What Is Marriage? Part 3

A common definition of marriage: “It is two people seeking a peaceful co-existence together with the hope of obtaining a measure of personal happiness.” This is what people think marriage is —which is a “need-centered” approach to marriage.
A more Biblical definition: Marriage is a man and a woman on a life-long journey together towards God. Marriage is about change —it’s about changing you and also changing your spouse. The purpose of marriage is that God wants to change all of us through it. And what helps us to change is when we begin to see that the hills and the valleys of the problems we live through together reveal the deeper character in our own hearts.
It’s important, from the very beginning, to understand the whole idea of marriage —that it’s not about making us feel good. That’s not why God brought us together. It’s not so you could have your needs met (although needs are met in marriage) but the primary purpose is to change us —to make us more into the image of Christ.
It is in the struggle that makes the journey of living a married life rich. It causes us to cling more deeply to the God who created us and to have the courage to move in ways that makes us very vulnerable. And yet they’re also the ways we were made to bless our spouse as we live our lives displaying the character and values of Christ.” (Pastor Scott Engelman)

In conclusion, we’d like to share with you something we personally wrote on the subject of marriage a while ago. It tells of our passion and mission to help marriages put the heart of Christ back into marriage. In it we reiterate some of the points that were made above but it also makes some additional points that we think are important on this subject.
It talks about the difference between “Covenant Marriages” which seems to be the way that God intended for marriage to be all about in the first place and “Contract Marriages” which is what we’re seeing marriage reduced to more and more in our world today. We pray you will find it to be helpful:
COVENANT MARRIAGES vs. CONTRACT MARRIAGES:
It is our passion to help couples work on their marriages so they are loving and healthy, as God intends for them to be. We personally feel God has given us the ministry of inspiring other couples to reveal and reflect the love of Christ within marriage —and with that foundation established, reaching out with the mission of drawing others closer to God because of the love witnessed through our covenantal, Christ-honoring marriages.
We also feel God has given us the message to those who are married that whatever is past is past —particularly if divorce is a part of your past. That’s between you and the Lord. But with the information that we’re giving you, it’s our prayer that “from this day forward,” you’ll work to make the marriage you’re in, a lifetime commitment,‘Till death parts you.”
Our passion to help other couples goes beyond just erasing the “D” word (divorce) from our thoughts, verbiage, and actions —although that’s a great 1st step. Jay Kessler once said, “The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.” Once you decide that divorce isn’t an even an option, you start finding different (and hopefully, healthier) alternatives to solving the problems you’re facing. It is our mission to help couples commit themselves to go beyond the “Contract Marriages” of today —to instead live out “Covenant Marriages” which is at the heart of God.
Throughout the Bible, marriage is referred to as a living picture, a living example displayed through those who are married of Christ’s love for the church. Christ is the bridegroom (just as the man who marries is to be a living example of the bridegroom), and the church (His people), are the bride of Christ (just as women who marry are to be living examples of the bride of Christ).
Jesus Christ takes very good care of His bride —to the point that He sacrificed His life for her. He also showed us through His example, through His actions, and through His words that He left for us in the Bible, how to love each other in the way He does and we should. As a result God’s loving nature is supposed to show the world by how we treat each other how wonderfully different His love is than theirs so they will want to know His love better and eventually want to come to faith in Jesus Christ. When we enter into marriage we become models of God’s love to each other for the world to see and want to know more about.
The bridegroom (displayed by married men) is to respond to his bride just as Christ does for His church. He is to sacrificially love her in his words and his actions. Christ is then given high visibility and honor and has the opportunity to display His loving nature through this man by how he treats his wife so that others will want to know God more personally. (The husband is to be faithful even if his bride is not. That shows forth the character of Christ in giving unconditional love. It’s an awesome responsibility.) The Holy Spirit is available, when called upon, to teach the man how to do this in his everyday life.
The bride (displayed by married women) is to show her respectful ways to God’s loving faithfulness through how she interacts with her husband (the bridegroom) to such an extent that others who don’t know Christ are drawn to the type of love that pours forth from her. Her faithfulness is to stay true despite the husband’s actions. That is also the nature and character of God. And that is part of being in a covenant relationship with God and your marriage partner. You are faithful no matter what —just as God is faithful! The Holy Spirit is also available, when called upon, to teach the woman how to do this in her everyday life.
It’s got to break the heart of God by the awful way we’re treating each other as He watches us distorting the picture of marriage which He has displayed for all to read about throughout the Bible. Think about it, when we, as His living examples of covenantal love, divorce each other, what does this say to the world of God’s promises to the Church of His love, faithfulness and devotion for them?
And what example, what message are we giving out to others of the “transforming power” that God can perform in our lives and marriages, when we, ourselves, don’t even utilize that power? It’s a sad testimony, that marriages today, are so weak and unhealthy, not to mention all the divorcing that’s going on!
We’ve personally known so many people who have expressed a disinterest in knowing Christ because of the nasty ways Christians treat each other and those around them by living unfaithful, dishonest, and dishonoring lives. If we, as people who claim to know Jesus Christ in a personal way can’t act extraordinarily loving and gracious towards each other, what makes others who don’t know Christ think He will change their lives for the better in any way? What will attract them to know Christ in a personal way?
How we pray more people will wake up to this fact and turn their lives around to the glory of God and help others to also do the same!
Recently, we heard of a young couple that had a Covenant contract written out before their wedding ceremony. They signed it during the ceremony and then had each guest also sign it before leaving the church.
The guests, by signing this contract, pledged to pray for this couple and keep them accountable to live in accordance to how a covenant marriage should be modeled. They pledged to make sure that this couple would never break this covenant. What a beautiful and yet practical way to start out a marriage —having God along with others help this newlywed couple forever keep the vows they made to each other.
We need to plug into the help that God can give us in our lives and recognize that our marriages are a mission field-pointing others to the saving, and abiding love of God through Jesus Christ. Does your marriage reflect the message that God will want for the world to read? If not, put your energies into making sure that your marriage points others to Christ’s abiding power.
We need to see marriage as a “one flesh” lifestyle. Legally, marriage is being treated as a contract with certain rights and responsibilities. In a Contract Marriage, if one of the partners doesn’t live up to their end of the contract, then re-negotiations are in order. If an amicable agreement isn’t reached, then the marriage is allowed to end with an “equitable settlement.” So a Contract Marriage is essentially, “You do your part and I’ll do mine,” or else!
A “Covenant Marriage” is more than a Contract Marriage. It goes beyond that. It’s, “I’ll do my part —regardless of whether you do yours or not.” “It’s putting the other person first. It assumes a mutual response on the other person’s part, but it’s not conditioned upon the other person’s behavior.”
“In a Covenant Marriage, each spouse is committed to the other’s well-being. If both of them keep the covenant, then BOTH of them will be the benefactors, but the motivation and the attitude isn’t one of self-gratification but rather, giving oneself for the well-being of the other” (Dr Gary Chapman).
A Covenant Marriage is one of teamwork. It commits to “find the best solution to any problem at hand.” Each person is committed to the vow they made to their spouse, (even if their spouse doesn’t live up to their vow), but also are committed to the vow they made to God. They view their actions with their spouse as though everything they do for them is, “as unto the Lord.”
It’s being committed to the vow we made to God; to love and honor the spouse God has given us. We need to know that when we break our vow to our spouse, we’re breaking our vow to God! It’s also realizing that how we treat each other in our marriage, is a witness to everyone we come in contact with what the love of God is all about.
Whether you like it or not, you’re witnessing to your children as you live your married lives in front of them. If you’re Believers, you have all the more responsibility in modeling a loving Christian marriage to them. Do you want them to treat their spouse in the same manner that you treat yours? Do you realize by the everyday choice you make that you’re modeling a Christian marriage, a Christian lifestyle to everyone you come in contact with? Your marriage is on display for others to observe God through.
You witness in many ways. How you treat each other when you’re in public (and in private) is a way of “communicating the gospel without words.” Your marriage is a witness of your love for God and how you honor what He’s told us to keep sacred. Your marriage is a witness of how God can empower and transform those who are His. It is a mission field-pointing others to the saving and abiding love of God through Jesus Christ.
We have a lot of choices to make in our marriages to help them to grow in healthy ways. Our prayer is that you’ll “choose” your spouse everyday, in every way, with your hearts, your minds, and your actions. Remember when you first began to love each other. Remember the strong love and commitment that drew you closer to each other than any other human commitment you’d ever had. And then choose to work that love into practical actions every day with the guidance of the Holy Spirit from this day forward so nothing can divide you.
This article was written by Cindy Wright of Marriage Missions International.