Marriage and Divorce

The best way to actually discuss the issue of divorce from the point of a Christian is actually to see how God and Jesus taught about the issue of marriage. As divorce is the anti-thesis of marriage, a study of the institution of marriage would put divorce in a light that most people would not have seen.

If we are in the position of counseling some couples, with me mostly for my parents unfortunately, it is very easy to get into the arguments of details of what and why it has happened; and if the reasons are good enough, the motion of divorce usually pops up when it seems things are not moving forward.

Before I go into this, we must understand the nature of our Father in Heaven, of our Lord Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit that dwells in us as a guarantee of the redemptive work of our Lord.

This verse sums it all up.

Dear friends, let us (agapao) love one another, because (agape) love comes from God. Whoever (agapao) loves is a child of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1 John 4:7-8

So what is love? (taken from http://www3.calvarychapel.com/redbarn/terms.htm#L)

Love - The ancient Greeks had four different words we translate love. It is important to understand the difference between the words:

1. "Eros" was one word for love. It described, as we might guess from the word itself, erotic love. It refers to sexual love.

2. "Storge" was the second word for love. It refers to family love, the kind of love there is between a parent and child, or between family members in general.

3. "Philia" is the third word for love. It speaks of a brotherly friendship and affection. It is the love of deep friendship and partnership. It might be described as the highest love of which man, without God's help, is capable of.

4. "Agape" is the fourth word for love. It is a love that loves without changing. It is a self-giving love that gives without demanding or expecting re-payment. It is love so great that it can be given to the unlovable or unappealing. It is love that loves even when it is rejected. Agape love gives and loves because it wants to; it does not demand or expect repayment from the love given. It gives because it loves, it does not love in order to receive. According to Alan Redpath, we get our English word agony from agape. "It means the actual absorption of our being in one great passion." (Redpath) Strictly speaking, agape can't be defined as "God's love," because men are said to agape sin and the world (John 3:19, 1 John 2:15). But it can be defined as a sacrificial, giving, absorbing, love. The word has little to do with emotion; it has much to do with self-denial for the sake of another.

So the love of the verse (agape) is the love that was spoken of in 1 John 4:7-8. It is a love that demands nothing in return and to love without condition and without limits and most stunningly of all, to love independent of feelings (emotion). This is the love that our God has given to us and He would like to see being shown among the believers. Such love is even needed for marriage on top of Eros love.

So we now know the type of love God gives, so we should all see Him in such perspective in all His actions even in the act of giving in marriage. The typical example would be Adam’s hunt for a mate (Gen 2: 18 -23). Note that it is God’s initiative to create a mate (not slave not servant and definitely not a worker) for Adam. A mate and matelot in French is “the person with whom you lift sacks which are too heavy to be lifted by one man alone.”

I think the story of how Isaac finds his bride is a reflection of God’s love for man (Gen Chapter 24). If we look at Abraham as a type for God, Isaac as a type for Christ and the servant as a type for the Holy Spirit, then it is easier for us to see who Rebekah is, the church. So the story shows God actually let the Holy Spirit to find the Church as a partner to Christ. And so, since God values marriage, He would also have a hand in finding our life mate, as He has done for me.

So in the same sense, our brothers and sisters in Christ, and also our mate for life, are persons who help us to lift the burdens of life which are too heavy to be lifted alone. This was given by God because of His agape love for us all; no wonder the institution of marriage is highly regarded by God and is a gift that should be highly prized.

Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. Gen 2:24

But from the beginning of the creation, Male and female made he them.

For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife;

and the two shall become one flesh: so that they are no more two, but one flesh.

What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Mar 10:6-9 (Matt 19:4-6)

For this cause will a man go away from his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a great secret: but my words are about Christ and the church. Eph 5:31-32

Interestingly Paul has likened the relationship of the church with Christ is the same as the relationship between wife and husband (as shown in Genesis 24). If the relationship with God with Abraham is a covenant, our relationship with Christ is a new covenant, then the relationship of husband and wife is also a covenant.

Definition of Covenant: meaning a solemn contract, is the customary word used to translate the Hebrew word berith (ברית, Tiberian Hebrew bərîṯ, Standard Hebrew bərit) as it is used in the Hebrew Bible.

bərit: A treaty made with an implication of serious consequences for not fulfilling a covenant.

Now did we all not say our marriage vows in front of our friends and family?

“I, (Bride/Groom), take you (Groom/Bride), to be my (wife/husband), to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part.”

Or from the book of Hosea 2:19-20,

(Hosea 2:19) And I will take you as my bride for ever; truly, I will take you as my bride in righteousness and in right judging, in love and in mercies.

(Hosea 2:20) I will take you as my bride in good faith, and you will have knowledge of the Lord.

The book of Hosea speaks his experience with an unfaithful wife as God has with Israel. However, he sticks with his wife as evidently spoken above and would receive her back if she repents. This speaks of God’s love for sinners as well since He sticks out His neck on the cross while we were still sinners.

The above is a covenant and in biblical definition, it has serious implications for not fulfilling a covenant. As God has cut covenants with Abraham (e.g. Gen 9:9) and to us who believe in Christ (Heb 8:8), God will see covenants between His creation as unbreakable as well.

Imagine if through the book of Isaiah (54), God has already promised the covenant of the new via the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross (that we are given blessed life made righteous through the blood, healed through the torture of the body) was not given because of God has broken His covenant with us. Would not that be cruel?

Therefore it is easy to see why God is so against the breaking of marriage.

Malachi 2:13-16

This is another thing you do. You drown the LORD's altar with tears, weeping and wailing because he no longer accepts the offerings you bring him.

You ask why he no longer accepts them. It is because he knows you have broken your promise to the wife you married when you were young. She was your partner, and you have broken your promise to her, although you promised before God that you would be faithful to her.

Didn't God make you one body and spirit with her? What was his purpose in this? It was that you should have children who are truly God's people. So make sure that none of you breaks his promise to his wife.

"I hate divorce," says the LORD God of Israel. "I hate it when one of you does such a cruel thing to his wife. Make sure that you do not break your promise to be faithful to your wife."

God says it so clearly “I hate divorce” and worse of all, divorce is a cruel thing and is a broken promise of being faithful. And by divorcing, the Lord does not accept the offerings (in new living translation, by not accepting the offerings it is the same as being abandoned by God). My understanding of this issue is that by divorcing for any reason is an act of unfaithfulness no matter what the heart is saying except for the reason of adultery.

Jesus also supports the same view when He says that what God has joined should not be separated by man. This one statement shows that God is in the act of bringing two persons together, and I believe for believers and non-believers alike. So the act of divorce as done by man, is tantamount to eating the forbidden fruit since it is going against what God has done or commanded.

In that case, why would God support divorce through the Law of Moses as the Pharisees have pointed out? Jesus says it very plainly that it is because of man’s hard heartedness (stubbornness, sin) that Moses allows it. Jesus then goes on to teach that if divorce is done through reasons other than the act of infidelity, then the former partners are actually committing adultery by remarrying.

Other verses that supports the teaching of Christ and how marriage should be dissolved under what circumstances:

Dt 24:1-5

Mathew 5:31-32

Mark 10:2-10

Romans 7:1-3

1 Corinthians 7:39

Now the Lord has put it very clearly through the Law of the Old Covenant that adultery would be how God would see of divorced people who have remarried if the reason for divorce is not adultery. And also the ONLY reason to remarry is when either of the spouses has died.

The following verse shows the consequences of sexual sins.

Surely you know that the wicked will not possess God's Kingdom. Do not fool yourselves; people who are immoral or who worship idols or are adulterers or homosexual perverts or who steal or are greedy or are drunkards or who slander others or are thieves---none of these will possess God's Kingdom. Some of you were like that. But you have been purified from sin; you have been dedicated to God; you have been put right with God by the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Someone will say, "I am allowed to do anything." Yes; but not everything is good for you. I could say that I am allowed to do anything, but I am not going to let anything make me its slave. Someone else will say, "Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food." Yes; but God will put an end to both.

The body is not to be used for sexual immorality, but to serve the Lord; and the Lord provides for the body. God raised the Lord from death, and he will also raise us by his power. You know that your bodies are parts of the body of Christ. Shall I take a part of Christ's body and make it part of the body of a prostitute? Impossible! Or perhaps you don't know that the man who joins his body to a prostitute becomes physically one with her?

The scripture says quite plainly, "The two will become one body." But he who joins himself to the Lord becomes spiritually one with him. Avoid immorality. Any other sin a man commits does not affect his body; but the man who is guilty of sexual immorality sins against his own body. Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and who was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourselves but to God; he bought you for a price. So use your bodies for God's glory. (1 Corinthians 6:9-20)

Before someone says I am condemning those who has divorced and remarried and thus has commit adultery, Paul has this to say in verse 11…we have sinned as those who have sinned sexually, are cleaned, made holy, being redeemed from the effects of sin and have being made righteous in God’s eyes because of the work on the cross. Because of this, we should not be condemned as we are not appointed for wrath and thus is able to live the life that God meant to be as victorious Christians.

Let’s look at John 8, the famous scene when the power of the letter of the law is shown together with the Grace of forgiveness from our Lord Jesus Christ. If you read the passage, Jesus was shown to stoop down, and with his finger wrote on the ground which is made of stone in the temple. There is significance in this as this very act of writing with the finger on stone is shown prominently on Mount Sinai and also when God write on the wall of the palace of Nebuchadnezzar.

(Exodus 31:18) And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, the two tables of the testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.

(Daniel 5:5) In the same hour came forth the fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.

So what Jesus was trying to do for the Pharisee to see, that He is the one who wrote the Law of Moses. And with the implication of the Law, the death of an adulteress (where was the one who has committed adultery with her?) is demanded. However this picture of Christ shows who we are, in the new covenant of the cross, which we are not condemned and free to go our way and sin no more.

So adultery can be graciously forgiven as do all other sin if we let Jesus be our mediator in front of God.

Before I go on, I think a quick read of 1 Corinthians chapter 7 is needed. Although Paul preached throughout that marriage should not be considered, a very good part of the reason for this is that the church was taught that the Lord is coming back and all believers should be focusing on doing the Lord’s work. Verse 26 put the word “crisis” as also “distress”, “trouble” or “necessity” through other translation so there may be a hint of church persecution as well.

However, Paul did mention in verse 36 that to marry so that sexual sin is not committed is not a sin at all. Paul also know that in verse 7 that marriage is a gift of God which I have shared earlier and special gift is also given to single-hood (Mathew 19:11).

Read 1 Timothy Chapter 5. In this letter, Paul says that widows who are young should remarry to avoid sexual sins.

In short, marriage is the Lord’s gift, our spouse is our Lord’s gift and these gifts are unmerited favour (the meaning of ‘grace’) given to us. Secondly, the vow of marriage is also a promise by two persons to be together despite the circumstance of life. Honestly, I think even the act of adultery is also part of that promise. When we meditate on the wedding vows, both secular and religious, we should see that the vow “for better or for worse” should mean anything good and bad.

And married couples should give respect to each other, husband should love their wife as Christ love the Church and wife should submit to husband as church should submit to Christ (Eph 5).

So with all that has being said about marriage, then we can subjectively see the issue of divorce. This is my view about the issue.

· As Christ has loved the church and has promised His love through the work on the cross, so we as spouses should also do the same for their husbands and wives.

· As Christ has poured out His love despite all circumstance, even unto death, then we as His children should hang on to the promise of marriage despite the circumstances, until death or rapture. This is to show God’s true Agape love.

· Divorce is a solution not because God wants it but He acknowledges it that a spouse does harm their spouses because of sin.

· The only sin that can only demand divorce is adultery.

· Remarrying is only for those whose spouse has passed on since their vows ends when death occurs.

Now if any couples who divorce for differences of opinion or other reasons speaks of only one thing: selfishness. It is selfishness that causes differences in opinion, mismanagement of funds to buy stuff that one likes, to do things despite knowing otherwise about the partner’s views etc. So when you think about it, the reasons we divorce is something that can be cured by curing our selfishness, which is also the root of sin.

The only one who can heal selfishness is through the cleansing of the Lord’s blood. For the Lord sacrifice his life unselfishly, His gracious gift of love and blessings will help us to become lovable in our lovers eyes, to be understanding as Christ has been patient with our sins, to do things for our loved ones without the need for acknowledgement since Christ has sacrificed Himself without our appreciation.

I also received a word from a book that Malachi 3 has said about tithing and offerings should be set aside for the Lord, so as to test the Lord for Him to provide protection in everything that a believer holds dear. I believe sincerely that this also meant the marriage is also protected by God.

In my earlier posts, I have said that the tithe and offerings do have it uses on top of the principle of respecting God for giving back what was originally His. And one of the uses of following the principle of tithing is first of all, be freed from the love of money and subsequently once freed from the love of money, given the new ability to be generous even unto your spouses and wife, thereby being healed of selfishness/hard heartedness.

What I am trying to say here is that any troubles within the marriage can be solved by Christ if both spouses allow Christ to work within them to solve the troubles. This can only happen when we understand and acknowledge our wrong doings that causes the rift, to ask for forgiveness, to accept the gift of righteousness and lastly, allowing God to meddle with our domestic warfare to bring about shalom peace.

Therefore, divorce is tough before the coming of Christ because man’s heart is sinful. However with Christ’s coming and with the Holy Spirit dwelling amongst us and most important of all in us too, we got a powerful helper in all of us so much so that divorce is an option that should not be mentioned at all. By going to the lawyers meant that we put God’s power at a level that is less than all powerful, that we did not put all positive expectation of good (the definition of hope) because we do not know Jesus’ heart or we do not know the gift that was given to us by God.

The battle of the spouses can be stopped by the Prince of Peace, therefore to meditate on the solution of divorce is not given enough time for our Sha’Shalom to work in our lives. Meditate on God’s goodness and power knowing that such power can change the situation.

I always like to quote this prayer

“God grant me the wisdom to change things when I can, to rest on your power when I can’t and to know the difference between the time to do and rest.”

To divorce is to lean on our own understanding and thus it is an act that is detrimental to all involved and definitely not the will of God.

However, for a divorcee to marry, from what I was being impressed upon by the Lord, though wrong is a better good than to go into sexual sin when one cannot control sexual desires. However as Paul has said, it would be better to stay unmarried so that one could concentrate on serving the Lord but if the body is weak then it is better not to stay unmarried.

In Summary we should do all we can to stay married because of the revelation of marriage and our spouses as a special gift of God. Since God is all powerful, reliance on Him would solve the problem if everyone is able to let Him do His job. If divorce is inevitable, the only reason to do so is because of unfaithfulness. In the same breath, for the spouse who stayed faithful during marriage but remarry after divorce is also guilty of the same sin. However, to remarry so that sexual sin would not control one’s life, it is better to re-marry but this would be the last resort.

All things being said, we are already God’s new creation through the forgiveness of sins because of the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus and together with the forgiveness of God, comes the blessings of God in all areas of our life especially Shalom/Salom peace. When we receive Shalom, we also receive peace, safety, prosperity, well-being, intactness, wholeness, security, satisfaction and contentment. And since my wife and I are one, when we receive Jesus, we receive shalom and thus we shall be whole, as one body in Christ Jesus and one body as a married couple.

Furthermore, a quick look at Matthew 18:19-20

Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father who is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

(Matthew 18:19-20)

If you have realized, if TWO agree something on earth, Abba in heaven WILL do whatever is asked by the TWO believers! Amazing, that means each and every Christian couple is an extremely powerful entity indeed!

Before I end, I should share what has happened to my own family. As the years go on about my parents problems, because of fatigue and certainly out of frustration, I made suggestion of divorce to my mother. However, by God’s hands, my mother faced some problems at work and dad did help out so the issue was put off.

During this time, I did think about the whole thing and when an opportunity was given to me to research on this subject, I take it as a direction from God to know more and then to ask for the right things for my parents. I come to realize that all who mediate positively in confrontation are called sons of God. So I decided to seek His power and love to solve this once and for all.

Therefore preach peace, receive peace and marriage is and will be a blessing for all.