Subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ.
Wives, be in subjection unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, being Himself the saviour of the body.
But as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives also be to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself up for it;
That He might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word,
That He might present the church to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
Even so ought husbands also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his own wife loveth himself:
For no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as Christ also the church;
Because we are members of His body.
For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh.
This mystery is great: but I speak in regard of Christ and of the church.
Nevertheless do ye also severally love each one his own wife even as himself; and let the wife see that she fear her husband.
Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil;
Rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth;
Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Love never faileth.
Lord, as we are continuing in Thy presence, we do ask Thee that Thy word which has been read will be quickened by Thy Holy Spirit to each of us; that Thy word will truly speak to us. Open our understanding, and bring us to where Thou wantest us to be.
Lord, we just pray that Thy word will be living and operative here, will be life and spirit to us, that Thy purpose may be fulfilled and Thou mayest be glorified. We do commit this time into Thy hands, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Now, on this special occasion, I really feel that I cannot speak on anything else but something concerning marriage. So I am going to share with you on love, the foundation of marriage.
Marriage is holy. It is a mystery. God puts two entirely different persons together and makes them one. How does God do it? It is a mystery.
But if we really want to know the meaning of marriage—what marriage really is—we have to go back to a greater mystery. All human marriages happened after a greater, the greatest, marriage in the universe: even before the foundation of the world.
God the Father loved His Son so much that He wanted to give to His Son a life companion—His bride. This purpose of God, this will of God, in giving His Son a bride, a wife, comes out of His deep love for His Son. That is the beginning of the concept of marriage.
And then the Son, of course, being in full agreement with His Father—loving His Father and wanting whatever His Father wants—offered Himself in order to have that bride.
It is out of love that the Son of God came into this world. He came to seek His bride, and when He could not find her anywhere, He gave Himself for her on the cross. By giving Himself in such a way, He created His bride. It is out of love—nothing else but love.
Then God the Holy Spirit works in the hearts of many people. He spreads abroad in their hearts the love of God. He constrains them with the love of Christ. He causes them to love Christ in such a way that they are willing to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow the Lord.
In other words, the Spirit of love is preparing the bride of the Lamb. Here you find the Triune God all working together for this matter of that eternal union between Christ and the church. It is all out of love.
Love is the foundation of marriage. Marriage is built of nothing else but love. That eternal union between Christ and His church is a pattern for every marriage on this earth.
Now, what is marriage? Marriage is the union of two loves.
You know, King Solomon wrote one thousand and five songs, but the Song of Songs is the song of two loves. You find the love of the virgin toward the beloved, and the love of the beloved toward the virgin.
The love of the beloved is perfect. You cannot improve upon His love. It is divine love, a selfless love, a love that never changes.
But the love of the virgin is imperfect. She does have a love for the beloved, and yet it is human love—phileo love, feeling love, friendly love. It has a tendency toward self-interest. It is all for herself. It is not divine; it is not agape love.
So here you find that wonderful story in the Song of Songs: how these two loves interact; how the perfect divine love of the beloved continues to draw, to attract, and to work upon that imperfect human phileo love of the virgin.
Gradually, He transforms her love from self-centred to Christ-centred, from self to Christ, from that human phileo love into divine agape.
You find in the Song of Songs these three steps. When the virgin first desires after the beloved, there is a period of being together and experiencing this exchange of love.
In Song of Solomon 2:16, the virgin says:
My beloved is mine, and I am His.
In other words, “My beloved is mine.” Here you find that she is the major one, the one who receives all the love that she desires. She recognises that she is His too, but the emphasis is very much upon “mine.”
Can we say that this is the time of courtship? Probably during the time of courtship, you will find that it is more selfish than selfless. In other words, you really desire for yourself, and you are satisfied; you are happy with it.
But then you find that the beloved loves the virgin so much that He wants to sanctify her and purify her. As the story goes on, He continues to call her, to draw her out of herself, to follow Him in a resurrection way, in an ascension way.
It is difficult, but eventually you find that the virgin responds. In responding, there is a transformation going on in the heart of that virgin.
So when you come to Song of Solomon 6:3, you find that her feeling is entirely different. She says:
I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.
You know, she puts the beloved first now. She is thinking more of the interest, the satisfaction, and the pleasure of the beloved than of herself. But she still cannot forget herself, so she says, “I am my beloved’s, but my beloved is also mine.”
That is a great step to take. Shall we say this is a time of engagement? Now they begin to know each other better, and the character of the beloved begins to work upon the virgin. Transformation is coming.
The beloved continues. He will not simply give up for something less than perfect. He continues to attract and work upon the virgin, and the virgin has to pass through very difficult experiences—more process.
But finally, thank God, love never fails. When you come to Song of Solomon 7:10, the virgin says:
I am my beloved’s, and His desire is toward me.
In the beginning, it is more of self and less of Christ. Then it grows into more of Christ and less of self. Finally, it comes to all Christ and none of self.
So we may say that at that time there is marriage. The two are really becoming one. As you read on, you find in Song of Solomon 8 that they begin to think of the little sister. In other words, they are in such oneness that they are thinking together of the little sister.
Brothers and sisters, we find that marriage is the union of two loves. It is the union of the perfect love of Christ with the church, or with individual believers.
As a matter of fact, we all find how imperfect our love is. But He will not give us up. He will continue to work, and His love transforms us and enables us to be one in love with Him. That is the union of two loves.
That is the story of the Song of Songs, and actually it is the story of the whole Bible. You find how the love of Christ works upon us until finally, when you come to the last two chapters of Revelation, the bride is ready, coming down from heaven: the New Jerusalem, the holy city, full of the glory of God. Everything manifests Christ. That is the eternal marriage, the eternal union.
Now, brothers and sisters, we have to say that in human marriage, the man and the woman have love, but it is not perfect. It is not like Christ’s love, which is perfect.
In human marriage, you find that the man’s love is not perfect, and neither is the woman’s. In a sense, there is much human imperfection in that love.
Even though we who belong to the Lord do have that agape love in us, there is still so much human phileo love there. As a matter of fact, phileo love is usually dominant in the beginning, and agape love needs to be gradually expressed.
So in the case of human marriage, we need to remember this: the will of God is that, by His life in us and by the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives, He is transforming us both—the husband and the wife—from that phileo love, which is imperfect, into that agape love, which is perfect.
Our Lord is determined to do this in our lives. But in so doing, you find that both the husband and the wife have much to learn.
The love of God, the love of Christ in you both, will draw you, call you, constrain you, restrain you, and work in you. Sometimes you may feel that it is beyond you, yet that is the way He tries to deliver you from that merely human, self-centred love into divine, Christ-filled love.
So can you read Ephesians 5? “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself up for it.” Now, how can you do that?
Yes, you love your husband, or you love your wife. But can you love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her? Are you in that place yet?
Christ loved the church. He nourishes it, cherishes it, and sanctifies it by the washing of water with the word, in order to make her a glorious church without spot or wrinkle, holy and blameless. Now, how are you going to do that? Do you have that love that can do such a thing?
Humanly, it cannot be done. But thank God, because His life is in you and His Spirit is working in you. The important thing is whether you are willing—whether you obey—whether you are willing to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Him.
His love shall prevail, and you find that it is not impossible. With man it is impossible; with God all things are possible. So, brother, remember that.
The same thing is true with the sister. Submit to your husband. Humanly speaking, it is very easy. Natural love is for the husband to submit to the wife—not to lord over the wife, but to submit to the wife. That is natural.
The same thing is true with a wife. It is easy for the wife to love her husband, but to submit to her husband—that is unnatural.
So what God demands is supernatural, because He gives us a supernatural life. How can a sister submit to her husband in all things, just as the church is subject to Christ? How can you do that?
Humanly, impossible. But the life of Christ is in you, and the Spirit of God is working in you. He may, and He will, use the cross to cut into your self-life in order to bring you out of yourself and into that perfect love, until submission becomes supernaturally natural.
The Bible does not present merely an ideal. What the Bible tells us about the relationship between a husband and a wife is real; it is living. But you cannot do that without the life of Christ in you, without living according to the Holy Spirit, and without cooperating with God. He is well able to do all these things.
Now, love is not something merely sentimental or emotional. It does have emotion, no doubt. There is no emotion that is dead. But it is more than emotion.
Love is more than a theoretical ideal. We find that it is very practical. If the love of Christ constrains both of you, and if you allow Him to work in your lives to bring you into that divine love, that it may be a union of two loves in Christ, then you will find certain practical things coming forth.
I would like just to mention a few of these practical things. I am not going to give a commentary on 1 Corinthians 13—I am not able to—but I am trying to use common language to bring out some of the things that are mentioned in 1 Corinthians 13.
Of course, we know that 1 Corinthians 13 is a chapter on love. But if you read the context, you find that it is love in the body. In chapter 12, you find the body of Christ; in chapter 14, you find the functioning and working of the body; and in between is chapter 13, the chapter of love.
So this love has a relationship with the body. In other words, it is love in the body—how you love the body, and how the members of the body love one another.
If you really wrote a chapter on love, you would not begin with such a negative quality as “love suffereth long.” The reason is that it is describing love working in the body. When love is working in the body, long-suffering is actually the first noticeable thing.
Love always tries to understand and not to be unkind.
You know, men and women are made so differently. Even though today people try to make man and woman the same, that is a worldly concept. I do not say they are not equal—we are equal in worth—but God made us differently.
Physically we are different. Psychologically we are different. Men and women think differently, feel differently, look at things differently, and react differently. Men and women are different.
Because of such differences, when you put two who are so different together day and night, twenty-four hours a day, you can see how much suffering there must be.
The husband may think that to show his love to his wife, he should buy some good dress or something for her, and she should be happy. But do you know what the wife is? “If you only understand me. If you only know me.”
And vice versa. I find that the greatest expression of love is understanding. You really learn to know each other—the weakness as well as the strength. You try to know the feeling and the thinking of the other person.
Now, it is not easy, because it is against your physiological and psychological make-up. But this is real life. Real love always tries to stand on the other side, to look at things, to feel things, to appreciate, and to understand.
There is no greater gift you can give to each other in love than understanding.
If you understand, you will not be unkind. That is why I say, “Love suffereth long.” When you try to understand the other person, you suffer, because you cannot do what you want to do. You cannot stand merely on your own ground. You cannot insist on your own opinion. You cannot rely merely on your own feeling.
You have to deny yourself and try to feel the way the other one feels. You have to try to think the way the other one thinks. It is not easy. You suffer.
Love suffers and shows patience. In doing that, you will respond with kindness. Otherwise, you will respond with unkindness, because you think that you are right, the other one is wrong, and he or she should come around to suit you.
I think probably the first practical expression of divine love is understanding. How God understands us! He knows our frame. He knows our weakness. He does not deal with us according to what He sees, but He is willing to take our place and even die for us. That is understanding.
How kind He is to us, always trying to bring us up to the place where we should be—His desire for us, His perfection. This is the first practical lesson we can deduce from the chapter.
The second thing is this: if there is real love in marriage, love complements; it never competes.
There is a practical problem today. Both the man and the woman work, and many women have a career. Perhaps the lady’s career receives promotion and rises higher while the man is lower, and there is jealousy because there is competition.
The husband and wife are meant to complement each other, not compete with each other. In competing with each other, you become jealous. That is why love does not envy.
If you see the other one being glorified, then you rejoice instead of becoming jealous. Love always tries to complement the other one, never to compete.
Look at our Lord Jesus. How He tries to complete us! He wants to sanctify us and wash us by the water with the word, that we may be glorious, without blemish, holy and blameless.
Let us not compete. Try to complement each other. Help each other. Love each other. When one gets a little ahead, do not be jealous, but rather be joyful. I think that is how love works.
Number three: love is always courteous, never coarse. Love never behaves in an unseemly manner.
In Chinese, we have a proverb. Forgive me for quoting a Chinese proverb. It says that even husband and wife should treat one another as mutual guests.
You understand that? When you are in bed, you are husband and wife; that is intimacy. But when you are on the ground, you treat each other as guests—polite to each other.
To put it another way, you do not treat each other carelessly because familiarity breeds contempt. Sometimes we can become careless about it. But if there is real love, you find that it is always courteous.
You treat each other in a very seemly manner, never in a coarse, rough, or rude manner. As one brother said, learn to say, “Thank you,” and do not raise your voice. These are practical things.
Of course, it is not merely that you try to do it outwardly. But if the love of Christ is within you, that will really help you to be able to do such things.
Number four: love always gives and does not seek to get. It gives; it does not get.
If you really love, you are not thinking in terms of, “What can I get out of you?” Rather, “What can I give to you?”
The husband is not thinking, “What can I get from the service of my wife? I am the head of the family. I need to be served. What can I get out of this?” No.
Probably the wife may have the same thought: “What can I get out of my husband? More money?” But the thing is this: if there is real love, you are not thinking of what you get. You think only in terms of what you can give.
That is the love of God. That is the love of Christ. If He had thought of what He could get, He had such a poor bargain that He would never have done it. But He never thought of what He would get. He only thought of what He could give, and He gave and gave and gave to the other—even His life.
Now that is love. We need to have our mentality changed. Since you are together, you have to think in terms of giving instead of getting.
Number five: love bears and does not boast.
Love bears all things. There is bearing and forbearing. When two are together, there will be times—and there must be times; it is unavoidable—when there are situations and things you have to bear.
It comes upon you, and you must not only bear it but also forbear. You cannot continue to remember these things. You have to forgive and forget. You cannot allow things to pile up and be put into an account.
If you are doing that, you will find that it is very, very dangerous to a marriage. Love always bears and forbears. No matter how you are treated or misunderstood, you bear it, and you still bear it. You forgive and you forget. Do not pile up things.
Now that is one side. The other side is: do not brag. The Bible says love does not vaunt itself, is not puffed up. Do not brag of yourself, but be willing to yield.
The Bible says, “Subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ.” Because we love Him, we fear that we may displease Him. This is the fear of Christ—not fear of punishment, but the fear of not pleasing Him.
Because of that, we are able to submit, to yield, and not to be arrogant. Bear and forbear.
Number six: love covers; it does not condemn.
If there is real love, you find that the Bible says that love covers a multitude of sins. Instead of condemning, broadcasting, and making things known, love covers.
You remember the story of Noah and his three sons. Noah was drunk and lay naked. Ham saw his father’s nakedness, went out, and broadcast it to his brothers—perhaps in a joking or spiteful manner.
But Shem and Japheth, when they heard about it, put a garment upon their shoulders, walked backward, and covered their father so that they would not see his nakedness.
Love always covers. That does not mean that it condones sin, because the Bible speaks very clearly about sin. But you cover; you do not try to open the matter and shout it out to the world. You cover with love.
You do not try to condemn. You try to redeem. You try to recover. That is love. That is a practical aspect of love.
Number seven: love hopes; it does not lose hope.
What I mean is that love is always hopeful. When a person gives up hope, that is the end of it. Your marriage can become like that: you give up hope, and that is the reason people divorce. That is the end of it.
But love hopes. Love is always hopeful. No matter how bad the situation is, you still hope against hope.
We have much to hope for because we have the life of Christ. The eternal life, no matter how bad things are, is always our hope. So never give up hope. Keep on hoping.
If you have hope, you can endure, and the Lord will honour that.
Finally, love never fails. Therefore, you are always faithful—always faithful to each other—because love never fails.
We want to exhort the newly married couple, and also all of us, that the foundation of marriage is love. It is the love of God, not our natural love.
Our natural love will come to an end. Our natural love can only love to a certain degree. But thank God, we have the life of love in us, and this love is able to bring us to the very end.
So may the Lord help us. That is the word.
Dear Heavenly Father, we do thank Thee that even though marriage on earth is just a human affair, yet, Lord, we tell Thee that it is patterned after that eternal marriage of the Lamb and the bride.
Lord, we just pray that all marriages on earth among Thy people will be a miniature, a small expression and representation, of that eternal marriage which Thou hast in mind.
May all human marriages on earth, especially among Thy people, be such that they will speed the day of that marriage of the Lamb and the bride.
We just commit Thy word back into Thy hands and ask Thy blessing upon it, to the praise of Thy glory, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.