Caught Between Commandments

After reading Colossians 3;18-19 my mind began to wrestle with the theme of marriage. Here are some of the thoughts that were produced as a cause of it.

We are called to love everyone in Christian love. We can, since we already are Christians, do no less. In fact, according to the Great Commandments we are supposed to love others as ourselves. On the other hand our love of self is not, at least it should not be, a selfish love. The Scriptures do not condone capriciousness. Sometimes we detest the things we do and still we love ourselves. It is part of our character. Lewis said that it was not "mercenary" for a man to enjoy poetry and therefore read it or to enjoy the company of a woman and therefore spend time with her. Still the Greatest Commandment is different. We must love God. God is more of the love which is supposed to be (dare I say it?) an infatuation. He wants us to long for Him night and day. He wants us to delight in His company. He wants us to spend everyday in His house (or His courts). He wants to be wholly loved. To be wholly loved means to surrender body, heart, mind, and soul over to Him. He does not merely require it, He demands it of us. In other words, He must dominate our affections, emotions, thoughts, and all else.

Now, as concerns a wife, it is quite another story. In marriage a man and a woman become one so he will love her as he loves his neighbour because he will love her as he loves himself. Yet if there is any love that has a claim to be spiritual - righteously spiritual - it is the love of a man and a woman. Each husband is called to love his wife in holy way - as Christ loved the church. Often we call this a sacrificial love, and undoubtedly it is. Yet it is also a holy love. Christ spent all of Himself for God, it was (literally) the ultimate sacrifice. Hence a man in love will often gladly and willingly sacrifice it all for his own beloved, yet never count it a sacrifice. He will discover her invading his thoughts, emotions, perhaps even the dreams of his sleep (mystical much?). He loves her with such a passion that she will be in his waking and sleeping dreams. He loves her wholly. Her love must be higher (though not too high). It is a love which is caught, suspended as it were, between the two commandments. This makes sense because marriage is the second greatest or second most important decision in the life of a man. Therefore she is greater than the second commandment yet not as great as the first.