Men: Your Wife Only Needs One Savior

Your Marriage Needs Jesus

The good, the bad, the new, and the perfect. This is the fourfold story line of the Bible and of our marriages.

Things start out good. Relationships are intact, secure, and exciting. Then things go bad. We sin, we screw up, we hurt, and we get hurt. We cry out for help. Then God hears, and God shows up. Grace happens. Jesus comes to us, forgives us, and makes things new. And eventually, everything becomes perfect.

Life in Eden was good, but it was never perfect. Heaven and earth were still separate places. God and man did not dwell together. But where the story eventually takes us is to a time and a place where heaven and earth meet, where what God has begun to make new will be made perfect.

Date Your Wife

Justin Buzzard

Date Your Wife is an intensely practical guide for husbands looking to strengthen, save, or spice up their marriage and pursue their wives from a place of security in the gospel.

My wife will be there. I will be there. And though I don’t know how marriage will operate in heaven,¹ I believe whatever Taylor and I experience then and there will be infinitely better than what we share here and now. Anything good in our marriage right now is a result of the presence of Jesus in our relationship. On the other side of the grave, Taylor and I will have some kind of a relationship that involves a lot more of the presence of Jesus. We will have some kind of a relationship that involves our future glory-selves. We won’t fight. We won’t sin against or hurt each other. We won’t suffer together. See, one day Jesus will make such a difference in our lives and in our relationship that things will be perfect.

Men, remember this. The difference maker in your marriage isn’t you, it’s Jesus. Jesus’s presence is what changes everything, not your presence. Your exciting calling is to date your wife, to love your wife, to help your wife become her future glory-self—to help her become the woman she will one day be on the other side of the grave. But your job is not to be your wife’s savior. Your wife needs only one Savior. Your wife needs only one Jesus.

The point of your marriage is to date your wife in such a way that showcases Jesus and his power.

You be you. And let Jesus be Jesus.

Date your wife. And let Jesus save your wife. The point of your marriage isn’t you.

The point of your marriage isn’t your wife.

Marriage Showcases Christ's Power

The point of your marriage is to date your wife in such a way that showcases Jesus and his power to a world of husbands and wives, men and women, boys and girls, in desperate need of a God who can rescue, reconcile, restore, and redeem their broken lives.² Marriage isn’t ultimate. God is ultimate. God created marriage so that we could better know and enjoy him. As we date our wives, as we experience the good, the bad, and the new in our marriages—the cycle of failure and grace and growth—we get to know what God is like. Marriage becomes a place where God shows up. We get to know a God who loved us, lost us, and fought to get us back. The point of marriage is the point of life: to know, enjoy, glorify, and experience our triune God.

Notes:

I know Matthew 22:30 says, “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven,” but I don’t think it’s wise to construct an entire post-resurrection, anti-marriage theology from this one verse. Whatever marriage relationships look like in heaven, they will be something better than what they are right now.
Our vision for our marriage, something that Taylor and I pray about and hope for, is that it proclaims the gospel to others.

This article is adapted from Date Your Wife by Justin Buzzard.

Justin Buzzard (MDiv, Fuller Theological Seminary) is the founder and lead pastor of Garden City Church in Silicon Valley. Justin writes regularly at JustinBuzzard.net, speaks widely at conferences nationwide, and is part of the Acts 29 Church Planting Network. He is the author of many books, including Why Cities Matter. He lives in Silicon Valley with his wife, Taylor, and their three sons.