The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God

by Timothy J. Keller

God “established marriage for the welfare and happiness of humankind.”

that it has been instituted by God and that marriage was designed to be a reflection of the saving love of God for us in Jesus Christ.

That is why the gospel helps us to understand marriage and marriage helps us to understand the gospel.

It is a way for two spiritual friends to help each other on their journey to become the persons God designed them to be.

I believe all this, and yet there’s no relationship between human beings that is greater or more important than marriage.

“So if you are a reasonably well-educated person with a decent income, come from an intact family and are religious, and marry after twenty-five without having a baby first, your chances of divorce are low indeed.”11

Even more remarkably, married men have been shown to earn 10–40 percent more than do single men with similar education and job histories.

marriage provides a profound “shock absorber” that helps you navigate disappointments, illnesses, and other difficulties.

Paradoxically, it may be that the pessimism comes from a new kind of unrealistic idealism about marriage, born of a significant shift in our culture’s understanding of the purpose of marriage.

Protestants understood marriage to be given by God not merely to Christians but to benefit the entirety of humanity.

The meaning of life came to be seen as the fruit of the freedom of the individual to choose the life that most fulfills him or her personally. Instead of finding meaning through self-denial, through giving up one’s freedoms, and binding oneself to the duties of marriage and family, marriage was redefined as finding emotional and sexual fulfillment and self-actualization.

Marriage used to be about us, but now it is about me.

“Well, it started out great . . . beautiful face, great body, nice smile. Everything was going fine—until she turned around.” He paused ominously and shook his head. “. . . she had dirty elbows.”36

They do not see marriage as two flawed people coming together to create a space of stability, love, and consolation—a “haven in a heartless world,”

We never know whom we marry; we just think we do. Or even if we first marry the right person, just give it a while and he or she will change.

All spiritual and moral needs now become focused in one individual. . . . In one word, the love object is God. .

If our views of marriage are too romantic and idealistic, we underestimate the influence of sin on human life. If they are too pessimistic and cynical, we misunderstand marriage’s divine origin.

If we somehow manage, as our modern culture has, to do both at once, we are doubly burdened by a distorted vision. Yet the trouble is not within the institution of marriage but within ourselves.

an extraordinarily great, wonderful and profound truth that can be understood only with the help of God’s Spirit.

Jesus gave himself up for us. Jesus the Son, though equal with the Father, gave up his glory and took on our human nature (Philippians 2:5ff).

But further, he willingly

went to the cross and paid the penalty for our sins, removing our guilt and condemnation, so that we could be united with him (Romans 6:5...

He gave up his glory and power and became a servant. He died to his own interests and looked to our needs and in...

Jesus’s sacrificial service to us has brought us into a deep union with him and he with us. And that, Paul says, is the key not only to u...

But we must not stop there. In Ephesians 5, Paul shows us that even on earth Jesus did not use his power to oppress us but sacrificed everything to bring us into union with him. And this takes us beyond the philosophical to the personal and the practical. If God had the gospel of Jesus’s salvation in mind when he established marriage, then marriage only “works” to the degree that approximates the pattern of God’s self-giving love in Christ.

This is the secret—that the gospel of Jesus and marriage explain one another. That when God invented marriage, he already had the saving work of Jesus in mind.

Subordinating ourselves to him, however, is radically safe, because he has already shown that he was willing to go to hell and back for us. This banishes fears that loving surrender means loss of oneself.

“the mystery of the gospel is unveiled.”

How?

The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.

Only if you have learned to serve others by the power of the Holy Spirit will you have the power to face the challenges of marriage.

Jesus considered the teaching so important that he devoted much time to it on the night before he died.

After trying all kinds of other things, Christians have

learned that the worship of God with the whole heart in the assurance of his love through the work of Jesus Christ is the thing their souls were meant to “run on.”

If we look to our spouses to fill up our tanks in a way that only God can do, we are demanding an impossibility.

So only if you have the ministry of the Spirit in your life will you be fully furnished to face the challenges of marriage in general. And only if you are filled with the Spirit will you have all you need to perform the duty of serving your spouse in particular.

In verses 22–24, Paul says, controversially, that wives should submit to their husbands. Immediately, however, he tells husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church and “gave himself up for her” (25), which is, if anything, a stronger appeal to abandon self-interest than was given to the woman. As we shall see, each of these exhortations has a distinct shape—they are not identical tasks.

And yet each partner is called to sacrifice for the other in...

Whether we are husband or wife, we are not to live for ourselves but for the other. And that is the hardest yet single most important function o...

A servant puts someone else’s needs ahead of his or her own.

And if all believers are to serve each other in this way, how much more intentionally and intensely should husbands and wives have this attitude toward one another?

While Paul writes that the husband is “head” of his wife, whatever it means cannot negate the fact that he is also his wife’s Christian brother and bond-servant, according to Galatians 5:13.

“For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” ‭‭Galatians‬ ‭5:13‬ ‭ESV‬‬ https://bible.com/bible/59/gal.5.13.ESV

Husbands and wives must serve each other, must “give themselves up” for one another.

That does not destroy the exercise of authority within a human relationship, but it do...

I immediately realized, however, that I didn’t want to be served.

I wanted to serve, yes, because that made me feel in control. Then I would always have the high moral ground. But that kind of “service” isn’t service at all, only manipulation.

In each text, Paul links a willing “servant heart” to the gospel itself. And what is that gospel? It is that you are so lost and flawed, so sinful, that Jesus had to die for you, but you are also so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for you.

Do not manipulate

Now you are fully accepted and delighted in by the Father, not because you deserve it but only by free grace.

The ability to serve another person requires the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, to drive this very gospel into our hearts until it changes us.

Without the help of the Spirit, without a continual refilling of your soul’s tank with the glory and love of the Lord, such submission to the interests of the other is virtually impossible to accomplish for any length of time without becoming resentful.

That is, you only discover your own happiness after each of you has put the happiness of your spouse ahead of your own, in a sustained way, in response to what Jesus has done for you.