MARRIAGE ANALOGY: Marriage is perhaps the most profound illustration Scripture gives us for the relationship we have with God. I recently wrote to a friend sharing this analogy from a woman’s perspective and how it clarifies so many aspects of our common salvation. Our point here is that getting saved is like getting married, and staying saved is like staying married. Shocking? Before you cover your ears, hear me out. Here’s what I said:
When we stand at the altar and declare our love and commitment to our husband-to-be, publicly, using our mouths, we are illustrating the principle of “believing in our hearts and confessing with our mouths that Jesus is Lord.” Our earthly husband is a picture of Christ, and Christian marriage is a picture of Christ and the Church and the mutual covenant we share.
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It is a picture of what we call “salvation” on an individual level, too. In a Christian marriage, a one-to-one proposition, the husband illustrates the Lord Jesus who redeemed us (bought us back from the enemy) by paying the "bride price." Our heavenly redemption was initiated and carried out by a God who loved us with an unfailing and sacrificial love.
By the same token, our earthly husband initiates the transaction of marriage (by His proposal to us) and, in the old days, by paying the purchase price required by the father. Our acceptance of his proposal constitutes an acceptance of lordship (as Sarah called Abraham “Lord”). That is why, in days gone by, women promised to “obey” their husbands. The illustration was still intact.
It is also an acceptance of his promise of protection, provision and sacrifical love. Men have an involuntary passion, one they don't have to dredge up, to keep their wives only to themselves, to fight for their honor and to defend them with their lives if necessary. This passion was put into them by God, who designed them, in their hearts, to reflect His passion for His own Bride. The Bride will be loved, honored, protected and richly provided for by her heavenly Groom. She in return will obey Christ, be subject to Him and will honor Him in all things. But she will also administrate His assets and help Him govern His universe, just as a godly wife does for her earthly husband.
When we recite our marriage vows, we promise to love, honor, cherish, obey (in the case of women), and keep ourselves only unto our spouse for the remainder of our lives. This is a mutual commitment and we have every expectation, when we enter into marriage, that our spouse will keep up their end of the bargain. This is God’s intent for marriage. That it be characterized by lifelong fidelity and oneness of heart and mind. That our unity would endure, but also grow more and more intimate, solid, and complete over time, as illustrated by the sanctification process. It takes two and the process is voluntary.
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Sometimes however, because we are fallen humans, we make promises to our “intended” with no intention of carrying them out. (This is not a true marriage anymore than it would be true salvation, akin to those John describes in the Bible as “those who were never of us.”) Or we make them sincerely enough, but later fail to adhere to them out of weakness, rebellion, covetousness or unforgiveness (akin to those who Paul says “left the faith”):
♦ Weakness arising from immaturity and a self-centered obsession with getting
our own needs met, at the expense of others if necessary.
♦ Rebellion arising from immaturity and arrogance, a childish demand to be in
control or to insist that we are right and know best. Or a refusal to bow
to the authority of our superiors in any setting.
♦ Covetousness arising from immaturity and a discontented ungratefulness that
threatens everyone in our life with potential rejection and abandonment.
♦ Unforgiveness arising from immaturity and a self-righteous myopia, the belief
that we are always innocent and our ire is always justified.
These are the same reasons people generally fail to adhere to their covenant of faith with God. Either they are insincere to start with, or they are weak (or double-minded like the seed that fell on rocky ground) with no firm root in themselves (Matt.13); or they are rebellious (in that they want their own will more than God’s will); or they are covetous (in that they want what this world has to offer more than they want what God has to offer, which is idolatry); or they are unforgiving toward God (in that they are unable to release their anger toward Him for not giving them what they want).
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When we humans enter into or entertain these kinds of attitudes in marriage, we usually end up forsaking our commitment. Sometimes we do that openly and honestly, by walking away. Sometimes we do it surreptitiously, by having hidden affairs of the heart or by betraying the marriage bed. Sometimes we try to stay in the marriage out of enlightened self-interest all the while abusing our spouses rather than loving them. We betray them in conversation, fail to obey or honor or cherish them. We undermine them by reflecting badly on them. We ruin their reputation and inflict great hurt on them without any remorse. And we do these same things with God. We pretend to love Him, while at the same time we pursue our own lusts and defame Him by our behavior. This has a direct impact on our salvation, either destroying it if we abandon Him or hindering our growth.
The thing to remember is that salvation, as illustrated by marriage, is a bilateral covenant. It is not unconditional (though God’s offer of forgiveness is). I would not make my marital commitment at the altar unless my spouse was willing to make his first. It is a mutual relationship, even if the roles are different. (The male is the initiator of love and the woman must choose whether to accept or reject the proposal, just as Christ is the initiator and we must respond.) Therefore, whenever one of the parties breaks their promise, the covenant itself is broken. You cannot have a one-party covenant (like you can have a one-party promise). No one can carry both ends of the stick.
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It is interesting that Jesus uses infidelity as the one criterion for the dissolution of marriage. It is the ultimate betrayal. It requires a deliberate decision to act against the covenant. But remember, Jesus likened “looking at a woman to lust after her” with adultery— a strong indication that, on a spiritual level, it’s the heart attitude that matters. It is the heart God evaluates to determine whether or not we’ve rejected Him.
The problem is, we think we can have a heart of love toward God and not behave accordingly. We say silly things like, “Well, only God knows my heart.” Not true. Everyone knows your heart by what you do and say. “Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.” “As a man believes in his heart, so is he.” We don’t have to verbally deny Christ to have turned away from Him. Our actions and our lusts announce it loud and clear. It is not possible to love both God and the world. It is not possible to serve both the flesh and the spirit. Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt because her heart was attached to this world. God won’t settle for a half-hearted Bride. That is why Jesus speaks loud and clear to the churches of Revelation. “You have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you, and will remove your lamp stand out of its place—unless you repent.”
Fact is, we all sin on our way to sanctification. And marriage illustrates this, too. We all sometimes fail in the way that we treat our spouses on a daily basis. Sometimes we snap at them; sometimes we fail to carry out a task we promised; sometimes we withhold our affection. But if we don’t acknowledge our sin, repent and ask forgiveness, the relationship will gradually break down. Offenses create walls, distrust, withdrawal. And rightly so. If we don’t repair the breaches, we suffer the consequences, which may very well culminate in the ultimate breach, infidelity. Adultery is a solid indicator that the heart has turned aside. And so God uses it to illustrate the ultimate rejection. But it’s an illustration, in the same way that marriage is an illustration.
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God expects us to repent for our sins, to make it right between us, on a daily basis, to keep the destroyer at bay. (That is why we cannot let the sun go down on our anger. When we do, we give the devil a foothold, a place from which he can launch further incursions into our heart.) God forgives us readily when we repent from the heart, and He expects us to do the same with others in His Body. How can we have fellowship with His Body if we are in unforgiveness? How can we expect forgiveness from our spouse (or Jesus) when we won’t grant it? God makes it very clear that this is a two-way street. We must forgive if we expect to be forgiven.
So, when two people stand at the altar and declare their love and commitment to each other for all to see, everyone expects them to carry it out. They are expected to love and forgive each other on a daily basis. However, if six months down the road, one of the parties begins an affair, should the faithful spouse allow the offender to continue sleeping in their bed, in effect saying, “Hey, it’s okay, you can have her and you can have me, too!” No way! No one in their right mind would accept that. Nor should they! We humans have enough common sense to see this, but we expect that God is fool enough to settle for our infidelity! How insulting to the all-righteous One! That He should be such a chump. Paul tells us “God is not mocked!” and yet we mock Him daily with our half-hearted love affair.
Somehow we’ve gotten the idea that marriage is an unconditional covenant. That what we’re really saying when we stand at the altar is, “I promise to love you and honor you and cherish you and keep myself only unto you for life, so help me God. You can beat me; you can cheat on me; you can lie to me, and I’ll still love you! I’ll still be here for you! I’ll never forsake you no matter what you do to me! My love is unconditional!”
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How absurd! How ludicrous! How foolish. We think marriage will work if only one of the parties commits. If only one of them tries. If only one of them keeps their promises. That is what “unconditional” means. I’ll commit even if you don’t! I’ll carry both ends of the stick. Impossible! And yet we think that is what God says to His intended. “I love you so much and I’ve prepared a place in My home just for you. A beautiful place, with every comfort you can imagine. And you know what? You can lie to Me, you can abuse Me, you can cheat on Me. It doesn’t matter. I’ll still let you into my House. I’ll still give you first place in My heart and the best suite in the mansion. I'll even let you abuse my friends. My wife! No matter what you do to Me. I can forgive anything, even if you hate Me, it doesn’t matter. I’m bigger than that.”
That’s what the false doctrine of eternal security tells us. We can pray a sinner’s prayer and from that point forward, it doesn’t matter what we do or don’t do, because we’re sealed in Christ and no power on heaven or earth can undo God’s one-way commitment to us. In fact, Calvinism says we actually had nothing to do with our own commitment anyway. It was God who gave us the faith to commit in the first place, so it’s not even our own faith. It’s God’s faith working through us on His behalf. Basically we’re just robots. God is making us love Him.
What kind of heaven would this be? A puppet stage devoid of genuine love, no true friendship, no give-and-take, no honesty.
Eternal security proponents confuse God’s offer of salvation with its application. God does not apply salvation until we repent, and it’s a process. We have been saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved. Just like marriage is a process. We got married. We are married. And we will continue to be married (for life). As long as we remain faithful, repentant, committed, and obedient. Anything less makes marriage a mockery and undermines its longevity. And anything less makes heavenly marriage a mockery as well. It's about the heart. And the heart is reflected in our deeds.
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