Our pastor said, "Imagine if your husband thought everything you do is wrong. He comes home, and he begins pointing out all that you have done wrong. Your clothes are wrong. The kids are behaving wrong. Your make-up is wrong. The house isn't kept properly. Dinner isn't good. How would that make you feel?"
I put myself in that situation, and my stomach churned a bit.
That would be awful. In fact, it would almost make you not want to live. If nothing you ever did was right, why even bother?
The pastor continued, "However, you die. You're brought back to life, and you're no longer married to that man. Now, you are married to a good man. This man couldn't love you any more. However, even though he doesn't see anything you do as wrong, he still is able to help you be a better person, to lift you up even higher. Would you ever think, 'Well, this is nice, but maybe I'll go knock on my old husband's door and try that relationship again'? Of course not."
That sounds absurd right?
The pastor was talking about Romans 7:2-3, which reads, "For example, by law, a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man."
I had always read that as straightforward. OK, don't get divorced, but if your husband dies, you can get remarried.
I had no idea until yesterday that this is a parable. Paul was actually talking about Jews and the law of the Old Testament disguised as a real-life story they could understand.
You see, the law is a set of rules that no one could ever live up to. You'd have to be perfect every moment --- both in your mind and in your actions --- of every day for your entire life. No human can do that.
The law is a bad husband. It constantly shows you what you're doing wrong. "You broke the law --- you didn't give back the extra penny that the cashier accidentally gave you. You stole. You hate that person whose political views don't align with yours --- that's as bad as murder."
It's not that God gave the law to punish people, it's just that God is so perfect that he can't take anything less than perfection. So he gave the law to show people that they aren't perfect, and that they can't earn their way to relationship with him.
So Jews --- well, everyone --- have to die to the law and thinking that we can earn our way to heaven. We can't. Instead, God sent his son to live perfectly --- as God demands --- and to die in our places, for our sins. Then he rose again to beat death, and all we have to do is accept his sacrificial gift.
Jesus is the good husband. The church is the bride of Christ, and we all make up the church. He loves us so much that he doesn't even see us as doing wrong anymore. And at the same time, he is constantly lifting us up, helping us to do better. We have the best relationship, why on earth would we go back to trying to earn our way into heaven?
This fascinated me.
It also made me so thankful.
Earthly marriage is supposed to be a reflection of Christ and his church. Men are supposed to love their wives like Christ loves the church. "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her..." (Ephesians 5:25) As the pastor spoke about the good husband versus the bad husband, I thought about my husband. He loves me. He loves me so much that he looks past most of my faults. There are many times when I talk about something wrong with me and he just doesn't see it. Yet, at the same time, he pushes me to be better, lifts me up, helps me to be the best I can be and more.
My husband is a wonderful earthly example of the good husband that Christ is to the church.
I just can't even express my thankfulness. My thankfulness that Christ gave himself up for me and loves me so much that I don't have to be married to the "law," and thankful that my husband is a man of God who exemplifies this every day in real life.
