The ancient prophets spoke of a love so relentless that it could only be described in the language of marriage. Hosea, standing heartbroken yet hopeful, described God as a faithful spouse betrothing us “forever . . . in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in compassion.”[1] In the New Testament, marriage is called a “great mystery,” boldly declared to “refer to Christ and the church.”[2] Throughout Scripture and the Christian mystical tradition, we find an audacious truth: God’s love for us is spousal, covenantal, and passionately intimate.
“God’s love for us is spousal, covenantal, and passionately intimate.”
This is the Mystical Marriage of the soul with the Divine: a sacred union that human marriages are meant to reflect. But what does this mean for modern marriages and the debates swirling around them? How might seeing God’s love as spousal reshape our understanding of marriage covenants today, including conversations about same-sex marriage and the sanctity of the marital bond?
The Soul’s Sacred Union with the Divine
In the prayers of mystics and the poetry of Scripture, the soul is often portrayed as a beloved partner of God. Christian mysticism dares to imagine a relationship with God that is as tender and total as the deepest human love. The “mystical marriage” is the term many contemplatives use to describe the culmination of the soul’s journey into God’s heart.[3] Saints and sages have written of experiencing God as the ultimate Lover, not in a physical sense, but in a profound spiritual embrace. Their words echo the Song of Songs, that ancient love poem often read as an allegory of the Divine and the soul delighting in one another.[4] They echo Jesus’s description of the Realm of God as a wedding feast, and John’s vision of the New Jerusalem “prepared as a bride” adorned for union with the Lamb.[5] In these images, heaven is depicted as a wedding celebration.
This mystical union reveals a God whose love is personal and covenantal. It isn’t the love of a distant monarch or an abstract force, but of a spouse who longs for communion with us. The prophets Isaiah and Hosea portrayed God as a forsaken lover who nonetheless allures and speaks tenderly to win back the beloved.[6] In these sacred romances, God binds Godself to humanity with vows of unbreakable fidelity. “I’ll be yours and you’ll be mine,” says the Holy One through the prophets; an eternal covenant of steadfast love.
Crucially, this divine love is beyond gender or biology. Mystics teach that every soul is invited into this marriage with God. In this spiritual sense, we’re each the beloved, sought and cherished by the Divine Partner. The soul’s gender is irrelevant in the face of the overwhelming love that flows from God. What matters is receptivity, devotion, and mutual self-giving. This is the blueprint behind every longing for love and union that we carry in our hearts.
“In these images, heaven is depicted as a wedding celebration.”
Marriage as a Sacred Covenant and Living Mystery
If divine love is spousal, then human marriage takes on a sacred significance beyond mere social contract. According to Christian tradition, marriage is a covenant (a binding promise of faithful, self-giving love) that mirrors God’s covenant with humanity.[7] When two people stand and pledge themselves “till death do us part,” something holy unfolds. In that vow, love becomes a life-long action, not just a feeling. The wedding isn’t merely a ceremony; it’s two souls entering a covenant of mutual devotion and sacrifice. In that covenant, we catch an echo of God’s promise never to abandon us.
“In that covenant, we catch an echo of God’s promise never to abandon us.”
Those of us who’ve been through divorce know the pain and heartbreak that cuts to the core of our being when a marriage ends. It isn’t just the loss of a relationship, it can feel like the unraveling of a whole world, the collapse of the promises and dreams we once built our lives around. We wake up to the silence of an empty room, the ache of absence at the table, and the strange weight of no longer belonging to someone who once knew us most intimately. The pain is multilayered. There’s the grief of love lost, the sting of rejection, the shame of failure, and the disorientation of having our identity and future suddenly thrown into question. The ordinary rhythms of life (birthdays, holidays, family gatherings) become shadows of what they once were. The heart keeps asking questions it can’t answer: “What went wrong? Was I enough? Will I ever heal?” Most of us who’ve been through that wouldn’t wish it on our worst enemy. Divorce tears at the soul and leaves us vulnerable, raw, and longing for mercy. It brings loneliness so sharp it feels physical, and sorrow that lingers long after papers are signed.
“Divorce tears at the soul and leaves us vulnerable, raw, and longing for mercy.”
Yet, in the depth of that suffering, many discover a strange kind of grace: a God who sits with us in the ashes, who doesn’t shame us for our brokenness, and who offers hope when everything else has been stripped away.
Marriage, at its core, is meant to be a living icon of God’s love. The letter to the Ephesians draws a parallel between the marriage union and Christ’s self-giving love for the church. Just as Christ unites with the community of believers in unbreakable grace, so spouses are called to bind themselves to each other in steadfast fidelity. And just as the church devotes itself to Christ, so each partner in a marriage is called to a posture of reverence and mutual submission toward the other. This dance of love (of giving and receiving, of sacrifice and trust) is a “great mystery” because it points to something far beyond itself. It points to the very nature of God’s relationship with us.
Through this mystical lens, marriage is more than a contract or a piece of paper; it’s a sacrament of grace, a channel through which divine love can flow into the world. Spouses become for each other a means of experiencing the unconditional love of God in daily life. In the safety of a covenant, with its binding vows, there’s freedom to be known and still be loved: reflecting how God knows and loves us completely. To be fully known and truly loved by another is a taste of how God loves us: nothing hidden, nothing held back, and yet never abandoned. In this way, marriage can be a workshop of grace: a place where forgiveness, patience, and selfless service are learned over and over again.
Marriage serves as a “school of love” and holiness. By design, it’s glorious but hard. Two imperfect people enter a lifelong journey together, inevitably polishing one another’s rough edges. In the struggle to remain faithful, to communicate honestly, to put the other’s needs before one’s own, spouses undergo a slow transformation.[8]
This is why one could say that the purpose of marriage isn’t merely to make us happy, but to make us holy.[9]In the daily acts of sacrifice and kindness, the ego’s selfishness is confronted and a more Christ-like love is formed. It teaches us to love our “neighbor” as ourselves in the most intimate context. Sometimes that neighbor is the very person who shares our home and bed. In this sense, marriage is a spiritual discipline as much as a delight. The vows (“for better or worse, in sickness and in health”) are sacred promises, akin to monastic vows. They tether us to the practice of love even when love is difficult. This is countercultural in an age that prizes personal gratification over commitment, yet this steadfastness is precisely the quality of love by which marriage images God.
Modern Marriages in the Light of Divine Love
In today’s world, marriage has become a field of debate and change. We hear heated discussions about who can marry, what defines a family, and how society should recognize various relationships. It’s easy to lose sight of the sacred mystery at the heart of marriage amid these culture-war battles. But if we return to the image of the Divine Romance (God’s spousal love for souls) we gain a fresh perspective. We begin to ask not just “What’s marriage permitted to be?” but “What’s marriage intended to be as a reflection of God’s covenant love?”
From this vantage, certain debates take on a new tone. Consider the discussion around same-sex marriage. Often it’s framed in terms of law, morality, or clashing biblical interpretations. But if we truly believe that marriage is fundamentally about covenant love reflecting God’s own love, we might ask different questions. We might find ourselves less focused on the categories of the couple and more on the quality of the love and commitment they share. Does their union exhibit faithfulness, self-sacrifice, and the intention of lifelong mutual care? Do they seek to embody a love that is patient and kind, not arrogant or rude, that rejoices in truth, bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things? In other words, is the holy fragrance of God’s kind of love present in this union?
If the answer is yes, then such a marriage (whether the partners are of the same sex or opposite sexes) can be seen as a sacred union, worthy of reverence. It becomes a signpost of the divine love in our midst. After all, when Scripture says “in Christ there’s no male and female” because all are one, it suggests that our human distinctions aren’t ultimate in the realm of grace. The essence of marriage isn’t the complementing of male and female bodies, but the joining of two lives in self-giving love and covenantal fidelity. A same-sex couple is just as capable of reflecting Christ-like love as a heterosexual couple. The mystical marriage between God and the soul is open to everyone; it follows that any human marriage that honestly strives to mirror that mystical covenant can be honored as holy.
“The essence of marriage isn’t the complementing of male and female bodies, but the joining of two lives in self-giving love and covenantal fidelity.”
This perspective invites Christians to approach modern marriage debates with both prophetic boldness and compassionate understanding. Prophetic, because we uphold marriage as sacred and insist on its true meaning (a covenant of divine-like love) in a society that often reduces marriage to convenience or mere tradition. We refuse to let marriage be cheapened into just a legal arrangement or a romantic whim; it’s meant to signify God’s faithful love, nothing less. Yet our stance is also compassionate, because we recognize the deep human longing to love and be loved that drives these debates. We see real people seeking to form lasting unions, sometimes against great odds or prejudice. A heart schooled in divine love won’t harden itself against these seekers. Instead of mere arguments, we offer a listening ear and a gracious welcome. We remember that Jesus’s first miracle graced a wedding feast, blessing the joy of human love, and that Jesus consistently showed mercy to those who were marginalized or scorned.
Toward a Compassionate and Sacred Vision of Marriage
Holding together the mystical and the mundane, we can form a renewed vision for marriage in our time. This vision is faithful to historic Christian teaching about covenant and sacrament, and yet it’s open to the unfolding work of the Spirit in the lives of people today. Rather than pitting tradition against change, it calls us to a deeper understanding of marriage: one that speaks to the heart and not just to rules. Here are a few key reflections in moving toward that vision:
- Marriage is a Covenant Icon of God’s Love: Every marriage is called to be a living icon: an image that points beyond itself. What makes a marriage holy isn’t who the couple are, but how sacred the love is that they share. When we honor marriage, we honor the divine love it’s meant to reflect.
- Violations Can Break the Bond of Covenant: Marriage is meant to be covenantal; a sacred bond of fidelity, tenderness, and mutual self-giving that reflects God’s steadfast love. It’s a union rooted in trust, where each person vows to honor and cherish the other in ways that nurture life and reveal grace. But covenant doesn’t mean captivity. No one is called to remain in a marriage marked by abuse, betrayal, or unrepentant unfaithfulness, for such violations break the very heart of the covenant itself. To leave such a situation isn’t to abandon God’s design for marriage, but to refuse the distortion of it, trusting that God desires not our enslavement to suffering but our healing, dignity, and peace.
- Covenant Calls for Christ-like Love: Entering marriage means embarking on a path of Christ-like self-giving. It’s a daily practice of humility, forgiveness, and service. Any couple willing to walk that hard and beautiful road should be encouraged and supported by the faith community. The focus shifts from “who” is allowed to marry to “how” we can help all marriages become thriving covenants of grace.
- Compassion and Truth Belong Together: In the spirit of Jesus (full of grace and truth) the church can uphold the sacredness of marriage while extending grace to those who have been hurt or excluded. Defending the sanctity of marriage ought never to mean denying someone’s dignity or desire to love faithfully. We can speak truth about covenant love and also acknowledge the truth of people’s lived experience, meeting everyone with respect and compassion.
- Singleness Can Reveal God’s Covenant Love Too: Marriage isn’t the only way to taste the fullness of God’s covenantal love. Single people (whether by choice, circumstance, or calling) can embody deep faithfulness, intimacy with Christ, and covenantal belonging in community. Their lives remind the church that the love of God isn’t confined to marital bonds but is offered freely to all who seek the divine embrace.
- Care for the Divorced is a Covenant Responsibility: When a marriage ends, the pain lingers long after vows are broken. The community of faith is called to surround those who’ve been through divorce with tenderness, respect, and hope, resisting judgment and offering healing space. To care for the wounded is to keep covenant with one another, embodying the God who never abandons but restores.
The mystery of the Mystical Marriage (the soul’s union with God) casts a warm light on our understanding of human marriages. It reminds us that at the center of all our debates and definitions is a simple and profound reality: we’re made for love, and all our covenants are meant to lead us into the heart of the Divine Love. Listening to the heartbeat of God’s covenant love humbles and emboldens us at once. Humbled, because we realize every marriage (including our own) falls short of fully mirroring that perfect love and is sustained only by grace. Emboldened, because we see that love (real, covenant love) is of God, wherever it’s found, and it’s worth defending and nurturing.
In a society divided over marriage, the church is called to be pastorally wise and prophetically bold. We can affirm the historic Christian vision of marriage as an unbreakable covenant without turning that vision into a weapon of exclusion. We can stand firm for the holiness of marriage while also standing with those who seek to share in its blessing. We can honor the ancient truths of our faith while discerning the new things God might be doing in our midst.
“Every marriage finds its highest purpose not in serving itself, but in pointing to God.”
Every marriage finds its highest purpose not in serving itself, but in pointing to God. Our souls’ destiny is union with the Divine. Marriage, in God’s plan, is one of the earthly foretastes of that destiny: a herald of hope to a lonely world. May we honor this sacred union in all its depth. May we treat those who enter it with reverence and tenderness. And may we never cease to learn from the One who covenants with us how to love as we’re loved.
Graham Joseph Hill is the Mission Catalyst – Church Planting and Missional Renewal for Uniting Mission and Education. You can read his Blog here and his Substack here.
Bibliography
Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics III/4. Edited by G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1961.
Bernard of Clairvaux. On the Song of Songs I. Translated by Kilian Walsh. Cistercian Fathers Series. Kalamazoo: Cistercian, 1971.
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Letters and Papers from Prison. Edited by Eberhard Bethge. New York: Touchstone, 1997.
Teresa of Ávila. The Interior Castle. Translated by Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez. Mahwah: Paulist, 1979.
Williams, Rowan. Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007.
References
[1] Hos 2:19–20 (prophet imagery of God as faithful spouse).
[2] Eph 5:31–32 (marriage as a “great mystery” referring to Christ and the church).
[3] Teresa of Ávila, The Interior Castle, Seventh Dwelling (describes the “spiritual marriage” of the soul with God).
[4] Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs, Sermons 1–20 (classic mystical interpretation of spousal imagery for divine love).
[5] Song of Songs 4:7; Rev 21:2 (allegorical wedding feast and heavenly union).
[6] Isa 54:5–8 (God portrayed as forsaken yet faithful spouse) and Hos 2:14.
[7] Barth, Church Dogmatics III/4.
[8] Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison (on marriage as covenant and discipline of love).
[9] Williams, Tokens of Trust, 78–79.
