Marital Union with Jesus: the Ultimate White Elephant Gift Exchange?

Last updated on: March 24, 2017 at 6:20 pm by Paul Louis Metzger

Marital Union with Jesus: the Ultimate White Elephant Gift Exchange? 2017-03-24T18:20:48-07:00 Paul Louis Metzger

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The Mystic Marriage of Christ and the Church, Creative Commons

Have you ever participated in a “White Elephant” gift exchange at Christmas? Here’s how Secret Santa defines the game:

The game derives its name from the term white elephant as defined by something of dubious or limited value or an object no longer of value to its owner but of value to others. Thus, in its basic form the game calls for people to bring “gag” gifts or gifts they received that they have no use for.

Whenever I participate in this festive game, I bring a ‘gift’ of no lasting value to myself in the attempt to exchange it for an object of greater personal appeal, albeit one that is no longer valuable to the other person.

The Protestant Reformer Martin Luther referred to our spiritual marital union with Jesus as a “joyful exchange.” Union with Jesus was no game for Luther, regardless of what he might have thought of White Elephant gifts. What was involved in Luther’s notion of union with Jesus as a joyful exchange?

Luther claimed that believers in Jesus are simultaneously righteous and sinful (simul justus et peccator). In Jesus, we are righteous through our union with him. In ourselves, we are sinful. Luther gets at this idea in The Freedom of a Christian when he writes,

Who then can fully appreciate what this royal marriage means? Who can understand the riches of the glory of this grace? Here this rich and divine bridegroom Christ marries this poor, wicked harlot, redeems her from all her evil, and adorns her with all his goodness. Her sins cannot now destroy her, since they are laid upon Christ and swallowed up by him. And she has that righteousness in Christ, her husband, of which she may boast as of her own and which she can confidently display alongside her sins in the face of death and hell and say, “If I have sinned, yet my Christ, in whom I believe, has not sinned, and all his is mine and all mine is his,” as the bride in the Song of Solomon (2:16) says, “My beloved is mine and I am his.”[1]

We must always keep in mind both sides of this dialectical reality (“dialectial” is taken here to refer to two contrasting concepts or images that are equally true at the same time). No matter how broken and impure we are, we are whole and pure in Jesus; from the other side, no matter how moral and content in our good deeds we appear to be, we are in desperate need of him. In view of this dialectic, there’s no need for cringing and hiding from the gods of this world system that condemn us for our various missteps, no matter how slight the downward turn; nor is there a place for hiding behind moralistic therapeutic deities that only help us seemingly moral believers when we need a pat on the back, backrub, or gentle nudge. To commandeer an old saying, Jesus comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.

Not only does Jesus comfort those who are desperate for him, but also he flatters us. God gives us his very best—by no means is Jesus a white elephant gift! And while we might consider ourselves worthless commodities to be swapped in the game of life, Jesus’ love for us and identification with us makes us infinitely valuable. He gives us himself in this loving marital union, which is ours through the Spirit of grace by faith. This divine gift signifies infinite worth and significance. Certainly, we get the better end of the deal, as Jesus acquires our damaged goods.

In Jesus, we are no longer damaged goods. If only those who confess faith in Jesus would realize how precious spiritual marital union with him really is! If we could grasp the invaluable nature of this relationship, we would never be tempted to swap Jesus or ourselves out, even in a Christmas gift exchange.

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[1]Martin Luther, “The Freedom of a Christian,” in Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, ed. Timothy F. Lull. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989, page 604. See also Romans 7:1-6.

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