Marriage… Commitment is Essential (Part 5)
A marriage covenant is characterized by total, exclusive, continuing and growing commitment. Last month we looked at Total commitment and in this newsletter we shall briefly touch Exclusive and Continuing.
Exclusive Commitment. To accept marriage as a sacred covenant means also to be willing to make an exclusive commitment of ourselves to our marital partners. It means, as the marriage vows put it, “to forsake all others” and “to keep thee only unto her [or him], so long as ye both shall live.” This understanding of the marriage covenant is under severe attack in our sexually permissive society where immoral connotations of illicit sexual acts have been eliminated through the introduction of new “softer” terms. Fornication is now referred to as “premarital sex,” with the emphasis on the “pre” rather than on the “marital.” Adultery is now called “extramarital sex,” implying an additional experience, like an extraprofessional activity.
- Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.”
- But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.
- The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband.
- For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.
- Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. I Cor. 7: 1-5
In view of the prevailing violation of marital vows, as Christians we face today an unprecedented challenge to maintain by God’s grace our exclusive commitment to our marriage partners. Exclusive commitment extends beyond the sexual sphere and includes forming relationships with friends or relatives closer than those with our spouses. By taking third parties into the confidences of our marital life, we undermine the exclusiveness of our marital commitments.
Continuing Commitment. To accept marriage as a sacred covenant also means to be willing to make a continuing commitment to one’s marital partner. Time changes things, including our looks, our bodies, and our feelings. I am thankful to God that the change in my looks has not caused my wife to change her commitment to me. Marital commitment must continue through the changing seasons of our lives. With each change in our lives, our marital commitments must be renewed.
To speak today of a continuing commitment may seem naïve when about half of all American marriages are dissolved by divorce or annulment every year. Yet, to approach marriage with an openness to divorce is to deny the Biblical meaning of the one-flesh, permanent covenantal relationship. In His response to the question raised over divorce, Jesus was unequivocal in affirming that marriage is a continuing, lasting commitment: “What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matt 19:6; Mark 10:9).
A young couple contemplating marriage needs to consider whether or not both are prepared to make a continuing commitment to one another. But a continuing commitment to our marriage partners is not accomplished once and for all. It must be reaffirmed each day, when we are healthy or sick, wealthy or poor, happy or sad, successful or failing. In all the changing moods of life, we must determine by God’s grace to reaffirm our marriage commitments until death!
So you say, “I don’t feel in love anymore”. The counsel of Ellen White to such people is to change their dispositions, not their marriage partners: “If your dispositions are not congenial, would it not be for the glory of God for you to change these dispositions?” The good news of the Gospel is that our feelings and dispositions can be changed through Christ’s enabling power (Phil 4:13). Divine grace makes a continuing commitment to marriage not a possibility, but a reality.
Our continuing commitment to our marital partners must rest on our covenantal commitments and not on feelings. David Phypers points out that “when Paul commanded husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church, he understood that love was a decision and not a feeling. No feeling of romantic love could have taken Jesus to the cross, yet he went because he loved us. In the same way we are to love each other whether we like it or not, and in so doing, to fulfill our consent to each other, to be husbands and wives together as long as we both shall live.”
It is my hope and prayer your commitment to marriage remains Total, Exclusive and Continuing!!
Next installment; Growing Commitment.
by Don Callander
