Firstly, we must understand the significance of marriage, and it’s place in our daily lives, as part of our worship.  This is difficult when believers are being misled by what is preached in many churches.

 

A local pastor told his congregation, ‘our marriage is the second most important relationship in our lives – second only to our relationship with God’.  While this may sound ‘spiritual’ to some, and the teaching may be a common one, it is completely false - it is immature and irresponsible. 

The truth is; our marriage is not second to our relationship to God but part of it. Since we belong to Christ and are commanded to live our lives for him, everything we do is part of our relationship with Him.  It says, “You are not your own, you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your Body.” (1 Cor. 6:19-20)  “For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” (Col. 3:2-3)  Our lives belong to Christ!  We should understand that everything we do is part of our relationship with Him.  

Our life in Christ is founded on having the faith to submit to him in all situations.  The way we maintain and honour marriage is part of our submission to Him.  The command (once again) is, “husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”  This is what we must do to maintain our relationship with Christ – honour the command! 

 

The Lord Jesus gave us a clear warning when he spoke to the Pharisees:  “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!  For Moses said, ‘Honour your father and mother’ and, ‘Anyone who curses his father and mother must be put to death’.  But you say that if a man says to his father and mother, ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have from me is Corban’ (that is, a gift devoted to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father and mother.  Thus you nullify the word of God by your own tradition that you have handed down.  And you do many things like that.” (Mark 7:9-13)

The Pharisees had decided that their relationship with their parents was secondary to their relationship with God.  So they decided to set aside the secondary relationship in order to give more time to the first.  They thought that they were honouring God by doing this.  Jesus clearly told them that they were wrong.  He told them that honouring their father and mother was part of their relationship with God.  They did not get closer to God by setting aside their relationship with their parents, but further from Him. 

If we allow ourselves to believe that our relationship with our spouse is only secondary to our relationship with Christ; then we also might be tempted to set it aside, just as the Pharisees did with their parents.

 

Sadly, it is becoming more common for Pastors to tell couples that it is acceptable to divorce, on the condition they both continue to attend church every Sunday.  In their eyes, attending church every Sunday is maintaining a relationship with Christ, which they see as the more important of the ‘two relationships’.  This is a completely absurd thing to teach. The purpose of meeting together is so that we can “spur one another on towards love and good deeds.” (Heb. 10:24)   We are told, “Encourage one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.  We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.  As has just been said:  Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.” (Heb. 3:13-15)  What is the point of attending church meetings if we are not encouraged to live our lives for Christ?  A man is not told to leave his mother and father so that he is able to attend weekly church meetings, but so that he will be “united to his wife”.

As we have already read, “Moses permitted you to divorce because your hearts were hard.” (Matt. 19:8)  And now we are told, “do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion".

 

It is clear that neither laws nor vows nor contracts can keep a couple together.  In Deut. 24, we read that men were giving their wives certificates of divorce and sending them away.  They were then re-marrying.

Is this what God intended?  Of course not!  “‘I hate divorce’, says the Lord God of Israel.”  (Mal. 2:16) 

 

Let’s try to look past all the tradition and the false teaching that we have been brought up to believe, and simply look at Scripture.  What does scripture say about marriage?

 

First of all, marriage is a gift from God, as we have already read:  “Each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.” (1 Cor. 7:7)

When man was created, he was alone in he garden of Eden.  It says, “It is not good for the man to be alone.   I will make a helper for him.” (Gen. 2:18).  So God did as he said, and made the woman for the man: “Then the Lord God made a woman out of the rib he had taken from the man, and he brought her to the man.” (Gen. 2:22)  The woman was made “for him”, so that he would not be alone.  “Woman” was created for “man” and God “brought her to the man”.   As it is written, “For man did not come from woman, but woman from man, neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.” (1 Cor. 11:8-9)  Woman was created for man.  Therefore, marriage is a gift from God!  As it is written, “He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favour from the Lord.” (Prov. 18:22)

Marriage is not about a ‘contract’.  It is a gift from God. We have received favour.  Success in marriage is only a matter of recognising and appreciating this blessing.

  

 According to scripture, the one thing that keeps a marriage together is “love”, and the one thing that tears it apart, is being “hard-hearted” (selfish and unforgiving).

A man is told to love his wife in the same way that Christ loved the church.  Can the church be separated from Christ’s love? 

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?  As it is written:

‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:35-39)

 

We are not held close to God by law or by a contract, but by love.

So it should (must) be with a man’s love for his wife.