In our last article, we talked about a woman’s/wife’s role in a Christian marriage. That might sound incredibly old-fashioned in this ‘woke’ era, but the Word of God is true yesterday, today, and forevermore. It is just as relevant today as it was one-thousand years ago and it will be relevant twenty thousand years from now.

You might be surprised to know the Bible’s description of a woman’s role in a Christian marriage is not as old-fashioned as we have been taught to believe. Click here to catch up if you haven’t read my last article on this topic, I promise it’s an excellent read.

Now that we know what is expected of a husband and wife in a Christian marriage, let’s talk about the meat of the marriage. The marital covenant.

What is a covenant?

If you’ve been saved for more than three days, then you have probably heard this word a few times. I heard it throughout my entire life, being raised in a Christian household. My mother, Pastor Cyndi Elaine of CG Ministries, has been going over covenants with me for the last two years. This one little word carries so much weight and meaning—including our very salvation. That’s right, our salvation is part of a covenant, but that’s a conversation for another article.

For now, I’ll keep things short by defining a covenant as this:

A binding agreement between two or more parties with each party binding themselves to fulfill specific obligations of that covenant.  

There are four parts to a covenant

A promise

o   The promise is always made by God

o   A covenant is not a covenant without a promise

o   Jesus is the ratifier of the covenant because He is the One who shed His Blood for the covenant

o   The Holy Spirit is the executor 

Terms

o   These describe the agreement between parties

Blood/exchange of life

o   There is always blood shed for a covenant—Jesus died for our covenant on the Cross

A seal

o   The Blood of Jesus is the seal

Here are some key things to know about covenants:

·         Covenants last forever

·         You cannot belong to God without a covenant

·         Covenants always consist of blood

·         When you accept a covenant with God, He gives you the power to keep it.

Let’s look at the Adamic Covenant and plug in the four components to help us better understand.

Promise: God gives Adam dominion over the Earth.

Terms: God tells Adam not to eat of the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Blood: Blood was shed when God put Adam to sleep and removed his rib to form Eve.

Seal: The Adamic Covenant is sealed when God unites Adam and Eve through marriage, effectively extending the terms of the Covenant to Eve and including their descendants in the promise.

So what, specifically, is the marital covenant?

It seems self-explanatory, right? A marital covenant is a binding promise between a husband and wife. But there’s a lot more to it than that because a Christian marriage is not simply a promise between a man and a woman, it is a promise that also includes God.

If you read my last article, Christian Marriage, then you might remember me breaking down the trinity within the marriage.

A husband, a wife, and the Holy Trinity—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. When two Christians get married, we become three in one as a husband and wife are physically connected through sex and are spiritually connected through the blessing and authority of Christ Jesus.

Now, let’s try to plug in the four components of a covenant to understand how a marital covenant works.

Promise:

The promise of any covenant is always made by God. If you look through the Bible, you will find many scriptures of God speaking positively toward marriage and making promises to couples who have invited Him into their union. Here are just a few, but feel free to find some of your own, the Word is full of them!

God promises Abraham and Sarah a child in their old age. This means, young or old, we can remind God of His promise to Abraham and Sarah and apply that promise of having healthy children to our own marriages. [Genesis17:15-16]

God promises that marriage will last forever. God does not believe in divorce; this is why it is so important to let Him choose our spouse for us rather than seeking marriage for ourselves. [Matthew 19:6]

God promises to give you a spouse who will help you carry out His will. [Ecclesiastes 4:9-12] This scripture says, Two are better than one. Remember, marriage is not just about romantic dates and making love—it’s also about partnering up to complete God’s will. Getting married makes it just that much easier to stay on the path of righteousness. You are there to inspire, encourage, and lift each other up. You can hold each other accountable and stand in faith together to accomplish what God has sent you to do in this world.

God promises to fight for your marriage. [Psalms 35:1] Fight against those who fight against me. I love this scripture because it is a personal cry from the Psalmist, but it can easily be applied to your marriage. God fought for the Israelites during their 40-year journey through the wilderness. Who says He won’t fight for your marriage? When you make it a point to invite the Lord into your union, you have free range to go before the Throne of Grace and ask God to protect the marriage that He is part of.  

God promises that love never fails. This means when you make Christ the center of your marriage, the love between a husband and wife will never die down. There will be no seven-year-itch, the fantasy stage will last forever, and the love will forever burn as brightly as it did on the wedding night. [I Corinthians 13:4-8]

Terms:

Marital terms may differ from couple to couple. These are laid out in the wedding vows and can be very personal or very generic depending on whether you decide to write them yourself or go with whatever your pastor decides. But just because they can be written by the couple doesn’t mean God doesn’t have His Hand in the terms.

As I mentioned earlier, the Bible very clearly lays out the different roles and expectations between a husband and wife. I highly recommend you read my last article, Christian Marriage, to find out just what those expectations are, but we can mention a few here.

·         When God marries Adam and Eve, the Word says, a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

o   This is a term basically saying a husband is supposed to step up and be a man, haha!

But seriously, if you have ever spent more than five minutes scrolling social media, you may have come across questions asking whether a man should put his wife or his mother first in his life or if he should side with his mother over his wife in certain situations.

These sorts of questions are often just attempts to stir up controversy, but I believe the answer is made very plain and clear in Genesis 2:24 NIV, a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife.

According to this term of the marital covenant, a husband is expected to always stand by his wife’s side. Not his mother’s, not his brother’s, or his best friend’s. You are cleaved to your wife; you have become one with your wife. She is your responsibility now. If the husband doesn’t stick by his wife, then, who will?

Another term can be found in I Peter 3:7 NIV

·         Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.

I love this verse because it reiterates the fact that God sees a husband and wife as one before Him. Wives are heirs with their husbands, not behind them, not after them, not before them, either. Husbands and wives may have different responsibilities, but they do not have different worth. They are equal in God’s eyes, and when this equality is not acknowledged or respected by the husband, I Peter 3 warns that his prayers may be hindered.

Please remember this scripture well. Wives are your partners, not your property.

Blood/Seal:

The unique thing about a marital covenant is that the consummation is both the blood and the seal. You might even say a marriage is sealed in blood.

Blood is shed during the consummation and the consummation itself is the seal. This is why it is so important for both women and men to remain sexually pure until marriage because the act of sex—more specifically, the shedding of virginal blood—is literally a component of an everlasting, binding agreement between man, wife, and God Almighty.

For scriptural reference, just look at the New Covenant we have with Christ Jesus.

In the New Covenant, God promises salvation to all. The terms of this covenant is to accept and believe in Christ Jesus as the Messiah, our Lord and Savior. The Blood and the seal are also one in the same. Christ was a sacrificial lamb, giving up His life on the cross at Calvary. The shedding of Christ’s Blood represents the exchange of life, and it also acts as our seal to the New Covenant. Our sins are permanently washed away by the Blood of the Lamb as we are covered in His Blood, which is our seal of salvation.  

So, what happens if you make the mistake of having sex before marriage? This would mean the blood part of the marital covenant was shed prematurely, right?

Yes, having sex before marriage does cause the blood component of the covenant to be shed prematurely, however, God is merciful. If you repent, He will wash away your sins and cover you in the Blood of his Son—which was shed for us at Calvary. While it is still expected of us to remain sexually pure until marriage, God will forgive you of your sins if you repent and turn away from them. He will not hold past mistakes against you.

One last thing I want to go over in the marital covenant is the keynotes. Remember we mentioned them earlier?

Here are some key things to know about covenants:

·         Covenants last forever

·         You cannot belong to God without a covenant

·         Covenants always consist of blood

·         When you accept a covenant with God, He gives you the power to keep it.

Let’s plug these into the marital covenant and see how they apply.

Covenants last forever:

God is against divorce. You are expected to take your problems before Him, not before a divorce attorney.

You cannot belong to God without a covenant:

If you do not invite God into your marriage, the marital covenant will not be established, and you will not be entitled to any of the Biblical promises of marriage.

Covenants always consist of blood:

Some Christians make mistakes and have sex before marriage, this mistake can be forgiven, but never underestimate the vital importance of sexual purity. Your virginity as a woman and as a man plays a role in sealing the marital covenant before God.

When you accept a covenant with God, He gives you the power to keep it:

There is never an excuse to cheat on your wife or husband. God gives us the power to overcome all temptation. Neither your marriage nor your wedding vows have an expiration date. They are everlasting as is the strength that God gives us to eternally honor those vows. Call on Him in your weakness and anger, His Spirit will sustain you.

Now that you know all about the marital covenant, are you excited to be gifted with a life partner? I sure am. I look forward to marriage and I pray every person reading this article is blessed with a marital partner. If you are interested in learning how to pray for marriage, read my articles on Praying for Companionship, Overcoming Loneliness, and Ungodly Relationships.

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Thank you so much for reading this post! Keep an eye out for my next one, Christian Wedding Vows.

God bless.