CONTENTS

• JUST VISITING
• FEATURE STUDY: "THE COVENANT OF MARRIAGE"

JUST VISITING

Our newsletter goes out to an international readership, but we have more readers in the United States than anywhere else. We have a word in our language that we don't use around here very often. That word is "covenant." It's not yet obsolete, but it's getting there. We still use it in marriage ceremonies sometimes and unless we explain, it has about as much meaning as "hitherto, I plight thee my troth." "Covenant" says a lot more about marriage than "contract," "pact" or "treaty." Hopefully this week's study will deepen your appreciation for the marriage covenant.

Norman

The concept of covenant is an extremely powerful and practical idea to help Christians deal with the kind of world we live in. Most of us are probably oblivious to the richness of the covenant concept. We may hear the word in a sermon from time to time, but many of us don't have the foggiest notion of what it means. "Covenant" is just one of those church words that we use on Sundays and forget about the rest of the week.

Our English word covenant is actually just a modernized way of saying the Latin word convenire, which means "to agree, to be of one mind to come together." In the Hebrew language, the word is berit, which means to "bind" or "to be bound." It means a binding obligation between two parties. Normally it involves an obligation in which two parties agree to perform some kind of service or fulfill some kind of duty for each other.

The Old Testament recognizes two types of covenants.

(1) There is a covenant between parties of relatively equal strength. When two parties of equal standing enter into a covenant they generally negotiate the terms of the covenant for the mutual benefit of each other.

(2) There is a one sided covenant. Such a covenant is offered by a stronger party (like a king) to a weaker party. The terms of the covenant are non-negotiable. They are imposed by the stronger party. The New Testament actually employs two words describing covenant. The word diatheke is normally used to describe a covenant between equal parties, while the word syntheke is used to describe a "strong party - weak party" covenant."

The prophet Malachi addressed God's relationship to his covenant people. He was concerned because the people of Israel had broken their covenant. He made numerous references to covenant breaking - Malachi 1:7: 2:5;2:8;2:13.

In Malachi 2:14, the prophet explained God's reasons for rejecting their offerings. "It is because the LORD is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant."

Last October, I performed the marriage ceremony for my daughter. In the course of the ceremony, I said to her and the man who became her husband, "You are entering into a covenant, not a contract." Afterwards someone asked me if there is really a difference between a covenant and a contract. Well, you could say that the marriage covenant is a contract, but a contract is not a covenant. The marriage contract does involve promises, stipulations and the signing of legal documents, but there is so much more to a covenant.

In the introduction, we noted that two kinds of covenants prevailed in the culture of the ancient Near East - covenants between two equal parties and covenants between a stronger party and a weaker party.

A marriage is a covenant between a husband and wife - two equal persons. Don't confuse the issue by quoting passages on submission. The submission passages concern roles not status. In terms of worth, status and importance, husbands and wives operate on a level playing field. According to Galatians 3:28, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

In one sense the marriage covenant is also a negotiable covenant. You can negotiate who's going to keep up with the checkbook and pay the bills, who's going to take out the trash, who's going to give the children a ride to school, how neat you're expected to keep the bathroom, etc. In another sense, however, the roles of responsibility are mandated in scripture. A husband does not have the option of whether he will love his wife as his own body or whether he will be considerate and treat her with respect as a weaker partner. A wife does not have an option regarding submission and loving her husband and children. Those things are mandated in Scripture and there are no escape clauses.

The marriage covenant is a non-negotiable covenant because there is a third party to that covenant, God himself. He is the strong party. He determines and He alone determines the various conditions of the covenant. That concept in Scripture is unmistakable.

In Malachi 2:15 , the prophet said, "Has not [the LORD] made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth." Jesus said in Matthew 19:6 "So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." In 1 Corinthians 7:10. "To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband." In verse 4, he said, "For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. "

Far from being a contract between two consenting parties, who have negotiated an agreement between themselves, the marriage covenant is declared to be sanctified and holy. Those two words "sanctified" and "holy" speak of God's involvement in the marriage agreement.

Recently, I was asked "Where did marriage ceremonies originate?" I did some research . I was somewhat surprised to learn that there is no record of the exchange of marriage vows in the Bible. It speaks of marriage celebrations, but the text is silent about ceremonies. So where did we get the idea that we needed a ceremony? I can't prove this, but I think it came from the practice of covenant ceremonies. In ancient times covenants were ratified through ceremony. We have records of Bible characters going through ceremonies to ratify covenants (Boaz and his kinsmen; Jonathan and David for example).

1. The celebration of an ancient covenant typically started with a statement naming the parties of the covenant. We nearly always do that. We say something like, "In the presence of God and these witnesses, John Doe and Mary Smith, have come to confess their mutual love to one another and enter into a state of holy matrimony."

2. There is often a review of history that brought the covenant parties together. Ministers probably differ in how much of this they do, but most will say something about marriage in the garden of Eden and briefly trace the history of marriage right on through the New Testament. I usually tell something about how the couple entering into the marriage covenant decided they were going to marry each other.

3. The stipulations and obligations of the covenant are stated, agreed to and witnessed. In one form or another that will nearly always be done in a wedding ceremony.

4. Promises are made with an oath. We do that in a wedding. I usually ask something like, "Will you take this man or this woman to be your wife/husband, to live according to God's holy ordinances as long as you both shall live?" In those simple questions, we are asking the bride and the groom to make a commitment to the covenant.

5. Blessings and cursings were often reviewed. We all like to talk about the blessings. We may say something in the ceremony like, "You are entering into a relationship in which you have the potential to experience the highest degree of satisfaction that's possible other than heaven itself. We may be a little too squeamish about the cursings, but I usually say something like, "God will not hold guiltless the person who breaks these vows. What God has joined together let not man put asunder."

6. Finally the record of the covenant was usually written down and stored. In case of the Old Testament covenant, God wrote down the requirements of the covenant on two tables of stone and they were eventually stored in the ark of the covenant. The marriage agreement is recorded on a marriage license and stored at the court house. In principle, everything that was done in ratifying ancient covenants is also done in modern times in a marriage ceremony.

If more people viewed marriage as a covenant, there would be fewer divorces.

Our society doesn't even view marriage as a permanently binding contract, much less a covenant with God. Thus we often treat marriage as a temporary relationship that we expect to enjoy until it's not fun anymore. When the fun's done, we'll find a way to bail out. That philosophy is tearing people apart. A woman wrote to "Dear Abby" She told of entering into an illicit relationship with a man while both she and her lover were still married to other people. But she thought it was all right because her husband was boring and dull and her lover's wife had allowed herself to get fat, so she was no longer appealing to him. They both had children, but they explained to their children they were in love with each other and they needed to divorce their present spouses and marry each other so they could be happy. They viewed being happy as the most important value in life. So they got a divorce, got married and it was great for a while. They didn't have to slip around and meet one another at a motel. Everything was out in the open. Two years later, she found out that he was having and affair with someone else. She called him a liar and a cheat. He said, "it takes one to know one." He was getting dull and boring and when she wrote "Dear Abby," she said that she had put on a little weight. So everything that went around came around. That scenario is being repeated time and time again and its tearing families apart.

I want to say this. If you are or even getting close to being involved with someone of the opposite sex in a sinful way, you need to pull the plug on that right now. You "covenanted" with your husband/wife. When you break a covenant you made with God, guilt follows.

I want to make one other point before we close this study of covenant. God issues harsh warnings against the breaking of covenants. It puts us in a position to suffer dire consequences, but God is long suffering. God is not willing that any should perish. If you find yourself feeling convicted for having broken a covenant, whether that be the covenant that brought you in the grace of God or the covenant that brought you into oneness with our spouse, you have not committed an unpardonable sin. God has made provision for repair.

Our study started in Malachi. Malachi told the people of his day that God had stopped honoring the worship of the people because they were covenant breakers. They brought blind, crippled and diseased animals for sacrifice. They broke faith with their marriage partners and violated the covenant. The prophet spoke harshly. He said this about covenant breakers, "may the Lord cut him off from the tents of Jacob - - even though he brings offerings to the Lord Almighty." There was no escape clause in the covenant, but there was a provision to repair the broken covenant. In Malachi 3:7, the prophet gives us this message from God "Return to me and I will return to you says the Lord Almighty." Someone has said that God is the God of the second chance. Praise God for that great truth. If you have broken covenant, it can be repaired.

NEXT WEEK'S FEATURE ARTICLE: "EMERGENCY ROAD SERVICE FOR YOUR FAMILY"