by Marcelo A. Tolopilo ©
The Marriage Relationship: The World’s Way vs. the Word’s Way
As you know, the family is under intense attack throughout the world. Much of the fierce aggression we observe is directed specifically at the marriage relationship. If the enemy can weaken the bond between husband and wife, or if he can outright destroy it, he can negatively impact the spiritual health of our homes and enfeeble the testimony of the church in the world. With that reality in mind we would like to dedicate the next several “Lighthouse” articles to consider and contrast some of the fallacies culture teaches us about marriage (“The World’s Way”) with the truth God provides to strengthen our marriage relationships (“The Word’s Way”).
The World’s Way: “Marriage is a 50/50 proposition”
We constantly hear the droning of our culture in regard to our marriages, don’t we? Just turn on your television, check your newsfeed, go to a movie, open your eyes and take your first conscious breath in the morning, and you will be bombarded with the world’s misguided counsel on marriage. For example …
The world tells us that marriage is a 50/50 proposition. Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? In other words, you need to expect your partner to pull his/her 50% of the load in the relationship, and when you verify their half of the deal, then you can proceed to fulfill your end of the bargain. That’s fair; it’s the American way. It’s the time-tested Reagan Doctrine, “Trust, but verify!” That’s great foreign policy. That shrewd piece of geopolitical wisdom worked like a charm with the former Soviet Union, but let me tell you something, it does not work well in marriage!
The problem with this 50/50 proposition is that the other person is usually waiting for you to fulfill your 50% of the contract before they budge significantly on their commitment. Hence you have two clearly entrenched sides in a stalemate waiting for the other to move; in essence, you have a divided house. Furthermore, who’s to say what 50% really looks like? That’s certainly debatable. After years of observation I can confidently say that this 50/50 mentality leads to suspicion, breeds selfishness, and will most certainly result in disappointment and emotional separation. The wisdom of this age tells us marriage is a 50/50 deal; sounds reasonable until you try to live by it. What does God say? What must we keep before us and submit to? What is God’s prescription and provision for believing couples?
The Word’s Way: “I’m all in!”
God tells us we have a new commandment to rule our relationships—including marriage—and it’s to “love one another” (John 13:34). By the way, in the next few articles we’re going to consider several biblical passages that pertain to all Christian relationships and that most certainly govern the marriage union. It kills me when people think that the “one another” passages in the New Testament apply to our interactions within the body of Christ, yet somehow not primarily to the marriage relationship. That’s absolutely false. For those of us blessed by God to be married, the marriage union is “ground zero” for relationships. The “one anothers” begin at home with our spouse and radiate outward to the members of our family and from there to the church. If we can’t apply these tenets at home, what leap in logic makes us think that we can put them to work in less intimate relationships? That’s the road to hypocrisy.
With that in mind, listen to these forceful and familiar words of the Lord Jesus from the Gospel of John. These truths apply to the marriage union as much as to all other Christian relationships. He said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34); “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you” (John 15:12); “This I command you, that you love one another” (John 15:17).
Note the command tone in these verses. This is not simply an important, or even strong suggestion to employ in Christian relationships. What we have before us is a divine imperative! God in the flesh issues a “commandment”—a word that could just as easily be translated “order”—to His followers. We have a new divine directive that must rule our relationships, and it is love.Far from being an aloof and harsh requirement, Christ’s Law is based upon the love with which the Lord Jesus loved us, and what kind of “love” is that? It is a self-sacrificing love. The Greek term employed in the three verses just mentioned—and many, many other passages in the New Testament—is the ubiquitous verb agapao which is defined ultimately by the remarkable example of Christ’s supreme love for His redeemed on the cross. This concept applied to us, therefore, means in order to rescue us from sin, Jesus didn’t simply love us sentimentally or when it was convenient or easy but with the full force of His redeeming actions. Does such a self-sacrificing love describe the way in which you behave (not feel, but act) toward your spouse?
My dear friends, we must love our life partners genuinely, sincerely from the heart with their welfare driving our decisions. Do you wake up in the morning asking God and yourself, “How can I meet my spouse’s needs? What specific thing can I do today to bless her/him; to encourage him/her in their walk with Christ, in their work, in their parenting, in their friendships?”
For some of us, loving our spouse like that may seem like a pretty radical approach. You may be thinking, “Whoa turbo! That’s hard to do, to live like that consistently.” Yes it is, but we have a command from the King, a labor of grace. He has revealed to us how we must live, and frankly for those of us who belong to the King this is not a strange doctrine or a foreign experience. This is the love with which Christ has loved us. We are commanded to imitate His magnificent love and not mimic the self-obsessed, 50/50 mongrelism the world calls love.
Let me ask you, did Jesus Christ love you 50% of the way? Does He say, “Meet me halfway and I’ll love you with 50% of my affections?” No, Christ loved us perfectly with 100% of divine love (John 13:1), and He calls us to reciprocate that love to others. What better place to begin than with our life partners. That’s God’s provision for our obedience. He tells us, ‘Do this! Align your marriage by this standard of sacrificial love and you will be walking in my provision for your marriage.’ Men and women, this is the kind of love that must drive our marriage relationships.
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