“Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seek? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.”
– Malachi 2:15
Malachi 2:15 is a powerful verse that describes the beautiful union God has designed for a husband and a wife to share, but not just the two of them. This is a three-way relationship here. Did he not make them one, a husband and wife one? That’s the language we see from the very beginning of Scripture, Genesis 2. “Man shall leave his father and mother and unite with his wife and they shall become one flesh.” Did he not make them one with a portion of the Spirit, capital S Spirit, in their union?
Malachi 2:15 Reminds Us Our Marriage Should Include God
Let’s pray for spouses to be faithful to one another and to God.
So the whole picture here is a three-way relationship between a husband and a wife before God with his Spirit blessing this union. So a husband, accountable to God for the way he loves his wife. A wife accountable to God for the way she loves her husband. God promising to help them maintain and cultivate and nourish this union.
The problem here that is being addressed is a lack of faithfulness to God and to a spouse. So the whole picture here, when the Bible says “Guard yourselves in your spirit and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth,” obviously the positive of that is be faithful to the wife of your youth. Now see that verse in the context of this three-way relationship, a husband and a wife and God at the center, his Spirit in that relationship. When a husband is unfaithful to his wife, a husband is unfaithful to God.
And really, and there’s a sense in which when a husband is not walking faithfully with God, he is not faithfully loving his wife. And of course, vice versa, when a wife is unfaithful to her husband, then she is unfaithful to God. When she is not walking faithfully with God, she’s not faithfully loving her husband.
Malachi 2:15 Leads Us to Pray For Marriages
Oh, Malachi 2:15 Leads Us to pray. It compel us to pray for our marriages. If you are married, to pray for our marriages, and even if you are single, to pray for marriages around you. Maybe, maybe for a future marriage, if God calls you to this, but to pray that this three-way relationship that is marked by union between a husband and a wife in love for one another, all permeated with faithfulness to God. The Spirit of God.
Oh God, I pray for this in my marriage right now. God, I pray that you would help me to always, please God, to always be faithful to my wife in every way. And in this way, to be faithful to you. And in faithfulness to you, to be faithful to loving my wife as well as I can. God, I need your help to be the husband you have called me to be. She needs your help to be the wife that you have called her to be. I pray for her faithfulness to you and her faithfulness to me.
God, I pray this for other couples around me in your church. I pray this for every couple that is listening to this right now, for every husband or wife that’s listening to this. God, please, please, please help them to be faithful to their spouse, to faithfully love their spouse as they faithfully love you. I pray that you would be the center of your marriage, that your Spirit would compel them to love one another, respect one another, care for one another, serve one another, to show the picture of marriage in Ephesians 5:22-33. By the power of your Spirit.
This Verse Leads Us to Pray For Stronger Marriages
God, I know there are some that are listening to this who have struggling marriages right now in many different ways. I pray that your Spirit would strengthen that marriage, that your Spirit would draw that husband and that wife into greater intimacy with you. And flowing from that, greater faithfulness to you. And flowing from that, faithfulness to each other. I pray for struggling marriages, that you would strengthen the unity that you have designed for those marriages. Please help us as husbands and wives to faithfully love our spouses, and in this, to faithfully love you. We pray that you would help us to experience the beauty of this three-way union that you have designed for a husband and a wife and your Spirit in marriage. May it be so, in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
