Christian Marriage (Eph 5:22-33) Garry Vanderveen

Scripture Reading:

Ephesians 5:22-23

It is indeed a fitting thing that God should be the ultimate end of the creation as well as its cause, that in creating he should make himself his end, that he should in this respect be Omega as well as Alpha [Rev 22:13]. (And Scripture says [Rev 4:11] that God has made all things for himself.) And this may be so, and yet the reason for his creating the world may still be his propensity to goodness, and the communication of happiness to the creatures may still be the end.

Perhaps it was thus: God created the world for his Son, that he might prepare a spouse or bride for him upon whom to bestow his love, so that the mutual joys between this bride and bridegroom are the end of the creation. God is truly happy in loving his creatures, because in doing so he gratifies, as it were, a natural propensity in the divine nature, namely, goodness. Indeed, he is truly delighted in the love of his creatures and in their glorifying him, because he loves them, not because he needs them. For he could not be happy in this, were it not for his love and goodness. Col 1:16: “all things were created through him and for him” — that is, for the Son.

Jonathan Edwards

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