(By David Giarrizzo)

[On Friday of this week, July 16^th, two Ardent Cries bloggers—Chad Bennett and myself—will celebrate 5 years of marriage to our wonderful wives. In light of that occasion, here is a short review I wrote about a month ago of Piper’s recent book on marriage.]

In a world where subjectivism, relativity, and personal feelings reign supreme, God has blessed some men with the wonderful ability of cutting through culture’s philosophical garbage heap and explaining the truths of God’s Word in a powerful, unambiguous way.

In my opinion, John Piper is one of those men.

His name has become a common word in the YouTube search field of many “New Calvinists.” His sermons have been downloaded and listened to on thousands of iPods. His books have been a blessing to Christians from differing denominational affiliations around the world. And it’s no wonder why Piper has become so well-known. Piper—alongside men like Sproul, MacArthur, White, Mohler, Dever, Horton, etc.—is telling the truth about God, His Son, His Word, and His world. It’s clear by his preaching, teaching, and writing that Piper get’s the Gospel; and it’s clear he wants others to spend their lifetimes getting the Gospel too. So I respect John Piper for being right about the most important things in Christianity.

This Momentary Marriage

Like all humans, however, Piper has his shortcomings. Some of Piper’s doctrinal flaws are readily apparent in his book, This Momentary Marriage: A Parable of Permanence. This work is a vivid example of Piper’s theological hits and misses interlaced within the same binding. I want to take the rest of this opportunity to briefly outline some of those hits and misses. I’ll start with the points of disagreement between Piper and myself (and truly, between Piper and a great number of others beyond myself) simply because I want to end on a positive note. For all of the positive statements that I want to make about this book, I am first compelled to highlight the negative aspects of the book because Piper devotes so much of his ink to them.

Misses

The Thesis—

 “…therefore, the highest meaning and the most ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenant relationship of Christ and his church on display. That is why marriage exists. If you are married, that is why you are married. If you hope to be, that should be your dream.”

With these words from chapter one, Piper establishes his central point and lays the foundation for the rest of his book. But the problem with this thesis is that while marriage does indeed reflect the relationship between Christ and His Church, in the beginning, when God created Adam and Eve and instituted marriage, He said nothing about marriage reflecting the covenantal love between Christ and His Bride. Instead, God said something specific about His purpose for marriage in Genesis 2:18: “Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’” Companionship, then, was God’s purpose for marriage.

The reason this distinction is so important here is because upon this foundation Piper builds his argument against all cases of divorce and any possible allowance of remarriage. As Reformed Baptists, however, we do not make the same conclusion about the purpose of marriage. To quote our Confession: “Marriage was ordained for the mutual help of husband and wife, for the increase of mankind with a legitimate issue, and for preventing uncleanness” (LBC 1689 25:2).

Divorce and Remarriage—

“Whether you agree with me concerning the grounds of divorce and remarriage or not, I pray that we will all recognize the deepest and high­est meaning of marriage—not sexual intimacy, as good as that is, not friendship, or mutual helpfulness, or childbearing, or child-rearing, but the flesh-and-blood display in the world of the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church.”

Piper spends two of the final chapters of his book laying out his argument against divorce and against remarriage after divorce. Piper himself has admitted that he holds a “radical, narrow” view amongst believers on this topic; in fact, Piper’s view of remarriage after divorce is not even the held position of his church. Nevertheless, he holds to his view strongly and explains it in part in chapters 14 & 15 of This Momentary Marriage. One of the strongest lines emotionally in chapter 14 is also one of the weakest lines logically: “Therefore, if Christ ever abandons and discards his church, then a man may divorce his wife. And if the blood-bought church, under a new covenant, ever ceases to be the bride of Christ, then a wife may legitimately divorce her husband” (p 159). Using this poor premise Piper continued to construct an invalid conclusion about the Bible’s position on divorce and remarriage.

Other Thoughts—On a non-theological level, I felt that This Momentary Marriage was pieced together from a series of different topics under the umbrella of the theme of marriage. While the book made sense, it just wasn’t as fluid as I hoped it would be.

Additionally, I felt as if this book could have been a lot shorter. Here’s what I mean: The amount of time Piper spent on reasserting his thesis (The purpose of marriage is to represent the covenantal love between Christ and the Church) and summarizing a previous chapter at the beginning of a new chapter was truly excessive. Piper is a naturally gifted communicator; and summary and recap is often important in asserting a specific point; but I felt like I was reading the same things over-and-over without much expansion on the original idea. In other words, Piper should have tried harder to keep it short and sweet.

Hits

 “There never has been a generation whose general view of marriage is high enough. The chasm between the biblical vision of mar­riage and the common human vision is now, and has always been, gargantuan. Some cultures in history respect the importance and the permanence of marriage more than others. Some, like our own, have such low, casual, take-it-or-leave-it attitudes toward marriage as to make the biblical vision seem ludicrous to most people.”

A High View of Marriage—In light of the poor arguments Piper presents, mostly on the topic of divorce and remarriage, what I really appreciate is Piper’s high view of marriage and low view of divorce. I appreciate this about the book because that’s the view I see presented to us in God’s Word.

“Staying Married Is Not Mainly about Staying in Love”—What a wonderful way to start a book on marriage. I think it was this chapter’s title (chapter 1) that first enticed me to read the whole book. There is so much truth packed into that statement.

Husbands and Wives—As expected, Piper does a fine job dealing with the roles of husband and wife in marriage. He lays out the biblically-defined roles of headship and submission, wraps each with the understanding of Christ-like love, and encourages Gospel-centered living within the home.

Singles and Married Couples—To be honest, I was a little surprised to see a chapter in a book on marriage devoted to a discussion about singles and singleness; but I think that’s the point. Piper acknowledged that many married couples in the body of Christ are in need of a greater awareness for the non-married within the flock. Essentially, this part of the book served as a reminder to show love and hospitality to others in our churches.

The Gospel—Finally, I wasn’t at all surprised to see how much of the message of the gospel Piper infused into this book. I am thankful for Piper’s ability to focus our eyes on Christ and a God-centered view of married life. For all of this book’s flaws, it still has much to offer to married believers.