The Marriage Covenant
President Clark D. Webb
BYU 18th Stake President[1]
The Marriage relation is … without beginning of days or end in years; … it lays the foundation for worlds, for angels, and for the Gods; for intelligent beings to be crowned with glory, immortality, and eternal lives. In fact it is the thread which runs from the beginning to the end of the holy Gospel of Salvation…; it is from eternity to eternity.
Brigham Young
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I come before you with a broken heart and a contrite spirit. If I come with any other attitude, I will not be able to help you, and my whole desire today is to be a blessing to your life together as a married couple.
Several weeks ago the impression came to me strongly that I was to deliver to the members of the wards in the stake an explicit message about the meaning of the covenant we undertake in connection with temple marriage. At one time, I proposed within myself to put it off until Fall Semester when I thought it would be more appropriate, as more members would likely be present. However, it was made clear to me that no postponement was in order. Thus, I have striven over these weeks to learn, from the Lord, the appropriate message to deliver. Prayer has been a part of my preparation, as has fasting.
As I thought about my remarks, I was led to consider Jacob’s sermon as recorded in the Book of Mormon: He declared that “having first obtained my errand from the Lord,”[2] he would now “declare unto [the Nephites] the word of God.”[3] He also affirmed that with the “help of the all powerful Creator of heaven and earth [he could] tell [them] concerning [their] thoughts.”[4] My situation today is similar to Jacob’s. And I do understand what I am saying with those words. Further, Jacob was grieved in his heart because of the burden of part of his message which was to speak, “in the presence of the pure in heart,” of “wickedness and abominations,” by which he meant principally sexual sin.[5]
Although I do not know all of the reasons for the prompting of the Spirit regarding my message, I do know of several occurrences involving former or current stake members that make it pertinent. For example, I remember an interview I had when I had been bishop (in the 139th ward of this stake) for less than a week. A young man came to me and said, “Bishop, I don’t love my wife anymore.” I waited expectantly. Finally he announced that he thought it best that they get a divorce. He offered as a kind of excuse that he had not had a “revelation” during the temple ceremony confirming the priesthood ordinance of sealing.
Just recently a young woman called me and said that she and her husband were probably going to “split,” as she put it, after a year or less of marriage. They were “both agreed,” she told me, as if that were sufficient reason; besides, he had just been the subject of a church disciplinary council and she could see no reason to continue their union.
A third recent story: A young mother was at home tending a small child. When her husband did not come home at the expected time, she went up on campus to find him. She did. He was wandering around holding hands with a married woman from another BYU stake.
A final story. Within the last few days a former member of our stake sought me out in desperation. She and her husband have been transient for some time as they prepare to move back east, and she had no one to turn to. She was distraught as she told me with emotion that her husband was asking her to engage in sexual activity about which she felt extremely uncomfortable. Apparently her refusal to do what he asked had provoked him over time to accuse her of not loving him with the ardor that she owed him.
What is going on here? I believe these are good people who have been misled; they have been thoughtless; they have not actually considered nor pondered the meaning of the marriage covenant they made under the authority of the Holy Priesthood. Rather, they have succumbed to the lure of a fairy-tale—a tale to the effect that the sole key to a happy LDS life is to be worthy of the temple and be married in it. Then, the story goes, God, seemingly almost in gratitude for the couple’s willingness to be sealed in the temple and perhaps because of their singular worthiness, will bless the resulting union such that a kind of romantic haze will envelop them as they walk arm in arm through the years, parents to inevitably righteous children, finally to be whisked into the celestial kingdom.
Whether that tale is written about in silly fiction or spoken fervently in Relief Society or priesthood meetings, it is a false story. It is false because it demeans the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. The tale acknowledges a mighty effort and sacrifice from him, but does not require a like labor of us. But, do you believe he performed his atoning works so that we could be ‘funneled’, as it were, into the highest existence without faith on our part, without our own sacrifices, without our own showing forth of love? If we will just take a bit of thought regarding the story, we will see its fundamental error and not be misled.
Now, as this fiction demeans the Savior, it also diminishes the significance of our covenants with Deity. It is as if there were a kind of “trick,” so to speak, to our eternal happiness: You merely have to be married in the temple, to have the ordinance performed; after that you coast into a celestial state. Or, in an alternate version, if you do not get a revelation at the time of the marriage ordinance, you are not bound by the covenant.
Incidentally, I understand that not everyone in this congregation may have been married in the temple. But undoubtedly you desire greatly that blessing; thus, you’ll have it eventually. So my message is for you, too.
What is the truth about this marriage ordinance, then? The truth is that you and I covenant with the Lord as part of the ceremony and are thereby bound to think, say and do certain things and to avoid thinking, saying, and doing others. The key point is that you and I covenant individually, with the Lord. The officiator does not say, “Do the two of you agree to this?” He says, “Brother Smith, do you…?” Then he says, “Sister Jones, do you…?” Thus it is that the Lord can say in the 42nd section of the Doctrine and Covenants: “Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave [that is ‘join yourself’] to her and none else.”[6] This covenantal reality also gives power to the Lord’s teaching in Matthew, chap. 19, vs. 5-6: “For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.”[7] (The Greek means “divide” or “separate.”) Have you thought of that? We are commanded to love our spouse. It isn’t a matter of guaranteed righteousness through the mere performance of the ordinance, nor is it a case of our loving him or her as long as it is convenient; nor is it dependent on our “feeling” about it—rather, our temple marriage is a matter of obedience to commandments. You chose to be married in the temple; now you are obligated to the commandments that follow.
That is why the foolishness of the men and women of whom I spoke at the beginning is so dramatic, so potentially destructive!
That covenant is not dormant in the absence of a personal revelation that the ceremony is efficacious. The covenant comes into force when the ordinance is performed acceptably before the Lord. The only questions are:
- Was the ordinance performed by one authorized to act in the name of Deity?
- Did he perform it precisely as it is to be performed?
If the answer is yes to each of those questions, you are obligated to fulfill it. Is it conceivable that for some Latter-day Saints that comes as pretty shocking news?
Now, before I remind you of what the Lord requires of you, given the reality of that covenant, I remind us all of the promise of it: By it we are enabled to come forth in the first resurrection to “inherit thrones, kingdoms, principalities and powers, dominions, all heights and depths;”[8] we inherit the blessings of Abraham, the ability to have progeny (not only in this life), the unlimited blessings of the priesthood (granted to both of you, of course, not just the man), and more. Whereas baptism is the covenant of salvation, the new and everlasting covenant of marriage is the covenant of exaltation. Think of it, brothers and sisters!
Well, those are the promised blessings. Now, here is what honoring the covenant requires of us: “Cleaving” to your spouse means to hold him or her sacred—I’ll put it that strongly. You can do nothing—no matter how trivial it may seem in the eyes of those who do not comprehend the greatness of the covenant—that causes your spouse to sorrow or mourn. You cannot licitly even gaze longingly on another. I don’t mean lustfully only. I mean romantically, admiringly. You cannot linger over a handshake with someone of the opposite sex. You cannot fantasize about the possibility of a change in your circumstances—about how another would fulfill your needs more adequately. You cannot seek for “missing” excitement in magazines or books or movies. You cannot speak in a mocking or ridiculing manner to her or him. And you certainly cannot walk around hand in hand with someone other than your spouse.
All of these and a thousand other “small” actions can initiate a chain of events that ends in your forfeiting the marvelous blessings I remarked earlier. The chain of events can become a chain, indeed: iron fetters that impede or even halt your eternal progress.
The Parable of the Dandelion
Near a table on the south edge of campus where I go often to read and eat my lunch, a large weed, a dandelion, has broken through the surface of the asphalt with which the area is paved. It is unsightly and even destructive, as it has actually displaced a large piece or two of asphalt. I looked at the weed several weeks ago and wondered how it came to be there, in the middle of the pavement. I realized that earlier a tiny seed must have become lodged in a minute fissure within the asphalt and, against all odds, had received a bit of moisture and enough sunlight to enable it to send down roots and send up stalks and leaves. I asked our high councilor, Brother Bill Hess, chairman of the Botany and Range Science Department, to estimate the size differential between the seed and the full-grown plant. He actually weighed a seed and a plant and found the following: The whole plant weighed over 5 and 1/2 ounces; the seed weighed a mere two one-hundred thousandths of an ounce. That almost microscopically small seed, completely unnoticed, we might say, by the asphalt initially, was now approximately 300,000 times as large as when it first insinuated itself into the mostly inorganic material.
One way to speak of this occurrence is to say that the seed had introduced itself into an entity that did not have integrity; that is, the asphalt was not whole, not complete.
Well, I know you have captured the meaning of my metaphor: Only the smallest fissure in our character is necessary for the seed of sin; the tiniest amount of nutrients will suffice to produce growth. Thus, I plead with you to assure your personal integrity so that you admit not even a “small” violation of the marriage covenant to begin its work of destruction.
Do not look for reasons to claim that the covenant is not in force.
I talked with President Anderson of the ProvoTemple as I prepared this talk. He reminded me that psychologically and spiritually we marry another in order to complement (not c-o-m-p-l-i-m-e-n-t) ourselves in some way, to complete (that’s what complement means) some element missing or partial in us—some talent, capability, character attribute, or similar component. Then he enlightened my mind with a significant truth: In order to succeed in our “completing” work, we are obligated to spend our life fulfilling the needs of our companion, selflessly acting as a savior for our spouse. Have you ever thought of it that way?
Contrary to this idea, our friends whom I mentioned at the beginning of this talk, who talk and act foolishly with regard to their marriage covenant, are in the grip of selfishness, not selflessness. Instead of asking, What can I do to bless the life of my spouse? they are asking, Why am I not being satisfied by this partner of mine in all my needs? Where is the bliss that I expected from temple marriage? They are waiting for someone to give them happiness. But you already know—intellectually, at least—that happiness is not something served to you by others, but a by-product of your service to them!
One thing I have worried about from the time I was first prompted to prepare this talk is the possibility that many of you would settle back as you heard my theme and say, in effect, “Hmmm… This is pretty strong stuff. I’ll bet some couples right in this congregation need to hear him.” Of course, the truth is that not one person in this hall—including the bishop and me—is exempt from temptation to unilaterally void the marriage covenant. I am speaking to every one of us.
On Being Aggrieved
Now, I want to address those of you who believe yourselves to be an aggrieved person in just the kind of situation I have been describing. You may be saying to yourselves, “President Webb is exactly right. I’ve been wronged by the language, the behavior, even the thoughts, of my spouse, yet I have not retaliated in any way. I have borne this awful injustice done to me. Thus, I am an aggrieved partner with all of the rights associated with that position.”
Brothers and Sisters, the only right you incur as an aggrieved spouse is the right to take even more seriously the Law of Love—charity, the pure love of Christ. The selfishness that you are tempted to indulge in when you talk of your “rights” is no different than the selfishness that you lament in your spouse! The love that Christ has for us, on the other hand—no matter what thoughtless or awful things we do—requires that he “bear all things, believe all things, hope all things and endure all things.”[9] That is scripture—Moroni7:45, specifically. Neither you nor I have the right to interpret those phrases so that they come to mean something like, “bears many things, believes many things, hopes quite often, and endures a lot.” I testify to you that it means what it says, as difficult as it may be to follow its direction. I do understand, nevertheless, that when another mortal is involved, we are expected to be humbly compliant only insofar as the other hearkens to the voice of Deity.
So, I have said to you that covenants and romantic love are not identical concepts; that we are commanded, not merely urged, to love our spouse and cleave to him or to her and none else; that you individually cannot abrogate the covenant you entered into when you were sealed to your spouse in the temple without serious and painful consequences—because your covenant is with Deity; that sin, like the minute dandelion seed, will enter into our soul on the slightest provocation and that its eradication is more difficult than we might wish.
Further, I have addressed those of you who suffer injustice at the hands of your spouse—I know that it does happen, we all know it. We are all human. I have said to you that your obligation according to the Law of Love, called the “greatest of all,” is to endure and bear all things, believing and having hope that through your patience, your lack of envy, your refusal to be provoked and your rejoicing in the truth, you will help to effect a reconciliation between the two of you, thus becoming an instrument for salvation, acting in the stead of the Savior himself. Could you do anything of greater significance in this life?
My testimony, based on personal revelation (as are all true testimonies), is that the church that teaches us these truths is the only religious institution on the earth recognized by Jesus Christ as “distinctively his own,” in the words of James E. Talmage. I pray that we may all be moved to take seriously our responsibilities in connection with the great sealing ordinance. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
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[1] This address was given in wards of the BYU 18th Stake during May and June 1994.
[2] Jac. 1:17
[3] Jac. 2:2
[4] Jac. 2:25
[5] Jac. 2:10
[6] D&C 42:22
[7] Matt. 19:5-6
[8] D&C 132:19
[9] Moro. 7:45