Marriage as Covenant

When God created man and gave him dominion over the earth, man first enacted his headship by naming all the creatures that God had made. But according to Genesis 2, this naming served a dual purpose. While it demonstrated man’s dominion over the creatures, it also demonstrated man’s uniqueness. Adam realized at the end of his labor that “there was not a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:20). After this, God graciously created woman, a helper fit for man. Two beings brought forth to serve together. Each one possessing unique qualities and gifts with which to experience God’s high calling for them. Yet both the same in that they also possessed the image of their creator. In this moment, Genesis 2:24, God institutes what the Christian worldview understands to be marriage.

This is the one flesh union. A covenant made between man and woman before God whereby each comes out from under the authority of their own parents and creates a new family unit. Adam and Eve were to be the first exemplars of this reality.

Then the enemy comes in and - desiring to sever the relationship between God and man - rips apart the very fabric of this first covenant of marriage. He approaches the woman, not the man. He tempts the woman first, not the man. The woman eats and leads the man into her evil act. The entire covenant is turned on its head. Man was to lead; Woman was to follow. Man was to provide and protect; Woman was to nurture and care. This was God’s design. With the simple question, “Did God actually say…” the serpent called into question every good thing that God had given to his image bearers.

This attack on marriage has continued to this day as a result of the fall. The definition of love has been so watered down by a fallen world that it has lost any objective meaning. But contrary to popular belief, love is not an emotion. It is not a feeling. It is not an impassioned, unbridled desire for someone else. In Scripture, love is, first and foremost, a decisive act of the will.

This is partly why the language of marriage is the language of covenant, not convenience. When times get dark, when things get rough, when life breaks down and two sinners who are husband and wife are at each other, what will uphold them is the covenantal nature of their union. If we depend on subjective feelings and emotions to bear the weight of our desires, then we are doomed from the start.

By the way, if you are married, you understand this although you may have never put it in the way I have stated above. Anytime you have said on your social media page, “Happy Birthday to the best husband in the world!” you are drawing on the fundamental reality of marriage as a covenant.

So, when I say that my wife is the best wife in the world, I don’t mean that if you line up every single wife on the face of the earth, she’s #1. There are plenty of godly women who are godly wives to godly men. But that’s just the point. They are not MY wife. I am not THEIR husband. My wife is the best, not because she’s better than this one or that one. She’s the best because she is MY wife. The language implies the union that undergirds it. To be a husband is to have a wife and vice versa.