Listen or watch the full podcast associated with this post from our series, "Family and Friends: A Covenantal Understanding" here.
It can, I think, be properly said that the only kind of relationship that God has with his creation, is a covenant relationship. God is not out to make your acquaintance, but to be in a deep relationship with you. God wants to be our Lord. But what does this mean? Ultimately, it means a relationship, and moreover, a covenant relationship. One that clearly defines who God is and who we are. Without a covenant relationship, we cannot begin our heaven-bound journey. We would be godless and hopeless.
While this is not a study on the Lordship of God, and on His covenant nature, it does consider both of these in order to talk about what we want to discuss over the next 3 lessons: building Godly relationships with family and friends.
You cannot pick your family, and friends tend to be those you either grew up with or work with or have met through a mutual friend or shared experience. But the kind of relationships that you have with these people, highly depends on what you think relationships are. I am blessed to have dear friends whom I could call on a moment’s notice for a kind word of encouragement or to have a laugh.
With some members of my family, I have built deep, meaningful relationships, that in some ways go beyond the bond of blood. Yet, I don’t know that I have always treated these relationships in the Godliest way.
But as I look out into the world, I think I need to learn, and perhaps you can learn with me, more about being purposeful in our relationships. Of taking a covenantal approach, as God has done with us. In this way then, understanding something of God’s covenantal relationship with us, is important.
God is our Father, Christ is our brother, God has compared himself to a loving mother, as has Christ. Jesus said he has called us friend, the church is the bride of Christ, we are adopted sons and daughter of God. And while the Bible, in regards to God, makes use of all these allusions to the kinds of relationship found among men, we know that in our relationship with God, he is ultimately Lord and we servants.
Yet, while this remains true, we can learn something of the Biblical descriptors of God as father and mother, son and friend. The attempt then is to keep the tension between us as servants of God, in our covenant relationship with him, and the application of covenant relationship with those we call family and friends.
We will start with a look at marriage in our first lesson, followed by a look at the parent/child relationship in our second lesson and closing our third lesson with a look at friendship.
It is my goal to help us walk into and through this holiday season with a renewed vision for our relationships that prioritize our first and most important covenantal relationship God has with us and reciprocating that to our relationships we have and to those we will build in the future.
Marriage:
Even if you are not married, this lesson can still be of massive use to you. Marriage is for many, something hoped for. Yet, to grow in love with another person for the rest of your life is hard to imagine, because one cannot always envision all the nuances of a marriage. However, if you are a believer, you are the bride of Christ, and it is here that we can start to understand what a marriage is and what it actually entails.
Let me say at the outset that marriage as defined Biblically is between one man and one woman and is forever, to cease only upon the death of either spouse. The Bible is so serious on this matter, that even when marriages end in divorce or separation, the clear indication is that you are not to marry again. If you broke your first covenant, you cannot enter another covenant. For blended families in churches all across America, this raises a ton of questions.
We will try and address those in some ways as we go through the study.
But consider the following:
Almost 50% of marriages end in a divorce
Over 60% of second marriages end in a divorce
Over 70% of third marriages end in a divorce
People with premarital sexual partners have more than twice the odds of divorce of those who did not have premarital sex.
These numbers are staggering but indicative I think of a nation that does not understand the covenant nature of relationships.
Covenant
It would be appropriate at this time to begin first with an overview of what the Bible means by covenant. Not every person who claims Christ as Lord sees our relationship with God as one of covenant. But I do.
Some have argued that if God is in covenant with us than he has bound himself – and God is not to be bound. Some argue from this conclusion that a covenant of grace cannot be – that God’s Grace is not covenantal in nature.
But I do not see it in this way. For the covenant God has with us – is first based on a promise. This is most clearly seen in the book of Hebrews. (See Hebrews 6:13)
God first makes a promise to Abraham – and God has no intention of breaking this promise. The promise that God makes is based on Grace. And, in order to show us his goodness in a more secure way, that is in a way that we can understand, he makes a covenant. (See Hebrews 6:16-18)
This covenant is not a graceless contract – it is the outworking of a grace-full promise and the delight and pleasure of our Lord to demonstrate that promise in the form of a covenant, which does not cause God to lose anything but is indeed a covenant of grace. This covenant is fulfilled in Christ, but it is not done away with but has been made to be better. (See Hebrews 6:9 and Hebrews 8:6)
It is vitally important I think to remember that if we call God Lord, then he must be Lord of someone or something – namely his creation and his creatures. But more so, it being the case that God is a personal Triune being, the Father in relationship with the Son and The Holy Spirit and these relationships being reciprocal, as Lord, the central focus of this Lordship is as John Frame puts it, “God’s role in a relationship with his creatures.” This is called “covenant.”
If we cannot grasp the role that God plays in his relationship with his creatures, we are hopelessly lost in the mire of Romans 1:18-32 where in one place we are described as those that suppress the truth of God.
Covenant and marriage
If then we are to enter into relationship with another person in marriage, or as we will learn later on in this study as friends, or if we are providentially sons and daughters, still living at home – how can we treat these relationships right if our own with God is hampered by a lack of knowledge of his role with us as his creatures? We will return to this idea later in the study.
Defining the covenant
One would imagine that this does not have to be said, but here we say it anyway, we are not God’s equal. And if we are in covenant with God, it is to be sure, not a covenant between equal parties. Can you guess then what kind of covenant it is? It is the kind of covenant, known as a Suzerain treaty, which is distinguished by the fact that there is a Greater King, the Suzerain, and a lesser king, the vassal. Oh, then “I am a king,” the arrogant man will say, ignoring completely the word “lesser.”
I think of the story of King Nebuchadnezzar, whom by God’s authority and sovereignty, was King of Babylon, a great earthly king, yet a lesser King to God. He was glorifying himself when at the utterance of his words God struck him down. (See Daniel 4) We may be a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9), but we are lesser than Christ in his priesthood. Not only is God the greater king in this covenant of which we have been made a part of – God has made all the declarations – he has set all the standards and the terms of the covenant, we are simply recipients and under obligation to obey.
In today’s world this truth is a travesty. The modern man has believed his own ideas that he has become freer because he lives more comfortably, because in some places in the world, you can live like a king. The question that surely arises is how can a God that I can’t see or hear or sense ever tell me what to do? Yet, no king has ever stood up to God almighty and emerged victorious. This attitude towards God often becomes evident in the kinds of failed or selfish relationships godless men have.
What was the covenant?
God then as the Supreme King, the Suzerain if you will, frees His people, whom he had chosen in Abraham, from the bondage that they were under in Egypt.
DT. 4:37 “Because He loved your fathers, therefore He chose their descendants after them. And He personally brought you from Egypt by His great power…”
It’s important to remember that the enslaved people could not free themselves – they were under a yoke. They had no other recourse. This is a picture of the life of the unbeliever. Once God frees his people, he demands obedience (see Ex. 19:5-6) This is much like the Suzerain Treaty, where one greater King comes to the aid of a lesser King and in so doing is in the position of demanding obedience, love and loyalty. I think that to our modern ears this may sound off-putting. We don’t want anyone demanding obedience, love or loyalty from us. We want to be free to give these things. But in bondage we cannot truly give any of these things. But, the idea of free is often misleading.
Understanding covenantal position
Why for example do you love your wife? Your wife today is not the same person she was when you first laid eyes on her – maybe she has changed – for better or worse, however you still love her why? Because you are married to her.
Often, concerning marriage in the Bible we find the idea of the woman being given to the man. In our culture we tend not to use this language anymore. The woman is independent and so is the man and they decide if they want to get married – often telling the parents is just a formality – even if the parents say no, they will still get married.
But however, you view this – there is a giving, whether from the parents or God himself. The marriage then may well be mutual and filled with the excitement of young love – but the commitment is that this woman whom has been given to you (the husband) and you (the husband) take in marriage is for life and is to love and to hold…etc.
You may want to love your wife, and that is good, but the marriage dictates that you must love your wife. It is a duty. Since God made a covenant with his people, they are to love him and obey him.
The Bible teaches generally the concept of two covenants. The covenant of works, which can be better understood as the Edenic Covenant wherein God supplies all that man needs to worship and love him, where God sustains him and yet man takes violent action against God by disobeying Him.
Then there is the Covenant of Grace, based as I mentioned earlier on the promise that God gave to Abraham by grace. Even the Mosaic covenant, that we find in Exodus and which was in place until Christ’s resurrection, was based on the promise given to Abraham. The different covenants then that we see in the Bible – the Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic and so on – are all categories of the Covenant of Grace.
What is important to understand for our study – to have a covenantal understanding of our relationships is that God works in covenantal relationship with all of his creation. (See Genesis 9:9-10)
He provides protection, a proper place for his creation and in turn demands obedience and love towards him. I believe then that our relationships should operate on this model of covenant. Why would we engage in marriage if we have no intention to be faithful and loving? Why would we bear children to then abandon them? Why would we make friends and never be there for them?
During the holiday season we are often reminded of family and friends that we really don’t like and are not sure that we love, but if we were in covenant with them, would that not obligate us to do right by them? Regardless of what we feel?
This last point is a big point in this lesson – as Christians we are to walk by faith and not by sight. We should also be able to say that we are covenant-bound and not feeling-bound.
A story I heard once tells of two brothers –
The one sees a beautiful woman and declares his love for her and they marry. The other calls on his parents to find him a wife. The married brother thinks him crazy, in such a modern world, “why would you have our parents choose your wife, don’t you want to get to know her first?” The unmarried brother responds, “whatever wife our parents find for me, I am prepared to love for the rest of my life.”
There is nothing wrong with a beautiful wife or a handsome husband. But there is something wrong with a husband or wife that is not in covenant. I insist then, that there must be an obligation to do the right thing in marriage.
I often say that the hardest thing I work on is my marriage – I don’t say that because my wife makes things hard on me – as a matter of fact she often tells me how good of a husband I am. And I have told my wife that I wish God was as forgiving in his judgement.
What I mean is that I have found myself, more often than I care to admit, in prayer crying before God because as I read His word, I recognize my lack of covenantal commitment - did I use a harsh word? Could I have listened better? Did I care enough?Do I delight in my wife as I should?
You see, God’s standards are so high that I have to work hard and continually to meet the standards that he sets before me as a husband, the calling he has given me.
It's not often that we come across a man that understands covenant. And it’s not often that you come across Christians who truly understand that our relationship with God is built on the mighty power of God and his covenant nature and how from this covenant relationship, we can glean truth and principles in order to then love those that we are in relationship with...and if we have never had a covenantal relationship with them, to begin now.
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