Gold Nugget 305 - Marriage - A Union of Spirit

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      Marriage is God’s holy ordinance.  It is not a sacrament … Neither is it merely a civil contract, as is sometimes shockingly said.  It is a union of two in the closest ties of nature, based on an affinity of spirit which leads each to see in the other what each most admires.  It is a union is spirit in the Lord (if it be all that it should be); each one of the two ceases to live in and for himself or herself, and begins practically to unlearn selfishness by living for the other, and thus the reciprocal outgoing of affection is a formative action of spirit, and tends to the very noblest culture of life.  And where the Divine idea of marriage is carried out, the purely natural side of it will be by no means the only one or even the highest. …

      Thus rolling years do but deepen the fondness and sweetness of their love, and if it becomes calmer and less demonstrative, it is because it has become fuller, richer, and stronger.  When youthful audour dies down, the holy tie is holier than ever; their very souls become knit together in one.  The care of one is the care of both; the joy of one is the joy of both; and any unkindness that stings one wounds both.  As two trees side by side in a grove, their arms interlace and interlock, yet each has its separate root. 

      So husband and wife, as trees of the Lord’s own right hand planting, do through the whole of this earthly life become interlocked with growing firmness, while their one Saviour in whom they live is the common joy of their spirits, their one hope for eternity!

 

The Pulpit Commentary, Deuteronomy p. 99-100, Deuteronomy 5:18, (C. Clemance)

 

Gold Nugget 305

Marriage – A Union of Spirit