The Christian Marriage
I have just been blessed by a most lively and invigorating narration of C.H. Spurgeon’s paper ‘The Christian Marriage.’ This short piece proved both enjoyable and convicting, and so I feel compelled to share these thoughts on my blog!
Spurgeon’s emphasis here is more directed, it seems, on the characters and passions of a Godly wife. As an unmarried man (who longs to enjoy God’s favor in a covenantal marriage!), these admonitions say very little to me concerning marital obligations; but as the bride of Christ, Spurgeon’s paper offers a most helpful guide to honoring Christ as my head, my redeemer, my all in all.
Read these paragraphs two or three times, study their meaning, and measure your own life as the bride of Christ by these tokens of marital felicity. Earthly marriage is only a picture, a blessed picture, of our covenantal fellowship with Christ in God. We must always consider the reality in Christ as our pattern and standard for living the Christian life in marriage.
“Sometimes we have seen a model marriage, founded on pure love, and cemented in mutual esteem. Therein, the husband acts as a tender head; and the wife, as a true spouse, realizes the model marriage-relation, and sets forth what our oneness with the Lord ought to be. She delights in her husband, in his person, his character, his affection; to her he is not only the chief and foremost of mankind, but in her eyes he is all-in-all; her heart’s love belongs to him, and him only. She finds sweetest content and solace in his company, his fellowship, his fondness; he is her little world, her Paradise, her choice treasure. At any time, she would gladly lay aside her own pleasure to find it doubled in gratifying him. She is glad to sink her individuality in his. She seeks no renown for herself; his honor is reflected upon her, and she rejoices in it. She would defend his name with her dying breath; safe enough is he where she can speak for him. The domestic circle is her kingdom; that she may there create happiness and comfort is her lifework; and his smiling gratitude is all the reward she seeks. Even in her dress, she thinks of him; without constraint she consults his taste and considers nothing beautiful which is distasteful to him.
A tear from his eye because of any unkindness on her part, would grievously torment her. She seeks not how her behavior may please a stranger, or how another’s judgment may approve her conduct; let her beloved be content, and she is glad. He has many objects in life, some of which she does not quite understand; but she be believes in them all, and anything she can do to promote them, she delights to perform. He lavishes love on her, and, in return, she lavishes love on him. Their object in life is common. There are points where their affections so intimately united that none could tell which is first and which is second. To watch their children growing up in health and strength, to see them holding posts of usefulness and honor, is their mutual concern; in this and other matters, they are fully one. Their wishes blend, their hearts are indivisible. By degrees, they come to think very much the same thoughts. Intimate association creates conformity; I have known this to become so complete that, at the same moment, the same utterance has leapt to both their lips.
Happy woman and happy man! If Heaven be found on earth, they have it! At last, the two are so blended, so engrafted on one stem, that their old age presents a lovely attachment, a common sympathy, by which its infirmities are greatly alleviated, and its burdens are transformed into fresh bonds of love. So happy a union of will, sentiment, thought, and heart exists between them, that the two streams of their life have washed away the dividing bank, and run on as one broad current of united existence till their common joy falls into the ocean of eternal felicity.”
What an unspeakably glorious thing! To partake in a covenantal union, for the praise and honor of God, a union which is in itself a picture of Christ’s redemption of his church. Joy! Joy! Joy unspeakable, and full of glory! Praise God for the gift of marriage!
Here are some very profitable and interesting quotes regarding the blessed gift of marriage:
Martin Luther:
“There is no more lovely, friendly, and charming relationship, communion, or company than a good marriage.”
“My Katie, is in all things so obliging and pleasing to me that I would not exchange my poverty for the riches of Croesus.”
“My dear son and my dear Kate. I have nothing [in worldly goods] to bequest to you, but I have a rich God. Him I leave to you. He will nourish you well.” (When he thought he was dying)
“Whoever finds himself unsuited to the celibate life should see to it right away that he has something to do and to work at; then let him strike out in God’s name and get married. A young man should marry at the age of twenty at the latest, a young woman at fifteen to eighteen; that’s when they are still in good health and best suited for marriage.”
“Marriage is the God-appointed and legitimate union of man and woman in the hope of having children or at least for the purpose of avoiding fornication and sin and living to the glory of God.”
“The ultimate purpose is to obey God, to find aid and counsel against sin; to call upon God; to seek, love, and educate children for the glory of God; to live with one’s wife in the fear of God and to bear the cross; but if there are no children, nevertheless to live with one’s wife in con- tentment; and to avoid all lewdness with others.”
“[Marriage] is just as necessary as the fact that I am a man, and more necessary than sleeping and waking, eating and drinking, and emptying the bowels and bladder.”
“Parents are sinning against God and human nature when they force their children to marry or accept a spouse for whom they have no desire. . . . Daily experiences clearly teach and show us what sort of trouble has come from forced marriages. . . . And even though God and human nature did not demand that marriage is to be unforced, a heart of fatherly and motherly affection toward children should refuse to tolerate anything but love and delight as the basis of marriage.”
“The greatest good in married life, that which makes all suffering and labor worth while, is that God grants offspring and commands that they be brought up to worship and serve him. In all the world this is the noblest and most precious work, because to God there can be noth- ing dearer than the salvation of souls.”
“This living together of husband and wife—that they occupy the same home, that they take care of the household, that together they produce and bring up children—is a kind of faint image and a remnant, as it were, of that blessed living together [in Eden].”
“You should think: ‘This child of man, this creature of God has been given to me by my Christ. May he be praised and glorified.’”
“With them God makes of your house a hospital, and sets you over them as chief nurse, to wait on them, to give them good words and works as meat and drink, that they may learn to trust, believe, and fear God. . . . O what a blessed marriage and home were that where such parents were to be found! Truly it would be a real church, a chosen cloister, yea, a paradise.”
“It is the highest grace of God, when love continues to flourish in married life. The first love is ardent, is an intoxication love, so that we are blinded and are drawn to marriage. After we have slept off our intoxication, sincere love remains in the married life of the godly; but the godless are sorry they ever married.”
“Christian love, should be a gushing, surging kind of love which overflows from the inner heart like a fresh stream or brook that is always in motion and never dries up. And this should be at the foundation and essence of our marriages.”
“When I was a boy, the wicked and impure practice of celibacy had made marriage so disreputable that I believed that I could not even think about the life of married people without sinning. Everybody was fully persuaded that anyone who intended to lead a holy life acceptable to God could not get married but had to live as a celibate and take the vow of celibacy. Thus many who had been hus- bands became either monks or priests after their wives had died. Therefore it was a work necessary and useful for the church when men saw to it that through the Word of God marriage again came to be respected and that it received the praises it deserved. As a result, by the grace of God now everyone declares that it is some- thing good and holy to live with one’s wife in harmony and peace.”
“I would not want to exchange my Kate for France nor for Venice to boot; to begin with (1) because God has given her to me and me to her; (2) because I often find out that there are more shortcomings in other women than in my Kate; and although she, of course, has some too, these are nonetheless offset by far greater virtues; (3) because she keeps faith and honor in our marriage relation.”
Others:
‘The husband, if his wife is a believer, should so love her that their life together may preach the marriage of Christ to His church.’ John Bunyan [25 Surprising Marriages, p. 379]
“Demographic trends, cultural shifts, and a weakening of the biblical concept of marriage have produced a situation in which marriage is in big trouble, even among many Christians… By any calculation, the statistics indicate that young adults are marrying much later in life than at any time in recent human history. As a matter of fact, demographers have suggested that this new pattern of delay in marriage has established a statistical pattern that in previous generations had been most closely associated with social crises like war and natural disaster.” Albert Mohler
Puritans:
Thomas Gataker (1574–1654) wrote, “There is no society more near, more entire, more needful, more kindly, more delightful, more comfortable, more constant, more continual, than the society of a man and wife, the main root, source, and original of all other societies.”
Over against the traditional Roman Catholic vilification of women as snares, John Cotton (1584–1652) wrote, “Women are creatures without which there is no comfortable living for man. . . . They [referring to the Roman Catholics] are a sort of blasphemers then who despise and decry them, and call them a necessary evil, for they are a necessary good.”
Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) wrote to his daughter Bridget: “Dear heart, let not thy love for thy spouse in any way cool thy desire for Christ. That which is most lovable in thy spouse is the image of Christ in him. Look to this and love it most and everything else for this.”
Cotton Mather (1663–1728) called his second wife “a most lovely creature and such a gift of Heaven to me and mine that the sense thereof . . . dissolves me into tears of joy.”
Jonathan Edwards’s (1703–1758) last words were of his wife Sarah: “Give my kindest love to my dear wife, and tell her that the uncommon union which has so long subsisted between us has been of such a nature as I trust is spiritual and therefore will continue forever.”
‘Every family ought to be a little church consecrated to Christ and wholly influenced and governed by His rules.’ Jonathan Edwards
“The end of the creation of God was to provide a spouse for His Son Jesus Christ that might enjoy Him and on whom He might pour forth His love. And the end of all things in providence are to make way for the exceeding expressions of Christ’s love to His spouse and for her exceeding close and intimate union with, and high and glorious enjoyment of, Him and to bring this to pass.
And therefore the last thing and the issue of all things is the marriage of the Lamb. And the wedding day is the last day, the day of judgment, or rather that will be the beginning of it. The wedding feast is eternal; and the love and joys, the songs, entertainments and glories of the wedding never will be ended. It will be an everlasting wedding day.” –Jonathan Edwards, “Miscellany #702″ in The “Miscellanies”: Entries Nos. 501-832 in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 18, Ed. Ava Chamberlain (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 298.