Marriage is a gift from God through which he allows human beings to bear witness to and display the mystery of the good news of his love to us in Christ. That means the goal of marriage is to bear witness to the essence of the living God AND ultimately to bear witness to the story of redemption he has planned and is accomplishing to all of creation. Therefore, all human marriages are a metaphor of the mystery of the gospel. The gift of marriage, every time we see it, is a signpost pointing the way home to glory if we have the faith to see it.