The Meaning of Marriage (4/8)

THE MISSION OF MARRIAGE

Page 111

So here is Adam, created by God and put into the garden of paradise, and yet his aloneness is “not good”. The Genesis narrative is implying that our intense relational capacity, created and given to us by God, was not fulfilled completely by our “vertical” relationship with him. God designed us to need “horizontal” relationships with other human beings.

Page 118

The primary goal of Christian marriage is not social status and stability, as it was in ancient cultures, nor is it primarily romantic and emotional happiness, as it is in our culture today. Paul points husbands to Jesus’ sacrificial love toward us, his “bride”. But Paul does not stop there, he goes on to speak of the goal of that sacrificial love for his bride. It is “to sanctify her” (verse 26) to “present her to himself” in radiant beauty and splendor (verse 27a), to bring her to be perfectly “holy and blameless” (verse 27c). He wants the new creation for us! He wants to remove all spiritual stains, flaws, sins, and blemishes to make us “holy”, “glorious”, and “blameless”.

Page 119

In John 15:9-15 this is accomplished because he is our Divine Friend, but in Ephesians 5, he accomplishes this because he is our Divine Husband. In his redemptive work, Jesus is both Friend and Lover, and this is to be the model for spouse in marriage. Husband and wife are to be both lovers and friends to one another as Jesus is to us.

Page 120

What, then, is marriage for? It is for helping each other to become our future glory-selves, the new creations that God will eventually make us. The common horizon husband and wife look toward is the Throne, and the holy, spotless, and blameless nature we will have.

Page 121

Within this Christian vision for marriage, here’s what it means to fall in love. It is to look at another person and get a glimpse of the person God is creating, and to say, “I see who God is making you, and it excites me! I want to be part of that. I want to be partner with you and God in the journey you are taking to his throne. And when we get there, I will look at your magnificence and say, ‘I always knew you could be like this. I got glimpses on earth, but now look at you!’”

Page 122

Not so you can create the kind of person you want, but rather because you see what kind of person Jesus is making. When Michelangelo was asked how he carved his magnificence David, his reply is reputed to have been, “I looked inside the marble and just took away the bits that weren’t David.” When looking for a marriage partner, each must be able to look inside the other and see what God is doing and be excited about being part of the process of liberating the merging “new you”.

In this view of marriage, each person says to the other, “I see all your flaws, imperfections, weaknesses, dependencies. But underneath them all I see growing the person God wants you to be.”

Page 123

What keeps the marriage going is your commitment to your spouse’s holiness. You’re committed to his or her beauty. You’re committed to his greatness and perfection. You’re committed to her honesty and passion for the things of God. That’s your job as a spouse. Any lesser goal than that, any smaller purpose, and you’re just playing at being married.

Page 126

Screen first for friendship. Look for someone who understands you better than you do yourself, who makes you a better person just by being around them. And then explore whether that friendship could be a romance and a marriage.

Page 127

Your marriage must be more important to you than anything else. No other human being should get more of your love, energy, industry, and commitment than your spouse. God asks that a man leave his father and mother, as powerful as that relationship may have been, to forge a new union that must be an even more important and powerful force in his life.

Page 129

Over-commitment to parents is one problem that sinks many marriages. Arguably, over-commitment to children is even more of a problem.

Page 130

The best way for you to be a great mother to your daughter is by being a great wife to your husband. This is the main thing your daughter needs from you.

Salvation is a fresh start. Old things have passed away – behold, the new has come. And when through the gospel we enter into a marriage-like relationship with Jesus as our Divine Spouse, that means giving Christ the supremacy in our life (Colossians 1:15ff). In other words, Jesus asks for nothing than any spouse doesn’t ask for. “Put me first”, he says, “have no other pseudo-gods before me”. It is the same with marriage. Marriage won’t work unless you put your marriage and your spouse first, and you don’t turn good things, like parents, children, career, and hobbies, into pseudo-spouses.

Page 131

The reason it must have priority is because of the power of marriage. Marriage has the power to set the course of your life as a whole. If your marriage is strong, even if all the circumstances in your life around you are filled with trouble and weakness, it won’t matter. You will be able to move out into the world in strength. However, if your marriage is weak, even if all the circumstances in your life around you are marked by success and strength, it won’t matter. You will move out into the world in weakness. Marriage has the kind of power – the power to set course of your life. It has the power because it was instituted by God. And because it as that unequalled power, it must have an unequalled, supreme priority.

Source: The Meaning of Marriage: facing the complexities of commitment with the wisdom of God,  by Timothy Keller with Kathy Keller (2011)