A relationship is not based on the length of time you have spent together; it’s based on the foundation you’ve built together.Tweet this!
The above unattributed quotation, like most popular sentiments, is easier to explain rhetorically than to live readily–it is easier to talk about the foundation than to build it. No matter how true the quotation may be, the best our post-Christian culture seems to be able to offer marriage is the same distorted rhetorical fruit that gave us problems in the garden. We need something more substantial to plant our relationships in.
New Creation Love
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
This is the foundation that wisely moves us away from the teleology of earth. The word “new” (καινοσ, kainos) means “qualitatively new, as contrasted with néos (3501), temporally new.” The connotation of the word implies something that was previously unknown. The believer is something new, not a garden-variety human being. The use of the aorist and perfect verbs strengthens the idea that all of this happened at a point in time and the benefits continue on in the life of the believer.
Paul appeals to this newness in his discussion of marriage. He tells married couples, “Each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband” (Ephesians 5:33). Goulston explains, “In my twenty-five years in private practice, one of the few things that has remained a constant is that most women want to be cherished and most men want to be admired.” Eggerichs agrees,
You may remember how the Beatles sang, “All you need is love.” I absolutely disagree with that conclusion. Five out of ten marriages today are ending in divorce because love alone is not enough. Yes, love is vital, especially for the wife, but what we have missed is the husband’s need for respect. This Love and Respect message is about how the wife can fulfill her need to be loved by giving her husband what he needs – respect. And the husband can fulfill his need to be respected by giving his wife what she needs – love. Does this always work? No. But if one is married to a person of good will, I would bet the farm that it would work!
Eggerichs explains that when a woman is battered in a relationship, she will confess that she feels unloved. A battered man, when asked if his wife loves him will most frequently answer, “Yes, but she doesn’t respect me.” Respect and love can redeem relationships torn apart by the curse.
When a wife is disrespectful in the way she treats her husband she deeply hurts the relationship. A woman who is married to a jerk is best served if she doesn’t join him in the way she responds. Like all “new creations,” she must be truthful and kind at the same time. The Holy Spirit empowers this difficult behavior. The flesh, the world and Satan consistently work to disconnect us, but the Spirit helps us reconnect.
Without the filling of the Spirit, the husband and wife continue to invoke the garden curse and miss the beautiful and holy ecstasies of the “new creation.” The battle between the old man and the new, the Garden of Eden and the garden tomb, continues to create in our marriages a kind of spiritual PSD. But, the trauma in being human can be transformed and the frequency of the stress can be reduced as we join the work of the Holy Spirit in birthing the new man.
The Old Creation
Part of living in a marriage where “the old has gone” requires acknowledging that the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21), the world (I John 2:15-19, James 4:4-6), and Satan (Ephesians 6:10-18, 1 Peter 5:8-11, and Matthew 4:1-11) are no longer our masters. Although sin followed us out of Eden, the new creation capacities help free us from the garden’s curse. This is partly why Paul writes to those made “new” in Christ:
Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. (Ephesians 5:18 – 21)
Unfortunately translations such as the NIV break this passage into several sentences leaving us with the impression that Paul is commanding us to be filled, relate to one another with psalms, sing and make melody, give thanks, and submit. Each appears as an imperitive. The ESV tries to reflect the proper grammar. Verses 18 through 21 are, in the Greek, part of one sentence. The main verb is “be filled.” The verb is modified or described by 5 participals: adressing, singing, making melody, giving thanks, and submitting. The structure of the sentence indicates that there are at least 5 characteristics of Spirit-filled believers: They have a positive way of interacting with others, they ascribe continuous heart-felt worth to the Lord, they are thankful, and they submit to those around them. These are qualities of the new creation and they transform marriage.
In contrast, some spouses try to establish control by making threats, using emotion and tears, and initiating or withholding sex. These strategies are contrary to the “new life” we have in Christ and represent, instead, patterns of control fruited from the wrong tree in Eden.
The real enemies in the rooms of our marriages are the world, the flesh and Satan who rape our relationships, incapacitate us and shame us. The “new creation” enables us to remove the grave clothes, piece by piece, so we can move forward in the designer-inspired attire of the new man. Paul reminds us that as we commit to having a spirit-filled life, we begin building the right foundation, not based on the length of the time we spend together but on the new creation’s spirit-controlled love.
iZodhiates, S. (2000). The complete word study dictionary: New Testament (electronic). Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers.
iiMark Goulston, M.D. The 6 Secrets of a Lasting Relationship, How to Fall in Love Again – and Stay There. (New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons, 2001), 80
iiiEggerichs, www.loveandrespect.com.
