Humanly, the most intimate, closest relationship a person can have is within a healthy marriage between a man and a woman. All other relationships, though they can be very close, don’t begin to be what a healthy, married, man and woman share. I like to use the word “healthy” because many marriages aren’t. For example, in a healthy marriage there is trust and respect. The Bible says that in a human marriage two shall become one, and that encompasses body, soul, and spirit. You can’t become “one” if one or both spouses, for whatever reasons, can’t give and receive, or if one spouse can’t trust or respect the other. That isn’t to say all is lost, it merely means that you have some healing to work on in your marriage that may take professional help and God’s healing. It also doesn’t exclude you from a love relationship with Jesus, though it might make it harder to trust him or believe that he loves you personally.
No friend, lover, or parent and child can have such an intimate relationship as a couple in a healthy marriage. Jesus, who loves us more than we can even imagine, wants the closest relationship possible with us. That relationship is a marriage; hence we are his bride and not his fiancé. He wants that two-become-one relationship with us spiritually.
We get confused when we take spiritual terminology that is related to marriage and apply it to dating. When the New Testament refers to us as the bride of Christ it is translated from two different Hebrew words. One means “a woman, specially a wife” and in the KJV, New KJV, and American Standard Version the word is translated as “wife.” For example, Revelation 19:7 says, “Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him; for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.” (KJV)
The other word translated as bride in the New Testament means “a young married woman, by implication a son’s wife.” The KJV translates it as “bride” or “daughter-in-law.” For example, Revelation 21:9 says, “One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the bride (daughter-in-law), the wife of the Lamb.” (NIV)
In other words, we are the “wife” of Christ, not His fiancée or his current date. Contrary to what some websites and books claim we are doing by loving Jesus as our Bridegroom, we are not “dating” Jesus.
The marriage relationship with Jesus, as in falling in love and growing in our maturity and love for him, does, in many ways, follow a human pattern. But we’re never “dating” Jesus, unless you want to apply that to before we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior and are deciding whether to commit our lives to him. Once we accept him as our Lord and Savior and commit our life to him, we are married, not dating. We are in an everlasting marriage with Jesus, a commitment, a covenant between him and us. We’re not living together without the commitment or having a fling, we are in a committed, marriage relationship.
Remember how Mary and Joseph were initially committed to each other by a covenant? Even though the marriage ceremony wouldn’t happen until later and they didn’t live together or have sex, the covenant was so binding that when Mary was pregnant she could already be treated as being in adultery. At salvation we enter the marriage covenant with Jesus. Even though the marriage ceremony will be later, in heaven, we are already married to him.
When dating we’re in the process of looking for a mate and we try out different people to find the one we emotionally connect with. Even as a fiancée we are still in that trial period where we can back out. Yes, dating has a definite sexual undertone to it, it’s a part of our body’s created system to find a mate.
However, dating is also so much more than that, or should be if you want a true marriage. You’re looking to emotionally connect with someone, to find that spark telling you that they’re the one in a million for you, that you can be best friends besides sexual partners. While in the dating phase of life your sexual antenna are definitely looking for a signal, marriage is different. Sure, the sexual is there but the pressure is off (you can have sex anytime so it’s not the end all to be all), but again, so much more is involved as you also become spiritually and emotionally one. You’re learning to trust, to respect, to honor, to get-inside-their-head and know them. You’re learning to physically adjust to living in the same space. You’re blending two very different family cultures together and compromising. A good example of family cultures blending is to look at a couple’s first Christmas, as they try to merge two styles and traditions into one.
The Bible tells us we are Jesus’ bride and uses marriage terminology (not dating terminology) to denote spiritual intimacy and relationship. The proverbial marriage bed represents intimacy, but more than just the sexual. What goes on in the marriage bed stays there, unless one of the two choose to share. It is the one place that is utterly private—no cameras, guests, or newspaper reporters.
In a healthy marriage it is the ultimate intimacy, whether sexually, sharing hearts in pillow-talk, or just physically and emotionally holding each other. It is baring yourself body, soul, and spirit. It’s not just about getting physically naked with each other, you also get emotionally and spiritually naked.
I love this quote off Twitter by suli@sulibreaks:
me and my wife both woke up randomly at 2AM yesterday! Instead of going back to bed we spent the next few hrs in the dark chatting and laughing about random sh*t we been thru over the years! nice reminder why being married to your best friend is lit 😊
As a picture of intimacy sex within marriage is different than sex outside of marriage because it is a commitment that isn’t there without the marriage vows. Within the context of marriage, sex is a gift to your spouse, reserved for them, and given as a part of you in order to become one. In a healthy marriage you hold nothing back, not that you share everything or lose yourself, but in that you allow them to know you. You’re not holding back in case there’s a fight or break-up or one walks out or is kicked out. You give yourself unreservedly to the other, in trust and commitment. Not that you lose your identity, but that you choose to commit yourself to the one you love and give them access to all of who you are—body, soul, and spirit.
While there is marriage terminology that can humanly have sexual connotations, we take those and apply a spiritual aspect. Even humanly, many of the words we would term “sexual” aren’t always. In dating, holding hands is much more sexual than in marriage, because dating builds up the desire without the release. Biblically the sexual consummation of two people is reserved for marriage. A married couple holding hands is a way to touch and emotionally connect, a gesture of intimacy because they can have sex anytime they want.
In many countries holding hands isn’t sexual. When I was growing up in Thailand friends of the same sex held hands as they walked down the street. Even kissing, while generally equated with being sexual, doesn’t have to be. A kiss on the forehead, cheek, even a peck on the lips is often not sexual.
Leaving on a road trip I hugged my husband Terry and gave him a goodbye peck on the lips. It was an expression of love, not communicating a desire for sex. Instead it said “I hope you have a wonderful time enjoying your own little vacation and I’m going to miss you.” Of course, had I known he would come home from work that night, fall asleep, and wake with Jesus, my kiss would have spoken a lot more!
Again, while dancing with a date or someone who is not your spouse is sexual, dancing with a spouse, while it has a sexual aspect, also holds an emotional intimacy, a closeness, the melding of two hearts and bodies into one.
For example, when dating Terry if I caught his eye across the room I would blush, feel self-conscious, and feel attracted to him. After being married a glance more often told us what the other was thinking. Someone could say something and Terry and I would look at each other and laugh because of a private joke. I knew Terry’s heart and he knew mine. We understood each other.
I knew his feelings and emotions just by the expressions on his face or his body language. I could look at him and know if he was in a good mood or a bad one, if his arthritis was hurting him, or if he was tired. I knew when we were talking to someone if he was taking them seriously or if he was annoyed by what they were saying. If he believed their story or if he didn’t. I could hear something and know how Terry was going to react when he heard it. We were attuned to each other. We knew each other.
That knowing was because we were intimate, married, and lived our lives together. We trusted and respected the other and we were attracted sexually to each other. In that way the two of us became one: body (physically), soul (emotionally), and spirit.
In trying to wrap my head around Jesus knowing us, I considered how that would look in a marriage. Suppose out of the blue your husband came and said, “I want a divorce.” “Why?” You’d ask in a panic. “Because I’ve never known you,” he’d say. What would that mean? It would mean that you never let him in, never opened your soul to him, never let him into your emotional space, into who you really are. You kept walls up. Sure you were married and sure you lived together and sure you had fun and did stuff, but unless you let your husband in past your walls and your masks, he doesn’t really know you. He only is allowed to know what you let him know, not the real you.
That’s like it is with Jesus, he wants us to let him in. He wants to really know us past our masks and walls, where we let him in emotionally. We do that when we do things with him, like take him to show him our favorite places or when we hang out and tease him. When we build a history of emotions and experiences then we’re letting him know us, we’re letting him share who we really are. And it’s wonderful and he loves it. :)
In our culture we generally use the term “bride” as one getting married, but Biblically it is as a wife. As we passionately pursue Jesus it is to become one with him—heart, soul, and Spirit.
