Building Godly Marriages and 'God Kids' (Mal. 2:10-16)

Malachi added, “Don’t we have one Father?” God had gone a step further! He had revealed Himself not only as God—that could have been impersonal, a power unknown and unknowable, a mysterious and majestic God striking awe and fear in the hearts of His creation—but He had declared Himself eager for an intimate relationship with the creatures of His creation. God targeted a man called Abram, called him, commissioned him and instituted a covenant with him. God said, “Abraham, through you I will produce a people, a unique people, and through

this unique people, your descendants, all the nations of the world will be blessed.” That was what God decided for the Jewish people!

And He said to Abraham, “Your response to that promise will be very simple. I am going to provide for you; I’m going to protect you; I’m going to direct you; and I’ll give you all the resources that you need. You will be blessed beyond your wildest imagination! Your response, of course, will be ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and mind, and soul, and strength!’” That’s the essence of the covenant!

Now we see that the One Creator is eminently personal and committed to a divine/human relationship. God’s people will still be expected to reverence, fear and stand in awe of Him; but they will also realize that they can love Him, serve Him, worship Him, trust Him, and they can obey Him! They are people of the covenant! The One Creator has shown He is also One Father, and they can relate to Him in both capacities.

But notice something interesting! Malachi went on to complain about the people of God saying, “They have profaned this covenant of our Fathers by breaking faith with one another” (2:10). There was apparently an aspect of the covenant that was so significant that failing to keep it was tantamount to breaking the covenant! Jesus explained this aspect of the covenant. He said, “From the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother, and be united to his wife, and the two will become flesh! So they are no longer two, but One” (Mark 10:6-8). 

Those who are believers are members of the covenant people—not just created by God—but part of a family because God is their Father. Some of them—some men, some women—will now come together in another aspect of the covenant, a covenant of marriage in which they will make commitments amounting t “I commit myself to you, you commit yourself to me, and God will make us one!”

As the people of God began to break the covenant of marriage, their behavior amounted to profaning the covenant with God! But what is the connection between the two? How does breaking the one profane the other? Aren’t they two entirely separate issues? Apparently not, because Malachi said, “God is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth” (2:14). In other words, God is actively involved in the “covenant of marriage.”