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June 23, 2013 |
| Marriage - Covenant | ||
Until the 1960s, in this country and Canada, most people went to church and had some knowledge about the Bible. They understood marriage and that God does not approve of adultery or divorce. The laws of most states had been modeled after the Bible. Most states only allowed divorce in very few cases. Some states did not allow divorce at all.
Beginning in 1960, many people stopped attending churches. Of them, many started demanding divorces. The laws began to change. Now it is easy to get a divorce in every state.
This leaked into the church as some church people started getting divorces. Now the divorce rate in churches is very close to the divorce rate in society.
One result of this was that pastors, should they dare to teach about marriage, would face the anger of some members of their congregation. Those people didn't appreciate being told they had done wrong. Instead of repenting they preferred to have the pastor stop saying they had done wrong.
The result of this was that few pastors taught about marriage. The result of that was that very few people in the congregation understood marriage, which resulted in more divorces and people being in relationships where they should not have been.
In this lesson we will look at marriage from a legal perspective. Marriage isn't only that, of course. It is also a relationship and the basis for a family. What gets Christians into trouble with God in our time is not understanding the legal perspective.
This lesson is essentially a summary of a much larger lesson at http://ourhope.site/2017-03-13%20MarriageDivorceAdultery/MDA.html
One thing that confuses many Christians is that there are two kinds of marriage. There is a civil marriage - where society says you are married and there is God's marriage covenant where God binds two people together.
These two are not connected in any way. God is not interested in the marriages created by society. For the most part, society doesn't believe in God.
A civil marriage in our time is mostly related to tax status and government programs. As mentioned above there was a time when society had a say in who could be married. Now society will marry just about anyone to anyone or anything. God doesn't respect any of that. He has his own definition for marriage.
Due to these two different sources of the definition for marriage, there are 4 different situations that can result.
It is important to keep these two kinds of marriage separated. Conflating them has resulted in a lot of worldly ideas getting into the church
From now on, we'll be talking mostly about the God marriage.
Our God is a God of covenants. He has created many and each has different characteristics. Some covenants are more like promises to a person or group of people. Other covenants have entrance requirements and maintenance requirements.
The marriage covenant is most like the new covenant that Jesus put in place. That covenant has the entrance requirements, "believe", "repent", and "be baptized". Without those a person cannot enter. It also has maintenance requirements, 'continue to believe", "represent yourself as married", and "no mortal sin".
The marriage covenant has the entrance requirements, "one man and one woman", and "lasts for a lifetime". Implicitly there is the requirement that you "believe the covenant exists" and that requires believing God exists and created the covenant. It also has the maintenance requirements, "no adultery" and "continue living".
Obviously they must be old enough and have the mental faculties to understand the terms of the covenant. The Bible also indicates that puberty is necessary for it to be meaningful.
The marriage covenant is very different because of these terms. It is a covenant between our bodies and not our spirits.
[…] the two of them shall be one flesh (Matthew 19:5)
When either person dies, the covenant ends and no part of it continues.
Perhaps the most important things to understand are two effects of the covenant.
Here is something that is hard for modern Christians to accept. A man can be in multiple marriage covenants. This was practiced in Old Testament times and God found no fault in it. God's only statement about it was not to have too many.
These relationships are multiple marriages, not three-somes or four-somes.
What is the point of entering this covenant? Why would you want to? There must be something to gain from it.
This covenant makes it acceptable to have a sexual relationship. Any sexual relationship without this covenant is adultery. That includes masturbation and imagination.
This covenant of one man and one woman also creates the optimum environment for raising children.
This is also the reason why a woman cannot be involved in multiple marriages like a man can. The result would be men who don't know which children are theirs and the child may grow up essentially fatherless or with no strong father figure. That doesn't happen when only men are in multiple marriages.
The things therefore that God has united […] (Matthew 19:6)
In this verse Jesus is talking about marriage as being a man and a woman that God has united. That's another thing that is difficult for modern Christians to accept. No pastor, priest, nor sea captain can unite a man and woman in marriage. They are united by God according to their desire to be united and their acceptance of the terms.
There is no need for a church or ceremony either. Adam and Eve didn't have a church or ceremony. However, it is good and wise to receive the blessing of your congregation and community.
The church can play an important role, however. It can teach the couple about the terms of the covenant.
It's also necessary to ensure that everyone knows about the marriage. There is a problem in the relationship if two people consider themselves married but are hiding it from everyone. A public ceremony helps in this regard as does a ring or other culturally accepted sign.
There is only one way to exit the covenant that is acceptable to God, the death of one of the people. Every other way involves adultery. There is no divorce / remarriage.
The things therefore that God has united, let not a man separate. (Matthew 9:6)
If one spouse persists in adultery, that breaks the covenant and the other spouse is free to remarry. The problem with this exit is "who determines what is persistent?" It's really the same question as the one from the New Covenant, "When has a person turned away from God?" Only God knows for sure.
While civil divorces may be allowed, they mean nothing to God. There is no divorce in a God marriage. Moses, with the acceptance of God, allowed a civil divorce to happen. From God's perspective their rejection of his standards only resulted in adultery.
He said to them, "Moses, confronting the callousness of your heart, let you divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so." 9 But I say to you, "Whoever divorces his wife apart from adultery and will take another, commits adultery, and whoever will take her who is divorced commits adultery." (Matthew 9:8)
God wants the couple to work things out so they can grow together. No marriage is always going to be easy. Some marriages have frequent problems. These need to be seen as opportunities to grow.
There are times, though, when it may be unsafe or unwise to remain in the family home. These do not justify breaking up the marriage though. The option available is to separate and try to resolve the problem.
But he said to them, "Not every man can receive this saying, except he to whom it is given. 12 For there are eunuchs who were born so from their mother's womb and there are eunuchs who became eunuchs by men and there are those who have made themselves eunuchs for the cause of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whoever can receive it let him receive it." (Matthew 19:11-12)
Jesus' point in these discretely worded verses is that the standard is very high - an asexual (eunuch) existence until the problem is resolved, one spouse becomes a persistent adulterer, or death takes one of the spouses.
The Catholic church doesn't get very many things correct but they do understand this. They will only allow divorced people who live together into communion if they have vowed to live as brother and sister, friends without benefits.
There is a living example of a Christian keeping this standard. Dr. Charles Stanley, pastor and well-known television evangelist was separated from his wife because she was unhappy in the marriage. The board of his church informed him that, if he ever married again, they would remove him as pastor. He agreed and has not re-married.
Many people have the idea that they have a right to a marriage. That isn't the case.
Marriage is important to God. Keeping all the promises and vows that we make is also related. Unfortunately there has been a long period when many Christians trivialized marriage, seeking their own comfort instead of seeking God's will.