Systematic Theology – Covenant

The Marriage Covenant

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: 15-22

Genre: Speech

Track: 15 of 22

Dictation Name: 15 The Marriage Covenant

Location/Venue:

Year:

Let us bow our heads in prayer. Almighty God our Heavenly Father we give thanks unto Thee that as we face the powers of darkness arrayed against Thy church we can do so in the confidence that the very gates of hell cannot prevail against our Lord Jesus Christ and against His army. Make us faithful soldiers of that army, arm us by Thy word and by Thy spirit and make us ever brave and unafraid in the face of the enemy. We thank Thee for those who stand in the gap, who are in the courts and who wage war against the powers of darkness. Strengthen them we beseech Thee and make us great and mighty and triumphant through Jesus Christ our Lord, in His name we pray, Amen.

We have been studying the doctrine of the covenant, the doctrine of the covenant of course is basic to scripture, a covenant as we have seen is a treaty. It is a treaty in the case of scripture between an omnipotent power, God, who by His grace establishes a treaty with mankind. Now a treaty is a law, contract or covenant. It is a treaty of law and yet because it comes from God it is also a treaty of grace. The basic covenant is the covenant of God with mankind, first in Adam, this treaty being broken by Adam, than renewed through the patriarchs and Moses and supremely in Jesus Christ the second Adam. Within that covenant there are subordinate covenants, the church covenant, the civil covenant and the marriage covenant. Now the fact that marriage is a covenant is too seldom recognized or mentioned nor is it sufficiently appreciated. Some marriage vows still include the covenant reference as witnessed the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship which requires both the bride and the groom to say in their vows ‘I do vow and covenant before God and these witnesses’.

However the modern outlook is very alien to the idea of marriage as a covenant. We have a man centered approach and this man centered emphasis sees marriage as a purely human sexual arrangement. After all Sigmund Freud once said speaking of his wife and himself ‘marriage is a good solution to the sex problem’. In other words he viewed it as a convenient sexual arrangement but of course what we are seeing increasingly is that when man views it as a good arrangement he can also view it as a bad arrangement. This is what the sexual revolution was about. The whole point is the self-satisfaction of man but the bible says marriage is a covenant and there are two passages in particular which pin point this fact. First of all Proverbs 2:10-11 and verses 16-17.

“When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul;

11 Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee:”

“To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words;

17 Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God.”

Then again in Malachi 2:14 we read:

“Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.”

Now in proverbs the adulterous wife or woman is referred to as a stranger. Normally the Hebrew word here uses refers to an alien, a foreigner, but not in this particular case. Rather it speaks of one who has made herself an outlaw, a stranger, an alien to the covenant of God.

She has sinned we are told against the covenant of her God. In other words Solomon makes it clear that she is a member of the covenant who has sinned against it. The reference here is to God and His covenant which says among other things in its law thou shalt not commit adultery. God entered into covenant with man in Adam, in Noah, in Moses, in Israel, this means that all men who have ever been born or will be born are under the covenant law. They, if they obey it, are blessed in terms of it if they disobey they are judged by it. Now every area of life and thought is subordinate to God’s covenant and God’s law. We can never step outside of God nor outside of His law nor outside of His government or covenant. The other verse we read, Malachi 2:14 has a slightly different meaning. Marriage is here the covenant, in Proverbs the covenant is the covenant with God, in Malachi it is the marriage covenant before God in which God is the witness. Marriage is thus portrayed as a covenant subordinate to God’s covenant and law. The laws governing marriage therefore because it is a subsidiary covenant are to be derived from the covenant law of God as it is given in scripture. Now in the modern world marriage is a civil contract. It is an interesting fact by the way that in some of the mountain country of the south up until the very present time the civil contract is not recognized and in some of the out of the way areas marriage is a strictly church ceremony as is the divorce. And nothing else is recognized and it is recognized as a biding ceremony. However, the state generations ago entered into marriage by specifying that it is a civil contract.

This is a most important, a most revolutionary fact. Now, in most of the free world, not all, the marriage ceremony is still retained and can be substituted for the civil ceremony although in many countries you can only have a civil ceremony or if you have a religious ceremony it’s just for show, the civil ceremony alone matters. Here of course a civil contract must be taken out to be filed with the county clerk but that civil contract can be ratified, enacted, by a religious ceremony. But the key fact is we are seeing humanism replacing the theological covenant which marriage is in scripture with a humanistic civil contract. The governing fact in a civil contract is that the state sets the law and two individuals sovereign within their spheres decide whether or not they are going to enter into this contract or whether they are going to break it, in other words, the will of man makes marriage and the will of man breaks it. God’s law is replaced by human will. Now let’s go a step further. As we deal with marriage we must recognize that the reformation brought about a major change in the perspective. A great deal of unsorted thinking went into the catholic and the protestant positions. The fact is the reformation reduced the sacraments from seven to two. Among those things declassified as a sacrament was marriage. There were very sound reasons for this as well as some errors. Now, a sacrament is usually defined as an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. Many would add that this sign must be one ordained by God in the Old Testament and or by Christ in the New Testament.

Now, no church has won the argument over sacraments, and every domination has its own tradition and very often its own name for them because it is all too easy to stretch or limit the definition. And because they begin with a definition rather than particular and specific ordinances they get into serious trouble. For example, 1st Peter 3:7 speaks of a husband and wife in Godly union as being quote:

“as being heirs together of the grace of life;”

What does this mean? Simply that the couple that are married in the Lord and live in faithfulness to His law will indeed have God’s grace that their marriage will bring them special graces. Now, its for that reason that Catholics call marriage a sacrament. But neither Protestants nor Catholics disagree with 1st Peter 3:7 but then we would have to say well now we can receive grace by any number of things. The whole world around us as we are faithful to the Lord can be full of grace for us. Does that mean we have as some ay a sacramental universe? Do you see what happens when you begin with something like sacraments, a definition, and then they say we have seven, no we have two, the argument can never be settled because you have a rubber yardstick. You’re either saying grace belongs in this corner or no its broader here or as a few have said we have a sacramental universe which gets you into very strange ideas. In other words, instead of saying simply we have here in these two things baptism and communion, ordinances established by the Lord with respect to His body the church, if we go beyond that and begin with an abstract definition we have problems which can never be resolved and which divide Christians.

Abstract definitions have deviled theology over the generations. Now, marriage does make us heirs together of the grace of life. Marriage can become a means of grace when people live together in faith, in obedience to the Lord, fulfilling their covenant under God. This does not mean we have to use the language of sacrament. All life in faithfulness to God’s covenant makes us heirs of grace but this does not obliterate the distinction between marriage and baptism or between the ordinary family meal which can be a means of grace and the Lord’s Table. So that we have to see that abstract definitions can lead us astray. All life in the covenant is a means of grace and marriage is a subordinate covenant and according to 1st Peter 3:7 brings the grace of God into our lives. But only because our lives then are an aspect of life in the kingdom rather than a kingdom act now marriage is a covenant means that husband and wife are subordinate to God and His covenant. God is mindful of our marital joys and our goals, our needs but the point of marriage is not merely our prosperity or self0satisfactoin but His calling, His kingdom. Eve was created and given to Adam to be a helpmeet in His calling, to serve God together with Him. Husband and wife are in a covenant relationship and because it is a covenant relationship it is a legal one because the covenant is a treaty of law. God is the Lord of that covenant and determines its meaning, its purpose and its goal. The Roman Empire governed marriages for reasons of state, that is, for the public welfare as they stated it, meaning state welfare.

The modern state entered into marriage for the same reason, a humanistic man centered perspective and we have moved from the collective will being fulfilled in marriage to the individual will being fulfilled. We can now abandon or continue in marriage for purely personal reasons. The civil contract has become a personal contract. The ancient pagans were not quite that bad because while they denied God’s covenant they still retained the covenant status of marriage and in many ancient cultures blood was shed to make the marriage covenant and in many services according to historians and to this day in the Jewish Service and in various Christian marriage ceremonies a cup of wine is shared by both the bride and the groom to indicate that it is a covenant relationship and because wine is a symbol of blood the partaking of the wine together signifies that even as blood is life to those who are faithful to God so it signifies judgment and death to those who are faithless to the covenant. The interesting fact is that the shedding of actual blood for the covenant persisted in many cultures, here is a sentence from one of the most ancient bits of Scottish minsterling about marriage.

[I can’t understand the Scottish accent but he reads a sentence].

In other words because he slew the cock the marriage was now valid because both were under the judgment of God, under the blood of the covenant. Very interesting recognition of the covenantal status of marriage.

Moreover, marriage as a covenant meant entrance into authority. Why? Because the covenant doctrine of marriage said that the purpose of husband and wife in their union was that which God gave to Adam and then to Adam and Eve: to exercise dominion and to subdue the earth. [unknown], a Roman, and apparently a Christian writing somewhere between 400 and 420 A.D. said concerning the bride and I quote:

“For on the first day of a marriage the bride is in retirement but on the next day she must begin to assume authority in her husband’s house and offer sacrifice.” Unquote.

A very interesting concept. Now the civil contract concept as we have seen changed the focus of marriage from God’s calling to human satisfaction. In terms of this the modern era saw the wife soon become merely an ornament or now with women’s liberation to seek her separation from the contract. From a contract for man’s pleasure and purpose it has become a contract for mutual satisfaction to be broken upon dissatisfaction. We have a world of difference from the covenant doctrine. Marriage is a covenant in scripture. It must be reestablished as a covenant in terms of scripture. Are there any questions now?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Oh yes, how did the state first justify it. Well, I’m sorry to say to an extent the protestant community helped make it so. The [unknown] were so hostile to what they felt was a lingering element of the sacramental in the Church of England services that they rebelled against the idea of the church having anything to do with it. So they were all for the state taking care of this.

Not that they were overlooking the covenantal fact but they were reacting negatively. Then on the continent largely because statism began to predominate and the State wanted to control every aspect of life and so the state made a steady entrance into this area. On the continent of Europe the civil contract aspect is much more powerful than it is in England and America. So the state has taken over by default, I’m sorry to say, on the part of the Christians and to a large extent in Catholic countries because of anti-Christianity on the part of the state. Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Well, yes that’s a good question. I should amend what I said earlier in that the puritans in this country at once made biblical law as far as they could without conflict with the crown the law of the state. And biblical law to a great extent governed this country up to the 1850s at least. As a result they were content to have the Christian state administer marriage. They were content to see it done that way because they were sure it was going to be done in terms of biblical law.

But what happened was that with each passing generation opposition developed to this and especially as pietistic faith and Arminianism crept into this country people said the only concern of our faith is with the soul of man and with his salvation so they forgot all about school, society, the state and the humanists took over. And since the doctrine of a Christian state controlling these things existed when the Christians abandoned the state to the humanists they left themselves wide open to the destruction of biblical law and the covenantal view of marriage. The quotation I gave from [unknown] by the way I specified that he was perhaps a Christian, we don’t know for sure, he clearly had defective views so that there were obvious relics of paganism there but he shows evidences of being influenced by scripture so it’s hard to say since we know so little about him. For example in the citation I read it speaks of among other things that she does on the second day of marriage is to offer sacrifices which would indicate the continuity with Roman custom. But other points he very definitely sees the authority of the wife in terms of biblical faith, so [unknown] is a mixed bag, very interesting writer however.

Any other questions or comments? Well we shall take a break for about ten minutes then.