Marriage and the Bible - Part 43 - God and the Spiritual Covenant

There are two things to consider here 1) is the elements of Spiritual Covenant and 2) God's role in those elements.

The purest way to see the elements of spiritual covenant relationship between a man and a woman is to return to the Garden of Eden and look at Adam and Eve's relationship before the Fall.  Mostly because at this time there is no need for marriage contracts or viewing marriage as a cultural act.  What we see are a man and a woman who enjoy a unique relationship status.  There are no cultural conventions to follow, nor are there any words or actions to establish to others that the two of them are husband and wife.  They simply are.

1. Element One: Both man and woman understand they are creations of God and responsible to his authority.  Each have been created for a purpose in the relationship.  Man to fulfill the wishes of God for planet earth and the woman to be man's helper. 

2. Element Two: 'One Flesh'.  Jesus himself reinforces this idea in Matthew 19 with the line - 'they are no longer two but one.'  This indicates a union of two people on all levels: spiritual, mind, heart and body.

3. Element Three: 'Naked' - It takes true trust and openness to be naked in the spiritual sense of the word above the physical.  To be naked in this sense is to have no secrets, no hidden thoughts or feelings and no hidden agendas.  It is to be comfortable being naked with each other in all senses.   For a better understanding of nakedness from a Biblical perspective my series The Bible and Nakedness was written specifically to examine this issue.

4. Element Four: 'Unashamed' - No shame indicates neither side has done anything to the other or before God so as to cause the shame of sin and regret.  There is nothing to clear the relationship between the man, woman or God.

This of course leads us to God role in a spiritual covenant marriage.  In order for a covenant marriage to exist God must be a part of it.  For a true covenant, this means God has a covenant with the man and the woman and they man and woman with each other.  Without all three of these relationships in covenant, there is no covenant marriage.  At that point what you have is a contract.  This is why Paul in 1 Corinthians7 can give a mixed faith marriage reason for divorce.  The unbeliever does not have a covenant with God; the believer does.  The man and woman have a contract.

In a spiritual covenant, love and blood seal it solid.  The man must love God and his wife.  The wife must love God and her husband.  God loves both man and the woman.  God seals his covenant with man and woman through their salvation by the blood of his Son.  Man and woman seal their covenant with each other in blood through sex.  This is why sex is more than a physical action for fun and procreation in a spiritual covenant.

In a spiritual covenant all actions together and with God, if done in love and respect will strengthen the covenant.  God to church and worshiping together, communicating with each other, being each other's friend, raising kids together, making love, etc. can all be actions both of expression and living of a couples' spiritual covenant.

Next: How Spiritual Covenants Fail and Cultural Contracts Break.

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Marriage and the Bible - Part 42 - God and the Cultural Contract

With all the desire for spiritual covenant type of marriage in Scripture, the fact remains cultural contracts are very much part of the Bible and many are directed by God himself particularly in the law.  The above illustration deals with most of them.
1. Man+woman = monogamy
2. Man+woman+concubine = polygamy with two classes of wife
3. Man+woman+property woman=polygamy with slave concubine
4. Man with multiple women as equal wives='traditional' polygamy
5. Woman marries brother of dead husband=could result in polygamy if the brother already had another wife.
6. Man with unbetrothed woman (the illustration is inaccurate at this point as a rapist was put to death in Old Testament law).  But this is a situation where two people have sex (the woman unmarried and unbetrothed) and it is discovered in some way.  Man loses his option for divorce with her and must provide for her.
7. Man with war wife (she must be a virgin taken as spoils of war)
8. Slave couple: only stay married if their master wishes it or the slave chooses a bond slave status.

In the grand scheme of things as much as God want people to have a spiritual covenant type marriage, allowance is made for a multitude of reasons for other types of marriage contracts.  In all of these situations God has laws regulating the practice of these types of contracts.

What this brings up is how open God is when it comes to this subject.  He desires some greater things for marriage but understands mankind enough that he does not forbid certain other things involving marriage contracts and the culture.  In short, God is very realistic about humans and their relationships with the opposite sex and this translates to marriage contracts to protect the parties involved.

God ultimately is acknowledging the selfishness of mankind and marriage is not going to be something He is going to think is avoid of such selfishness.  Contracts protect the parties involved from the negative effects of such selfishness.  in many cases it seems that a lot of these laws guard against divorce by creating difficulty or options for the man regarding wives.  The wives are protected as well as one of the main reasons for this contract type mentality is to protect a woman from abandonment or disgrace.

Cultural contracts have one flaw, that is that they are essentially about maintaining the self interests of those in the marriage contract.  A contract by it's nature is not about mutual love but protection and obligations.  Each party involved need not care about the other person in a love and affection sense, they are only obligated to perform their duties and provide as dictated by the contract.

To have a marriage leave this state and become all that it should be is only possible when the concept of a 'one flesh' spiritual covenant in embraced.

Next: God and the Spiritual Covenant
Previous: The Bible and Divorce 
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Marriage and the Bible - Part 41 - The Bible and Divorce

While it is difficult to get an opinion from God as to his like or dislike of polygamy (see my previous post), it is not difficult to get his opinion about divorce.  He hates it.  It is this hatred of divorce by God that should set the theme for our discussion of divorce.  If I am a Christian, I should hate what God hates and God hates divorce. 

Despite the hatred by God of divorce, it is still biblically allowed.  Divorce is allowed by the law of Moses very early on and it remains a constant force in the Bible from then on.  Ultimately, this seems to be an allowance by God because of sin and the nature of marriage in its cultural contract form.  Doesn't stop Him from hating it, but it does indicate God understands the why of it.

There are basically three biblical reasons God would allow a divorce:

1. Sexual Infidelity: As much as God hates divorce, he hates unfaithfulness even more.  Jesus himself gives this as a reason for it.  This reason ultimately points to something deeper and that is that sex is not simply about fun or procreation.  Sex is the ultimate expression of the spiritual covenant of marriage and to engage in adultery in any form shows a lack of understanding of this idea.  This why not only should sex not be engaged in before marriage; it also should be kept in the confines of marriage.

2. Mixed Faith Marriage:  The Bible has nothing really positive to say about a marriage between an unbeliever and a believer and that goes throughout the entire Bible.  In one case after the exile, Israelite men are forced to divorce their wives for this reason or give up their inheritance in Israel.  When we get to the New Testament there is a change though and that is that the believer should stay with the unbeliever unless the unbeliever wants out.  Paul in 1st Corinthians is not defying Jesus so much as he is considering a further implication of Jesus' teaching.  That of the impossibility for such a marriage to achieve covenant without both parties understanding the true nature of love and self-sacrifice, which are found only in genuine faith in God.  The believer should treat their marriage as a covenant and strive for the ideal, but if the unbeliever wants out, the believer can depart free of obligation.

3. Hardness of Heart: I simply do not see that Jesus Teaching in Matthew 19 and other places nullifies this idea.  The divorce law of Moses still stands because Jesus himself said he had not come to destroy the law or the prophets.  The fact is God still allows for hardness of heart, because hardness of heart is still going to happen.  People are still going to fail in how they view marriage, act in selfishness to the point that even the cultural and contractual sides of their marriage are not being kept, violate their marriage vows and thus become hardened of heart.  It is still an out, but I would say God doesn't like it very much given Jesus' words.  This reason should be avoided at all costs but it still is there in case it happens.  One thing though we can say about divorce is that it never is considered a sin that is unforgivable by God.

That said, we need to be reminded that God still hates divorce.  It means then the Christian should make every effort to save their marriage and to strive to see that they view it as a spiritual covenant above the cultural contract.  Ultimately this is about shifting out understanding of marriage from the selfishness of the contract and moving it to the self-sacrifice of the covenant.  For the Christian it becomes very important to understand the difference between the two and strive for the covenant.

Next: God and the Cultural Contract.
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Marriage and the Bible - Part 40 - The Bible and Polygamy

The extreme difficulty with the issue of polygamy and the Bible is twofold: 1) There is no direct statement forbidding the practice anywhere in the Bible and 2) It is prolifically practiced from very early on in Scripture and by some of the great heroes of faith from Abraham to David.  In short, while the Bible certainly does not encourage the practice, it does not forbid it.  In fact there are Biblical laws that regulate it.

The first implication of this is that those Christians that go around and say the practice of polygamy is a sin or evil are very much not supported by the Bible.  This means that the moral judgments about people that practice polygamy stand purely on cultural grounds not Biblical ones.

Secondly and on the flip side, there is a problem with polygamy that the Bible presents, that of achieving the ideal of what marriage symbolizes.  The polygamist marriages in the Bible present either a man who has no close spiritual covenant relationship with any of his wives or only just one with the rest of his wives being contract wives.  In fact, it seems that if a man opts for polygamy he is already accepting this fact.  His marriages are about other cultural and personal desires not a desire to be 'one flesh' in truth with a woman.  It has been said that no polygamist relationship in the Bible is absent from problems, the truth is that in some situations we simple do not know this for sure.

Another thing to consider is that there is no Biblical example of polygamy other than one man with multiple wives.  The idea of one woman with multiple husbands simply is not there.  In part this is because of a patriarchal man dominated culture, but in truth it is also a practical consideration.  When a man has more than one wife there is still not doubt when a child is born who the father of the child is.  This would not be true in the reverse situation.  Given that family was important in this culture and being able to trace one's lineage also important: one wife, multiple husband relationships would undercut both and are rejected.  It is an argument from silence all the way around on this issue but given the lack of example we have to conclude it is probably not an option.

Finally, the New Testament has two important changes in understanding polygamy.  First, the fact that the ideal marriage is presented very strongly as one man, one woman from both Jesus and the apostles point of view.  Secondly, that if a man is polygamist he is disqualified from church leadership.  In short, Jesus and the apostles are encouraging monogamy but neither condemns polygamy although they do enact things to consider and thus discourage it.

For the Christian in the modern day, application touches two areas:

1) When confronted with polygamy in society there is no biblical grounds for condemning the practice or the polygamist and his wives.  As long as the relationship was freely entered into, we have to conclude that all the parties involved are both sin free and accepting the consequences of such a relationship.  In truth, this is far less repulsive to God than the man who has multiple partners without marriage contracts and children from each relationship as well.  At least the polygamist is accepting responsibility both legally and culturally.  The situation of multiple wives one at a time due to divorce would also fall under a far more 'hate' category from God's perspective than polygamy. 

2) If a Christian considers entering into a polygamist relationship, they should consider the following issues: a) by so doing they are opting for the less desirable option than monogamy, b) it is going to be difficult for them to achieve a spiritual covenant with this type of relationship and c) they are opting out of being in leadership in the church.

In final analysis, polygamy is an allowable situation for mankind because of the nature of the beast as it were.  People are encouraged to get married if they are sexually attracted to the opposite sex and can't control it.  Here seems to be an additional allowance for the man who simply can't contain his sexual desire to one woman.  It offers an option free of affairs and divorce.  It is not the best situation, but it is better than the alternatives.  Interestingly enough while many women do not like the idea, many women in such relationships defend it for various reasons.

Next: The Bible and Divorce
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Passion and Message - Have We Lost Something Here?

There are a lot of things that have factored into this post but the first thing that got me thinking was this link: What Harold Camping Got Right.  But another factor was yesterday when I did a funeral for one of my members.  I preach to the same people all the time so whenever I preach to someone different I try to get feedback, even at a funeral.  My sermon was short, simple and to the point.  I got a lot of positive feedback and most of it had nothing to do with the message of the sermon, but the passion of it.  'It was nice to go to a funeral and the preacher knew the person so well they could speak passionately about them".  This was a typical comment and it has confirmed what I have long suspected.  People will never remember a message unless the preacher puts passion behind it.  If you try to preach something that you do not believe or have any emotions about you might as well sit down.

Through the whole Harold Camping nonsense, as the link above points out, the one thing you have to give the Harold Camping group credit for was their passion and message worked.  They went from an obscure group to being talked about across the nation and world in a few short months.  In large part we could blame sensationalism, but the fact is they had real passion about their message and that passion turned into action.  That action netted results.

The problem with the message of the American Christian church regardless of denominational flag is that it has a couple of problems.  On the one hand, we seem to have a large number of denominations and churches who are reworking everything so that it is unoffensive, tolerant and a different paradigm.  On the other hand, we also have a large number of denominations that are so concerned about being right in doctrine, that there is more infighting than ever.  Either Satan has us ineffective due to lack of passion and focus, or he has us shining our armor and fighting one another.  Either way he is winning. Some would argue that this is one of the reasons for the emergent church, but what is their central message?  Can anyone pin it down? 

Some questions that could be asked are: What is the message of the church supposed to be? and How does the church reclaim the passion for that message?  Comments are encouraged on this one because I personally do not see a simple answer to either one and the importance of them is beginning to get weighty indeed.

Marriage and the Bible - Part 39 - Spiritual Covenant vs. Cultural Contract

An interesting tension exists throughout the Bible between the ideas spiritual covenant and cultural contract.

Spiritual Covenant is based on the idea of a man and a woman becoming 'one flesh', being naked and unashamed without influence by the nature of their culture, society or legal obligations.  Center of this idea is an idea of genuine spiritual love and growth together.  It is deeper than romantic love; it is true genuine 'oneness' of spirit, mind, heart and body.  It is this idea of spiritual covenant that drives later New Testament ideas of relationships and the Christ as groom; Church as bride in union.

Cultural contracts involves marriage as a legal and cultural issues and are made for various reasons including procreation, sexual pleasure, cultural obligation, diplomacy, simple desire and a host of other reasons.  There is no expectation in such contracts other than what is stated in the contract or expected by culture.  Ultimately these are done so society will have some benchmark of when a relationship between two people moves from unmarried to married and to protect the parties involved from certain dangers of such relationships.

For the Biblical Christian, the desire should be to press toward spiritual covenant, but with a full acknowledgement that cultural contract is a part of it.  However, a couple who genuinely achieves spiritual covenant will ultimately fulfil any cultural contract but even Jesus' conversation indicates that even He shared some understanding that culture and law had some influence on determining when a couple is married.

Ultimately, God acknowledges both.  He desires covenant for mankind, but realizes that because of sin, contracts are necessary.  In truth it is because of sin and the necessity of enforcing obligations that cultural contracts are needed.  In the Law at least there is some concern for the protection and provisions for the wife and children of a union.

When it comes to marriage or husbands and wives, this tension becomes a continual thread that weaves its way through all the marriage issues that will follow.  We are always trying to bring the relationship back to Adam and Eve and yet acknowledging that we have many obstacles to do so.

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Marriage and the Bible - Part 38 - Does the New Testament Change Anything?

So does the teaching of Jesus and the apostles change the concept of marriage or enlighten our understanding from what we already know from the Old Testament?  The answer to both is yes, but does it take it as far as we would like it to go?

The greatest concept of marriage that is enhanced or revived a return to the beginning and the concept of 'one flesh'.  Jesus' teaching certainly makes divorce a harder option because of it and it paves the way for an understanding of Church/Christ being equated to bride/groom in Paul.  The idea that marriage should be more than a cultural contract but involve instead a spiritual covenant is very much present in the teaching of Jesus and Paul.

One significant change is that women suddenly have a new importance in marriage. The role of women is defined in a very real way a submission by choice not by force of culture or strength.  It also give a great picture of the importance of women in the mind of God as far as marriage as their role no longer being unimportant.  As important as it is for a man to reflect Christ in his marriage role, it is just as important for a woman to reflect what the church should be in relationship to Christ.

The thing I am not sure of at this point is if these are truly new concepts or concepts that are being enhanced from the Old Testament.  It seems that Jesus uses the Old Testament to make all his points; Paul and Peter as well engage both the Law and Old Testament History to illustrate what they see in marriage.  While the concept of Church/bride in relationship to Christ/groom is new, the concepts of marriage they are built on are already there.

With my Observations concluded at this point, I now move on to the next phase which involves Interpretation and Application.  What indeed does all this mean and how does it apply to our lives as Christians.

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