The (Discouraging) Definition and Location of Marriage

In last month’s Grace & Knowledge, we welcomed in the New Year in a rather bizarre way: by examining the beauty of unforgiveness. Of course, that’s unbiblical, but to understand one reason why forgiveness is so difficult, we have to admit that there is a powerful temptation to hold others in our debt.

(Then, throughout January in Wednesday’s Word, we’ve been unpacking what forgiveness is, what it requires, and why it’s a much better way!)

Of course, forgiveness applies to and is essential in every relationship. But there is no relationship in which forgiveness is needed more than in marriage, with its 10,000 mundane moments and struggles of everyday life.

So, if you want to experience a marriage of unity, understanding, and love, you need to forgive. But I would actually contend that before that, you need to understand the definition and location of your marriage.

Therefore, to wrap up our New Year commitment of canceling debts and forgiving others, I want to dedicate this G&K essay specifically to marriage and understanding its definition and location.

If you’re not married, please forgive me! But don’t stop reading. While the applications I will make are specific to husbands and wives, there are gospel principles that need to be understood by every believer, regardless of your relationship status.

The Discouraging Definition and Location of Marriage

If you asked Wikipedia, ChatGPT, or Google AI to define marriage, you would get something like this: “A culturally and legally recognized union between two people, establishing rights, responsibilities, and a committed relationship, often involving shared finances, property, and parental duties.”

How does the Bible define it? You’ll probably assume Genesis 2:24: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” But I want to give you a bigger definition that spans the entire Bible (and I’m being intentionally provocative here): Marriage is a flawed person married to a flawed person living in a fallen world.

Are you discouraged and cynical yet!?

Every husband and wife face the same thing. Our marriages exist in the middle of a world that does not function as God intended. Somehow, someway, your marriage is touched by the brokenness of our world every day. Maybe it simply has to do with the necessity of living with the low-grade hassles of a broken world, or maybe you are facing major issues that have altered the course of your life and your marriage.

But there is one thing that is sure: you will not escape the location in which God has chosen for you to live. It is not an accident that you are conducting your marriage in this broken world. It is not an accident that you have to deal with the things you do. None of this is fate, chance, or luck. It is all a part of God’s redemptive plan.

Acts 17:26 says that he determines the exact place where you live and the exact length of your life, “having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place.” He knows where you live, and he is not surprised at what you are facing. Even though you face things that make no sense to you, there is meaning and purpose to everything you face.

I am persuaded that understanding your location and God’s purpose in keeping you here is foundational to building a marriage of unity, understanding, and love, full of forgiveness and grace.

Grief, Trials, and Tests

There is no better window on what we face in the here-and-now world in which we live than the descriptive words the Bible uses in 1 Peter 1:6-7: “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

Three words here—grieved, trials, and tested—should cause you to pause. Of all the terms that Peter has at his disposal to describe what God is doing in us through the location in which we live, it is very significant that he uses these three words. Each is instructive and interpretive.

First, you will not escape the grief of life in the fallen world. This grief can be the momentary pain of a minor disappointment or the long-term mourning of a major loss. The point is that, along the way, grief touches us all in little and significant ways.

Second, we all face trials. We will deal with things we would never have planned for ourselves or inserted into our schedules. We will grieve because we will face difficulties that we neither anticipated nor planned. The final word brings together the portrait of life in this fallen world. The word tested does not mean tested in the sense of an exam. No, it means “tempered” or “refined.”

With this last word, tested, God tells you one of the most significant things you will ever understand about your marriage in the here and now. God decided to leave you and your spouse in this fallen world to live, love, and work because he intended to use the difficulties you face to do something in you that could not be done any other way.

Happiness or Holiness?

Most of us have a personal happiness paradigm. Now, it is not wrong to want to be happy or to work toward marital happiness. God has given you the capacity for enjoyment and has placed wonderful things around you to enjoy. The problem is not that this is a wrong goal, but that it is way too small a goal.

God is working on something deep, necessary, and eternal. If he were not working on this, he would not be remaining faithful to his promises to you. God has a personal holiness paradigm.

Do not be put off by the language here. The words mean that God is working through your daily circumstances to change you.

In his love, he knows that you are not all that you have been created to be. Even though it may be hard to admit, there is still sin inside you, and that sin gets in the way of what you are meant to be and designed to do. And, by the way, that sin is the biggest obstacle of all to a marriage of unity, understanding, and love.

God is using the difficulties of the here and now to transform you—that is, to rescue you from you. And, because he loves you, he will willingly interrupt or compromise your momentary happiness in order to accomplish one more step in the process of rescue and transformation, to which he is unshakably committed.

When you begin to get on God’s paradigm page, life not only makes sense (the things you face are not irrational troubles but transforming tools) but immediately becomes more hopeful. There is hope for you and your marriage because God is in the middle of your circumstances, using them to mold you into who he has created you to be. As he does so, you not only respond to life better, but you also become a better person to live with, which results in a better marriage.

With a Faithful God

I want to return to our definition of marriage from the beginning, because I left it incomplete: Marriage is a flawed person married to a flawed person living in a fallen world … with a faithful God!

There is one more aspect to the biblical definition of marriage that you have to consider as you are seeking to look at your marriage as realistically as possible and with hope. Not only must you reckon with the fallen location of the world you live in and the fact that both of you are less than perfect, but you must also remember that you are not alone in your struggle.

Acts 17 continues and says that God is near, so near that in your moment of need you can reach out and touch him because he is not far from each one of us: “That they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:27).

Yes, you live in a bad neighborhood (fallen world), and the two of you are less than perfect (sin), but in all this, you are not left to your own resources. The God who determined your address lives there with you and is committed to giving you everything you need.

Faithful, Powerful, and Willing

Yes, you need to embrace the reality of the three words in 1 Peter 1:6-7 (grief, trials, and tests), but there are three more words that will give every marriage hope. And they’re found on Easter Sunday, but should be celebrated and applied every single day of the year.

I love what the empty tomb teaches us, not only about marriage, but about all of life.

First, it teaches us that God is faithful. Centuries earlier, after Adam and Eve had disobeyed God, God promised to crush wrong once and for all. He sent his Son to defeat sin and death by his crucifixion and resurrection. For thousands of years, God neither forgot nor turned from his promise. He did not grow weary, nor would he be distracted. He made a promise, and he controlled the events of history (large and small) so that at just the right moment, Jesus Christ would come and fulfill what had been promised.

The empty tomb also reminds us that God is powerful. He is powerful in authority and powerful in strength. Think of the authority you would need to have in order to control all the situations, locations, and relationships needed to guarantee that Jesus would come at the precise moment and do what he was appointed to do! Furthermore, could there be a more pointed demonstration of power than to have power over death? By God’s awesome power, Jesus took off his graveclothes and walked out of that tomb. Those guys in power-lifter competitions may be able to pull a bus with their teeth, but they will all die, and there is nothing they can do about it.

The empty tomb points us to one more amazing thing. It teaches us that God is willing. “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father” (John 10:18).

Why would he go to such an extent to help us? Why would he care to notice us, let alone rescue us? Why would he ever sacrifice his own Son? Because he is willing. You and I need to recognize that his willingness was motivated not by what he saw in us but by what is inside of him. He is willing because he is the definition of mercy. He is willing because he is the source of love. He is willing because he is full of amazing grace. He is willing because he is good, gentle, patient, and kind. Even when we are unwilling, full of ourselves, and wanting our own way, he is still willing. He delights in transforming us by his grace. He delights in rescuing us by his powerful love.

So, when you are sinned against or when the fallen world breaks down your door, do not lash out or run away. Stand in your weakness and confusion and say, “I am not alone. God is with me, and he is faithful, powerful, and willing.”

You can be realistic and hopeful at the very same time. Realistic expectations are not about hope without honesty, nor about honesty without hope. Realism is found at the intersection of unabashed honesty and uncompromising hope. God’s Word and God’s grace make both possible in your marriage, in every other relationship, and for everything else you will face in the 10,000 little moments of everyday life in a fallen world.