A Contract of Marriage

Marriage is many things, but unlike the way it is practiced today, it is not a legal contract between two parties that can be nullified on a whim simply by filing the right piece of paperwork. In fact, marriage as practiced in the Bible really has no paperwork at all. 

If you’re a Christian, you’ve probably heard it said many times that marriage is a covenant and perhaps assumed that covenant is simply the Biblical word for an agreement or a contract of some type. 

A covenant is a little more than that, however, when you consider that, for a covenant you are putting something forward to guarantee the fulfillment of the contract. 

You have to put up collateral, and the collateral of a covenant is your own life.  

In a covenant, one party offers the covenant, and they can either offer terms with the covenant, or, as God did with Abraham, the offering party can leave all of the requirements on their own end to perform. 

The accepting party either agrees to the terms of the covenant or rejects the offer, but if they agree, they simply bind their life to fulfill the terms of the covenant without adding any of their own terms. 

We see several covenants of this nature throughout the Bible, including the only fully recorded marriage ceremony in Scripture, which you will be able to read about in a lot more detail once I finally get around to finishing that particular post. 

However, let’s get back to the layout of a covenant for a moment. 

Typically, in a formal covenant, it is the stronger party that offers the covenant and the weaker party that accepts. Hence, God offers to men, and men offer to women in the marriage ceremony, but this is not always the case. 

Men and women in the Bible often made what are known as vows to God, which are a type of covenant, but of a sketchier nature. It’s basically a bargain with God by people who are so desperate for God to come through that they make some really rash promises in return for God giving them what they ask for. 

Jephthah, for example, desperately wanted to win a battle, so he promised God whatever came through his door first, and lo and behold, it was his only daughter. 

Hannah, in return for a son, promised the son to God. 

Jacob, in return for God’s favor, promised a tenth of everything he got to God. 

Those are only a few examples of promising God something in return for a favor, and they are one-sided covenants. You put your life up as collateral that you will perform toward God what you have promised in return for God’s favor. 

Now, putting your life up as collateral is not metaphorical, and we have lost that realization in modern times because we no longer slaughter an animal when we make our covenants. 

Originally, when men would make covenants, they would divide an animal in two and walk between the pieces, not as a magic ritual, but as a symbol of what would happen to them if they decided to break the covenant. 

“God do to me and more also” in effect. 

So, how does this apply to our marriage covenant of today?

There’s a popular trend nowadays where the bride and groom treat the vows as an opportunity for a flowery and sometimes very long expression of their love for each other, and they promise to do all kinds of things like listen to the other party every day, or always bake the other party’s favorite scones, or even always feel a certain way about them. 

The poetry, expressions of love and devotion, and the odd and sometimes amusing promises make for a beautiful and emotional ceremony, but there’s something really off with this practice that completely ignores the serious nature of the covenant. 

Is there anything wrong with expressing love and devotion in the marriage ceremony?

No, of course not!

Should it be part of the vows?

Remember, in a covenant, the two parties are binding their lives to the performance of what they are vowing, and in a marriage covenant in particular, only the husband offers terms, and the wife accepts (or does not accept). 

Very few marriage ceremonies are structured this way, and most don’t have the husband offering terms of any sort; rather, both parties make their vows to each other regarding what they will do. 

That’s not likely to change, so let’s talk about that structure.

Both parties are making vows and putting their lives as collateral for the performance of what they have vowed to do. 

The vows, therefore, should not contain anything you do not want to be bound by your oath to perform, and they should hold strictly to what God has laid out in His word. 

A quick note here: regardless of whether you vow to perform everything contained in the Bible regarding your duty in marriage or not, if it’s in God’s word (the whole Bible), you are bound to do it simply because you are already in a covenant with God through baptism. 

However, if you vow a bunch of things outside of His word and they do not contradict His word, guess what?

You’re still bound to do them!

Numbers 30:2 NKJV - "If a man makes a vow to the LORD, or swears an oath to bind himself by some agreement, he shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.

We find this same warning restated in Deuteronomy with the added warning that we don’t have to even make the vow in the first place.

Deuteronomy 23:21 NKJV - "When you make a vow to the LORD your God, you shall not delay to pay it; for the LORD your God will surely require it of you, and it would be sin to you.

Deuteronomy 23:22 NKJV - "But if you abstain from vowing, it shall not be sin to you.

Deuteronomy 23:23 NKJV - "That which has gone from your lips you shall keep and perform, for you voluntarily vowed to the LORD your God what you have promised with your mouth.

Therefore, a wise man offered the following advice when it comes to making vows.

Ecclesiastes 5:2 NKJV - Do not be rash with your mouth, And let not your heart utter anything hastily before God. For God [is] in heaven, and you on earth; Therefore let your words be few.

The long, flowery “vows” that most couples offer these days are therefore contrary to sound wisdom. We should be careful to ensure that the words we utter are few and entirely taken from Scripture, because every word you utter in your vows binds your life as collateral.

Long, flowery, and vague vows show an ignorance of what a vow and a covenant are, and the gravity with which they should be treated. They are not simply words uttered in front of family and friends; they are the terms we bind our lives to perform. 

The requirements of a vow are fulfilled when the terms are carried out, but the requirements of a covenant are often lifelong, and they only end when one party dies or breaks the covenant. 

You cannot get out of a covenant simply by filing the right piece of paperwork.    

There is no appeal process, no undoing of a covenant without the forfeiture of your life or destroying the covenant. 

God can certainly forgive a covenant violation, but there are still harsh penalties, and He may still require your life from you. 

Your life was the collateral you put forward, after all. 

A faithful man, the sort of man who will dwell on God's Holy Hill, is the sort of man who will fulfill what he has vowed even to his own hurt. If he vows it, he'll do it. 

Psalm 15:4 NKJV — In whose eyes a vile person is despised, But he honors those who fear the LORD; He [who] swears to his own hurt and does not change;

The idea is to make as few of those vows as you can, however. Hence, Jesus, and later James, said, “Let your yes be yes and your no be no.” 

Matthew 5:37 NKJV - "But let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No.' For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.

As we saw, Solomon more or less said this long before the first century AD, so three of the wisest men who ever lived all agree that vows should be non-existent if possible and short if you have to make them. 

Now, if you're bound and determined to add extra words to the vows, stop and think long and hard about each word you're adding, because it is binding! 

Think about whether or not you actually have the power to fulfill what you're vowing. If you vow to listen to her every day, you're bound to do that, so stop and think about whether or not you will always have the ability to be able to stop and listen to her every single day. 

Don't promise to always bake a cake every day, because you may not have the ability to bake it, whether as a result of finances or circumstances. 

It's easy to say anything when you're standing at the altar, but real life is messy and the honeymoon period only lasts for so long. Times will get hard for you, and you will face significant challenges, challenges that could be easier or harder depending on what you have vowed. 

You have to actually think about what you're vowing, not in terms of whether it sounds good or not, but in terms of binding your life to fulfill what you have vowed. 

The more words you add, the more you are setting yourself up for failure. 

The vows are not a time to have nice-sounding words, humor, and flowery poetry; they are a solemn and serious utterance before God. You are literally pledging your life to the fulfillment of the words coming out of your mouth. 

Not only are we bound as Christians to live according to the laws of marriage laid out in Scripture, but we are also bound to the words we utter as a vow. A vow uttered in the marriage ceremony is inescapable by either party, even the wife, because both her husband and father allow her vows to stand without objection (Numbers 30:7). 

If you decide to go the route of writing your own vows, or even if you don’t, I would recommend that you print or write them out and hang them on the wall so you don't forget what you have vowed to God to perform toward your spouse. 

If you don’t remember all the words you said, how will you do them?

So, when you're standing there with your soon-to-be-spouse, in front of all your family and friends, thank God for the wonderful gift He is giving you, but take the vows seriously. 

Be careful.

If you make a vow you can't keep, you're lying to God and committing a grave sin of rashness. In the same section of Ecclesiastes, Solomon continues to say that it’s better not to vow than to vow and not pay, then declares that you cannot take it back and say it was an error.

Ecclesiastes 5:6 NKJV - Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, nor say before the messenger [of God] that it [was] an error. Why should God be angry at your excuse and destroy the work of your hands?

In the modern era, we have sanitized the wedding vow into a list of romantic aspirations with promises to “listen,” to “bake,” or to “always feel” a certain way, and we treat these words as sentimental poetry, forgetting that in the eyes of God, a vow is an invocation.

If you are the one standing at that altar, let your oath be limited to your biblical duty, for the debt you are signing your life to is one you will spend the rest of your life paying. 

Proverbs 18:7 NKJV — A fool’s mouth [is] his destruction, And his lips [are] the snare of his soul.

When you speak your vows, you are not merely expressing love; you are placing your life on the altar as collateral for your performance. If you will not, or cannot, pay the price of that collateral, you are not making a promise; you are foolishly laying a snare for your own soul.

You can't take the words back, so, as Solomon advised, let your words be few, for you are on Earth and God is in Heaven.