07 The Nature of Love in Christian Marriage
The Nature of Love in Christian Marriage When Paul writes, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church" he tells husbands to have a love for their wives patterned after the love of Christ for His people. And how did Christ love? He gave of Himself. This is exemplified by the most famous verse in the Bible, John 3:16 : For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son
God loved - and so He gave. This godly love gives, this godly love has the interest of the other at heart, this godly love yields its own rights in order to show love to the other.
Jesus exemplifies this type of love in numerous ways. Consider two Scripture passages: John 13:3-5; John 13:12-15 and Philippians 2:2, 4-8. 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, 4 rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. 5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. . . . 12 When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, "Do you understand what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I Amos 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. (ESV)
Verse 3 is amazing. Jesus is fully conscious of His status, of His glory, of His authority. Indeed, He reminds His disciples of some aspects of His status in verse 13. Now, most men of exalted position act exactly opposite to the way Jesus acts here. Knowing their status, they sit and wait to be served. Knowing their importance, they command others to serve them. They have a right, so they would say, to this service; certainly Jesus had that right. But Jesus, knowing His status, acts like a servant. Indeed, on a human level, He demeans Himself. And then He drives the point home: We too are to serve each other, we too are to be willing to demean ourselves for the purpose of serving others. This holds true for all Christians, but it holds particularly within marriage (and within marriage, particularly for husbands, as we will discuss below). The love which Christ models is a love that serves, doing good for the other at one’s own expense.
Paul gives us more of the background of Jesus’ actions in Php 2:2 make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. . . . 4 do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. 5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant (a slave), and being made in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (NASB)
Jesus was highly exalted, the second person of the Godhead. Yet He was willing to give up all that glory and honor, He was willing to empty Himself of that majesty and power, yielding the form of God and taking on the form of a slave. Even as a human, He gave up his right to be served by His disciples (as we saw above), and died a terrible death on the cross. Jesus loved and gave, not because of anything inherently good in us, not because we were attractive or shared some interest with him, but simply because He loved us. In addition to these two examples of love in action, Paul gives us a beautiful description of godly love in 1 Corinthians 13:1-13. Here is my rather wooden, literal translation of verses 1-9a, which tries to maintain both the word order and the sense of the Greek; words in parentheses are alternative translations:
1 If in the tongues of men I speak - even of angels - but I have not love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 Even if I have prophecy and I know all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to move mountains, but love I have not, I am nothing. 3 And if I feed the poor with all those things which are mine, and if I give my body in order to be burned, but love have not, I am benefited not at all.
4 Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy (have jealousy), it does not boast, it is not puffed up, 5 it is not rude (ill-mannered), it does not seek its own, it does not become provoked (irritated), it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 It does not rejoice in evil (unrighteousness), but rejoices together with the truth. 7 It covers over (endures) all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures (bears up under) all things. 8 Love never falls.
Patient. Kind. Not desiring something owned by another. Not arrogant, not thinking highly of oneself. Not telling others how great you are. Well-mannered, treating the other with respect. Not selfish in any way. Not provoked or irritated, regardless of what the other person does. Not hanging on to old hurts and past disappointments, but forgiving from the heart. Not gossiping or telling demeaning stories about each other, but keeping confidential what you say and do among each other. Looking at the good in each other, and believing that God is doing a good work in your spouse, and that he or she will become what God intends him or her to be. No matter what the trials - financial, physical, mental - godly love continues, enduring the difficulty, never falling. This is the pattern for love in marriage. As we have seen, we should enjoy our sexual relationship and we should enjoy friendship with each other. But the fundamental love in Christian marriage is this godlylove, a love that gives, a love that serves. “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church.” We are to give of ourselves, we are to die to self as we serve our wives.
Paul makes this type of love the primary requirement of the husband. Look again at Ephesians 5:28-29: 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it (ESV)
(The NIV for verse 29 is misleading. One might “feed and care for” a pig; one would not “nourish and cherish” a pig. While “feed and care for” is a possible translation, surely we should take account of the context when translating and use words with connotations appropriate to that context.)
We husbands are one with our wives, one body with them. Think of a man who is an athlete. How does he treat his body? He exercises it so that it can reach its potential; he feeds it well; he provides appropriate clothing and shelter for it; if it begins to hurt or ache, he soothes the pain in the best way he knows how; if the pain becomes worse, he seeks the help of his athletic trainer or doctor. The athlete must take good care of his body.
Just so, the husband for the wife. We must look out for our wives: are they thriving? Are they growing spiritually? Are they developing their minds? Are they healthy physically? Am I, the husband, protecting her from things that might harm her? Am I aware of her hurts, her sorrows, the pressures she feels? What am I doing to soothe, comfort, and cure her? Do I need to seek out help for her from outside the home? The husband must nourish and cherish his wife.
Question: We know that husbands are to love their wives; should wives show similar love to their husbands? Surely this is so. So why doesn’t Paul command wives to love their husbands rather than emphasizing their submission and respect? I believe Paul here is commanding each marriage partner to do what is hardest for him or her. Husbands are most tempted to dominate their wives, and thus are commanded to love sacrificially; wives are most tempted to look down on their husbands, so are commanded to submit to them and respect them (we’ll come back to this point and elaborate on it when we discuss the nature of maleness and femaleness). So in marriage there is a place for erotic love, and a place for friendship love. But the greatest of all loves is a godlike love, a love that gives, a love that does not demand or hold onto rights, but has the good of the other at heart. Does Godly Love Seek Its Own?
Please at this point read from John Piper’s book Desiring God, chapter 4 (online at
[Love] is not a resolute abandoning of one’s own good with a view solely to the good of the other person. It is first a deeply satisfying experience of the fullness of God’s grace, and then a doubly satisfying experience of sharing that grace with another person.
[Quoting C.S. Lewis] Money is not the natural reward of love; that is why we call a man mercenary if he marries a woman for the sake of her money. But marriage is the proper reward for a real lover, and he is not mercenary for desiring it. . . . The proper rewards are not simply tacked on to the activity for which they are given, but are the activity itself in consummation.
Love is the overflow of joy in God that meets the needs of others. The overflow is experienced consciously as the pursuit of our joy in the joy of another. We double our delight in God as we expand it in the lives of others. If our ultimate goal were anything less than joy in God, we would be idolaters and would be no eternal help to anyone. Therefore, the pursuit of pleasure is an essential motive for every good deed.