Credo
17 August 2026

This is a two-part reflection on Judeo-Christian marriage as an eschatological sign. The first part examines the place of women in the gender hierarchy found in the New Testament.

Let’s just call a spade a spade – the New Testament (NT) has a gender hierarchy and women are accorded a lower position in it. This is not to deny that it does at points complicate that hierarchy in favour of women (e.g. Gal 3:28). But it is impossible to overlook the many verses that instruct wives to be subject to their husbands (1 Pet 3:1-6; Col 3:18; Eph 5:22-24), or even Jesus’ own description of women as those ‘given in marriage’ (Lk 20:34).

As someone who received a classical liberal education, those verses make me uncomfortable. As a Protestant who was rightfully taught that the Judeo-Christian scripture contains authoritative wisdom, I am wary of imposing my own worldview and ideology on to it. But as a would-be historical theologian, trained to let my sources speak to me in their own voice, I approach the NT with a desire to understand how it sees things.

Context: Eschatology

Everyone trained for historical theology is taught a truth that they never outgrow: context matters. And context goes beyond simply the literary contexts of particular verses. Far more important is the world that produced those said verses. Worldview is the frame that gives statements and claims their meaning.

If there is one word that most adequately captures the worldview of the NT, it’s “eschatology”. Theologians use this somewhat clunky term to refer to the idea that God is bringing history as humans know it to an appointed end. The ‘present evil age’ that we are living in (Gal 1:4) will give way to an Age that is to Come. In God’s New Age, Evil is utterly undone, death completely overthrown, and joy and justice know no end as God himself permanently moves to earth to dwell with humans (Isa 32:15-17, 65:17-25; Rev 20:10-21:5).

The NT proclaims that this Age that is to Come has arrived in the Persons of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. But it also presents the disciples of Jesus as living in-between the two ages. Some of the benefits and wonders of the New Age of God are upon us – the forgiveness of our sins, the ability to obey God in an evil world, God’s glorious presence with his people, just to name a few. Yet, many elements of the Christian life are determined by the reality that that Age is still yet to fully come.

There is perhaps no sign in Christianity that captures this dynamic better than Holy Communion. On the one hand, the Eucharist embodies the fact that forgiveness and restoration are present realities – they are available now. On the other, when Jesus inaugurates the Eucharist, he states that he will neither eat such a meal again nor ‘drink the fruit of the vine’ until ‘the Kingdom of God comes’ (Lk 22:18). Paul also notes that to partake of the Eucharist is to ‘proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes’ again (1 Cor 11:26). This already-but-not-yet character is the very essence of Christian eschatology.

Holy Communion, however, is not the only eschatological sign in the NT. There is another, one that’s directly relevant to the issue of gender hierarchy: Judeo-Christian marriage.

We see this when Paul describes Judeo-Christian marriage as a ‘mystery’ (‘μυστήριον’ [Eph 5:32]). This is an almost technical term that Paul uses for aspects of the Kingdom of God that were previously obscured under the Old Covenant.[1] In the wake of God’s New Age, things previously hinted at then now become clear and instructive.

What, then, has been revealed about Judeo-Christian marriage? Simply this: the relationship between a husband and wife embodies that between Jesus the Messiah and the People of God respectively. When Jesus returns, the marital bond between him and his people will be fully realised. But until then, God intends husbands and wives, as they are filled with the Spirit (Eph 5:18), to represent that bond.

As she relates to man, then, woman is a living image of ‘the Israel of God’ (Gal 6:16), the bride whom God has formed for his only-begotten Son.

This necessarily puts the NT’s gender hierarchy in perspective. One: it is functional, not ontological. Women are “given in marriage” simply because the People of God are given by God the Father to the Son as his bride. This naturally places the People in a place of subjection, but by no means suggests that God sees his People as mere objects.

Likewise, then, as a living picture of God’s People a woman isn’t given in marriage because it is her nature to be objectified. Rather, her occupying the lower rung in the dynamics of matrimony is an aspect of the prophetic function of Judeo-Christian marriage. That is, through her God declares to this present evil age that he has created for and gifted his Son with a glorious bride.

Two: the gender hierarchy is temporary, not eternal. Consider the sign of the Eucharist. Isaiah 25:6-10 tells us that, when the Son returns, he will host a lavish meal for his people (which NT scholars term “the messianic banquet”).[2] The Eucharist is but a picture of this moment, when Jesus will finally drink anew ‘the fruit of the vine’ with all his disciples gathered from all places and all times (Matt 26:29). When the real has come, the picture i.e. the Lord’s Supper as we know it, will be done away with.

Similarly, when the Son has returned and is reunited with his bride on earth, there will be no further need for a picture of their bond. Matrimony will cease, and with it the prophetic role that women are assigned within that framework. Indeed, Jesus himself notes that ‘in the resurrection [humans] neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven’ (Matt 22:30). On that day, the eternal status of women as ‘heirs of the gracious gift of life’ (2 Pet 3:7b) will be fully realised; their temporal status, dissolved.

All this in turn has consequences for how women should be treated in the Church now. Growing up, I heard preachers preach on how God intends his people to be strong in him. They were to walk filled with the Holy Spirit, to be wise in his wisdom, fearless in the face of evil, hardy in the face of suffering. I was taught that the Church was meant to be a glorious Church, for she was the Messiah’s representative and prophet in the world.

If this is the People whom women are meant to image, then that tells us what God expects. We – especially the husbands among us – should facilitate women’s flourishing in the things of God. Surely this is a point on which complementarians and egalitarians can at least agree. If we fail to give women the room and the empowerment to do so, we are surely missing it before God.

Paradoxically, then, women’s “lower” position in the marital-gender hierarchy points to their God-ordained destiny: to ‘be strong in the Lord and power of his might’ (Eph 6:10). Women should look like the glorious Church of Jesus Christ. May the men of God then fulfil their God-given responsibility to elevate women to that place. May the glorious Church have in our women a witness in this present evil age.

[1] See G.K. Beale and Benjamin L. Gladd, Hidden but Now Revealed: A Biblical Theology of Mystery (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2014).

[2] See Phillip J. Long, The Origin of the Eschatological Feast as a Wedding Banquet in the Synoptic Gospels (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2013).

Christopher is a historical theologian in training who researches early Christian beliefs and their Second-Temple Jewish roots. He is also interested in all things Bible. He earned an MTh and an MLitt from Trinity Theological College, Singapore.