There is some great stuff in it but one aspect made me think about marriage as an analogy for Christian faith. After all both the OT & NT frequently make this analogy themselves - marriage is supposed to be a picture of the covenant love that God has with his people, that Christ has with his church.
"The distinction between marriage perceived as a status following an event and marriage perceived as relational process is of great pastoral importance. The marriage 'one flesh' union is an ethical imperative (we ought to grow in it), but it is first a divine gift (Guroian 1987:88). There is a parallel here to the New Testament ethical calling to the Christian to 'become what you are'; the status and security of being adopted into the family of God is the foundation upon which the ethical life of the Christian is built. This safeguards grace as the principle that infuses all Christian living. It is the same in marriage: we enter a state in which security has been pledged without conditions, and in this safe state we live out the calling to which we are called, to build a relationship of growing sacrificial love. But when we focus on the gradually deepening (or evaporating) relational intimacy as the locus of marriage, paradoxically a terrible insecurity is engendered. This is how it is with an extramarital affair; it all rests on the current condition of an ever-fluctuating relationship. Graham Greene conjures up this insecurity in "The End of the Affair" as his 'hero' ruminates about the way that passionate desire when the lovers were together can go hand in hand with fear when they were apart. He speaks of loving her obsessively, 'And yet I could feel no trust: in the act of love I could be arrogant, but alone I had only to look in the mirror to see doubt. . .' (Greene 1951:2.08). Sceptics speak mockingly of 'living in an institution' and of a mere 'piece of paper', but those who engage in sexual relations outside this institution often yearn for the security it brings. To live outside is to live by works, to be constantly on best behaviour, to be only as good as the last time. To live inside is to live in grace, responding freely to unconditional pledged love, not to have failure and personal inadequacies drive us to paralysing despair."
(Marriage - sex in the service of God, Christopher Ash, Regent College Publishing, 2003, p 74-75)
I'm sure you can see the link that Ash is making. He is moving in the other direction - he has marriage in his sights and uses divine covenant love as a starting point - but I'm interested in moving the other way. Our relationship with Jesus develops in the context of a change of status. The moment we believe we are justified by faith. Our status is now righteous in Christ. That security enables our relationship with him to flourish and thrive. So, as we saw in Romans, Justification Sola Fide is not 'cheap grace'; it is not an excuse to carry on sinning, rather it creates the right conditions in the garden for true faith and godliness to grow.
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