God our Father, Creator of all that exists, has been lavish in His generosity to us as His creatures. He has filled the earth with good things, and one of His central and foundational blessings is the gift of marriage. Even in this world’s fallen state, the gift of marriage is a blessing that brings with it a true and compounding interest. Through it we have the gift of children, who themselves can grow up to have children. Through it we are given a companion to share the joys and burdens of life together. Through it many temptations that are common to man are avoided or muted. Marriage, in short, is a wonderful gift. It is the greatest of all earthly gifts.
But the fact that marriage can bless us in so many ways does not require us to assume that it can do everything. There are some things that it cannot accomplish, but this limitation is only damaging if we start to assume that it can do those things that are actually outside its scope.
And for a prime example, marriage cannot eradicate the selfishness of the radical self—only gospel can do that.
The great apostle Paul put it this way. He said that all who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. He said that through the cross of Christ the world was crucified to him, and he to the world. He said earlier in that same letter that he had been crucified with Christ, and that he no longer lived. In the book of Romans, he told us that all who had been baptized into Christ had been baptized into His death. That death is the death of the radical self, of the essential ego, of the crackling of me-centeredness, of the lizard brain. The cross of Christ is the only possible instrument for putting self to death. Marriage doesn’t do that, not at all.
Marriage does, however, reveal how much still needs to be done in that department. Marriage is quite revelatory. A person living alone in their own apartment can rise at the appropriate hour, make a cup of coffee, and read his or her Bible surrounded by quite the spiritual glow. It is splendid to be able to live so selflessly. “I am making real progress in godliness,” the person might think.
After a couple says “I do,” this kind of daydreaming is rudely interrupted. Marriage doesn’t crucify self, but rather creates opportunities to amplify it. It gives the self a multitude of opportunities to notice how marriage hasn’t crucified self across the way, over there in their spouse. Not fast enough anyway, and not nearly enough in extent. What’s more, your self suggests to you, why shouldn’t they go first?
So marriage does not do the work of the cross, not even close. But marriage does demonstrate, and that on a daily basis, how much we need the cross of Christ to be applied to our thoughts, our reactions, our words, our gestures, our expressions, and our actions. Marrying a sinner is a perilous thing. Doing so while being a sinner yourself is doubly so.
And this is why this wedding today is an occasion of joy. I did not mention all these truths in order to introduce a grim element into this day of gladness. I am not here in the role of a ministerial dark cloud.
Both of you understand that a Christian marriage is much more than a marriage that was inaugurated in a Christian church. It is much more than a ceremony presided over by a Christian minister. Much more is needed than to have Christian-sounding words spoken over you. It is not a Christian marriage because hymns were sung.
No, this is a Christian wedding because Christ is here. And we know that Christ is here because He indwells the groom, and He indwells the bride. Both groom and bride have called upon the Lord, have been converted to God by His Holy Spirit, and have been equipped by grace to fulfill the vows that are about to be taken. These are vows that take seriously the challenges presented by that thing called self. These are vows bounded by gospel. The only reason it is not insolence itself for us to take such vows is because the power of the gospel—meaning the sacrificial death of Christ and His justifying resurrection. The gospel, remember, is able to save us to the uttermost.
Samuel, the Scriptures tell us that the husband is the head of his wife in the same way that Christ is the head of the Church. But as you enter this new married relation, be sure to remember that there is a vast chasm between being, on the one hand, a head when the self has been crucified and raised and on the other, a head where the self is still reigning and watching out for old Number 1. There is true Christian authority in the office you are taking on, but always remember—never forget—that true authority imitates Christ. And in imitating Christ, you learn that genuine Christian authority is authority that bleeds out for others. Headship is not code for “always getting your way.” Headship follows in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus, which is why you are called to love your wife as Christ did His, giving Himself up for her.
Johanna, the self that needs to be crucified on a daily basis is a self that takes feminine forms also. When Jesus told His disciples to take up their cross daily and come follow Him, He wasn’t just talking to the men. It is not just the men who want to be selfish, who want their own way, or who want their perspective to be just “the way it is.” Men want that in the flesh also, but they are not the only ones. And something that both of you must learn is that having your guard up against the other person’s temptations does not really do anything helpful at all.
And for the two of you together. One of the wonderful things about the gospel is that every gospel death—which is the only kind of thing I am talking about—is followed, as morning follows night, by a gospel resurrection. The death of self here is a glorious liberation. It is how your marriage, beginning today, can be characterized by newness of life.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, amen.