THE COVENANT OF MARRIAGE

Welcome to Bible study online! As we watch the disintegration of our society, the importance of marriage could not be clearer. What does marriage mean to God, and how should we view marriage ourselves? Grab your Bible and let's take a look at what God says about this critically-important relationship.



THE COVENANT OF MARRIAGE


Over time, the use and meaning of words tend to change and evolve (or devolve!) depending upon your perspective. Sometimes words can be used in a wrong context repeatedly and thereby the meanings are changed. I think that the word “covenant” in the English language has suffered this change over the past century. Because it is a “serious biblical word”, people have grabbed hold of it and used it to apply to various decisions made within the church generally without the remotest understanding of the meaning of the word. As a result, the true and profound meaning of this important word has been almost lost. But throughout the Bible, God has operated on the basis of covenant and it is essential that we return to a right understanding and stop bandying this word around in inappropriate ways.

THE PRIMARY ELEMENTS OF COVENANT

“Cutting covenant” or “striking covenant” is a custom as old as the human race and it has been practiced by the various people groups all over the world. It was the most profound, binding, and even life-changing form of agreement between two parties that was possible. Modern man has drifted so far from the covenant ideal that it is difficult for many to grasp the impact that it had.

The primary element of covenant is a solemn, unbreakable, lifetime oath between two parties. A very memorable example of this from Scripture is the covenant made between God and Abraham. This covenant is initially made in Genesis 12:2-3:

“I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

God extends His promises to Abraham in Genesis 13:14-18 by promising to multiply his descendants and give them the land of Canaan. In Genesis 17:1-27, God again extends His covenant promise to Abraham to include his descendants forever. In Genesis 22:1-19, God promises further to bless the nations of the world through Abraham’s descendants. Later, God confirms this covenant with Isaac, Abraham’s son, and with Jacob, Isaac’s son. The solemn oath represented a binding together of two lives into a shared life.

A secondary, but critical, element of covenant was the shedding of blood. The Bible tells us that “life is in the blood,” (Genesis 9:4) and because of this it is always a symbol of life throughout the Scriptures. However, the shedding of blood represents death, because the life is leaving the body. So blood throughout the Bible is a symbol of both life and death. In a formal covenant between two equal parties, both supplied drops of their own blood for the covenant; however, if there was an inequality in the social stature of the two parties, the weaker party supplied the blood. Some people groups sacrificed animals for the blood ritual and some cut various parts of their own bodies and allowed drops of blood to collect in a common cup from which both parties drank. This procedure of cutting or striking the flesh in order that another may become the possessor of his blood and a partaker of his life was the symbolic ratification of the oath.

In Genesis 15:1-21, we find the account of God formally cutting covenant with Abraham. Verses 9-10 say,

“So He said to him, ‘Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.’ Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, down the middle, and placed each piece opposite the other, but he did not cut the birds in two.”

Notice that in this covenant, the weaker party, Abraham, is required to furnish the blood in the form of these animals. They are slaughtered and cut into two pieces, except for the birds.

The third critical element of covenant is the Death Walk. The weaker party has brought the animals and they have been cut into two pieces and laid out on the ground. The stronger party must now accept the blood (the life) of the second party as his own. (If the parties were considered equals, they both participated in the Death Walk.) The stronger party begins to walk in between the two pieces of each slaughtered animal. The significance of this action is that he is saying, “May God make me just like these animals if I break covenant with you.” God is the arbiter of all covenants and so this Death Walk is a solemn way of saying that the maker of it deserves nothing less than death if he breaks faith. We see this Death Walk enacted in the Scriptures when God makes His covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15:17, after Abraham has cut the animals into two pieces.

“And it came to pass when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces.”

The smoking oven and burning torch were symbols of God’s glory and presence and He passed through the bloody pieces, ratifying His covenant with Abraham.

Covenant involved such a binding together of two lives that each would give his life for the sake of the other. If one was in trouble, the other would come to his aid. There would absolutely never be war between the two parties. Each regarded the life and property of the other as highly as his own. Covenant was also a lifetime agreement. Over and over the Bible uses the word “everlasting” in connection with covenant. In Jeremiah 31:3, the LORD says to Israel,

“I have loved you with an everlasting love.”

And in Jeremiah 32:40, He says,

“I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from doing them good.”

Likewise, Psalm 100:5 says,

“The LORD is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations.”

It is all very well and good to say that covenant was everlasting and that those who did not keep covenant were worthy of death, but is there any example of God getting involved in a broken covenant? II Samuel 21 describes the punishment that God meted out against His own people because of the fact that their king, Saul, had many years before broken covenant with the Gibeonite people. Seven descendants of the house of Saul were given over to the people of Gibeon for execution in order to rectify the broken agreement. This was brought about because God had caused a famine to fall on Israel to bring the matter to King David’s attention.

ADDITIONAL ELEMENTS OF COVENANT

So we have seen that the primary elements of covenant are: an oath, the shedding of blood, the Death Walk, and the lifetime commitment of the agreement. There are other interesting customs that added to the understanding that two parties are forming a united life together. One of these customs was a name change. In Genesis 17:5, God said,

“No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations.”

And again in Genesis 17:15, God says,

“As for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah will be her name.”

Some scholars feel that at this point, God is not only changing the actual meanings of their names, but He is also inserting a part of His own name “Yahweh” into their names, symbolizing His joining together with them. Another covenant custom was the exchange of personal possessions. I Samuel 18 details the covenant made between David and Jonathan, and Jonathan, the king’s son, gives to David his sword, bow, belt, robe and armor. Giving some of your possessions symbolized the giving of your identity to another person. A shared meal was another element of covenant that is seen on numerous occasions throughout the Bible. Notice in Genesis 18, when God visits Abraham with two angels before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham hurries to provide a meal that is shared between them. A shared meal symbolizes the desire to nourish the common life that now exists through covenant. It was also common to feed each other, symbolically giving a part of one’s life to the other. Yet another covenant custom is seen in Job 17:3:

“Now put down a pledge for me with Yourself. Who is he who will shake hands with me?”

And again in Isaiah 62:8:

“The LORD has sworn by His right hand and by the arm of His strength. . .”

These verses illustrate that part of the covenant ritual was the grasping of right hands. The right hand was considered the hand of strength and to grasp with the right hand symbolically gave one’s strength to another. This custom passes down to modern days in the form of a handshake greeting. The presence of witnesses was another important facet of cutting covenant. In Genesis 21:22 when Abimelech desires to make a covenant with Abraham, he brings with him Phicol, the commander of his army, as his witness to the covenant. One final interesting little covenant custom was the planting of a tree in connection with a covenant. This is seen in Genesis 21:33 after Abraham has sworn a covenant with Abimelech.

“Then Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there called on the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God.”

Trees often live longer than the people who plant them, so the tree would serve as a reminder of the shared life between Abraham and Abimelech for as long as both of them lived.

One final note about the nature of covenant before we address the issue of marriage as a covenant—there were two types of covenants: the Covenant of the Bread and the Covenant of the Blood. The Covenant of the Bread was a temporary covenant that was more akin to a truce. It emphasized hospitality and it brought people into a family community. It nourished the life of the people together and was therefore symbolized with bread. The Covenant of the Blood was a permanent covenant, symbolizing a complete joining of two lives into a shared life. It was highly personal and this vital union was therefore symbolized by blood.

MARRIAGE AS A COVENANT

Marriage was the first covenant relationship established between human beings and it began in the Garden of Eden. How do we know that marriage is intended to be a covenant relationship? Malachi 2:13-14 addresses the issue of God’s judgment regarding broken covenants:

“And this is the second thing you do: You cover the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping and crying; so He does not regard the offering anymore nor receive it with goodwill from your hands. Yet you say, ‘For what reason?’ Because the LORD has been witness between you and the wife of your youth with whom you have dealt treacherously; yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant.”

These verses deal with God’s judgment against Israelite men who had divorced their first wives in order to marry younger, pagan women. He has been acting as arbiter of these covenants and punishing the men because they have broken faith with their original wives.

Let’s take a look at the primary elements of covenant in relation to marriage. First, the oath. Wedding ceremonies, though enhanced with music, guests, decorations, fine clothes, etc., are essentially moments in time where a man and woman swear solemn oaths to each other, with God as witness. These oaths promise to love, honor, and cherish each other until death, forsaking all others. This is the obvious, straightforward aspect of the covenant, creating a shared life together. The second primary element of covenant is the shedding of blood, particularly by the weaker party, if there is not parity between the two. In the case of marriage, the man is considered the stronger party and the woman is the weaker party, so technically, the woman brings the blood. This is accomplished on the wedding night as the woman’s hymen is broken and blood begins to flow. As the stronger party, it is the man’s place to walk the Death Walk, passing through the bloody pieces of flesh. As he makes love to his bride for the first time, the man is making his Death Walk, passing through her bloody flesh. This doesn’t sound at all romantic, right? But remember the solemnity of the Death Walk. It literally means, “May God kill me if I am ever unfaithful to you.” The purpose, therefore, of sexuality, is not gratification of the flesh, but a constant reminder of the covenant between the man and his wife.

QUESTION: Considering the meaning of human sexuality, how far have we fallen from where we were meant to be?

The primary elements of covenant are easy to see, but let’s take a look at the covenant traditions that have passed down through marriage, but that we may not have properly understood. We saw before that covenants often involved a name change, and that God changed Abram to Abraham and Sarai to Sarah, inserting the “ah” in His own name “Yahweh” to give them new meaning. It has been common practice that upon her marriage, a woman takes her husband’s family name as her own, so we see that this tradition in marriage is a covenant tradition handed down from the beginning.

We also saw that it was often customary for the stronger party to present some of his personal possessions to the weaker party, as a sign that he was transferring his own identity to the weaker party, so as to strengthen him. In marriage, it has long been the custom for the man to present his bride with a wedding ring, symbolizing their union. More recently, the bride also presents to her husband a wedding ring.

The shared meal was a covenant custom discussed above, and this is generally seen in modern marriages also. Most weddings feature either a complete meal or a reception involving cake and punch. At some point, the bride and groom will feed each other cake, just as covenant custom indicates; however, most modern people just think this is a fun thing to do. They do not realize that the symbolism of feeding each other is a transfer of one’s life to another. Giving each other wine to drink (or punch) is reminiscent of the shared common cup which often had the blood of the two parties mixed in it during the covenant cutting procedures.

Usually during a wedding ceremony, before the couple swears their vows, the pastor will ask them to join their right hands. I have never heard any pastor at that point explain the why of it, and I feel like most people are as ignorant about it as I was when I got married. But as we saw above, grasping right hands was an important covenant custom, symbolizing the giving of one’s strength to another.

Finally, it is a legal requirement that at least two people witness the marriage ceremony and sign the contract as witnesses. We saw earlier that covenants had witnesses, and this is still a requirement for today.

By now, I hope that it is obvious that marriage really is a covenant, and that covenants are deadly serious as far as God is concerned. There is no provision for terminating a covenant except death, and the one who breaks faith is considered to be worthy of death. Covenant is meant to be an earthly picture of God’s eternal nature of love, fidelity, and selfless giving of life and strength to all who will enter into covenant with Him through the blood of His Son. Covenant was created by God as we see in Genesis 2:24.

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

But divorce was created by man. Jesus said,

“Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate.” Mark 10:9

“Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” Mark 10:11

We seem to find ourselves at this point in time living in the most selfish generation ever to exist on the planet. Many have given up on the idea of marriage, and shack up together without any vows at all. Others won’t even do that much, but simply “hook up” with whomever they find from time to time. But God has called us to live holy lives that demonstrate His character to the world. Living together without marriage is not to be our way, nor is casual hooking up. Divorce, likewise, is not to be our way. There are no fairy tale marriages, only fairy tale weddings. After the wedding, the commitment must remain through a lifetime of ups and downs, whether we “feel” like it or not, but by the grace of God, marriages can endure and even flourish as people learn to lay aside self and give their very lives and strength to each other until death parts them.

May the grace of God be upon you and your marriage.