Excerpt from What God Requires, Christ Provides by John Piper and Justin Taylor
I have a family to care for. My marriage must survive and thrive for the good of our children and the glory of Christ. God designed marriage to display the holy mercy of Christ and the happy submission of his church (see Eph. 5:21-25). Here the doctrine of justification by faith and the imputed righteousness of Christ can be a great marriage saver and sweetener.
Marriage seems almost impossible at times because both partners feel so self-justified in their expectations that are not being fulfilled. There is a horrible emotional dead end in the words, “But it’s just plain wrong for you to act that way,” followed by “That’s your perfectionistic perspective” or “Do you think you do everything right?” or by hopeless, resigned silence. The cycle of self-justified self-pity and anger can seem unbreakable.
But what if one or both partners becomes overwhelmed with the truth of justification by faith alone—and especially with the truth that in Christ Jesus God credits me, for Christ’s sake, as fulfilling all of his expectations? What happens if this doctrine so masters our souls that we begin to bend it from the vertical to the horizontal and apply it to our marriages? In our own imperfect efforts in this regard, there have been breakthroughs that seemed at times impossible. It is possible, for Christ’s sake, simply to say, “I will no longer think merely in terms of whether my expectations are met in practice. I will, for Christ’s sake, regard you the way God regards me—complete and accepted in Christ— and thus to be helped and blessed and nurtured and cherished, even if, in practice, you fail.” I know my wife treats me this way. And surely this is part of what Paul calls for when he says that we should forgive “one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:32). There is more healing for marriage in the doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness than many of us have begun to discover.
Robin Westerfield
What an excellent real life application of Jesus’ imputed righteousness that often seems to be future grace, not present reality, other than in a judicial sense. From your summary: “What happens if this doctrine so masters our souls that we begin to bend it from the vertical to the horizontal and apply it to our marriages?” How this heart knowledge of Jesus’ righteousness given freely would change the tendency to return evil for evil with humility and gentleness, especially to our spouses!
A recent article in Christianity Today quoted Chalmers (?), who said that in the past, people used to make much of Christ and not trust themselves. Now our culture minimizes God while exalting self. The author said we need to doubt ourselves while trusting Christ and what the Bible tells us is true of Him. Brings to mind the verse, “When we see Him, we shall be like Him, for we will see Him as He is.” If there is shallow belief in God’s work and promises such as imputed righteousness (as shown in our lives through the example of wrong marriage attitudes), that is our own futile thinking at work, not the trustworthiness of Christ and what He has done for us, and what He is now actively doing. Speaking of bending, the truth of imputed righteousness needs to straighten the crooked stick….
Thanks for the very good excerpt.