Marriage: A Contract To Aid In One Another’s Sanctification

This past Sunday I quoted Dr Richard Lovelace regarding the idea that for Christ-followers, marriage served as an important "school for sanctification."  Here is the longer quotation from his book, Renewal as a Way of Life

Growth in sanctification should be a lifelong series of alterations in our lives through such crises of conviction.  One of the functions of God’s law (biblical moral principles which declare God’s will for our behavior) is to measure our lives and locate places where they need changing.  “The Law” come to us again and again, not only in the pages of Scripture, but also in the warnings or protests of people close to us who can see our failing, however much they may be in the dark about their own.  Parents, teachers, the police and other authorities are all personalized forms of the law.

A husband or wife also functions in this same way, serving God as an agent of our sanctification.  He or she can see the patterns of sin which are hidden from our own vision by spiritual darkness, and from the world because it sees only the surface of our lives.  Most divorces among Christians probably occur because the parties have not realized that marriage is a contract to aid in one another’s sanctification.  Without this realization, we become experts at what is wrong with one another, without recognizing that the information our spouse is giving us about ourselves is an essential aid to our spiritual growth.

Once a major area of need for change has been located, Christians are required by Scripture to believe that change can occur: “What shall we say then?  Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase?  May it never be!  How shall we who died to sin still live in it? .  .  .  [We know that] our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin .  .  .  .  Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Jesus the Messiah” (Romans 6:1-2, 6, 11 NASB)

Note that sanctification, like justification, is primarily a matter of faith.  The victory over our sin was won by the Messiah in his death and resurrection.  Our old self (the Greek text really says old man or old humanity) was crucified with him, and we were raised up with Christ in a new supernatural vitality which has power to overcome sin: “For sin shall not be master over you. For you are not under law, but under grace” (Rom 6:14 NASB)

We cannot conquer sin by effort and will power alone, but only by an active faith, depending on the free gift of deliverance through the Messianic atonement.  Behavior changed by will power alone, without faith or the operation of the Holy Spirit, simply transmutes sin into another form: moral pride and self-righteousness.  And the most serious forms of sin cannot be touched by will power, because they are spiritual states below the surface of our actions.

Nevertheless, action, as well as faith, is required if our faith is to be more than a passive or passing notion.  By faith we must actively and lovingly obey God, striving to change our thoughts, words, acts, and even our attitudes and emotions.  This activity is represented by various metaphors in Paul’s teaching on sanctification.

Renewal as a Way of Life: A Guidebook for Spiritual Growth – Dr Richard Lovelace, pp. 145-146.  Click Here for link to Amazon.com