The conditional marriage covenant.
By WmTipton
Assertions/Conclusions of this Article
In this writing we will show that the marriage covenant is conditional and that this conditional state precedes the tolerance of Moses concerning frivolous divorce, and that our Lord Jesus and also Paul conclusively show that marriage is still a conditional marriage covenant.
This study is for the sole purpose of answer one question.
Is the marriage covenant conditional or is it without condition and therefore no condition exists whereby it can be ended before death and no condition exists that is in breach of it ?
Supporting Evidence
Firstly, we will show a bit about Gods conditional covenant given thru Moses to Israel, His endurance towards them and their constantly breaking that covenant, and finally His ending of that covenant with them.
We then will list some of the precepts in the scriptures that show conclusively that a marriage covenant might be ended before the death of the spouse and also list some laws that show that there are punishable offenses where this marriage covenant is concerned.
I’ll include links to articles already written about these where applicable.
1.0
Elsewhere in many articles we state that the covenant given to Moses in the wilderness was a conditional one. Conditional means that there a re requirements placed upon the persons that the covenant is given to.
Lets look briefly at a conditional statement made by the Lord concerning His covenant with Israel.
â— Exo 19:5 - And now if you will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure to Me above all the nations; for all the earth is Mine.
Now, there are no rocket scientists or scholars of ancient Hebrew living in my home, but even I can read and see that the Lord is showing clearly there the condition that *IF* they obey Him...*IF* they keep His covenant, then....He will do these things just as He has spoken.
For an example of an Uncondtional covenant, lets look at Gods words to Abraham...
â— Gen 12:1-3 - And Jehovah said to Abram, Go out of your country, and from your kindred, and from your father's house into a land that I will show you. (2) And I will make you a great nation. And I will bless you and make your name great. And you shall be a blessing. (3) And I will bless those that bless you and curse the one who curses you. And in you shall all families of the earth be blessed.
Notice there are no if’s or but’s there, only the promise to DO as He has spoken. God simply tells Abraham that He will do these things, He does not place condition upon them. The Jews have always been upon this earth and will until the final curtain closes. The Jews have existed literally in perils that have probably wiped out entire cultures over the millenia, by all logical rights the Hebrew people should probably not be in existance today. Not only do they, but they have reclaimed their promise land, just as His word foretold.
Even tho the Jews as a nation are hardened and disobedient, God has kept His Unconditional covenant with Abraham.
We can even see this same type of thing with Abrahams son Ishmael.
Notice here Gods words concerning Ishmael to Abe...
â— Gen 17:18-21 - And Abraham said to God, Oh that Ishmael might live before You! (19) And God said, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son indeed. And you shall call his name Isaac. And I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. (20) And as for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall father twelve chiefs, and I will make him a great nation. (21) But I will establish My covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this set time in the next year.
Abraham seems to be very concerned about his son Ishmael. The Lord God promises Abraham to bless Ishmael...to make him fruitful and make a mighty nation of him. Can anyone deny that this is not the case with the descendants of Ishmael today? Has God not made a mighty nation of him ?
This was an unconditional promise made to Abraham. God did not say *IF* you do this, I will do that. He promised it, and it came to pass...
Even though they (the descendants of Ishmael) are not obedient to God nor His word, God kept His UNconditional promise to Abraham.
Our God is not lax in in keeping His unconditional covenants/promises.
As presented earlier with this passage we see that God did, however, make a conditional covenant with Israel.
â— Exo 19:5 - And now if you will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure to Me above all the nations; for all the earth is Mine.
There are conditions given in the Lords words there. *IF* you do this *THEN* this will happen. What happens if they do not ‘obey His voice’ and ‘keep His covenant’ ...what then ?
“What then†sets the tone for much of Israels history post Egyptian Slavery. These folks barely made it out of bondage before they started sinning in such a great manner that Ive always wondered why God didnt simply wipe man off the map entirely during that time. But we know that He knows the ending, so He knows that not all men are so willing to defile and disobey to the magnitude of seeing so many wonderful miracles as the Hebrews did in those days, only to turn around and create a golden calf to worship the moment Moses turned his back.
Can you, as a believer and follower of our Lord Jesus, imagine being alive when He walked the earth, being one of those He healed or seeing some other miracle done by Him...can you imagine being Peter and walking on the water even, then not simply staggering a bit in your walk, but literally sitting down and with your own hands making a false idol to worship in His place?
What a treachery that must have been in our Gods mind. I cannot fathom what pain He must have experienced in those days seeing these people that He called His own whom He had just delivered from centuries of slavery in Egypt, seeing these turn in such rebellion and not from ignorance...these had SEEN the Red Sea parted..had SEEN Pharaohs army destroyed.....and the plagues sent against Egypt.
No, these were more like Adam..having SEEN with their eyes the proof of Him who sits on the throne....proof of His existence and care for them by mighty, wondrous miracles performed at Moses hand. There was no excuse that could be given to relieve them from their apostasy.
Here is a little passage that shows us quite conclusively but very briefly that Israel did indeed break the conditional covenant He had made with their forefathers when He brought them out of bondage in Egypt.
â— Jer 31:32 - not according to the covenant that I cut with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which covenant of Mine they broke, although I was a husband to them, says Jehovah;
Here again it is shown that our Lord issued a bill of divorcement to Israel for this breach of His covenant;
â— Jer 3:8 - And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.
And in these we see His finally ending that covenant with the peoples He had given it to:
â— Zec 11:10-12 - And I took my staff, even Beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people. (11) And it was broken in that day: and so the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that it was the word of the LORD. (12) And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.
Oddly enough, knowing the scenario with the 30 pieces of silver, it can be deduced that it was actually our Lord Jesus who was mediator over even this old covenant, since He speaks in the first person as the One who ended that economy.
2.0
We move now to the conditional marriage covenant.
Let me apologize for trying to be so brief in areas that I know need more detail, but please understand that many readers come home after 10 hour days and have 5 children to attend to afterward. There is literally a 100 pages that could easily be added to this matter, but I fear that some of our readers simply will not have the time and/or energy to read that lengthy of a document, so I’m trying to lay out the foundational information and the relevant precepts in the shortest manner possible so that no one has to leave anything unread.
Lets do as Jesus did and go right back to the beginning...the very first couple in the garden. But lets go even further back to before Eve was even created and see what God was thinking when He had in mind to bring Eve into existance.
â— Gen 2:18-20 - And Jehovah God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. (19) And out of the ground Jehovah God formed every animal of the field and every fowl of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. (20) And Adam gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field. But there was not found a suitable helper for Adam.
Lets firstly look at that word ‘helper’ there (rendered as ‘help meet’ in the KJV)
H5828
BDB Definition:
1) help, succour
1a) help, succour
1b) one who helps
Seems to mean precisely what it says in the translation. One who ‘helps’ the man.
This is a foundational point in understanding GODS intent for marriage. This theme remains the same throughout creation. At no point did God stop caring about His marriage covenant and His own intent for it.
Here we see the creation of this ‘helper’ for Adam and we see the creation of the very first marriage and what it was always meant to be.
â— Gen 2:21-25 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; (22) And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. (23) And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. (24) Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. (25) And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
This woman Eve is made directly from Adams own rib, his own flesh and being. While no woman after Eve is literally made from her own husbands actual flesh, we see in the sexual relationship shared between a man and his wife (as evidenced in 1 Corinthians 6:16) that this bond of closeness and unity also exists between every couple afterward....or at least it is supposed to exist. Through the consummation of their marriage, a man and woman today allegorically mimic what Eve shared with her husband Adam physically in that she was literally in being made from his own body.
So now we ask ourselves “Is this union between this man and woman conditional or unconditional ?†bearing in mind that we have understood the tone of conditional versus unconditional covenants above. Where no condition is set into place, there is no possible manner of breach.
In the case where conditions are given for that covenant, then a breach is quite possible and even as shown above, the subsequent ending of that covenant may come to pass because of that breach.
We offer these few as evidence to show that there are conditions to this covenant of marriage.
â— Lev 20:10 - And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
â— Deu 22:22 - If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman: so shalt thou put away evil from Israel.
â— Deu 22:23-24 - If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; (24) Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you.
â— Exo 21:10-11 - If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish. (11) And if he do not these three unto her, then shall she go out free without money.
â— Mat 5:31-32 - It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: (32) But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
â— Mat 19:9 - And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.
â— 1 Co 7:12-13 - But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. (13) And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him.
â— 1Co 7:15 - But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace.
Oddly enough, when this issue is followed to it logical conclusion we find that a breach of the marriage covenant is also a breach of Gods covenant. Under the law oneof the ways the Isrealites were finding themselves to be breaking His laws was by committing adulteries andfornications expressly against the covenant God had made with them.
In essence, when a man or woman is married and commits adultery/fornication, they are effectively in breach of His covenant itself that states not to commit these sins.
We see these moral laws are still in effect in the case of the corinthian man who had his fathers wife which is forbidden in Gods law.
Thus we conclude that Gods moral law is still effective which would cause us to believe that when a person commits adultery in their marriage, they not only are in breach of the conditions laid out for that marriage covevant by God Himself, but also finding themselves breaking His covenant with His Church.
It is no wonder our Lord Jesus has said ‘except for fornication’.