Covenantal Marriage

On speaking about marital problems, I have often heard my husband say, without apology: "It's always the husband's fault. Even when it's the wife's fault, it's the husband's fault."

How humbling it is to be married to a man who says things like this.

His point isn't to blame the man for everything (after all, he is one.) It's just that covenantally speaking, it is the man who is responsible before God for the condition of his marriage and his family. Eve ate the fruit, but God held Adam responsible for the Fall:

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned-- for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam who is a type of Him who was to come. (Romans 5:12-14)

As the man, Adam is the representative head of his family. While Eve is accountable before God for her own sin, Adam alone is accountable before God for both of their sins -- the sins of the marriage.

That's because the way that a husband loves his wife plays a part in sanctifying and cleansing her.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish." (Ephesians 5:25-27)

It follows that when the wife is sinning in her marriage, a major part of that is because her husband is failing to love her as Christ loved the church.

Obviously, this is not an excuse for the wife to sin. She is called to honor and submit to her husband, esteeming him above all, as the church does her Bridegroom Jesus. He is to be her king. She will have to answer for her failures to obey God.

But her failings, whether it seems fair or not, are also the burden of her husband. He is called to love her with a transforming love, regardless of her response to his love and regardless of whether she appears to change at all.

The promise is that this type of love will indeed sanctify her. In The Family: God's Weapon for Victory, author Robert Andrews says:

The Apostle Paul does promise all husbands that there will be results if we are faithful. Those results are not so much changes in her as they are changes for her. They are changes that reflect her progressive, ongoing salvation. In Ephesians 5: 26, Paul says that Jesus' sacrificial love for the church sanctified and cleansed it with the washing of water by the Word. To sanctify means to set apart. We have been set apart from the world by our eternal Bridegroom for Himself alone. The application to marriage is obvious. A woman who is loved in this way does not have a roving eye. She is not susceptible to advances by other men, for the powerful love of her husband has sanctified her, or set her apart from all others, just for himself alone. ... She is also cleansed by his love. He makes her feel important, though she may have always felt insignificant; beautiful, though she may have thought herself ugly; worthy, though she may have felt worthless; and clean, though because of her past, she may have felt dirty. ..... When a man loves his wife as Christ loved the church, he earns the privilege of presenting her to himself as a wife that is full of glory. The miracle of agape love is that the spots, wrinkles and blemishes, both emotional and physical, that were so important are gone. Maybe she won't change the habits that you find so unattractive. Maybe an outside observer will not be able to tell any difference in her character or how she acts, but it will no longer matter. If God supplies you with the power to love her with agape love, you will change, and you will see her as holy.

Certainly, a man can find himself bound to a wife, who was, for example, damaged in childhood and now resists his biblical love. As long as she stays with him, the onus is on the husband to continue to love her. He is to love her as Christ loves the church; and Christ doesn't give up on the church. The Bible promises the wife will be sanctified by this kind of love, even if outward appearances do not seem back this up. (The Bible does not, however, promise she will stay. If she leaves him, that is a case where the Bible says clearly that he is to let her go and he is without blame -- provided that he has been loving her with a love that is sacrificial, unconditional and initial.)

Certainly, the normal pattern is that a woman who is loved in a Christlike way does change noticeably--she adores her husband -- she can't help it. And his love changes her in a way that is readily apparent to everyone, especially to her husband and her own self. I have not personally known one case where a woman loved like this doesn't love God more because of her marriage and think her husband is the king.

God gave me a husband who loves me in this way, and I am completely different because of it. When we first got married and we would get into fights, I would think, "Uh-oh. Now he sees what I'm really like. He'll be repelled and leave." But he never did. I always remember one time after we had fought and worked it out and I was crying and I said something like that. He laughed and said, "Listen, I already know all your faults. I'm not going to suddenly say,'Geez, where did that come from.' I'm not going anywhere. I love you." And 16 years later, he still overlooks my flaws and makes the most of any good he sees in me. (Even more remarkable because he can be cynical and pessimistic about everything else.) I thank God for giving him the power to love me sacrificially, unconditionally and initially.