Marriage: A Powerful Tool for Sanctification
Dear Reader,
By the time you read this entry, I would have been at least two months married and I assure you me and my spouse are still alive. I say this tongue in cheek, but another part of me expresses a high level of seriousness in the sentiment.
Marriage is amazing. When it is done right, you would have married one of your truest and deepest friends. The bond that is between husband and wife is a bond so strong that the sharpest tamahagane steel cannot cut through. Those who participate in such a union are deeply intimate on levels surpassing sexual intimacy; they are attuned and highly trained to be sensitive to one another.
Conversely, there are fewer things more challenging than marriage. Marriage is trying. In marriage you’ve signed up for your personal call-out team — another set of eyes outside of your own to identify and challenge your weaknesses. And let you have a vocal partner: you will encounter consistent feedback whether or not it is welcomed. Marriage calls for the consistent dying to your self, putting the needs of the team above your own. Marriage does not mean to lose yourself, but you must think of more than just yourself. It calls for the individual to be sensitive to their partner and what they desire so that the couple is fulfilled in the relationship.
Here’s the catch: you don’t get it right every time; however, when the clock strikes 12, you have a new set of 24 hours gifting you another chance at being a better spouse than yesterday. You are gifted another day to try again.
~ Marriage Throughout Time ~
Over time, the motives for marriage have been sullied: reasonings ranging from climbing the socioeconomic ladder to citizenship status in a foreign land. As societies grew more complex with advancement, other factors have deterred spectating audiences from marriage: the unsavory example of the imperfect human beings whom they involve; divorce; capitalistic institutions and big businesses who have monetary gain from these unions; the penetration of capitalistic culture into sacred spaces of worship such as the Church, coloring the way the Word is practiced, thereby giving higher esteem to men than women.
I am familiar with the many theoretical arguments that engage with subjects such as gender, sex, and gender performativity that both challenge and still challenge the nuclear heteronormative family. I would like to insert that the purpose of this particular piece is to flesh out and convey to the reader how marriage, when executed God’s way, will yield God’s results through sanctification. However, I would be remiss not to acknowledge the existence/presence of these arguments. I emphasize the functionality of male and female in the eyes of the Creator and each partner serves with intention and purpose; together male and female partnership are the full expression of the Godhead.
~Delving Deeper ~
It wasn’t until I got married that I experienced what I only knew of God conceptually. As a Believer, our relationship to God is polymorphous. He says through His Word that He is our Father (Romans 8) ; He says that He is our Defender - or more popularly called the One who fights our battles (Exodus 14:14; Deuteronomy 3:22); He says He is our Advocate/Mediator (Romans 8:26-27; Hebrews 4:14-16; I John 2:1-2); but most interestingly the Word says He is our Husband (Isaiah 54:5; Jeremiah 31: 31-32).
When God wants to transition our understanding from conceptual to experiential, He turns our attention to a tangible example on earth. This deepens our relational intimacy with it and Him. Through marriage, God does the same.
~ Marriage: A Powerful Tool for Sanctification ~
The challenge of marriage is the challenge that God demands of the Believer: allow the relationship to sculpt and refine you to allow for you to walk out the better you. The “you” that is the hidden inner “you.” The spirit “man.” Some from other spiritual perspectives call it the “higher self.” The right pressure will reveal the real you, cutting out what impedes intimacy with the one that you’re married to. That sculpting and refinement is what we in Christianity call “sanctification.” Sanctification not only a concept of finality in which you are “set apart” as my siblings in the faith so generously express, but it is the process as we are in pursuit of Christ, the outward expression of ourselves aligns with the renewed spirit man when we accepted Jesus as Lord of our lives. Strong’s Concordance defines sanctification as “the process of making or becoming holy, set apart, sanctification, holiness, consecration.” Marriage is one of the many facilitators of the refinement process. The Lord uses marriage as a tool for sanctification, cutting out the impediments to character development that mirrors Christ.
All that to say: Sanctification is a process that spans your lifetime.
Now let’s check out how sanctification is illustrated in marriage in the scripture below:
Ephesians 5: 21- 33 (NIV)
21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing[b] her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”[c] 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. (emphasis added)
Demonstrated from the above Scripture, each person has a part to play and it is equally sacrificial to the party from whom it is demanded.
The husband’s role is to love his wife to the point of death. It is the husband’s role to encourage his wife through words, affirming who she already is, not disparaging her character or how “crazy” she is, ushering the public into their marriage. The husband leads, the husband covers, the husband carries the family. The Bible makes this comparison to how Christ is the Husband to the Church, His Bride.
Before anyone says anything about men being in the leadership role there should be no insecurity there because men have a unique, dual role — as men submit to God as a member of the collective Bride of Christ, he draws his example of husbandry and leadership from Christ learning how to cover his wife.
Women: before you covet the position of your husband, it helps to understand what his role is. If you understood that what his role truly entails, you wouldn’t want to have a position like that at all lol. (No offense men.) The husband’s position as leader of the household should not communicate to you any sense of inferiority — after all it says in the very first verse in the excerpt to “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” His leadership doesn’t mean that you’re inferior; in fact we have influential leadership within the family unit. But this is the order that God ordained; and it works.
So whichever category you fall under, it is unto the Lord, not to the person that you are married to. When you can connect on the desire to please God, you can be secure in the fact that the Lord is the one who takes care of you both and you can focus less on being God in your relationship. If the words of this passage are adhered to, no person’s needs will be ignored.
After all, that’s the motivation behind the fear of submitting, right? The fear that your needs will be grossly left unmet and that either party will either be selfish and have their way or walk all over you and you will be left dissatisfied and unfulfilled. Not to mention the fact that we live in a patriarchal society that deems men’s needs more important than women’s needs and relegate that women’s place solely to the home; invisible and unseen. The cultural approach to gender roles surely inflame the situation and influence how we practice the Word.
Let me be clear: submit doesn’t mean mute, docile, passive, soft, or weak. It takes much strength to submit and we do well to remember that submission is a choice. Submission doesn’t mean that you do not have a voice or say. Submission is the conscientious choice that the choice made for the unit is for the greater good. (I will either do a podcast or another post dedicated to submission at a later date.)
This is the point: through the commitment in marriage your traumas, inner vows, and selfish motivations will be revealed, confronted, and healed. I believe that the Bible requires this from either role because what is required doesn’t come natural to either party, however wholly necessary in the refinement process.
Marriage is a beautiful picture of a God who is madly in love with His Bride and is willing to go shocking lengths to prove His commitment to her. He will not divorce her; He will not run away from her — instead He runs towards her and pursues her.
Marriage should not be reduced to a piece of paper or a contract. Those that hold such a sacred union to something so common are those that do not possess the courage and grit that true marriage requires due to fear.
Marriage should not be reduced to the sex that you get to have. Although enjoyable, sex isn’t everything. If sex is the only thing tying the two of you together, it isn’t worth the paper your declaration is written on. It is a frail partnership.
The purpose of marriage is two-fold. First, marriage elucidates your perspective in your role (and the Church’s role) in their marriage covenant with God which secondly empowers you to carry out your role within the marriage with a level of intimacy of the role. This intimacy leads you to operate with your spouse at a higher level of understanding and compassion. Even when they don’t play their part perfectly, you can still entrust yourself and them to God. Marriage forces you to draw closer to your spouse as you draw closer to God. (Read the previous statement again.) As you draw closer to God, He not only cleans you daily with His word, but you leave each encounter different — for the rest of your life.
Before I close, I make this note to singles. Marriage is not a goal but a higher calling. Do not feel guilty if you do not feel called to get married. I know plenty of people (including pillars of the faith) who did not marry and lived fulfilled. Do not disrespect the sanctity of marriage by mishandling the purpose that it is used for which is to altogether demonstrate God’s relationship to us. If you are waiting, do not be discouraged nor bend on your standards. If you believe you are called to be married, used this time to make yourself a better person for yourself first and the person that enters your life can benefit from and enrich your journey. Marriage is not a cover up for a sex problem. Marriage will not solve your problem with fornication. My pastor said quite frankly, “Fornication is not a sex issue. It’s an obedience issue.” Marriage reveals what is already there. My unsolicited advice? Seek therapy and inner healing. Enjoy and invest in friendships that feed you and speak to where you are going. Spend enjoyable, quality time with yourself because if you don’t like you, chances are it will be hard for your prospective mate to like you, too. Dream big and write it down. Express yourself emotionally and often. Build a strong relationship and friendship with God.
Signed,
Dani J.
