The Marriage Covenant

 

We live in a disposable culture. We buy things, use them up and then throw them away. We demand immediate gratification. We get bored and want to be entertained. We lose interest in our gadgets and buy new ones. Buy, consume, throw away and repeat. That is the American way, it seems.

It is unfortunate that too many of us carry this same attitude into our relationships. We become bored with one spouse and want to trade them in for the newer model.

In Matthew 19 we find some of the clearest teaching on marriage that came from Jesus,

"4. And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,

5.  And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?

6.  Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." (Matthew 19:4-6)

We looked at this passage in the last blog post, focusing on the importance of gender and the idea of becoming one flesh. Inside of this idea of becoming one flesh we see that God's intention for marriage was for it to be a permanent union. This is almost in direct contradiction of the messages coming from our culture, where traditional values have been cast aside and all that seems to matter is our individual, personal satisfaction.

God is a covenant-making and covenant-keeping God. He makes promises and holds to them. God's covenants are absolute and certain. Throughout Scripture we see God making covenants with chosen individuals, groups of people, and notably with the nation of Israel. The New Testament could also be called the "New Covenant" since through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has made a new covenant with all believers, that is, with the Church. When we put our faith in Christ we are entered into an eternal covenant with our Heavenly Father.

A covenant is an unbreakable, life-long commitment. In Genesis when God established His covenant with Abraham, He asked Abraham to take a cow, a goat, a ram, a turtledove, and a pigeon and divide each in half from head to toe and lay out the separated pieces in a row. Typically, when this sort of covenant ceremony was performed, both parties would pass between the slaughtered animals, essentially saying they are willing to lay down their lives in order to see that that covenant is fulfilled. If one party broke the covenant, then his life would be forfeit. But God does something interesting, He puts Abraham into a deep sleep and then walks through the carcasses alone, showing that even if Abraham failed to keep the covenant, God would take all the responsibility of the covenant onto Himself. (See Genesis 15)

This covenant with Abraham became a pattern for the covenants that God would make with other men and ultimately with the whole nation of Israel. In every case, God knew that the humans He made a covenant would inevitably fail to uphold their end of the bargain. Still, God would not forsake Israel, even when they had forsaken Him. The prophet Hosea puts it poetically, "And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely. And I will betroth thee to me forever: yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in loving-kindness, and in mercies." (Hosea 2:18-19) Hosea writes about God's judgment coming on Israel because of their rebellion, but even in the midst of that judgment God wants to renew His covenant. The nuptial language of this passage is unmistakable as well. God used marriage as an image of his relationship with Israel, and in the New Testament, God uses marriage as a picture of His relationship with the Church. God married the nation of Israel and God wants to marry us.

The reason Christ died on the Cross was so that God could establish a New Covenant, not with Abraham or Israel, but with all people, every nation, and every race. God knew that we would not be faithful to our covenant vows, so God in Christ laid down His life in order to make sure that the covenant was fulfilled.

Covenants are like contracts, but they are not contracts. A contract can be nullified or become void if one party does not hold up his end of the deal. God put His own life on the line to make sure both ends, His end, and our end, of the agreement would be held up. Even if we fail, Christ is faithful and will hold us secure. If we are faithless, God is faithful still.

God does not make pre-nuptial agreements with us. While Jesus did allow for divorce in the case of infidelity, this is not how God treated the nation of Israel, and it is not how He treats us. We betray Him and fail Him time and time again, and still He is faithful. I know I have betrayed and turned aside to false gods, and worshipped at the altar of pornography more times than I care to remember and still God loves me and has been faithful to me.

Marriage was meant to reflect this covenant making and covenant keeping love. It is a love that does not fail, even if one or both parties fail. It stands firm through hardship, disloyalty, and any dishonor. When Jesus spoke of marriage in terms of "one flesh" this is what He had in mind. Marriage is meant to be about sacrifice. We sacrifice ourselves for our spouses. We lay our lives down to ensure their happiness and fulfillment. Marriage was meant to make us humbler and more self-sacrificing. It draws us out of our own proud little prisons where our desires reign like little tyrants and moves us to the kingdom where the law of selfless love is supreme.

There is a simple elegance to a man and woman coming together in their youth, raising children, and staying faithful until their graves. A love as strong as death. It is a hard love, a difficult love, it takes courage and sacrifice to have that level of faithfulness and commitment, but this is what it means to be a child of God and to reflect His love into the world. We love even when it hurts. We love through the pain and the betrayal. When it costs us everything. We love until our blood has stained the cross.

This is the kind of love that opens the doorway to desperate joy. Or we can choose to love as the world loves, with a disposable, self-seeking love.

I met a man in jail who had a fiancée on the outside, a lovely young woman. She had put on some pandemic pounds and was concerned; she was afraid that he wouldn't love her anymore if she got fat. He told me that he assured her that he would always love her, but if she got fat, he would simply be having sex with another, apparently more attractive, woman.

I want to say that this vision of sex and love is not common, but more and more I am afraid that it is. For my cell mate, there was a disconnect between love and sex. He could love without sex, and he could have sex without love. This is the exact opposite of the kind of love God has for us. He is always faithful to us, and he expects us to stay faithful to our spouses in like manner. He wants us to love and enjoy the nuptial union with the one that we love, faithfully from the wedding day until our graves.

God's plan, as is so often said, is "one man, one woman and one lifetime."  This plan has not changed and as we follow His design, we will find the lives of our families and our society flourishing.