Psalm 45: Marriage

As a pastor I deal with weddings and marriage a lot. Whether it’s helping a couple to prepare for marriage, handling a wedding ceremony or counseling a married couple, I would say that I find myself involved in marriage in some way every week. The introduction to Psalm 45, found just before verse 1, tells us that this psalm was written by the Sons of Korah, that it was a love song, the NIV calls it a wedding song. This song was not just for any wedding though, it was for a royal wedding, traditionally believed to be the wedding of King Solomon and the princess of Egypt as described in I Kings 3:1. The questions that we may ask are, “Why is a wedding song included in the canon or Scripture? Why did the Holy Spirit inspire this group of Levites to write a song for Solomon and his bride?”

Like much Scripture, the Psalms are largely prophetic. There is a reality to prophetic scripture that often gets forgotten, the words spoken had a specific meaning to those that first heard them and a prophetic truth that went far beyond them. I don’t know if the Sons of Korah were aware of it, but when they were writing a song for their king, they were singing a song about the coming Messiah; they sang to Solomon, but they were singing about Jesus. But there is even more to this. It’s not just that a prophesy about Jesus was hidden in a song for Solomon’s wedding, it’s the reality that marriage is not simply something created by God, but marriage is about Christ.

The psalm begins by speaking about the king. They sing of his handsomeness, his blessing from God, his strength and authority and his calling to live and rule in truth, meekness and righteousness. But then, in a very quick turn, verse 6 speaks about Jesus the Messiah: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness; you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions . . .” How do we know this is about Jesus? We know this largely because Hebrews 1:8 quotes it saying, “But about the Son He (God) says: ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.” From these prophetic announcements about the Messiah the psalm turns back to the wedding at hand and begins to sing to and about the bride who would become the queen. Jesus was in the middle of the wedding.

We hear this often, that for marriage to work Jesus has to be the center of it, that it’s not simply a commitment between a man and a woman but it’s a covenant that a man and woman make with God and with each other. These things are all true, but they are also incomplete. Marriage was God’s creation and the Scriptures make it very clear that everything created by God is also created for God (Colossians 1:16). Marriage isn’t only something that God gave us, for it to be complete, it must be something we give back to God. Here’s the hard truth we must teach, preach, lead in and live from, we are not married in the sight of God, we are married for the cause of Christ.

In Ephesians 5, the Scripture that is most often quoted in reference to marriage, the apostle Paul told us that marriage was a profound mystery, but then he revealed it so that it would be a mystery no longer, “I am talking about Christ and the church”. That meant that marriage was no longer a commitment or covenant between a man and a woman, a husband and a wife, it was a witness of Jesus and the church. The man loves the wife as Christ loves the church as a witness to the world. The woman submits, trusts her husband as the church submits, trusts Christ as a witness to the world. Marriage is for the spread of the gospel, it is a tool of heaven to reveal the character of God, it is a truth about God to draw the hearts of men. Marriage is not for procreation, it is spiritual re-creation, it is not for the intimacy of humanity it is to reveal the intimacy of God, yes it has been given to us and it provides us with many blessings and so much goodness, but marriage is for Jesus, it’s for the gospel, it is one more part of the work of redemption.

Psalm 45 should make all of us evaluate our marriages. Are we praying for God to bless our marriages or are we using our marriages to bless God? Are we praying for healing in our relationships or are our relationships bringing healing? I’m not at all saying that our marriages need to be perfect, but if we don’t understand why God put us together then we will live for ourselves and if we live for ourselves, we will ALWAYS miss the mark. A healthy marriage glorifies Jesus, it declares the gospel, it wins souls. I’ll ask you what I’m asking myself today, is the way I’m husbanding my wife bringing glory to Jesus and leading the lost to Christ? Am I loving my wife in a way that doesn’t only bless her but that pleases God and reflects Jesus? If you are not married today, don’t look for a partner in life, look for a partner in the gospel. To quote Paul, “don’t be unequally yoked with an unbeliever”, don’t take for yourself what is meant for God. We must stop thinking that marriage is meant to make us happy, marriage was created to make Christ known.