Throughout history, there have been different cultural definitions of what constitutes a marriage. Yet, at the heart of biblical marriage is a covenant before God to cherish one another and continue to grow as one. At the heart of a covenant marriage is a desire to not just ‘get through’ life together but to thrive together. It means to love, encourage, and cherish one another while constantly seeking Christ in our relationship.
The first mention of marriage in Scripture is in the Garden of Eden, recorded in Genesis 2:24: “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” Covenant Marriage as presented in Scripture is not something to be taken lightly, but makes up the foundation for the family, the community, and the bedrock of a strong and healthy society.
What Is a Covenant?
In non-biblical terms, a covenant is essentially a legal, binding agreement. When you get married, take out a loan, lease a house, or sign a document, you are entering into a type of covenant: an agreement in which both parties make certain promises to one another. In biblical terms, a covenant between God and people holds great significance and forms the foundation of how God interacts with people. When we approach marriage as a covenant, we are truly making a lifelong commitment, a joining and binding contract that cannot be broken, and only grows stronger and more meaningful with time.
A Covenant Marriage in Legal Terms:
From a legal perspective and not to be confused with covenant marriage in the Bible, there is a type of marriage in Arizona, Arkansas, and Louisiana referred to as ‘covenant marriage.’ This legal term of ‘covenant marriage’ and the laws that accompany it basically give the couple an opportunity to limit the grounds for divorce at the time of their marriage or later. There are also usually requirements before marriage such as premarital counseling and signing a specific license for covenant marriage. The point of this type of marriage, legally, is to make divorce more difficult. Traditional marriages require a license and two witnesses, there are no limitations in place to make divorce more difficult. Only one to two percent of couples in these three states choose this type of marriage compared to traditional marriage.
What Does the Bible Say about Covenant Marriage?
“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” – Ephesians 5:21
The Bible declares marriage as the most important relationship one can enter into aside from their relationship with God, and Ephesians 5 gives us perhaps the most detailed explanation of how this plays out. Ephesians 5:22-23 has become among the most controversial passages in Scripture, especially in today’s culture. Yet, there is a full, beautiful meaning in the full context of these verses that reveals the beauty of what covenant marriage truly is: “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior”. On the surface this appears to suggest that the wife is inferior to the husband – just a submissive servant – and this interpretation has drawn scorn from many who seek equality. However, as we continue into Ephesians 5:25,28, we see that there is another side to the coin: ”Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.”
In this passage, it is reiterated that in a covenant marriage the husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her. In full context, this passage does not present a wife living in submission to a dominant husband. Instead, this is a picture of two people in mutual submission to Christ, and a wife submitting to a godly man who leads the home spiritually and who loves his wife more than he loves himself.
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