PRINCIPLES OF MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE

There is probably no issue more persistently troublesome than that of divorce. It is a fact of life that our loved ones, young and old alike, are plagued with this problem. It is common these days for folk who have been married for decades to end it all in a divorce court. So we not only have parents who are concerned about their errant children, but children who are distraught over their wayward parents. Divorce is very much with us in the church, and in the best of families. It is not going to go away, so there is no virtue in ignoring it.

We are to be people of principles, a principled people. We are to think in terms of principles more than in terms of rules or details, for principles do not change. The Scriptures give us principles to think and to live by, leaving it to us to fill in the details. If, for instance, one thinks and lives by the principle of integrity, she will not have to pause amidst the details of life and ask if she is going to be honest or not. If she is principled in integrity, many questions that come up are already answered. She is not like the woman who considered selling her body for a million dollars but was insulted when offered twenty dollars. “What do you think I am?,” she protested. “I know what you are,” replied the bidder, “I’m just trying to get your price.”

While this will hardly be the last word on “the divorce issue” (We don’t lack for issues, do we?), I am persuaded it will help if we think in terms of principles. I believe the following proposed principles are grounded in Scripture and worthy of our consideration.

1. God has ordained marriage as inviolable.

These days when I perform a marriage ceremony I counsel with the couple on this principle: what God has joined together let no man put asunder. I tell them that unless they plan to stick it out “for better or for worse” they should not do it. God intends for people to marry and stay married (period). It is an evil day when folk marry with an eye on an easy divorce, if need be. We must teach our youth to think in terms of marriage being for keeps. If they do not intend to stay married, they should not marry. We must show them that God has made marriage inviolable. They are not even to think in terms of divorce as a solution of the problems that are sure to come in any marriage. Divorce is always an evil and sometimes a sin. It is evil because someone is always hurt and because it goes against God’s intention for marriage. It is a sin when one is morally to blame for the conditions that led to the divorce.

It is my opinion that our Lord did not allow for divorce for any reason, not even adultery. The force of Mk. 10:11-12 and Lk. 16:18, where Jesus forbids divorce for any reason, is so persuasive that I conclude that Mt. 5:32 and 19:9, where adultery is made an exception, is an apostolic addition, due to the need for laxity. I accept the “except for the cause of fornication” as apostolic and scriptural, but I do not believe it represents the ideal of Jesus. Jesus would have a man forgive his adulterous spouse, not divorce her. But I concede that if he does divorce her he has “scriptural grounds.” But why divorce her when you can be like Christ and forgive her, seventy times seven if need be? I am suspicious of the faith of people who are in search of “scriptural grounds” for what they want to do.

I am committed to my wife, and now and again I assure her that I will not leave her, never, not for any reason. If she loses her mind and vegetates, I will not leave her; if she suffers a stroke and has to be wheeled about, I will not leave her; if she grows so feeble that she doesn’t even know who I am, I will not leave her, never. And to imagine the impossible, if she should be guilty of fornication, I still would not leave her. I would forgive her, for that is what Jesus would want me to do since that is what he would do. I believe in the inviolability of marriage.

2. God nevertheless recognizes divorce, even when he does not approve.

As a fallen creature man continually sins against God’s purposes for him. Too, circumstances are such that sometime, even when one does not sin, the ideal has to be compromised. Divorce, like other evils, is part of the fabric of our flawed world. The God of heaven recognizes the reality of divorce and deals with it positively, even when he does not approve.

Take, for example, the case of Israelis taking foreign women as their wives in the time of Ezra. They were married to these women and God recognized this, but still he had them to “put away all these wives and their children” (Ezra 10:3). The circumstance demanded divorce, otherwise the integrity of Israel as a nation would be in jeopardy, which would thwart the purpose of God. Since “the holy race has mixed itself” (9:2) something had to be done. Ezra tore his garments and pulled out his hair, wondering what to do. God gave him the only answer there was: divorce.

The answer might have been different if the foreign wives had not continued in their idolatry. It was a matter of saving his people for his purposes or losing them to idolatry. While God “hates divorce” (Mal. 2:16), he nonetheless called for divorce. This principle teaches us that there might be many situations in which divorce is the lesser evil, that God’s circumstantial will calls for divorce while his intentional will did not. Here are several instances of what I mean:

a. Divorce may be the only solution to an oppressive situation.

Physical and mental abuse is now so rampant within family life that various organizations are at work in behalf of abused children, battered wives, and even battered husbands. Those who work in such organizations will tell you it is unbelievable what some people have to put up with, even the innocent. Who can believe that the God of heaven, who is our merciful Father, would want any of his children to live in virtual torture. If he would call for divorce to save the life of Israel, as we have seen he did, would he call for anything less to spare the life and sanity of one of his children today? While there may be no Scripture that deals specifically with this problem, it is a conclusion that must be drawn from the very nature of God, as reflected in the story of divorce in the time of Ezra.

b. Divorce may be the only answer to incompatibility in religion.

The Scriptures do speak directly in this instance: “If the unbelieving partner desires to separate, let it be so; in such a case the brother or sister is not bound” (I Cor. 7:15). It is folly to speak of this as separation but not divorce. The apostle is clearly approving of divorce in this circumstance. Its purpose is to liberate the believer so that he or she can serve God in this world unhindered. The believer may keep on living with an unbeliever, but if, because of the faith of the believer, the situation becomes intolerable, the believer may be liberated through divorce initiated by the unbeliever. This is another reason, based on Scripture, why I conclude that God chooses divorce rather than to have his children live in oppressive situations.

c. Divorce may be the only solution to sexual incompatibility.

It may not be common, but there are instances when couples, for one reason or another, are not capable of sexual union. Sometimes it is a mental or emotional problem that does not surface until after marriage. I know of one case of a man who married a homosexual girl, and he nearly went mad trying to make the marriage work. This is a tragedy where all options are evil, but where divorce seems the lesser evil.

d. Divorce may be the only alternative to unfaithfulness.

Since the cause “except for the cause of fornication” is universally conceded, it is not necessary to argue in its behalf. I have already stated that people need not divorce in this tragic circumstance, but seek both the forgiveness of God and the forgiveness of one’s own heart. But it remains a valid cause, and in some cases the only solution.

A principle for every marriage is that it is to be saved for God, for society, for the church, for the family, and for those involved unless it creates a cruel, unreasonable, and oppressive situation for those involved. This is more than mere inconvenience, general incompatibility, or being tired of each other. Under God people are to make their marriages work. We are here referring to gross circumstances, where a marriage is not merely difficult but a hell on earth. It is in conflict with the heart of God to suppose that he would insist that his helpless children live in unbearable situations. But still some choose to do so, and the church is to understand this too. The scriptural injunction “Let each one decide in his own mind” would apply here. We are only saying that the church must be more open to the place of divorce in the life of her people.

3. God recognizes the marriage of divorced people, even when he does not approve.

Our Lord was not necessarily approving of the way the woman at the well had lived her life when he recognized that “You have had five husbands and the man you now have is not your husband.” It is not all that unusual these days for people to be married five times, and hardly ever is it a matter of one having five spouses who have died. This woman was typical of our age. She had failed in marriage five times and was shacked up with a man to whom she was not married. Jesus recognized that she had had five husbands --- not just one valid husband and four boy friends. He further distinguished between her five husbands and the man with whom she lived. Is not Jesus here recognizing five divorces in this woman’s life? And it is a reasonable deduction that he would approve of her marrying still again, to the sixth man, rather than to live with him out of wedlock, contrary to God’s will.

We may also conclude that those Israelis that divorced their foreign wives in Ezra’s time went on to marry Jewish women. And Jesus speaks of those who divorce their wives and marry again as indeed married, even if they sinned in divorcing.

I venture this proposition, even if it cuts across what many of us have been taught all our lives: all people who are divorced are free to marry again, and that marriage is recognized by God, even if there is sin involved.

There can be no question about the cases we have dealt with in this article. Certainly the believer who is “not bound” when the unbelieving spouse elects to break it off is free to remarry, as is the one who divorces a fornicating spouse. And if a battered wife is free to divorce her persecuting husband and a man his homosexual wife, surely we cannot sentence them to a life of celibacy.

Even “the guilty party,” whom the church unrealistically sentences to a life of continence, is free to marry once he is divorced. Of course he sins when he divorces his wife and marries another, and that is what the Bible teaches, that he sins. But it does not say he is not free to marry. That in fact is his sin, that he divorced his wife and married again. He is married, and it is a legal, recognized marriage. That is what the man did, he married another woman. He did not simply commit adultery. He may have a sin to account for, but he is a married man, a marriage recognized by God.

This should lay to rest the notion that such a one is “living in adultery.” People who are married are not living in adultery. When Jesus says that the one who divorces his wife and marries another “commits adultery against her,” as in Mk. 10:11, he is almost certainly talking about what the man does to his wife, not the other woman. In divorcing his wife he puts her in a bad light, making her an adulteress in the public eye. The man of course sins, but it is not necessarily the sin of adultery. If he first divorces his wife and then marries the other woman, he has not committed adultery. His sin is a greater one: he sinned against his own dear wife, putting her to open shame and making her vulnerable to many of life’s evils, as well as violating the sacred vows he swore to in the presence of God.

But still the scoundrel is married and God recognizes that. He has enough to answer for without hanging “living in adultery” on him.

In saying divorced people are free to marry, we do not mean that it necessarily pleases God when they do. They might well be “out of the will of God” by the way they are living. But they are legally free to marry, and when they do, God recognizes that they are married and they come under his laws concerning marriage. They are not to sin again by divorcing, for example. Surely the church is not to make laws where God has made none, and so we cannot tell the divorced that they cannot remarry. The Scriptures no where lays down such an injunction. To the contrary, that is the meaning of divorce, that one is no longer married to one spouse and is thus free to marry another. If he does not get a divorce, he is guilty of bigamy. To say that one sins in divorcing is not to say that such a one cannot remarry.

4. God forgives all sins that are repented of, including the sin of divorcing.

Thank God that we have a heavenly Father who loves mercy and wants to forgive his sinful children. He is a God who is for us, not against us, and he does not want anyone of us to perish. If God is “rich in mercy” (Eph. 2:4) and shows “great mercy” (I Pet. I :3), it is reasonable to conclude that there is hope for the divorced, even when the modern church is judgmental toward them. It is a narrow soul that knows not the godlike glory of forgiving.

No principle can be greater than that of forgiveness. It is so crucial to the Christian faith that we are assured that if mercy is withheld by a God who loves to show mercy it will be toward those who themselves show no mercy (Jas. 2:13).

The divorced are among the loneliest of people, and many are lost to the church because they have suffered too much to endure further abuse and rejection. We are to forgive them even as the Lord forgives them, and to accept them as they are, as the Father’s erring children. Just as he has accepted us all as his erring children (Rom. 15:7). --- the Editor