COVENANTS: food for thought

  

     PEOPLE FALSELY BELIEVE MARRIAGE IS AN AGREEMENT BETWEEN GOD, THE MAN, AND THE WOMAN (what God has joined together let no man put asunder). PEOPLE BELIEVE IF THEY GET MARRIED, GOD JOINED THEM TOGETHER. Where did this false belief come from? How did/do God join a man and a woman in marriage? The joining of a man and a woman in marriage is actually a COVENANT AGREEMENT between the man and woman. BUT most modern marriages do not have a COVENANT binding agreement. So, by biblical standards, is a non-covenant marriage even legal in the eyes of God? ARE YOU BIBLICALLY MARRIED TO YOUR SPOUSE? Brace yourself for this one.

     I have always tossed around how I felt about people saying marriage is between man and God. As we know all people who get married are not Christians, so how could marriage be between God and man? Marriage is an agreement between a man and woman and sanctioned by God because he commanded it in the Bible many people will state. In the book of Genesis, 2:24 the man is instructed to leave his father and mother and be united (cleave) to his wife and they will become one flesh (the fact Adam had no parents to leave from is a discussion for another day). How they were to unite was not given in detail.  I just could not believe all marriages are ordained by God, so I did some Bible research on marriage. 

    If we are to believe a marriage includes God in the agreement or sanction of a marriage, we must look at how God made agreements with man in the Old Testament. God made agreements with man through covenants. Looking at the word covenant it is defined as a formal binding agreement - a contract. The term "covenant" is of Latin origin (con venire), meaning a coming together. It presupposes two or more parties who come together to make a contract, agreeing on promises, stipulations, privileges, and responsibilities. The biblical words most often translated "covenant" are berit [tyir.B] in the Old Testament (appearing about 280 times) and diatheke [diaqhvkh] in the New Testament (at least 33 times). The preferred meaning of this Old Testament word is bond; a covenant refers to two or more parties bound together. 

    God made a covenant with Noah after the flood instructing him to build an altar, to take some of the clean animals and birds to be sacrificed as a burnt offering and with this sacrifice God promised that never again would he curse the ground. Covenant part 1: "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease." Covenant part 2: "Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood, never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth... this is a sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come. I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth (Gen. 9:1-16).  In this covenant agreement a sacrifice was offered, blood ran from the sacrificial offering. 

    Abraham and God made a covenant that required a shedding of blood as in the Covenant of Circumcision. Circumcision was required of all of the Jews: "As for me, this is my covenant with you: you will be the father of many nations. No longer will you be called Abram: your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations." God requested that every male among him be circumcised as a sign of the covenant between them. (Gen. 17:1-14). This spilling of blood led also to a name change. 

    There is a pattern of spilling of blood in a true covenant agreement. Fast forward to the last ultimate sacrifice of Jesus. "The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus and then those of the other, but when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spere, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water." (John 20:33-35). We know Jesus had already spilled blood as he was whipped before he was on the cross, but in this covenant agreement; allowing man to come directly to God in prayer and worship, blood had to be spilled and Jesus truly became the Saviour of man.

     So, there are several instances of blood being used as the binding part of a covenant agreement. Now to marriage. Blood is spilled in the marriage agreement. The woman is supposed to remain a virgin until her wedding night. The marriage was only valid if there was proof of the spilling of blood. "If a man takes a wife and after lying with her dislikes her and slanders her and gives her a bad name saying, "I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity," then the girl's father and mother shall bring proof that she as a virgin to the town elders at the gate...her parents shall display the cloth before the elders."(Deut. 22:13-29) 

    The cloth being referred to is the cloth placed underneath the couple on their wedding night which was the custom. The cloth should contain the stains of blood from the breaking of the hymen (a membrane which partially closes the opening of the vagina and whose presence is traditionally taken to be a mark of virginity) which each virgin should have intact on their wedding night. If the woman was not a virgin she was to be stoned. Virginity was so important as the covenant tie between the man and woman until there were even more rules. "If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay the girl's father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives." 

    As in the covenant with Abraham there was a name change, the woman's name changes also with the spilling of blood in marriage because they are now one flesh so you can't have the two last names. This may be the reason the man traditionally proposes to the woman, because man was instructed God to unite with a wife so, she joins with him taking his last name. He does not unite with her taking her last name.

    In all of these instances of marriage, we do not hear God making a statement of his part of a covenant agreement as with all of the other covenant agreements he made with others. It is the two marrying parties who make agreements to one another to leave their families and to become one until death. The agreement is done over a sacrifice of blood between the two of them. If a woman is not a virgin upon marriage, there cannot be a covenant agreement between the man and woman. 

    So, to my own satisfaction, through my own biblical study, I have come to the conclusion, under threat of being a heretic, that marriage is a covenant agreement between a man and a woman and not between the couple and God. 

    Now, for the shocker. Many women who have married were not able to enter into a covenant marriage because there was not a blood sacrifice to make the agreement binding. In fact, I go as far to say that the legal husband, according to the teaching of the Bible, is the first person that a woman had sex with. SHOCKING!!!!!! THE VIRGIN A MAN FIRST HAD SEX WITH IS ACTUALLY HIS WIFE BY COVENANT AGREEMENT by Old Testament standards.    Isn't this a scary conclusion? No, I do not go around teaching and telling people this. It is just my own meditation and Bible study. But, as a mother of daughters, I shared this with my girls to show them the beauty and importance God put on marriage. All of his covenants, which he filled and continue to fulfill were sealed through blood. This first-time sexual experience, at one time in human history, was valuable. Today, it is of no significance or even thought about. Who values the first person they have sex with anymore? VIRGINITY HAS COME TO BE AS LESS BINDING AS A HANDSHAKE, YOUR WORD, OR A LEGAL CONTRACT. 

    I wish I had had an opportunity to value my virginity. I was told not to be promiscuous and only bad girls had sex, but I was not told how valuable and honorable my virginity was. I never was told that my virginity was my word, my bond, that I choose "you" by the presence of the spilling of my blood as the one I want to be with until death. If I had, I do not believe it would have been some sex starved boy who was thankful for sex, not necessarily for me for the rest of his life. 

    Couples stand before a minister and a church filled with family and well-wishers promising love forever. We give a ring as a symbol of our never-ending love in the place of blood. How serious would we take marriage if the couple said I give my blood word to you and you accept my blood sacrifice and will spend your life meeting that blood sacrifice I offer you. THAT'S SERIOUS. I don't know if this would affect the divorce rate any or the problem with teen sex, but I believe it would boost the girl's self-esteem and help the hormonal boy to learn this (sex) is nothing to play with. Maybe this is all wishful thinking, covenants and all. But I do not think it would hurt if the church changed its approach in its view of sex from "its bad" to it is a glorious gift, empowering women to love their blood sacrifice to a deserving man.

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