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

by Timothy J. Keller

Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation.39

It is the illusion that if we find our one true soul mate, everything wrong with us will be healed; but that makes the lover into God, and no human being can live up to that.

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.

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.

God’s saving love in Christ, however, is marked by both radical truthfulness about who we are and yet also radical, unconditional commitment to us.

No one lives a life of continual joy in God, of course. It is not automatic and constant. If that were the case, Paul would not have had to start verse 18 with an imperative, exhorting them literally to “go on being filled with the Spirit!”

It means taking your mind off yourself and realizing that in Christ your needs are going to be met and are, in fact, being met so that you don’t look at your spouse as your savior.

the Bible teaches that the essence of marriage is a sacrificial commitment to the good of the other.

Some people ask who they are and expect their feelings to tell them. But feelings are flickering flames that fade after every fitful stimulus.

It is a mistake to think that you must feel love to give it.

No, he was in agony, and he looked down at us—denying him, abandoning him, and betraying him—and in the greatest act of love in history, he stayed.

This new self is always a work in progress, and sometimes the clouds of the old self make it almost completely invisible. But sometimes the clouds really part, and you see the wisdom, courage, and love of which you are capable. It is a glimpse of where you are going.

Romance, sex, laughter, and plain fun are the by-products of this process of sanctification, refinement, glorification.

But the gospel transforms us so our self-understanding is no longer based on our performance in life. We are so evil and sinful and flawed that Jesus had to die for us. We were so lost that nothing less than the death of the divine Son of God could save us. But we are so loved and valued that he was willing to die for us. The Lord of the universe loved us enough to do that! So the gospel humbles us into the dust and at the very same time exalts us to the heavens. We are sinners but completely loved and accepted in Christ at the same time.

word ’ezer. “Helper” connotes merely assisting someone who could do the task almost as well without help. But ’ezer is almost always used in the Bible to describe God himself. Other times it is used to describe military help, such as reinforcements, without which a battle would be lost. To “help” someone, then, is to make up what is lacking in him with your strength.6 Woman was made to be a “strong helper.”

my submission in marriage was a gift I offered, not a duty coerced from me.

Men see women’s need for “interdependence” as sheer dependence, and women see men’s need for independence as pure ego.

I am single because God is so abundantly good to me, because this is his best for me.”

Marriage was created to be a reflection on the human level of our ultimate love relationship and union with the Lord. It is a sign and foretaste of the future kingdom of God.

If single Christians don’t develop a deeply fulfilling love relationship with Jesus, they will put too much pressure on their dream of marriage, and that will create pathology in their lives as well.

The husband’s authority (like the Son’s over us) is never used to please himself but only to serve the interests of his wife.