Remembering Our Wedding Vows

Let’s reflect for a moment on wedding vows. On our wedding day, whether we stood before a large crowd of people, or simply before a justice of the peace, we spoke promises to each other that maybe took thirty seconds. When we did, what exactly were we promising to do? Well, we gave an oath that said to the world that we would do things like love and cherish our mate, remain faithful to them, be there for our spouse in sickness and in health, and to continue in marriage until death comes to one of us. It’s interesting to note that our wedding vows say nothing about our love being returned by our mate. Instead, we each just assumed we would love each other back.

If someone from another planet was investigating our culture and you were trying to explain marriage that being, what would you say? How would you define marriage and the vows you shared with your spouse on your wedding day? Try Mike Mason’s definition, the author of The Mystery of Marriage:

A marriage is not a joining of two worlds, but an abandoning of two worlds in order that one new one might be formed.

In this sense, the call to be married bears comparison with Jesus’ advice to the rich young man to sell all his possessions and to follow Him. It is a vocation to total abandonment. For most people, in fact, marriage is the single most wholehearted step they will ever take toward a fulfillment of Jesus’ command to love one’s neighbor as oneself. For every marriage partner begins as a neighbor, and often enough a neighbor who has been left beaten and wounded on the road of love, whom all the rest of the world has in a sense passed by. What a strange impulse it is which moves us to appreciate the tremendous value of this particular person in a way no other stranger ever has, to the point of committing ourselves totally to them in love, even unto death![i]

Here’s another way you could try and explain marriage. Al Janssen, author of The Marriage Masterpiece, shares these words about wedding vows:

When a man and woman stand before the minister, they are standing before God, and when they make their vows to each other, they are also making them to God, who will hold us accountable for what we promise. Based on that, we should commit that the word “divorce” will never be uttered with regard to our marriages, for divorce is simply not an option.

I have also concluded that marriage is intended to be the human relationship that reflects how committed God is to us. When God walked the blood path in covenant with Abraham, He committed Himself regardless of how well or poorly Abraham performed his part. History proves that God kept His commitment—and if anyone had reason to divorce, it was God.[ii]

A vow or a covenant has no escape clause.[iii] Unlike a contract involving just two people, this covenant involves three and is made before God. “It is a supernatural event, founded upon a mutual exchange of holy pledges.”[iv]

Back in ancient times, whenever a covenant was broken, death was the penalty.[v] While people may be able to negotiate their way out of a contract, there was no way to do this with a covenant. While none of us would advocate killing a spouse who breaks the marriage vows, we, the church, have certainly “relaxed” in our views regarding the importance of this covenant as God intended. Interestingly enough, Mike Mason shares that, although we may keep our wedding vows, it doesn’t necessarily mean we won’t break them.[vi] Again, a vow is different from a contract, resolution or promise.

[O]nce [a resolution is] broken, it must either be forgotten or made again. But a vow retains its power and validity irrespective of conduct. It is not like the signing of a legal contract and not like any other form of human promise. A person cannot promise to love another person: he can only vow to do so. A vow is, per se, a confession of inadequacy and an automatic calling upon the only adequacy there is, which is the mercy and power of God.

To keep a vow, therefore, means not to keep from breaking it, but rather to devote the rest of one’s life to discovering what the vow means, and to be willing to change and to grow accordingly.[vii]

If you married at a young age, you may not have realized the “eternity” of your vows. Hopefully, now you’re beginning to. Because God ordained marriage and gave us instructions in His Word to sustain us through it, there is nothing in marriage that He won’t be there to help you through. He’s the best part of your marriage to your spouse.

Wedding vows—thirty seconds to speak—a lifetime to keep!

(This article is taken from the Couple’s Workbook for a Bible study on Song of Solomon entitled, Passionate Partnership: A Couple’s Invitation to Intimacy.

[i] Mike Mason, The Mystery of Marriage: Meditations on the Miracle (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, 1985), 115.

[ii] Al Janssen, The Marriage Masterpiece: A Bold New Vision for Your Marriage (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001), 69.

[iii] Janssen, The Marriage Masterpiece, 64.

[iv] Mason, The Mystery of Marriage, 117.

[v] Janssen, The Marriage Masterpiece, 64.

[vi] Mason, The Mystery of Marriage, 117.

[vii] Mason, The Mystery of Marriage, 118.