Human history begins with a wedding. God fashioned Adam from the dust of the ground, and set him to work. His first assigned task was to tend and keep the Garden (Gen. 2:15). His second assigned task was to name all the animals, looking to see if among them there might be a suitable helper for him (Gen. 2:18, 20). He performed that task, but there was no comparable helper for him among the animals. And so God caused a coma-like state to fall upon Adam, and He took a rib from his side, and He fashioned a woman from the rib, and brought her to the man, in order to present her to him. And so, before the second chapter of the Bible is even concluded, we have been observers and guests at the first wedding.
And the Bible also concludes with a wedding. In the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, we see all of human history culminating in this glorious event—the wedding day of the Lord Jesus, in which He takes a bride to Himself, that bride being the Christian church. So in the last paragraph of the Scriptures, the Spirit and the bride both issue the invitation. And they both say come.
That first wedding was a harbinger of what was to come. It was a proleptic type, an embodied enactment of what God intended to do down throughout all of human history. If human history were a novel, that first wedding was foreshadowing, and the grand finale is the eschatological denouement.
But enough with the big words. What this boils down to is the fact that all of human history needs to be understood as wedding prep. God the Father is the one who first intended to bring His Son, our Lord Jesus, and the bride of a glorified humanity together in a glorious union. This was the plan from the beginning.
At the same time, we have to recognize that much more than the simple labor of “wedding prep” is involved. As human history well illustrates, this was a process of wedding preparation where almost everything that could go wrong did in fact go wrong. Our little wedding disasters are nothing to it. Rain on the reception, the bride falling into the koi pond, the minister not showing up, the wedding cake collapsing, and so on . . . all nothing. All of them trifles. God’s intended match for His Son was opposed by Satan himself, and resulted in the revolt of the first couple, which was subsequently followed by centuries of lies, intrigue, murder, tangles, and wars.
But God was intent on fulfilling His plan regardless, and in His beneficent sovereignty, He overcame every obstacle. The central obstacle, of course, was the raw fact of mankind’s rebellion. That certainly needed to be overcome. But the bride was not going to be kidnapped by God, which meant that it was necessary for her rebellious heart to be transformed. This was accomplished when the groom allowed Himself to be murdered by the serpent, the same serpent who had already successfully delayed the wedding date through his deceitfulness. But that sly dragon did not know that when such a victim allowed Himself to be slain by His enemy, having deserved no such fate, God would vindicate His Son by raising Him from the dead. And so when the Son was raised, all unjust slaying was slain. Death itself was killed. The dragon was thrown down and crushed. Moreover, all those accusative broods of serpents in the hearts of all the Lord’s elect, men and women both, were also taken away—gathered up in little bags and taken away to be drowned in the ocean of God’s forgiveness. And when that happened, the wedding was rescheduled, and the invitations went out on the first Pentecost.
The wedding prep has resumed, and the central instrument for getting everyone and everything prepared is the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. This gospel is communicated in various ways. The central one is the preaching of the gospel, as the New Testament makes very plain. But this gospel is also communicated in every faithful baptism—as many as are baptized into Christ are baptized into His heath. And the same is true for every celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Each time, we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. But yet another way of communicating this gospel to our unhappy world is the living reality of Christian marriages. The groom represents Christ and the love of Christ, and the bride represents the Church, and the lively responsiveness of true faith. This is a gospel institution, from beginning to end. It points to the culmination of all gospel activity in this world, and that culmination is itself the last wedding, the final wedding, the ultimate wedding. And so it is that this wedding is certainly a wedding in itself, but it is also doubling as a wedding invitation. The Spirit and the bride both say come.
Jacob, you are a straightforward man, and so my charge to you is going to be equally straightforward. I am charging you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Himself, to be a gospel husband. You are responsible before God to see to it that your household is one that will be characterized by grace, and by law, and by more grace, and by joy, and laughter, and forgiveness, and humility, and strength, and authority, and many conversations around the dinner table.
Whitney, my charge to you is that you grow to fully showcase the potency of that gospel. You are already a committed Christian, and God has manifested His goodness to you and in you. But you need to understand that He is only just beginning, and the fruit of all gospel living in your home will be manifested primarily in you. Your task is therefore to glorify—to glorify the grace of God, to glorify Jacob’s hard work, to glorify Jacob himself, and to embrace fully the very pleasant duty of flourishing.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, amen.