Guest Post: Covenant Faithfulness in an Age of Confusion

Why God’s design is essential for cultural stability

Rev. Chris Cousine is the preaching pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church (CREC) in Cochrane, AB. He is married 26 years to his wife Amy, and father of three children and one grandchild. You can find his substack here.

Each year our church sets aside time to address what Scripture teaches about sexuality, marriage, and the created order. We do this not because we are obsessed with controversy but because God’s Word speaks clearly to matters the world persistently seeks to redefine. Biblical Sexuality Sunday is not a response to headlines or trends. It is an act of pastoral responsibility.

We return to this subject year after year because confusion does not resolve itself. Left unattended, it deepens. And when the Church grows silent or uncertain where Scripture is clear, the cost is not merely intellectual—it is pastoral, generational, and covenantal. God’s people are shaped by what they are taught, but also by what is assumed, neglected, or quietly surrendered.

At the same time, it is important to say what this day is not. This is not an opportunity for outrage or fear-mongering. It is not a moment to posture ourselves as morally superior to the world around us. Nor is it a time to reduce biblical sexuality to a list of prohibitions or cultural talking points. Scripture does not begin with “thou shalt not,” and neither should we.

Instead, our aim each year is clarity—clarity rooted in God’s design, clarity that gives coherence to our lives, and clarity that anchors us amid a culture increasingly detached from meaning, order, and fruitfulness. Sexuality, in the Bible, is never isolated from covenant. It is never detached from purpose. And it is never treated as self-defining. It is always given context, direction, and meaning by God Himself.

Rather than beginning with the boundaries of biblical sexuality, I want us to step back and consider its foundation. Rather than starting with what Scripture forbids, I want us to look first at what Scripture commands. In particular, I want us to see how marriage and sexuality fit within God’s original covenant purpose—and how that purpose is not discarded in the gospel, but fulfilled and expanded.

My goal here is to present to you a unifying thesis — namely that the covenant of marriage and the covenant of redemption share the same structure, purpose, and mandate: fruitfulness that fills the earth. I want to show you how marriage is the original covenant form that the gospel later fulfills and expands, and how the erosion of one covenant form inevitably undermines the clarity and coherence of the other.

The fruitful imperative

After declaring that God had made them male and female, we hear in Genesis 1:28 the first command God gives to humanity: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” This command is striking not only for what it says, but for when it is given. Before there is law, before there is sin, before there is shame, prohibition, or discipline, God gives a positive mandate. The first words spoken over human sexuality are not warnings, but a commission. Fruitfulness is not a concession to the fall; it is a blessing rooted in creation itself.

It is important to see that this is not offered as advice or preference. In God’s providence and sovereignty, this is given as covenant mission. God is not merely describing what might happen; He is commanding what must happen. Fruitfulness is the form that obedience takes in the original covenant. This means that sexuality, from the beginning, is oriented toward participation in God’s purposes rather than the fulfillment of private desires.

We should pause, then, to consider what Scripture means by fruitful. The command itself provides the first clue. Fruitfulness is immediately joined to multiplication. This tells us that fruitfulness is not solitary, nor is it self-contained. One cannot be fruitful by oneself, and one cannot be fruitful apart from the complementary union of male and female as God has created them. Fruitfulness is therefore covenantal by definition. It presupposes union, difference, and cooperation under God’s word.

Just as importantly, the mandate of this covenant union is outward-facing rather than inward. Adam and Eve are not commanded to remain where they are, content with what they possess. They are commanded to fill the earth. This tells us that the original vision was never static. Eden was not meant to be a permanent enclosure, but a starting point. Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden, in the presence of God, with everything they needed to carry out the mission entrusted to them.

The sexual union of Adam and Eve was therefore not an end in itself. It was generative. It was meant to produce offspring who would produce offspring who would produce offspring, spreading as they went, carrying God’s order beyond the boundaries of the Garden. The intention was to take what God had given them—life, blessing, holiness, and communion—and to extend it faithfully through time and space. Fruitfulness, from the very beginning, is the means by which God’s good creation is meant to grow, expand, and be filled with His glory.

This reminds us that human sexuality does not begin with restriction or prohibition, but with a God-given vocation ordered toward outward fruitfulness under His covenant authority.

The goal of fruitfulness

If fruitfulness is the imperative—the mission given to Adam and Eve—then the next logical question is: fruitfulness unto what? What is its goal, its shape, and its direction?

When we speak of fruitfulness, the most obvious form it takes is the production of offspring. That much is clear. But Scripture never treats human reproduction as a merely biological process. As our Lord makes clear in the Gospel of John, there are ultimately two kinds of children in the world: those who belong to God and those who belong to the devil (John 8:44). The question, then, is not simply whether the earth is filled with people, but what kind of people it is filled with.

Was it God’s intention merely to populate the earth indiscriminately, regardless of faith, worship, or obedience? Or was the mandate of fruitfulness ordered toward something greater? The answer is evident from the whole testimony of Scripture. Fruitfulness, while it includes the bearing of children, must also include the faithful formation of those children. The mission is not only reproduction, but image propagation.

To be fruitful, then, is not simply to create biological offspring, but to cultivate and transmit the image of God in all that it entails. Godly fruitfulness includes instruction, formation, and faithfulness. This is why the covenant places such emphasis on teaching. In Deuteronomy 6:4–9, Israel is commanded to teach the words of the Lord diligently to their children—to speak of them in the home, along the way, in rising and lying down. The Law of God is not given merely for personal morality, but so that a people might know how to live rightly before Him.

From this faithful instruction flows culture. As children are trained in worship, obedience, and wisdom, a godly culture begins to take shape—one that mirrors the original creation mandate. This brings us back to Genesis 1:28, where fruitfulness is immediately joined to dominion. Adam and Eve are commanded not only to multiply, but to subdue the earth and exercise authority over it. Fruitfulness, therefore, includes the establishment of order. God does not bless chaos. He brings form, structure, and harmony, just as He did in creation itself.

Finally, this fruitfulness is inherently generational. The covenant does not look only to the present moment, but forward through time. When parents teach their children in faith and obedience, they are training them to carry forward the same covenant mission. God’s mandate for fruitfulness is given so that His reign might spread—faithfully, orderly, and enduringly—across generations.

This helps us see that fruitfulness in Scripture is never merely biological and certainly not accidental, but purposeful, ordered, and aimed at the faithful propagation of God’s image through generations.

Christ our covenant

Next, I want you to see that Christ takes the same covenant shape. This is the crux of my thesis.

Scripture consistently refers to Jesus Christ as the Bridegroom and the Church as His bride. There is a tendency, especially in modern preaching, to romanticize this language—to turn it into something primarily emotional or sentimental. But biblically, this is not poetic excess. It is covenantal precision. The marriage imagery applied to Christ and the Church is not borrowed language; it is continuous language. It deliberately reaches back to the first marriage in Genesis and declares its fulfillment.

Let me lay this out clearly.

Adam and Eve were joined together by God Himself. Their union was not self-generated, nor merely contractual; it was a divine act. In the same way, Christ and the Church are joined together by God. Scripture is explicit that salvation is not the result of human initiative, but of God’s sovereign joining—those whom the Father gives to the Son are united to Him by grace. This is covenantal union, not voluntary association.

When God joined Adam and Eve, He declared that the two shall become one flesh. That language is foundational. But the New Testament does not abandon it; it deepens it. Christ and the Church are declared to be one body. The Apostle Paul makes this connection unmistakable when he speaks of believers being members of Christ Himself. The “one flesh” union of marriage was always pointing forward to this greater, corporate reality.

Adam was also established as the covenant head of his marriage. He represented his wife, and through him his household stood or fell. Scripture presents Christ in precisely the same role. Jesus is the covenant head of the Church. Where Adam’s obedience or disobedience determined the fate of those united to him, Christ’s obedience secures life, righteousness, and blessing for all who are united to Him.

The parallel does not stop there. Adam and Eve were commanded to be fruitful. Christ and the Church are likewise called to fruitfulness. The language of bearing fruit fills the teaching of Jesus and the apostles. Union with Christ necessarily results in multiplication—life producing life.

Finally, Adam and Eve were commanded to fill the earth. Christ gives the Church a mission that is unmistakably parallel: to disciple the nations. The Great Commission is not a new idea introduced late in redemptive history. It is best understood as the eschatological expansion of Genesis 1:28. What was first entrusted to a single couple is now carried forward by a redeemed people united to the true and greater Adam.

Christ and the Church, then, are not a departure from the creation mandate. They are its fulfillment. The covenantal union of Adam and Eve finds its fullest expression in the covenantal union of Christ and His Church. But we must be clear about what fulfillment means. Fulfillment does not erase the original mandate; it brings it to maturity. What was planted in the garden as a seed is brought to full harvest in the gospel.

The original command to Adam and Eve—to be fruitful, to multiply, to fill the earth—was never revoked. It was assumed, carried forward, and transformed in Christ. The Church does not set aside Adam and Eve’s mission because Christ has fulfilled it; rather, she takes it up because Christ has fulfilled it. Marriage and family are not rendered obsolete by the gospel; they become the ordinary means by which the Church carries the gospel forward through history.

Christ and the Church are the eschatological and universal form of covenantal union, but Adam and Eve remain the creational form through which that mission advances in time. The Church is not called to abandon fruitfulness, but to practice it rightly—bearing children, forming them in faith, discipling them into obedience, and sending them into the world under Christ’s lordship. In this way, the creation mandate continues, not as a rival to redemption, but as its servant.

The church’s mission

Scripture does not present the Church as a voluntary association or a collection of like-minded individuals. It presents her as a bride. This is covenantal language, not metaphorical sentiment. The Church belongs to a Husband—Jesus Christ—and she has been joined to Him by God for a purpose. That purpose is fruitfulness. The identity of the Church cannot be understood apart from her covenant union with Christ, just as marriage cannot be understood apart from the union of husband and wife.

When this covenantal reality is forgotten, the Church inevitably begins to drift. She loses her sense of direction because she loses her sense of belonging. A bride who forgets that she has a husband will begin to look elsewhere for definition and affirmation. In the same way, when the Church forgets that she is joined to Christ as His bride, her mission becomes confused. The outward orientation of fruitfulness gives way to inward preoccupation.

Scripture consistently presents fruitfulness as something that moves beyond itself. Marriage exists to generate life beyond the couple. In the same way, the Church exists to generate life beyond her own walls. Her calling is not self-construction, but multiplication through faithfulness. When the Church is united to Christ, she bears fruit by extending His life into the world through the making of disciples. This is not an optional program layered onto the Church’s existence; it is the natural expression of covenant union.

When covenantal fruitfulness is replaced with self-reference, the Church begins to resemble the culture around her. Instead of being oriented outward as light, salt, and leaven, she turns inward. Her language shifts from mission to management, from obedience to self-description. Identity becomes fragmented and qualified, rather than received and unified in Christ. The result is not faithfulness, but confusion.

This confusion inevitably reaches questions of sexuality. A Church that has lost confidence in fruitfulness will struggle to explain why sexuality matters at all. Biblical sexuality only makes sense within a framework that assumes outward life, continuity, and inheritance. When fruit is removed from the picture, sexuality becomes unintelligible—either moralized without meaning or sentimentalized without purpose.

The Church’s mission, therefore, is not innovation or self-definition, but covenantal faithfulness. Joined to Christ, she bears fruit in the world. Detached from that union, she loses not only her mission, but her coherence.

This clarifies that the Church’s identity and mission flow not from cultural currents or self-definition, but from covenantal union with Christ that naturally bears fruit beyond itself.

Faithfulness in an age of confusion

How should we then live? What does all of this mean for us?

If fruitfulness is the first covenant command, if it is ordered toward the propagation of God’s image, if it finds its fulfillment in Christ and the Church, and if the Church herself exists as a fruitful bride joined to her Husband, then the question before us is not abstract. It is profoundly practical. The question is whether we will live as a covenant people, or whether we will quietly exchange covenantal faithfulness for cultural accommodation.

Scripture teaches us that God does His work through ordered relationships. Covenant always has shape. It has direction. It has roles. Adam is not Eve, Eve is not Adam, and Christ is not the Church. Equality of value does not erase distinction of office, and dignity does not negate order. From creation onward, fruitfulness depends upon receiving God’s design rather than reinventing it.

This is why questions of leadership in the Church are not merely administrative or pragmatic. They are symbolic. The Church does not exist simply to function efficiently, but to bear faithful witness. Her structure proclaims something, whether she intends it or not.

The New Testament consistently presents the Church as a bride under the loving headship of Christ. That imagery is not sentimental. It is covenantal. Christ leads, protects, gives Himself, and directs the mission. The Church receives, responds, bears fruit, and extends His life into the world. When that symbolic order is preserved, the gospel is proclaimed not only in words, but in form.

When that order is altered, confusion follows.

In much of the Western Church, the push to place women into governing and teaching authority over men has not arisen from careful attention to covenant symbolism, but from pressure to mirror cultural definitions of equality and leadership. The argument is often framed as justice or inclusion, or as gifting, or as a New Testament freedom, but the deeper issue is theological. The Church begins to say, implicitly, that covenant order is negotiable, that symbol does not matter, and that fruitfulness can be sustained apart from form.

But Scripture does not permit us to treat symbolism as incidental. The relationship between Christ and His Church is the interpretive key for understanding marriage, leadership, and authority. When the Church places herself in a position of headship over herself—when she no longer receives leadership patterned after Christ’s covenantal role—she unintentionally distorts the very image she is called to display.

This is not an indictment of women, nor a denial of their indispensable role in the Church. Scripture affirms that clearly. But neither sincerity nor affection for Christ grants the Church authority to alter what God has established. The question before us is not whether motives are good, but whether the Church is speaking truthfully with her structure. The issue is meaning.

Covenant faithfulness is not measured by sincerity alone, but by submission to God’s design.

When the Church reassigns covenant roles to align with cultural expectations, she does not become more faithful; she becomes less intelligible. The Christ–Church relationship begins to lose its clarity. The distinction between giver and receiver, head and body, initiator and bearer of fruit becomes blurred. And when covenant symbols lose clarity, sexuality soon follows, because sexuality depends upon the same grammar of difference, order, and fruitfulness.

This is why churches that abandon biblical patterns of leadership always move toward confusion in sexual ethics. The slope is not slippery because people are malicious. It is slippery because symbols shape instincts. Once the Church learns to say that form does not matter here, she will eventually say it does not matter elsewhere.

Fruitfulness requires order. Order requires faithfulness. Faithfulness requires humility—the humility to receive rather than redefine.

The call before us, then, is not to outrage or fear, but to trust. To trust that God’s design is not arbitrary. To trust that covenantal forms are gifts, not constraints. To trust that fruitfulness flows from obedience, not innovation.

This applies to marriage. It applies to family. It applies to the Church. And it applies to how we bear witness in a world that has forgotten what fruitfulness is for.

The Church does not exist to echo the culture’s confusion, but to display God’s clarity. She does not exist to reinvent herself in every generation, but to remain faithful to the covenant that gives her life. Joined to Christ, ordered under His headship, she bears fruit—not for herself, but for the life of the world.

And that is the hope set before us. Not retreat. Not capitulation. But covenant faithfulness that trusts God to bring the fruit in His time.

When the Word of God governs the household, it inevitably shapes the life of the nation. Faithful families produce faithful citizens. Ordered worship produces ordered communities. When God’s design for marriage, fruitfulness, and authority is honored, law is clarified, education is grounded in truth, and culture begins to reflect the goodness of creation rather than the confusion of rebellion. But when His Word is ignored, disorder spreads outward—from the home, to the church, to the public square.

A flourishing society does not arise from sentiment, technology, or policy alone. It arises when a people submit themselves to the living Word of God and walk according to His design.