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For what reason will Christ divorce His bride, the church for whom He died?

For I am persuaded that neither life nor death, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39).

Now, hear these words of Jesus to His followers: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, you are to also love one another" (John 13:34).

The direct implications of these verses for Christian marriage are inescapable, aren't they?

Nothing would put a bigger dent in the "Christian divorce" rate than for husbands and wives to really "get" true love down deep in their souls, and let it permeate every fiber of their being.  You see, love is not some out of control train that runs over your emotions and renders you unable to "help yourself."  Neither is love a pit that you fall into and thus can claw your way out.  Sex is not love.  Emotion is not love.  Strong compassion is not the sum of love.

God is love . . . In this is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another" (1 John 4:8-11).

God is the source of love and His character is its very definition.  As John Stott put it, "All God's activity is loving."  Love is not just another thing added to God's traits.  No, God is love.  Love is woven into the very fiber of His eternal being.

And God calls and enables those He has saved to demonstrate this very same love!  The love of the Father who was pleased to pour out all His holy anger against sin on His Son, Jesus (Isaiah 53:10).  The love of the Son "who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross" (Hebrews 12:2).  This Divine love penetrates all sin, and embraces spiritual lepers and prostitutes.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us" (Rom 5:8).

If God is the very definition of love; and if that love is seen most perfectly in the offering of Jesus the Son for filthy, unworthy sinners and rebels, then Christian husbands and wives must trash all other opinions, ideas and definitions of love that do not measure up!  God loves His people with an "everlasting love."  God never divorces His love from His commitment (Deut 7:6-11).  The Bible is nothing if not a grand narrative on the true God who makes and keeps covenants with sinful people!

Our culture has convinced us we can somehow keep loving someone apart from a determined commitment to them.  Indeed, this is really the essence of a divorce, is it not?  But God does not love that way, and God is love.

The definition I have adopted based upon my study of true, biblical love is this: "Love is a settled act of the will that always causes one to sacrificially act for God's glory and the good of the beloved."

This is not to say emotion is never involved in love.  It surely is.  This is not to say physical intimacy is not part of love.  It surely is (within the confines of marriage only, else it dishonors the One who is love).  And communicating is part of love, and sharing life, and struggling together, and so on.  But none of these things alone is the sum of love.  God is love.  And we as His people, those on whom He has chosen to set His love, are called to love like Him, and to root and ground our view of love on nothing other than the cross.

People who have this view of love deep in their hearts will not lay down ultimatums.  "Straighten up and do what I want or else I quit."  (Ultimatums only serve to create a phony situation, anyway, because they force someone to be on best behavior.  But nobody is on best behavior 24/7.)  True love does not say "You fill my love bank and I'll fill yours."  Nor does it try and make one's "Love Language" the final arbiter of what love really is.  Jesus said these types of love were just versions of pagan self-love (Matt 5:43-48; Luke 6:32-36).

So, for what reason would Jesus divorce His beloved bride?

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends" (1 Corinthains 13:4-8).

Just before Jesus took a towel and began washing His disciples' feet (the job of the lowest slave in that culture), we read these words: "Jesus knew that His hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end" (John 13:1).

Christian husbands and wives, we are called to something far higher than phony love.  Love in Christian marriage is all about Jesus' glory in the way He loves His own (Eph 5:22-33).  Jesus never quits on His bride.  His love penetrates all our selfishness, all our greed, all our unloveliness, all our adultery, all our diseases, and even all our faulty views of love!

Several years ago I saw a documentary on the arranged marriages of India.  While I do not advocate we embrace this way of making marriages, I was struck by what one Indian man said.  He quipped when asked how the divorce rate was so low in India, "In America, you try and find the one you love then marry her.  In India, we love the one we marry."

Ironic, isn't it, that a non-Christian culture has a far more biblical view of love than our so-called "Christian America?"

So, what if Jesus loved you the way you are loving your spouse?

by Keith McWhorter