Clothed in Love: What God Calls Us to Wear in Marriage
Colossians 3:12-17 (Csb)
There is a passage in the New Testament that does not begin with a wedding ceremony, a romance, or even a direct command about marriage. It begins with clothing. The apostle Paul tells a congregation of ordinary believers to put something on, and what he tells them to put on turns out to be the most practical and most beautiful description of covenant love in all of Scripture.
Colossians 3:12-17 reads this way: "Therefore, as God's chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive. Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which you were also called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."
Paul wrote these words to a whole church, not only to married couples. But every word of this passage lands with particular weight inside a marriage, because marriage is the one human relationship where the full range of these virtues is tested every single day.
Notice how Paul begins. He does not say, "Try harder." He says, "Put on." The image is deliberate. Just as you choose what to wear each morning, you choose how to show up in your closest relationships. The qualities Paul lists are not personality traits that some people naturally possess. They are garments. They are chosen. Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience. These are daily decisions, and they are available to every believer because they flow from who God has already declared us to be: chosen, holy, and dearly loved.
That identity is the foundation. Paul does not say, "Put on compassion so that God will love you." He says, "Because you are dearly loved, put on compassion." The grace of God is not the reward at the end of good behavior. It is the power at the beginning of it. Every healthy marriage rests on this same order. You do not earn your way into being loved. You love because you have already been loved, first and most completely, by God himself through Jesus Christ.
Then Paul moves to the hardest garment of all: forgiveness. He does not treat it as optional. He says, "Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive." This is the most demanding sentence in the passage, and it is also the most freeing. The standard for forgiveness in a marriage is not how badly you were hurt or how quickly your spouse apologizes. The standard is the cross. Christ forgave you at great cost to himself, before you had done anything to deserve it. That forgiveness is the model and the motivation for every act of forgiveness between two people who have chosen to share a life together.
Above all of these virtues, Paul places love. He calls it "the perfect bond of unity," the outer garment that holds everything else in place. Biblical love is not a feeling that arrives and departs without warning. It is a commitment that acts, that bears with difficulty, that chooses the other person again and again. It is the kind of love that Christ himself demonstrated, not in a moment of easy affection, but in a life poured out in sacrifice.
Paul closes this passage with a call to let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts and to let the word of Christ dwell richly among you. For any marriage to flourish, Christ must be more than a guest in the home. He must be the Lord of it. When his word shapes how you speak to one another, when his peace is the standard by which you settle conflict, when gratitude to him is the atmosphere of your daily life together, something extraordinary becomes possible. Not a perfect marriage, but a redeemed one. Not a life without hardship, but a life with the resources of heaven available inside it.
Whatever season of life you are in today, whether you are newly married, long married, or not yet married, this passage calls you to the same thing. Choose the garments of grace. Forgive as you have been forgiven. Let love bind it all together. And do everything, in word and deed, in the name of the Lord Jesus.
That is the call. That is the gift. That is the life God makes possible in Christ.
Sources Consulted
Moo, Douglas J. The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon. Pillar New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008.
Wright, N. T. Colossians and Philemon. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 1986.
Garland, David E. Colossians and Philemon. NIV Application Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998.
Schreiner, Thomas R. Paul, Apostle of God's Glory in Christ. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2001.
The Holy Bible, Christian Standard Bible. Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017.
Before preaching: verify every biblical reference, adapt every application to the real congregation, and revise the message in your own Christian tradition and pastoral voice.