My husband used to be a drama teacher. For each production, he had the role and responsibility to choose a cast who could best display and bring to life the intent of the author of the chosen play. Once a role is cast, there can be variation in interpretation, but there is also a laying aside of ones’ own identity, in order to display the role to a watching world (although Hugh Grant always seems to be playing himself). 

We must pay careful attention to the following scripture:

“For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.” (Ephesians 5:31-32)

Creator God held a mystery that He desired to unfold in the natural realm. He desired to display a prophetic picture, to His creation, of the nature of the relationship He chose to have with them. God, Who is Spirit would make Himself known by relating to His creation in the male role of Bridegroom. Humanity would be invited into the feminine role of the Bride, one who would take her part–opposite her Divine Counterpart. Mankind, by design, was created both male and female, that we might display the image of God (“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness;” Genesis 1:26a). Marriage was to display, to a watching world, the very nature of His triune likeness.

A watching world seldom sees all that God might want to display about Himself.
For marriage to be the conveyance of Truth, we must be re-instructed ourselves. Marriage implies intimacy….a vital, holy communion between ‘part’ and ‘counterpart’. So often we find couples living parallel lives rather than the merged oneness that God had in mind. It is that ‘merged oneness’ that gives an accurate representation of Christ with His Church, in the world. When the church fails to mature and is more familiar with ‘herself’ than with her Divine Counterpart, she models an entirely different illustration in both the heavenly and earthly realms. Too often the church only knows how to be intimate with the church. When we can introduce people to church, but don’t know how to encourage intimacy with the Beloved, we model an attraction to our own likeness. May all that we are as His Church, display through our intimacy with Jesus, the precious oneness that marriage was designed to demonstrate.