Marriage is God’s design – One man for one woman as we read in Genesis, the book of beginnings… Genesis 1:1 the beginning God created the heavens and the earth… Ge 1:26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness… Ge 2:18 Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper, who is suitable, adapted and complementary for him.”
Although the word “covenant” is not actually used, Moses describes what is in its essence the first covenant of marriage writing …
So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept. Then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. And the LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man and brought her to the man. And the man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife and they shall become one flesh. (Ge 2:21, 22, 23, 24)
“They shall become one flesh”
depicts the very essence of covenant.
Covenant is also the fundamental tool that God has designed to construct and order His relationship with man.
A covenant is an exchange of persons, as opposed to a contract, which is an exchange of promises.
A covenant marriage leaves us the most vulnerable because it requires that we trust that our spouse is in fact equally committed to loving us–yet we cannot stop loving them if they are not. We obligate ourselves to sacrificially meeting their needs even if and when we get nothing in return. A covenant marriage is a firmly committed promise to love, even when our spouse is less than lovable, and even when they are less than loving towards us.
Yet, Christians have great motivation to love with a covenant commitment. When the Apostle Paul talks about marriage in Ephesians 5, he reminds us that Christian marriage is patterned after Christ’s love for the church. We are to love our spouse in the same manner that Jesus loves his church–and Jesus’ pattern for loving his church is indeed built on an Covenant mindset.
God’s relationship with his people is defined by covenant–not contract. He is faithful to us not only in proportion to our commitment, but he loves us far beyond what we deserve. God doesn’t care for us or meet our needs as a response to what we do for Him; He cares for us and loves us because He is God, and he has committed himself to us.
And indeed, this made God incredibly vulnerable–all the way to death! He kept his commitment to us even though that meant that he would have to be nailed to a cross and die. That’s the extent of his love for us. When we grasp how God’s covenant love for us, how can we not but love in the same pattern?
