Marriage

The reason there is so much misery in marriage is not that husbands and wives seek their own pleasure but that they do not seek it in the pleasure of their spouses. The biblical mandate to husbands and wives is to seek their own joy in the joy of their spouses. Make marriage a matrix for Christian Hedonism.

There is scarcely a more hedonistic passage in the Bible than the one on marriage in Ephesians 5:25–30.

Husbands are told to love their wives the way Christ loved the church. How did he love the church? He “gave himself up for her.” But why? “That he might sanctify her” and cleanse her. But why did he want to do that? “That he might present the church to himself in splendor”!

Ah! There it is! “For the joy that was set before him [he] endured the cross” (Heb. 12:2, ESV). What joy? The joy of marriage to his bride, the church. Jesus does not want a dirty and unholy wife. Therefore, he was willing to die to “sanctify and cleanse” his betrothed so he could present to himself a wife “in splendor.”

And what is the church’s ultimate joy? Is it not to be cleansed and sanctified and then presented as a bride to the sovereign, all-glorious Christ? So Christ sought his own joy, yes—but he sought it in the joy of the church! That is what love is: the pursuit of our own joy in the joy of the beloved.

In Ephesians 5:29–30, Paul pushes the hedonism of Christ even further: “No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body (ESV).” Why does Christ nourish and cherish the church? Because we are members of his own body, and no man ever hates his own body. In other words, the union between Christ and his bride is so close (“one flesh”) that any good done to her is a good done to himself. The blatant assertion of this text is that this fact motivates the Lord to nourish, cherish, sanctify, and cleanse his bride.

By some definitions, this cannot be love. Love, they say, must be free of self-interest—especially Christlike love, especially Calvary love. I have never seen such a view of love made to square with this passage of Scripture. Yet what Christ does for his bride, this text plainly calls love: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church.” Why not let the text define love for us instead of bringing our definition from ethics or philosophy?

According to this text, love is the pursuit of our joy in the holy joy of the beloved. There is no way to exclude self-interest from love, for self-interest is not the same as selfishness. Selfishness seeks its own private happiness at the expense of others. Love seeks its happiness in the happiness of the beloved. It will even suffer and die for the beloved in order that its joy might be full in the life and purity of the beloved.