Every Christian who is engaged in marriage has taken on the accountability of being a spouse to the other. And if they have children, they have increased that accountability to parental responsibilities. Fulfilling these positions correctly means one must nurture themselves and their children; to do so means they must learn the truth from the Holy Spirit that comes from the word of God to build a stable spiritual core concerning matters of life by faith in Christ.
Prov 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. God knows best how to nurture His children, so Christians need to learn any truths from scripture that reveal those processes that bring about themselves and any offspring who are founded upon a marriage covenant, the whole work of Christ, and the cross He hung on.
Marriage is seen by God as a binding agreement between a male and female of creation to fulfill His plans. The scriptures emphasize it as a family structure, beginning with Adam and Eve. However, it seems that understanding of such covenants has become Taboo in today’s Church because pulpits view them to have only a purpose as planned by God in His relationship with Abraham.
It was common for tribes, nations, and individuals to enter into agreements, often called covenants. Some require cutting one’s flesh and mixing the person’s blood with the blood of another person. This process established a covenant insured by their life-giving blood, binding the covenant to the degree it could require the very life of those individual/s if not upheld as agreed. This kind of covenant was believed to be derived from the biblical outline of God’s covenant with Abraham, where cutting animals in half and passing between the parts signified an offering of blood for it.
Gen 15:17-21 (MSG) When the sun was down and it was dark, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch moved between the split carcasses. 18 That’s when GOD made a covenant with Abram: “I’m giving this land to your children, from the Nile River in Egypt to the River Euphrates in Assyria 19 the country of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, 20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaim, 21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”
The real essence of God’s covenant with Abraham is not just the agreement outlined in it, which benefits those bound by it, but this process that the parties must commit to establishing. In the previous scriptures, the word translated as covenant is (Berit), meaning a covenant, contract, league, or confederacy. A more critical aspect is the word made preceding it, translated in verse 18, the word (karat), which means a cut or cutting, in this sense, to make a covenant. Why a shedding of blood? Blood is viewed as the life essence of things created, carrying within it the DNA or lineage of that creation, in this case, a tribe or nation of humanity. Lev 17:11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.
Covenants were, but not always, entered by those in authority or power, such as a king, chief, or tribal leader, since they were seen as accountable for the lives of those they ruled. Typically, they were the only ceremony participants, even though the covenant empowered them to include and benefit all the people represented.
For believers in a covenant with the God of all creation, an understanding that the sacrifice offered for all of humanity was, as the word of God reveals, the very life of Jesus, the Son of God. He willingly came and shed His blood, giving up His life to establish anyone who believes that He is the Son of God into a covenant with the God who created them. John 3:16-17 (NKJV) For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
Jesus’s sacrifice brought about a better New Covenant than the one God had established with Abraham. Heb 8:6-8 But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises. The Old Covenant was built on the Law, which Moses gave to Israel, but they could not keep the law as God required, so a New Covenant was brought into existence through Jesus. 7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.
Notice that God’s covenant was not the problem; Israel was the problem. They could not keep their part in the covenant; as it says, in finding fault with them, He made a new one. 8 For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. In similar aspects, today’s marriages are the problem, not God who anoints them.
In God’s eyes, a covenant of marriage is engaging in a process that requires confessing and accepting those things stated as being committed to and establishing themselves into an agreement that requires a willing choice to allow one’s individual life of spirit, soul, and body to have intercourse with another God-created life. Mal 2:14 (AMP) Yet you ask, Why does He reject it? Because the Lord was witness [to the covenant made at your marriage] between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously and to whom you were faithless. Yet she is your companion and the wife of your covenant [made by your marriage vows].
Intercourse is always seen as sexual, but it is an acceptable term in a covenant. As a result, both are united in spirit, soul, and body; their lives joined to fulfill what God has declared about them. By the authority of their will, each person expresses their right to the other’s individual life, which they must willingly choose to give them authority or a right to affect. Everyone is accountable to God for their own life, so the right or authority for someone to influence your life and affect the outcome for which you are solely accountable requires a binding covenant or agreement.
For example, when entering a covenant with God through Jesus Christ, you received the right or authority to do so by faith in Christ. John 1:12 (AMP) But to as many as did receive and welcome Him, He gave the authority (power, privilege, right) to become the children of God, that is, to those who believe in (adhere to, trust in, and rely on) His name. God says that anyone who receives what my Son has done for them is given the right or authority to intercourse in my existence supernaturally, thus giving God the right, through an authority over their own life, to intercourse in theirs. Intercourse used here is the best descriptive term in a spiritual sense, not referring to any sexual intimacy, but a level of intimacy an individual makes in a covenant with God.
Today, we typically do not see this cutting of individual life as an event in marriage, except among certain tribes or ethnic groups that may still practice it. However, from my experience in over 55 years of marriage and life by the word of God, there is more to this cut or cutting concerning a marriage covenant. As each spouse commits to the union, they interject into it a life that, at times, cuts across the others.
This cut or cutting is not natural or reflective of taking a knife and cutting through one’s flesh so that blood may flow, or of the original outline of a virgin female who, through sexual intercourse, initiates a marriage union by a breakage of the female hymen and a flow of blood seals the deal. The term virgin usually means one who has not had any sexual intercourse; thus, as in the case of young girls in the old days of Israel, who may have to prove they were indeed a virgin on their wedding night. Deut 22:17 (MSG) And now he has slanderously accused her, claiming that she wasn’t a virgin. But look at this, here is the proof of my daughter’s virginity.” And then he is to spread out her blood-stained wedding garment before the leaders for their examination.
Instead, I sense a spiritual conformity to God’s creative purpose is at work concerning a marriage covenant for the male and female! These are not literal physical cuts but spiritual results of actions that counter or cut across the other person’s actions or nature. Thus, I want us to understand just how important the issues of the lives affected by this event are.
God has a timeline for completing His eternal purpose, and everything in creation is part of it. It began when He created the heavens and the earth, declared spiritual dominion on this planet by faith, and determined the end from the beginning in His word. Isa 46:9-10 Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me; 10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done; saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure;
When born on this earth, at whatever point you enter, it places you into a specific race, ethnicity, social environment, etc., when this occurs. Influences upon lives are at work in the world from that time forward and will impact events as each person lives them out. Some will have more influence than others, but all will, in some way or another, influence things concerning the history of humanity because of the lives they will live. Some have a view that everyone is pre-appointed a time to enter due to the reference to humankind being predestinated by God. Eph 1:5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
That scripture is not about such aspects, but it does reveal that God has predetermined that all His creation, males and females, would be His adopted sons or daughters if they came to Him through faith in His Son Jesus. God shows us He is into life, not death. Ezek 18:32 (AMP) For I have no pleasure in the death of him who dies, says the Lord God. Therefore turn (be converted) and live!
He creates everything to produce life; even the earth’s dust can replenish or change its minerals. As He says, the covenant He entered with all of humanity was done so that there would be life. John 3:16 (MSG) “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God intends to make your eternal life His future event, and by an abundant life available right now, while one is still alive in their fleshly body, one lives out one’s life in this truth. Life as Christ refers to here is the ZOE life of God.
John 10:10 (AMP)The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows). God ensured abundant life was available; therefore, a contract or covenant was required for humanity to be the partakers of such life.
Heb 13:20-21 (MSG) May God, who puts all things together, makes all things whole, Who made a lasting mark through the sacrifice of Jesus, the sacrifice of blood that sealed the eternal covenant, Who led Jesus, our Great Shepherd, up and alive from the dead, 21 Now put you together, provide you with everything you need to please him, Make us into what gives him most pleasure, by means of the sacrifice of Jesus, the Messiah. All glory to Jesus forever and always! Oh, yes, yes, yes.
A covenant made by the shed blood of Jesus may appear to someone as an unbalanced contract. On one side is God, the most incredible force in the universe, and on the other is anyone who, by faith, receives Jesus as Lord and Savior, having limited ability to do things beyond their physical strength. However, God of all creation is not interacting unbalanced with humanity as this covenant appears simply because He has made life available through multiplied grace, peace, and the knowledge of Him and Jesus Christ, His Son.
2 Peter 1:2-4 Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, 3 According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
Christians need to look closely at verse 4; to become a partaker of God’s divine nature, you have become a partner, as God reveals Himself to you, His child, in covenant with Him. The Greek word for nature is (physis) and refers to natural power, inherent personal constitution, or the fundamental precepts by which He governs Himself and all things. Some of you look like dogs staring at a new bowl; however, I challenge you to allow the Holy Spirit to help you understand this first part of the truth about marriage as a covenant.
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