The love which Jesus has for us is incredible and strong, a vehement flame of divine passion which cannot be quenched. In an infinite contrast and opposition to the fires of hell, which “never shall be quenched,” [Mk 9:43] Christ’s love for us shall never fade nor grow cold. Yes, praise to God Almighty that this love is utterly, eternally secure, never to depart. For,
“Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.” [Songs 8:7]
The deep, crimson love of Jesus for those who are His bride is boundless. It is an eternal fountain ushering forth from His everlasting wounds as the finest cleansing agent and the purest healing balm. And as Paul prays, so too we should pray,
“So that He might grant you, (according to the riches of His glory, ye being strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; the Christ dwelling in your hearts by faith; you all having been firmly fixed and founded with love,) [to] have full strength to overcome any obstacles in personally comprehending with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; to firsthand know the love of Christ, which is surpassing all experience, that ye might be filled to individual capacity with all the fulness of God.” [Eph 3:16-19]
The love which The Father has for us, and which is by extension Christ’s love, cannot be stripped from us. It is attached to our souls as an immovable nail; it is an “everlasting love.” [Jer 31:3]
“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." [Rom 8:38-39]
Most assuredly, this love is not conditional apart from us being in Christ. That is, if any man be in Christ, this love is immediately accessible to him, and he is a partaker thereof. Never again shall the man who has found salvation in Christ Jesus be without this fatherly, husbandly, and divine love. And regarding this truth, that God’s love is apart from circumstance, is plain to see when we remember that though we are saved, yet indeed we still sin often. There is not a man who can boast that he is worthy of or deserves God’s love; for as Jacob said to God, “I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast shewed unto thy servant…” [Gen 32:10] God’s love for us, whether from Father, Son, or Spirit, is founded and secured in our belief in Jesus, and is in no way compromised by our continued sin and failures.
Let us now take this truth and apply it to marriage. Since marriage is to be a picture of Jesus and the Church, the husband must also strive to maintain this type of love and to lavish it richly upon his wife. That love, which surpasses experience and so is not based upon works, which Jesus has for us, should be the same love the husband shows the wife. His love for her ought not to be based on her works, her performance, her position, her appearance, her possessions, or any such thing. No, for Christ’s love for us is not so. His love for her should go beyond experience, as Jesus’ does for us, so that when the wife fails in some expected area, she is not met with coldness or harshness, but with the merciful warmth and tenderness of Christ’s heart and hand.
In the Psalms, it is said of The LORD,
“He delighteth not in the strength of the horse: He taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man. The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear Him, in those that hope in His mercy.” [Psa 147:10-11]
Just as David said to Mephibosheth, who “was lame on both his feet,” [2 Sam 9:13] “fear not: for I will surely shew thee kindness for Jonathan thy father’s sake…thou shalt eat bread at my table continually,” [2 Sam 9:7] so too The LORD God says to us for the sake of Jesus. For just as David loved Mephibosheth and offered him great grace for Jonathan’s sake, though Mephibosheth, being lame on both feet, could do nothing in return for David, even so God The Father, for Jesus’ sake, has lavished love and grace upon us, though we can offer nothing in return. Praise be to God for His free love, that He does not take delight in what we can do for Him, nor does He ask us for anything in return except our devoted love. This is the love of our Savior for us as well, who does not save us nor love us nor care for us only when we can provide some benefit to Him in return, but loves us always. Even so the husband must love His wife always. He must not only love her when she has the strength to benefit him in return or to do something for him, for “when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly;” [Rom 5:6] no, but as Jesus shows us, the husband must offer unconditional love which surpasses present circumstances and experience.
Furthermore, just as Jesus’ love for us endures through all things, (for love, “beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things, [and] love never faileth…” [1 Cor 13:7-8]), so too the husband’s love ought to endure toward his wife. True love will not be quenched nor choked but will endure, and if we as husbands are to acquire and maintain this fervent love for our brides, then we must get it from Christ – for He is the one from whom this true love derives. There is no other source for this love; and so, a husband must acquire it from God and allow it to flow out of him onto his wife. He must, by God’s grace, allow Christ to love his wife through him, instead of him trying in his own strength to produce the love. For as Paul said, it must be true of us as well,
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of The Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” [Gal 2:20]
But though we cannot produce this love by ourselves, our part is not entirely passive. That glorious love which Christ exemplified upon earth, and even now, the husband must obtain through devotion and fellowship with Him, even as the branch obtains life from that which it is connected to. Jesus says,
“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.” [Jn 15:4-5]
God is love, and those who wish to produce that fruit, for “the fruit of The Spirit is love,” [Gal 5:22] must abide in the giver of it, for apart from God that love cannot be acquired nor produced. And so, the husband, if he is to exemplify that great love of The Savior, Jesus, must abide in Him, that He might become more like Him and produce that love.