Marriage, covenant and union...

Over ten years ago Tim and I spent several days with Philip Jensen, currently pastor of St. Andrew's Cathedral in Sydney.

Jensen's bold orthodoxy was refreshing--especially in the setting at which we first met him, a small preaching conference at Parkside Church near Cleveland addressed by Jensen and London Anglican pastor Dick Lucas.

During the course of the conference Jensen was asked how his church dealt with new Christians living with members of the opposite sex.

"We ask them if they are doing this for pleasure or convenience--or if they are committed to each other," Jensen said, "If they have made no commitment we tell them they must separate. If they have made a commitment we view them as married."

Alistair Begg, host of the conference, responded vehemently, "I believe that is a shameful accommodation to the spirit of the age."

Jensen gently defended his position, explaining that what constitutes marriage Biblically is simple commitment to each other combined with the marital act. Over the years since I've become convinced Jensen was right. The following is a recent sermon on this theme.

Marriage, Covenant and Union

Genesis 2:20-24 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Matthew 19:5-6 ..."Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate."

1 Corinthians 6:16 Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, "The two will become one flesh."

Ephesians 5:31 "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."

Malachi 2:14 But you say, "Why does he not?" Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.

As we approach the subject of what constitutes marriage, I must warn that the Bible is a book of many usuallys and fewer absolutelys. There are many normallys in Scripture, many regularlys, many typicallys, far fewer nevers or always, fewer absolutelys and without exceptions.

Among the absolutely and without exceptions of Scripture is justification by faith in Jesus alone. It is Jesus and only Jesus who saves. It is faith in Jesus alone that causes God to justify. It is not Jesus through any other god. It is not faith in the Father. It is not faith in our own strength or goodness. It is Jesus only, Jesus solely, Jesus without exception.

But, more often, we find ourselves saying usually, normally and typically. Typically, we must be baptized to be counted children of God. But not always and without exception. The thief on the cross, though unbaptized, was promised heaven by Christ. Usually, women are not to lead armies. But not always. Deborah led an army--though to the shame of the men who refused to go without her. Normally, we are not to kill. But in the service of the king who bears the authority of the sword under God, we might be called on to do so.

This is important to understand in the realm of marriage. Scripture does not give clear ordinances for every conceivable circumstance in marriage. Thus, I speak this morning of what is the usual and typical pattern. There are exceptions. But we don't allow exceptions to deter us from the normal and routine. This is the fallacious approach to Scripture of those who would deny it. Feminists make Deborah's exception the standard for all women. The Salvation Army, which does not practice the ordinances of Christ in its churches, makes a pattern of exceptions such as the thief on the cross.

We look this morning at the normal, the typical, the usual as defined by God in His Word about marriage.

What constitutes marriage? Out of this question flow a great number of issues and dilemmas. What is marriage? Is it marriage when a man and woman have lived together for many years, had children together, bought a house together, all without taking out a marriage license or being recognized as man and wife by the government?

Is it true marriage if the government recognizes it, despite being forbidden by God? Is homosexual marriage true marriage because the government says so?

Is it marriage when a teenage boy and girl promise each other undying love and consummate their promises in the back seat of a car?

Is it marriage when a man pays a woman for sex, never even knowing her name?

Is it marriage when a man goes to the altar with a woman, takes his vows to her, only to run off before the night is over with maid of honor?

All these things and more are real-life occurrences. The one thing I've come to understand above all about marriage in my nearly twenty years as a pastor is that you ain't seen nothing yet. If you think you've seen it all, you haven't. The weirdness, the sickness, the dilemmas, the thorny issues, the sin are incredible in this area.

So, we begin with a list of three absolutes about marriage. Everything else is secondary. Everything else flows from these three essentials.

The first of these is actually a procedural issue. In the second and third areas, we will define bottom-line marriage. But first, our right to do so, the basis on which we do so.

God Defines Marriage

Marriage, man thinks, is his to define. We think we can characterize and regulate it. We think because we have marriage and divorce courts and laws which establish procedure and govern findings, we define marriage. People marry and divorce regularly, even civilly, and think they have followed the law. They think they are doing what is required. They never suppose they are polygamists or adulterers--after all, they follow the law. They would be aghast if you accused them of adultery when they have followed legal procedure. But truth in this realm is not defined by man or human law.

The law of man is not able to establish gay marriage any more than human law can abolish heterosexual marriage, something that has also been attempted by certain cultures and nations. Marriage is part of God's creation. He owns it. It is His to define. It is part of His creation, not ours to define. It is not an institution that varies from culture to culture. God has imprinted it on the soul. He did so by creating marriage before the fall. Together with the sun, moon, stars, birds, mountains, animals, oceans, marriage is a universal truth of the human condition. We don't define it. We receive it. There isn't one marriage for Islam and another for Mormons. It's universal.

Man can add laws to marriage. Human government can say, if you want to get married, you must get a license, you must take blood tests, and so on. All these sorts of things lie within the power of government. But what human government does not have within its power to do is to deny or abolish a marriage effected in accord with God's law. It can punish those who are truly married for failing to uphold government regulations in the realm of marriage. But it cannot undo what God has done in marriage. And it is powerless in this way because it is God Himself who does in marriage. Scripture is clear on this. Jesus says:

Matthew 19:5-6 ..."Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together , let not man separate."

Government can neither undo what God has done nor do what God has not done. God will never join two men as one flesh. Nor can government, therefore. We must first recognize this about government because we must then understand it as also true of churches. The scandal of Roman Catholicism's denial of divorce under any circumstance combined with its willingness to annul the marriages of the rich and influential is staggering. The Church can no more undo what God has put together than the state.

This is the first and underlying absolute about marriage. Marriage is defined by God. God alone determines what marriage consists of and how it is effected. What God joins together man cannot undo. What God has not put together man cannot join.

Marriage is Established by Covenant

The second absolute of marriage is that it is established by covenant. In Malachi 2 God indicts the Israelite men for sin and says he will not hear their prayers because of their failure to keep faith with the wives of their youth.

Malachi 2:14 But you say, "Why does he not?" Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.

Marriage is the product of a covenant. We have said that marriage has three absolutes. But the first was procedural and only the second and third absolutes actually define marriage. We have said that God defines marriage. But how has God defined marriage? What ingredients are essential to possess a marital relationship recognized as such by God?

The first absolute ingredient of marriage is a covenant. At its heart marriage is a relationship founded on a covenant. Covenants are an ancient form of contract. A covenant, for thousands of millennia before it became a merely a restriction on your deed which forbids you to put a shed in your backyard in your middle class neighborhood, was a blood contract, a contract established and ratified not merely by the word of two parties, not merely by promises or signatures, but by the shedding of blood.

In Scripture and throughout ancient culture, a covenant was cut rather than made. You would cut a covenant quite literally by cutting arms and mingling blood, by killing animals, by sacrificing. God's covenants with man always include shed blood. He made a unilateral covenant with Abraham by causing him to fall into a deep sleep after sacrificing animals and laying them out on the ground. Then, while Abraham slept by the sacrificed animals, God came and caused a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch to pass between these pieces and made His covenant promises to Abraham.

The blood of a covenant was essential to its ratification. Blood established the covenant. Blood stood for the punishments heaped upon covenant breakers. You said, "May my blood so be shed if I break this covenant," by cutting the animal.

So, when God established His covenant with Abraham, He also established a sign of the covenant, a rite of covenant renewal, for each subsequent generation of Abraham's children by requiring that all Abraham's sons be cut at birth in circumcision, reminding them and demonstrating to the world their relationship to God, that He was their God, that they belonged to Him.

But what about girls, you may ask? Are they not included in that covenant? Well, as you know, God's covenant was initially with Abraham and his earthly descendants. It was not with all men. Jesus says to the Samaritan woman at the well, "Salvation is of the Jews." And so it was. God's promise of salvation ran along the lines of the Jewish generations. But were women excluded? Not at all. Each time a Jewish woman was joined to a Jewish man in marriage a new covenant was effected by God. The couple would make a commitment to each other to be man and wife. They would make a marital commitment to each other. Then, on the consummation of the marriage, the covenant was effected. Man's sexual organ, cut at birth by God as a sign of the covenant, would cut the woman. The marital sheets would be preserved as evidence of the covenant. The Bible specifies the procedure for this. If the woman was later accused of not being a virgin, of having contracted an invalid covenant because of her prior relationship with another man, these sheets were to be brought forth as evidence of the validity of the covenant.

Man and woman are both cut as signs of God's covenants. And because God's covenant with Abraham ran along the lines of human procreation, the instruments of procreation are what God marks with His signs of the covenants.

One further word about a covenant. A covenant is an agreement sealed by blood. You cannot have a covenant without some form of prior agreement, a stipulation we will dwell on further in a moment.

Marriage is a One-Flesh Union

The second fundamental prerequisite of any true marriage is found throughout Scripture wherever marriage is spoken of:

Genesis 2:24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh .

Matthew 19:5-6 ..."Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two but one flesh . What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate."

Though it is implicit in the act of forging the covenant of marriage, it is explicitly stated numerous times in Scripture that marriage is a one-flesh relationship, a one-flesh relationship founded in the act of marital love. God speaks of His marriage to His people in Ezekiel using this one-flesh union as His metaphor for His love of them:

Ezekiel 16:8 "When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love (mature physically and emotionally, ready for intercourse), and I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness (a euphemism for marital love); I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God, and you became mine.

Relationships Lacking One of These Prerequisites

These comprise the essential bottom line of marriage: a covenantal relationship leading to a one-flesh union. We will consider additional aspects of godly marriages which the Scriptures define as important, though not of the essence, later. But what about when these two things are not present, or not present in fullness? This is where we begin to hit thorny issues

Marital Agreement Without One-Flesh Union

What about a male-female relationship without a one flesh union? What about a male-female relationship based on promises which remains unconsummated for one reason or another? Is there such a thing as a sexless marriage?

The answer, as almost every culture has recognized throughout time, is that though an unconsummated marriage is marriage in form, it is not in substance. In Puritan New England, in Calvin's Geneva, everywhere marriage is celebrated this has been understood. In Jewish culture at the time of Christ, betrothal would take place, up to a year prior to marriage. This was the fundamental agreement to be man and wife. Then, when the husband-to-be had prepared a living place for his wife, and when the bride price was paid, the bridegroom would come for his bride. He would often arrive late in the night to surprise his intended. They would take a circuitous route back to his home where, by lamp light they would enter the bridal tent. The best man would stand by and once the marriage was consummated, he would display the sheets to the guests.

This question reflects spiritual reality as well. We can be baptized but not spiritually united with Christ. We can have the mark of the covenant on our bodies, but not belong to Christ spiritually. We are thus counted members of the Church, but we are not true Christians.

Does this mean that their relationship should end? Not necessarily. It it is not a one-flesh union. But unless one of the parties is surprised by the condition which keeps the marriage from being consummated, the promises of the covenant are still promises, only the covenant is not completed.

One-Flesh Union Without Agreement

More complicated and to the point today is the reverse. What should we make of those situations where there is sexual union in the absence of formal agreement to be man and wife?

Well, we must start by acknowledging the Bible makes clear that not every sexual union is a marriage. Abraham is united with Hagar but is not married to her and does not marry her. Galatians makes very clear that Abraham's two sons were not equal in standing. In fact, the Law of Moses makes specific provisions for slave women deflowered by their masters but not wed. In the same way, Judah has union with Tamar, his daughter-in-law, but does not marry her.

However, there is this to remember as well about such unions: each example of such a non-marital one-flesh union in Scripture had from its outset a clear understanding that it would never be a marriage. The slave woman Hagar was only to provide a child. Tamar was a prostitute to Judah. In all such situations in Scripture, both parties understood from the outset their union would not entail marriage.

The more pressing question, then, is what Scripture says about sexual union where there is no prior understanding that union will not lead to marriage. What does the Bible say about sex between an unmarried man and a virgin woman where it is possible for marriage to occur? We have specific words in English for such unions. We call them fornication or pre-marital sex. Interestingly, there's no such category of sin in Scripture. There is merely adultery, and porneia, a Greek word that refers to many forms of illicit sexual acts, including homosexuality, but not limited to pre-marital sex.

Are couples who unite physically without first observing a formal wedding ceremony married? It's an important and often tremendously difficult question to answer. There is simply no easy way to judge these situations. Because of this, God's people have always insisted that marriage involve public vows, public commitments, public declarations of intent.

This is why there is that section of the classic wedding ceremony where the pastor asks if anyone objects. If you read Jane Austen or other older English authors, you know that before a wedding could take place, there was the posting of the banns. This was a public notice typically given on three consecutive Sundays in the parish churches of both the prospective bride and groom announcing their impending marriage. This had to be done by canon (and sometimes civil) law before a church wedding could be performed. The reason for this public notice was twofold. First, it was intended to forestall certain illicit marriages, such as marriages which would be incestuous, or to allow notice to be given of some other form of illicit behaviour such as homosexuality.

More importantly, however, the banns allowed parties possessing a prior claim to marriage to make their objection known. The records of Calvin's Geneva consistory reveal that it was not uncommon for a man and a woman to "drink marriage" together. This was a form of vow, effected over a shared cup, in which a man would promise marriage to a woman. And the issue of their having drunk marriage together would come before the elders when, after having promised marriage, the man would convince the woman to have union with him and then not follow through on his promise. The banns were a way for those who had made a prior commitment in this way to be found out.

The truth is, throughout history the assumption has been that an unmarried man and a virgin woman who voluntarily join together do so intending to be man and wife. So we read in the Law of Moses:

Exodus 22:16-17 16 "If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged to be married and lies with her, he shall give the bride-price for her and make her his wife. 17 If her father utterly refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the bride-price for virgins.

The assumption is that seduction to a non-engaged virgin leads to marriage. Calvin comments on this passage,

(God) here only has consideration for young females, lest, being deceived, and having lost their virginity, they should become prostitutes; and thus the land should be defiled by whoredom. The remedy is, that he who has corrupted the girl should be compelled to marry her, and also to give tie a dowry from his own property, lest, if he should afterwards cast her off, she should go away from her bed penniless. But, if the marriage should not please her father, the penalty imposed on her seducer is, that he should assign her a wedding portion.

Scripture is clear that only if the girl's father should refuse does it not end in marriage. And even then, a bride price must be paid.

If the couple is betrothed and they have sexual union, then it is marriage. Joseph is betrothed to Mary but has not known her. When he learns she is with child, he determines to divorce her. All he need do to be married to her at the point of betrothal is to know her. It is then marriage.

Though it is clear Scripturally that not every instance of sexual union between an unmarried man and a virgin woman leads to marriage, it does so far more often than we would like to admit. The assumption of Scripture (and of godly men and women throughout history) is that fornication puts the cart before the horse, puts the marital act before the marital covenant, but also, that it generally involves a marital covenant.

If the union does not lead to marriage, we are told that the girl's bride price is still to be paid, and in Deuteronomy 22, that bride price is set at 50 shekels, a vast sum of money.

So, the woman is paid for the harm. She is endowed for life with a significant bride price. The assumption is that she is unlikely to marry because of her virginity being taken. Indeed, she is physically unable to effect the same one-flesh covenant as a virgin. And so she is paid as though she is married.

We need to heed Scripture here by realizing certain implications which flow from this.

First, when carnal union is preceded by promises, by engagement, for instance, or by a commitment to marriage, there is no such thing as pre-marital sex. Sexual union in such circumstances is marriage. In other words, when you have a great big wedding ceremony for a man and a woman who have been living together during their engagement or before their marriage you have what amounts to a pointless ceremony. The promise of marriage combined with the act of marriage effects the marriage covenant.

Second, the assumption of the Old Testament is that in the absence of powerful and clear negative conditions, sexual union between an unmarried man and a virgin seals a covenant of marriage. That covenant need be neither elaborate, or publicly stated. Abraham sends his servant to get a wife for his son. The servant returns with Rebecca. Isaac sees her while working in the field, he goes up to her, she veils herself when she sees him coming, he takes her into his mother's tent, and they are thus man and wife. The covenant is assumed in her coming to him with the servant. In the same way, Jacob is fooled into spending the night with Leah, but though he complains about being tricked, he does not deny after spending the night with Leah that he is married to her despite the deception of it all. He took her physically and his wife she is.

It is not a light thing for a woman to throw away her virginity. The man who takes a woman's virginity is assumed by Scripture to marry her. The man spoken of in Exodus 22:16 can say, "But I never meant to get married." That doesn't matter. He meant to do the act of marriage. That much he does know.

Third, we need to understand that the more a couple knows about God's commands about marriage, the more they are likely to be held guilty not of fornication, but adultery if they have union with each other and then go on to marry others. Let me explain this a bit further. We live in a day of sexual sin so great that women and men routinely have sexual union without ever intending anything beyond a night's pleasure. But this cannot simply be the case with Christians who know God's teaching. They know that sex is to be tied only to marriage, and so if they come together knowing this, the onus is on them to prove that they have not implicitly covenanted marriage to each other. Put another way, young Christian women do not just give themselves wantonly. If a young Christian woman gives herself to a man, it is usually because there is a promise, stated or unstated, extrinsic or intrinsic, of life together.

Now, we come to certain implications of this for our lives. What do we learn from this for our lives today?

First, we must recognize that we live in a day that may well be in the eyes of God not a day of vast amounts of pre-marital sex, but of vast amounts of adultery, desertion and divorce. There is a strong likelihood that in many cases in which men and women voluntarily have union for the first time, they are actually contracting marriage. And if that is so, each subsequent union is adultery.

Young men and women, guard your purity. You risk grave danger by taking pleasure in sex before the proper time and way.

Parents, if we are aware of this, and yet we urge our children to wait and wait and wait, to go through school, to get through graduate school, to get a good start in life before marrying, we not only increase the likelihood of premarital sex, we increase the likelihood that they will become adulterers because they will be held guilty by God of effecting a marriage and abandoning it in their subsequent sexual unions.

Brothers and sisters, the Bible presents marriage as a good. It is a wonderful joy. It is not to be feared. It is not to be forever put off. It is given us to keep us from burning. And the burning Paul is speaking of is not necessarily merely the burning of passion, but perhaps as likely, the burning of hell. Some of our versions add "with passion" to the text of Paul's statement that it is better to marry than to burn, but it's not there in the original.

Every evidence we have suggests that Jewish marriages were typically conducted while the couple was in their teens. Women and men would marry after the age of puberty. Men, it is sometimes suggested, were thought most marriageable at 18, but women before that. Meanwhile, the average age at marriage today is creeping past thirty. Moreover over one-third of children are born outside wedlock. Friends, this is not an epidemic of fornication. This is an epidemic of adultery. This is grievous, life-altering sin. The Jewish woman who gave her virginity to a man without ending up married to him was likely to become a prostitute or remain a spinster in Scriptural times.

We must change our thinking dramatically about marriage if we are to escape the trap of our age in this area. Paul says that it is better to marry than to burn. What age is temptation strongest at? Thirty? Forty? Fifty? Or teens and early twenties? God has given us the gift of marriage for a variety of reasons. It is beautifully given to meet our needs positively and it is given to keep us from sin negatively.

Additional Conditions of a God-Blessed Union

Let me add in closing several more conditions of marriage which, though not absolutes, are so vital that to ignore them would be wrong.

First, as I have studied God's Word on this issue I have come to the conclusion that it is an inescapable Biblical fact that parental consent to marriage should be sought. The fact that a father can invalidate his daughter's marriage to a man she has had sexual union with is a powerful statement of parental authority in this realm.

Luther ties the need for parental permission to the fifth commandment's requirement that we honor our father and mother. He also points out the absolutely common way people are married in Scripture, from David with Michal through Isaac with Rebecca and Jacob sent to Laban by Isaac. The Biblical pattern is for parents give blessings and make arrangements and give permission. Luther argues that parents cannot force into marriage, but they can forbid. And honestly, the Scriptural evidence is strong that both man and woman should have parental permission. This doesn't mean that a marriage contracted outside parental permission today is invalid, though I believe Scripture teaches a father can invalidate a virgin daughter's marriage covenant just as a father could undo a virgin's vows in Scripture--and a husband his wife's. But it does mean that if we run roughshod over parental will in the marriage we contract we commit a grievous act of rebellion.

And Luther gives a warning to parents who might be inclined to misuse this authority:

Now someone may protest: If the father has the authority to break off his child's engagement and disrupt his marriage, then he must also have the authority to forbid his child to marry at all, and to force him into celibacy, etc. I answer: Not so. I have said above that man is created--not by his father, but by God--to eat, drink, produce fruit of his body, sleep, and respond to other calls of nature. It is not within the power of any man to alter this. Therefore, it is one thing to hinder a child's marriage to this or that particular person, and quite another thing to forbid marriage entirely. A father may lay down the rule that his child must not eat or drink this or that, or sleep here or there; but he cannot rule that the child abstain entirely from food, drink, and sleep. On the contrary, he is duty bound to provide his child with food, drink, clothing, sleep, and whatever else is needful for his well-being. If he fails to do this, he is no father at all. and the child will have to do it himself.

Luther, M. (1999, c1962). Vol. 45: Luther's works, vol. 45 : The Christian in Society II (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.). Luther's Works. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.

Second, though it is possible to marry privately, we fundamentally diminish the glory and importance of marriage by eloping or private marriage. Marriage is a public covenant. And a covenant that is hidden is a covenant that is far closer to being violated than a covenant publicly proclaimed.