A covenant Biblically is a commitment which God initiates. When we learn that marriage is a covenant, we’re using an ancient and rich biblical concept to describe how God’s steadfast and exclusive love for his people is a model for the loving union of a married couple. Within this covenant, God establishes physical relations (sex) in order to fully complete the unity. And, God didn’t make sexual relations pleasurable and say “oops!” God wants our relationship with Him and our spouse to be exceedingly pleasurable. And, He wants us to have “laser-focus”; the frame of mind that absolutely nothing else matters during our time together.
However, we can complicate sex by losing Godly focus. Questions can pop into our mind, including “If I’m angry with my spouse (or anybody), do I still have to have sex with my spouse?” And, “What if I don’t feel like it?” And “What’s my obligation as a spouse?” Well, if you want to take a legalistic viewpoint of sex, then all the checkmarks will have to be in place before you can be one with your spouse. But, if this is the case, you’re looking at your covenant with God all wrong. Christ, who fulfilled all previous covenants by making a new one with us, went to the cross – when He didn’t feel like it – all because of His unconditional love for you.
Marriage is a pre-eminent symbol of the covenant which Christ has with his people. Marriage is a commitment by which spouses pledge to each other all aspects of their lives “until death do us part.” This is reflected in daily acts of kindness, service, mutual love and forgiveness as couples are called to imitate, however imperfectly, the unconditional love which Christ offers to us. We now see marriage as rooted in the broader covenant of love between God and humanity. We understand that marriage is a covenant which establishes a “partnership of the whole life” between a husband and wife in which they “mutually hand over and accept each other”. This greatly enriches our appreciation of this special union that is: (a) sacred in the plan of God; (b) permanent, faithful and fruitful; and (c) a living symbol of God’s love for his people.
What life events do or can you allow to become obstacles in being one with your spouse? Would you allow these events to become obstacles in being one with God?
That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. -Genesis 2:24
