Is divorce okay?

Maybe you’ve been there, too. Searching the scriptures for answers about divorce and trying to make sense of it all. 

 

I can remember fervently searching my Bible for answers when I was going through my divorce. It was a difficult process because what the Bible says about divorce is limited compared to what the Bible says about marriage. 

 

I had fought hard for my marriage, and with divorce looking inevitable, I needed to settle the matter in my heart. I came to God with a lot of questions:

 

Whoa.

 

Because so many of the verses about divorce reference adultery, we need to understand adultery in the Biblical context.

 

Most of us are familiar with the Ten Commandments (the Law established in Moses’ time). Yet Jesus later expands the definition of adultery in his well-known Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:27-28):  “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” 

 

Immediately following the passage about adultery, Jesus speaks to divorce:  “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (Matt. 5:31-32).

 

It was starting to look like I was going to become an adulteress or cause someone to become an adulterer if I ever got remarried, yet we need to read deeper.

 

Adultery is so much more than sexual immorality; it is a posture of our hearts. This is why it is so important to guard our hearts in marriage, and why the Proverb says, “Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth” (Prov. 5:18).

 

In the passages above, I believe Jesus is underscoring the significance of the marriage covenant, yet also providing for circumstances wherein divorce may be permitted. The rest is a gray area in scripture.

 

Why is the woman singled out as the adulteress? We don’t know for sure, but what we might infer from Biblical context is that Jesus is speaking principally to men because they were allowed to give their wives certificates of divorce in Moses’ time (Matt. 19:1-9), and Jesus is now resetting the cultural norms. Moses had allowed men to divorce their wives because their hearts were hardened. Jesus is saying that to divorce in this manner is no longer acceptable. 

 

 

In both passages from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus challenges the cultural norms and expands the definition of the Law, which is the standard for righteousness and holiness that as followers of Christ we need to know and to understand. Yet, despite our striving for perfection, and as a people prone to wandering and wavering in our devotion to the Most High God, we are going to fall short, and God sent Jesus for our shortcomings.

 

Jesus came to fulfill the Law and to stand in the gap that we ourselves could never bridge. We simply cannot meet the standards of the Law of our human accord; therefore, man lives in a sinful state that is covered only by the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ.

 

The Law is important in a conversation about divorce, because we need to start with the facts.

 

Divorce is justified in some cases, but even then, it is still a breaking of a holy union that God has created. It falls under the umbrella of sin. Just like breaking the Ten Commandments. Just like falling short of the Law. 

 

All of us are broken humans desperately in need of grace. We fail all the time. When we really break down what the Bible says, we do a terrible job of upholding the Ten Commandments and the Law. We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Sin is sin.

 

I don’t write any of this to diminish the levity of divorce, and principally, the holy covenant of marriage. In Biblical times, a covenant required sacrificing a large animal such as a bull, cutting it into two halves and walking between the two pieces of the animal. This sounds extreme, yes? But it was meant to be.

 

A covenant is sacred, and we ought to hold the covenant of marriage to the same sanctity. But sometimes, marriages do no work out. What do we do then?

 

Friends, I cannot tell you for yourselves what is correct. What I can do is relay to you what the scriptures say and do my best to place them within the scriptural whole-Bible context, and I’d like to help shed some light on the truth I searched for when I went through my divorce.

 

Below are some things the Bible is clear on. Other areas that I won’t define here are gray, and the Bible may be quieter about them. This is where a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is fundamental to discernment: There’s no blanket statement for every circumstance of divorce. Yet God is love, and if divorce is already, or someday becomes, a part of your story, know that God is bigger than divorce. He is mighty to save and he can redeem any broken circumstance.

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. 

Genesis 2:24

“Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” 

Matthew 19:5-6

So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence,” says the Lord of hosts.

Malachi 2:15-16

“And I say to you:  whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”  

Matthew 19:9

“But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved.”  

1 Corinthians 7:15

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

    Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Ephesians 5:22-33

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. 

Romans 3:23

 

If you are going through a divorce, we encourage you to seek out the counsel of a licensed marriage counselor, and resources through your church, such as Divorce Care.

 

Divorce is a literal gutting of the life you thought you would have, a death of parts of yourself, and a spiritual breaking of the one-fleshness and holy union that God created through your marriage covenant. It is gut-wrenching and sometimes there’s nothing you can do to prevent it. Others may find themselves in an abusive situation where they have done everything in their power to save the marriage, and it’s time to let go. 

 

At the end of the day, a marriage takes two mutually committed people to work. And it is stronger on the rock of Jesus Christ because that is God’s design.

 

With my own eyes, I have seen God save impossible marriages — impossibly broken marriages. He can save them and he does. But sometimes, he does not. And friends, if you remember nothing else from this blog, please know that in every circumstance of divorce, God is with you and his love for you is unfailing. Divorce happens sometimes. You are still loved unconditionally, and you can start over in God’s strength.