Note: This article is part of an ongoing series on Pope St. John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body” (TOB).

For several months, we have been exploring Pope St. John Paul II’s meditations on marriage in Part Two of Theology of the Body (TOB). The pope deeply analyzed chapter 5 of St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians in which he compared the relationship of Christ and the Church with that of a husband and wife.

As we have seen, this spousal analogy helps us understand God’s love for each of us as well as our calling as Christian spouses. It shows us the unity and fidelity spouses are called to preserve in marriage. It highlights the sacredness of our calling to love, cherish, and nurture each other in marriage. This analogy also opens our eyes to how much God loves each of us, desiring us to be united with Him forever in such an intimate way that there is no better human image for this than spousal union.

Indeed, this spousal analogy is woven throughout salvation history. From the beginning, God has used marital images to gradually reveal His plan for us to be intimately united with Him forever in the greatest experience of love and joy that could ever be imagined. This progression culminates in Christ’s spousal gift of Himself to the Church through which marriage became the “form” or “prototype” of all the sacraments.

As we conclude our review of this portion of the pope’s meditations, it is important to see that marriage comes from God. Unlike popular opinion today, marriage is NOT a mere human construct. It is a divine gift instituted by God in the beginning, with a specific form and pattern. Pope St. John Paul II was very clear on this point, saying, “Marriage comes from the Father. It is not from the world, but from the Father” (TOB 101.7).

Marriage is the “place” where a man (male) and a woman (female) come together in a spousal union by which they become “one flesh.” This one flesh union is not merely a physical or instinctive joining but a true communion of persons in which spousal “love not only unites the two subjects, but allows them to interpenetrate each other, belonging spiritually to one another,” such that “the ‘I’ becomes in some way the ‘you,’ and the ‘you’ the ‘I’” (92.7). This love embraces the whole person and penetrates the whole of life. Such communion of persons must protect and preserve the sacred dignity of the man and the woman. The only proper context for such communion is a permanent, exclusive, lifelong covenant, which we call marriage. For Christians, such marriage is a sacramental participation in Christ’s spousal union with the Church.

As we have seen previously, Christ’s spousal gift of Himself to the Church coincides with his self-sacrificial act of redemption on the Cross. Thus, His spousal love is also a redemptive love that stops at nothing to save and sanctify the beloved. This love never gives up on the beloved no matter the amount of betrayal, abuse, or neglect. It is a love that continually extends mercy and remains faithful in the face of all infidelity. This love moved Jesus to freely suffer and die for us: “God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). What’s more, Christ’s spousal love calls us to repentance, conversion, and holiness of life. He loves us so much that he painstakingly teaches us, leads us, and spiritually empowers us to rediscover our dignity and live according to life in the Spirit. He gives us, His Bride, everything to show us the way to ultimate joy—our sanctifying union with Him.

As human beings made in God’s image and disciples of Christ, members of His body, we too are called to embody this spousal love in our own marriages. In marriage, we are called to be Christ to one another, to love one another as Christ the Bridegroom loves His Bride, the Church. Of course, we are finite and wounded by sin and unable to embody Christ’s spousal love on our own. We need continual divine help and human support.

When we embrace this vocation and all the help that God provides, marriage becomes a path to gradually overcome the power of sin in our fallen human nature and progress in Christian maturity. As Pope St. John Paul II summarized, “Marriage as a sacrament immutably serves the purpose that man, male and female, by mastering concupiscence, does the will of the Father. And the one who ‘does the will of God will remain in eternity’ (1 Jn 2:17)” (101.10). Indeed, “Marriage as a sacrament remains a living and life-giving part of this salvific process” (102.8).

Read part 1 of this series here.