To: Hebraic-Foundations@yahoogroups.com
From: "Pastor Buddy Martin" <Bro.Buddy@ChristianChallenge.org>
Date: Tue, May 13, 2003 2:21 pm
Subject: [HF] Bible Study HF081
- The Covenant of Marriage
Hebraics,
As a rule I would not place another study on the forum right behind
a prior study. Each study needs its own discussion period. But
since the subject of troubled marriages is a major topic of
discussion at present, I want to go ahead with another study.
However, the study to follow does have some links with study
HF081 - The Church in all Her Glory.
The following study is from an article I wrote for 'The Marriage Bed'
forum. With some minor modifications I am making it available to
our membership.
This is Bible Study HF081 - The Covenant of Marriage.
The only Scripture in the Bible where you actually find the word
'covenant' used in direct relationship to marriage is at the closing
of the former testament. In response to man's cry as to why the
Lord will not accept his weeping and tears, the prophet says,
"Because
the Lord has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth,
against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your
companion and your wife by covenant." (Malachi
2:14)
How men treat their wives is singled out as a reason the Lord
refuses to answer their prayers.
It seems Peter had this in mind, when he said, "You husbands in
the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as
with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor
as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not
be hindered. (1
Peter 3:7)
So here we have two witnesses as to how the Lord refuses to bless
a man where the wife is being mistreated in some form. However,
Malachi points out that the man's attitude towards his wife is only an
indicator of a much deeper problem. The prophet calls attention to
the prevailing arrogance in the man that has spilled over into all his
life.
Listen carefully. Man says, "The table of the Lord is
defiled." "My,
how tiresome it is." "How have we robbed You?" "Why
won't God
accept my offering with favor?" "Everyone who does evil is good
in the
sight of the Lord, and He delights in them?" "Where is the God
of
justice?" "It is vain to serve the Lord!"
How desperately we need to get back to God's ideal for the
marriage.
The reason I point this out is because the words recorded in
Malachi are very much in vogue today. There is a spirit of
arrogance in our western societies that has been the cause of the
spiraling destruction of marriage. How desperately we need to
reorder our lives in the ways of the Lord. As one writer says,
"Divorce and
unhappiness are the gravestones that pockmark the open fields of
the free society." (Maurice Camm; "The Jewish Way in Love and
Marriage.”)
While I stated earlier that Malachi is the one book that uses the
term 'covenant' in a direct tie to marriage, it is interesting to note
that
the Bible opens and closes with scenes of the marriage. The first
marriage is between Adam and Eve. The last marriage is between
Christ and His Bride. And these two marriage scenes tell the story of
redemption. And so we have a Bible that wraps itself around the
marriage.
So is marriage a covenant? Yes. It is a covenant and much more.
The Biblical marriage is a divine picture of Christ and His Bride.
But in addition to that, the Biblical marriage speaks to us of the mystery
of Deity. In the marriage the wife can be likened to the Holy Spirit,
and the man to the Word of God. It takes both to produce life. But
let's leave the mystical to the side for now.
Part of our modern day problem is that we have drifted far from
God's program for marriage. This problem did not begin yesterday.
It reaches far, far back to when the Church began to lose her Biblical
moorings, and began to take on a Latin-Greek mind set.
For example, where the Bible teaches the goodness of marriage,
the Latin-based church began to take up the idea that marriage was
a distraction from a deeper walk with God. The result was
monasticism and the eventual requirement of a celibate priesthood. The
problem with this picture is that celibacy is never portrayed in the
Scriptures as God's best for a deeper spiritual life. In fact, one of
the basic requirements to be a pastor is that the man had to be
married.
The truth of the matter is that marriage itself relates to things that
are deeply spiritual. This means that there are certain things that
cannot be discovered in a celibate life style. But the only way to
make a marriage work in its spiritual expressions is to return to its
Biblical foundation. (This is not an affront against someone who
has the gift of celibacy. Such can be a gift from the Lord.)
God said that it was not good for man to be alone. The very first
commandment given to man and woman in the Scripture is, "Be
fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it." (Genesis
1:28)
So once again, is marriage a covenant? Most assuredly. Marriage
is the most sacred of covenants. In fact the Hebrew word for marriage
and the Hebrew word for holiness is the same word; kiddushin.
Marriage is the only covenant in the Bible that allows two people to
be perfectly joined in all areas of life, from the physical to the
spiritual. Where else but in marriage can we find such sacredness
and dignity placed together?
Now let's consider some of the mystical side of marriage along with
God's ideal. In the very first marriage, which will always be God's
ideal for marriage, we find the Lord presenting Eve to Adam. Does
it not say that, "House and wealth are an inheritance from fathers,
but a prudent wife is from the Lord." (Proverbs
19:14)
For the mystical side we have this truth that the Church is a gift of
the Father to the Son. When Christ came out of the overshadowing
of the cross, He saw His bride. Jesus said, "All that the Father
gives
Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not
cast out." (John
6:37)
When Eve is presented before Adam, we hear Adam say, "This is
now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called
woman, because she was taken out of man." (Genesis
2:23) The
same is true with Christ and His Church.
Adam's role was to draw Eve to himself. Adam's role was to drive
Eve's fears away. Adam's role was to let her know his love and his
protection, that she was now sanctified to him. On the mystical
side, this is what Christ does for the Church. On the marriage side, this
is
what men are to do for their wives.
Paul said, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved
the
church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her,
having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He
might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot
or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and
blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their
own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself." (Ephesians
5:25-
28)
This statement by Paul shows us why the Lord will not bless a man
who mistreats his wife. Every woman is designed to be a gift to some
man. But she is ultimately a gift from the Lord. The gift is to be
cherished, loved, and cared for. This is covenant. Two lives
become one. And while it seems we are putting the greater responsibility
on
the man, this is because he has the greater responsibility. God
designed the woman to be weaker in some things, so that she
could fit the marriage in her proper role.
To take this a step further, can the marriage covenant be
considered a blood covenant? After all, there are various
covenants given throughout the Bible, and not all of them are blood
covenants. Again we see the mystical side of marriage. God gave
the woman a hymen that was designed to be broken in the first act of
intercourse. In the breaking of the hymen there is the letting of
blood. Thus the Lord built into marriage the blood covenant.
Surely this ideal has been set aside today, and even mocked. But it
should go without saying, that the man and woman who will keep
themselves sexually pure before marriage, are able to bring into
their marriage something to be treasured. In this sense, there can only
be a 'first time' covenant marriage.
Where does this leave a second or third marriage? Certainly these
marriages miss God's best, but so does any area of our lives where
sin has worked a defilement. However, divorce is not the
unpardonable sin. Where the enemy is able to destroy, the Lord is able to
more
than redeem. Paul said, "Where sin increased, grace abounded all the
more." (Romans
5:20)
Men and women who come to Christ are not to walk in
condemnation because of sin that destroyed a prior marriage. Sin
is in the world. God's provision for all our sins is Christ and the cross.
And in the case of a remarriage, any marriage can be born again in
Christ.
The best example we have for the problem of multiple marriages is
the woman at the well. Jesus went out of His way to minister to this one
person. Isn't it odd how people who've been divorced and then
remarry get beat up so much? Not so with Jesus. Notice that Jesus drew
attention to the fact that this lady had been married five times, and
was then simply living with a man. Did he tell her to go back to one
of her other husbands? No. He simply told her how to get her life
together.
It wasn't a matter of the Lord approving all her past marriages. It
was a matter of the Lord seeing her as a person damaged by sin.
Nor did he tell her that she would have to wait in line behind all the
people who had been married but once, before He could bless her.
He simply said, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says
to
you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would
have given you living water." (John
4:10)
Only the love of Christ can bond the marriage in covenant.
What then is our need? Our marriages need to have an abundant
flow of living water. There is no greater love that a man can have
for a woman other than that of loving her with the love of Christ. This
love transcends all other loves and gives the Biblical marriage its
true strength. So it is with the woman. While romantic love is
certainly a part of marriage, it is not that kind of love that bonds
the marriage in covenant. Only the love of Christ can do that.
In closing there is one more picture to be seen. As I shared in a
prior study, the ancient marriage covenant had two parts. They
were called 'kiddushin' and 'nissiun.' Kiddushin was the betrothal of the
woman to the man. Today we call this the engagement period. For
the ancients it had a much deeper spiritual significance. The woman
was considered married but had not yet been taken to the husband's
home.
This is the stage of marriage that the church is in with regard to
Christ. Paul said, "For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy;
for I betrothed you to one husband, so that in Christ I might present
you as a pure virgin." (2
Corinthians 11:2)
Paul was speaking as a Hebrew man, and had the ancient Hebrew
marriage in view. For the Hebrew people, the completed marriage
was called nissiun. Nissiun speaks of elevation, or the lifting up. This
is where we get the 'lifting of the veil', and the carrying of the
bride over the threshold. For the Church, the nissiun takes place at
the second coming of Christ.
Jesus uses these two aspects of the ancient marriage in his sharing
with the disciples in John 14, where He says, "In My father's house
are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you;
for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for
you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am,
there you may be also." (John
14:2,3)
Yes, marriage is a covenant. Think about it.
The study is open.
The Lord bless you,
Buddy
Lawrence E. (Buddy) Martin, HF Host
email: Bro.Buddy@ChristianChallenge.org
Web: http://www.christianchallenge.org/
"See to it that no one comes short of the grace
of God; that no root of bitterness springing up
causes trouble, and by it many be defiled." (Heb12:15)