Wow. I was really wrong with the last two words in my most recent entry. Maybe I should start writing such things after I’ve actually learned the language.
Then again, it helps to learn it when you can try to phrase something of your own creating in another language, however wrong I was.
Rosanna’s coming here in less than a week. This is cause for happiness. Really. ;o)
Yeah. I’m crazy.
I had picked up a book because my perspective has changed since I last read it. Two days ago, I ran across this quote and it has had a profound impact on me. What I read was very similar to what I had written in my entry, Risk-Taking Love (II). While Rosanna and I have had ten months of an argument-free relationship, because we love each other so much there are going to be days that we think we know what is best for the other in spite of what the other thinks is good. This is where our initial conflict will likely occur. These few paragraphs were very encouraging because they gave me an application of justification I had not really grasped before.
What makes marriage almost impossible at times is that both partners feel so self-justified in their expectations that are not being fulfilled. There is a horrible emotional dead-end street 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 hopeless, resigned silence. The cycle of self-justified self-pity and anger seems unbreakable.
But what if one or both of the partners becomes overwhelmed with the truth of justification by faith alone, and with the particular truth that in Christ Jesus God credits me, for Christ’s sake, as fulfilling all his expectations? What would happen if this doctrine so mastered our souls that we began to bend it from the vertical to the horizontal? What if we applied 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, to simply say, “I will no longer think merely in terms of whether my expectations are met in practice. I will, for Christ’s sake, regard my wife (or husband) the way God regards me — complete and accepted in Christ — and to be helped and blessed and nurtured and cherished, even if in practice there are shortcomings.” I know my wife treats me this way. And surely this is part of what Paul was calling for when he said that we should forgive “one another… as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32, ESV). I believe there is more healing for marriage in the doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness than many of us have even begun to discover.
John Piper, Counted Righteous in Christ: Should We Abandon the Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness? (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2002), p. 27-28.
The main part that stood out to me was, “But what if one or both of the partners becomes overwhelmed with the truth of justification by faith alone, and with the particular truth that in Christ Jesus God credits me, for Christ’s sake, as fulfilling all his expectations?” What if I were to treat her in the same way that God treats me, accepting that all her shortcomings are not counted against her and as if she had met every expectation I had for her? I don’t mean this blindly or ignorantly, but genuinely recognizing, “This shortcoming was paid for.” This is fertile soil for deep acts of love to occur.
Not just in marriage, y’know. Substitute “husband” and “wife” for “neighbor” or “brother/sister in Christ.” This is a powerful antidote to unforgiveness and healing for broken relationships.
Anyway, I hope that this ministered to you as it has ministered to me. Gotta run. I ought to put up something more often.
