How does marriage in the world differ from marriage among God's people (the church of Jesus)? I think a lot of Christians' minds would go first to sex and living together: those belonging to Christ should do neither before marriage. Correct enough--as far as it goes. Some will point out that there should be far less divorce in the church, or that marriage is between one man and one woman. Also true. But do these details define the difference between worldly and godly marriage? No, and if we consider the real difference, these more superficial differences both fall into place and become meaningful boundaries rather than arbitrary, spoilsport rules. They are not the difference(s); they are right practices that arise out of the difference.
Is the difference that Christians (should) realize love is a choice, not a feeling; that we're not in it only for what we can get out of it and whether it's "working for me"; and that a woman doesn't file for divorce because a man asks, "What's for dinner?" (We may laugh, but social media reveals these attitudes are out there.) Well, we're getting warmer, but these don't cut to the quick either.
Christian marriage is different from worldly marriage in that marriage between Christians is a picture of the relationship between Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:32).
This is the #1 reason that a saved person shouldn't knowingly marry an unsaved person. Neither party is able to enter into the kind of marriage available to the other. (An existing marriage between a saved and an unsaved person is to continue unless the unsaved person leaves, per 1 Corinthians 7:12-15.)
In a Christian marriage, the man represents Christ and the woman represents the Church. This is why he is to love her as himself and give himself up for her. This is why she is to submit as is fitting in the Lord (this doesn't mean following him into sin or allowing it to be committed against her). Unlike the world's marriage, but like the relationship between Christ and the church, Christian marriage is a covenant sealed by blood. This is why the first sex is to be a consummation following the wedding: it is accompanied, in many but not all cases, by a show of blood as a sign of the covenant. Even just beginning to think of Christian marriage in this way helps us see why sex follows the ceremony rather than preceding it, why Christian divorce should be rare (unrepentant adultery and the forms of abandonment that include abuse and addiction should be the only reasons), why marriage isn't at all about "What's in it for me?" but "How can I serve my partner?", and why marriage is between one man and one woman (same-sex pairings are not, in fact, marriage at all, no matter what kind of coupling ceremony the two went through).
Continuing in Ephesians 5, the husband loves his wife as his own body, and the church (wife) is the body of Christ. The two become one flesh. Paul himself then declares this a great mystery. How two become one (how the Three Persons of the Godhead are One, in fact) yet remain two is a mystery, one it is our honor to participate in before the Lord, and model to the world, with our spouse. Father, let us honor our marriages as precious symbols of the relationship between Christ and His bride, the church.
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