The covenant aspects of marriage

At one point , it was considered quite horrifying if a Bible believing Christian who knew the Lord Jesus Christ either got married to an unbeliever or endorsed in any way the marriage of any one who married one, even It happened to be their own children. These days, while the distress is still there in private in most instances, as incidents of this nature become more common, the public condemnation has reduced. In fact these days, it is not so uncommon, even in broader evangelicalism, for young Christian singles to find it a temptation to marry outside the Church. Not merely outside their own congregation, but outside the people of God altogether.

There are numerous reasons for this. Sometimes it is because they are keeping the wrong company to begin with. Single Christian men and women actually sometimes have few friends within the church; most of their single friends are unbelievers. Sometimes it's the common interests of co-workers, or perhaps just activities like going to the gym, where you meet people. And that's who they get to know. Or sometimes, it is frustration. Perhaps the congregation is small and the young man or young woman looks around and says: "Who can I marry here? There are no candidates." And in the event, they go to the altar with somebody who is not bound to Jesus Christ. This is not merely a modern problem. Israel too faced the issue of intermarriage and in Malachi 2:10-12. Judah marries the daughter of a foreign god.

The Lord takes this seriously. This intermarriage has very significant ramifications. Judah marries the daughter of a foreign god. This is betraying Judah's identity. It undercuts who Judah is. It is also betraying Judah's community. The issue is not simply a personal issue, but it affects the people of God as a whole. Further, such marriage is betraying Judah's God. And finally, it is provoking Judah's punishment. The fundamental issue at stake in connection with this question of intermarriage is not racial. In other words, what provokes Malachi's inspired blast against the marriage practices of Judah here is not that he is offended that people are marrying non-Jews. Seen in this light, intermarrying with pagans is a betrayal of Judah's identity. Such intermarriage undercuts God's purposes. It attempts to undo God's creative act, to return everything to the formless void. Intermarriage disrupts the viability of God's new humanity.

We tend to see marriage as primarily a personal affair. Whether or not I marry this girl or that girl is my business, not yours. But Malachi says, "No, everybody lives with it. By intermarrying with pagans, you have betrayed not merely your individual identity; you have betrayed the identity of the community." The people of the world may think of themselves as so many little individual islands, but the people of God are not allowed to think of themselves in that manner. We belong to one another; we are covenanted together. The point is not, however, "what others think." The point is the identity of the community of God's people. What you do in this area affects the community in a profound way. Marrying "in the Lord," to use Paul's language, affirms the covenant people; it builds according to the pattern which God has created. Marrying outside the covenant does the opposite. It erodes the character of the people of God.

Therefore, single people contemplating marriage must ask the right questions, questions prompted by the covenant which God has made with His people. Would this marriage be glorifying to God? Or would it be compromising God's new creation? Would it contribute to the health of the Church, or would it undermine it? Failure to ask such questions and act faithfully with reference to them means betraying the community of God's people. And that means that God's people are not allowed to marry outside the faith. That is to import a competing deity, a detested "god," into the fellowship of the covenant. God says, "You are my sons, and you may not marry the daughters of other gods. That is to bring my enemies into my household. It is to betray me."

This was what the sons of Seth were censured for, way back in Genesis 6. They looked upon the "daughters of men" - in other words, the young ladies descending from the line of Cain - and they saw that they were beautiful, and they married them. And that practice was so abhorrent to God that it is the one thing that is singled out in the context of the destruction of the world by flood. Isn't that remarkable? The Satiate intermarriage with unbelievers wiped out the line, it mixed together the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, to the extent that really there was no covenant community left. And the result was that God spared only Noah and his family, in order to start over.

Having said this, it must also be said that God has shown Himself powerful to overcome even the greatest sins of His people. Think of Samson. We can look at him and say, "What a lech!" He was a man driven by his hormones. It resulted in the loss of his eyes, the loss of his freedom, and the loss of his life. And yet we must also say that it resulted, not only in his repentance, but also in the opportunity for him to destroy more Philistines, more of the enemies of God, at the time of his death than he had done all throughout his life.

So too with mixed marriages. Unlike under the old covenant in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, Christians are not called to divorce unbelieving spouses. Paul makes that very clear in 1 Corinthians 7: if the unbeliever is pleased to dwell with the believer, then they should remain together. I think the reason for the difference is the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost. There is a new wealth of God's power in the Church, and Paul is confident that God's grace is not only sufficient to keep us united to Christ, but even to spill over and convert the unbelieving partner. And time after time, that is precisely what God in His grace does.

That is not to minimize the seriousness of the sin of intermarriage with unbelievers. It remains a great evil. And we have no right to put the Lord to the test by marrying outside of the covenant people. There are too many examples of people who have left the faith altogether because of failing at this point. And even if God does ultimately prevail upon the heart of the unbeliever - which He is not bound to do - we may well find that there are all sorts of negative consequences for our disobedience. As Paul says, "Marry - in the Lord." Let us commit ourselves and our children to be faithful to God in this area.

But the heart of faith is able to hear the gospel in words even such as these. Passages like this remind us of God's passion for His covenant. They remind us of His faithfulness. They remind us that God is ready to speak to us, to call us to faithfulness, rather than merely to abandon us to our own devices. That in itself is wonderful grace. The value of Judah is that she is God's treasured possession. The great privilege of Israel is not ethnic. It is the covenant which God has made with her. And therefore the covenant must be defended. Malachi would rather see the people of God reduced in number than to see the covenant perish through corruption. It was better that God saved Noah and his family - eight people - than for the whole world to have continued on the way it was, because then there would have been no covenant and no hope. But there is more here than that for us, as significant as that is. The great mutual character of the covenant community. Our lives are not our own, to do with as we please. They belong to God, and they belong to Him by way of covenant. And that means that in a very real sense, they also belong to each other.

We see therefore that God has more to do with us than just Sunday worship. Sunday and the rest of the days of the week are closely interrelated. If you do not serve God from Monday to Saturday, it is folly to suppose that God will accept our worship on Sunday. As God says in the book of Amos to those who are acting unjustly, "Take away the noise of your songs!" "I won't listen to you, because you do not listen to me." As we are faced with temptations to sin, as we are confronted with the world, the flesh and the devil, let us remember our identity; let us remember our covenant with one another, so that we may be moved to greater holiness, both for the glory of God's name, and for the good of His community on earth. May we seek its prosperity always?
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