As Long As Both Shall Live

What God has joined together, let not man separate.

–Matthew 19:6

On June 29, 2007, my wife and I stood before our pastor, our friends, and our family—and most importantly, before our God—and vowed to each other,

I will be faithful to you
In plenty and in want,
In joy and in sorrow,
In sickness and in health,
To love and to cherish,
As long as we both shall live.

As long as we both shall live. No exceptions. No out-clauses. Not just in plenty, joy, and health, but also in want, sorrow, and sickness. No allowances for any seven-year itches or any other excuse. We left father and mother, covenanted to become one flesh (Gen. 2:24), and have taken Jesus’s words with utter seriousness, “What God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matt. 19:6). Neither of us would say that marriage has been easy, but we can say it’s glorious that there are no outs but death.

The stresses, strains, tensions, and pains of marriage caught both of us off guard early on. Our dating was so peaceful—too peaceful, it turned out—and engagement only had a few speed bumps. But once we were both all in, both fully believing this was our unbending commitment till death, with no loopholes or exegetical outs, then, with the conditionality of dating and engagement aside, and the unconditionality of covenantal marriage now in place, we were finally free to be our real selves. Which was such a good thing, though it soon got a little messy.

But these were good messes to make, ones we desperately needed (and still need). All along the mess had been inside us (and still is), in our selfish and sinful hearts, and the real cleaning couldn’t begin happening until it was out in the open. We both previously had Christian roommates and disciplers who had pressed on our own sin and pushed us toward Jesus. But something about this lifelong covenant—something about knowing that the gig with this one roommate is till death do us part—forced us to speak up about the quirks, idiosyncrasies, and sins we otherwise could have ignored for a few months or a couple years.

As two rescued sinners, banking on Jesus for eternal redemption and for increasing redemption here in this life, we didn’t want to keep everything at surface level. We wanted to truly know each other, and become our true selves in Christ, not just the best face we could put on before marriage. We could have tried living on and on with a façade of harmony, and never strained to go deeper, and experienced only the thin joy that comes from keeping everything at the surface. But we wanted more (we still want more). We wanted greater joy. We wanted fuller satisfaction. We wanted the greater pleasure that comes only on the other side of pain and difficulty. We wanted the better relationship that comes only after things first get worse. And marriage with no exits but death has forced the issue.

But not only is “as long as we both shall live” better for us and for our children (much could be said about that), but we’re better able to witness to the world. The world is full of relationships with strings attached. In some of those, like employment, conditions are good and necessary. But when every relationship is fraught with conditions, it can feel like there’s no rest for the weary.

The world needs to see in Christian marriages a pointer to the Savior who, without conditions, chose to set his love on his bride, the church (Eph. 1:4–6), and through thick and thin, with all her failures and un- faithfulnesses, continues working to “sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:26–27).

When the exceptions and conditions are gone at the most fundamental level, a man must learn to “love his wife as himself ” (Eph. 5:33) and discover the joy of Acts 20:35: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” In the covenant, we can no more leave behind the reality of our marriage than we can abandon our own bodies. “Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies” (Eph. 5:28).

TALK ABOUT IT

Find a copy of your wedding vows, and read them together. Discuss what difference it makes to have committed yourself to each other in good times and bad, sickness and health, for richer or for poorer, with no outs but death itself.

How does marriage without conditions make your relationship stronger, not weaker?