Jesus' Wife

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless (Ephesians 5:25-27).” Did Jesus have a wife? I guess that is the question of the day, albeit an old question, after the discovery of a fragment of a papyrus text that allegedly offers evidence that Jesus was married has apparently  been “authenticated.” If something was confirmed to have been written about you hundreds of years after you lived, does it mean that what was written is true? No. It just means that something was written about you. As one Christian writes, “What’s all the recent excitement over? Well, the fragment itself is just a few unfinished sentences, and the one people are talking about states, “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife . . .’” That’s it! That’s all of their evidence—but some skeptics believe this may shake the foundations of Christianity. Our culture is certainly working hard to discredit the Word of God.” 

This only should worry a Christian if they aren’t secure in their faith. This fragment was apparently written in the fourth century A.D.; some three hundred years after Jesus walked the earth and way too late to have been written by someone who was an eyewitness to His life. The Bible never mentions Jesus having a wife. You have four Gospels written about Jesus’ ministry and none of them mention Him being married. That same Christian continues, “On the Cross, Jesus commended His mother to the care of John. If Mary Magdalene was His wife (as proposed by many who claim Jesus was married), why didn’t He provide for her care at this time since she was standing with Mary and John? If He was married to someone other than Mary Magdalene, then where was this woman during His ministry? Where was she during His Crucifixion? What about after He rose from the dead? Would she not have been among the 120 disciples in Jerusalem waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost? Surely someone would tell us about Jesus appearing to His wife. Why doesn’t she ever make an appearance in the Gospels or the remainder of the New Testament?” You know what? If Jesus did have a wife, the next question would be if He had children. That leads to another question about whether or not there are half God and half human descendants walking around and on and on. And we don’t even want to speculate about people trying to worship His wife. We have enough of that heresy with people worshiping His mother. Ultimately, this is all a distraction to keep people focused on anything other than who Jesus is and what He came to do. However, there is a sense in which Jesus is married.  “I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him (2 Corinthians 11:2).” The Apostle Paul refers to believers as being promised to “one husband;” Jesus Christ. In a spiritual sense born again Christians are the “bride” and Jesus Christ is our “husband.” Jesus Christ is God in the flesh that came to save mankind by dying on the cross for our sins and rising from the dead to offer us the life of God.  When an individual accepts Jesus Christ as their savior they become united with Christ. That is why when Paul was encouraging husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the Church, he did so in the context of equating the Church to Christ’s bride. The bride that He loves so much that He gave Himself for “her” in order to cleanse “her” and present “her” holy and blameless. Therefore, unbelievers should realize that why they try to prove that Jesus had a wife in order to diminish Him and those who trust in Him for salvation, they miss the fact that He came to offer them the chance to be His “bride.”