HOW ABOUT THE DIVORCED?

Failure in marriage has become so common that the church is being forced to become more pragmatic in dealing with the issue of divorce and remarriage. Conservative churches, including Churches of Christ, have sought to be loyal to their doctrines on this subject, but they find them unworkable and impractical in an age when there are almost as many divorces as marriages.

The problem is compounded by the fact that divorce is now common among the clergy. A generation ago it was very rare for a preacher among Churches of Christ to be divorced, but today there are numerous instances of this tragedy. Moreover divorce is crouched at the doorstep of us all, in the church and out, and has well nigh become a way of life in that it has affected our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, and mothers and fathers. The typical family can count multiple divorces among its members. Abilene Christian University once issued statistics on how few divorces there were among its graduates, but it no longer does so. Some of our preachers and professors, known for their “soundness” on this issue, have been forced to consider a more moderate position when their own children began to divorce.

Recent events among Churches of Christ relative to this issue have been especially embarrassing. Concerted effort has been made to preserve the “old line” position that divorced people who remarry are “living in adultery” unless fornication was the reason for the divorce, and only then “the innocent party” may remarry. Some of our churches have made this a test of fellowship, not allowing divorced people into their membership, except those who have “a scriptural reason.”

The divorced among us have often been treated harshly, and there is evidence that many have been driven to other churches or away from the church altogether. They are told that they are living “in sin” and that they must dissolve the “unscriptural” marriage. They are doomed to remain single the rest of their lives or be reconciled to their first mate. While most divorced people among us do not buy this line of reasoning, there have been instances where still another divorce takes place in an effort to rectify the first one, all in the name of sound doctrine. Some leaders among us appear to have no qualms in breaking up still another home.

Fortunately there has been a substantial reaction against this sort of thing, even from conservative circles. There is currently a kind of “division” over this issue, including debates and lots of printer’s ink. Even among our “soundest” conservatives there is vigorous debate over the way the relevant Scriptures should be interpreted. While the New Testament says comparatively little about divorce and remarriage, the little that is said is being studied more deeply and the old conclusions are being questioned.

As I have already indicated, this has been motivated largely by the acuteness of the divorce problem and the obvious inadequacy of our old doctrines to deal with it—doctrines that may not have been all that right to start with.

I am persuaded that problems of this sort can be solved only if we think in terms of principles rather than to rely on what is presumed to be the correct interpretation of this or that Scripture. The principles must, of course, be supported by Scripture, but principles provide us with a broader view in getting at the problem. I am convinced that the following principles are true and will go far in correcting a lot of shoddy thinking and oppressive behavior.

1. People who are legally married cannot properly be accused of living “in sin” or “living in adultery,” however many times they have been previously married.

They may be sinners and they may have sinned in divorcing, but they are not guilty of illicit sex if they are married. Jesus recognizes that when one “marries another” he is married. There is therefore no such thing as “living in adultery” among married people, and oddly enough they are the only ones that are marked with this dubious label. It is possible to say that the Samaritan woman in John 4, who had a confrontation with Jesus, was “living in adultery” (though committing adultery would be more accurate), but this was because “he whom you now have is not your husband,” as Jesus put it to her. “You have had five husbands,” Jesus reminded her. She was married to these men, presumably one by one, and Jesus passes no judgment in this regard. His judgment was that she was now living with a man not her husband.

2. Some sins by their very nature are irreparable, and this is true of some sins committed in divorce and remarriage.

Reparation is a reasonable expectation in repentance. To the extent that we can we are to correct the wrongs done to others. But when this is impossible, in such instances as slander and murder, God in his mercy still forgives us if we repent. The divorced and remarried are told that if a man steals a horse and then repents, he should return the horse. If a man steals another’s wife and then repents, he should return the wife. But the issues of life are not always that simple. A horse is mere property, a thing, something easily negotiable. When two people marry, they are married, however questionable the circumstances that brought them together, and there is no way to change the past. God can only forgive the past.

Even when it is granted that one has sinned in divorcing and remarrying, it does not follow that in repenting he must dissolve the second marriage. This implies that a second divorce will atone for the first one. Too, there are often children, sometimes grandchildren, with many lives and deep emotions involved. It is folly to talk about turning the clock back. While circumstances sometimes cannot be changed, and should not be, lives can be redeemed, and this must be the church’s concern.

3. In his forgiving mercy God accepts the sinner where he is, and his commands are not oppressive.

In all the intricate entanglements of divorce and remarriage the heavenly Father does not demand the impossible. He starts with us where we are and accepts us where we are, even in our most difficult situations. Repentance cannot mean that one must break up still another home and go back and amend the past, but it means not to divorce again. It means to start glorifying God in our lives and to change the way we have been living. A man may be married for the fifth time when he turns to God in repentance. Never mind all those ugly pages of his earlier marriages and divorces, but let him now have a Christian home and live with his present wife “until death do we part,” as God intends.

The apostle John gave us a great truth: “This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome” (1 Jn. 5:3). But we make them burdensome when we make demands of the divorced that are unnatural and impossible. We only drive them from us. The church is to be a haven of rest for the weary, not a judgment hall where the distressed are always in the dock.

4. Divorce is not the unpardonable sin.

According to Scripture there is such a sin as the unpardonable sin, but it is not divorce. By the way we sometime treat our divorced people one would suppose it to be the unpardonable sin. If the only way to make things right is to go back through a maze of tragic circumstances and attempt to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, then divorce and remarriage must be unpardonable. If a young brother or sister, who fouled up a marriage while in high school or college and are now divorced, must live in celibacy the rest of their lives, then it must be unpardonable.

But Jesus assures us that every sin committed against the Son of Man will be forgiven (Matt. 12:31), which must be reassuring to those who are scourged by a broken marriage. Divorce is forgivable, even if irreparable.

It was amidst a bad marriage that one of the great prophets found these words, which were repeated by one of the great apostles:

Once you were no people but now you are God’s people;

Once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy (1 Pet. 2:10)—the Editor

From the preaching of some of our brethren, you would not believe that forgiveness was the nature of Christ. So many times they refuse to let the grace of Christ work. They demand law instead of mercy, punishment instead of forgiveness, and afflictions instead of freedom. They rather seem to enjoy and take pride in condemnation instead of salvation. They are like the Pharisees of Jesus’ time in that they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with” one of their fingers (Matt. 23:4).—F. I. Stanley, Crosby Church of Christ, Crosby, Tx
.