Every time we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we think about the past, and we remember that there is a future for the people of God; that we are having a foretaste at the Lord’s Table of that ultimate fellowship we will have with Him in heaven.

The Lord’s Supper is a rich sacrament full of meaning and blessing for God’s people. Scripture talks about it in various ways, centered on Christ and his life-giving death. Regarding the Lord’s Supper, R. C. Sproul explained its past, present, and future aspects. Remember this next time you celebrate the holy Supper.
Obviously the Lord’s Supper is concerned about remembering something that took place once for all in time past. Often the words “Do This in Remembrance of Me” are carved into the wood of Communion tables. Jesus exhorted His disciples on many matters to be diligent in their learning and to remember the things that He had taught them. But it is as if the culmination of His teaching came in the upper room when He said, “Do this in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19b). Our Lord said, in essence, “What is about to take place is the acme of My mission. I am about to ratify a new covenant, and I am going to do it in My blood. I am going to offer the atonement by which redemption is secured for My people. Whatever else you do, do not ever forget this.” …
…So, a major dimension of what takes place in the Lord’s Supper is reflection on the cross, but we miss much of the meaning of the Lord’s Supper if we restrict it merely to the remembrance of things past. There is also a future orientation to the Lord’s Supper. This dimension gets less attention from the church than the others, and I am not sure I understand why.
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Our Lord is forbidding here the flippant, profane, or careless use of oaths in everyday speech in that culture, such oaths were often employed for deceptive purposes. Those doing that would swear by “heaven,” “earth,” “Jerusalem,” or their own “heads” (vv. 34-36), not by God. In this they hoped to avoid divine judgment for their lie, however, all of it is in God’s creation, so it drew him in, and produced guilt before him just as if the oath were made in his name. Jesus suggested that all our speech should be as if we were under an oath to tell the truth (v37).

12 You shall not swear falsely by My name, so as to profane the name of your God; I am the LORD. Leviticus 19:12 (NASB)
2 If a man makes a vow to the LORD, or takes an oath to bind himself with a binding obligation, he shall not violate his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth. Numbers 30:2 (NASB)
21 “When you make a vow to the LORD your God, you shall not delay to pay it, for it would be sin in you, and the LORD your God will surely require it of you. 22 However, if you refrain from vowing, it would not be sin in you. 23 You shall be careful to perform what goes out from your lips, just as you have voluntarily vowed to the LORD your God, what you have promised. Deuteronomy 23:21-23 (NASB)
33 “Again, you have heard that the ancients were told, ‘ YOU SHALL NOT MAKE FALSE VOWS, BUT SHALL FULFILL YOUR VOWS TO THE LORD.’ 34 But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35 or by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet, or by Jerusalem, for it is THE CITY OF THE GREAT KING. 36 Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37 But let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil. Matthew 5:33-37 (NASB)
For a short period of time in late 1980’s I worked in a PC/Computer store in sales. I am not a sales person, but most if not all of the other fellows I worked with were. Instead, I simply told people what the computers could do or what they could not do and tried to match them up with what the people needed. I was usually in the top two or three in sales, never number one there, but I was always number one in customer satisfaction. In fact, the only time I ever saw those customers again was if something broke or they wanted an upgrade or they brought a friend or relative in to buy a computer. However, something changed when I sold a truckload of computers to a local school. Then I did it again.
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God made marriage to reflect the holy, eternal, loving, intimate, joyful, and sacrificial love He has always cherished among the members of the Godhead. In that sense, marriage is not about you but is certainly for you. God has invited you to participate in and imitate His triune love. Perhaps this is why Scripture calls marriage the “mystery of the Gospel” because, unlike any other human relationship or institution, it most clearly and most beautifully pictures the divine. 

Recently I remembered why I had stopped noticing the sounds of war during my deployment in Operation Iraqi Freedom. When we first entered the country, every cell in my body was on heightened alert. My adrenaline was constantly pumping. Every staccatoed rat-tat-tat from a distant AK-47 was enough to make my hair stand on end. Every civilian standing in the crowd could be a suicide bomber. Every vehicle could deliver the IED that would send me home looking forever like Lieutenant Dan. And with every mortar round fired, the reality of going home in a box and my mother receiving a triangle-folded American flag pressed upon my mind. Yet, as the deployment wore on, these sounds melded into a strange kind of normalcy for me.
For instance, every morning around 3 AM, the reverberating rumbles of incoming mortar rounds would agitate the little mud brick house we lived in. Those first nights in theater, I awoke in a great alarm from every blast, alert and ready for combat, frantically putting on my equipment for readiness and protection. But, once I realized that Iraqis with Mortar rounds could not hit the proverbial sand when falling off the fictional camel, I eventually learned to sleep right through the explosions as if nothing strange was happening around me.
The thunderous eruptions, once jarring to me, became the ethereal drum tap in the desert’s lullaby. Time, like an ancient spell, wove its enchantment upon my senses, leaving me unconscious of my surroundings, which is what I believe has happened to the modern church.
In his timeless malice, Satan has assailed the sacred bond of marriage for so long that the sounds and signs of warfare upon her have faded into the cacophony of noises we have become accustomed to. While we have grown numb to the relentless onslaught at the devil’s hand, divorce, infidelity, and broken homes have become the tapestry woven into the threads of our society.
For this reason, it is incumbent upon us to wake from our slumber, recognize the war, and cling to the weapons of warfare our compassionate General has assigned us. For all who call themselves Christians, it is time to rekindle our love for the hallowed Word. As followers of Christ, we must valiantly thwart the adversary’s advances on marriage in general, and our marriages in particular, by embracing God’s designs for us, our marriages, our children, and our homes that are revealed in Holy Scripture.
Today, we begin our series on marriage by traveling back to the genesis of it, seeking solace in the profound wisdom spoken by our God in His Word. In this collection of essays on the topic of marriage, we will lean into what Scripture teaches and glean from our Maker’s timeless intention for marriage that will ever illuminate our path. Today, we begin by speaking about the design of marriage from the first Biblical text on marriage found in Genesis 1:26-28.
The Text

26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” – Genesis 1:26-28

The Trinitarian Design of Marriage
The Bible describes the creation of man in marital language. For instance, God did not merely create two distinctly gendered individuals, calling them “very good” in their disconnectedness, but a pair of people who would become one flesh together. In the same way that shoes come in twos and socks come in pairs, God made man as a male and female unit that would join together to become one very glorious thing, which of course, was the “very good” part.
In this, we must also notice that the creation of man was a trinitarian event. God does not create the first domestic community without blueprints. Instead, he patterns it off the divine community that has existed forever. At the height of the creation enterprise, God speaks, saying, “Let Us make mankind in Our image” When God does this, it not only serves as proof for the triunity within the Godhead but the kind of intimacy God intends to be present in the marriage.
The Trinitarian Community
For all eternity, members of the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist in perfect harmony and self-giving love, an exquisite dance of divine affection. This celestial community lives in exquisite blissful intimacy, lavishly pouring out fragrant love upon one another, heralding each other’s praises in melodious harmonies that echoed across the unformed realms, holding nothing back from one another across eons of affectionate fellowship.
In the embrace of the Father, love emanates as an eternal wellspring, an outpouring of perfect affection towards the Son and the Spirit. The Father’s love, boundless and unchanging, encapsulates the essence of nurturing care and tender compassion. It is a love that delights in the Son’s obedience and wholeheartedly affirms His eternal Sonship, a love that seeks to glorify and honor the Son above all.
The Son, in response, reciprocates this love with perfect devotion and filial obedience. His passion for the Father is marked by complete surrender and an unwavering desire to fulfill the Father’s will. It is a love that willingly steps into the realm of humanity, taking upon Himself the weight of the world’s sin, offering Himself as the perfect sacrifice—a demonstration of love that knows no bounds.
The Holy Spirit, the breath and life within the Trinity, embodies the love that flows between the Father and the Son. It is a love that unites, empowers, and guides. The Spirit’s love is like a gentle wind, constantly moving and animating the divine dance. It is a love that testifies to the unity and oneness of the Godhead, bringing forth the fruit of love in the hearts of believers.
Together, the love within the Trinity is a symphony of self-giving, perfect love. It is a love that transcends time and space, existing in timeless eternity. It is a love that invites us to behold the divine dance and participate in its harmonious rhythms. Through the love of the Trinity, we catch a glimpse of the infinite depth of love and are invited to enter into a transformative relationship with the Triune God, where we, too, can experience the boundless love that unites Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This, of course, is best pictured in human marriage.
As many scholars and authors attest, when our triune God patterned man according to His image, He was undoubtedly creating individuals with a rational and creative capacity to think, feel, love, and do.
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