Their love for each other was the love the apostle Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13, lived out without a single crack in it.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
1 Corinthians 13:4–7 (ESV)
Read that list and feel the weight of it. No impatience, no score-keeping, no self-seeking, as much joy taken in the other as in oneself. It is hard for any of us, in even the best of marriages, to imagine love so clean. And it was probably just as hard for the first couple to imagine anything less clean. But that perfection did not last.
Stage two: the fallen marriage
People are bad at thinking through consequences. Adam and Eve reached for the fruit, and in a single act they discovered what it was like to be not able not to sin. The change was immediate and intimate. The two who had walked with God and with each other in the cool of the day now hid from both. Their very first recorded exchange as fallen people is not tenderness; it is a fight.
Then the man said, "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate." Then the Lord God said to the woman, "What is this that you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."
Genesis 3:12–13 (ESV)
Listen for the shape of it. The man blames the woman, and the God who gave her. The woman blames the serpent. At the first sign of danger they stop protecting each other and start betraying each other. This is the birth-cry of the fallen marriage, and every marriage since has been colored by it. In a fallen world there is fallen marriage, and couples will hurt, disappoint, and provoke one another. The apostle states the root problem plainly.
For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.
Romans 8:7 (ESV)
But what about happy marriages that don't know Christ?
The Van Dixhoorns are careful here, and we should be too. Unbelieving people are not as bad as they could be. Adam and Eve argued, but they did not kill each other. Countless husbands and wives who have never heard the gospel are kept by God from total meltdown and even granted real happiness. Theologians call this common grace: God restraining sin and showing kindness to believer and unbeliever alike. But, the chapter warns, in those homes the currency of kindness is borrowed, not owned. Without grace there is no power truly to forgive, and no power truly to change.
Stage three: marriage on the way
Praise God, he did not leave his creation in that broken, hopeless state. The very chapter that records the fall also records the first promise of a Savior. God tells the serpent that a descendant of the woman would one day crush his head.
"I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."
Genesis 3:15 (ESV)
That offspring is Jesus Christ, the Son of God who became a son of Adam to save Adam's children (Matt 1:18–25). For everyone who trusts him, a new stage opens. By the Spirit we become, once more, able not to sin. Not perfectly, not yet. Unlike Adam and Eve in the garden, in this third stage we cannot stop sinning entirely. Our ability not to sin is real but limited. Yet the direction of travel has reversed. Our motives and actions are increasingly purified, and our love for the other is less and less a disguise for love of self.
This is the stage the Van Dixhoorns want you to be able to name, because it is yours. A Christian marriage is a pilgrim marriage: redeemed, but not yet glorified; marked by real sin and real hope; on the road toward the wedding supper of the Lamb. And pilgrim marriages carry three enormous comforts. The Van Dixhoorns gather them like this.
Three comforts for a stage-three marriage
- We are not in paradise. Emily Van Dixhoorn recalls the early months of marriage when Chad was being particularly annoying and she had to remind herself, "Oh, yes, he's a sinner." Expecting sin in a marriage is not pessimism; it is honesty about where we are in the story.
- Ever since the fall, married people have had problems. Relational trouble is a universal consequence of the fall, married or not. Your marriage's struggle does not mean something has gone uniquely wrong.
- For those who know Christ, there is real hope. We are neither helpless victims nor hopeless aggressors. God is in the business of changing people. A long relationship is a laboratory where forgiveness, perseverance, and change actually get worked out, which makes marriage one of the best places on earth to glorify God.
So if your marriage is hard, do not despair. And if your marriage is sweet, do not coast. Both the bad marriage and the good one are being carried forward by the same gospel power that conforms every believing sinner, slowly and surely, into the image of Christ. No believer is left behind.
Stage four: the consummate marriage
There is one more lesson to learn in our current stage, and we learn it by looking ahead to the fourth and final stage, when we will no longer be able to sin and we will see rightly at last. The lesson is simple, and everyone, married or single, needs to own it: marriage is important, but it is not everything.
Jesus himself tells us that in the resurrection human marriage will be transformed once more.
"For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven."
Matthew 22:30 (ESV)
Human marriage is made in heaven, but it is not retained in heaven. It is eternal in its significance, not because it lasts for eternity, but because it is meant to equip us for eternity. The all-fulfilling relationship of the age to come is not between a husband and a wife, but between God in Christ and his church, finally gathered to the feast he has spent all of history preparing.
Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready.
Revelation 19:7 (ESV)
The Van Dixhoorns press this last lesson home because the human heart bends in two opposite directions, and the consummate marriage corrects them both. Some of us have come to idolize marriage: we have built on a husband or wife the hopes that only God can carry. Others have slipped into cynicism: we are so bruised by marriage that we can see only its problems. The word of God preaches against both. A good marriage is a gift, and it is meant to point us to a better one. A hard marriage is real, and it is meant to be carried by the one who is coming back for his bride.
That is why even the best moment in any marriage always carries a faint shadow, a touch of imperfection, a quiet reminder that it will not last. There is only one marriage that is perfect and knows no end. The promise of that marriage is the ground everything in the rest of this course will stand on.
Check your understanding
What do the Van Dixhoorns say is the most important, and most overlooked, perspective on marriage?
Temperament and sex matter, but the governing perspective is redemptive-historical: which stage of God's story your marriage stands in.
In the fourfold state, which stage is "marriage on the way," the pilgrim marriage?
Stage three is grace: redeemed, able not to sin in a real but limited way, and traveling toward glory. This is where every Christian marriage lives.
According to the chapter, what does "common grace" mean for marriages that do not know the gospel?
Common grace restrains sin and grants real happiness even outside the gospel, but the kindness is borrowed, not owned, and there is no power truly to forgive or change.
Jesus says that in the resurrection people will be like the angels, neither marrying nor given in marriage (Matt 22:30). What lesson does the chapter draw from this?
Marriage is meant to equip us for eternity and point us to the marriage of Christ and the church, which is the only marriage that has no end. This guards us from both idolatry and cynicism.
For the two of you to work through
Take these one at a time, slowly. There are no right answers to write down; the value is in the conversation.
- Find yourselves on the map. Read the four stages aloud together: garden, fall, grace, glory. Which stage do the two of you actually live in day to day, not just the one you say you live in? What is one piece of evidence from the past week that puts you there?
- The first fight. The first thing Adam and Eve did as fallen people was blame each other. Where, specifically, does the "blame reflex" show up in your relationship? Name a recent moment out loud without defending yourself.
- Evidence of grace. The chapter's great comfort is that God really does change people in stage three. Where have you already seen him soften, grow, or reshape one of you since you have been together? Tell each other the story; do not skip it.
- Idolatry or cynicism. The consummate marriage corrects two errors. Which one does your heart bend toward right now: making too much of marriage, or making too little of it? What would it look like to let the wedding supper of the Lamb re-balance you?
- Heavenly mindedness. The cheerful wife married to a cantankerous husband could bear it because she was "more married to Jesus." Finish this sentence for each other: "If I were more married to Jesus, one thing that would change in our marriage this month is..."
For your mentor session
Two questions to bring to your meeting with the mentor, for the three of you to work through together. The mentor leads; the couple does the talking.
- On the blame reflex The chapter locates the first marital fight in Genesis 3:12–13, where Adam and Eve stop protecting each other and start blaming. Tell the mentor about one specific, recurring place the blame reflex shows up in your marriage. Then press toward the gospel: what would it look like, this week, for the one who usually blames to take 100% of the responsibility first? Let the mentor push you past a vague answer into something you could actually say out loud tonight.
- On the better marriage The lesson's final claim is that every earthly marriage, sweet or hard, is meant to point to a better one, the marriage of Christ and his church. Tell the mentor honestly which way your marriage leans right now: toward idolatry (you have made too much of it) or toward cynicism (you have made too little of it). How does the promise of Revelation 19:7, the marriage of the Lamb, give you a concrete next step out of that bend?
One practice for this week
Go on a grace hunt together. Every evening this week, before you sleep, name out loud one specific thing you saw the Lord doing in your spouse that day: a patience, a kindness, a hard word swallowed, a small sacrifice. Then memorize Genesis 3:15 together, the first gospel promise: "He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." It is the verse that turns stage two into stage three, and the reason your marriage has any hope at all.
A question for your mentor. Bring one thing from this lesson that surprised, troubled, or encouraged you to your next meeting. Your mentor can help you trace it further into Scripture and into your own story.