October 12 – LD 41, Day 5: Marriage with Love
by Pastor Steven Key
Ephesians 5:25: "Husbands,
love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for
it.”
In marriage, the husband
represents Christ Himself as the head, not only leading and guiding, but also
loving his wife, even as Christ the Church. The husband seeks his wife’s
spiritual growth and blessing, nourishing and cherishing her, even as Christ
sanctifies His Bride, “That He might present it to Himself a glorious
church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be
holy and without blemish” (Eph 5:27). The wife, on the
other hand, lives in submission to her husband, serving him, assisting him,
reverencing him, living unto him. These things belong to the positive
requirement of the seventh commandment. These things mark a sanctified
marriage.
In that fellowship of
love, the husband and wife also enjoy the physical intimacy of marriage, the
sexual union expressive of the intimate love that is theirs as part of that
mystery, reflecting the love bond between Christ and the Church. It is an act
of intimacy that God has given strictly to that holy union between husband and
wife, and from which He is also pleased, in the years of our youth, to gather a
holy seed, covenant children, showing Himself faithful to His promise to
establish His covenant with believers and their seed. What a wonder of God’s
grace is the sanctified bond of holy marriage! Love is the fulfillment of the
law!
So highly does God hold
the standard with respect to marriage that we are told in I Cor
6:9-10, “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the