Biblical Teaching on Divorce and Remarriage is Common Sense For Those Without an Agenda

When Jesus spoke on divorce and remarriage in the Gospel accounts, He was basically saying that a man is still an adulterer even though he gets the paperwork done in divorcing his wife so he can leave her to marry another woman. Just having the divorce paperwork done regarding the first marriage, before the second marriage takes place, doesn’t mean one is not guilty of adultery in initiating the second marriage when they had no lawful reason to end the first marriage.

Even when Israel was the Lord’s set apart nation, the Jews were notorious for abusing the narrow provision of the Law of Moses for divorce and remarriage as a sinful loophole to instead allow divorce for any cause at all. In relation, the Catholic Church has its own loophole by annulling marriages just because they are judged in hindsight to have never occurred in a sacramentally sound way according to the Catholic Church. That is silly though since the Lord recognizes marriages between men and women which take place in the secular realm. Genesis chapter 4 proves that He recognized the marriages among the seed of Cain- so the Catholic Church’s annulment process is a sinful loophole. There is no need to go the route of annulling marriages which were civilly valid for righteousness and common sense to prevail when the Bible’s own counsel on divorce and remarriage itself is understood and upheld.

Jesus never broke nor spoke against the Law of Moses. He was rebuking the abuse of provision for divorce therein; not the righteous application of it. It is wrong to deny that there is indeed a narrow provision for divorce that ought to be applied sometimes. Those who deny this narrow provision are speaking contrary to God’s law like the people who promote divorce which is contrary to the law.

Deuteronomy 24:1-4: “When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favor in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife. And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife; Her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the Lord: and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.”

“Uncleanness” here is obviously a reference to violating the purity of the home- especially the violation of the sacredness of the marriage covenant. It is implied that upholding the sacredness of the marriage covenant and the maintenance of a godly environment in the home are the only valid reasons for initiating a divorce. Such instruction is necessary to supplement the principles laid down regarding marriage in Genesis- because sin has since entered the world and it must be properly dealt with when it shows itself and when people are evidently committed to practicing it.

Very often, those who contest these things point to 1 Corinthians 7:39 and Romans 7:1-3 which speak about the woman being bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. This is obviously a reference to the Law of Moses which contains the narrow provision for divorce and remarriage in Deuteronomy 24. You have to reference the Law of Moses to know and understand the accurate terms of binding. That is the point in 1 Corinthians 7:39 and Romans 7:1-3; and that is the key to handling this issue righteously.

Using common sense untainted by a personal agenda in understanding the Law of Moses will never involve justifying the person who made up some shallow excuse to leave their spouse for someone else. It will never leave someone to be continually terrorized by an adulterer or an otherwise heathen spouse. And it will also never leave one who is divorced, with no reasonable hope of ever reconciling their prior marriage, waiting for their previous spouse to die before they can ever even think about remarriage. The pathetic reality that all of these foolish things, and many other foolish things in relation to this topic, are commonly practiced throughout the realm of professing Christianity is one of several proofs that churches have forsaken God’s ways and lack the knowledge of Him.

When someone unlawfully departs from a marriage and initiates the divorce directly or by default, the marriage is over by their sinful choice. When the divorce is final, the other is free to move on and remarry.

1 Corinthians 7:27-28: “Art thou bound unto a wife? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife. But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you.”

Some use the verses just quoted and 1 Corinthians 7:39 to say that only men who have been released from a spouse can remarry, yet women who are released cannot remarry. That is foolish. The Bible sometimes communicates a truth about marriage while zeroing in on the man or the woman in doing so- yet obviously not negating the other. Is the husband not also bound by the law to his wife as long as she lives? Of course he is. Both men and women might have to put away their spouse for the sake of the purity of their home; and both men and women might be unjustly put away by their spouse.

No parent in their right mind would allow their young adult offspring to remain in their home when they were so disobedient and misbehaving that they were an affront to the parent’s authority and a corrupting influence on their siblings. The Prodigal Son knew that the evil things he was doing in the distant country wouldn’t be tolerated in his father’s home and had to be put away for him to be able to return there. His father was a godly man who kept law and order in his home and didn’t tolerate evil under his watch. The Prodigal Son’s father (who obviously represents God in the Biblical story) was merciful- yet not in the context of allowing righteous standards to be trampled on and the purity of his home to be disregarded.

It cannot be significantly different with a spouse who is living in an extremely ungodly way.

When a wife disobeys her husband, regularly lies to him, won’t dress modestly (not to mention if she is committing adultery), if she insists on aborting any children she conceives, etc. then her husband is enabling such behavior by remaining with her. She is also teaching any children who are already in the home to practice evil by her bad example. The husband keeping her with him in the home is practically teaching the children the false grace which the Bible warns about. Likewise, a woman who is adequately concerned to do right before God and really cares about any children she has getting taught in God’s ways shouldn’t comply if her husband is preventing her from being faithful to the Lord herself and teaching her children Biblical values without hindrance. She also shouldn’t expose herself or her children to reasonable fear of physical danger and/or of being forced to partake in immoral deeds. Separation for a time in such cases could be appropriate, yet a time comes where further patience demonstrated becomes excessive to the point of mockery. The divorce must be finalized if the offending spouse will not apologize, change, and take the necessary measures not to go back to their previous ways.

The Lord Himself does not show unlimited patience with people. He will cast those who persist in sin into the eternal fire of hell in spite of the much effort made on His part in Christ to redeem them and much long-suffering towards them being exercised. He will even cast His very own people who had been in His covenant out of His covenant and into the fire of hell eventually should they provoke Him by persistence in sin and resistance to His correction. There is no partiality with Him.

God hates divorce- yet that doesn’t mean it’s never necessary nor that there isn’t such a thing as an innocent party who is relatively blameless in the divorce. He hates it when man’s unrighteousness makes divorce a righteous necessity while He also hates it when man’s unrighteousness initiates a divorce when there was no righteous necessity for it. Wicked people can abuse God’s Word out of context to threaten a victimized spouse not to divorce just as wicked people abuse God’s Word out of context to justify a divorce so they can remarry due to lust or some other unrighteous reason. People abuse the Bible in many different ways concerning a multitude of topics in accordance with their own agendas. That by no means negates that its counsel is right, reliable, and contains adequate definition concerning the things we need to know.