The Covenant Of Marriage

Marriage Foundation

Introduction: The marriage covenant predates the Fall

I would like to like to go back to the very basics of when marriage was instituted. We first read about it in Genesis 2.

I am not talking about a piece of paper saying you are married but to the marriage covenant between a man and a woman.

For the sake of this talk Marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman

Marriage is a very special covenant.

Before going further I would like to look at the passage which sets out the marriage covenant. I have taken the Message translation

Genesis 2:15-25

15 GOD took the Man and set him down in the Garden of Eden to work the ground and keep it in order.

16-17 GOD commanded the Man, “You can eat from any tree in the garden, except from the Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil. Don’t eat from it. The moment you eat from that tree, you’re dead.”

18-20 GOD said, “It’s not good for the Man to be alone; I’ll make him a helper, a companion.”

So GOD formed from the dirt of the ground all the animals of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the Man to see what he would name them.

Whatever the Man called each living creature, that was its name.

The Man named the cattle, named the birds of the air, named the wild animals; but he didn’t find a suitable companion.

21-22 GOD put the Man into a deep sleep. As he slept he removed one of his ribs and replaced it with flesh. GOD then used the rib that he had taken from the Man to make Woman and presented her to the Man.

23-25 The Man said, “Finally! Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh! Name her Woman for she was made from Man.”

Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and embraces his wife. They become one flesh.

The two of them, the Man and his Wife, were naked, but they felt no shame.

I would like to focus on two verses – and I am going to read them from the Amplified translation this time:

18 Now the LORD God said, “It is not good (beneficial) for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper [one who balances him--a counterpart who is]

Lit like his opposite.suitable and complementary for him.

And after Adam named all the creatures of the world, Genesis verse 20 goes on to say

20…..but for Adam there was not found a helper [that was] suitable (a companion) for him.

Jesus himself talked very highly about the estate of marriage when he said this

“Haven’t you read the Scriptures?” Jesus replied. “They record that from the beginning ‘God made them male and female.’”

5 And he said, “‘This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.’

6 Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together.”…(Mt 19:4-6)

And St Paul said this

For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and be united to his wife and they will become one flesh (Eph 5:31)

I would like to look at a few ideas about marriage that come from Genesis 2.

1. MARRIAGE WAS IN GOD’S PLAN FOR THE WORLD WHEN GOD SAW THAT ALL HIS CREATION WAS STILL GOOD.

The covenant of marriage is the only covenant in Scripture that was made before The Fall of mankind

i.e. before man and woman sinned.

In other words it was made at the time when God reviewed his creation and saw it was good.

Marriage was in God’s perfect plan for a man and a woman.

Put another way, even if Adam and Eve had never sinned, marriage was in God’s perfect plan for Adam.

While the heavens and the earth were still in “good order” – that is when God described them as good, God ordained marriage.

And it is important to remember that.

Marriage as Christians is not simply a chance encounter.

It is something we must take very seriously.

We need to encourage the singles in our congregations to ask the question. Has God called them to be married and if yes then to pray about who they marry.

But we are all married here today and so I want to say to you - It is God’s will that we are married

But like other things in life, we have to work at them to make them work.

It is so easy to say that one partner in a marriage has “fallen out of love” with the other therefore let’s divorce.

Steve Turner wrote a poem, which I think is so apposite to this way of thinking