Standard
marriage vows insert “forsaking all else and keeping myself only
unto you” in between “leave father and mother,” and “Cleave
to your wife/husband.” It is an important inclusion. Looking back
and saying please learn from my mistakes, I realized that I had
conformed to family patterns and become something of a workaholic,
actually a Christian workaholic, even though that was not my
profession. I was desperate to “get it all together” as we used
to say. I was of course blind to what I was doing, as was my father!
The point of the vow is not that the couple be isolated, but rather
to emphasize that after God, spouse and family need to come as our
first priority. Since we are to love God with all of our heart, mind,
soul and strength, and our neighbour as ourselves, and since see our
spouse is our closest neighbour, we need to love them this way,
The
illustration of seeing our relationship to God on a triangle with God
at the top, and ourselves on opposite sides of the triangle is
helpful. The point is that the closer we get to God, the higher we
are on the triangle, and so the closer we are not only to God, but
also to each other! But we cannot get closer to God if, as part of
“forsaking all else,” we do not forsake the selfishness of our
sinful nature. We are to put to death the old man that wars against
the Spirit (Galatians 5:17; Romans 8:13). Our primary attitude to our
spouse (after pleasing God), needs to be one of pleasing each other.
But it is always something of a struggle to get our devotion to God
and to our spouse in the right balance (see 1 Corinthians 7:34). The
husband is instructed to love his wife as Christ loved the church and
gave himself for her (Ephesians 5:25). Perhaps this is given to the
husband because of the two, he is more likely to need to be told?
The
Greek lexicon says of the word translated “cleave,” is that it
means “to glue to, glue together, cement, fasten together; hence
to join or fasten firmly together.” We will be looking a little
closer next day, at the phrase “one flesh,” but this morning I
just want to say that the phrase emphasized the intention that the
“cleaving” be permanent. Jesus in He teaching on divorce, makes
this very point about the intended permanence of the union by quoting
the Genesis passage in Matthew 19:4-6. It is also clear that divorce
is violence, in that it tears the one flesh. In particular, it
cannot be done without consequences. So then part of cleaving is
setting our hearts and wills on the determination to not leave no
matter what. In particular we covenant to cleave “for better or for
worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, forsaking
all else.”
Father,
many of us have utterly failed in both leaving and in cleaving well,
also in getting into the one flesh out of order. In divorce we tear
not only our “one flesh,” with our spouse, but we also
essentially tear the children too. No wonder You hate divorce
(Malachi 2:16). But
Lord I want to thank You Lord this morning of Your principle/promise,
that that when we stand in the gap by turn from our rebellions to
love You and to obey Your commandments, then You start restoring
things, not only for us, but for the generations that follow (Exodus
20:6) in Jesus Name Amen
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