Christ and Marriage

A few delightful passages from an old book by Thomas Torrance, James Torrance, and David Torrance, all Scottish theologians, all brothers.

First, that a husband and wife become one person in marriage:

“The Gospel proclaims that God has not abandoned man and woman in their most intimate relationship.  In Christ God goes with a Christian man and woman.  He is present in Christian marriage continually creating and building it to his glory and to man’s and woman’s mutual comfort and happiness.  By his Holy Spirit he brings us again and again to the cross in humility, repentance and renewal.  For the cross is the place where we are made by the Holy Spirit to die to ourselves and to rise ever again as a new person, one new person, man and wife, in Christ Jesus.  This is something which must and does happen again and again.  Having committed ourselves, our love and our marriage to the Lord, the Lord presides over our marriage, he assumes the responsibility for deepening our love and building our marriage, seeking to perfect it through the years.  In Christian marriage, God is always present in all his creative redeeming power and love.” (A Passion for Christ, 95)

Torrance here reminds us of the enduring truth of Genesis 2 – that a man and woman become one flesh in marriage.  The Christian single person is free.  That man or woman does not have to marry to be whole.  Christ is the spouse for every Christian person, as Laura Smit’s book Loves Me, Loves Me Not reminded me recently.  The Christian who marries has a new identity – husband and wife – in Christ Jesus.  Paul speaks of marriage as mysteriously tied to Christ’s relationship to his church.  In this way, our marriages remind us of our salvation.  In both, we are told “this is a great unity.  There are two, and yet it is not so complex as that you are separate.  You are one.”  This is the case for husbands with their wives in Christ.  This is the case for the church with Christ.

Torrance goes on to talk about God’s self-giving to be married to us:

“In his covenant with us in Christ, God gave himself to us, and goes on giving himself to us, in all his wholeness and entirety.  This is the incredible wonder and mystery of the Incarnation – something happened to God!  God has given himself and goes on giving himself in entirety to us in Christ.” (95)

One of the sure-fire ways God uses to move me from my drudgery and dullness is to show me what it means that Christ gave up his wealth and authority with his Father over the heavens and earth to become poor, to become a tiny baby in the arms of his mother Mary.  Torrance reminds me that this change that God took on is also an illustration of marriage.  “A man will leave his mother and father to be united to his wife.”

This ennobles the challenge of marriage.  Give of yourself in your marriage.  God gives of himself in his marriage.  This is the way of the cosmos.  All love is work.  Labors of love are still love.