The modern world of self-centeredness and self-exaltation and self-expression has taken the normal [50]-year process of falling in and out of love and turned it into a [50]-year process of multiple divorces and remarriages. That pattern has not and will not bear the fruit of joy. It leaves a trail of misery in soul and misery along the generations.
Marriage is the hardest relationship to stay in and the one that promises glorious, unique, durable joys for those who have the character to keep their covenant. That’s what I mean by joy.
Significance
Here’s what I mean by significance. God offers to husbands and wives the highest possible significance for their marriage relationship by showing them what its greatest and most glorious meaning is — namely, the replication in the world of the covenant relationship between Christ and his bride, the church.
That’s what the highest meaning of marriage is. There is no higher, more glorious, more significant conception of marriage than the one that Paul portrays in Ephesians 5. Marriage is a parable of the greatest, strongest, deepest, sweetest, richest relationship in the universe — the blood-bought union between Christ, the Son of God, and his bride, the church. That’s the meaning, that’s the significance of marriage.
I would just say to this young man that you are acting or about to act on one of the lowest views of marriage — not one of the highest, but one of the lowest views of marriage. If you divorce because you don’t feel love anymore, there is nothing noble, nothing great, nothing beautiful, nothing high, nothing truly significant about such a motive.
What does it say about Christ based on that model of a man’s commitment in marriage? What does it say if he forsakes his wife because he doesn’t feel like staying anymore? What does it say about Christ? That’s the issue.
Marriage is an act of worship. It’s a display of the price and the preciousness of the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church. Covenant keeping in marriage glorifies Christ and the blood he shed to possess a bride forever. We cannot even conceive of a greater significance of marriage than the one God has given.
Ownership
Lastly, the word ownership. What do I mean by ownership? What I mean by ownership is that the union between a man and a woman isn’t theirs to break. They didn’t create it. They can’t break it. It’s not theirs. Jesus said, “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Mark 10:9).
It’s another sign of the man-centeredness and contemporary self-centeredness of Christianity that a young couple would have the mindset that they created the union called marriage and, therefore, they can break it. They didn’t create it. They can’t break it. God made it. God breaks it with death, or, as I think Paul would say, “You are free to break your marriage covenant when Christ breaks his covenant with his bride.”
For the sake of maximum, long-term joy; for the sake of the deepest and highest significance; and for the sake of the maker and owner of your union, keep your covenant. Oh, what joy lies ahead beyond anything you can presently imagine for those who keep their covenant, even when their hearts are broken.
**This article appeared originally on Desiring God.
