COVENANT
UNION
TYPE
1. Marriage is a COVENANT of Love.
The saying, "Love is blind" is often quoted. But, the saying is not biblical. It was Shakespeare who in, Two Gentlemen of Verona stated "Love is blind."
Bible doesn’t call love blind but hatred as blind.
(1Jo 2:9-11 NKJ)
9 He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness until now.
10 He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him.
11 But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
But, lust is blind… as in all sinful violation of love.. carnal romance, adultery...
Young people don’t be misguided by the songs that adulterers and fornicators write. Our present world has become so duped that it is lesbians and gays who are now writing the songs of love. What wickedness! They are not songs of true love. These are not models of love, but of those who have failed to know love through their multiple marriages and divorces. If you would like to see what true love is all about, then turn to the Book of Love, the Bible.
Marriage is a Covenant, not a contract… Contract of love is impossible for love is not a commercial property. When you make love a conditional property, it becomes harlotry. You fix a price. It is sin. You cannot make an agreement to love each other for a period of time or on some conditions. Love is not subject to any contract. Love is the fruit of the Spirit (not work of the flesh).
The salesman who smiles at you and the receptionist who salutes you may not be showing love; but merely fulfilling a contract.. to smile and to look genial.
Marital love is not a contract. It is a covenant. Because love is sacred. The Bible says God is Love.
God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. (1Jo 4:16 NKJ)
When you enter the marital covenant of love, you make a commitment that is life-long.
Mal. 2:16: God hates divorce. In none of the symbolisms does God ever divorce His covenant people.
Bonhoeffer: It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on it is the marriage that sustains your love.
2. Marriage is a UNION of two bodies
When God brought Eve before Adam, he called her the flesh of his flesh and the bone of his bones.
The First Marital Declaration:
Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Gen 2:24 NKJ)
"So, husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it." (Eph 5:28-29 NKJ)
This is an interesting mystery. The wife is not the other-half (it is not a biblical doctrine, but a non-biblical one). It is not a woman that makes the man complete or the man who makes the woman complete. They are both complete in themselves. If a man is unmarried, he is not incomplete. The Bible doesn’t say that the man is half-body until he marries a woman, then his body is complete and so his wife is the other-half body. You cannot make foolish extensions of a metaphor. A wifeless man is not a bodiless head walking around. In fact that symbolism doesn’t emerge as long as one is not married; it only emerges to describe a relationship. For, as soon as you enter the marital covenant of love, both of you assume responsibility towards each other through a oneness; this oneness is expressed in the metaphor of head and body, and of the union of flesh.
Again, the Bible never says that the woman is joined to the man. It says the man is joined to the woman. And, this joining is effected by a man leaving his parents; which is essential, because now he has a family of his own and he has become the head.
But, the head of the man is Christ. A man is incomplete as long as Christ is not his head. A man who tries to derive his strength from a woman will fail to provide leadership in his family. The man must derive his strength from his Head, Christ. In Him we are complete. Similarly, a woman who looks to derive her strength from her husband will fail to be a good wife, for she will fall with her husband when he falls like it happened with Adam and Eve; but, when she derives her strength from Christ, she becomes a good help meet. In all relationships, Christ comes in between. He is the Mediator. He is the Master. He is the Head. Christ is Head of both the man and the woman.
But, a man is not head of a family unless he is married to a wife. And so, the institution of marriage is given for the propagation of the human family as a social unit. God joins the two and makes them one because he seeks godly offspring (Mal.2:15).
“Has not the LORD made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.” (Mal 2:15 NIV)
Now, a head is made for only one body. The husband is the head of his wife. The mother-in-law is not the head of the daughter-in-law and the father-in-law is not the head of the daughter-in-law. Of course, the woman also leaves. But, her leaving is not mentioned because in the event of leaving, the leading role belongs to the husband. And the leaving of the man doesn’t mean that he forsakes his parents; but, it means that he assumes the role of a head separate from them. 1Timothy 5:8: If anyone doesn’t provide for his own (parents esp), he is worse than an unbeliever.
BOOK OF RUTH. A story of relations. When the husband dies and Naomi has no one left, Ruth doesn’t leave her, because she knows that she was responsible towards her mother-in-law in the same way that her husband was. She didn’t say, “Well, now with his death, the contract is over and I am free.” But, there are deeper mysteries in that book which we can’t talk of now. The book is tremendously resourceful.
3. Marriage is a TYPE of the Relation between Christ and the Church
Type- Foreshadow. The Reality is the Eternal. Marriage is Temporal (Not temporary). Jesus said that in the resurrection there won’t be marriages. But, there is that eternal relationship between Christ the Bride and His Body, the Church.
For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones (Eph 5:30 NKJ)
Eph.5:22-33
Christ is Head – Husband is Head
Church is subject – Wives must submit in all things
Christ loved the Church and gave Himself – Husbands must so love their wives
It is not a thrill if you are married here in this shadow, but are not part of that Grand Marriage of the Lamb which is the reality. This is only a shadow of the real. And when you honor this, you honor that.
Also, to the congregation, we have a wedding banquet here today, but remember there is a greater banquet, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Are you ready for that? Do you have the Wedding Garments on?
CUT – Covenant, Union, Type
- Honor the Covenant
- Love each other as self
- Live the Eternal symbol
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