Theology for Marriage: Five Doctrinal Applications

My wife and I entered the world of marital and pre-marital ministry the better part of two decades ago, with expressions of that service in our church context as well as in a course I regularly teach to undergrads.^[1] Over those years, we’ve worked with dozens upon dozens of exuberant dating and engaged couples, many of whom have later boomeranged back in our direction with requests for counsel and encouragement as the joyful day of “saying the vow” gave way to other days that required “paying” the “for worse” part of the vow. At times, we’ve partnered in service to couples in severe marital crisis. And of course, we’ve had to learn to navigate the experience of both delight and difficulty in our own marriage.

One of the things that has stood out to us in these varied ministries is just how vitally sustaining the embrace of good theology is to the formation and growth of healthy marriages. In our day, perhaps like never before, it is plainly evident that we need a robust theology of marriage. But for those entering or already in the covenant of marriage, it is equally urgent to emphasize just how much Christian couples need theology for conducting their marriages well.

For my purposes in this article, I’m assuming agreement with a standard definition of marriage like this one from John Stott, “Marriage is an exclusive heterosexual covenant between one man and one woman, ordained and sealed by God, preceded by a public leaving of parents, consummated in sexual union, issuing in a permanent mutually supportive partnership, and normally crowned by the gift of children.”^[2] From that shared commitment then, my primary intent is to make a number of gospel-based doctrinal applications that offer sustenance for those who would seek to walk well together in marriage. While a great deal more could be said about each one, for those who are doing married life, or doing marriage ministry, a doctrinal flyover, like the one offered here, can be a significant at-a-glance resource for faithfully navigating the multitude of days that follow the making of the marital vow.^[3] We’ll begin with a reflection on the cornerstone of the theology of marriage before proceeding to sketch some ways that cornerstone gives rise to a robust theology for marriage.

1. Redemptive History and the Meaning of Marriage

The significance of marriage in the Bible is initially evident in the way that it structurally frames the beginning (Gen 2:15-25), the climax (Eph 5:22-31), and the end (Rev 19:6-9, 21:1-4) of the biblical storyline. Those markers, in turn, draw our attention to the fact that something that includes, yet also transcends, human marriage is going on in the story of redemption. At the same time that the Scriptures declare something beautiful about the place of marriage in the story of redemption, they are also full of post-Fall examples of marriage — even among the heroes of the faith — that are mingled with sin, heartbreak, and grief.^[4] Thus, it is readily evident from Scripture that the effects of the Fall not only devastate our relationship with God, but ravage our relationships with others as well.^[5]

The point from the outset then, is that when it comes to marriage, we must look to where our hope is rooted, namely in how God designed marriage ultimately to point beyond itself, as opposed to regarding marriage as an end in itself.^[6] To that end, the central meaning of marriage is found in its depiction of Christ’s union with his bride, the church (Eph 5:28-32).^[7] Therefore, the couple’s central pursuit is to re-enact that gospel relationship in one another’s lives, which both serves to magnify Christ and minister to the couple’s deepest need.^[8] Put differently, little “m” marriage — the couple’s union — matters chiefly because it was designed to reflect and magnify Capital “M” marriage, namely Christ’s union with his church.

This is Paul’s primary point when he quotes and interprets Genesis 2:24 in Ephesians 5:31-32,

“‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”

In stating that marriage, from Eden forward, is a “mystery,” Paul’s point is not that marriage is hard to understand, but that it has always pointed to the most profound truth of Christ’s union with the church, even though this revelation is only made known following the incarnate work of Christ.^[9]

The central point that marriage was fundamentally designed to reflect Christ’s relationship to his church is also indirectly demonstrated in Jesus’ teaching on divorce in Matthew 19. Following Jesus’ exchange with the Pharisees on the matter of divorce and remarriage in verses 4–9, the disciples reacted vigorously to Jesus’ teaching, exclaiming, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry” (Matt 19:10). Their comment betrays a lack of understanding of the God-centered meaning of marriage.^[10] They were shocked at that moment by Jesus’ high standard of marital commitment because they did not yet see that the worst thing about divorce is the way it misrepresents Jesus’ commitment to his bride.

The upshot of all this, of course, is that the meaning of marriage is both deeply theological and deeply practical. To the degree that a couple’s marriage centers itself on magnifying Christ’s relationship to the church (e.g., patterning the gospel to one another time and again as they point one another regularly to Christ, confess sin, receive confession, practice forgiveness, intercede for one another, rejoice in one another’s progress in faith, etc.), that marriage will not only experience growth in fulfilling its fundamental purpose, but it will do so by drawing on its most enduring strength. In so doing, couples can come to experience and reflect the goodness of being fully known and unconditionally loved — a glorious reality that is transcendently true for Christ’s bride on account of the Gospel.^[11]

2. Justification and Marriage

Sometimes, when couples begin carefully considering the Christ-centered meaning of marriage, their initial reaction is one of both encouragement and confusion — encouragement as to the Christ-magnifying essence of marriage, but confusion as to what it means, practically speaking, to reflect the gospel of Christ in their relationship. It’s at this point that the doctrine of justification has immense practical relevance to marriage.

For the couple, the wedding day is a lot like the day of justification for the sinner, in that both legally establish us as something we, as yet, have no idea how to be, experientially speaking. Both the wedding day and the moment of justification establish this new standing with instant, declarative power.^[12] In that sense, “I now pronounce you husband and wife” is declaratively analogous to “And he (Abram) believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness” (Gen 15:6, cf. Rom 4). Therefore, the days of married life that follow the wedding day, like the days of sanctification for the believer, are days of experientially growing into the new standing that has already been legally established.  

Practically speaking, in marriage as with justification, the matters of standing, security, and permanent commitment are established at the time of making the vow, as opposed to being earned continually thereafter. From that foundational security, couples are enabled to bear patiently with one another (e.g., Col 3:13) as they grow together in learning to fulfill the marital vow. This is the sort of security Christopher Ash commended when he criticized those who would belittle the importance of marriage as an institution. Ash notes:

This is what happens when people say that “marriage is just a piece of paper.” They are saying that we must not focus on cold outward institutional things, but on warm relational personal qualities. One famous theologian even said that a couple might be legally married but not really married because their personal relationship fell short of what it ought to be.

All this talk sounds very warm and personal. But it is actually disastrous, because marriage is an institution, not an ideal. If we think of marriage as an ideal toward which we strive, we replace the security of a God-given institution by the fragility of a human project. That is, in Bible terms, we take the whole thing out of the realm of grace and into the cold wilderness of trying to do it all on our own.

The reality is that marriage is a status that is entered, not an ideal toward which we aspire. It is a good institution, entered on the day a couple marry. And within that given institution, with its boundaries, they are called by God to live out their marriage. Within the security of the institution we may grow in safety and confidence; outside it we may strive, but always with that paralyzing fear that we are on our own.^[13]

This is why I take Psalm 15:4 to be so vital to understanding the marital vow. In that passage, we discover that part of the answer to the question about who God will welcome (v. 1), is stated in these words: he “who swears to his own hurt and does not change” (v. 4b). Those are quite sobering words about what it means to vow something before the Lord, which found their apex in Jesus who had “sworn to his own hurt” (e.g., John 4:34, 6:38-40, Phil 2:5-11) by loving his people to the uttermost (John 13:1, 19:30).^[14]

Similarly, on the wedding day, couples swear a vow that will cost them because they are establishing a new standing and pledging the security of fidelity — come what may. “Paying” that vow will cost the couple in ways they cannot foresee on the day they make the vow. But doing so both reflects the glory of Christ’s love for his people that gives the security of a new standing first (e.g., Rom 5:1) and then presses us, as vow keepers, further into the mold of his likeness (Rom 8:29).^[15]

3. Reconciliation and Husbandly Headship

To extend the previous point, we recognize that “paying” the vow will not be limited to generic seasons of “for worse” hardship. Sometimes spouses will be one another’s occasion for hardships, and thus vow keeping will at times be required in response to sins and offenses committed by the spouse.

Doctrinally speaking, God, the one sinned against (Isa 59:2), effected our reconciliation by means of Christ’s atoning sacrifice (Rom 5:8–11).^[16] And, since as Paul Barnett rightly notes, “Reconciliation with God . . . implies reconciliation among God’s people” (e.g., Matt 5:23–24, Eph 2:14–16),^[17] it follows that those who have been forgiven and changed by Christ’s costly love are called on to forgive others as we have been forgiven (Matt 6:14–15, Col– 3:13) by patterning God’s reconciling love for us in Christ (2 Cor 5:17–21).^[18] So, it is proper to consider the particular implications that reconciliation with God in Christ has for us in marriage.

When we consider these implications, it is important to keep in mind both that the husband in marriage is the analog of Christ and that the husband himself is not Christ (Eph 5:23–25). Because the husband is not Christ and is not sinless, it is obviously the case that both spouses will magnify Christ by forgiving the other’s sin, pursuing reconciliation, and pointing the other to the good news of the cross as often as necessary (e.g., Eph 4:32–5:2, Rom 12:18, Col 3:12-13). Before proceeding too hastily and flattening marital distinction, however, we should linger over the implication that as the analog of Christ’s self-giving love and service of leadership in relation to the church (Eph 5:25–30), there is an appropriate emphasis for the husband in taking initiative to pursue relational reconciliation in marriage.

Here’s what I mean. In Ephesians 2:4–5, we learn that “even when we were dead in our trespasses,” God made his people “alive together with Christ” (cf., Eph 2:1–3). That is astonishingly good news! Had God not taken the reconciling initiative, or had Christ not paid the cost of our forgiveness, we would have remained dead in our trespasses and sins permanently.

In that light, how should the dynamics of marital headship factor in when sin needs to be forgiven in marriage? Consider the following, probably somewhat familiar, scenario. When the “communication cold war” between spouses kicks in, following some form of offense, we might be acquainted with the internal logic that rationalizes, “Well, I am willing to forgive, but she hurt me with the things she said, so it’s only fair that she should come and apologize before I forgive.” The bottom line in such a scenario is that someone has to take the first step towards thawing the ice and pursuing relational reconciliation.

To be sure, each individual is responsible to repent and seek forgiveness when he or she is the offending party (Matt 5:23-24). So, again, it is appropriate for the wife to seek reconciliation when she is in the wrong. And yet, as the Ephesians 5 analog of Christ in relation to his bride, my point is simply that the husband always has a responsibility to take the lead in pursuing relational reconciliation, whether he’s primarily at fault in the case of a given offense or not. In Christ’s relationship to his own bride, he’s only ever the one sinned against, and yet he is also the one who took the reconciling initiative when we had no warmth or inclination towards him whatsoever (Rom 5:8). When a husband demonstrates similar initiative by “nourishing and cherishing” his wife who is one with him as the church is one with Christ (Eph. 5:29-30), that initiative is a beautiful Christ-reflecting service of ministry to his wife who has chosen to submit to her husband’s leadership.^[19] What a gift to his wife for the husband to be quick to pursue, rather than to withdraw, in moments where she may feel relationally destabilized.^[20] While she may “beat him to the punch” in seeking relational reconciliation at times, he should never sit back and wait for that to happen.

4. Union with Christ and Marital Union

Back under point number one, we noted that marital union was designed by God to reflect the church’s union with Christ. Now we need to expound that doctrine and application a bit more. Union with Christ is a kind of doctrinal ground zero for all the blessings of redemption since they are all given “in Christ.”^[21] Whereas justification grants a new legal standing based on the work of Christ for us, union with Christ establishes a new identity based on the vital union of Christ in us (Gal 2:20).^[22] And that union with Christ — wrought by the indwelling Spirit (Rom 8:9) — grounds and calls us to live in step with our new identity (Rom 6:1–14, Gal 5:16–25).^[23]

Dane Ortlund has compellingly illustrated, from Romans 6, how this new identity in Christ calls forth new ways of living:

When Jesus went down into the grave to die for our sins, we too went with him down into the grave to die to our sins. What would we say to an adopted orphan wandering out the front door of the mansion of his new family and down to the food stamps line? We’d say: What are you doing? That’s not who you are anymore.^[24]

As we will see, something reflective of that great union is true of marriage as well.^[25] We’ve noted that in Ephesians 5:31, Paul quotes Genesis 2:24. Ray Ortlund very helpfully points out that in the context of Genesis 2 itself, becoming “one flesh” (Gen. 2:24) “points back to the fact that Eve was the bone and flesh of Adam” in Genesis 2:23.^[26] In the context of Ephesians 5, however, the quotation of Genesis 2:24 “points back to the fact that we are members of Christ’s body” as Paul has just argued in Ephesians 5:29–30.^[27] That love of Christ for the church that unites his people to him as “members of his body” (v. 30) is the reason people marry. Ortlund explains, “Look at the logic: ‘We are members of his body. Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother.”^[28]

Since Paul’s point is that union with Christ is the archetypal “mystery” that underlies human marital union, it follows that our marital unions ought also to call forth similar fruit to that which is born from our union with Christ. Here’s what I mean: In the appeal to Romans 6 above, we noted that union with Christ grounds and gives rise to the believer’s mode of living in step with this new “in Christ” identity. So too then does human marriage, as a reflection of that greater union, establish a new union that grounds and calls for the couple’s mode of living in step with their new “one flesh” identity.

Put differently, the reality of “union” in both cases call forth a response of cultivating relational “communion.”^[29] Just as union with Christ grounds the remaining aspects of our salvation, including those that are currently being and yet to be experienced (e.g., progressive sanctification and glorification), so too does the marital union ground and call for the growing pursuit of the holistic and experiential elements of that union. For our purposes in this article, we can refer to that pursuit following the marriage vow as the cultivation of holistically growing marital intimacy.

With respect to marriage, it’s too common notionally to reduce the meaning of marital intimacy to that of sexual expression. To be sure, the couple certainly participates in marital union in the “one flesh” intimacy of the marriage-bed. However, sex in marriage was designed by God as the covenant sign of the marital union to symbolize and point toward a broader marriage-wide intimacy between husband and wife.^[30] Per Genesis 2:24, the “one flesh” sign of marital intimacy is only meant to occur in the “leave and cleave” context where all the other relevant marital intimacies are being pursued, by prioritizing this new marital relationship in its multiple dimensions (e.g., spiritual, emotional, economic, physical etc.) above all other relationships, including the family of origin.^[31]

Along those lines, practically speaking, we’ve come to commend this multi-dimensional pursuit of intimacy with the following rubric: Face-to-Face intimacy, Side-by-Side intimacy, and Back-to-Back intimacy.^[32] It may help to think of these areas of intimacy cultivation as being to marriage what the spiritual disciplines are to the cultivation of our communion with Christ.

1) Face-to-Face: Here we have in mind the dimension of intimacy that can be described with the image of each spouse facing the other. This would include the ongoing pursuits of companionship, friendship, dating, and playfulness. The ongoing enjoyment of marital sexual intimacy fits in this category, as does the cultivation of a healthy communication climate.^[33] It is critical that the couple continues enjoying and liking one another in marriage, for a lack of relational warmth is an indicator that the relationship is entering the danger zone.^[34]

Interestingly, face-to-face expressions of intimacy are the ones most naturally pursued in dating, since the infatuation levels are high and the side-by-side pursuits of things like managing a household have not yet come into play. Yet, the face-to-face dimension is also easily displaced, little by little, once the side-by-side partnership begins expanding in marriage. The most dangerous forms of drift always occur in increments that are undetectable if unmonitored. So, married couples should be on guard against the neglect of this form of intimacy in marriage in a manner that is not dissimilar from the believer’s vigilance against spiritual drift (Heb 2:1–4). Put positively, the couple should proactively pursue the ongoing cultivation of face-to-face forms of intimacy. The wedding day, after all, should be understood as the “starting line” and not the “finish line” of the couple’s pursuits of communion and intimacy.^[35]

2) Side-by-Side: If the previous dimension of intimacy used the image of the couple facing one another, this dimension is perhaps best illustrated by spouses standing shoulder to shoulder, as they seek to face their varied responsibilities as teammates. This category describes the couple’s partnership in the “business” of managing a home and family. It would include things like managing the calendar and the budget, fixing the leaky faucet, and raising the kids. It ranges from doing the dishes to changing diapers, helping with math homework, hosting the in-laws, and leading family devotionals.

Clearly, the net on this one is wide. And to be sure, it is a form of intimacy to partner and serve well together. Being good teammates comes with its own experience of joy. However, when this mode of partnership overtakes and swallows up the other expressions, as it is wont to do given its vast scope, that’s a significant warning flag that calls for the couple’s attention. A good diagnostic check would be for a couple to consider whether they feel like “roommates” or “business associates” rather than spouses. If the sense of being “business associates” has the upper hand, that’s an indicator that it’s past time to invest in some of the other dimensions of marital communion.

3) Back-to-Back: Here, the image is of the couple standing back-to-back with a view to fighting on behalf of the other. This perspective recognizes: (1) that one’s spouse does in fact have an enemy, and (2) that one’s spouse cannot watch his or her own back. Here, commitments like worshiping together and bearing prayer burdens for one another add up powerfully over time. Indeed, because of sin’s deceitfulness, a word like the one given in Hebrews 3:12–13 has fitting application to husbands and wives as well.

The author of Hebrews admonishes, “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Heb 3:12–13). In this warning, the author exhorts that since sin is seeking to progress daily, so the responses of grace, wisdom, and repentance are called for daily. Congregationally speaking, we need each other to help apply that grace, because while we can readily see the advance of sin in another person’s life, we are more easily self-deceived about its advance in our own lives.

Of course, if such encouragements and exhortations are part of the commended countermeasures to sin’s deceitfulness congregationally, how much greater is the advantage that spouses have in watching out for and serving one another in similar ways because of how closely their lives intertwine. The couple’s partnership in pursuit of the other’s sanctification, therefore, necessitates a place for things like loving intercession, confession, and forgiveness. To be sure, intimacy of this kind can be sobering, and it calls for wisdom about how best to communicate, but when done well, it can be like “rocket fuel” to the couple’s experience of deep relational connectedness and companionship.

5. Partners in a Sanctifying Pilgrimage

To elaborate a bit further on the category of back-to-back intimacy, the goal here is for the couple to function as sanctification partners. Pivotal to the couple’s marital union is the role each partner gets to fill in the long-term project of helping one another become their “future glory-selves.”^[36] And while it is true that the husband and wife will not be the only human influences in one another’s sanctification pilgrimage, it is also true that their respective influence will be of a magnitude and kind different from all others. Much could be said here, but for our purposes, I just want to make one doctrinal observation and an application to seasons of suffering.

To begin, doctrinally speaking, progressive sanctification is a form of fighting a battle the Lord has already won. It involves a real fight of faith that is undergirded by a secure outcome (Rom 8:30–39, 1 Cor 15:56–58, Phil 2:5–13, Col 2:9–15).^[37] Prior to any fighting on our part, justification grants the new legal standing and union with Christ establishes the new identity out of which we begin to live as “new creations” (2 Cor 5:17). Little by little, the process of progressive sanctification conforms us experientially to what is already true of us positionally.^[38] And so, this “already / not yet” experience of growth in holiness between justification and glorification helps reinforce that this world is not our home (Phil 3:20–21, Heb 13:14, 1 John 2:15–17). We are instead “sojourners and exiles” (1 Pet 2:11, cf. 1 Pet 1:1). Our salvation is secure (1 Pet 1:17–20), but our growing faith is going somewhere, namely all the way home where our faith shall become sight (1 Cor 13:12, 1 Pet 1:13–16, 2:12, Rev 22:4–5).

Now we want to briefly consider how spouses can encourage one another’s perseverance on those occasions when their partner’s “sight” becomes clouded by the fog of suffering and grief. Along the pilgrim way, rhythms of grace like partnering in the Word and in prayer (1 Cor 7:5, Eph 5:25–27), warning against sin’s deceptions (Eph 4:22, Heb. 3:12–13), and pointing each other to more robust and enduring promises of the gospel (Heb 11:24–26, 2 Pet 1:3–4), will serve and prepare couples well for the “for worse” days that are sure to come. But what about the days when their partnership is called to endure seasons of substantial suffering, where the “for worse” part of the vow is paid in the extreme? Though that isn’t cheery to think about, our discussion of “swearing to one’s own hurt” above has prepared us for thinking about the marital commitment to suffer well together.^[39]

In addition to the intake of the regular means of grace, suffering well together requires that the couple have a category for events and seasons that are both hard and yet good in the hands of God, which enables a kind of grieving that is compatible with hope (1 Thess 4:13). The greatest instance of this kind is the cross of Christ, whereby the instrument of Christ’s execution becomes the instrument of his exaltation and our deliverance from sin (John 12:27–33). But life in a fallen world, ruled by a good and sovereign God, includes plenty of such experiences (Gen 45:4–8, 50:19–20, Rom 5:3–5, 8:28, James 1:2–4).

Further, the ministry of suffering and grieving well together surely involves an abundance of tender compassion, a listening ear, and patient affirmations of “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief” — expressions of limping faith (Mark 9:24). For all of these forms of care help hold one another up in times of weakness (e.g., Exod 17:11-13). As a further expression of “bearing one another’s burdens” (Gal 6:2), it is vital to consider the way a couple’s ministry of presence to one another can imperfectly point to the perfect assurance of God’s presence.

This ministry of presence is of value because of the way that suffering and grief often give rise to feelings of isolation and even to questioning God’s presence in our lives (e.g., Ps 13:1). And questioning God’s faithfulness can open the door to the temptation to turn from God and toward various expressions of self-protection instead (e.g., Gen 12:10–13, Matt 26:31, Luke 22:54–62). In the face of these sorts of destabilizing anxieties brought on by suffering and grief, the reassurance that “for better or worse, I will be with you” can offer comfort and encouragement to take the next step of faith. Such comfort speaks, to some extent at least, to the fear of being alone in suffering.^[40] But, as we’ve pointed out, that promise not to leave nor forsake the spouse ’til parted by death, is a shadow of a greater promise for God to be with us (Deut. 31:6, Ps. 23:4, 46:1, Heb. 13:5). And that promise, because of Christ’s atonement, cannot even be breached by death itself (Rom 8:38–39, 1 Cor 15:53–57, Rev 21:3–4).

And so because Immanuel, God with us (Matt 1:23), humbled himself to pursue us all the way to the point of death on a cross (Phil 2:5–8), thereby taking on the sentence of separation from God that our sins deserve (Matt 27:45–46, 2 Cor 5:21), those who are in Christ, never actually know the reality of that abandonment. Consequently, despite how we may feel in seasons of suffering, the hope of the Gospel is that we already have all that we truly need (Rom 8:32) and as such, we have, as our greatest hope, a secure treasure that can never be taken away (Matt 10:28). And yet, in our suffering, we sometimes struggle and need help apprehending these truths.

Here, the helping spouse is uniquely positioned to point the struggling spouse to the even greater assurance that God will never leave nor forsake us (Heb 13:5) by means of wisely timed reminders of how God has shown his faithfulness time and again.^[41] For, it can be a significant blessing to rehearse both the biblical stories of redemption and the stories of God’s faithfulness in our own past — times where we wondered how or if God would come through . . . until he did. God deemed these sorts of remembrances as so essential to persevering faith that he has woven them into the rhythms of his faith family. We see this both in the memorialization of the Passover (Exod 12:24–27) and the Lord’s Supper (Luke 22:17–20, 1 Cor 11:23–26). So, it would seem wise for the nuclear family to cultivate practices of sharing the remembrance of God’s faithfulness to them specifically as well.

Couples can discern for themselves the best shape of their personal remembrances to go along with participating regularly in the rhythms of gathered worship that call us corporately to remember what the Lord has done and promises to do for us (Heb 10:24–25). The bottom line in suffering and grief is that spouses have a unique role to play in helping when the other’s spiritual sight is clouded by grief. When spouses alternately do so, as an expression of suffering well together, God is glorified by their magnification of Christ’s ongoing, never-forsaking union with his bride — the church — that secured her, purifies her, and walks her all the way home.

Conclusion

When our marriages take their cues from the good design of creation (Gen 1–2), Christ’s redeeming love for the church (Eph 5:22–31), and the fulfillment of the meaning of marriage in the new creation (Matt 22:30, Rev 19, 21), they will have enormous resources from which to draw. In this article, after taking stock of the meaning of marriage itself, we saw how the doctrines of justification, reconciliation, union with Christ, and sanctification are all laden with rich application not only to individuals but also to married couples seeking to reflect and draw strength from the Christ-church relationship. To be sure, even reading a “flyover” article like this can leave readers feeling overwhelmed. Having been provided with five key theological emphases, the reader may feel stuck, wondering how to put doctrine into practice. You probably don’t even remember all that you just finished reading; don’t worry about that. You wouldn’t be able to make it all immediately actionable anyway. Instead of fretting over what you can’t accomplish right now, ask God to show you one or two concrete steps you can begin taking towards more Christ-centered growth in your marriage.^[42] And little by little, if you’ve found this helpful, come back for more.

^[1] I would like to thank Ryan Lister, Fred Sanders, Erik Thoennes, and Mike Winger for reading and giving valuable feedback on portions of an earlier draft of this article. Their input undoubtedly strengthened the final product. Any errors or mistakes that remain are entirely my own.

^[2] John Stott, Involvement: Social and Sexual Relationships in the Modern World, vol. 2 (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, 1984), 163. Marriage in Scripture, we may add, is a creation ordinance. It was neither ordained as an accommodation to creaturely fallenness, nor was it merely appointed as an institution and practice limited to the nation of Israel under the Old Covenant. That means the definition and distinctives of marriage are established by God and applicable to all of humanity, whether acknowledged or not. While unbelievers do not operate from a sense of obligation to God’s Word, Christians should seek to submit themselves to all the relevant biblical directives, which for them as believers would additionally include marrying a fellow believer (e.g., 1 Cor 7:39).

^[3] Assuredly, it is the case that these are not the only doctrines with valuable application to marriage. This article merely seeks to offer a sampling of the riches of applied theology to the context of married life.

^[4] Consider these examples: Abraham’s two-fold attempts to pass his wife Sarah off as merely his sister to save his own skin (Gen 12:10-20 & 20:1-13); Sarah’s doubt-driven attempt to manipulate God’s promise into fulfilment by giving her handmaid Hagar to Abraham as a wife (Gen 16:1-6); Laban’s manipulation of Jacob into marrying Leah before Rachel (Gen 29-31); Judah and Tamar’s sordid story (Gen 38); David’s and Solomon’s polygamous unions (2 Sam 3:2-5, 5:13, 1 Kgs 11:1-8); David’s lust-inflamed immorality with Bathsheba (2 Sam 11); let alone the many infidelities of Israel toward her heavenly Father and Husband more broadly (Ezek 16).

^[5] This is quickly evident in Genesis as the curse and expulsion from the Garden in Genesis 3 quickly gives rise in the narrative to fratricide in Genesis 4, followed by the drumbeat of death in Genesis 5 and the escalation of wickedness in Genesis 6 leading to God’s flood judgment.

^[6] To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, it asks too much of the spouse to bear the weight that only God can. As he more eloquently put it, “When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now. In so far as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God and instead of God, I shall be moving towards the state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest at all. When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.” C. S. Lewis, The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis. Vol. 3: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy, 1950–1963, ed. Walter Hooper (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2007), 247 (italics original).

^[7] Ray Ortlund, Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016), 100–101.

^[8] Timothy Keller with Kathy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God (New York: Dutton, 2011), 45–47, 120–124. To my knowledge, the Keller’s do not specifically use the term “re-enact the gospel,” in The Meaning of Marriage, though they do describe the point there. They did, however, use that memorable terminology in a talk they gave together in 2005, which along with some of Tim’s earlier teaching provided source material for the book. See https://gospelinlife.com/sermon/cultivating-a-healthy-marriage-part-1-lecture/.

^[9] Clinton E. Arnold, Ephesians, ZECNT (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 395–397.

^[10] Not only was Jesus not commending the easy divorce policy of the Hillel school, he was also not requiring divorce in cases of porneia but only allowing it, contrary to the expectations of the Shammai school. For a thoughtful and thorough treatment on the New Testament material on divorce and remarriage, including the rabbinical schools of thought prevalent at the time, see, Andrew David Naselli, “What the New Testament Teaches About Divorce and Remarriage,” Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal 24 (2019): 3–44. Naselli’s specific treatment of Matthew 19 is found on pages 7–22.

^[11] The Kellers beautifully express this point: “When over the years someone has seen you at your worst, and knows you with all your strengths and flaws, yet commits him — or herself to you wholly, it is a consummate experience. To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.” Keller, The Meaning of Marriage, 95 (italics added ).

^[12] Thomas R. Schreiner capably expounds the declarative nature of justification in his volume Justification: An Introduction (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2023), 73–78.

^[13] Christopher Ash, Married for God: Making Your Marriage the Best it Can Be (Wheaton,IL: Crossway, 2016), 105.

^[14] Whether this divine plan is best termed a “covenant of redemption” has been the subject of meaningful debate. The larger point, however, stands regardless of whether one believes invoking the language of “covenant” is apt or not. Stephen Wellum does a nice job of summarizing common affirmations of and objections to framing the eternal counsel of the Triune God specifically as the “covenant of redemption.” Stephen J. Wellum, Systematic Theology: From Canon to Concept, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2024), 764–768.

^[15] Per the Kellers, “In any relationship, there will be frightening spells in which your feelings of love seem to dry up. And when that happens you must remember that the essence of a marriage is that it is a covenant, a commitment, a promise of future love. So what do you do? You do the acts of love, despite your lack of feeling. You may not feel tender, sympathetic, and eager to please, but in your actions you must be tender, understanding, forgiving, and helpful. And, if you do that, as time goes on you will not only get through the dry spells, but they will become less frequent and deep, and you will become more constant in your feelings. This is what can happen if you decide to love.” Keller, The Meaning of Marriage, 104 (italics original).

^[16] John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1955), 42.

^[17] Paul Barnett, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997), 303.

^[18] Notice how, in 2 Corinthians 5:19–20, Paul argues that as one who has been reconciled to God through Christ, he is now an “ambassador” of that reconciling love to others. There he proclaims that “… in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us….” Additionally, though illustrated by way of a negative example, this is precisely the point of Jesus’ parable of the unforgiving servant (Matt 18:21–35). Put differently, a “heart” (v. 35) that is not eager to extend forgiveness horizontally is a heart that has not embraced the vast depths of forgiveness by God.

^[19] Those who would hesitate against emphasizing the husband’s responsibility might stress that Scripture instructs all believers generically to pursue reconciliation (e.g., Col 2:12–13, Matt 5:23–24, Matt 18:15). That principle is true so far as it goes. However, as we have been detailing, the Ephesians 5 meaning of marriage also needs to be factored into the particular relational dynamics of marriage. For, in marriage, there is a specificity of roles unique to the relationship between husband and wife (as analogs of Christ and the church respectively) that is not in play more generically in the case of an offense between a person and his “brother.”

^[20] When the couple’s relational stability feels dicey due to an argument or offense of some kind, that’s a critical opportunity to reiterate the objective permanency that undergirds their relationship and move towards one another in a manner that allows the vow to have the “upper hand” relative to the feelings in that moment. A friend and fellow elder employs a practice he calls “improvising the vow” in these sorts of situations. If his wife needs space to process, he’s happy to provide that. But he will also take the opportunity, even if briefly, to restate the permanency of his vow, for example, by gently reaching for her hand and saying something like, “I’m committed to us and to our partnership no matter what. I’m here for all of it.” Even if the rest of the relational “thawing” takes some time, a practice like this can be a turning point type of first step in the direction of that thawing, by emphasizing the objective permanency of their vow.

^[21] Schreiner, Justification, 127–128.

^[22] Anthony Hoekema, Saved by Grace (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), 67.

^[23] Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied, 171.

^[24] Dane Ortlund, Deeper: Real Change for Real Sinners (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 52 (Italics original).

^[25] To be sure, union with Christ is so great a mystery that it transcends any merely creation based “shadows” of that union, including the marital union, even as the marital union is likely the chief of all the earthly shadows. Edward Polhill stressed this in commenting, “The Holy Ghost, in condescension to our weakness, shadows out this Union by many earthly patterns, viz. by the Law-union of a King and Subjects; by the Love-union of an Husband and Wife; by the Artificial union of the Foundation and Building; by the Natural union of the Vine and Branches, the Head and Members; by the intimate union and incorporation of the Food and the Body. There is that in the Mystical union which answer; to all these earthly patterns; and withal, that which as much exceeds them, as a substance doth a shadow.” Edward Polhill, Christus in Corde, or, The Mystical Union Between Christ and Believers Considered in Its Resemblances, Bonds, Seals, Privileges and Marks (Thomas Cockerill, 1680), unnumbered page of preface.

^[26] Ortlund, Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel, 100.

^[27] Ortlund, Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel, 100.

^[28] Ortlund, Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel, 99-100 (Italics original).

^[29] In the case of the believer’s union with Christ, Kelly Kapic made the distinction this way, “Communion with God … is distinct from union. Those who are united to Christ are called to respond to God’s loving embrace. While union with Christ is something that does not ebb and flow, one’s experience of communion with Christ can fluctuate…. When a believer grows comfortable with sin … this invariably affects the level of intimacy this person feels with God…. While a saint’s consistency in prayer, corporate worship, and biblical meditation are not things that make God love him more or less, such activities tend to foster the beautiful experience of communion with God.” Kelly M. Kapic, “Worshiping the Triune God: The Shape of John Owen’s Trinitarian Spirituality,” Introduction to Communion with the Triune God, by John Owen, ed. Kelly M. Kapic and Justin Taylor (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007), 21 (Italics original).

^[30] For more on the relation of sex in marriage to the couple’s broader pursuits of intimacy, see my exposition of the meaning of marital sexual intimacy in “The Beautiful Meaning of Marital Sexual Intimacy,” Eikon: A Journal for Biblical Anthropology 3.1 (Spring 2021): 30-41. Readers will find it interesting, and not all that surprising, that marital sexual intimacy is theologically analogous to the ordinance of communion, as both are embodied expressions of the ongoing pursuit and enjoyment (i.e. communion) of the respective unions to which these signs point.

^[31] In his own inimitable style, C.S. Lewis put it this way: “The Christian idea of marriage is based on Christ’s words that a man and wife are to be regarded as a single organism. . . . [T]he male and the female, were made to be combined together in pairs, not simply on the sexual level, but totally combined. The monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside marriage is that those who indulge in it are trying to isolate one kind of union (the sexual) from all the other kinds of union which were intended to go along with it and make up the total union. The Christian attitude does not mean that there is anything wrong about sexual pleasure, any more than about the pleasure of eating. It means that you must not isolate that pleasure and try to get it by itself, any more than you ought to try to get the pleasures of taste without swallowing and digesting, by chewing things and spitting them out again.” C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperOne, 2001), 104–105.

^[32] Like any heuristic device, this rubric is not exhaustive. The categories are not rigid and there is overlap among them. Nevertheless, we have found it useful to convey the point about pursuing multi-dimensional intimacy in marriage. I’m confident that we picked up this rubric for thinking about marital intimacy from marriage mentors or ministry partners along the way, but I cannot recall who initially shared it with us. However we came by it, I suspect the origins go back to C.S. Lewis’ differentiation of face-to-face and side-by-side forms of love in, The Four Loves (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1960), 91, 98–104

^[33] To that end, I commend Paul Tripp’s, War of Words: Getting to the Heart of Your Communication Struggles, 2^nd ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2025).

^[34] As Gary Thomas has noted, the intense phase of romantic infatuation ceases, in marriage, “to be the main glue that holds a relationship together on a day-to-day basis.” Rather, “[f]eelings become ‘warm and dependable’ more than ‘hot and excitable.’ God simply did not design our brains to sustain a lifelong infatuation (for some very good reasons).” Gary Thomas, The Sacred Search (Colorado Springs: David C Cook, 2013), 29.

^[35] Justin Buzzard, Date Your Wife (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 57.

^[36] Keller, The Meaning of Marriage, 120–124. Surely this ought to be the priority pursuit in marriage, since it is abundantly clear that Christ unites himself to the church to make her holy (Eph 5:26-27).

^[37] The World War II analogy of fighting between D-Day and V-Day has often been used as a helpful illustration of what it means to fight from the footing of an already-secured outcome.

^[38] Clint Arnold deftly demonstrates that the teaching of Ephesians 5:26–27 encompasses both positional and progressive sanctification. Arnold, Ephesians, 386-390.

^[39] On a related note, we regularly counsel dating and engaged couples to think prayerfully and carefully about whether they can reasonably anticipate being able to partner well together during seasons of suffering. For those who are confident that they cannot, that is as good of a reason as any not to proceed down the path to marriage.

^[40] While it may seem like restating one’s commitment to be there is a form of stating the obvious, it is worth remembering that the “obvious” isn’t always obvious to those in the grip of suffering or grief.

^[41] Paying attention to timing is an important component of caring well for a sufferer. There are times to talk, and there will be times where the appropriate thing to do will simply be to “weep with those who weep” (Rom 12:15).

^[42] To give just two possible examples, you might plan to spend some time meditating on Christ swearing a vow to his own hurt for you, with a view to a specific area where you might lean into keeping the “for worse” part of the vow to the benefit of your spouse. Or, you could identify one of the dimensions of marital intimacy (probably face-to-face or back-to-back) where there is an intimacy deficit and consider how you might pursue making a meaningful investment this week.