The Biblical Design for Marriage: The Creation, Distortion and Redemption of Equality, Differentiation, Unity and Complementarity

Paul A. Twelker
Professor Emeritus of Psychology
Trinity College
Trinity International University

Chapter 5:  Marriage and Union

The Marriage Covenant

Marriage was viewed as a covenant in the Old Testament in the sense that it involved an oath and commitment as well as grace and friendship (Westcott, 1985). The marriage covenant is mentioned in several places:

And this is another thing you do; you cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and with groaning, because He no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. Yet you say, 'For what reason?' Because the Lord has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt with treacherously, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant (Mal. 2: 13-14).

Understanding will watch over you, to deliver you from the way of evil...from the adulteress who flatters with her words; that leaves the companion of her God; and forgets the covenant of her God (Prov. 2: 11, 16, 17).

"Then I passed by you and saw you, and behold, you were at the time for love; so I spread My skirt over you and covered your nakedness. I also swore to you and entered into a covenant with you so that you became Mine," declares the Lord God...Nevertheless, I will remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you. Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you receive your sisters, both your older and your younger; and I will give them to you as daughters, but not because of your covenant. Thus I will establish My covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, in order that you may remember and be ashamed, and never open your mouth anymore because of your humiliation, when I have forgotten you for all that you have done," the Lord God declares (Ezek. 16: 8, 60-63).

Scholars such as de Vaux (1965) assert that since divorce documents were drawn up before the Exile (cf., Deut. 24:1-3; Jer. 3: 8), it can be inferred that written marriage documents were also in use. Further, there was such a thing as the covenant lawsuit or case. For example, God brought a covenant lawsuit against Israel as documented in the book of Hosea. There were three charges: there was no knowledge of God (in the sense of an act whereby man admits the nature and will of God as these have been revealed in his inmost spiritual self), no mercy, loyal love or sense of obligation, and no faithfulness (Westcott, 1985). What Israel did was to take the covenant relationship which was personal and relational in nature, and transform it into a legalistic system that represented ritualistic religion. Thus, Hosea preaches to the people to return to a personal covenant relationship, one characterized by the three things that were missing.

In addition to the three characteristics mentioned above, there were other terms in the language of the covenant that established the fact that it concerned a relationship with a personal God, not legalistic rituals. The book of Deuteronomy speaks of a love that is characterized by obedience and fidelity (Deut. 4:37; 6: 4-5; 10:15). The term means more than friendship: it was a relationship that was initiated by the love of God and which expected reciprocity. Another term involved the showing of favor, forgiveness, graciousness, or protection (Jer. 31: 2-3; Ps. 111: 4). Other terms include pity (Ezek. 16:5) and friendship.

Westcott notes that one of the most significant ways that God revealed the relational nature of the covenant was by revealing His personal name in the covenant, "Lord". By providing us with a name, (not a title as might be supposed), God becomes accessible and definable, not abstract.

Thus by revealing His personal name, Yahweh was, as the covenant God of Israel, demonstrating that His relationship with the nation was not mystical, mechanical, or intellectual but deeply personal. Furthermore, as Yahweh subsequently revealed Himself through the prophets by the name of Yahweh, it would again be a reminder that Yahweh was a personal God who sought a personal relationship with His covenant people (Westcott, 1985, pg. 56).

Other designations that reveal the personal nature of the relationship include redeemer (Deut. 19: 6, 12; Lev. 25:47-49), and husband (Deut. 22: 22; II Sam. 11:26; Jer. 31: 32; Is. 54: 5). This later term, husband, not only connotes an exclusive relationship to another, it connotes a characteristic of tenderness of the shared relationship, as seen in passage concerning Leah and the birth of her sons (Gen. 29: 32-34; cf., Deut. 28: 56; Hosea 2: 16; Heb. 2: 18).

Westcott also points out other characteristics of the covenant relationship between God and Israel besides its intimacy. It was to be an exclusive relationship. The worship of idols was expressly forbidden, and it is this violation that is central to the prophets' use of the marriage analogy. The demand in the covenant was for nothing less than absolute loyalty (cf., Exodus 20: 1-6; Deut. 6: 4-5). In the Book of Kings, there is documented case after case where the kings of Judah and Israel worshiped gods and erected altars to practice idolatry.

Westcott (1985) notes a number of terms were used to describe Israel's idolatry: breach of covenant or break a covenant (Lev. 26: 14-16; 44-45);

• transgress or trespass a covenant (Hosea 6: 7; 8: 1);
• deal treacherously against (Hos. 5: 7; 6: 7);
• sin or miss the mark (Is. 1: 18);
• pollute, defile or profane (Mal. 2: 10);
• to be faithless Hos. 2: 10);
• devise evil against (Hos. 7: 15);
• defile oneself (Hos. 5: 3; 6: 10; Jer. 2: 23);
• reject (Hos. 4: 6);
• rebel (Hos. 13: 16);
• devote oneself to shame (Hos. 9: 10);
• turn away from Hos. 7: 14);
• iniquity or emptiness (Ezek. 18: 30);
• corrupt (Mal. 2: 8), and
• forget (Jer. 2: 32; Hos. 11: 6).

Two of the most interesting terms to describe Israel's unfaithfulness have clearly sexual connotations: commit adultery and fornicate. The first pictures Israel as Gomer, the faithless prostitute married to Hosea. Recall that the Hebrews had clear laws against a woman having intercourse with someone other than her husband; to picture Israel feminized as the wife in the relationship surely hit home! The second term, fornicate, refers here to flagrant and inappropriate sexual intercourse as in prostitution. The passage in Ezekiel 16 clearly depicts this sort of violation. Initially, God marries Israel, as indicated in Ezek. 16: 8, where God covers his bride with his robe. (Recall from our earlier discussion of Hebrew customs that to uncover nakedness denoted a sexual violation while covering nakedness makes sexual activity permissible [Biale, 1992]). The passage explicitly uses the legal language of marriage but changes the sexual component of marriage--intercourse--into the making of a covenant (cf., Biale, 1992). But note what happens. After God takes care of His bride (vs. 9-14), she forgets that her beauty and her abundance was a gift from God, and begins to prostitute herself and make sacrifices to idols she had created. She even gives the gifts God had given her to her lovers to obtain sexual favors from them, a clear picture of Israel paying tribute to Assyria and Egypt for protection.

I have gone into considerable detail on God's marriage relationship with Israel to illustrate the basis of the New Testament concept of the one-flesh relationship between Christ and the church. One of the most important things which I gain from this parallel is the striking difference between marriage on the one hand, and the one-flesh bond on the other. In the scriptures, marriage is presented in a cultural or societal context which has distorted certain aspects (e.g., polygamy, concubinage, double standard, unfaithfulness, domination of one spouse over the other, inequality, and so forth). Why didn't the prophets use the one-flesh bond to describe the relationship between God and His people? The answer is obvious: the one flesh bond image would not have adequately conveyed the message contained in the covenant lawsuit. The one flesh bond was reserved for the beautiful portrayal of a bond between a loving, faithful, committed couple. The first use of the term by Moses describes the union between two innocents who deliberately consented to each other to become man and wife in the presence of God and who established the one flesh union through sexual intercourse. In the Israel marriage metaphor, love is present, but it is one-sided: God is the faithful lover. Faithfulness is present, but it is one-sided: God only remains faithful. Generosity is present, but it is one-sided: only God is generous, so much so that God declared the beauty of Israel "perfect because of my splendor which I bestowed on you."

Notice also that in the Old Testament marriage metaphor, God is pictured as the husband. In the New Testament, Christ becomes the bridegroom. This again is a highly significant difference. In Christ, we are a "new creature: the old things passed away; behold, new things have come (II Cor. 5: 17). The New Testament uses the one flesh bond to note new beginnings. Essentially, we start from the very beginning, at the marriage ceremony, as a virgin "in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be holy and blameless" (Eph. 5: 27).

Other differences may be pointed out in the Old Testament and New Testament metaphors. God judged faithless Israel in her marriage while the church, as the bride of Christ, will see no judgment because her sins are covered by the blood of Christ. The judgment of Israel as depicted in Ezekiel is one of the most frightening judgments I have ever read (Ezek. 16: 23-63). It cannot be adequately appreciated without understanding the cultural context and the meaning of the terms associated with uncovering nakedness. God comes to his faithless wife after all her wickedness, and declared, "Woe, woe to you!"

Then God goes down the abbreviated list of her sins:

• she built altars to worship foreign gods at the head of every street and in every square;
• she spread her legs to every passerby;
• she prostituted herself with the Egyptians and the Assyrians, and even then she was not satisfied; she gave gifts to her lovers for sexual favors;
• she even sacrificed her own children and offered them to idols.

God then hands down the judgment. He allows the very same lovers with whom she had slept with to sexually violate her and rape her (uncover her nakedness) in the presence of others. But that is not all. Her former lovers will plunder and destroy and burn all that was precious to her. In essence, God summarizes His judgment on Israel by saying that He will bring her conduct down on her own head. And then after reminding Israel that her sins were even worse than her sisters, Sodom and Samaria, God closes His judgment with the most beautiful words imaginable--He will reestablish the covenant with her after He has forgiven her for all that she had done. Note that in the Old Testament, adultery was punishable by death. In God's merciful judgment, restoration is possible. Divorce was not within the realm of possibility since God thought of marriage as a lifelong relationship (cf., Hosea 2: 19-20). At the time of these writings, Jewish men had the option of divorcing their wives who committed adultery.

James suggests that Paul goes beyond the marriage covenant metaphor with respect to its permanence:

since the Hebrew bond could be dissolved if one of the parties did not keep to its engagements, not withstanding the long-suffering tolerance of the national God. The new covenant established by Christ with his Church in the mind of the Apostle was a permanent relationship (James, 1955, pg. 98).

Although on a human level, marriage was dissolvable, the marriage covenant between God and Israel was exclusive and based on the pledge to be faithful. Yet we see repeatedly through scripture that only God was faithful. Israel was unfaithful to the covenant as well as to God (cf. Hosea 11:12). Even though God writes a bill of divorcement, in the sense of a temporary separation or exile, never do we see Him deserting the covenant relationship permanently. Rather, we see an invitation from a gracious God to repent, with the subsequent forgiveness and restoration (Isaiah 54: 7-8; Ezek. 16: 60-63). The marriage covenant metaphor assumed that this relationship initiated by the love of God would be reciprocal--Israel would return the love (Westcott, 1985). James (1955) is correct in pointing out that Paul, in reference to the one flesh union, goes beyond the covenant marriage metaphor since the marriage illustrated unfaithfulness. However, the covenant marriage was considered permanent, a legally binding relationship which was not to be violated (Hosea 2: 19-20).

In summary, it is evident from a study of the Old Testament and other Near Eastern writings that marriage was considered a covenant. The purpose of the covenant was to establish an intensely personal, intimate, and exclusive relationship between two parties. The covenant relationship between God and Israel informs us of these personal elements in the covenant. These elements flow from the nature of God Himself.

We can use the marriage relationship between God and Israel as the basis for understanding how a man and a woman relate in marriage. Westcott (1985) provides several suggestions. First, adultery is not an option since the covenant demands exclusivity. Faithfulness in this context is not merely not committing adultery. Rather, the scriptures make it abundantly clear that faithfulness involves seeking after an intimate relationship--this is what it means to be in a covenant relationship. One way this is done is through the establishment and maintenance of open communication channels. Both parties must reveal themselves to each other. The remarkable thing here is that this mutual knowledge is analogous to sexual knowledge:

And I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. Then you will know the Lord (Hosea 2:20).

"Know" in this sense relates to knowing the inner secrets of one's own innermost being as well as that of the partner. Know means to have relations with someone (Westcott, 1985). It is one thing to have knowledge about something. For example, I can describe my computer in various ways: its dimensions, its capacity, its features. I can pass on this information to you. But this does not imply that I have knowledge of its nature. That requires an "intercourse" with my computer. Then I understand how pushing its buttons can cause it to crash, and erase my work and cause the hard drive to stop functioning! But I also understand how it makes my writing a joy, and my communication with friends and relatives so easy. Knowledge which is gained through sexual intercourse represents knowledge of the second type. It provides knowledge about the nature of myself, my partner's self, and the relationship between the two. This is why reading about sex in manuals cannot compare with the actual act.

The second idea Westcott (1985) suggests is that the intimacy of the marriage relationship will find its expression in behaviors that characterize three things: faithfulness, loyalty and compassion. A person in a covenant relationship will commit themselves to the best interest of their partner. In Ephesians 5: 28, we are reminded that husbands should love their wives as their own bodies because "he who loves his own wife loves himself." When love is given, it cannot help but be returned.

Thirdly, Westcott reminds us that when two people enter into a covenant, and pledge an oath to each other, the basis of that commitment is not the actions of the marriage partner but the person themselves (and his or her personal commitment). The responsibility of maintaining the marriage relationship belongs to each partner, regardless of what the other does.

Finally, Westcott suggests that failure in a marriage is possible if not inevitable. The Old Testament examples of Hosea and Gomer as well as the marriage covenant between God and Israel inform us that no marriage is perfect and that every marriage can be mended when the covenant is broken. In a covenant relationship, the willingness to forgive and to restore is paramount.

The One-Flesh Union as a Type of Blood Covenant

The Biblical theme of the covenant relationship can also be seen in the one-flesh union.. An examination of covenant relationships dating as far back as Adam and Eve reveals that the shedding of blood was involved as a symbol of the establishment of the covenant (Exodus 24:3-8). The ultimate covenant relationship is exemplified by the union between Christ and His Church made possible by the shed blood on the cross (I Peter 1:19). In the fifth chapter of Ephesians, we see that the one-flesh union bond between man and wife is symbolic of the covenant relationship between Christ and His Church.

’For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery--but I am talking about Christ and the church.

Murphy (2000) provides an explanation:

Even though intercourse is what initializes the act of becoming one, it is God that does the joining through this act. Intercourse is simply the catalyst, since the joining is an act of God and not an act of man, though man chooses whom he joins himself with and is therefore held responsible for the covenant he forms through this act. This act of God in making the couple one in conjunction with man's physical act is part of the "mystery" of the one flesh relationship referred to in Ephesians 5:32. We cannot explain exactly what takes place in the spiritual realm as a result of the sexual act. It remains a mystery, just as our oneness with Christ as a result of His death and resurrection remains a mystery.

The root of the word for covenant in Hebrew, berith, literally means "a cut where blood flows". The purpose of the covenant was to create the ultimate binding agreement without an escape clause.  Two parties dedicate themselves to granting to each other at all times loyalty, fidelity, protection, promotion and prosperity. The penalty for breaking the covenant would be death. Two rituals are described in the literature. One ritual involved the cutting of an arm and the mingling of the blood of each individual. Often, the blood would be caught in a cup of wine which would then be stirred and each individual would drink from the common cup. Usually, a loaf of bread would be broken and each individual would eat a piece. The remainder of the wine and the bread would then be shared with witnesses. The parties to the blood covenant would perceive themselves as being one identity with the other. Often, they would take a common last name or take each other’s last names, using a hyphen between them. Each individual would treat the wound in such a way that a scar would remain, thus giving public evidence that a blood covenant was entered into. Since the covenant was binding, there was a period of planning that preceded the making of the covenant, usually one year.

A second blood covenant ritual involved cutting or dividing animals in two The carcasses would then be used to create a pathway of blood that the individuals would walk through in their bare feet twice (cf., Jer. 34; Gen. 15). The first walk symbolized death--the individual had died, his former identity had ended, and all his possessions previously agreed upon now belonged to the other. The second walk symbolized a new birth and a new agreed upon identity. The seriousness of the blood covenant cannot be emphasized enough!

In Deuteronomy 22, we see the significance of the shedding of blood during the couple’s first occasion of sexual intercourse. If blood was not shed by the breaking of the hymen, as evidenced by an examination of the "tokens of virginity," the penalty was death by stoning since it was assumed that she was not a virgin and could not participate in the sealing of the covenant. Blood was part of the establishment of the covenant between a man and a woman, and this is symbolic of the blood of Christ that establishes the new covenant with us (McGrath, 2000).

Murphy states the case this way:

Sexual intercourse is a covenant activity. [In] the covenant ceremony...the two parties entering into covenant cut themselves and mingled their blood. When a woman loses her virginity she bleeds. This blood goes onto the man's penis. The man is in her blood, with her flesh on either side of him, just as the parties entering into covenant.

Each time that couple comes together again in sex, they are reenacting their covenant. It should stand as a constant reminder to them of the terms of that covenant, just as partaking of communion stands as a reminder of our covenant with Jesus (Murphy, 2000).

In summary, using the logic of the blood covenant, a one-flesh union (counterfeit or authentic, depending on the circumstances) is produced at the first act of sexual intercourse.  The one-flesh union between man and wife is a type of blood covenant, and is symbolic of the covenant relationship between Christ and His Church.  In both cases, the parties to the covenant dedicate themselves to granting to each other at all times and for the duration of their lives, one or more of the following:  loyalty, fidelity, protection, promotion and prosperity. In Old Testament times, the result of breaking the covenant would involve death, because of the seriousness of this bond.  However, the New Covenant has made this death warrant obsolete. 

In an authentic union, each subsequent act of intercourse celebrates the establishing of the union. Just as marriage celebrations in Jesus' time was a joyous celebration, sexual intercourse is meant to be a joy-filled experience where the promise to remain loyal and faithful, to protect, to provide for, and to promote and give credit to one another, is remembered.  This celebration should serve to uplift the participants since each is loved and accepted unconditionally by the other.  From a psychological perspective, the complexity of thoughts and feelings of admiration, closeness, fidelity, respect, acceptance, security, and love are reinforced by the pleasure of sexual intercourse and orgasm.  

Further Thoughts on the Relation Between Marriage and the One Flesh Union

As we approach the New Testament, we find Jesus continuing to use the marriage metaphor: Jesus called the Pharisees and Sadducees an evil and adulterous generation (Matt. 16: 4). Undoubtedly, Jesus had in mind the terms of the covenant lawsuit when he said this. Jesus quotes the words of Isaiah to his followers:

This people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men (Matt. 15: 8-9).

The Jews had turned the marriage covenant with God into ritualistic legalism and substituted tradition with intimacy. Further, they supplemented the Word of God with all sorts of false teaching and useless commentary. Repeatedly, Jesus warns his generation that they should have known what was meant by the scripture, "I desire compassion, and not a sacrifice" (Matt. 9: 13; 12: 7).

But Jesus does not stay with the marriage metaphor. He speaks of the bridegroom, and here He no longer speaks of God as husband but Himself. And in the book of Revelation and elsewhere, the church is referred to as the bride. This is nowhere more clearly alluded to than in Ephesians 5: 23-33. Piper (1953) points out four elements of this new relationship:

• the indissoluble unity of Christ with the church and all its members, which is characterized by "cleaving";
• the love of Christ which cannot be set aside by sin;
• the husband-wife relationship as an analogy of this unity between Christ and the church, where the mutuality of sexual knowledge corresponds to our full knowledge of God just as He already fully knows us (cf., I Cor. 13: 12) and physical procreation corresponds to God's provision of spiritual gifts which are germs from which new life proceeds, i.e., the fruits of the Spirit;
• the unity between Christ and the church cannot be thought of separately from each other.

It should be noted that the scriptures present a progressive unfolding of the way that God relates to humanity. The four elements listed above are not incongruous with the marriage covenant between God and Israel. Both metaphors attach meaning to the sexual union beyond simple genital release. The sexual union in the God-Israel marriage metaphor, according to Piper:

"pre-figures the secret meaning of Christ's union with the Church. Hence it can be used as a simile representing God's relationship with His people, without lowering or lessening the dignity of this relationship, and , as a consequence, new light falls from the simile of the divine marriage upon human sex life" (Piper, 1953, pg. 83).

As compared with pagan religions, which portray gods having sex together, the Bible always regards sex as limited to human beings living in the present. Yet the Bible uses the one flesh union as a way of giving us a glimpse into the secret of how God draws near to humanity. Because we distort sex, it is often difficult to see why God emphasizes the sexual union, but as we allow God's truth to enlighten us, the distortion we place on sex fades enough to allow us fresh insights into our relation with God, first of all, and with our spouse, or future spouse, secondly.

Hulme (1972) considered the one flesh union to be equivalent to marriage, or at least what it means to be married. Piper makes it abundantly clear that the two are not equivalent. In Piper's treatment of sex, sex life and sex fellowship, the one flesh union as a divinely ordained and sustained entity serves as the basis for their understanding. Marriage is seen as a socially evolved and evolving institution which was created by humans to help stabilize intrinsically instable sexual relationships, the instability caused by sin and its distorting and disrupting influence in our lives. Once it is realized that both the one flesh union and marriage are topics of discussion in the scriptures, and we are able to discern which of the two are the focus in the passage in question, then we are rightly dividing the Word. Marriage takes many forms and arrangements, depending on the society and its mores. But taking the Ephesians passage on the union between Christ and the church as the basis of describing marital principles, Piper gives three principles:

• Marriage is an indissoluble covenant enduring throughout life.
• It is an exclusive fellowship between two persons.
• The spouses enter into an obligation to each other in respect of all that they are and possess. (Piper, 1953, pg. 158).

This list of principles is notable in that love does not appear to be a prerequisite to marriage. Taken at face value, this list speaks of marriage more as a covenant involving two persons in mutual service to each other than as a bond of love. These principles are consistent with what we know of the early Israelite customs of the parents marrying two previously unacquainted teenagers. These principles are consistent with the notion of the "work" of marriage: individualities and idiosyncrasies are seen as tasks or problems to be solved, not as things which preclude marriage or cause its demise. However, in light of what we learned about the covenant marriage between God and Israel, it must be recalled that the covenant presumed an intensely personal, intimate and exclusive relationship. Since God's nature is love, we cannot conclude that marriage does not involve love, although because of sin and its consequent distorting influence, the love relationship could be one-sided. Israel was condemned for lacking loving kindness while God's love never failed.

Bailey (1952) also distinguishes between marriage and the one flesh union:

Every true institutional marriage is simply an embodiment or formal expression of the mysterious henosis established by man and woman in the consummation of their love. Between marriage and 'one flesh' there is, and can be, no antagonism; they are distinct but not independent, inseparable but not synonymous, and only appear as conflicting concepts when attention is concentrated (as it has been in the past) upon the legal, institutional aspect of marriage to the virtual exclusion of the ontological (Bailey, 1952, pg. 46).

...the elaboration of religious and civil forms by which the community in question seeks to ascertain the bona fides of the parties, and signifies its approval and recognition of the union they contemplate...do not establish the henosis; only the man and the woman themselves can do that (Bailey, 1952, pg. 68).

Piper makes it clear that "the marriage bond is not consummated by means of a legal or ecclesiastical act, both of which are merely concomitant features, but rather by the mutual consent of the couple to belong together for life" (Piper, 1953, pg. 169-170). A couple who resolve (will) between each other to form a permanent union is enough to form a marriage bond.

...in God's sight the marriage was concluded at the moment when the two persons gave consent in their hearts to their mutual desires. Hence even the ceremony in church does not make the marriage more in accordance with God's will than it was before the solemnization. The ceremony is only God's blessing pronounced upon the marriage by the Church, and the solemn seal placed on this bond as a Christian bond in the eyes of the Church (Piper, 1953, pg. 168).

The implications of these definitions and conditions are mind-boggling in relation to sexual ethics. Discussion of these implications will be reserved to a later time.

Reflections

I am impressed by humankind's propensity to ritualize relationships. The sad thing is that when relationships are ritualized, obedience and fidelity often take second place to the more mundane matters. How have you ritualized your personal relationship with God? Have religious forms encouraged or discouraged a truly personal, loving relationship with your Creator/Redeemer?  When is the last time you have soaked in the wonder of how God's covenant relationship with you involves his loyalty, his fidelity, his protection, his provision, and his unending interest in your development?  And when is the last time you have inventoried the measure of your love, loyalty and fidelity to Him?  Thank God, He does not insist on a balanced account!   

As I reflect on the marriage covenant between God and Israel, I am convicted, no, shattered by the realization that my relationship with God simply does not match the quality of His relationship with me. I honestly can not say that my relationship with God is exclusive. Things somehow get in the way of that. I tried an interesting visualization exercise that I recommend to you. I pictured God outlining the ways that I had broken the covenant with Him. I used the Old Testament passages mentioned in this chapter to help the process along. I then tried to think of the ways my life had reflected God's judgment of my sins. This part was difficult because I really wanted to get on with the process of forgiveness and restoration. It was also difficult because I had a hard time distinguishing between that which I brought on myself and those judgments handed out by God. I finally decided that God was merciful to me. The best part of this visualization was picturing God telling me He loved me, accepted me, and forgave me.

I am impressed by the fact that our interpersonal relationships are flavored to a great extent by our covenant relationship with God. Our spirituality does not exist and function in a vacuum. I encourage you to reflect on your covenant relationship with God and how the quality of that affects your interpersonal relationships!

Readers of this document are permitted to download any portion provided "all such use is for . . . personal noncommercial benefit." Please cite the document as follows: Twelker, Paul A. (1998). The Biblical Design for Marriage: The Creation, Distortion and Redemption of Equality, Differentiation, Unity and Complementarity. Deerfield: Trinity International University. Internet resource available at URL: <http://www.kamsandsinfo.com/Professional/BDFMChap5.htm> (last updated February 09, 2008 ).  Copyright © 1998, 2002 Paul A. Twelker.

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