| Author | Message | ||
| Doug222 (Doug222) |
God has been dealing with me a lot about marriage lately. It has caused me to ponder a question that I would like input on. What is the covenant that you have made to your spouse? How (if at all) does this covenant relate to your relationship with God? In His Grace Doug | ||
| Gatororeo7 (Gatororeo7) |
Doug, What are you referring to exactly? The marriage vows? | ||
| Doug222 (Doug222) |
I guess that is what I am asking--what is the covenant you have with your spouse? For some, it may be the marriage vows, for others, it may be something deeper (or different). I am guessing that for those who have long term successful marriages, it is much more personal. To be honest, until now, I had never given this issue a whole lot of thought. I suspect that may be the case for many--which may account for the high divorce rate. If the covenant is nothing more than repeating back the minister's words, it is not much of a committment. As I shared before, I see some very strong parallels between marriage and what God wanted to teach us about His relationship to us. I guess my question is, when you asked your spouse to marry you (or you agreed to marry your spouse), what was the covenant you were making with them. In the same vain, when you became married to Christ, what was the covenant you made with Him? Are there similarities between these two covenants? Was it personal, or was it a formality? I fear that marriage (in both senses) has tended to get reduced to a legal arrangement. Now, rather than seeing the statement that "God hates divorce and forbids it except in the case of adultery" being a rule by which we measure our actions/options, I see it as a wonderful promise from God that there is nothing I could do to fall from grace--short of making a conscious decision to join myself to another. Amazingly, rarely have I seen the topic of marriage and divorce presented in this light. Please do not get me wrong. I am not in any way advocating for (or condoning) divorce, but I believe that when we elevate it to the egregious/unforgivable sin that it has become in many Christian circles, we miss out on a wonderful opportunity to share about one of the most wonderful promises in scripture. I think the reason why this issue has come up for me right now has (in part) to do with a situation that a friend relayed to me recently where a couple was disfellowshipped from the (SDA) church because he had gotten divorced ten years ago for unbiblical reasons. They had been counseled that he could not remarry, but they did it anyway. In His Grace Doug | ||
| Colleentinker (Colleentinker) |
Wow, Doug, you've brought up a big subject. I've thought a lot about this issue also, and I still have unanswered questions. I'll share what I've processed, though. First, there seems to be a difference in the way marriage is regarded between the old and the new testaments. Moses allowed divorce; Jesus (and Paul elaborated) made it clear that the allowance Moses made doesn't fly anymore. I believe Moses allowed Israeiltes to divorce as a protection for the women. If he had not allowed divorce, it's possible that spousal abuse might have meant the death of some of those women. After all, the Moses-allowed divorce included putting away a woman for any infringement including burning dinner. It was an excuse for getting rid of a woman one no longer wanted. If in its apostacy Israel had come to the place where they could get rid of marriage for such trivia, I've no doubt men might have phsyically "punished" their wives if they'd not been given the option of divorce. The New Testament teaching on divorce is directed toward believers. No, I'm not allowing a "loophole" for unbelievers, but the teaching is directed toward believers. Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount--all of it--was describing what life looks like when people live with the Holy Spirit. His commands condemning lust as adultery and anger as murder cannot be fulfilled in any natural human. He was showing how far from reality the Jews had gone; they thought the law described all they needed to do. He made clear that the law didn't begin to cover the requirements for perfection. He was describing life in the Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 7 Paul enlarges on the teaching of marriage. In this chapter he talks about not divorcing, and he specifically talks about a believing spouse staying with an unbelieving spouse if the unbeliever wishes to stay, but allowing him or her to leave if he wishes. "God has called us to live in peace," he says. (1 Cor. 7:15) Paul further says that the unbelieving spouse is "sanctified" through the believing spouse, and the children are holy where otherwise they would be "unclean". (v.14) If you dovetail this teaching with his statements in chapter 6 regarding immorality, you see that Paul makes it clear that our bodies "are members of Christ himself". (1 Cor. 6:15) Paul continues by asking if one would take the "members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute?" Paul also makes this provacative statement: "The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body." (1 Cor. 6:13) These passages make it clear that when we accept Jesus and are filled with the Holy Spirit, our bodies are quite literally not our own. They are the Lord's, and he is in them. This reality was not present in Israel, nor, I might add, is it true for non-born again people. When we are born again we literally become new creatures. It is then we become God's children. We become intimate with God. He is IN us. Marriage for Christians is, I believe, even more serious business than it is among those not born again--hence, perhaps, Moses' allowance of divorce. When we are born again, only then do we have the wherewithal to actually solve our relational problems and grow. Only with the Holy Spirit can we not be enslaved to our anger, our defensiveness, our passivitiy, our passive-aggression--you get the point. Only in Christ is is possible to have a truly intimate marriage, because only when people have the Holy Spirit are they able to be united in that deep, meaningful way that marks the unity of the Spirit. Marriage, I believe, was designed to reflect what was already true: God's intimacy with his people. Marriage, I've come to believe, was given to us to help us understand what God designed for us and Him instead of it being the other way around. (In other words, Jesus didn't give us the metaphor of Christ and the bride because we alredy had marriage and that would help us understand. He gave us marriage so we could relate to what preceeded marriage: God's intimacy with his creatures.) Another thing I've come to believe about marriage and also about the command to not engage in homosexuality is this: when we marry, we commit to give up our autonomy and, in a way, give up ourselves to unite ourselves with one UNLIKE us. We're alike because we're human, but we're unlike because we are male and female, and there's a HUGE DIFFERENCE there! (It's much easier for a woman to understand another woman, and vice-versa for men, than it is for a man and a woman to understand each other!) Jesus is unlike us: he is God. Yet he became like us by being human. When, however, we surrender to him, we "give up ourselves" in a very real way to allow Him to give us a new identity. We, mere humans, become literally and eternally connected to God--one unlike us. I believe marriage is about that surrender to one unlike ourselves. It's about giving up our autonomy and being linked with another for the purpose of serving the other. Perhaps because marriage is such a parallel of Christ and the bride, it is even more intimate and life-changing when it is between two Christ-followers. In such a case, the Holy Spirit is literally a part of the marriage. The members of Christ unite with each other in Christ. Perhaps this reality is involved in that enigmatic statement of Paul's about the unbelieving spouse being sanctified by the believing spouse; the unbeliever is literally choosing to stay in the presence of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is in the marriage of the two. If the unbeliever wants to stay, then in some way he or she is choosing to be in the presence of the peace and blessing of God. I believe that Christ-followers are probably held to a higher standard in marriage than are non-Christ-followers because if one has the indwelling Holy Spirit, there is a way to surrender and resolve problems. (Of course, a Christ-follower may be married to an abusive person; please do not hear me saying one should stay and endure the abuse if she [or he] is being harmed or the children are in danger.) I don't know if this addresses an of your questions, Doug, but I do understand your questions. And as I said, I don't feel I have them all answered , either! Praise God for redeeming our souls and our bodies, our emotions and our minds! Colleen | ||
| Doug222 (Doug222) |
Wow, Colleen, that was very provocative. It wil take me a couple times reading it to digest everything. I esecially liked this comment:
I guess the question that I have is "how important do you think it is that both parties understand the purpose and significance of marriage?" I don't think the average Christian thinks of marriage in these terms. Doug | ||
| Colleentinker (Colleentinker) |
I'm sure most Christians don't think of marriage in these terms. It's probably not necessary; what is more important is that both parties be Christ-followers. If they are, the Holy Spirit will grow them individually and also as a couple. That alone will make the marriage increasingly deep and real and intimate. One thing I started doing was asking God to send the Holy Spirit to be in our marriage and to glorify Himself not just through each of us but through our marriage. God is faithful; he does bless marriages and use them for his glory. It's interesting that the marriage is an entity of its own. There's a man and a woman, and together it's not just the two of them (well, it IS!) but it's a new creation called a marriage. It's all such a mystery! Colleen |
