What Marriage Is Actually For

Marriage is not primarily about compatibility, domestic harmony, or relational satisfaction. It is a covenant sealed by God himself, designed to echo something far larger than the two people in it.

God Is the One Who Does the Joining

Before you can understand what marriage is for, you have to understand who authored it. It is not a social contract. It is not a legal arrangement. As Malachi makes plain, "it's God himself who brings the man and a woman into this marriage covenant. It's the very Spirit of God himself who's present and who does the joining. It's not a pastor, it's not a priest, it's not a judge, it's not a marriage license, it's not a husband or a wife, it's not a mom or a dad." ^[6] That is the weight you are standing under when you stand at an altar.

Jesus himself, when the Pharisees came testing him on divorce, did not appeal to Moses — he appealed to the garden. "From the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate." ^[6] Jesus reaffirms the covenant design as God's doing, not man's. John Piper puts it plainly: "it is God who in each marriage ordains and performs a uniting called one flesh. Man does not create this. God does, and it is not in man's power to destroy." ^[6]

Marriage Is a Covenant, Not a Compatibility Test

The culture has handed us a frame for marriage that sounds reasonable on the surface: find the right person, confirm chemistry, and build from there. That frame puts compatibility at the center. But compatibility isn't even the main issue. As the text of Genesis 2 shows us, "It's intimacy that can only be fostered in the confines of marriage. Authentic compatibility happens when a husband and wife unconditionally love each other." ^[3] What Adam recognized in Eve was not that he got lucky — it was that God had designed them to fit.

"God's presence at all marriages means that he will hold each party accountable to him for the keeping of these vows. He places the whole weight of divine presence in support of the vows and in judgment on any who threaten or break them." ^[3] That is why faithlessness in marriage is not merely a relational failure — it is an abomination in the language of Malachi. It defiles something the Spirit of God himself sealed. ^[6] Marriage was "neither designed nor created to end in a breaking of that covenant." ^[6]

The Purpose of Your Marriage Is the Mission of God

Here is where most of us have the frame entirely wrong. "The purpose of your marriage is not domestic harmony. It is not relational satisfaction. It is the mission of God in the world." ^[1] Paul in Ephesians 5 spends ten verses on how husbands and wives ought to love each other — and then drops the bomb in verse 32: "This mystery is profound, and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church." ^[6] Your marriage exists to echo that. It is a picture, a living illustration, of Christ's relationship to his bride.

Paul does not introduce the household dynamics of Ephesians 5 in isolation. He introduces them after five chapters of cosmic architecture — election, redemption, the church as God's instrument in the world. "Marriage is just one more tool like the local church that God has created to advance his mission into the world." ^[1] When two believers fight with one another, they are — as one couple came to realize after years of working through Ephesians — like "a hand beating a foot or something. It's just nuts." ^[2] The stakes are higher than who's right in the argument.

Authority Structure Is Not the Enemy — Abuse of It Is

Marriage has an authority structure. That sentence alone will produce resistance in almost any room you say it. But the resistance doesn't change the design. "Marriage is an institution created by God. Just like any institution that God has created, it has an authority structure... because He's patterning them off of His order within the Godhead." ^[5][7] This is not a cultural artifact. It is a reflection of something inside the Trinity itself.

And let's be honest about why it's hard. "It's really hard, wives, to submit to your husbands because the word submit means submit in a very extensive way. It doesn't mean pretend submission. It doesn't mean I'll let you pick the restaurant. It means to walk with your husband in the calling he's received from God. It means to do that first. It means to pursue that first." ^[5][7] That is a real and weighty call. But the goal is not begrudging compliance — it is the picture of a healthy marriage where "a husband's leadership and authority shouldn't create begrudging submission from a wife. Her counsel is sought. She should be quick and free to give her input." ^[8] And every institution that has an authority structure "will sooner or later be hijacked by sinful people who want to abuse that authority structure." ^[5][7] The answer to that abuse is not to dismantle the structure — it is to pursue the thing it was designed to image.

Sex in Marriage: Gift, Not Foundation

God designed sex for marriage — not as an afterthought, not as a concession, but from the beginning. "From the man's physical strength and protective impulses to the woman's gentleness and nurturing instincts," and especially in the way their bodies are formed, "male and female complement one another. The man initiates, the woman receives. Their bodies model this. They literally fit together in physical intimacy in a way that's meant to bring them face to face, a picture of their emotional and spiritual intimacy." ^[3]

"Longing for a healthy and exciting sex life in marriage is not wrong. It's a good thing. God wants you to experience that. He created the gift for you." ^[3] God "literally anatomically designed those parts of our body to be highly sensitive and capable of immense gratification... It brings God pleasure and glory to see us embracing his gift with grateful, joyful hearts." ^[4] But here is the sequence that matters: "Sexual health in marriage comes from relational and spiritual health, not vice versa... Sexual health is the wellspring that comes from them, not the other way around." ^[3] If you have been trying to build relational intimacy on top of sexual performance, you have the foundation and the frame reversed. There is also something profound underneath all of this — "there is something mysterious about the way a husband and wife's sexual intimacy mirror the relational intimacy of the Godhead. Not in a physical way, but in a spiritual and emotional way." ^[4]

And the boundary is not arbitrary. "Sexuality only flourishes, it only brings blessing when it's practiced between one man and one woman who've covenanted together, who've pledged one another their undying love and faithfulness." ^[3] Vulnerability at that depth — emotional and physical exposure — is "a recipe for relational disaster and for heartbreak, unless it occurs in a context of absolute trust." ^[3] "Sex is broken. Sex is dangerous. Sex is painful when it happens outside the context of covenant marriage between one man and one woman." ^[3]

Look at How Christ Loves the Church

So you want to know how to guard your marriage — how to keep the covenant when it is hard, when you are tired, when the other person has failed you? The answer is not a technique. "You want to know how to guard your marriage, how to keep covenant? Look at how Christ loves the church. We look at how Christ loves the church. We look at the gospel and we see Christ pursuing the church." ^[6]

Two Christians who understand that they are both members of the household of God, both living under his law, both recipients of the same lavish grace — those two people have a resource for marriage that no compatibility algorithm can provide. "God's great kingdom" makes room for genuine differences in personality, perspective, and approach, "accommodated so far as they are not against God's law." ^[2] The marriage that lasts is not the one that found the perfect match. It is the one that keeps returning to the mystery Paul named in Ephesians 5:32 — that your covenant points beyond itself, to Christ and his church. ^[6]

This page synthesizes what Chris Oswald has preached on marriage at Providence Community Church. Every claim above traces to the cited sermons — follow any citation to read the full sermon, listen to the audio, and see the surrounding context. Minute marks are approximate, estimated from each sermon's transcript.