Love, Faithfulness, Righteousness, Peace - A Marriage

During a recent quiet time, I was reading through Psalms and came across Psalm 85:10 (NASB):

Love and faithfulness meet together;
     righteousness and peace kiss each other.

I read those words and I think of marriage - a marriage between love and faithfulness and a marriage between righteousness and peace. In an ideal marriage, though the husband and wife differ, they complement one another. Just as love and faithfulness differ, they complement one another. Just as righteousness and peace differ, they complement one another.

The pairs need one another. They build one another up. Love cannot be called love if it is unfaithful. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:7 (NASB) that love "bears ... believes ... hopes ... endures all things". True love, by its nature, is faithful. One who loves is faithful. And faithfulness (to Christ) cannot be considered faithful if it lacks love. One who is faithful will love. Again, Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (NASB) the following:

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

Similar to the first pair, one who is righteous will have true peace and one who is at peace truly will be righteous. This is only possible in Jesus Christ. We have no righteousness in and of ourselves (see the article where this links or read Genesis 6:5, 1 Kings 8:46, 2 Chronicles 6:36, Psalm 14:1-3, Psalm 53:1-3, Psalm 143:2, Ecclesiastes 7:20, Jeremiah 6:13, Jeremiah 17:9, Matthew 5:21-22, Matthew 5:27-28, Romans 3:10-12 and James 2:10, to mention some verses on the matter). Jesus gives us His righteousness and is our peace, in that only He brings us reconciliation with God. In 1 Timothy 2:5 (NASB), the Scripture states the following:

For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus

Jesus is faithful and moves us to love. He imputes to us His righteousness. He is our peace. It is like a marriage - the mystery of Christ and His Church.

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