By Jennifer Potter

              Before subsequently interweaving throughout the covenants, marriage and by extension family, find their inauguration within the Creation Account.  Over the course of the first two chapters in Genesis, covenant relationship defines not only God’s providential relationship to His creatures, but He also establishes covenant relationship as the means by which His image bearers are connected to one another.  In man’s brief period of innocence, their beneficent Creator provides for them the most fundamental of human social relationships – covenantal marriage- establishing from their union the plan of covenant family as the means by which humanity fills the earth. Commentator Matthew Henry observed that “marriage is one of only…two ordinances instituted in [man’s] innocency” (1). Highlighting the significance of covenantal ties between humanity, God establishes the fundamental social institutions of covenantal marriage and by extension the covenantal family as a part of His “very good” creational order establishing for all time the norms by which society best functions.

              In studying the social structures instituted at Creation, Biblical standards for marriage and family emerge in their covenantal context. In general, the first chapter in Genesis gives an overview of the Creation week when on the final day of creative activity, God determines to form His image bearer giving humans a crowning significance as the Psalmist declares, “You have made him [mankind] a little lower than the heavenly beings, and crowned him with glory and honor” (ESV, Psalm 8:5).   Upon his image bearers, the Creator declares blessing using language common in biblical covenantal structures, the ‘is-ought’ blessing, meaning an assured promise is stated but a responsibility requiring active participation also is presented.  This blessed responsibility reads, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion “…over every living thing that moves on the earth,” giving covenantal responsibility to the man and woman to fill the earth with other image bearers that they may care for the Creation as their Creator cares for them (ESV, Genesis 1:28).  Through God’s explicit design and blessing, the covenantal family is made the primary means of both filling the earth and caring for it.  By the end of the chapter, the fundamental relationships of marriage and family have been established as part of a covenantal and well-managed created order.  

               These fundamental relationships are further expounded upon in the extended retelling of man’s creation in Genesis 2.  This account gives more details on the covenantal nature of the relationship between the man and the woman.  In summary, God creates the first man Adam giving him substance formed out of the dust, existence through His breath, residence in the garden, blessings through provisions and beauty, employment through garden keeping and animal classification, relationship with Himself through covenant, and covenantal sacraments in the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Having situated man in a perfect garden, God relates to Adam, who as Matthew Henry asserts dwelt in an easy and honorable state, placing this man under the Covenant of Works and giving him full ability to carry out his responsibilities in paradise (2,3).

              However, even in these ideal conditions, God saw that Adam needed a helper of like substance for to be alone was not good (ESV, Genesis 2: 18). In Hebrew the word helper literally means “one who helps” with the Greek Septuagint equivalent translating directly as “a helper” (4,5).  This helper was not to be a subordinate being but one able to provide for the man that which God Himself recognized as needful even in His good Creation.  Of note, the Greek word for helper used in this account is also used in the New Testament referring to God Himself as Helper suggesting the strong positive role man’s helpmeet was given.  Hebrews 13:6 reads: “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear” [italics mine] (ESV). So, God planned to provide man with relationship not only to Himself but also to a strong helper equal in honor to the man and indeed both distinct and yet a part of man; for God does not again use the dust of the earth to fashion this helper. Rather, He uses the body of the man.  Taking the flesh of the man by using a rib from his side God creates one equal in significance, one to be beloved and protected at his side (1).  In a very real sense, they are of one flesh.  Word study is again valuable here. This word flesh is from the Hebrew word meaning “flesh or blood relations” with the Greek Septuagint equivalent meaning “flesh (the soft substance of the living body, which covers the bones and is permeated with blood) of both man and beasts” (6,7). These words shed light on the deep relational connection established by the Creator’s hand between His image bearers. In the account, following the formation of man’s help meet, the Lord leads the woman in presentation to the man almost as if He is “the officiating minister” joining the two together by sovereign appointment (8). Here, in the fresh beauty of the garden, the Creator positioned Adam and his wife under the marriage covenant which in a sense fits or at least reflects the definition of covenants God initiates between Himself and humankind: “a bond-in-blood sovereignly administered” (9). This similarity in covenantal elements emphasizes the inter-relationship between the vertical covenant and the horizontal covenant established at creation. In this first horizontal covenant, the Sovereign Creator initiated, arranged, and oversaw the structure establishing it at the dawn of humanity’s existence placing marriage under man’s covenantal responsibilities to Himself while providing for man’s needs.

              After the presentation of the newly formed covenantal helper, the man responds in joyful acknowledgment of God’s provision in this one woman declaring her “…. bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (ESV, Genesis 2:23) acknowledging God’s masterful answer to his need for companionship and succor.  Matthew Henry comments in “…designing Adam a help meet for him, he made him one wife…And wherefore did he make but one woman for one man?  It was that he might seek a godly seed- a seed of God…a seed that she bear the image of God , be employed in the service of God, and be devoted to his glory and honor” (10)  In this, the second chapter of Genesis, God establishes the marriage covenant between one man and one woman, a creational ordinance acknowledged by Christ in the New Testament and tied to the one flesh union between the man and woman who are given the responsibility to have children instituting the covenant family for as Henry also concludes “the raising up of godly seed…is one of the great ends of the institution of marriage” (10). Therefore, after the creation of the woman, God directly inaugurates not only the marriage covenant but also the family lines by which man’s ongoing covenantal responsibilities will move forward. Through the marriage covenant and this end of bearing seed, Adam and his wife will carry out the blessed responsibility of being fruitful, filling the earth, and having dominion.

              Being established prior to the Fall, covenantal marriage, with the resulting family, stands out as the first horizontal covenant inaugurated in Scripture.  Adam, as the representative head of humanity (11) and the woman as his help meet are covenanted together by God’s explicit design that together they may obey the stipulations of the covenant with their God and fulfill their responsibilities toward one another participating in the blessing of filling the earth with godly seed who will care for the creation.  God as covenant initiator, sets forth in the creation account the pattern for man’s first covenant with woman in marriage.

              This covenantal pattern continues as a fundamental aspect of subsequent covenants after man’s fall into sin such that the marriage covenant and the family born from it place covenantal responsibilities upon all mankind. Such subsequently repeated covenantal responsibilities apply not only to a man and woman in a marriage covenant but also to any group of men and women as a church or society in regards to honoring and protecting this marriage covenant. In the New Testament, Jesus[LP1]  places this responsibility upon humanity in general: “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (ESV, Matthew 19: 6b).  A society’s repudiation of God’s fundamental covenantal design puts them at odds with the Creator of the Universe- a very precarious place indeed.

1. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%202&version=NIV, Accessed July 9,2023.
2. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%202&version=NIV, Accessed July 9, 2023
3. Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter VII:II. and IX:II. Trinity Hymnal (2021), (p. 852 & 854). 20^th Edition. Great Commission Publications.
4. Old Testament Hebrew Lexical Dictionary developed by Jeff Garrison for StudyLight.org. Copyright 1999-2023. All Rights Reserved, Jeff Garrison, Gdansk, Poland. https://www.studylight.org/lexicons/eng/hebrew/05828.html, Accessed July 11, 2023.
5. Old / New Testament Greek Lexical Dictionary developed by Jeff Garrison for StudyLight.org. Copyright 1999-2023. All Rights Reserved, Jeff Garrison, Gdansk, Poland.   https://www.studylight.org/lexicons/eng/greek/998.html,  Accessed July 11, 2023.
6. Old / New Testament Greek Lexical Dictionary developed by Jeff Garrison for StudyLight.org.  Copyright 1999-2023. All Rights Reserved, Jeff Garrison, Gdansk, Poland. https://www.studylight.org/lexicons/eng/greek/4561.html, Accessed July 9, 2023.
7. Old Testament Hebrew Lexical Dictionary developed by Jeff Garrison for StudyLight.org. Copyright 1999-2023. All Rights Reserved, Jeff Garrison, Gdansk, Poland.  https://www.studylight.org/lexicons/eng/hebrew/01320.html, July 10, 2023.
8. Edith, D. (1963). Family Living in the Bible (p. 5). Harper and Row Publishers.
9. Robertson, O. P. (1980). The Christ of the Covenants (p. 15). Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company.
10. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Malachi%202&version=NIV, accessed July 9, 2023
11. Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 16. Trinity Hymnal (2021), (870). 20^th Edition. Great Commission Publications.

By Jennifer Potter

              “The people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid” (Ezra 3:11b, ESV). God’s people celebrated when the foundation of the temple was restored after their long captivity.  In like fashion, we earnestly desire to restore our foundations (Is. 58:12), particularly the institution of the family.  In order to meet this challenge, we must return to explicit covenantal thinking.  We have to our own detriment oft neglected to nurture covenantal thinking; we have ignored the inherent covenantal structure of God’s created order. This failure has led to the significant erosion of foundational truths. Because covenants define relationships in Scripture between the Godhead, between God and creation, between God and man, and between man and man, reestablishing the covenantal foundations in our thinking must undergird any successful return to Biblical cultural foundations. 

               At the most essential level, a covenant is that which binds the parties involved into a relationship (1, p 6).  Samuel Rutherford takes the concept a step further when he asserts, “A covenant speaks something of giving and taking, work and renewal, and mutual engagements between parties…” (2, p 49).  In other words, the covenantal created order involves duties and obligations between parties. While a variety of covenantal relationships exist in Scripture, God has set forth the principles and obligations of those relationships in His Word.   By adhering to the covenantal structures inherent in the created order, we begin the process of renewal so desperately needed and like Paul become “the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing” (II Corinthians 2:15-16, ESV).

              From the beginning, God has related to His creation – even the night and the day – through covenantal structure (Genesis 9:10, 12, 17; Hosea 2:18; Jeremiah 33:25).  Rutherford acknowledges that God makes a kind of covenant with not only day and night but also the beasts, urging that they fulfill His commands faithfully (2, p. 53) In addition, God from the beginning related to His image bearers through formal covenant. “By initiating covenants, God never enters into a casual or informal relationship with man” (1, p.7-8).  In fact, all mankind, whether they acknowledge it or not, are in a relationship with their Creator under a covenantal framework. Rutherford asserts that “for God to walk among a people and be their God is to be a Covenanting God to them…” (2, p. 314). Of the Christian, Paul writes in II Corinthians 6:16 that “we are the temple of the living God.” He goes on in this chapter to use the language of Leviticus 26:11-12 for the blessings of the covenant and the language of Jeremiah 31:33 and 32:28 in regards to the New Covenant promises. Covenant defines God’s relationship to man in both Old and New Testaments. 

              Furthermore, the Bible subsumes covenants between men under the Creator-man covenantal relationship, connecting all relationships to Himself.  One such example can be found in coordinating Ezekiel 17 and Chronicles 32.  In these passages, King Zedekiah makes a covenant with King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon agreeing to be a vassal ruler under him and swearing to the God of Israel to keep this covenant.  However, eventually he breaks his covenant agreement by secretly turning to Pharaoh in Egypt for help against his overlord. Through Ezekiel God declares, “I will spread my net over him [Zedekiah], and he shall be taken in my snare, and I will bring him to Babylon and enter into judgment with him there for the treachery he has committed against me” (Ezekiel 17:20). Here we see that in breaking the man-to-man (horizontal) covenant, Zedekiah is guilty of treachery against God Himself.  Horizontal covenants are encompassed as subordinate elements in the Creator-man covenant.  

              Additionally, at creation we see instituted the first horizontal covenant, that of marriage-the most fundamental of communal ties. Amid the Creation account, the relationship between the man and his wife is established in covenantal terms with duties and obligations set forth by the Creator (Genesis 1-2).  “…The man and the woman, according to God’s own stated intention for them, were created in a just and holy relationship in order that they might mirror the Creator God to his creation,” (3, p 448). Together, in their creaturely perfection, they were a correspondent reflection of the Triune character of God Himself (p. 448) and their duties to their Creator included the duties to one another (3, p.429).  While their relationship is established before the Fall, it is also confirmed after the Fall (Genesis 1-3; Matthew 19:4-7).  Further, in these first chapters of Genesis, we see the covenantal ties of family established: God commands Adam and Eve to ‘”be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28). Herein covenantal obligations of this relationship exist and are fleshed out more specifically over the course of God’s revealed Word in passages such as Deuteronomy 6:6-7, Exodus 12:26-27, Psalm 78:5-6, Ephesians 6:1-4, and Colossians 3:20-21. Because God has established His relationship with man via covenant, man’s inter-relational covenants in all their interactions depend upon the covenantal stipulations of the relationship man has with his Creator.

              Because of this created dependence, we must begin the work of rebuilding a correct outworking of family relationships within God’s created order by returning to covenantal thinking – both God-ward and man-ward.  A foundation of covenantal thinking will help us to frame the positive vision for the family and to combat the negative attacks on this God ordained institution.  In doing so, may we be found stewards of the Word of God, able “to discern what is pleasing to the Lord” (Eph 5:10), faithfully understanding and applying truth so that the foundations of covenantal family life may be restored leading to a renewed culture.

Bibliography:

1. Robertson, O. P. (1980). The Christ of the Covenants. Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co.
2. Rutherford, S. (2005). The Covenant of Life Opened (D. C. M. McMahon, Ed.). Puritan Publications.
3. Reymond, D. R. L. (1998). A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith (2nd ed.). Thomas Nelson Publishers.
4. Bible Translation, English Standard Version.