Page 11 - The Marriage Covenant

I was working.
On many jobs I found I had bid too low. After paying for materials, labor, and other
expenses, I at times did not make any money. The thought suggested itself in my mind at
times to seek to renegotiate with the person who had hired me, but I never entertained the
thought. I remembered the following words of the Psalmist, as he answered the question
“Who will dwell in Your Tabernacle and dwell on Your holy hill?” The answer is supplied,
“He who swears to his own hurt and does not change” (Psalms 15:4).
I knew it was better for me to receive financial injury myself, than to fail to honor my
word. The unfaithfulness that is commonplace to man is foreign to the nature of Yahweh.
Yahweh does not merely sign a contract with man when He gives His word on a matter. He
seals it with an everlasting covenant that cannot be broken. What God has declared, He will
perform.

Ezekiel 17:24
“I am Yahweh; I have spoken, and I will perform it."

From mankind’s inception, God determined to fashion a creature in His own image,
after His own likeness. Mankind was designed to be a perfect reflection of the nature and
character of Elohim. Satan has succeeded in marring the image of man, and bringing forth
his own perverse image in the heart of mankind. When Adam fell, we were all in Adam, for
we were his seed. Consequently we also fell and became subject to the beast nature.
This lowly, corrupt beast nature is revealed in the curse placed upon the serpent. “On
your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat.” There is a great parable in these words. “On
your belly” signifies that the beast nature is driven by its appetites. It is always selfish,
seeking to satisfy the desires of the flesh. Eating dust is a symbol of craving fleshly things,
for the flesh of man was formed of the dust of the earth. Paul uses this same imagery to
describe Christians who crave evil things.

Philippians 3:18-19
For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they
are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their
belly...

When Adam submitted himself in obedience to the beast, he took on the beast nature.
As the apostle Paul declares, “Do you not know that when you present yourselves to
someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey?” (Romans 6:16).
Mankind fell into slavery to a lower, bestial nature when Adam transgressed in the Garden
of Eden. The character of God was no longer present in man. Man became “formless and
void” in a perfect parallel to the earth from which his body was fashioned. Man was
formless in that He lacked the image of God. He was void in that he was devoid of the Spirit,
for which he had been created to be a temple.
Due to sin, whenever God wanted to demonstrate to mankind that a promise was
given that could not be broken, He presented it in the form of a covenant. Mankind was
prone to lying, deception, selfishness, and unfaithfulness. Therefore, Yahweh instituted the
covenant that man might have a way of binding himself, and being held in perfect
accountability, to an agreement with another party. The only way out of this type of
compact was through death.