Covenant Relationships

Sunday, 8th March 2009

I have mentioned that my church has now embarked on a sermon series on the book of Joshua. We read about how God told the Israelites that they were not to keep any of the spoils of Jericho for themselves but to place them into the Lord's treasury. This was because Jericho was the first city to be conquered and the firstfruit belongs to God. I blogged about this in the entry entitled The First Belongs to God.

For all the subsequent cities, the inhabitants were to be totally destroyed, and the Israelites could keep the plunder for themselves. I have also blogged (in passing) about why God told them not to spare anyone -- even seemingly innocent women and children -- and how we are to see them as types and shadows, the substance for us today being things that the devil places in our way to prevent us from inheriting what God has promised us. I will go into more details on this in a future post.

But let's now focus on the story in Josh 9, whereby the Israelites not only spared every single inhabitant of the city known as Gibeon, they even fought others who tried to fight them!

In Josh 9:3-6, we read about how the Gibeonites had heard about what happened to Jericho and Ai, and were afraid they would be the next to be wiped out. So they tricked the Israelites into entering a covenant with them, viz

3 When the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and to Ai,
4 they also acted craftily and set out as envoys, and took worn-out sacks on their donkeys, and wineskins worn-out and torn and mended,
5 and worn-out and patched sandals on their feet, and worn-out clothes on themselves; and all the bread of their provision was dry and had become crumbled.
6 They went to Joshua to the camp at Gilgal and said to him and to the men of Israel, "We have come from a far country; now therefore, make a covenant with us."

Gibeon was actually located in the vicinity, but the Gibeonites went to the extent of using worn-out wineskins, wearing worn-out sandals and clothes and carrying moldy bread to give the Israelites the impression they were from a far away land!

And because Israel entered into a covenant with them (and even though they were deceived into doing so), they were obligated to defend them, as recorded in Josh 10. That shows how serious covenants are to be taken.

Unlike contracts, which have get-out clauses, covenants have no get-out clauses. They are only ended when one of the party dies. Covenants also involves the shedding of blood. The covenant which God made with Abraham as recorded in Gen 15 involved a heifer, goat, ram, dove and pigeon being cut in half. The Mosaic covenant required that all males be circumcised (see Jn 7:22). The New Covenant was established by the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

And this holds true of Christian marriages. For those of the world, a marriage is a mere agreement between a man and a woman. If either one wants to opt out, he or she can just file for a divorce. But for us who are Christians, a marriage is a covenant, involving the shedding of blood when the groom penetrates and breaks the hymen of his bride.

At a typical wedding ceremony, the minister will ask the groom and bride these questions:

Do you take this man/woman to be your lawfully wedded husband/wife,
to love and to cherish, to have and to hold;
and do you promise, forsaking all others, to cleave to him/her and him/her alone,
for as long as you both shall live?

And these are the vows that are said by the couple:

I take you to be my spouse
to have and to hold from this day forward,
for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish;
till death do us part
According to God's holy ordinance I pledge you my faith

Note that these vows are not just exchanged between spouses, but are also made before God Almighty. All Christian marriages have a third party, and His Name is Jesus. What God has joined together, man is not to put asunder. The recent developments being reported in the press about Glenn Ong and Jamie Yeo seeing other people whilst still being married to each other is therefore something we should come together and intercede strongly on.

The covenant relationship between a husband and a wife is epitomised by that between Jesus and His church. Just like Jesus does not forsake His church no matter what, neither should a husband forsake his wife no matter what. Just like the church is not to forget her first love for Christ, neither should a wife place her love for anything or anyone else before that for her husband.

Let us pray for strong Christian marriages that truly reflect the covenant that we have with our Saviour. Amen?