Covenant or Contract

There was a gentleman who wanted a recipe for gazpacho – you know, the tomato-based cold vegetable soup so good with fresh summer vegetables. It sounded so good to him, and it looked so appetizing. He loved the diced onions, cucumbers, celery – but he didn’t like tomatoes.

So he changed the recipe and used another solanacene instead and called his recipe gazpacho, so he would have what other people had.

But, that was not really what it was. It was not the truth. The dish he prepares is different, no matter what he calls it.

When marriage is no longer defined as a joining of a man and woman, a husband and wife, those advocating a differing definition of marriage will not have won what they state they are seeking.

They will have achieved change. They will have redefined marriage to fit their life style, yet not changed the minds of those who live by the original rules. Though they have changed the man made legalese, God’s law remains as written.

The Bible says (Gen 2:18, 21-24) that it is not good for man to be alone, so He created a “help meet”, bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. (Genesis 2:24 KJV)

Every biblical reference speaks of husband/man, wife/woman, a design for companionship and intimacy. A Christian marriage is described in Ephesians, in detail:

Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. (Ephesians 5:21-28 KJV)

Paul’s advice for the unmarried is not quite as romantic: Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. (1 Corinthians 7:1-2 KJV)

But this was his own view, not given to him by God, for he explains: But I speak this by permission, and not of commandment. (1 Corinthians 7:6 KJV)

Biblical marriage is a covenant that includes God: 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. (Malachi 2:14 KJV)

The ceremony, the man-made legalese, are not part of that covenant. Without the covenant made by the man and woman with God, there is only a legal contract. That is available without changes to current laws.