"...The Jewish ideal gives us the basis of the Christian ideal. The Jewish term for marriage was Kiddushin. Kiddushin means sanctification or consecration... This means that in marriage the husband is dedicated and consecrated to the wife, and the wife is dedicated and consecrated to the husband. The one becomes the exclusive possession of the other, as much as an offering and a sacrifice become the exclusive possession of God. That is what Jesus meant when He said that for the sake of marriage a man would leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife; and that is what He meant when He said that man and wife become so totally one that they can be called one flesh. That was God's ideal of marriage as the old Genesis story saw it and that is the ideal which Jesus restates." (William Barclay in The Gospel of Matthew, vol. 2, p. 223).
Barclay goes on to describe specific consequences of God's design for holy marriage.
1. Total Unity. "Marriage is not given for one act in life... but for all acts in life. That is to say that while sex is a supremely important part of marriage, it is not the whole of marriage... Marriage is given, not that two people should do one thing together, but that they should do all things together."
2. Total Union of two personalities. Humanity can exist in pairs in a variety of ways: dominant-submissive partners, armed neutrality, or resigned acceptance. "The ideal is that in the marriage state two people find the completing of their personalities... Marriage should not narrow life; it should complete it. It is the union of two personalities in which the two complete each other" (Barclay, p. 224).
3. A sharing of all of life's circumstances. "Unless two people are prepared to face the routine of life as well as the glamour of life together, marriage must of necessity be a failure" (Barclay, p. 225).
4. Marriage is togetherness and considerateness. "Selfishness is the murderer of any personal relationship with other people... It is the Christlike love, which knows that in forgetting self it will find self, and that in losing itself it will complete itself." (Barclay, p. 226).
Lord Jesus,
Empower me to love as You love. Fill me with Your Spirit and let Your perfect love saturate my marriage in total unity, interpersonal union, sharing, and forgetting myself. Only then can my marriage be what You want it to be.
Through my lifelong marriage on earth, prepare me to be part of Your Bride, united with You, the Bridegroom, in heaven throughout all eternity.
I love You, and I anticipate heaven with You. Help me to construct my marriage as a little bit of earthly heaven, filling me with longing to see You!
In Your Name,
Amen.
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