Marriage (Really) Matters

And so how we talk about marriage also matters

In The Meaning of Singleness, I argue that marriage and singleness are best viewed as two beautiful artworks that were created to be hung side by side. The master artist designed them so that the details, colour and texture of one would intentionally highlight the same in the other. The two artworks were made to make sense of each other.

In this sense, we cannot have a biblically faithful and nourishing theology of singleness without a biblically faithful and nourishing theology of marriage. And vice versa.

And so, the wonderfully ironic thing about all my years spent exploring a robust and distinctively Christian theology of singleness has been the growth in my appreciation for an understanding of and commitment to a robust and distinctively Christian theology of marriage.

How we Christians think and speak and teach and do marriage really, really matters.

And that’s why this clip below caught my attention.

Link to Instagram Reel

Here’s a transcript:

“When you walk down the aisle… and we’ve kind of changed it in our western culture… but when you walk down the aisle to a marriage, you’re walking to your death.

You know what happens at the altar? Sacrifice.

There is no covenant without something bleeding. I’m trying to join two things together, some stuff has to die. Some blood has to be shed.

You thought you were walking down here for comfort. You’re walking down here to be crucified. That’s what covenant is.

I tell spouses all the time when they’re getting married and my wife and I we have done counselling with them, I want to remind you of this, when you stand together before God, you are not making the covenant with your spouse. You’re making the covenant with God.

Your spouse is the recipient of the covenant. But I promise God. I promise God that I’m going to be faithful. I promise God that I’m going to keep showing up. I promise God, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, for sickness or in health. I promise God. I’m not promising you. I promised God. You’re the recipient of my relationship with God. And if my relationship with God is always right, we’re going to be all right.”

This clip kept popping up in my social media feeds this week. Each time it was introduced by a comment along the lines of:

“This might be the most beautiful description of marriage I have ever heard”

…or

“I’ve never looked at marriage like this. Wow.”

… or simply

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

It’s not hard to understand why the clip has been well received by many Christians, is it? Look at all the buzzwords:

Marriage.
Covenant.
Sacrifice.
Crucifixion.
Altar.
Promise.
God.

The clip is laden with Christianese.
This pastor is speaking our language.

But he’s not actually speaking our theology.

Let me be clear—there are parts of this clip which I appreciate. For example:

• He wants to encourage his listeners to understand that the world’s way of thinking about marriage is not God’s way.

• He’s correct that the marital relationship is indeed a covenantal one.

• He’s also correct that marriage is costly and involves self-denial

But when we stop allowing the Christianese to carry us away in sentiment—that is, when we take the time to actually consider the theological rationale and implications of what he is saying—well, things become less… correct.

The Marital Covenant and Sacrifice

Take, for instance, his claim that “There is no covenant without something bleeding”.

Certainly, certain biblical covenants involved the shedding of blood through sacrifice. This includes God’s covenant with Abraham (Genesis 15), with Israel (Exodus 24) and, most significantly of all, his new covenant made in Jesus’ blood (Matthew 26:28).

And yet, neither God’s covenant with Noah (Genesis 9) nor his covenant with David (2 Samuel 7) involved any sacrificial shedding of blood. So, it is simply not true that there can be no covenant without something bleeding.

But even more to the point, it is not true that, by divine design and intention, the marital covenant necessarily involves something bleeding, something dying.

Marriage was instituted by God within the perfect Garden. When Adam and Eve entered into the covenant of marriage, they did so before sin—and so also before sacrifice—entered the world.

The establishment of the original marital covenant (Genesis 2:24-25) did not require the shedding of any blood or the death of any person.

Now, you might think that I’m being rather pedantic here: “Sure, sure, not all covenants involve blood sacrifice. We get it. Give the guy a break. It’s not a big deal that he misspoke a little in the interest of making a point”.

But the point is that he was making a point about the nature of marriage itself.

His claim is that the covenant of marriage itself means “some stuff has to die”. That is not a biblically coherent understanding of the nature of marriage nor, ultimately, of covenant.

In Scripture, sacrificial blood primarily serves to ratify a particular kind of covenant: God’s gracious covenant with a fallen humanity. This culminates in Jesus ' sacrificial death on the cross, where his blood was “poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28). As the writer of Hebrews puts it:

Therefore [Jesus] is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant” (Hebrews 9:15)

Put another way, sacrificial blood appears where sin must be dealt with. This dealing with sin happens within a covenantal framework.

But human marriage was instituted before sin existed. This particular covenant belongs to the realm of creation, not of redemption. And so, it is not a covenant whose nature requires sacrifice, nor one that itself deals with sin.

The Marital Covenant and Crucifixion

And so Scripture does not describe walking to marriage as walking to your death. It does not describe marriage as a kind of crucifixion.

Yes, of course, we know that, in this fallen world, marriage involves mutual sacrificial love and mutual self-denial.

And yes, in this fallen world, a husband is to sacrificially love his wife as Christ has loved the church (Ephesians 5:25-28). But that is:

1. Because we live in a fallen world where love—including marital love—is difficult and painful and costly.

2. Because the grace of God teaches sinners why and how to love—including in marriage—in that difficult, painful and costly context.

3. Because, in that same context, a husband’s love for his wife is meant to point beyond this creation’s marriage covenant to the superior new-creation reality to which it bears witness.

Yes, marriage involves sacrificial love and self-denial, often expressed in unique and distinctive relational ways.

But this is the same pattern of love across all of Christian life. The language of denying oneself and taking up one’s cross applies to the life of Christian discipleship as a whole—not simply or primarily to marriage.

When the New Testament applies the language of crucifixion to us, it speaks to our union with and discipleship in Christ. All followers of Jesus have walked to their death in him and emerged into new life through him. And this reality happens when we are reborn… not when we get married.

This means that a Christian groom is not walking to his death on his wedding day any more than a Christian friend is walking to her death on any ordinary day.

We might summarise it this way: The cross does not define the creation ordinance of marriage itself; rather, the cross redeems sinners so that they might learn to love within marriage… as in all of life.

Messing this up results not only in a distorted theology of marriage but also a distorted theology of atonement and discipleship. That’s why it’s important to look beyond the “Christianese” to the theology—or flawed theology—underneath.

The Marital Covenant and its Participants

But another significant theological problem in the clip concerns the very participants of the marital covenant. In it the preacher asserts:

…when you stand together before God, you are not making the covenant with your spouse. You’re making the covenant with God. Your spouse is the recipient of the covenant. But I promise God. I promise God that I’m going to be faithful. I promise God that I’m going to keep showing up. I promise God, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, for sickness or in health. I promise God. I’m not promising you. I promised God.

It sounds good, doesn’t it? In fact, it sounds profound and compelling. It seems to emphasise the seriousness of marriage, the sacredness of marital vows and the significance of God to the marital covenant.

But here’s the thing: it’s not true.

In Genesis 2:24, the marriage covenant is clearly depicted as an interpersonal covenant between a man and his wife. Yes, God is the one who establishes the union (cf. Matthew 19:6). And the union is made before him. But the participants of the union itself, including all the promises it entails, are the man and the woman.

They are the ones who have been joined together and become one flesh.
They are the ones who have made promises to each other.
They are the ones who have pledged themselves to one another.

The covenant is made because of and in the sight of God. But it is made between them.

The Old Testament prophet Malachi confirms this:

“The LORD was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.” (Malachi 2:14)

The wife is the husband’s covenantal companion.
The Lord is the witness to that covenant.

Friends, getting this right matters. It matters because marriage matters.

According to the theology promoted in this clip, every marriage consists of two distinctly triangulated covenants: one between a husband and God, and the other between a wife and God. In each, the other spouse is an implication rather than an active participant. The love and obligation they share are mere secondary by-products. They cease to be a covenant partner of one another and become merely the beneficiary of someone else’s promise to God. They become a secondary player in their own marriage.

Such a view of marriage fails to reflect the profound beauty and significance of the marital relationship within this creation. But it also fails to reflect the profound beauty and significance of the eschatological relationship to come—in which Christ enters into the eternal covenant of marriage with his bride, the church.

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Friends, Scripture does not present marriage as a journey toward death but as a signpost toward life. It was instituted in the Garden as part of God’s good creation. And in the New Testament, it signifies something even greater: the eschatological union between Christ and his church.

When we misdescribe marriage in the ways this clip does, we do more than misuse a few theological buzzwords. We obscure the true beauty of what marriage is meant to reveal. Human marriage itself was never designed to be a crucifixion. It was designed to be a foretaste of the wedding feast yet to come.