With today’s social mores, wedding vows between a man and women are often taken as a legal contract, social contract, a best effort, or even some sort of New Age “spiritual” contract. As reflected in the divorce rate and social chaos left in its wake, the conviction that marriage is a covenant between a man and woman in the presence of God is something to be promoted and reinforced.
So, what is a covenant? A covenant is the fundamental tool that God has designed to construct and order His relationship with man. Covenants are established by making an oath – an oath that creates kinship between the two who are making the covenant. Making an oath is to call upon the power of God to bind Satan and evil. It is a mystery of drawing down the presence of God, of engaging God for help and power, so that we can do whatever it is we are pledging to do.
There are multiple covenants that God entered into with humanity; the Creation Covenant, the Noahic Covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant, and the Davidic Covenant are a few examples from the Old Testament. In these covenants God pledges to fulfill exacting promises he has made to specific people or the nation of Israel. In Jesus we find the New Covenant, that God will forgive and forget our sins by the blood and sacrifice of Jesus. That is the essence of the
oath that God has taken and swears by Himself to fulfill.
Let’s bring the concept of swearing an oath into our New Testament understanding. Guess what the Greek word for oath is? The Greek word for “oath” is “mysterion”—mystery—a concept which is found throughout the New Testament—a concept used in Eph 5:31-32 that
describes the marital relationship between a man and woman as a type of the marriage between Christ and the Church: For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.”
When a man and woman say, “I do,” they are vowing to each other before the Lord that they will stay together until one of them dies. In the fulfillment of the marital covenant, the two become one. The man no longer lives for himself, nor the woman for herself. A new unity, a new diversity, a new family is established. The covenant relationship the man and woman enter when they make their vows calls for total faithfulness. Husband and wife are to love and be
true to and cherish each other—exclusively! The man is to be true to his wife and she to him. Both remain distinct persons, yet from the Bible’s point of view, two now share a mystery of oneness.
The Lord Jesus clearly taught what God expected when He said: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no
one separate.” Matt 19:5-6.
The marriage vow is the verbal expression of a lifelong commitment made in the mind and heart, and before our Lord. That is God’s design. The richest fulfillment of marriage is anchored in that concept.
When we say in the vow, “from this day forward,” we mean a lifetime. This promise is not made to be broken (Eccl. 5:4). Yes, such commitment is limiting. But it also sets a man or woman free to concentrate on the task of living out and adjusting and improving a
loving relationship through the sincere give-and-take of life. Such a covenant allows husband and wife to give one another the gift of a vowed love—a lifetime promise—that will carry them through physical illness and divergent interests and job pressures and problems with teenagers and unbelievable stress in the relationship. So complex—yet so simple. “I made a promise, and with the help of God I intend to keep it. I’m a person of my word. I’m in this for life”.
– Dale Maudru
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