Was Jesus Married?

Wives throughout history have told their husbands, “You’re the best husband ever.”

Except for my wife.

Instead, she tells me, “You’re the most important man in my life – except for Jesus.”

As a Presbyterian Pastor, Jesus is the most important man in my life as well.  Nevertheless, there’s a side of me that wishes I held to the Roman Catholic doctrines of the Assumption and the Immaculate Conception so that I could respond, “You’re the most important woman in my life – next to the Virgin Mary.”

According to a new manuscript, though, a wife may no longer be able to tell her husband that he’s the best.  The reason for this change; the manuscript implies that Jesus Himself may have been married.  And if I can’t even compete with the traditional bachelor Jesus, what chance will I have with a married Jesus?

The manuscript, entitled The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife, is a 4^th century Coptic text (from Southern Egypt) and no bigger than a business card.  Though much of the manuscript is unreadable, one part very legibly reads “Jesus said to them ‘my wife…’”.

The idea that Jesus was married is nothing new.  The plot of the bestselling book The Da Vinci Code is centered on the idea that Jesus was not only married – to Mary Magdalene, who else? – but that He had a child with her who became the Holy Grail. 

So is the evidence reliable? Was Jesus married?

The answer is yes, but not in the way you think.

Though The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife is in the early stages of being examined, it gives some indication that it is a Gnostic Gospel.  Other famous Gnostic Gospels include The Gospel of Phillip, the Gospel of Judas, and The Gospel of Mary Magdalene.

Here’s a summary of what Gnostics believed in contrast to Christianity.

1. The Gnostics held to a Greek worldview as opposed to the Jewish worldview of Christianity.
2. Gnostics said the physical realm was bad and the spiritual realm was good.  Implication - God could not take physical form as Jesus Christ because it would be the good (God the spirit) combining with bad (the physical world). 
3. Gnostics believed that salvation came from escaping the prison of our physical bodies through death, thus rejecting the Christian view of the resurrection from the dead. 
4. Gnostics had secret or hidden knowledge received through meditation, while the Church had revelation that was to be proclaimed openly and freely.

An argument people often make is that the church suppressed these Gnostic works to impose the books they wanted as canonical, or inspired from God.  This argument is incorrect.  From the early days of Christianity, individual churches had their own informal list of Scriptures which were held to be canonical, of which the Gnostic works were excluded.  Therefore, to argue that the Gnostic works should have been included in the official Church canon would be the equivalent of arguing that historians are being remiss for not including Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter in the official biographies of our 16^th president. 

If this text proves to be Gnostic, it would be unreliable as a source of information as to Christ’s marital status.

That being said, the New Testament is canonical, it is reliable in its depiction of Jesus, and it does say Jesus was, and continues to be, married.  His bride is not Mary Magdalene, though, but the Church.

Ephesians 5:31-32 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”  This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

Revelation 19:6-9 “…For the marriage of the Lamb (Jesus) has come, and his Bride (the Church) has made herself ready;  it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.   And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb (Jesus).”

Our relationship to Jesus is a marriage, and this significance can best be illustrated by a statement a friend made before his wedding: “I’m not just marrying her; I’m also marrying her computer.”  The point he was making, in a crass sort of way, is that when you marry someone, what they have is now yours.  When Jesus married the Church, He also married her sins and the punishment of death those sins deserved.  He, on the other hand, merited eternal life, and His Church received these blessings by embracing Him as her husband.

Okay, so the Church is not exactly a trophy a wife.  But the Church can say with utmost confidence that she has the best husband ever.