Covenant Class, Lesson 4

The Covenant Relationship Lesson Four

Marriage as a Covenant

This is truly an exciting part of this study.  We will see that what we can learn from Christianity will help us better understand marriage, and the reverse is just as true!  And the reason is that both are covenants.

Biblical passages on the marriage covenant

In the Bible, marriage is declared to be a covenant relationship.  In two OT passages, spouses are chastised for violating their marriage covenants.  In Prov. 2:17, adultery is condemned because it is a wife’s violation of the covenant with “the partner of her youth.”  In Malachi 2:10-16, God is both “witness” to the covenant and its “enforcer”, bringing curses after sins.  After flooding His altar with tears and asking why He has treated them so, God declares that the cause is husbands marrying of pagan women at the expense of the covenant with “the wife of your youth.” 

In Ezekiel 16:8, God speaks of His covenant relationship with Israel metaphorically in terms of marriage:  “Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness.  I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign LORD, and you became mine.”  We see interesting parallels in Ex. 6:4-6 and Ruth 3:9.  In Exodus, we see that covenant partners have possession of each other:  “you became mine.”  And in Ruth, the same idiom for taking a wife is used, “I spread my garment over you.”  Marriage is a covenant.

Unequally yoked weddings

Sometimes when two unbelievers are married, one of them becomes a Christian.  They are not to divorce although they are now “unequally yoked” (1 Cor. 7:12-14).  However, Paul does command Christians not to become “unequally yoked” to unbelievers (2 Cor. 6:14).  In the first situation, a conversion led to the unequal yoking; in the second, it would be a wedding or, perhaps, another covenant. 

Paul did not specify marriage/wedding in this passage.  Likely he had broader concerns over the mixing of Christianity with paganism.  But in his Jewish background Paul found God’s wisdom prohibiting spiritually-mixed marriages (Deut. 7:2-3; Mal. 2:11).  The metaphor of “unequally yoked” suggests the folly of harnessing together two incompatible animals who would only wind up working against each other.  The same happens when true and false spiritualities attempt an alliance.  And our understanding of covenant relating helps us here.  The primary enforcer of a covenant is one’s deity and, when two partners answer to two different divine authorities, the result must be confusion and disorder.  The covenant is designed to provide a relational foundation that produces stability.  An unequal yoke sets the stage for the opposite.

Covenants are “mutually instructive”

As Ezekiel (and Hosea) drew comparison between the “old covenant” and marriage, Paul did the same with the “new covenant” and marriage in Ephesians 5:21-33.  Paul makes it clear that his fundamental topic is Christianity, and the point here is that it works just like marriage!  Since both are covenants, the same dynamics—the same relational “nuts and bolts”—work in each.  So, the covenants are mutually instructive!

Marriage and forgiveness

Paul’s specific application is that the “authority issue” (between a husband’s leadership and a wife’s submission) can be made workable by the covenantal model used between Christ and the church on the same issue.  Here, we will try a different issue by seeing if we may gain special understanding for the way forgiveness works in Christianity when we see how it works in a healthy, functional marriage. 

All human partners fail one another and their relationships.  And spouses usually are very alert to what a partner’s words and deeds signify for the quality of love he or she brings to the covenant.  Sometimes a failure is so monstrous that is signifies a total absence of love, and therefore spells the end of the relationship.  The covenant may be considered “broken.”  For example, Jesus allowed a divorce (a breaking of the covenant) when one spouse commits fornication (Matt. 19:9)—and this is quite telling since we know that “[God] hates divorce” (Mal. 2:16).  Likewise, there are some sins huge enough to make void the covenant a Christian has with God (e.g. Gal. 5:4). 

Smaller sins may, perhaps, be forgiven more easily.  However, we must keep sight of the way sins signify love, or the lack of love.  Sometimes even a “huge” sin may be forgiven, if the offended spouse considers the offender’s love still valid.  Still, his or her every action henceforth will, no doubt, be scrutinized all the more intensely.  Sometimes, even the “little things” may be taken to signify a lack of love, and this can break a covenant.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus considered “smaller sins” (like lust) to be as serious as the “bigger” sins (like adultery), probably because both are equally negative signifiers of covenant love.

The evaluation of love is flawless, when performed by God.  Humans, however, can sometimes misinterpret and cautions apply (like warnings against wrongful judgmentalism).  Still, this is normal and required covenant behavior.

Forgiveness and repentance

“Nobody can be perfect or sinless.  However, anyone can relate responsibly.”

 Since we all fail, it is essential for those who want to succeed in covenant to be responsible for their failings (sins).  The most responsible answer to any relational failure is repentance.  It is more than saying “I’m sorry”, and even more than actually being sorry.  Repentance means a thorough confrontation of self that leads to a sincere rejection of the wrong and of whatever motivated it.  Sin evidences the devaluation of one’s partner; repentance restores his or her value.  Sincere repentance can—and should be—taken as a sign that the offender still loves the victim, in spite of it all.  Testing that sincerity afterward is basic survival for covenant relators.  Conversely, a refusal to repent may be taken to signify the presence of a hard, unloving heart that simply does not value the covenant partner.

Repentance, as a signifier of true love, leads to forgiveness and restoration of a stressed—or even broken—relationship.  The covenant is gracious, and responds to the apparent love of a repentant offender with its own love for him or her.  It is strong enough to endure even repeat offenses (Matt. 18:21ff.).

Can failure-prone humans succeed in a covenant?

When we sin, we are pained that our partner may be offended, angry, and perhaps of a mind to end the relationship.  As noted above, “Nobody can be perfect or sinless.  However, any of us can relate responsibly.”  If we truly love our covenant partner (whether spouse or God), we can put on humility and sincerity as we offer repentance.  We make it known that, in spite of our failure seeming to indicate otherwise, we have love for the one we hurt.  Still, it may leave us feeling totally unworthy of being forgiven. 

This seems to be what John was trying to alleviate, “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.  This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us.  For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything” (1 John 3:18-20).  Sometimes we simply have to let go of feelings of unworthiness, and trust our relationship and our partner.  The feeling is natural, because no one ever owes us forgiveness after we wrong them.  Truly, we owe a debt we cannot repay, and we would feel a lot better if we could!  But covenants dispense grace, which by definition means treating better than is deserved.  Out of love, partners will forgive each other.  When every effort to relieve guilty feelings fails, sometimes the only thing left is to take the advice of the old preacher:  “You just have to take it and bury it in blood!”

The final hope, for we who are failures, can rest only in the knowledge of God.  Our hope finally rests only in His faithfulness, love, mercy, and readiness to forgive.  As Brian A. Wren so delicately phrased it,

Great God, in Christ you call our name    Then take the towel, and break the bread,

and then receive us as your own,               and humble us, and call us friends.

not through some merit, right or claim,    Suffer and serve till all are fed,

but by your gracious love alone.                And show how grandly love intends

We strain to glimpse your mercy seat       to work till all creation sings,

and find you kneeling at our feet.            to fill all worlds, to crown all things.

God wants you to succeed, and He proved that at the Cross.