The Marriage Form describes "how each is bound to behave respectively towards the other." One important duty is mutual love. The husband is to love his wife as his own body; as Christ loves His Church (Eph. 5:25). Likewise, the wife is to love her lawful husband. The Marriage Form states: "The Father of all mercies bind you in true love and faithfulness."

Many marriages lack the basis of true love. They are based solely on natural or romantic love. The beauty of these relationships is like that of cut flowers. They have no roots; they soon fade and it cannot bear true fruit. We can distinguish, therefore, between natural and sanctified love.

Natural Love⤒🔗

Natural love as such is a gift of God. It is the name we give to man's innate longing for complementation and support. The Lord has laid natural love in the heart of mankind. In His good providence He maintains it in order that courtship and married life may continue to the end of days. Still today, natural love flows between the sexes and has a biological foundation. Natural love also is a gift of "the Father of lights" (James 1:17).

What was perfect in creation has, however, become corrupted by sin. The results of sin are also manifest in the area of natural love. This is clear from the Bible. Paul admonishes the church to "purge out … the old leaven," the old way of life in regard to marriage, sexuality and love (1 Cor. 5:7-13). In 1 Corinthians 6:13 he writes that "the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body."

The apostle is not referring only to the extreme case of prostitution. These words have everything to do with other sinful relationships, such as pre-marital sex and extra-marital relationships. We need to remember that our body is meant to be the temple of the Holy Spirit, before marriage, in marriage, and after marriage (1 Cor. 6:19). The apostle Paul places the whole sexual aspect of the Christian church at Corinth in the frame­work of redemption and forgiveness. He concludes his exhortations with these words: "For ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's" (1 Cor. 6:20).

Sanctified love←⤒🔗

God instituted marriage in order to safeguard and shelter love, and he wants mankind to practice this love. Natural love alone is not enough; it needs to be sanctified. Sanctified love strengthens and broadens the natural basis of marriage. How blessed it is when a couple reads the Bible together, prays together, walk in the fear of the Lord, and speak with each other about the Lord, His Word and His providence.

In a wedding ceremony a couple not only pledges mutual love in the presence of family and the congregation, but before the face of the Lord. We call God to be our witness and take an oath, as it were.

Our love must be characterized by self-denial. This is only possible by the power of divine love, of which we are made partakers only in the way of rebirth and repentance. Such love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (1 Cor. 13:7). A Christian marriage is to be a marriage in the Lord and it is to be lived out in a truly spiritual way.

This means loving each other as Christ loved His Church and gave Himself for His Church (Eph. 5:25). He took the initiative. The church does not manifest her own love, but rather the love that has been shed abroad in her heart by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). The church loves because He first loved her. Here we are touching on the depths of the mystery of marriage. To love in the Lord is not just any kind of love, but rather, it is loving with a love that knows of the miracle of Golgotha.

It is precisely when we have come to know Christ crucified and risen and we have passed from death unto life (cf. 1 Jn. 3:14) that we no longer see earthly and spiritual love as two separate areas, but rather as a twofold gift of God. Then natural love is sanctified and fertilized by spiritual love. Natural love learns to deny itself and is marked by the love by which "Christ also loved the church" (Eph. 5:25). To love your spouse in the Lord requires conversion to the Lord. To love your spouse in Christ requires union with Christ.

Do we speak about these things when we prepare for marriage and do we practice them in our married life? Marriage is a sign of God's mercy and of His Fatherly care and wisdom. Our Marriage Form says that God has instituted marriage so that "each avoiding all uncleanness (impurity) and evil lusts, may live with a good and quiet conscience." Our earthly and natural love needs to be motivated by the love that is learned every day at the foot of the cross. It is to be practiced every day in faith by following Christ.

This raises the matter of repentance and faith. It is remarkable that we commonly speak about the necessity of repentance and faith in a funeral message and not in a wedding message. This is not right. Precisely, on the most important day of our life, when there must be the right foundation, this element should not to be left out. This does not at all take away from the joy of the occasion.

Perhaps you say, there are no weddings in the Bible where repentance and faith play a significant role. But what about John 2:1-11? What does it mean that "the Lord Jesus Christ highly honoured marriage with His presence, gifts and miracles in Cana of Galilee"? In John 2:2 we read that Jesus was invited to the marriage. His presence provided for wine when the couple ran out of wine. He came and manifested His comforting, strengthening, guiding, forgiving, reconciling, redeeming and restoring glory. He provided for new wine. The Marriage Form says: "He will aid and protect married persons, even when they least deserve it."

Sanctified love requires a heart-commitment. Also at this point we should remember what the apostle Paul writes in another context: They "first gave their own selves to the Lord, and (then) unto us" (2 Cor. 8:5).

Summary←⤒🔗

The following comments intend to round off this sec­tion about love in marriage:

1. We are called to love one another in the Lord. Our lives need to be anchored in the Lord. Marriage is not a game. Marriage is a difficult test in self-denying love for Christ's sake.
2. When our natural love comes under the redeeming love and the lordship of Christ, sexual intimacy in marriage will not be the expression of lust. Instead, in unity of body, soul, and spirit, sexual intimacy will be integrated in a giving, sharing, enriching, and bonding way as a beautiful gift of God.
3. A marriage relationship of sanctified love is a relationship that reflects the great covenant between God and His people. A sanctified marriage lifts marriage out of the mud in which it is being trampled upon and trodden down today. A sanctified marriage holds marriage up as something singular, something that reflects the unique love between Christ and His Church. Let everyone pray the Lord for grace to fulfill this divine calling.
4. The prophets of the Old Testament and the apostle Paul in his epistles write a great deal about consecrating all of life to the Lord, including the areas of marriage and sexuality. In marriage the sanctified love relationship of the new obedience of faith must become evident.
5. In a certain sense, sanctified love is the best wine kept for later. In this way, marriage may be a symbol of the presence of Christ, whereby fountains of joy spring up which are not exhausted, but which become increasingly deeper and fuller.
6. Believers press towards the mark of sanctified love. Of Zacharias and Elisabeth it is said that they were both "righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless" (Luke 1:6).
7. Finally, sanctified love comes under the covering of the justification of the ungodly. Sins in and outside of marriage require the covering of Christ's blood. This takes place through faith so that we may live by divine forgiveness and love.