WHAT
GOD HATH JOINED TOGETHER
Copyright 1985 by Family Stations, Inc.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Chapter 1 BIBLICAL DIVORCE
What are ceremonial laws?
Believers are not to be unequally yoked with
unbelievers
Must I divorce my unsaved spouse?
Chapter 2 ADULTERY CALLS FOR THE DEATH
PENALTY
Only eternal damnation can break this
spiritual marriage
Only death can end the human marriage
How to become free from marriage to the law
of God
Chapter 3 GOD'S MARRIAGE TO ISRAEL
Israel's misuse of Deuteronomy 24
Divorce for any cause
Jesus sets the matter straight
Deuteronomy 24 allows divorce only for
fornication
Divorce causes an innocent spouse to be
adulterous
The woman who is divorced becomes defiled if
she marries again
Deuteronomy 24:1 allowed only one half of
Israel to divorce
Chapter 4 MATTHEW 19:9
No divorce for any reason whatsoever
Chapter 5 THE UNSAVED SPOUSE BREAKS THE
MARRIAGE
Art thou loosed from a wife?
Chapter 6 LET NOT MAN PUT ASUNDER
The marriage union may not be broken by man
Chapter 7 THE HUSBAND'S UNCONDITIONAL
LOVE
As Christ loved the church
Chapter 8 THE WIFE'S UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
Without a word
God gives the rules
The wife's secret weapon
Isn't there a better answer?
The problem of children
Chapter 9 COURTSHIP
Take care who you date
Chapter 10 SOME FINAL QUESTIONS
Divorce and the newly saved
The second marriage
How did it happen
INTRODUCTION
When we compare the church of today with the
church of 50 years ago, we are astounded by the appearance of a most dreadful
phenomenon. Fifty years ago divorce was almost unheard of. Oh yes, in some
avante garde elements of our culture there were those who divorced; but in the
church it was virtually never found.
But today divorce is as common as grass.
Hardly a church exists wherein there are not people contemplating divorce. Not
only are people in the pews divorcing, but deacons and elders and pastors are
also divorcing. In short, the institution of marriage has become a shambles.
How did all this come about? Did the church
of 50 years ago have a wrong understanding of the Bible's rules concerning
marriage and divorce? Certainly the churches of our day that condone divorce
are convinced that they have a biblical basis for their action. After all,
doesn't the Bible teach in Matthew 19:9 that fornication is a cause for
divorce? And doesn't I
Corinthians 7:15 teach that the one that has
been divorced is no longer bound to the divorced partner and, therefore, is
free to remarry? Surely there is adequate biblical allowance for divorce and
even remarriage after divorce.
Because this situation is so terrible and so
all-pervasive, it would be well to examine the biblical principles concerning
the subject.
It cannot be denied that something has
dreadfully gone wrong. In the last 50 years the very foundation of marriage has
been grievously shaken. Hardly a church exists without the problems of those
who have been divorced, or of those who are contemplating divorce. The trauma
to which the children of these unhappy marriages have been subjected is
indescribable.
And along with the wreckage of families has
come an overwhelming lusting after sexual pleasures and perversions. Indeed, it
appears that Sodom must be moved down to second place as the capital of
perversion and lust. What has happened to our world?
The magnitude and awfulness of this problem
cannot be overemphasized. Marriage has everything to do with the family. And
the family is the foundation of society. It is the cornerstone of any and every
nation. When the families are destroyed, the destruction of the nation is not
far behind. Therefore it is imperative that we find a solution to this terrible
plague that is sweeping over the earth.
In this study we will start and stand with
the principle that the Bible is absolute truth. Only our understanding of it
can be erroneous. As Christians we have an obligation to search the Word to
discover all truth. And because God has much to say about the marriage
relationship, we will examine most carefully all that the Bible has to say on
this subject. In doing so we will rediscover the rules that God has given us
for the purpose of protecting the marriage institution.
Chapter 1
BIBLICAL
DIVORCE
We are embarking on a search for answers to
a very serious and perplexing problem. The problem is to discover the truth
about the binding character of the institution of marriage. In our day
virtually every church and denomination has decided that under certain
conditions a marriage can be broken. Indeed, not only can it be broken by
divorce, but those divorced are permitted to remarry.
Such permissive rules are taught and
preached as the Word of God. Solemnly pastors claim that they have the full
authority of God Himself to encourage divorce under certain conditions and to
call God to witness the joining together in marriage of those who have been
divorced from their first spouse.
But what does the Bible say about this kind
of activity? We must look carefully at all the Bible teaches to discover God's
most holy will in this matter.
If we are ever going to understand the
biblical teachings concerning marriage and divorce, we must start with an
understanding of the ceremonial laws of the Bible. We must realize that it is
in the ceremonial laws that God has first spoken concerning marriage and
divorce.
As a matter of fact, it is the teaching of
the ceremonial laws that has given many theologians of our day what they
believe to be a biblical basis to permit divorce and remarriage. Without
realizing it, in their misunderstanding of these laws, they have made a
caricature of the ceremonial laws as they unknowingly have used them to justify
today's divorces.
Therefore, we want to spend some time
understanding the very nature of the ceremonial law itself and in particular
its relationship to the world and the church of our day. And then we want to
focus the spotlight of our study on the ceremonial laws that particularly relate
to marriage and divorce.
What are Ceremonial Laws?
When Christ was on earth He spoke in
parables and "without a parable spake He not unto them" (Mark 4:34).
Sometimes Jesus told the people He was telling a parable. At other times He
simply told a story and from its setting in the Bible we know it was a parable.
For example, very frequently He would begin a story or a declaration with the
words "the kingdom of heaven is like..." We know that when He used
these particular introductory words He was teaching with a parable.
A parable is an earthly story with a
heavenly meaning. That is, it is a story or illustration taken from the secular
world, but its application relates to some aspect of salvation. It may teach
some aspect of Christ's death or resurrection; it might relate to the faith
that should be found in the life of the believer; it might emphasize the
sending forth of the Gospel; or again, it might point to Judgment Day.
Because the nation of Israel was so
intimately a part of the Gospel story, some of the parables were teaching about
God's plans for them. For example, in Matthew 21:33-45, in the parable of the
wicked husbandmen, Jesus is pointing to the fact that the kingdom of God would
be taken away from national Israel and given to others.
In the Old Testament this same teaching
method was used extensively. We can see this most clearly in the types and
shadows God employed in the ceremonial laws outlining worship activities, and
in the civil laws which governed much of the Israelites' civil pursuits.
These laws are called "ceremonial
laws" by theologians because on the earthly, physical level they were to
be rigorously obeyed by the nation of Israel. But once Christ hung on the
cross, the physical aspect of these laws was no longer to be obeyed. Now only
the heavenly meaning inherent within these laws is to continue. At the time
Christ hung on the cross the great curtain that separated the holy of holies
from the holy place was torn apart from top to bottom by the finger of God.
This signaled the end of the literal, physical keeping of the ceremonial laws.
From that time forward the eyes of believers were to be focused only on the
spiritual teachings set forth in the ceremonial laws.
Fact is, when the New Testament church met
together to decide which of these ceremonial laws were to be obeyed by the
Gentiles who were being save, they concluded in Acts 15:28-29:
For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to
us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things;
That ye abstain from meats offered to idols,
and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if
ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.
By this statement we can see that the
observing of ceremonial laws had come to an end.
The ceremonial laws ran the whole gamut from
blood sacrifices and burnt offerings to such things as the dimensions and
characteristics of the temple building, as well as to such things as laws
concerning the planting of fields or weaving of cloth.
These laws were to be obeyed by Israel
literally, as earthly experiences. But as they engaged in the earthly event
they were to realize that the earthly event was only a shadow or type of some
aspect of God's salvation. In Colossians 2:16-17 God emphasizes this principle
as He declares:
Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or
in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath
days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.
Included within the ceremonial laws were
laws concerning marriage. Three of these were especially noteworthy.
We shall look at each of these three laws
very carefully. In doing so we will begin to understand the terrible dilemma
the church of today has gotten itself into in this matter of divorce and
remarriage after divorce.
Believers Are Not To Be Unequally Yoked
With Unbelievers
The first of these three laws is found in
Deuteronomy 7:2-4. This law was given to national Israel at the time they were
first coming into the land of Canaan. The law declares:
And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them
before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make
no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them: Neither shalt thou make
marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his
daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy son from
following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the Lord be
kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.
The first part of this commandment points to
the spiritual principle of the eventual judgment of the unsaved by the
believers. This will occur at Judgment Day when the believers will act as the
jury, judging those who must be sent to hell for their sins (I Corinthians 6:2;
Revelation 2:26,27). The earthly application of this commandment is that they
were to destroy the nations of the land of Canaan.
The second part of the commandment points to
the spiritual principle that believers were not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers.
The nation of Israel typifies the body of believers in Christ. The heathen
nations surrounding Israel typify the world with all of its enticements and
temptations. Even as the men of the nation of Israel were not to marry heathen
wives, so believers are not to become attached or "married" to the
world. As a further development of this law, God declares in Isaiah 52:11:
Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence,
touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear
the vessels of the Lord.
In this exhortation the Israelites were
effectively told that they were to divorce themselves from that which was
unclean. In its literal, earthly application it meant that if (in violation of
Deuteronomy 7:2-4) they had married heathen wives, they were to divorce them.
The truth of this can be seen dramatically in the book of Ezra.
The last two chapters of Ezra reveal a most
sad and traumatic experience faced by Israel. Under the leadership of men like
Nehemiah and Ezra a number of Israelites had returned to Jerusalem. In
Jerusalem the discovery was made that quite a number of the men had married
heathen wives and had even borne children. We read in Ezra 9:2-4:
For they have taken of their daughters for
themselves, and for their sons: so that the holy seed have mingled themselves
with the people of those lands: yea, the hand of the princes and rulers hath
been chief in this trespass. And when I heard this thing, I rent my garment and
my mantle, and plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down
astonied. Then assembled unto me every one that trembled at the words of
the God of Israel, because of the transgression of those that had been carried
away; and I sat astonied until the evening sacrifice.
In answer to this serious charge of
violation of the commandment of Deuteronomy 7:2-4, the leaders of Israel made a
very important and difficult decision. They decided that these men must be
divorced from their heathen wives. We read in Ezra 10:2-3:
And Shechaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the
sons of Elam, answered and said unto Ezra, We have trespassed against our God,
and have taken strange wives of the people of the land: yet now there is hope
in Israel concerning this thing. Now therefore let us make a covenant with our
God to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them, according to the
counsel of my lord, and of those that tremble at the commandment of our God;
and let it be done according to the law.
The decision was to let it be done according
to the law. In Isaiah 52:11 God's law decreed that those who had become
involved with the unclean thing were to depart from that which was unclean. In
the practical sense it was saying that if an Israelite married a heathen wife,
he was to divorce that wife. This was precisely the way Ezra and the other
leaders understood that law, for we
read in Ezra 10:10-12 of their decision
concerning this matter.
And Ezra the priest stood up, and said unto
them, Ye have transgressed, and have taken strange wives, to increase the
trespass of Israel. Now therefore make confession unto the Lord God of your
fathers, and do his pleasure: and separate yourselves from the people of the
land, and from the strange wives. Then all the congregation answered and said
with a loud voice, As thou hast said, so must we do.
That we have not misunderstood the
disposition of this problem can be seen further on, in Ezra 10:15-17.
And the children of the captivity did so.
And Ezra the priest, with certain chief of the fathers, after the house of
their fathers, and all of them by their names, were separated, and sat down in
the first day of the tenth month to examine the matter. And they made an end
with all the men that had taken strange wives by the first day of the first
month.
Combining the commands of Deuteronomy 7:2-4
and Isaiah 52:11 with the last two chapters of Ezra, we see that the earthly
application of this first ceremonial law concerning marriage is that there was
to be biblical divorce. If a man violated the law of Deuteronomy 7:2-4 by
marrying a heathen wife, the law of Isaiah 52:11 decreed that he was to correct
that sinful situation by divorcing that wife.
The spiritual or heavenly meaning introduced
by these laws continues today. In II Corinthians 6:14-17 God declared:
Be ye not unequally yoked together with
unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and
what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with
Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement
hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as
God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye
separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive
you,
By this law God is emphasizing that
believers are not to be unequally yoked to anything that is of the kingdom of
Satan. This can be someone we are planning to marry, or it can be any situation
in which we become so entangled with the world that it is like being married to
the world.
If we find this conditions existing in our
lives, we are to separate ourselves from it. We are to turn away from this
unclean condition. This turning away from the world is what God was typifying
by the biblical divorce presented in the last two chapters of Ezra.
Must I Divorce My Unsaved Spouse?
Of course, our next question is fairly
shouting at us by now. Since the men of Israel were to divorce heathen wives to
whom they had become married, what about a mixed marriage of today wherein the
believer is married to an unbeliever? Is the believer to divorce the unsaved
spouse? In order to answer these questions, let's quickly review what we've
learned so far.
The earthly story of the Old Testament was
that some of the men of Israel were marrying women of other nations. Such
marriages were to be ended by divorce. In the New Testament when God says
"Israel" He means the body of believers. So, even as the Old Testament
men of Israel were not to marry heathen women, the New Testament men of Israel,
the true believers, are not to marry unsaved wives. Does that mean then that
God intends for a believer to divorce his unsaved wife?
God answers this question very carefully in
I Corinthians 7:12-13.
But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If
any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with
him, let him not put her away. And the woman which hath an husband that
believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him.
God further answers this question in I Peter
3:1 where He speaks of the wife who is married to the unsaved husband. There we
read:
Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your
own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be
won by the conversation of the wives;
In these verses God is indication that there
is not to be divorce in the case of this kind of marriage. We thus see that the
earthly application of the ceremonial laws of Deuteronomy 7:2-4 and Isaiah
52:11 no longer is to be observed. No longer do these laws provide a valid
basis for divorce.
But the heavenly meaning of these laws
continues today. Anyone who is so involved in or attached to the world to the
extent that he seems married to it is to turn away from it. He is to separate
himself from this unholy alliance.
Thus we have seen that until Christ went to
the cross a biblically sanctioned divorce was required when a man had violated
Deuteronomy 7:2-4 by marrying certain heathen women. But the earthly aspect of
this law came to an end when Christ died, as indicated by New Testament verses
such as I Corinthians 7:12-13, II Corinthians 6:14-17, and I Peter 3:1.
But Deuteronomy 7:2-4 and Isaiah 52:11 are
not the only ceremonial laws that speak to the question of marriage and
divorce. In our next chapter we will look at another ceremonial law that
focuses on the sanctity of marriage.
Chapter 2
ADULTERY CALLS FOR THE DEATH PENALTY
In the first chapter of this study we found
that there was a time when, under certain conditions, divorce was sanctioned by
the Bible. But we also learned that the earthly aspect of that divorce is no
longer applicable. Insofar as marriage is concerned, the divorce that was
sanctioned by the ceremonial laws we have thus far examined, is no longer
applicable to us today.
But now we will look at a second ceremonial
law that relates to marriage. It is found in Deuteronomy 22:22 where God
declares:
If a man be found lying with a woman married
to an husband, then they shall both of them die, both the man that lay with the
woman, and the woman: so shalt thou put away evil from Israel.
This law did not deal with the prohibition
of certain marriages as did the law of Deuteronomy 7:2-4. Rather, it demanded
the death penalty for a man and woman who were discovered in an adulterous
relationship. This dramatic judgment on those who commit adultery was the
literal, earthly application of this command.
But what is the heavenly meaning? What is
the Gospel application of this command?
The answer to these questions is found in
the New Testament. There we discover that this command is pointing us to a very
awesome spiritual marriage. This marriage is revealed in Romans 7:1-4. There we
read:
Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them
that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he
liveth? For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband
so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of
her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another
man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free
from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another
man. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of
Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from
the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
In this significant passage God teaches us
that in a spiritual sense every individual in the human race is automatically
married to the law of God. This marriage is not the result of man's desire.
Rather, it is a marriage in which God has joined two parties together into an
indissolvable union. These two parties are the human being on the one hand, and
the law of God on the other hand.
Because God has joined these two together,
no man can break this union. No matter how we might wish we were free from our
spiritual marriage to the law of God, we cannot be freed from it.
Unfortunately, it is a marriage between a
perfect husband and a very imperfect wife. The husband is the law of God, which
is absolutely blameless. The wife, however, is the human being, and she is
altogether adulterous. We know that the law of God is the husband because
Romans 7:1 declares that the law has dominion over the man. Within any marriage
relationship, it is God's plan that the husband is the head of the wife and
that the wife is to be submissive to the husband.
Therefore, within this spiritual marriage,
we humans are to submit obediently to the law of God, which is our spiritual
husband. But each and every time we commit a sin we are engaging in spiritual
adultery. We are not being faithful to our spiritual husband, the law of God.
The law of God, as the husband, cannot
divorce the adulterous wife because what God has joined together cannot be put
asunder by man. God takes this principle so seriously that even a perfect
husband, the law of God, cannot become separated from the adulterous wife (each
human) to which it is married.
That this spiritual adultery is recognized
by God can be seen in the language of James 4:4.
Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not
that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will
be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
In this verse God is clearly speaking of the
adulterous nature of mankind. Men are adulterers and women are adulteresses
because they are living in spiritual fornication in relationship to the law of
God to which they are spiritually married.
Jesus makes reference to this adulterous
condition of the human race by the language of Mark 8:38 where we read:
Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and
of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son
of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy
angels.
The adulterous and sinful generation of
which He speaks includes the existence of the whole human race throughout time.
The kingdom of Satan to which all of the
unsaved of the world belong is described as the great whore in Revelation 17.
This indictment of the world can be clearly understood when we realize that
every unsaved person is married to the law of God. But because of man's
sinfulness, he is living adulterously as a harlot. Each sinful act is an act of
spiritual adultery.
However, even though the law of God, as the
husband, cannot divorce that fornicating wife, the human race, there is a way
that this terrible marriage can be brought to an end. Because of fornication,
the wife deserves to die. Only if she dies can this unfortunate marriage be
brought to an end.
Because the husband is absolutely just and
holy, it (the law of God) will bring accusation against the adulterous wife,
demanding her death. It is this death that was anticipated in the ceremonial
law of Deuteronomy 22:22.
Only Eternal Damnation Can Break This
Spiritual Marriage
The earthly story required the physical
stoning of both the adulterous wife and the individual with whom she had
committed adultery. But the heavenly meaning of this terrible punishment is far
more serious. This is because the death that is required by mankind's husband,
the law of God, is the second death, which is eternal damnation. Only after we
have spent an eternity in hell can the marriage between the law of God on the
one hand, and each human being on the other, be ended.
When a man, a woman, or a child dies
physically, does this death end the spiritual marriage of this person to the
law of God. Unfortunately, it does not. For on the Last Day, when this
individual is resurrected, this person's spiritual husband, the law of God,
will stand there, accusing this person of spiritual fornication while living on
this earth.
Even in hell the law of God is present,
demanding the full penalty--an eternity in hell. Only if this person has spent
an eternity in hell can be freed from the dominion of the husband, the law of
God. But because eternity is forever, there will never be an ending of this
awesome relationship.
This, then, is the warning that God wants us
to see in the ceremonial law of Deuteronomy 22:22.
The question must now be raised: Is the
earthly aspect of this dreadful ceremonial law still to be observed in our day?
The answer is that it (like all of the ceremonial laws) is no longer to be
observed now that Christ has gone to the cross.
This is shown by Jesus' reaction to the
woman taken in adultery, which is recorded in John 8:1-11. According to Deuteronomy
22:22, she should have been stoned. But Jesus, who is eternal God Himself,
nullified that command by telling the woman to sin no more.
But the spiritual meaning of Deuteronomy
22:22 continues throughout time. This can be seen very clearly in the language
of Romans 7:1-4. The recognition of this spiritual situation points us to our
intense need of a Saviour. Later we will look at the wonderful truth that in
Christ we can be freed from this dreadful marriage with the law of God.
Only Death Can End The Human Marriage
It must not escape our attention that, in
discussing the spiritual application of this command, God has set it forth in
the context of the human marriage relationship. The individual is bound forever
to the husband, the law of God. Only death can break this union.
Likewise, the wife is bound to her husband
as long as he lives. Only his death can free her from this marriage union.
The word "bound" that is used in
Romans 7:2 is very important. We read there that the woman is "bound"
to her husband as long as he lives. Only his death can free her from this
marriage union.
The word "bound" is the Greek word
"deo." It connotes being "shackled together." For example,
in Mark 5:3 it is translated "bind" and in verse 4 as
"bound." These verses describe its import and meaning as we read:
Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no
man could bind him, no, not with chains: Because that he had been often bound
with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and
the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him.
Again in Acts 12:6 we read of Peter in
prison, "bound with two chains." This word "deo" is found
many times in the Bible and is always used in the sense of someone who is tied
or shackled. This is the word that God uses in describing the wife's
relationship to her husband. This is seen in Romans 7:2 and also in I
Corinthians 7:39 where we read:
The wife is bound by the law as long as her
husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to
whom she will; only in the Lord.
Again in I Corinthians 7:27 we read,
"Art thou bound unto a wife?..."
This binding or shackling of the wife to the
husband can only be broken by the death of the husband as Romans 7:2-3 so
plainly teaches. (As the law of God is the spiritual husband of each human
being, forming a spiritual bond that cannot be broken, likewise the husband
cannot divorce his wife even in the face of her continuous adultery.) She is
bound to him as long as he lives.
How important it is that we see that, in no
uncertain terms, God is teaching that there cannot be divorce for any reason
whatsoever! As we go on in this study we will see this important principle more
and more clearly.
How To Become Free From Our Marriage To
The Law Of God
Before we leave this second ceremonial law
which demanded the death penalty for those caught in adultery, we should not
miss the glorious teaching which shows us how we can end the spiritual
application of this ceremonial law. That application points us to the traumatic
fact that each of us, in our unsaved condition, is married forever to the law
of God.
But in Romans 7:4 God gives us the way of
escape:
Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead
to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to
him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
What does this mean: that we have
"become dead to the law by the body of Christ"? We can understand
this if we recall that the death required by our spiritual husband, the law of
God, was eternal damnation. This is precisely the death Jesus endured when He
took our sins upon Himself. In the atonement He was found guilty with our sins
and God poured out His wrath upon Him as punishment for those sins. That
punishment equaled the punishment we would have to endure if we had to spend an
eternity in hell.
That is why Romans 7:4 indicates that Christ
rose from the dead. This was the proof that the penalty demanded by the law of
God had been entirely paid. Because Christ, our substitute, endured the
equivalent of eternal damnation for each believer, each believer has become
dead to their former husband, the law of God. Thus the law of God has no longer
any dominion over him. He is dead to the law.
And he, as a new creature, as one who is
born again, is free to become spiritually married to someone else. That someone
else is Christ Himself. The believer becomes the eternal bride of Christ.
The spiritual marriage of the believer to
the law of God has come to an end by the death of Christ because, as the
believer's substitute, He has endured eternal damnation. Christ, therefore, is
free to take the believer as His bride in an eternal marriage relationship. God
has joined the believer to Christ in an eternal, indissolvable marriage
relationship that no man can break asunder.
Since no death can ever occur to either
Christ, the husband, or to the believer, the bride, there is no possible way
that this beautiful marriage can ever come to an end. Even though the believer
might engage in spiritual fornication (sin), Christ cannot divorce His bride.
Even as the law of God, the husband, could
not divorce its fornicating wife (the unsaved person), so too, Jesus cannot divorce
His bride, the person who has become saved, even when His bride commits
spiritual fornication. Likewise, in the human marriage relationship, there
cannot be divorce for fornication. What God has joined together cannot be put
asunder. Only death can break this marriage.
Because the believer was given eternal life
at the time of salvation, and because Christ rose from the dead to live
forever, Christ can never end this blessed marriage union between Himself and
the believer.
How marvelous! How wonderful! How
magnificent is the grace of God!
Moreover, because the law of God is no
longer the husband of the believer, it no longer has dominion over the
believer. That is, never again can it threaten the believer with death. The
eternal damnation Christ endured for each believer forever satisfies any
penalty the believer might be subject to for spiritual fornication (for any sin
he might commit).
This does not mean he is no longer related
to the law of God. The law of God has now become his friend. It shows him how
to enjoy to the highest possible degree his new relationship with his new
husband, Christ Jesus Himself. But he is no longer shackled to the law of God
the way a wife is to a husband. Therefore, the law can no longer threaten him
with eternal damnation when he sins.
Wonderfully, even as God uses the marriage
relationship between the law of God and mankind to help us understand human
marriage between husband and wife, so too, God uses the wonderful marriage
relationship between Christ and His bride to help us understand human marriage.
Later in our study we will look at this more closely.
Thus far we have looked at two ceremonial
laws which had to do with marriage. The first decreed that an Israelite was not
to marry a woman of certain nations. If he did so, he was to divorce her. This
law was pointing to the spiritual principle that we are not be unequally yoked
with the world. If we find we have become tied to the world, we are to break
these ties. We are to depart from the unclean thing.
We discovered that the earthly application
of this ceremonial law no longer is applicable. Since believers are found in
every political nation, and national Israel no longer has preferred spiritual
status (since the cross), this law no longer applies to marriages between
individuals of different nationalities.
True, we can make an earthly application
when we recognize that a believer is not to marry an unbeliever. This
application is possible because the spiritual meaning continues throughout
time. The marriage of a believer to an unbeliever is directly related to the
spiritual meaning which decrees that there is not to be yoking together of the
kingdom of Satan and the kingdom of Christ.
But even in this special application, the
Bible very carefully instructs us in the New Testament that there is not to be
divorce even if a marriage does come to exist between a believer and an
unbeliever.
The second ceremonial law we looked at was
Deuteronomy 22:22. There we discovered that the earthly story insisted that a
man was to have his wife stoned to death if she were found committing adultery.
But this earthly application was set aside when Christ told the woman taken in
adultery to "go, and sin no more."
On the other hand, the spiritual meaning of
this ceremonial law continues forever. It points to the marriage between the
human race and the law of God. The law of God, as the husband, rules over each
unsaved individual, the wife. But no matter how often the wife engages in the
spiritual adultery of rebellion against the law of God, there can be no
divorce. Only eternal damnation satisfies the death penalty required because of
mankind's spiritual fornication.
Thus far we have not found the slightest
suggestion that, following the cross, there can be divorce for any reason
whatsoever. On the contrary, we have found that even as we humans are bound to
the law of God until we have completely experienced the second death, eternal
damnation, so too, the wife is bound to her husband as long as they both shall
live.
In the next chapter we will look at a third
ceremonial law that actually has been used as the basis for much of the divorce
that is taking place today.
Chapter 3
GOD'S
MARRIAGE TO ISRAEL
Patiently we are carefully searching the
Bible to find what it has to say about the institution of marriage. We are
particularly seeking to know if under any circumstances a divorce may occur.
So far we have examined two sets of laws
found in the Bible that relate directly to the questions we are studying. And
thus far, we have found no statement that condones divorce for any reason
whatsoever.
But now we shall look at a third ceremonial
law that relates to marriage and divorce. It was introduced into the Bible
because there existed a second spiritual marriage, entirely different from the
marriage of the law of God to the human race. It was the marriage wherein God
took as His wife a nation, ancient national Israel. Israel, as a corporate,
external body, was the representation of the kingdom of God on earth during the
historical period from Abraham to Jesus.
This marriage relationship was established
by God because national Israel as a whole typified and foreshadowed the
spiritual Israel of God which was to become the eternal bride of Christ.
We know this spiritual marriage between God and
national Israel existed because of God's complaint recorded in Jeremiah 3:14
concerning the spiritual fornication practiced by His wife:
Turn, O backsliding children, saith the
Lord; for I am married unto you:...
He was not married to them as individuals;
as individuals they were spiritually married to the law of God. Rather, He was
married to them as a corporate entity.
But God faced a real problem. At no time in
national Israel's history were they faithful. Repeatedly they lusted after
other gods. What was God to do with His fornicating wife?
According to God's eternal law, death is
required for the adulterous wife. But God could not utterly destroy Israel as a
nation, for it was out of national Israel that Christ was to come. Moreover,
national Israel was to be the seedbed from which the whole New Testament church
would spring forth.
Furthermore, God's plan was to use national
Israel as an example of His patience and mercy. Remember, in the parable of
Luke 13 the fig tree that repeatedly had not borne fruit was to be cut down.
But then it was to be given one more opportunity. If there still was no fruit,
it was to be cut down.
So today we see national Israel as a viable
nation amongst the nations of the world. Only if it ceases to bear spiritual
fruit will it be destroyed.
For all of these reasons, and possibly
others, God chose not to have his spiritual wife, national Israel, killed. And
yet it was God's plan to break His spiritual marriage with national Israel.
Once Christ went to the cross, God had purposed to forever end any spiritual
relationship He had ever had with Israel as a nation.
To accomplish this goal, God introduced
another law into the body of ceremonial laws. In order to divorce Israel God
had to introduce a law that would permit divorce. God, as the giver and maker
of the law, may introduce any law He desires. But whatever law He sets forth,
God in His perfect righteousness obligates Himself to obey.
And so in Deuteronomy 24:1-4 God placed into
the Word of God a law that permitted divorce for fornication. There we read:
When a man hath taken a wife, and married
her, and it come to pass that she find no favour 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.
This law permitted a husband to divorce his
wife in whom he had found some matter of uncleanness. (Later we will go into
detail to show that this related to fornication.) The inclusion of this law
permitted God to divorce national Israel. We are told this in Isaiah 50:1.
Thus saith the Lord, Where is the bill of
your mother's divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it
to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves,
and for your transgressions is your mother put away.
Likewise, in Jeremiah 3:8 we read:
And I saw, when for all the causes whereby
backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill
of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played
the harlot also.
Further on, in verse 20 of Jeremiah 3, God
continues revealing the sinful nature of the wife He had married.
Surely as a wife treacherously departeth
from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel,
saith the Lord.
So we have seen that within the ceremonial
law God introduced two dominant laws concerning adultery within a marriage.
These two laws were quite different from each other. In the case of Deuteronomy
22:22 both a man and a woman engaging in the act of adultery were to be put to
death. In the case of Deuteronomy 24:1-4, only the wife could be divorced for
fornication. No language is employed here or anywhere else in the Bible that
even suggests that a wife could ever divorce an adulterous husband.
Because these laws were a part of the
ceremonial laws, the citizens of the nation of Israel were to obey them. If a
husband found his wife in an open act of adultery, he was to have her stoned to
death along with the man with whom she was caught. If there were some act of
obvious fornication, but the wife was not actually caught in the act of
adultery, the husband still had the right to divorce her.
This ceremonial law of Deuteronomy 24:1-4
had an earthly, physical application and a spiritual, or heavenly application.
As we have seen, the earthly application permitted the husband to divorce his
wife if it appeared she had engaged in fornication. The heavenly application
was intended to make it possible for God to divorce national Israel because of
its continuing spiritual fornication.
Jesus made several references to this law in
the New Testament. He did so to show that this law was rescinded with His
coming as the Christ, as well as to show that Israel had grossly misapplied
this law. Remarkably, it is still grossly misapplied by the church as a
biblical basis for divorce. We will look into this as we continue our study.
Israel's Misuse Of Deuteronomy 24
The language of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 was
sufficiently unclear so that the men of national Israel used it as a basis for
divorcing their wives for any reason whatsoever. Let us see why this is so,
because this will help us understand Matthew 5:32, a verse some people use to
justify divorce for fornication.
The key words of Deuteronomy 24:1 are
"some uncleanness." For "some uncleanness" found in a wife
the husband had biblical cause for divorce. What exactly was this sin?
The Hebrew word "dabar," which is
translated as "some" in the phrase "some uncleanness,"
normally means "word" or "matter." Out of about 2400 usages
in the Bible, it is translated in a least 1000 verses "speak" or
"talk" or something similar. In other verses it is translated
"word" at least 770 times. Thus, "word" or "talk"
are the dominant meanings of the word "dabar."
Less often, but with considerable frequency,
"dabar" is translated as "act" (52 times),
"matter" (63 times) and "thing" (215 times). Thus, we can
safely say that in Deuteronomy 24:1 "dabar" should be translated as
"act," "matter," "thing," or "word."
The Hebrew word which is translated as
"uncleanness" in this same phrase "ervah." It is a word
that is found 54 times in the King James Bible. In more than 50 of these places
it is translated "nakedness." When we examine the places where it is
translated "nakedness" we find that it usually relates to gross
sexual impurity. For example, in Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20 where God is
setting forth commands prohibiting incest, God employs the word
"nakedness" ("ervah") at least 30 times.
Thus, the word "ervah" takes on
the meaning "fornication." Fact is, in Leviticus 18:8 God warns,
"The nakedness (ervah) of thy father's wife shalt thou not uncover."
A commentary on this warning is found in I Corinthians 5:1 where we read:
It is reported commonly that there is fornication
among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles,
that one should have his father's wife.
In this verse God uses the word
"fornication" in connection with sexual impurity between a man and
his father's wife. But in Leviticus 18:8 God speaks of this kind of sexual
impurity as uncovering the nakedness. Therefore, we can see that
"nakedness" or "uncleanness" is synonymous with
"fornication."
Bringing these facts together, we can know
that in Deuteronomy 24:1 God is teaching that if a man found a "word"
or a "matter" of fornication in his wife, he could write a bill of
divorcement and divorce her.
True, certain acts of fornication were
punishable by death. But if the particular act or word of fornication did not
require the death of the fornicating wife, the husband had the right to divorce
her.
But there was another understanding of the
meaning of "ervah" that was possible. And it was this understanding
that opened the door for the Israelite husband to divorce his wife under almost
any circumstance.
Divorce For Any Cause
In Deuteronomy 23:12-14 God used the
identical phrase, "ervah dabar," which is used as the key phrase of
Deuteronomy 24:1. "Ervah dabar" did not refer to fornication; rather,
it referred to ceremonial uncleanness. Verses 12-14 inform us:
Thou shalt have a place also without the
camp, whither thou shalt go forth abroad: And thou shalt have a paddle upon thy
weapon; and it shall be, when thou wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig
therewith, and shalt turn back and cover that which cometh from thee: For the
Lord thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp, to deliver thee, and to give up
thine enemies before thee; therefore shall thy camp be holy: that he see no
unclean thing in thee, and turn away from thee.
The phrase "unclean thing" near
the end of this quotation is "ervah dabar." But what was this
"unclean thing"? In this context it was nothing more than the
discharge from a person's body when he or she felt the "call of
nature." When a person felt the urge, he was to go outside the camp, dig a
hole to receive his body's discharge, and then he was to cover it so that the
surface of the ground would be clean.
Actually, any discharge from the body made a
person unclean. According to the ceremonial laws of Leviticus 15, any running
issue, any kind of discharge from the body, made a person unclean. A woman
menstruating was unclean. Someone experiencing diarrhea that spotted his
garments was unclean.
Therefore, the use of "ervah
dabar" in Deuteronomy 23:14 gave the men of Israel tremendous leverage in
their marriages. All one had to do was to spot menstrual blood on his wife's
garments; or any other discharge that touched her or her garments would serve
the hardhearted husband's purpose. In the intimacy of marriage the
opportunities to see "some uncleanness" in one's wife were numerous.
Thus the men could divorce their wives quite
easily. The wife had no security whatsoever. Even though she may have never
been guilty of fornication, the husband could still find plenty of
"biblical" reason to divorce her if this was his desire.
Jesus Sets The Matter Straight
Significantly, Jesus took serious issue with
this understanding of Deuteronomy 24:1-4. Jesus clarified the law by showing
that these verses of Deuteronomy 24 had in view only fornication as a ground
for divorce. We see this when we read Matthew 5:31-32. These verses declare:
It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away
his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: But I say unto you, That
whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth
her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced
committeth adultery.
The language of verse 31 relates back to
Deuteronomy 24:1-4. This is the only passage of the Old Testament that relates
in a clear way to the statement of Jesus found in Matthew 5:31.
But Jesus pointed out that ancient Israel
had widened the application of cause for divorce far beyond the scope intended
by Deuteronomy 24:1 where the cause had to be a specific word or matter of
fornication. Most likely, by applying the words of Deuteronomy 23:12-14, they
had decided that they could divorce their wives for any reason. That is why
Matthew 5:31 states that
all that was required for divorce at that
time was the writing of divorcement. Jesus, therefore, made a point of
restating Deuteronomy 24:1-4 in verse 32.
We will see that Jesus is accomplishing
three things by this restatement. First of all, He is underscoring the Jews'
total disregard for the sanctity of marriage. He is getting ready to show that
the cause for divorce was to have been something quite adulterous.
Secondly, He is revealing the awful
sinfulness of divorce in that it causes the divorced wife to commit adultery
even though she, by her own action, might be innocent of adultery.
Thirdly, He restates the language of
Deuteronomy 24:2-4 to show that the wife who was divorced should not remarry.
Let us look at Matthew 5:32 very carefully
to discover these three things that Christ is emphasizing.
Deuteronomy 24 Allows Divorce Only For
Fornication
The first phrase we must understand in verse
32 is, "saving for the cause of fornication." Let us examine that
phrase. We will see that it relates very closely to Deuteronomy 24:1.
The word "saving" is the Greek
word "parektos." It is used in only two other places in the Bible. In
Acts 26:29 it is translated "except":
And Paul said, I would to God, that not only
thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such
as I am, except these bonds.
In this verse "parektos" carries
the meaning "without"--"without these bonds."
The other place this word is found is in II
Corinthians 11:28 where "parektos" is translated "without."
Beside those things that are without, that which
cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.
Here we see that the biblical meaning of
"parektos" is "without."
Returning to Matthew 5:32, we discover that
the English phrase "for the cause" is the Greek word
"logos." But "logos' is normally translated "word." It
is translated as "word" more than 200 times in the Bible. It is also
translated in a few instances as "matter" or "thing." Thus
"logos" can mean either "word" or "matter" or
"thing." And so we find that it actually is the Greek equivalent of
the Hebrew word "dabar" used in Deuteronomy 24:1.
The word "fornication" used in
Matthew 5:32 is the Greek word "porneias" which is always translated
"fornication." Therefore, we learn that the phrase "saving for
the cause of fornication" can be accurately translated "without a
word or matter of fornication." This is surprisingly close to the literal
rendering
of the Hebrew "ervah dabar" of
Deuteronomy 24:1. Remember, the usual translation of "dabar" was
"word" or "talk" or "matter;" and the usual
translation of "ervah" was "nakedness" in the context of
fornication.
Thus, we evidence that Jesus was focusing in
on Deuteronomy 24:1 by the specific language He used in Matthew 5:32. He was
teaching that the "uncleanness" of Deuteronomy 24:1 was not meant to
be understood as some ceremonial uncleanness such as menstrual blood or a
diarrhea discharge. Rather, it was meant to present fornication as the only
cause for which a man could divorce his wife. Deuteronomy 24:1-4 was never
intended to give a man an excuse to divorce his wife for any cause.
Divorce Causes An Innocent Spouse To Be
Adulterous
As we continue to examine verse 32, we
discover that Christ has introduced an additional principle to be kept in mind
in the matter of marriage and divorce.
The next phrase in verse 32 is:
"causeth her to commit adultery." How are we to understand this?
Let's begin by reading verse 32 without the
phrase "saving for the cause of fornication." It now reads
"whosoever shall put away his wife...causeth her to commit adultery. Does
this merely mean that the divorced wife becomes prone to adultery because, if
she should marry someone else, that marriage would be adulterous as Romans
7:2-3 teaches?
No. There is no evidence that Jesus is
teaching this. He is simply saying that if a man divorces his wife, regardless
of how holy or pure she might be in herself, she has been forced by divorce
itself to commit adultery. That is, the very act of the divorce caused her
marriage to become adulterated and in that sense she has been caused to commit
adultery. Jesus is underscoring how terrible the sin of divorce is. Not only
does the husband who desires the divorce sin, but he also causes his wife to
sin, even though she does not want the divorce.
This becomes understandable when we remember
that those who have married have become fused by God into one flesh, a divine
union which no man can break apart. Remember, we saw earlier in Romans 7:1-4
that the wife is bound to her husband as long as she lives. Therefore, if a man
breaks apart that which God has joined together, the union has been
adulterated. Even though the wife may be perfectly innocent in the divorce, she
has been forced to commit adultery because the union with her husband has been
adulterated. This is one of the important teachings of this verse. Jesus is
emphasizing the fact that divorcing a wife for any reason was a dreadful sin.
However, if the wife had committed
fornication before the divorce, then she herself committed adultery. Based on
Deuteronomy 24:1, the man had a right to divorce his wife in such a case. So,
since she was adulterous before she was divorced, the husband's act of
divorcing her was not the cause of her sinful state of adultery.
But Jesus is not calling attention to
Deuteronomy 24:1 in order to indicate that this command is to continue in force
throughout time. That is not the purpose of Jesus' reference to it. He is
simply showing that while Deuteronomy 24:1 was in force, a man had to discover
actual fornication in his wife. To put her away for any lesser cause was a
violation of that command. And the Jews had grossly violated that command by
perverting it into a command wherein they could divorce their wives for any
cause.
But since that command was repealed (as we
shall see when we study Mark 10 and Matthew 19), Jesus definitely is not
teaching that fornication is a cause for divorce. Therefore, this verse is not
dealing with the question of whether or not there is any cause for divorce.
That question is not at issue. Rather, Jesus is emphasizing the seriousness of
the sin of divorce. Divorce causes even the husband's spouse to commit adultery
because the union between herself and her husband has become adulterated by
this divorce.
The Woman Who Is Divorced Becomes Defiled
If She Marries Again
The third point that Jesus makes involves a
restatement and clarification of Deuteronomy 24:2-4 which reads:
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.
In our King James Bible it appears (by the
use of the word "may " in the phrase "she may go") to say
that the fornicating wife who was divorced was free to remarry. However, in the
original Hebrew the word "may" is not included. So the Bible is not
teaching she may go and be another's. This can be seen by the language found in
verse 4 where God indicates she will have become defiled if she remarries.
Effectively, God is teaching that if the divorced wife goes and becomes another
man's wife, she will be defiled so that she can never return to her first
husband.
This principle is reiterated and expanded in
the last phrase of Matthew 5:32 where Jesus declares the "whosoever shall
marry her that is divorced committeth adultery." Because the divorced wife
who has remarried has become defiled as a result of this remarriage, it
logically follows that the man who married her has entered into an adulterous
marriage. Jesus is emphasizing the fact that such a man has indeed committed
adultery.
But in Matthew 5:32 Jesus is further
indicating that anyone who marries a divorced wife is committing adultery. That
is, if a wife is divorced for any reason, the man who marries her commits
adultery. We see, therefore, that even as Romans 7:2-3 taught that the woman
who remarried while her first husband was still living became as adulteress, so
too, the man who married such a woman has become an adulterer.
Deuteronomy 24:1 Allowed Only One Half Of
Israel To Divorce
Significantly, the law that permitted a man
to divorce his wife for fornication only applied to half of Israel. Let us see
why this was so.
As we have seen, Deuteronomy 24:1 was a law that
only permitted the husband to divorce his wife. This was so because, in its
ceremonial nature, it was pointing to the coming divorce of national Israel.
But no provision of any kind was made for the wife to divorce the husband. This
was because there was no aspect of God's salvation plan or of God's dealing
with national Israel that included the possibility of national Israel divorcing
God. Therefore, as national Israel obeyed that law, a wife could never divorce
a fornicating husband. In her relationship to her husband she was under the
universal law given from the beginning of creation that there was not to be
divorce for any reason whatsoever.
We thus see that in the case of the law of
God (the husband) being spiritually married to the individual (the wife) there
never was a time when divorce for fornication of for any other reason was
allowed. Also we have seen that in the nation of Israel the wife could never
divorce the husband for his fornication. Only the husband could divorce the
wife for fornication because that was part of the ceremonial law pointing to
God's coming divorce of corporate, national Israel. This was to occur because
of their many spiritual fornications. It would come about when God no longer
planned for national Israel to serve as a type or figure of His salvation
program.
In summary, we see the Deuteronomy 24:1-4
taught the following principles:
l. A husband could divorce his wife only if
she were found guilty of fornication.
2. The wife, who was guilty of fornication
and, as a result, was divorced, would become defiled if she married someone
else. Thus she was to remain single.
3. No permission was given to the wife to
divorce her husband for any reason whatsoever.
In Matthew 5:32 Jesus reiterated the basic
principles of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 and expanded them to teach:
l. A husband who divorced his wife for any
reason other than fornication caused her to commit adultery.
2. Any man who married a divorced woman
committed adultery.
Now we must face the next question.
When we looked at Deuteronomy 7:2-4 and
Deuteronomy 22:22 we saw that once Christ went to the cross the earthly,
physical applications of the laws no longer were to be observed. Only the
spiritual or heavenly meanings of these commands were to continue.
But what about Deuteronomy 24:1-4? What does
the Bible teach concerning the continuation of this law? Insofar as the
spiritual, heavenly meaning of these verses is concerned, we know that it came
to an end when Jesus hung on the cross. When the veil of the temple was rent
asunder, it signaled the finality of God's divorce from national Israel. Never
again would He have any spiritual relationship with national Israel as a
corporate body.
Therefore, in its spiritual dimension,
Deuteronomy 24:1-4 has no application after the cross. Because it was written
into Old Testament law in order that God might divorce national Israel for its
spiritual fornication, we have reason to suspect that it (like other ceremonial
laws) ceased to have any physical application after the crucifixion. It was at
that time that God officially ended His special spiritual relationship with
national Israel.
The Bible clearly shows that this law was
rescinded by the Lord Jesus Christ in Mark 10:2-12. Let us look at these
verses.
In Mark 10:2 we read of the Pharisees coming
to Jesus with a question concerning divorce. This verse informs us:
And the Pharisees came to him, and asked
him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? tempting him.
Their question must relate to Deuteronomy
24:1-4 for it is the only Old Testament passage that speaks of the possibility
of a man divorcing his wife. This can be seen in Jesus' answer in verses 3 and
4:
And he answered and said unto them, What did
Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement,
and to put her away.
These verses plainly show that Deuteronomy
24:1-4 is in view. It is clearly the passage that Jesus is addressing as He
continues to teach. In verse 5 Jesus explains why this command had been
inserted into Old Testament law;
And Jesus answered and said unto them, For
the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept.
Here He declares that it was because of the
hardness of the hearts of ancient Israel that the law was given to allow
divorce for fornication. Can we assume by this that God saw how adulterous the
wives in the nation of Israel would be? Did He want to provide some relief to
the husbands by setting forth a law that permitted them to divorce if their
wives were involved in fornication? Or did He give the law because the husbands
would be so unforgiving of their fornicating wives that, because of the
hardness of their hearts, these unforgiving husbands were allowed to divorce
their wives?
Neither of these possibilities make sense.
God lays down laws that help us to live more holy before Him rather than to
allow us to live sinfully.
It is only when we realize the truth as to
why God inserted this law into the ceremonial laws of the Bible that this verse
can be understood. The phrase "hardness of heart" relates to that
which is rebellious. And rebellion against God is spiritual fornication. God
gave this law so that He, as the husband of national Israel, could divorce His
fornicating wife. It was because of the hardness of heart, or spiritual
fornication of national Israel that his law was given. And so, once God had
divorced national Israel, this law had no further purpose.
Therefore, we find in verses 6-9 of Mark 10
that Jesus very directly, very plainly rescinds this command by stating:
But from the beginning of the creation God
made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father
and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh: so then
they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together,
let not man put asunder.
In this answer Jesus indicates that it was
never God's intention for divorce to be permitted. True, temporarily, God did
open a very narrow window permitting a man to divorce his fornicating wife. But
this was only so that God could divorce fornicating national Israel.
In Jesus' answer in Mark 10:9 He restates
God's intention for marriage with the words: "What therefore God hath
joined together, let not man put asunder." In other words, there is not to
be divorce for any reason whatsoever. Two people who have been joined together
in marriage have been fused by God into one flesh. And that which has been
bound together by God, no man is to try to break apart. To underscore this
truth Jesus added in Mark 10:11-12:
And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put
away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if a
woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth
adultery.
Deuteronomy 24:1-4 only allowed a husband to
divorce a fornicating wife. A wife was given no right whatsoever to divorce a
fornicating husband. But now that Jesus has rescinded the husband's right to
divorce a fornicating wife, He emphasizes the impossibility of biblical divorce
from both directions - that of the husband divorcing the wife, and that of the
wife divorcing the husband.
We see, therefore, that Jesus has clearly
re-established the principle laid down from the beginning of time that there is
not to be divorce. He is emphasizing what the Bible continues to declare in
later verses.
Moreover, in Mark 10:11-12 God is
underscoring another vital principle. It is the law that a divorced man or
woman cannot become remarried. According to verse 11, if a man remarries, he
commits adultery against his first wife. Why is this so?
Remember, we learned in Romans 7:1-4 that
the wife is bound to her husband as long as they both live. Therefore, even
though a divorce may have seemingly broken the marriage relationship, from
God's vantage point the man and wife are still bound to each other. Therefore,
if the man takes another wife while his first wife is still living, he is
committing adultery. He is adulterating the lifelong union God has made between
this man and his first wife.
Likewise, verse 12 emphasizes that the wife
may not marry someone else after divorce. Even though she is legally divorced,
in God's sight she is still bound to her first husband. Therefore, she commits
adultery if she marries another while her first husband is still living.
Again, when we looked at Romans 7:1-4 we saw
how God clearly teaches that the wife is bound to her husband as long as he
lives. Remember, this statement was in the context of a wife living in constant
fornication against her husband.
The principle of this binding relationship
of the wife to the husband is repeated in I Corinthians 7:39.
The wife is bound by the law as long as her
husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to
whom she will; only in the Lord.
Moreover, in I Corinthians 7:10 we are
instructed, "Let not the wife depart from (that is, divorce) her
husband."
Likewise, in I Corinthians 7:11 God adds,
"...and let not the husband put away his wife." All of the Bible's
teachings are consistent and in agreement. There is not to be divorce for any
reason whatsoever.
Significantly, in Luke 16:17 Jesus made
reference to the eternal nature of the law of God as He declared:
And it is easier for heaven and earth to
pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.
Having indicated the perpetual nature of the
law of God, Jesus immediately addresses the question of a man divorcing his
wife. He exhorts in Luke 16:18:
Whosoever putteth away his wife, and
marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put
away from her husband committeth adultery.
In this statement we find a repetition of
the same exact truth we have already learned from Mark 10:2-12, Romans 7:1-4,
and I Corinthians 7. There is not to be divorce! No exceptions are to be made!
We also find in Luke 16:18 the truth of Mark
10:11 repeated. God is again declaring a man is not to marry another after
being divorced. Here in Luke we also find the last phrase of Matthew 5:32
re-emphasized. God is again teaching that anyone who marries a divorced woman
commits adultery.
At this point, it is very clear that God
does not countenance divorce for any reason whatsoever. In order to divorce
national Israel (whom God had corporately married), He had temporarily put a
law on the books allowing a husband to divorce his wife for fornication. But
when Jesus came on the scene, He very deliberately and very clearly rescinded
that special law.
We have further learned that there is not to
be remarriage while a former spouse still lives. This truth also may be seen
very clearly. But you may ask, doesn't Matthew 19:9 teach that there still can
be divorce for fornication? To answer this fair question, we will examine that
verse in detail in the next chapter.
Chapter 4
MATTHEW
19:9
As we get more deeply involved with the
biblical teachings on divorce, we want to look carefully at the one verse that
has been abused most consistently in man's efforts to find a biblical basis for
divorce. Because this verse intimately relates to this Deuteronomy 24:1-4,
which we studied at length in our last chapter, we are now prepared to
understand Matthew 19:9. This verse has the appearance of allowing divorce for
fornication. It reads:
And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away
his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth
adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.
Many theologians read this verse and quickly
conclude that it is teaching there can be no divorce except in the one case of
fornication. Surely this verse appears to teach that fornication is cause for
divorce.
But we have already seen in our study that
there is no biblical cause for divorce. Neither fornication, nor any other sin
on the part of either the husband or the wife provides any reason whatsoever
for divorce.
Therefore, we can be sure that this one
verse, Matthew 19:9, cannot allow divorce for fornication, or for any other
reason. If we concluded otherwise, we would have before us a major
contradiction.
But the Bible is one harmonious whole. While
it may have statements within its text that appear contradictory, we can know
that these are not actual contradictions. They only appear to be contradictions
while our understanding of the questionable passages remains incomplete. But
when we have come to correct understanding, we will no longer find
contradictions. This is so because the Bible is one harmonious whole.
But let us assume for a moment that we must
base our whole understanding of divorce and remarriage on this one verse,
Matthew 19:9. What would we learn?
Matthew 19:9 apparently teaches that a man
may divorce his wife for fornication. But notice: there is no suggestion that
the wife may divorce the husband for fornication. There is not even the
slightest implication or indication that the wife can divorce the husband. In
fact, nowhere in the Bible is there any statement that teaches that the wife
can divorce the husband for any reason.
We also notice that the verse does not
justify the husband for divorcing his wife for any reason except fornication.
According to this verse, as it stands alone, the only possible cause for
divorce is fornication.
Additionally, Matthew 19:8, which
immediately precedes the verse we are studying, tells us that Moses allowed the
husband to divorce his wife for the cause of fornication only because of the
hardness of the husband's heart. The verse declares:
He saith unto them, Moses because of the
hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the
beginning it was not so.
The term "hardness of heart"
refers to someone who is unsaved, someone who is in rebellion against God.
Thus, if anyone insisted on understanding
Matthew 19:9 without regard to any other teachings of the Bible, the most that
he could see in this one verse would be that a husband could only divorce his
wife in the case of fornication. And such a divorce would be an indication of
the husband's unsaved, rebellious spiritual condition. Therefore, even on the
basis of Matthew 19:9, no true child of God would ever countenance the thought
of divorce. Rather, he would realize that he is called upon to repeatedly
forgive his wife for the sin of fornication just like any other sin.
When we consider what modern day theologians
have done with this verse, we should become very skeptical of their
conclusions, for when they have decided there can be divorce for the cause of
fornication, they immediately conclude that, not only can the husband divorce
the fornicating wife, but the wife also can divorce the fornicating husband.
Yet neither this verse nor any other in the whole Bible allows a wife to
divorce her husband. Thus when we hear such teachings, we should suspect that
gross violation has been done to a true understanding of this verse.
To the question, "Does the Bible teach
that fornication is a ground for divorce?" the answer is emphatically
"No!" We have just seen that in Deuteronomy 24:1 God, as part of the
temporary ceremonial law, had made fornication a cause for a man to put away
his wife. Then we saw, as we looked at Mark 10, that through Christ that
command was rescinded. Now we shall see that right in the context of Matthew
19:9, as Jesus makes reference to Deuteronomy 24:1, He is indicating the same
teaching we discovered in Mark 10:2-12. That teaching was that Deuteronomy 24:1
was rescinded.
Let us see how this develops in Matthew 19.
Again, we read in Matthew 19:8:
He saith unto them, Moses because of the
hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the
beginning it was not so.
Here Jesus is emphasizing two important
truths. First, this command was inserted into the law book primarily to give
God a way to divorce national Israel because of their spiritual rebellion,
their hardness of heart. Secondly, He is indicating that this was not God's
eternal plan for human marriage -- "from the beginning it was not
so." And as we discover from other passages that God's divorce of national
Israel was finalized at the cross, we come to see that this law no longer
applies. So by the language of verse 8 we see that He was effectively
rescinding this law.
That Jesus is bringing to an end the
Deuteronomy 24:1 basis for divorce for fornication is in total agreement with
the statement of Matthew 19:8. It is also in complete harmony with the other
passages we have looked at which emphatically prohibit divorce for fornication
or for any other reason.
Since Jesus has just emphasized in Matthew
19:8 that a man was no longer to put away his wife for fornication, it doesn't
make any sense at all that our Lord would reintroduce in the very next verse
the command He has just rescinded.
No Divorce For Any Reason Whatsoever
We know, therefore, that we have to re-read
Matthew 19:9 to attempt to discover what Jesus was actually saying in this
verse. Certainly He was not teaching that fornication was a cause for divorce.
A correct understanding of Matthew 19:9 is
forthcoming if we go back to the opening sentence of the paragraph in which
Matthew 19:9 is found. In verse 3 of that chapter we read:
The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting
him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every
cause?
The question the Pharisees are asking is
whether a man can put away his wife for every cause. Jesus answered them in
verses 4-6 by indicating there is not to be divorce for any reason whatsoever:
"What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."
Then in verse 7 the Pharisees asked about
Deuteronomy 24:1, which permitted divorce for fornication. Jesus answered their
question in verse 8, indicating that Deuteronomy 24:1 was rescinded. It could
no longer apply.
In verse 9 Jesus returned to the Pharisees'
original question: "Can a man put away his wife for every cause?" In
verse 8 He had indicated that fornication was no longer to be a cause for
divorce. So in verse 9 He covers every possible reason other than fornication,
indicating that any other reason was also an invalid cause for divorce.
Effectively He is saying in verse 9, "whosoever puts away his wife for any
reason `in addition to' or `other than' or `except' for fornication (which we
have just seen in verse 8 to be an invalid cause for divorce) and marries
another commits adultery."
In other words, the word "except"
(the Greek "ei me") takes on the sense or meaning of "in
addition to" or "other than" in this context. This meaning of
"ei me" is fairly common in the Bible. For example, in Matthew 19:17
Jesus said: "...there is none good but (ei me) one, that is, God:..."
This verse could be read: "there is none good `in addition to' or `other
than' one, that is God."
Likewise, in Mark 8:14 we read:
Now the disciples had forgotten to take
bread, neither had they in the ship with them more than one loaf.
The phrase "more than" is also
"ei me." Here, too, we could translate: "neither had they in the
ship with them `in addition to' or `other than' one loaf."
Many other examples could be given, but
these two should suffice to show that Jesus, in Matthew 19:9, is simply
covering all other possible causes for divorce "except," "other
than," or "in addition to" fornication. He has already
eliminated the cause of fornication in verse 8.
Jesus has thus twice answered the question
posed by the Pharisees in verse 3 concerning divorce for every cause. He has
first answered it in verses 4-6 by indicating there is not to be divorce for
any reason. Then in verses 7 and 8 He specifically teaches that fornication
cannot be a cause for divorce. And in verse 9 He applies this teaching to all
other causes for divorce, except the cause of fornication, which He had just
covered in verse 8. Thus, the conclusion stands twice over. There is not to be
divorce for any cause whatsoever!!
The removal of fornication as a cause for
divorce so shocked the disciples that they said to Jesus in verse 10:
His disciples say unto him, If the case of
the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry.
They apparently could not envision a
marriage wherein a husband had lost all right to divorce his wife. As we saw
earlier in our study, Deuteronomy 24:1 had become a very convenient escape
route for a man who no longer cared for his wife. Remember what this law
declared: according to Israel's understanding of this command, all the husband
had to discover was a word or matter of uncleanness. Any ceremonial uncleanness
was sufficient to permit a husband to divorce his wife. Thus, the disciples
were astounded and dismayed that there could no longer be divorce. Their
reaction to the statements Jesus made in Matthew 19:4-9 underscores the fact
that Jesus had just rescinded the command of Deuteronomy 24:1.
Thus, we see that, even as the earthly
application of the other ceremonial laws came to an end when Jesus came, so
too, the application of this ceremonial law of a man divorcing his fornicating
wife also ended with His coming. In fact, not only did the physical application
of this law end, but the spiritual application ended as well.
The last half of Matthew 19:9 -- "and
shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put
away doth commit adultery" -- is almost an exact duplication of Luke
16:18. Remember, we saw that in this verse of Luke 16, as well as in Matthew
5:32 and Mark 10:11-12, God indicated that a man was not to marry another wife
after divorce, and anyone who married the divorced wife committed adultery.
Clearly the law stands today that as long as the divorced spouse lives, there
is not to be remarriage after divorce.
Thus far, we have examined three different
sets of ceremonial laws dealing with marriage and divorce. First we looked at
Deuteronomy 7:2-4 and Isaiah 52:11 and saw that God prohibited an Israelite
from intermarrying with people of certain nations. If they did so in violation
of God's law, they were to separate from that which was unclean. In the
physical, earthly aspect of this command they were to divorce their wives if
they had married in violation of God's original command. We saw in I
Corinthians 7:12-13 and I Peter 3:1 that the physical, earthly aspect of this
command was rescinded when Christ came. However, the heavenly, spiritual
meaning of this command continues throughout history. We are not to be
unequally yoked with the world. If we find we are effectively in the embrace of
the world, we are to turn away from it. Spiritually, we are to separate from
the world so that we can serve God with our whole heart.
The second command we looked at was given in
Deuteronomy 22:22 where God commands that a husband who finds his wife in the
act of adultery is to have her stoned to death. The husband could not divorce
her. He could only separate from his adulterous wife by having her executed.
We saw that the spiritual meaning of this
command points to the spiritual marriage described in Romans 7:1-4. There God
declares that every person is spiritually married to the law of God which is
the husband. Because of our constant spiritual adultery against the law, we are
to be executed. And the execution God has in view is eternal damnation. In this
context God taught that even as a human cannot be divorced from the law of God
because of spiritual adultery, a human marriage cannot be broken because of
fornication. It can be broken only by death.
We discovered that the physical application
of Deuteronomy 22:22, which called for the death of the adulterous wife, was
rescinded. But the spiritual application continues today. Because of our
spiritual adultery, our husband, the law of God, condemns us to eternal
damnation.
Thirdly, we looked into the ceremonial law
of Deuteronomy 24:1-4. This law decreed that if a man found even a word or act
of fornication in his wife, he could divorce her. In the physical sense, as a
man divorced his fornicating wife, he was being shown by God that likewise the
nation of Israel, which corporately was married to God, would be divorced by
God because of Israel's constant spiritual fornication.
Incidentally, we might remember that the
Bible records that when Joseph, the stepfather of Jesus, thought Mary had
committed fornication because she was with child, he, being a just man, sought
how to put her away (Matthew 1:19). The fact that the Bible says he was a
"just" man underscores the fact that God was absolutely holy and
righteous when He divorced national Israel as a corporate body.
We might remember that God divorced them as
a corporate body, not as individuals. God could not divorce them as individuals
within the nation because He was not married to them on that level.
On the other hand, the law of God as the
husband was married to them as individuals and in that relationship there could
be no divorce. No matter how adulterous any man became, he remained under the
law of God, even as the wife remains under the dominion of her husband.
Thus we see that God used national Israel to
display various types and figures which were shadows of the spiritual reality
which was to be fulfilled in Christ. Their corporate marriage to God was to be
a picture of the marriage of Christ to the eternal church. Even as God married
Israel when it was a nothing, the believer becomes the bride of Christ when he
is spiritually dead in his sins. Even as God lavished his love on his wife,
national Israel, by showering them with physical and spiritual blessings, so He
showers spiritual blessings on His eternal bride, the true believer in Christ.
But, as it was with all of the ceremonial shadows,
the typology of God's marriage to national Israel was quite imperfect. The time
would come when national Israel would no longer serve as a type -- the marriage
of God to national Israel was to come to an end.
That is why God introduced the command given
in Deuteronomy 24:1-2 as an integral part of the ceremonial law. This law
anticipated Israel's spiritual fornication which allowed God to divorce them.
Once Christ went to the cross, national
Israel's role of serving as a type or figure of God's salvation program came to
an end. All ceremonial laws were completed in Christ, including Deuteronomy
24:1-2.
Thus, God's purpose for calling attention to
Deuteronomy 24:1-2 in the New Testament is to emphasize that this temporary law
no longer applies. Instead, the universal law given from the very beginning is
the only law that stands: under no circumstance is there to be divorce.
It is such passages as Romans 7:1-4 and Mark
10:2-10 that God shows us that universal law still stands. Even while the
ceremonial law was temporarily allowing a man to divorce his fornicating wife,
God strictly limited that law to the nation of Israel.
As we go on in our study, we will look at a
couple of verses found in I Corinthians 7 which frequently are used as a basis
to justify divorce and remarriage. We will look at them in our next chapter.
Chapter 5
THE
UNSAVED SPOUSE BREAKS THE MARRIAGE
Thus far in our study we have found no
biblical basis whatsoever to justify divorce. In marriage God has joined two
people together. No one is to put asunder that marriage. Moreover, should
divorce occur, remarriage is not to be sought as long as both spouses still
live.
But now we should examine a verse that is
sometimes used as a biblical basis for remarriage after divorce. In I Corinthians
7:15 we read:
But if the unbelieving depart, let him
depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath
called us to peace.
We have been learning from Matthew 5,
Matthew 19, and Mark 10 that the one who marries a divorced person commits
adultery. But doesn't I Corinthians 7:15 teach that if the unbelieving spouse
insists upon a divorce, the believing spouse is no longer bound in that
marriage, and therefore is free to remarry?
We know from our previous studies that the conclusion
that a divorced person can remarry is erroneous. So how are we to understand I
Corinthians 7:15?
The key word that we need to understand is
the word "under bondage." It is the Greek word "douloo"
which means "to enslave." It is from the Greek word
"doulos" which is translated "slave",
"bondservant," or "servant" in the Bible. It is a word that
is commonly used of a man's relationship to Christ. Paul was a servant (doulos)
of Christ (Romans 1:1). We are servants of Christ (Colossians 4:12; II Timothy
2:24). On the other hand, we may be the slave of sin (II Peter 2:19).
But this word "doulos" or
"douloo" is never used of the relationship that exists between
husband and wife. Insofar as the Bible is concerned, the husband is never the
slave of the wife; the wife is never the slave of the husband.
True, God does say in I Corinthians 7:27,
"Art thou bound unto a wife?..." But this word "bound' is an
entirely different word than "doulos" or "douloo." It is
the Greek word "deo." It is a word that gives the sense of two things
being bound or tied together. The prisoner is bound (Mark 6:17). The donkey was
tied (Mark 11:2). The husband and wife are bound to each other (I Corinthians
7:27,39); Romans 7:2). But the idea of being a servant or a slave is not found
in the word "deo."
But how do we explain the use of the word
"douloo" in I Corinthians 7:15? It is a word that nowhere else in the
Bible is identified with the husband-wife relationship. So how are we to
understand its use in this verse? The answer can be seen if we properly
understand the problem being addressed by this verse.
Let's look at a situation common to our day.
The Christian wife knows there is not to be a divorce under any circumstance.
But the unsaved husband insists on a divorce. He refuses to obey God's Word
because he is unsaved. God's Word means little or nothing to him.
What, then, is his wife to do? Is she
bitterly and relentlessly to fight her husband in order to prevent the divorce?
God has an answer for this situation., She is called to peace. She is not to
fight. In her bondage to Christ, earnestly desiring to do God's will, she is
not to fight the divorce. She is not bound to Christ's written law to the point
that she is to engage in such a fight.
If her husband insists upon divorcing her,
she still cannot remarry as long as her husband is living. Remember Romans
7:2-3:
For the woman which hath an husband is bound
by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she
is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth,
she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her
husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress,
though she be married to another man.
Do you recall that we learned from Matthew
5:32 and Matthew 19:9 that anyone marrying the divorced wife commits adultery?
Instead of marrying, she should remain
unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband as I Corinthians 7:11 teaches.
But if she depart, let her remain unmarried,
or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife.
We thus must realize that I Corinthians 7:15
is not intended to give aid or comfort to those seeking divorce. When carefully
understood in the light of everything else the Bible teaches about marriage,
this verse is found to be in perfect agreement with the principle that there is
not to be divorce for any reason.
Art Thou Loosed From A Wife?
As we continue our study, let's look at
another passage that is sometimes made to serve as a rationale to permit
divorce. In I Corinthians 7:27-28 we read:
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 has not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless
such shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you.
When we try to understand the phrase
"seek not to be loosed," it is very apparent and certainly biblical
to understand this as a command not to seek divorce. That conclusion agrees
with everything we have seen in the Bible concerning marriage.
But verses 27 and 28 go on to say, "Art
thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife. But and if thou marry, thou hast not
sinned."
With this statement in mind, the argument is
often presented that if the first word "loosed" in verse 27 refers to
divorce, then the second word "loosed" must also refer to divorce.
This interpretation makes this seem as if it is teaching that someone who is
divorced can remarry.
But the conclusion, when tested by all the
passages of the Bible that speak of divorce and remarriage, is shown to be
wrong. Nowhere else in the Bible does God permit remarriage after divorce. In
fact, in the verses we have examined we have seen that the man who marries
after divorce commits adultery and the man who marries the divorced wife
commits adultery.
Therefore, we should know that somehow we
have arrived at an altogether wrong conclusion concerning the meaning of this
verse. It does not fit with the rest of the Bible.
How then are we to understand this passage?
Let us look more carefully at these verses.
First of all, we had assumed the word
"loosed" was referring only to divorce. Actually, there were two ways
a husband could be loosed from a wife. She could have been divorced, or she
could have died. Therefore, verse 27 is simply saying, "Art thou bound
(Greek (deo.) Remember this word means (shackled to.) to a wife? seek not to
desire to be loosed;" that is, don't desire that God would take her in
death, which would be the biblical means of ending this marriage. And don't
desire to be divorced from her. That would be the unbiblical way of attempting
to end this marriage.
But is you are loosed from a wife, then
what? Verse 28 declares you can remarry. Since there is clear evidence in the
Bible that one can not remarry if they have been divorced, we can be sure that
in this second usage of the word "loosed" God cannot have divorce in
mind. If He did so, this verse would be contradicting everything else in the
Bible concerning the subject of marriage and divorce.
The only possible meaning that can be in
view in regards to this second usage of the word "loosed" is that the
shackle that has bound the wife to the husband has been broken by her death.
That conclusion is in total agreement with passages like Romans 7:1-4 where we
learned that only death can break the union that exists between husband and
wife.
As a matter of fact, even the first usage of
the word "loosed" in I Corinthians 7:27 cannot refer to divorce. This
is so because Romans 7:2 stipulates that only if her husband is dead is a wife
loosed from the law of her husband. In other words, even if a husband divorces
his wife, she is still bound to him insofar as God's law is concerned. Only
death can loose her from her husband. Therefore, when God speaks of a man being
loosed from his wife, He can only be referring to a loosing caused by the death
of his wife.
Thus we learn that I Corinthians 7:27-28,
like all of the other passages we have examined, gives no assent whatsoever to
the idea of divorce or remarriage after divorce.
Now that we have concluded that there does
not exist any possibility of divorce, let us look more closely at the marriage
relationship and see how the husband and the wife are to live together as they
are shackled together for the rest of their natural lives.
We will be asking these questions: Is
marriage a contract? Is it a partnership between two people who stand on the
same ground? How much does the Bible teach concerning the nature of marriage?
We will examine these questions as we continue our study.
Chapter 6
LET NOT MAN PUT ASUNDER
We have thus far learned that marriage can
only be dissolved by God Himself. He alone has the authority to terminate it by
taking either one or both spouses in death. No other authority has the power to
terminate a marriage, and death is the only valid means used by God to end a
marriage.
In this chapter we will look more closely at
the marriage union itself. We will ask: Is it just a partnership between two
people who stand on the same ground? Is it merely a contract that is analogous
to any other contract with which we might be familiar?
As we have been carefully examining all that
the Bible teaches concerning marriage, we have begun to discover that marriage
is not a contract; it is not a partnership. It is a union -- a union of such
consequence that two people, as it were, have become fused into one being. The
Bible uses the language: "they are no more twain, but one flesh"
(Matthew 19:6).
The husband and wife have become fused
together, or welded together, in such a way that God speaks of them as
"one flesh." In fact, the wife is bound to her husband as long as he
lives. As we saw when we studied Romans 7:1-4, even if the wife marries someone
else, she is still bound to her first husband. It is a fusion, therefore, that
men may try to break by divorce, but that in actuality only God can break. The
man who divorces and marries another woman has, in God's sight, become married
to two wives. This is true even if the law of the land recognizes only the
latter wife, for God's law supersedes man's laws.
The intensity and reality of this fusion is
further described in I Corinthians 7:3-5 where we read:
Let the husband render unto the wife due
benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not
power of her own body but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not
power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be
with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and
come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.
In this statement God has established the
principle that the two who are married are to live in the greatest possible
intimacy. Their bodies belong to each other. Except for brief spiritual
activity, they are not to deny their bodies from each other. No other physical
relationship exists in the world like this relationship. They are to live as
one body, because God has ordained that they are one flesh.
Moreover, God emphasizes that this union is
not made by man but by God. Remember we read in Mark 10:9: "What therefore
God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." Is this statement
referring only to a Christian marriage under the authority of the church? If
so, then all non-Christian marriages would not be marriages. They would simply
be a condition of two people living together in an adulterous relationship.
But the fact is, God is speaking of every
marriage found in the human race. We can know that God has all marriages
throughout history in every part of the world in view, for Mark 10:6-8 takes us
all the way to our first parents who were created to be husband and wife. This
indicates that God has in mind the whole human race. These verses tell us:
But from the beginning of the creation God
made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and
mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they
are no more twain, but one flesh.
We know from these verses that whenever two
people are joined in marriage and consummate that relationship in the marriage
bed, it is a union made by God.
This is indeed a remarkable truth! It is
hard to find any other physical human experience wherein we can say
conclusively, "This is God's action."
Even the marriage that may have been
consummated as an act of rebellion against God is still a marriage which God
makes into an indissolvable union. But this does not make God guilty of sin,
because God cannot sin. Rather, in accomplishing His divine purposes, God
utilizes the sinful desires of man.
For example, God allowed the brothers of
Joseph to commit the dastardly crime of selling their younger brother to be
slave so that in turn Joseph, as Prime Minister of Egypt, would be able to later
save them from starvation. Likewise, God can utilize a sinfully contracted
marriage for His own purposes. And God informs us that once a marriage is
consummated there has come into being a union by the action of God. Under God's
edict, these two people who have become married to each other have become fused
into one flesh. The moment two people become married, God informs us, the bond
between them becomes more than just a human bond. It has become a bond in which
God ordains that the two have become one flesh. God has welded or bound them
into one body. No other relationship is of this nature.
For that reason God speaks of the wife being
bound to the husband (Romans 7:2; I Corinthians 7:39). And if the wife is bound
to the husband, then it logically follows that the husband is bound to the
wife. Earlier in our study we say that the word "bound," which God
uses in these verses, means to be "tied to" or "shackled
together." And remember that God declared that only He could break that
union. He does this claiming one spouse in death. By God's edict, marriage has
a distinction that sets it apart from every other human experience.
The Marriage Union May Not Be Broken By
Man
As we saw earlier in this study, the fusion
of the husband and wife is so complete that God warns in Mark 10:9:
What therefore God hath joined together, let
not man put asunder.
This warning indicates that, since it is God
who has fused the bodies of the husband and the wife into one flesh, no man is
to separate that union. God reserves that right to Himself. He breaks the union
by taking one of the spouses in death. But no man may break that union.
Actually counselors who encourage quarreling
spouses to try a trial separation are in violation of God's Word. Divorce,
which is so much in vogue in our day, is a terrible violation of God's edict
concerning marriage. Rather than encouraging separation, the Bible insists that
the bodies of those who are married belong to each other (cf. I Corinthians
7:3-5). No matter how badly the marriage is going, that principle is to be
observed. Woe unto us when we take these matters into our own hands!
God again underscores the sacredness of the
marriage union by declaring in Mark 10:11-12:
And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put
away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if a
woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth
adultery.
As we discovered earlier in this study, God
further reinforces the certainty of this law that there is not to be divorce in
Romans 7:2,3.
For the woman which hath an husband is bound
by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she
is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she
be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her
husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress,
though she be married to another man.
In Luke 16:18 Jesus restates the same
principle by the use of the words:
Whosoever putteth away his wife, and
marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put
away from her husband committeth adultery.
Surely the Bible could not be any clearer!
There is not to be separation! There is not to be divorce! We might wonder why
God has put such emphasis on the sanctity of marriage. God Himself has declared
that He is the one who has joined these two people together; and no man is to
break this union.
We can first of all see that God in His
mercy has placed great protection around the family. These laws protect the
husband and the father so that he is included in the family as long as any of
the other family members are living. The wife is protected in the same way.
Moreover, the same protection is afforded the children.
In our day, when divorce has become rampant
in our land, we all know too well of wives who are trying to get along without
husbands, husbands who have rejected their wives, and bewildered, broken
children who hardly know who their parents are. Indeed, when the church first
began to rewrite the rules of the Bible to permit divorce, it was the beginning
of the end for families. The wind was sown, but the whirlwind is being reaped.
There is a staggering amount of evidence in
the lives of broken families to indicate that the church committed drastic sin
when it began to tamper with God's marriage laws. It's like the mythical
Pandora's box, the lid of which could not be closed when sin began to pour
forth. We have begun to see the reality of the magnification and terrible
consequences of tampering with God's sacred laws. Indeed, it is with utmost
peril that anyone dares to break apart what God Himself has welded together.
There is a second wonderful reason why God
Himself enters into every marriage, claiming responsibility for the fusing of
two people into one flesh. God uses the human marriage as a picture of Christ
and the believers. Even as God fuses the husband and wife into one flesh, so
God through the Lord Jesus Christ makes Himself one with the believers.
This unique oneness is spoken of in many
different ways in the Bible. The believer is "in Christ Jesus"
(Romans 8:1); Christ is in the believer (Romans 8:10); God the Holy Spirit
dwells within the believer (Romans 8:11); and Hebrews 2:11 declares:
For both he that sanctifieth and they who
are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them
brethren,
More specifically, the believers are called
the bride of Christ (Revelation 21:2,9). And in the most beautiful language of
Ephesians 5:28-32, God develops the human marriage as a type or figure of
Christ's relationship to the believer. There we read:
So ought men to love their wives as their
own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated
his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this
cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his
wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak
concerning Christ and the church.
In this passage God carefully declares that
the joining of the husband to the wife as one flesh is pointing directly to
Christ and the church.
Thus we see that God has placed His divine
hand on the marriage union because He has made it a type or figure of the
intimate and eternally binding relationship that exists between Christ and the
true believers, His church.
Even as the husband and wife live together
in the greatest intimacy, so Christ lives in a similar intimacy with the
believer. And even as God has fused the husband and wife together into one
flesh, so God has fused Christ and the believer together in such a way that God
can use the same phrase, "one flesh," when speaking of this spiritual
union.
Likewise, just as no one can break the human
marriage union, so the marriage of Christ and the believer cannot be broken. It
is an eternal union. What comfort we may have as we realize that once God has
joined us as a believer to the Lord Jesus Christ, no can break that union!
Death is the only way the physical union of
husband and wife can be broken. But the believer in Christ has eternal life.
That is, he can never die spiritually. And since Christ is eternal God, who
died once at the cross and will never die again, there is no possibility of
breaking the union between Christ and the believer. Neither the bride (the
believer), nor the husband (Christ) can ever die. Therefore, no sinful action
on the part of the believer can threaten his marriage with Christ. Even as in
human marriage there cannot be divorce for fornication, the spiritual marriage
between Christ and the believer cannot be broken by the spiritual fornication
of the believer. What tremendous comfort and assurance we should receive from
this glad truth!
Let us now look once again at the marriage
relationship. What reservations or conditions may the husband place on his love
and fidelity to his wife? And, what reservations can the wife place on her love
and obedience to her husband? In our next chapter we will examine these
questions.
Chapter 7
THE HUSBAND'S UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
We should now be fully impressed by the
biblical evidence that shows us that a marriage can only be terminated by God
as He takes one or both spouses in death. But now we want to examine the
question: Even though a husband cannot divorce his wife for any reason
whatsoever, is he to love her under all circumstances?
The Bible commands in Ephesians 5:25,
"Husbands, love your wives." Does this command apply when the wife
indicates she hates her husband, when she may be on drugs, or is a drunkard, or
is living in fornication? Surely God would not expect the husband to love this
kind of a wife.
The fact is, however, that God's command to
the husband to love his wife is unconditional. There are to be no reservations
insofar as his love for his wife is concerned. No matter what she might be or
become, he is to love her.
How do we know that this is so? First of
all, we know this is so because the Bible offers no advice concerning
conditions for a cessation of this love. True, Matthew 19:9 and Matthew 5:32
appear to indicate there can be divorce in the event of fornication. But
earlier in our study, when we looked at these verses most carefully we discovered
that in no way are they giving fornication as a cause for divorce. Likewise, I
Corinthians 7:15 at first appears to teach there can be divorce in the case of
desertion. But we learned as we looked at this verse most carefully that it is
not teaching divorce at all.
Even in these verses that sometimes seem to
suggest the possibility of divorce, there is no suggestion of a cessation of
love. In fact, God teaches in Matthew 18:21-22 that forgiveness is to be
normative in a Christian's life. We read in those verses:
Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how
oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus
saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy
times seven.
If there is to be no end of forgiveness
toward the one who has sinned against us, surely this principle of forgiveness
should apply to the husband-wife relationship. Therefore, no matter what the
wife does or says that displeases her husband, he is to forgive her. The
principle, "Husbands, love your wives," still stands. Since a husband
is never to cease forgiving and loving his wife, we can see even more clearly
why God does not countenance divorce for any reason whatsoever.
Earlier, when we looked briefly at Ephesians
5, we saw that human marriage typifies the marriage union between Christ and
the believer. Let us now develop that truth a bit further.
As Christ Loved The Church
As we look more carefully at Ephesians 5:25,
we see a second dynamic reason why a husband's love for his wife is to be
without reservation. This verse informs us:
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ
also loved the church and gave himself for it;
In this important verse God is giving us an
example of the kind of love the husband is to have for his wife: "even as
Christ loved the church." What does this teach us? How did Christ love the
church? Remember; the church that God has in view is the body of true believers
in the Lord Jesus Christ.
How and when did Christ first love me as His
child? How does He continue to love each of His believers after they become
saved? Let us examine these questions a bit further.
What is the character of Christ's love
towards those whom He plans to save? He loves them when they are still entirely
rebellious against Him. He loves them without any conditions or reservations of
any kind. He draws them to Himself when they are still in rebellion against
Him. He inclines their hearts to love Him. He pays for their sins. He forgives
every sin they will ever commit.
To accomplish this salvation Christ denied
Himself entirely. He was stripped of the glory He had eternally with the
Father. He humbled Himself to the lowest possible degree, becoming one with
this sinful human race which arrogantly had rebelled against Almighty God. Even
though Jesus Himself was without sin, He became laden with our sins. Worse than
that He bore the punishment demanded by God for those sins. That punishment was
the worst that will ever be endured by anyone, for it was the equivalent of
eternal damnation on behalf of everyone who would come to be His bride.
Indeed, God has given us an awesome example
of the way husbands are to love their wives, as well as the kind of sacrifices
they are to make as they seek the very best for their wives.
But what about after we are saved? Does
Christ's relationship to His bride change? Again we stand amazed at the
compassion, the patience, the forgiveness of Christ. No matter how often the
true believer sins, Christ always forgives him. He promises He will never leave
him nor forsake him. His love is a tender, everlasting love. Nothing His bride
can say or do can separate her from Christ's love.
And this is the way the husband is to love
his wife. No matter what she does or what she becomes, he is to love her; he is
to cherish her as his wife. He is to patiently forgive, no matter how sinful or
rebellious she might become toward him. And even as Christ, in His love for the
church, wanted the very best for the church, so husbands are to always want the
very best for their wives. Indeed, Christ paid an enormous price to free the
believers from eternal damnation.
In his love for his wife, a husband will
find that many times he has to deny himself. For the good of his family he may
have to give up his cherished hobby. He may find that he cannot spend the time
he would like to spend with his special friends. It may mean that he may have
to reconsider his own personal thinking concerning the vocation he would like
to follow or the place where he would like to live. Always he must have a
loving concern for the feelings and needs of his wife and children.
As head of the house, he is not to consider
himself to be the "big boss." While he never loses sight of his
responsibility as the head of the family, and that it is his wife's
responsibility to submit to him, he nevertheless always tries to think of what
is best for his wife and family. He lovingly guides his family. Always, his is
the final authority under God; but he exercises that authority with great love,
tenderness, and empathy for his family.
Under no circumstances is he to be resentful
toward his wife. Whatever she is or does, he is to patiently continue to love
her. He is never to think about others he could have married. He is never to
look at other women and wish his wife could be like someone else. He is never
to countenance the idea that he wishes he was married to someone else. The full
focus of his attention and concern should be, first of all, toward his wife and
family. No matter how difficult the situation may be, he is never to think of
divorce. It is his business to love his wife regardless of what she is or does.
He is to accept without any reservation
whatsoever the fact that his wife is to be an integral part of his life as long
as she lives. Because God has fused her to him so that they are one flesh, he
knows that he can never take any action that disregards his wife. His wife
should be at least as important to him as anything else in his life. Only his
love for his Savior should be greater than his love for his wife. And in his
love for his Savior he knows he is to love and care for his wife the same way
and to the same degree that he loves and cares for himself.
The greatest blessing a man should desire
for his wife is, of course, eternal life. Therefore, a husband is not only to
provide for the necessary physical needs of his wife; he is, above all, to
provide for her spiritual needs. That is, he has the responsibility of
providing a godly home. He has the responsibility of leading his family in the
fear and nurture of the Lord.
Moreover, Ephesians 5:28-29 declares:
So ought men to love their wives as their
own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated
his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
The God-fearing husband has realized the
highest possible good for himself. That good is salvation. Furthermore, he will
do whatever is necessary to care for and satisfy the needs of his own body.
This comes very naturally to him. But in these verses he is exhorted to love
his wife as he loves his own body. If his body becomes ill, wounded, or
otherwise troubled, he still loves it. Likewise, he is to love his wife the
same way. No matter what moral, mental, or physical difficulties his wife may experience,
he is to love her.
And because he is saved, he knows that
finally his body, too, is to be changed into a glorious spiritual body. Just
so, he is to desire the highest blessing -- a glorified spiritual body -- for
his wife.
Moreover, he is to honor and respect his
wife. We read in I Thessalonians 4:4:
That every one of you should know how to
possess his vessel in sanctification and honour;
The vessel God has in view in this verse is
the wife. The husband is to regard his wife as a holy vessel. She is not a
convenient place to discharge his sexual lusts. In the marriage bed, as well as
in all of his relationships with her, he is to treat her with honour and
respect. To use a secular phrase, he is always to be a gentleman. In all things
lawful he is to have a first concern for his wife.
Of course, no husband can of himself love
his wife in the measure asked for by God. But by God's grace and in His
strength, as the husband trusts more and more in Christ, these ideals become
possible. Instead of ideals, they become living facts in the life of the
husband.
As we ponder these truths, we begin to sense
the awesome responsibility of the husband to love his wife -- to love her
without condition or reservation -- to love her as long as she lives. With this
mandate set before the husband, how could he ever think of divorce? The word
"divorce" should not even be in his vocabulary. No wonder the old
marriage forms declared:
I, John, take thee, Jane, to be my wedded
wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for
richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till
death do us part according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I give thee my
troth.
Chapter 8
THE WIFE'S UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
We have seen most clearly that the husband
is to love his wife without reservations of any kind. Regardless of her
rebellion, her sinfulness, her unfaithfulness, or anything else, he is to love
her as Christ loves the church. He is to faithfully forgive again and again.
But what about the wife's relationship to
the husband? Because of the problem of unsaved husbands being married to
Christian wives appears to be a far more serious and prevalent problem today
than that of Christian husbands being married to unsaved wives, we will spend
considerably more time with this question.
The Bible tells us in Ephesians 5:22,
"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands..." Is this
submission to be without condition or reservation? Surely, if she respects him
and he is a man worthy of her respect, she would be submissive to him. But what
if he turns out to be a scoundrel, a drunkard, a philandering adulterer, or a
wife beater? What then? Is she still to be submissive to him? Does she have to
live like a doormat for him to walk all over? This is a very practical question
in the light of the terrible way some husbands treat their wives.
The Bible speaks very directly and
specifically to this question. There is no need to speculate or guess about
what she is to do while married to such a husband.
First of all, Matthew 18:21-22 applies to
her in the same way it applies to her husband. Remember; there the Bible
teaches;
Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how
oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus
saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy
times seven.
If she is a Christian, this passage leaves
her no alternative but to forgive again and again as her husband sins against
her.
A Tyrant Of A Husband
God deals more specifically with this
problem in I Peter 2 and 3. In I Peter 2:18-24 God deals with the matter of the
servant who works for a cruel, ruthless, despotic master. There we read:
Servants, be subject to your masters with
all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. For this is
thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering
wrongfully. For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your
faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it,
ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were
ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye
should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: who,
when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not;
but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: Who his own self bare
our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live
unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.
In these verses God indicates very clearly
that it is our mission in life to bear patiently the injustices, the revilings,
and the abuse of those who rule over us. We are not to revile in return. We are
to realize that God has called us to walk in the footsteps of our Lord. We are
to look to Him as our example. And the abuse He endured included His death on
the cross.
In the opening verses of I Peter 3 God ties
the admonishments of I Peter 2 to the wife who is married to an unsaved
husband. The Bible exhorts in I Peter 3:1-5:
Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your
own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word by
won by the conversation of the wives; While they behold your chaste conversation
coupled with fear. Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of
plaiting the hair, and of wearing gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it
be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the
ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great
price. For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who
trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own
husbands:
The important word "likewise" in
verse 1 ties these verses of chapter 3 to the instruction which has just been
given in chapter 2. Effectively, God is exhorting: "Even as the servant of
a cruel master is to patiently endure abuse, so too, the wife who is married to
a cruel husband is to patiently endure abuse." Note that verse 1 of
chapter 3 is emphasizing that the husband in this case is one who does not obey
the Word. That is, he is someone who is in rebellion against God. He,
therefore, pays no attention to God's rules which declares that the husband is to
love his wife and that he is to forgive her repeatedly.
The word "likewise" also implies
that he, like the master of I Peter 2, may be unjust, cruel, and a tyrant in
the home. Human reason would conclude that if this is the condition in the
home, the wife has every right to separate from her husband. No human should
have to live under such unhappy, difficult conditions.
But God has a different answer. The word
"divorce" is not to be a part of the wife's vocabulary. She must make
it her business to love her husband as God commands. And because God always
wants the very best for the human race, God's laws are the only trustworthy
rules to follow. God declares she is to be quietly submissive to her difficult
husband.
Two principles are being established in I
Peter 3:1. The first is that she is not to nag, accuse, or preach to her
husband. The second is that she is to be submissive to him. Let us look at each
of these principles more closely.
The natural God-honoring inclination of the
God-fearing wife of an unsaved husband is to desire his salvation. She
earnestly desires his salvation, because she knows that apart from salvation
her husband is headed for hell. He is under the wrath of God because of his
sins.
Secondly, she desires his salvation because
in the human sense she is embarrassed before her friends and relatives to be
married to such a godless husband. Oh, how happy she would be if he would be a
believer like the other husbands she see in church every Sunday.
Thirdly, she desires his salvation because
she knows that it would mean her trauma of being married to a difficult tyrant
of a husband would have come to an end. She knows that then her husband would
desire the very best for her as he showed his love to her. This would be the
new situation, because a believing husband wants to obey God's command to love
his wife as Christ loves the church.
Thus, there is much at stake as she prays
for the salvation of her husband. And she knows that salvation comes by the
Word of God and that she herself is commanded by God to be a witness. She seeks
every possible occasion to share the Gospel with her husband. Certainly, she
reasons, this activity on her part is in accord with the will of God.
Without A Word
But God says, "No!" If her husband
is to be saved, he is to be won without the Word. But why would God teach this
apparently impossible program? Does God have one means by which He saves normal
unbelievers and another program whereby He saves husbands? We know that can't
be true. But why, then, this curious admonition that the wife is to be silent?
We can begin to understand this language if
we see the special condition that prevails in the husband-wife relationship.
When we bring the Gospel to others, normally these people know very little
about our personal lives. Therefore, all that the unbeliever usually sees is
the Gospel itself.
But, if a minister preaches from the pulpit,
"Thus saith the Lord," while it is a well known fact that he is living
in sin, his preaching will have little power. Those who hear him speak only
look upon him as a hypocrite. In such a case the elders ought to be dealing
with this pastor, even seeking to remove him from his role of pastor, if
necessary.
Likewise, if we know someone who seems to be
an ardent witness of the Gospel, and yet does not live the Gospel, we will not
take him seriously. He, too, will be looked upon as a hypocrite. In the
husband-wife relationship this problem becomes especially enormous. A church
body can know something about the thinking and actions of their pastor, but not
everything. An unsaved person may know something about the life of the one
witnessing to him, but not everything.
But a husband knows more about his wife's
thinking and actions than anyone else could possibly know. He has lived, and
may still be living with her, in the most intimate relationship. He is with her
when she goes to bed and all through the night. He is with her in the morning
before she's had her first cup of coffee to settle her nerves. He is with her
when she is tense, when she is tired, when she is depressed, and when she is
angry.
Because of the intimacy of their marriage,
he knows by the way she walks, by the way she looks at him, by the way she
greets him when he comes home from work, by the way she puts food on the table
and by countless other mannerisms, whether she is thinking lovingly or
resentfully towards him.
Therefore, even though she claims to be such
a fine Christian, insisting on going to church, and insisting that her husband
repent from his sins and trust Christ as Savior, her husband knows very well
that often she lives quite differently from the way she preaches to him. So he
is likely to be convinced that whatever Christianity his wife has, he doesn't
want it. He senses hypocrisy in his wife. If this is what a Christian is, he
does not want to be a Christian.
He may not know that the Bible declares that
his saved wife should have an earnest desire to forgive him again and again. He
may not know that the Bible declares that a saved wife is not to nurse
resentful feelings against her husband. He may not know that the Bible exhorts
believers to walk very patiently. He may not know that the Bible states that
the wife's body belongs to the husband and, therefore, in the bedroom she is to
give herself willingly, warmly, and lovingly to him. He may not know that the
Bible emphasizes that the wife is to submit to her husband in all things
lawful. He may not know that his wife is to accept him as her husband without
reservations of any kind. He may not know many or any of these principles.
But he does sense that his wife's actions do
not measure up to her words. She is telling her husband to go to church, to
obey God, to be a better husband. But as he thinks about times his wife has
reacted to situations just like any other unbeliever, he becomes convinced she
is altogether hypocritical. And his defenses against the Gospel become
increased if he senses any negative feelings from his wife toward him. As he thinks
about his wife's attitude toward him, her resentment toward him, her coldness
in the intimacy of the bedroom, her mannerisms and words that suggest very
strongly that she would be happier without him as a husband, he knows one thing
very well. If this is what being saved is all about, he wants no part of it at
all.
True, if the husband is doing negative
things against the wife, her congregation will look upon her as a loving child
of God who unfortunately is married to a beast of a husband. When she is with
her friends, when she talks to the pastor, when she sits in church, she appears
to be a lovely, devoted wife who dearly loves to do the will of God.
But none of these dear people in the
congregation can know her as her husband does. They cannot know how cold and
resisting she may be in the marriage bed. They cannot know about the resentment
she shows toward her husband. They have no way of knowing this wife like her
husband knows her. Neither can they know the intense frustration of a husband
living with a wife who in the most intimate relationship of the marriage does
not practice what she preaches.
Therefore in I Peter 3:1 God admonishes the
wife to reach her husband's heart by silent submission. Let her very quietly
obey God's rules without preaching to her husband. Because of the tremendous
intimacy that exists between husband and wife, her actions will speak far
louder than any words.
Incidentally, the same admonition should
apply to the saved husband who is married to an unsaved wife. If the saved
husband's intimate lifestyle does not clearly show the fragrance of Christ, his
wife will look upon him as a hypocrite; she will not wish to emulate him.
Truly, in the intimacy of marriage, the old adage "actions speak louder
than words" certainly applies.
Returning to the saved wife's relationship
to her unsaved husband, let the wife make sure that she accepts her husband
without reservation. She should reject any thoughts of wishing she was not
married to her husband. She realizes it is a dreadful sin to wish she had
married someone else, or to wish that her husband could be like someone else.
She knows full well that God has joined her to her husband and he is the only
man she is to love and desire as a husband.
God Gives The Rules
The believing wife earnestly seeks to
practice the principles set forth in Philippians 4:8. This verse outlines the
kind of thinking that should be going on in the life of the believer.
There she reads;
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are
true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever
things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good
report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these
things.
She, therefore, asks God's forgiveness when
she thinks resentfully of her husband. When her husband sins against her, no
matter how often this has been true in her marriage, she gladly forgives him.
No matter how her husband treats her, she tries to convey to him that she is
glad she is married to him.
She can do this honestly because she
realizes that since they are married, her life will remain intimately involved
with her husband until God Himself takes one of them in death.
The impact of this kind of godly behavior on
an unsaved husband is bound to be enormous. Even though he is unsaved, he knows
that he is wrong when he mistreats his wife. And as he sees her continuing
faithfulness to him, her quiet submission, her continuing forgiveness, he will
slowly realize that his wife is very special. By God's grace he should begin to
relate his wife's beautiful conduct to Christianity. And by God's grace God may
use this awareness to begin to open his spiritual eyes. This is the essence of
the teaching of this helpful and hopeful verse of I Peter 3:1.
However, this kind of patient, submissive
conduct toward a tyrant of a husband may not be understood by friends and
relatives. Because they may not understand God's laws, they may tempt this dear
wife by accusing her of being a "doormat" or a "patsy" or
whatever.
But because she is truly saved, she has
within her an earnest desire to do the will of God. This continuing desire will
be an integral part of her life, as I John 2:3-6 teaches.
And hereby we do know that we know him, if
we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his
commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his
word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in
him. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he
walked.
The only time she is to disobey her husband
is if he asks her to break God's laws. If he asks her to lie, steal, or engage
in sexual activity with someone other than himself, she, of course, must
disobey. Such disobedience may bring her husband's wrath on her. However, if
she has been the God-fearing, quietly submissive wife God asks her to be,
without question her husband's wrath will be greatly reduced from what it might
have been had she not been faithfully obeying God's rules by her quiet
submission.
The Wife's Secret Weapon
One area of special concern may arise if her
husband forbids her to go to church or engage in other spiritual activities.
After all, God commands in Hebrews 10:25:
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together,
as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as
ye see the day approaching.
Shouldn't she, therefore, disobey her
husband when he makes such an unreasonable request? Or, if he forbids her to
teach the children the ways of Christ, doesn't God command in Ephesians 6 that
children are to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord? What should
she do when her husband makes these kinds of demands?
A direct answer to these questions cannot be
given until other factors are considered. This is so because actions in the
wife's life sometimes bring about such distressing confrontations about church.
One big factor concerns the fact that the wife has a weapon she can use against
her husband for which he has no defense whatsoever. The confrontation
concerning church may be his way of getting even with his wife for using this
weapon against him.
What is this powerful weapon? It is a weapon
that the wife may wield without any deliberate malice towards her husband, or
she may even employ it consciously to put him in his place. It is not a weapon
of physical strength. Ordinarily the wife is physically much weaker than her
husband. It is not the weapon of an agile mind whereby she can outwit her
husband in some way. Rather, it is the weapon of a lack of submission in the
intimacy of the bedroom. Because of its serious nature, we should look at this
more closely.
Suppose a husband is very thoughtless toward
his wife. He may even be quite cruel toward her. She can show her resentment
toward him by reacting with cutting remarks, by giving him the silent
treatment, or similar treatment accorded to her by her husband. But, if she is
truly saved, she realized this kind of conduct is altogether rebellious against
God.
Nevertheless, all of these types of conduct
the husband can deal with. He can be even more threatening. He can become more
vicious in his verbal attacks on his wife. He might even resort to beating her.
Since everyone who starts a fight wants to win the fight, the husband, too,
wants to win.
While nothing is resolved by such exchanges
between a husband and wife, and the marriage is grievously threatened by them,
nevertheless, the husband feels equal to such challenges, insults, and
treatment from his wife. Because he normally is physically the stronger of the
two, he can feel that in some way he has won. But in the bedroom the wife has a
weapon that can drive the husband wild. Even though he may be a cruel,
thoughtless husband, he knows that the greatest joy he has ever experienced is
when his wife lovingly gave herself to him in the intimacy of the bedroom. It
is an intimacy that is far more important to him than he realizes. For God has
fused him into one flesh with his wife. Therefore, anything that destroys the
joy of that intimacy is a blow to the very center of his manhood.
The problem is, however, that in order to
experience the joy and wonder of the marriage bed, his wife needs to have warm
and loving thoughts toward her husband. But when fighting has been going on,
the wife feels defeated before this tyrant of a husband and she finds herself
incapable of reacting with loving submission to his advances in the marriage
bed. She may even try to avoid the marriage bed altogether; or if it looks like
it can't be avoided, she may be cold and unresponsive to his advances.
Soon she learns that nothing bewilders,
hurts, and frustrates her husband more than her lack of loving submission to
his advances. And because she can not win the shouting match, she can not win
the test of physical strength, she may opt for a miserable pleasure in the fact
that in the bedroom she can be the winner.
This is so because nothing her husband does
of a negative nature can force her to change. He can threaten, bully, or beat
her, but all this only makes his wife even more unresponsive to his advances
and as a result deepens his own frustrations and anger.
Without realizing it, the wife is laying the
groundwork for another day of estrangement, quarreling, silent treatment, or cruelty
which the husband uses to try to get even for the tremendous battle he just
lost in the bedroom.
True, the husband and wife are not
rationally thinking about what is happening. They are only reacting with the
intuition of the sinful tendencies that dwell within them.
It is at such a point that the husband may
try to strike back to even the score. What can he take from his wife that she
loves the most? Aha! She is a Christian and is always making a big point of
going to church, or listening to Family Radio, or reading the children Bible
stories. These activities seem to bring the greatest pleasure to his wife. He,
therefore, knows how he can really hurt her. He will forbid her from going to
church. He will forbid her from listening to Family Radio, and so on. All the
members of the congregation can see is an unregenerate tyrant of a husband who
is in rebellion against God. They, of course, haven't the slightest idea of
what is going on in the marriage bed.
Meanwhile, the wife can go about appearing
to be a martyr and receiving the sympathies of her friends. She may not even
realize that her conduct in the marriage bed (as legitimate and logical as it
may seem to her) is reprehensible to God. She is violating God's rule that she
is to be in quiet submission to her husband. She is violating God's rule that
she is to continuously forgive her husband. She is violating God's rule that
her body belongs to her husband.
In fact, this weapon of unresponsiveness in
the marriage bed should never be used. It will drive the husband into the arms
of another woman quicker than anything else. It will serve to destroy the
marriage more quickly than anything else. This is so because it is tampering
with God's design of making the two one flesh.
On the other hand, let's consider the wife
who loves the Lord and is living by God's rules. Her unsaved husband may begin
to wonder, "How can I be married to such a wonderful, forgiving,
thoughtful woman?" He may become increasingly embarrassed by his own
thoughtlessness and cruelty. So when she asks if she can go to church on
Sunday, he has no reason to deny her. He doesn't need to get even with her.
One could logically ask at this point,
"Are you saying that all the problems of marriage begin in the marriage
bed?" The answer is that they may not necessarily begin there. But it is
there that they can be greatly advanced. And it is also there they can to a
very high degree become solved.
True, the idea of becoming one flesh with
one's spouse embraces much more than just the marriage bed. But it is there
that it is the most obvious that the two become one flesh. that is why it is
one of the most sensitive areas in the marriage relationship.
Before we leave the matter of the Christian
wife's relationship to her unsaved husband, we should emphasize one other
problem that is common to this situation. At the time this lady married her
husband she was quite sure she loved him. But after the honeymoon was over, and
after living with him in the confines and intimacy of the marriage relationship,
she found that he had many qualities she did not like at all. He made unwise
decisions. He was self-centered. He squandered the money that should have been
used to buy groceries. He was lazy. He couldn't hold a job. She found that all
her dreams about a pretty white house with a beautiful picket fence around it
would never be realized. Worse than that, he began to run after other women. He
even became a drunkard.
Isn't There A better Answer?
At this point there arise many questions
that demand an answer. Must she remain married to this man? Isn't she entitled
to something better than this? Is her entire life to be enslaved to this man
who has turned out to be so miserable in so many ways?
The Bible's answer comes back clear and
strong: "What God has joined together, let not man put asunder." The
Bible insists that she has been fused into one flesh with this man. He is her
husband. He is not just any man. He is her husband. His life is her life and
her life is his life. She is to live out her life in quiet submission to him.
True, she is to skillfully and lovingly encourage him. She is to try to help
him see his potentials. But she cannot nag him. She cannot boss him. She cannot
threaten him. The ideas of separation or divorce must never even enter her thoughts.
Again we are reminded of the old marriage
form:
I, Jane, take thee, John to be my wedded
husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for
richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till
death do us part according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I give thee my
troth.
The violation in thought of this basic
principle that marriage cannot be broken is the major root of so many divorces
today. As long as a husband or a wife thinks in his or her mind, "I will
love you as long as you are worthy of my love," the disaster of divorce
hovers over that marriage. It is the husband's responsibility to love his wife
without reservation. And it is the wife's responsibility to love her husband
without reservation. Oh, if only husbands and wives could realize the
importance of this principle. The husband must make it his business to love his
wife, wanting the very best for her. The wife must make it her business to
lovingly live in quiet submission to her husband. Each must accept the other
totally and fully as part of their life as long as they live.
As illogical, as irrational, as foolish as
these principles may appear to the secular mind, they nevertheless are the
principles laid down by God Himself. If we disobey them, it is to our own hurt.
If we obey them as a child of God, we can know that we have God's blessings,
and that is everything!
The Problem Of Children
In regards to the marriage bed another point
should be made that can be very helpful. It relates to the changes that develop
when children are born into the family.
When two people become married, there is a
wonderful joy that is experienced by both the husband and the wife. Often, the
husband relates most intensively to this because he feels that he is
"number one." The wife, in her love for her husband, gladly bestows
her attention and her affection on him. He in turn responds by showing great
consideration and affection for his wife.
Of course, the beginning of a marriage will not
be without problems. The wife at times will have great difficulty in submitting
her will to that of her husband. The transition from being a single,
independent person to being bound to a husband requires great adjustments in
any woman's life. But nevertheless, she has her husband and she wants to be the
very best wife.
Likewise, the husband at times may feel
burdened by the new responsibilities of having a wife. He, too, has left the
freedoms of the single state. Now he feels fettered to his wife. He knows he
should always care for her and always want the best for her. But consciously or
unconsciously, he may still have moments when he wishes he did not have the
responsibility of a wife. And so there will be times of misunderstanding and
even of quarreling. But still, they have each other, and each one is still
number one in the eyes of the other.
But then the first baby comes. The husband
is so proud. Just think! He is the father. And the wife is radiant with the joy
of becoming a mother.
But along with this beautiful baby comes
another problem. The wife is "oh, so happy" in her motherhood. But a
great amount of her time, energy, and affection must be given to this precious
infant. And she feels tremendously fulfilled as she showers her love and
affection on her baby.
The husband, too, loves his new baby. But
soon, he begins to realize he is no longer number one. This new baby has become
number one in his wife's love and affection.
If he is mature in his responsibilities, he
will understand that there is much more to marriage than just having a loving,
submissive wife. One of the most important aspects of marriage is the bringing
forth of children. It is God's method of continuing the human race so that
God's purposes can be worked out on this earth. In other words, two people who
marry each other should understand that a major obligation of marriage is the
matter of children.
True, by using birth control devices married
couples can avoid or delay the responsibility of children. But the sinful
practice of birth control is not the subject of this study. Presently we are
concerned primarily with the fact that a difficult problem can arise when the
babies come.
If the husband is immature in this matter
(and most husbands are, to some degree), this problem can have devastating
results in the marriage. He no longer is the center of his wife's attention.
While his wife still loves him and submits herself to his attentions, it seems
that she always has the baby on her mind. A competitor is in the house,
competing for his wife's affections. And she is gladly sharing her affections
with this little competitor.
And then the second baby comes. Now the
wife's attention is even further diverted from her husband. The demands of
caring for the children, in addition to all of the other domestic
responsibilities, leave little energy and concern for the marriage bed.
Now the husband feels more left out than
ever. His manhood is being terribly threatened. His wife seems to have become
much less responsive to his needs. It seems there is nothing he can do about
it.
Wonderfully, in many marriages the husband
recognizes his own selfishness and realizes that he must focus his eyes upon
his own responsibilities as a parent rather than on his selfish desires with
his wife. And in these cases the family ties are actually strengthened by the
arrival of children.
But unfortunately, in some marriages the
husband does not see his selfishness. All he knows is that he has a wife who
does not submit to him the way she did when they were first married. He,
therefore, begins to withdraw from his wife. He begins to spurn the intimacies
of the marriage bed.
Because his wife is so busy loving and
caring for the children, she does not always sense the change in her husband.
In fact, she may even thank that he has grown somewhat tired of the marriage
bed and that he actually welcomes the extended periods during which there is
little intimacy. She fails to realize that her husband's pride is being
severely damage. He is withdrawing because he cannot stand the frustration of
having a wife whom he believes is not entirely submissive to him.
The outcome of this situation is frequently
one of alienation between the husband and the wife. The husband may spend long
hours away. He may concentrate his attention on his business, or his hobbies,
or his friends. Perhaps the time even comes when separate bedrooms become a way
of life for these unhappy parents.
In our day the prevalence of divorce
suggests that divorce will only be a little way down the road for such a
couple. The wife, who loves her children and her husband, does not understand
that her child of a husband feels that he must always be number one in his
wife's affections. She doesn't not realize that with the coming of children she
needs to demonstrate in a special way that her love and submission to her
husband always comes first in her life.
True, if a wife sees her husband pouting or
acting selfishly, there is a tremendous temptation on her part to feel offended
and to withdraw from her husband. But this kind of action often only
intensifies the problem. Instead of just one person acting sinfully in the
marriage relationship, now both are acting sinfully. And sin is always
destructive. Its outcome is always negative and detrimental to those involved.
It must be noted, of course, that the
husband is no less responsible to maintain the marriage relationship in a
God-glorifying way than is the wife. Because he is the head of the home, he has
an even greater responsibility than the wife. Therefore, when he reacts
jealously and selfishly to his wife's affection for their children, his sin is
very great. He stands altogether guilty before God.
Wonderfully, many husbands sense their
responsibility toward their families. Those families are therefore blessed in
many ways.
But what can a wife do who finds that her
husband is clearly not as close to her as he was during the early days of their
marriage? If she can begin to understand the stress that the coming of the
children has placed on her immature husband, she can go a long way in
correcting the problem.
Because God has ordained that the husband
and wife are to live together in the greatest possible intimacy, the wife who
discovers that her husband is beginning to withdraw from that special intimacy
should be greatly concerned. While her husband may never admit his frustration
or his hurt pride, the wife should nevertheless make sure that her attention to
her children and to her domestic duties does not help develop this withdrawal
in her child husband.
Because the wife finds great fulfillment as
a mother, the intimacies of the marriage bed are usually not as needful in her
life as they are in the life of her husband. Therefore, she must be especially
alert to withdrawal signs in her husband. Such action on the part of the
husband can signal that very difficult times are coming for their marriage.
The wife, therefore, must realize that it is
very important for her child husband to be number one in the marriage
relationship. Prayerfully, patiently, tenderly, consistently she should convey
to her husband her faithful love for him. Little gestures, loving looks, a
touch, all the things that were so important during courtship and the honeymoon
should remain in evidence.
If the estrangement has greatly advanced, it
may take much time before the husband will sense again the love and devotion
his wife has for him. Moreover, because his ardor has become like ice, the wife
will need much of God's grace to persistently continue in her efforts to
rekindle desire in his heart.
But we can do all things through Christ who
strengthens us. To show her love to her husband is entirely in agreement with
God's Word. Therefore, as God strengthens her, she is to continue her efforts
to show her love to him in every way possible. Thus far, our study has shown us
the immense responsibility that marriage is. We should now look briefly at the
matter of courtship as preparation for marriage. This we will do in our next
chapter.
Chapter 9
COURTSHIP
We have looked at a few of the problems that
may occur in the marriage relationship, seeing some of the enormous
difficulties a husband and a wife may face in their marriage. It should be
obvious that if both spouses are truly saved, the tensions of marriage will be
greatly diminished. Even in the case of unsaved couples, God in His mercy
frequently restrains sin to the degree that they can live together in relative
happiness and contentment.
But in this study we have been looking at the
marriage where the tensions have developed to the point that divorce is looming
on the horizon. When this situation occurs the unsaved couple has little to
help them. Their parents' desires, peer pressure from friends, or a feeling of
responsibility toward their children may help keep the marriage going for a
while, but because neither spouse recognizes the authority of the Bible, and
because their world increasingly condones divorce, the reasonable expectation
for this marriage is, unfortunately, divorce.
On the other hand, if one of the spouses is
truly a child of God, the expectation for this marriage is much brighter. By
God's grace, if the husband is saved, he can do much to protect the
continuation of the marriage. By following God's rules he can do much to
protect the integrity of his marriage.
Likewise, if the wife is a true child of
God, she can be very effective in maintaining the continuation of her marriage.
Of course, the task facing the saved spouse
of an unsaved partner who is exceedingly disagreeable to live with is indeed
formidable. No individual in their own strength can face some of the
difficulties that can arise. Only God's grace can sustain them through very
stressful situations.
But God's grace is sufficient. God has given
very beautiful and certain promises that can be depended upon entirely. God has
promised He will never leave us nor forsake us. God has committed Himself to
the principle that all things work together for good for those who love Him
(cf. Romans 8:28).
The believer has the assurance that he can
bring all his anxieties to his heavenly Father and receive the peace that
passes understanding. He knows that God is able to change the situation
overnight. He is quite aware that the difficulties being faced are a part of God's
plan for his life.
In fact, the believing spouse will discover
that the continuing problems arising from being married to an unsaved spouse
only cause the believer to trust God more and more. He will not have the wisdom
or the strength in himself to continue in the face of the seemingly mountainous
difficulties being faced, but how wonderful to know that all of the problems
and frustrations can be poured out in prayer to a God who dearly loves His
child. With secure knowledge that God in heaven is still in charge, this child
of God can face tomorrow.
One of the wonders of God's grace that will
grow increasingly clear to the believing spouse is the fact that this earthly
life is not "the big picture." We are only here for a few short
years. Our time here is like a drop in the ocean compared with the eternity we
will spend in the New Heaven and New Earth. Therefore, whatever the trauma that
must be faced, it will have an end. And following that welcome end is a life in
which there is no suffering nor sorrow nor unhappiness ever again.
Moreover, the saved spouse needs to be
keenly aware that the unsaved spouse is on the way to hell. While he may appear
to be "getting away" with his selfishness, this is not so at all. The
unsaved spouse is to be pitied to the highest possible degree. If he dies
without becoming saved, every one of his sins must be paid for. And the payment
God demands is eternal damnation.
On the other hand, even though the saved
spouse may suffer greatly, the spiritual blessings already enjoyed, along with
the certainty of eternity with our Lord, emphasize the fact that the saved
spouse has everything on his side.
Take Care Who You Date
But what steps can be taken to insure a
biblical marriage in the first place? The potential awfulness of a marriage
between a believer and an unbeliever is so great that a word of caution must be
directed to those who are thinking about marriage.
How careful must a person be who is
unmarried and who is becoming romantically inclined toward someone? The answer
is that he must be exceedingly careful. As we have learned, when two people
have become married, the wife is bound to the husband as long as they live. The
words "separation" and "divorce" should never be a part of
their vocabulary.
Therefore, it is of absolute importance that
each knows as much about the other as possible before marriage. Dating and
engagement, as we know it in our land, is designed to provide time to acquire
this knowledge.
Obviously, if a person discovers that the
other person is divorced and their spouse is still living, then it is very
foolish to date that person. Even if the divorced person has become a beautiful
child of God, marriage should not take place. Even if the divorce took place
before this person became saved, there cannot be remarriage. Therefore, it
would be exceedingly reckless to date such a person. It would only be placing a
huge temptation before both persons.
Likewise, when two people become
romantically interested in each other, it is imperative that they pay careful
attention to the spiritual condition of the potential partner. How awful it
would be if one person only seemed to be saved and after the honeymoon was over
the saved spouse discovered that their mate was unsaved.
If on the first few dates the saved person does
not find any substantial evidence that the other person is a child of God, then
dating should cease. Romantic love has a way of blinding people more than they
are willing to admit. Because an unsaved person, who seems to be interested in
the things Christian people are interested in, can still have very many
attractive qualities, it is very easy to focus only on attractive qualities.
Many a wife who has discovered after the
wedding that she was married to an unsaved husband had not been careful enough
when she dated. She may have realized at first that all was not spiritually
well with this handsome man she was dating, but as she became increasingly
attracted to him, she began to rationalize about what he could eventually
become.
Surely, he does show a lot of interest in
church, she reasons. Surely, her influence is so great in his life that even if
he is not already saved, as she witnesses to him and prays for him, he will
eventually become saved. Meanwhile, she is becoming more and more blinded by her
romantic love.
She has already violated two very important
rules. First, dating, engagement, and marriage are not missionary endeavors. If
she wants to minister to the unsaved, there are thousands of people all around
her who need her witness. But the arena of romance is not the place for
missionary work. It is designed to provide, by God's grace, a godly marriage.
This must remain the single focus of the dating agreement.
True, there are some instances wherein a
child of God has had the glad experience of seeing their steady date become
saved. But these unusual exceptions provide no solid basis for this kind of
exception. Too many emotions are involved in romantic love. Unless there is
clear, immediate and continuing evidence that the one being dated is already a
child of God, the only wise action is to cease dating. The reason for this is
quite evident.
Suppose at the inception of dating there is
good evidence that one person is not a child of God. But the dates continue
because many attractive qualities can be seen in the one being dated. The
Christian knows the importance of salvation and so encourages the unsaved
person to read the Bible, to pray, and to attend church. Because the unsaved
person is falling in love with the saved person, he increasingly tries to
please her. She, as the saved person, will become more and more convinced that
God's Spirit is working in the heart of her steady date. After all, why else is
he beginning to attend church so faithfully? Why does he appear to have become
so interested in the Bible?
True, at times he says or does things that
are quite alien to a saved person. But because she is falling in love with him,
she overlooks her fears, trying to see only God's grace in his life. Even when
parents and friends express concern, she will not listen. Because she has
fallen in love, she has convinced herself that God's grace is present in his
life. Moreover, she is sure that after they are married he will grow even
faster in the things of the Lord.
So they marry each other. Now he has her as
his wife. By the time the honeymoon is over he knows he does not have to try as
hard to please her. Because going to church and studying the Bible are boring
to him, he will soon cease doing these things altogether.
The happy bride eventually discovers to her
utter consternation that she is married to an unsaved husband. She realizes,
too that she is married to him until death parts them.
But because her husband does not recognize
God's rules against divorce, there is a strong likelihood that when he gets
tired of living with a wife who puts such a high premium on going to church and
reading the Bible, he will seek a divorce. This may even come when the family
has grown to include children.
And so the believing wife becomes divorced.
According to the Bible, she may never marry again as long as her husband is
living. But in his rebellion against God he marries someone else, and she is
left with the heavy responsibility of rearing the children.
Unfortunately this sad scenario is being
repeated again and again in our day in actual life situations. If only those
who are free to marry would realize the enormous consequences of marriage! One
can never be too careful in deciding who to date.
Some may argue that dating is quite innocent,
and that it does not necessarily have to be pointing to marriage. But the fact
is that all dating, however innocuous, superficial and innocent it may appear
to be, is a preliminary step toward marriage. Ordinarily, every marriage begins
with a first date. It is a ritual that is engaged in to prepare for a
successful marriage.
Therefore, during courtship the chief focus
should be on spiritual concerns. Serious questions should be faced such as:
What is salvation? What does it mean to be born again? What is the true Gospel?
If we should marry, what church would we attend? If God gave us children, what
about baptism? What about the education of those children? What kind of school
would we try to send them to? What is the wife's chief role in marriage? Is she
to be first an assistant breadwinner and then a keeper of the home? Or is she
first to be a keeper of the home and assist as a breadwinner only if it does
not interfere with her duties at home? What about family devotions? What about
the responsibility of giving to God's work? What about the use of birth control
measures? Etc., etc.
All such questions should be faced and
settled before marriage. By facing these questions, at least two goals will be
realized. First of all, it will provide a forum for the examination of the
spiritual sensitivities of each person. Two people may each be convinced the
other person is a child of God, but if agreement cannot be realized on these
issues, it may raise serious doubts as to the advisability of marriage. These
are all matters of serious concern in the life of a true child of God.
Therefore, to enter into the intimate, binding relationship of marriage with
basic disagreements on these issues may be exceedingly dangerous. If the two
disagree on these issues during courtship, the disagreements are sure to
intensify during marriage.
On the other hand, by honestly and openly
facing these issues before marriage, a solid foundation can be laid for a
happy, God-glorifying marriage. If there is honest agreement on these matters,
both will enter into marriage secure in the knowledge that harmony will
prevail.
Hopefully we have come to an understanding
of what is likely to bring about a more perfect marriage union.
But what about those who divorced before
they were saved? Are they free to remarry? What about those who are already
married a second or third time? Are they to divorce their wives in order to
become more biblical? We will look at these question in our next and final
chapter.
Chapter 10
SOME FINAL QUESTIONS
We have spent considerable time
investigating the biblical principles that relate to the binding nature of the
marriage union. Repeatedly, we found that there is not to be divorce under any
circumstances whatsoever. What God has joined together is not to be put
asunder. Moreover, it someone does become divorced for some reason, we found
that it would be a grievous sin to remarry while the former spouse still lives.
We then looked briefly at the implications
of these truths upon both the husband's role and the wife's role in the
marriage relationship. We discovered that, even if both spouses are saved, it
can be very difficult to be the kind of husband and wife that God desires. But
when one spouse is unsaved, it is certain that the other will have an exceedingly
difficult life to live.
However, by God's grace it is possible to
live victoriously even in such a difficult marriage. But to do so requires very
careful obedience to God's rules. Wonderfully, God has given us His rules and
principles so that even in the most trying circumstances we can experience the
blessings of obedience. Those blessings include not only the comforting
knowledge that we are living in the will of God, but they sometimes include the
salvation of the unsaved spouse as well.
But now we will look at some other questions
that often arise in Christian circles. For example, isn't it true that when we
become a Christian old things have passed away and all things have become new?
Doesn't this imply that if I was divorced before I was saved, now that I am
saved I, as a new creature, am free to remarry? And what am I to do if I become
saved after I have already married a second time? Let's conclude our study by
examining such questions.
Divorce And The Newly Saved
A common assertion these days is the idea
that if we were divorced before we were saved, after becoming saved we are free
to remarry. This is based on the contention that as saved people we have become
new creatures in Christ. Old things have passed away and all things have become
new. But is this kind of teaching biblical?
Actually, this teaching is quite unbiblical.
First, it does not recognize that God's laws apply to all mankind. For example,
the commandments "thou shalt not kill" or "thou shalt not
covet" apply to the unbeliever as well as to the believer. The only
difference is in the response to these commands. The true believer earnestly
desires to be obedient to all of God's commands, while the unbeliever pays
little or no attention to these rules.
The true believer knows that all of the
commands of the Bible are to be obeyed. There is no statement of the Bible he
would disregard. Therefore, if the Bible says he is not to remarry after
divorce, then he will remain single. And this is true whether he was divorced
before or after he was saved.
Secondly, becoming a new creature in Christ
does not necessarily nullify the physical results of our sin. For example, a
murderer is sentenced to the electric chair. While waiting to be executed, he
becomes saved. This means he will never be threatened with hell for murder or
for any other sin he committed. He now stands absolutely blameless before God.
But does this mean that now he can leave death row and avoid execution? No, he
still must be executed for his crime, unless he receives a very unusual pardon
from the governor.
The same is true of a drunkard. Because of
his continued drunkenness he is told he is dying of liver disease. But then he
becomes saved. All of his sins, including drunkenness, have been covered by
Christ's blood. But does this also mean that he will not die of liver disease?
Not necessarily. Normally, the effects of his drunkenness continue with him.
Likewise, the man who has a messed up life
because of divorce can be forgiven of this sin along with every other sin he
has ever committed. When he becomes saved he can know that he will never have
to answer to God for any of these sins.
But much of the impact of those sins remain
with him. God's laws concerning marriage and divorce still stand. Even if he
becomes saved after he was divorced, he knows that God's law prohibits
remarriage while his former spouse is living. Therefore, he will remain single
as God has commanded.
This leads us into another question. Is it
really true that God expects those who were divorced to live the single life in
total celibacy? Isn't that asking too much? Surely a loving, forgiving heavenly
Father would not expect this.
These questions can be answered from two
vantage points. First of all, let us look at a marriage that was broken by God.
Consider the example of a widow with five children, one of whom is a child with
special needs. God has taken her husband by death.
Biblically she is free to remarry, and if
any family needs a husband and a father, it is certainly this one. But in
actuality, marriage for this widow is highly unlikely. It would be difficult
enough to expect a new husband to become the instantaneous father of five
children. But it is well nigh impossible for a new husband to be willing to
take on the additional responsibilities of a child with special needs and
cares.
Now, did God leave this poor widow in an
impossible, terrible situation? Surely God is perfect in His actions and His
wisdom! Therefore, when God took this husband by death God knew full well that
the widow could continue a meaningful and happy life without the presence of a
husband and father for her children.
True, it would be a life that would be
different from what the world considers to be ideal. She would certainly need
the help of others. And she would have to constantly cry out to God for wisdom
and patience. But she would find that God's grace is truly sufficient. In fact,
she could experience in an especially dynamic way the reality of such promises
as "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee: (Hebrews 13:5).
So, if God's grace is sufficient for those
whose marriages have been broken by His own action, surely we can expect that
His grace will be sufficient for those whose marriages have been tampered with
by man's action of divorce.
There is a second emphasis here that must be
kept in mind. In our sinful, finite mind we think that because the intimacies
enjoyed in our marriage were such a seemingly necessary part of our life, that
it would be nearly impossible to live a celibate life after divorce. "How
can I be expected to live the rest of my life without any further intimacies
with the opposite sex? Surely a good God does not intend that for me," we
reason.
But God is the one who has designed us. It
is God Himself who has put the body chemistry within us so that we can enjoy
the intimacies of marriage.
It is also God who assures us that it is
possible for humans to live very happy lives without the benefit of such
intimacies. God declares in I Corinthians 7:27,..."Art thou loosed from a
wife? seek not a wife." He adds in verses 32-34:
But I would have you without carefulness. He
that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may
please the Lord: But he that is married careth for the things that are of the
world, how he may please his wife. There is difference also between a wife and
a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may
be holy both in body and spirit: but she that is married careth for the things
of the world, how she may please her husband.
These verses clearly show that there are
some special advantages that are available to the unmarried. In these verses
God is not speaking to a certain group within the company of the believers. He
is speaking to all who have become children of God. Jesus spoke to this
question in Matthew 19:12 where He taught:
For there are some eunuchs, which were so
born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made
eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for
the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive
it.
The strict definition of a eunuch is someone
who is not physically equipped to perform the sexual act. But Jesus is teaching
that some people make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.
But He is not implying that they are to have themselves physically altered.
Rather, they choose to live without the physical intimacy of the marriage
relationship. In denying themselves this intimacy, they gain all kinds of new
and wonderful ways to live to God's glory.
True, the world in which we live has put an
enormous priority on sexual intimacy. Listening to the advertisements, the
novels, the TV programs, the psychologists of our day, we have been brainwashed
into thinking that if we cannot have this kind of intimacy, we are being
deprived of the greatest blessing known to man.
But this is a lie. God's Word is the truth.
While God indicates there are certain blessings within the marriage
relationship -- particularly in the rearing of godly children -- there are even
greater blessings to be realized in the single state. This is what we learn
from I Corinthians 7:32-34.
The single person has the advantage of
having more time to serve the Lord by doing such good works as caring for the
lonely, the children of broken homes, and the elderly in nursing homes. They
also have more time for Bible study and prayer.
Married people should also be involved in
denying themselves so that their lives might be as fruitful as possible for
Christ. But it is in the lives of the unmarried that these ideals can be
realized to the highest degree.
And it is this spiritual dimension that can
make the big difference in the lives of widows, widowers, divorced people, and
those who have never married. God has given this special comfort and promise to
all those who are single.
But it is only as they live in accordance
with God's principles that these added blessings become evident. If the single
person listens to the advice of the world, the feeling that the single state
makes a person a deprived, pitiable, second-class citizen can be overwhelming.
This in turn can set the stage for a fall into fornication. Only when God's
rules are followed can the life of the single person become even more
victorious than that of the married person.
But now we should face another question.
What about someone who has married a second or even a third time and then
becomes saved? Is he or she to divorce these latter spouses? What is to be done
in order to obey God?
The Second Marriage
The question we are facing is a serious one,
even though it should not be. If the human race, led by the church, were
obeying God's laws concerning marriage and divorce, there would be very few
second marriages. But because of the wholesale repudiation of God's laws
concerning the sanctity of marriage, this problem has become enormous.
Everywhere we turn we meet those who have remarried after divorce. Therefore,
we must try to find an answer to this question.
We already know that the second marriage is
an adulterous marriage. Remember, the wife is bound to the husband as long as
he lives. And Romans 7:3 plainly declares:
So then if, while her husband liveth, she be
married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband
be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be
married to another man.
We cannot deny the clear teaching set forth
in this verse. The wife is an adulteress if she is married to a second husband
while her first husband is still living. She is an adulteress because her first
marriage has become adulterated by her divorce, as well as because she has
married a second husband.
We must recognize that a number of examples
are given in the Bible of men with multiple wives. Jacob had four wives, David
had several wives, and Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines! But, these
were exceptions. The usual example that is given is of one wife. This was true
of Adam, Noah, Isaac, Moses, etc.
We also consider that never did the Bible
instruct a man to divorce all but the first wife. This is remarkable when we
remember that the principle of one man, one wife goes all the way back to the
beginning. God did not tell Adam that the three or four or several shall become
one flesh. No. He instructed mankind in the beginning that the two shall be one
flesh (Genesis 2:24). Although in Genesis 2:24 the number "two" is
not used, the verse speaks of a man cleaving to his wife (not wives) "and
they shall be one flesh."
Therefore shall a man leave his father and
his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
Remember, Jesus quotes this verse in Matthew
19:5 and Mark 10:8. In both of these verses He declares that the two shall be
one flesh.
Therefore, we might expect that God would
ask those who have violated this command by taking multiple wives to divorce
their additional wives. But such an admonition is not given by God.
Thus, we must realize that even though God
has willed that the proper marriage is one husband, one wife, nevertheless He
has allowed mankind to break this law by having multiple wives. Nowhere in the
Bible does He ask those believers with multiple wives to divorce the extra
wives.
The reason for this state of affairs
probably lies in the fact that even the marriage of a second wife is still a
marriage. Even though it is altogether wrong, for some reason God still counts
it as a marriage. Thus, the second wife becomes bound to the husband even as
the first wife has become bound to the husband. And once this binding
relationship occurs, there cannot be a breaking of that relationship.
True, the marriage to the second wife
adulterates the pristine, ideal character of marriage as a one husband, one
wife relationship. But the second marriage still is a marriage, and therefore,
there can be no divorce.
When a man divorces his first wife, she is
still bound to him from God's vantage point. Therefore, when he takes a second
wife while his first wife is living, he has two wives bound to him. The act of
divorcing his first wife was grievous sin. Likewise, the act of marrying a
second wife was grievous sin. But the second marriage was still a marriage, and
therefore, there cannot be divorce from this second wife. This is the marriage
in which he must continue until death separates him from this wife.
True, a second or third marriage under these
circumstances is far from ideal. From the standpoint of its relationship to the
first marriage, it is adulterous. Secondly, there still exist responsibilities towards
the first wife. Alimony and child support are the most obvious. But there are
also moral and spiritual responsibilities and conflicts that may continue to
plague the one who has arrogantly violated God's rules. Unfortunately, the
children frequently suffer the most because of these selfish parents.
Moreover, such a husband can no longer be a
pastor, an elder, or a deacon within the church. In I Timothy 3 God
specifically instructs that such an office bearer in the church is to be the
husband of one wife. Remember that in Romans 7:3 God speaks of the woman's
husband still living while she is married to another man. God considers her to
have two husbands, even though she is legally divorced from the first.
Likewise, from God's vantage point, the man who has divorced his first wife and
married another now has two wives. Therefore, he does not meet God's
qualifications for a pastor, an elder, or a deacon.
In spite of the difficulties of a second
marriage after divorce, it is still a marriage. The spouses involved are to
live as if it were their first marriage.
Wonderfully, if they have become true
believers, they can know that all of the sins connected with the divorce and
remarriage are covered by Christ's blood. Christ came for sinners, not
righteous people. Regardless of how many dirty, rotten sins we may have
committed, when Jesus becomes our Savior we can know that He has paid for all
our sins.
This brings us to the last group of
questions we shall consider in this study. If a second marriage is to be lived
the same as a first marriage with the complete assurance that the sins of
divorce and remarriage become completely forgiven by God, why can't I just go
ahead into a second marriage and then ask God's forgiveness later? Suppose I am
already married to someone, but I want to marry someone else with whom I have
fallen in love. Why can't I go ahead and get an unbiblical divorce and then
sinfully marry this second person? Cannot I then ask God's forgiveness,
believing Christ's blood will cover these sins? Or, suppose I am divorced;
can't I first marry someone else before I get right with God? That way I can
have my second marriage and Christ also. Then I don't have to live the rest of
my natural life in the single state.
These questions and observations surely seem
logical and attractive. They surely appear to solve the problem of one having
his cake and eating it too.
But this course of action is fraught with
danger. Effectively, the one contemplating this action is taking the role of an
adversary of Almighty God. Effectively he is saying, "I can sin as deeply
and as often as I wish, and in my own sweet time I can become saved. And God
must save me when I am ready to become saved."
Such a one is tempting God like Israel
tested God in the wilderness when they complained that God was leading them to
destruction. God warns in I Corinthians 10:9:
Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them
also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents.
The specific sin God had in view in this
verse is recorded in Numbers 21:5-6 where we read:
And the people spake against God, and
against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the
wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul
loatheth this light bread. And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people,
and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.
The nation of Israel accused God of being
too harsh in bringing them out of Egypt into the wilderness where they were to
live following God's direction. But their complaints against God only brought
judgment upon them.
So, too, those who insist on having their
own way concerning divorce or remarriage after divorce effectively are
complaining that God's way is too severe and too harsh. They are insisting on
having their own way.
Ancient Israel insisted on having its own
way and as a result came under God's wrath. How then can we expect God to treat
any differently those who insist on having their own way in such important
matters as divorce and remarriage? Indeed, it is a very serious matter to
contend with Almighty God!
Moreover, the idea that I can sin for as
long as I like, then sometime in the future I can repent at will and secure
God's grace, is entirely faulty. It does not recognize nor understand the
nature of God's grace.
We must remember that mankind is not the
decision maker in salvation. Only Sovereign God Himself decides who is to be
saved. But He comes to us commanding us to believe in Christ as Savior. He
warns, "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation"
(Hebrews 2:3)? He exhorts,..."make your calling and election sure..."
(Peter 1:10). And He instructs us that we are to come not despise" (Psalms
51:17). He also warns that He resists the proud and gives grace to the humble.
With such warnings and exhortations before
our eyes how would anyone dare to deliberately rebel against God in something
as serious as divorce or remarriage after divorce? These are not sins that one
slips into incidentally or accidentally. These are sins that require deliberate
planning and consistent action over a period of considerable time. And if one's
heart is rebellious and hard enough today to commit such a sin, the probability
is that this person is not saved. Moreover, it is evidence that God is not even
drawing this one toward salvation. If God is today allowing this person to
engage in such rebellion, what assurance can he have that later on God will
deal kindly with him and soften his heart in order to draw him to salvation?
We may never presume upon the mercies of
God. Today is the day of salvation. No person has any guarantee or promise that
he will even be alive tomorrow. How then can we know that tomorrow we can be
able to make our peace with God?
Furthermore, if we are so rebellious today
that we would dare to sin so deliberately, how do we know that at some future
date our hearts will become broken before God so that we can honestly and
sincerely cry out for mercy? Indeed, we have no such assurance.
Therefore, to deliberately divorce or
remarry after divorce, knowing that such action is contrary to God's will, is
the most foolish and dangerous action anyone could take. The only fulfilling
way to live is in accordance with God's laws. And the best time to begin living
in this way is right now. May God give wisdom to those who have even played
with the idea of sinning now and repenting later!
How Did It Happen
But now let's turn our thought to wondering
how it could ever have happened that the dreadful sin of divorce has become so
widespread in our day.
The problem of unbiblical marriage and
divorce is so serious, so catastrophic, that we wonder how the church could
ever have strayed so far from the truth. Fifty years ago it was only in the
more rebellious elements of the secular world that this sin was visible. Because
the church would not even countenance this sin, the secular world did not dare
to go too deeply into sin. It is a fact that the church is to some degree the
conscience of the secular world.
But then comes along a dear lady who was
married to a man living adulterously with other women. The church began to
wonder: "Must this dear wife continue to live with that kind of horrible
husband?" So in its sympathy and compassion, the church restudied the
question of divorce for adultery and finally decided, "Yes, the Bible does
allow divorce for adultery." And so the door was opened so that not only
could this dear lady have her divorce, but also many others in the congregation
could begin to lawfully seek divorce. Because the church is to some degree the
conscience of the secular world, the people of the world also began to expand
their divorce horizons. And so divorce began to multiply in the world.
At this point another kind of problem began
to arise. Another dear lady was deserted by her husband and she had to labor
all alone in caring for her children. But there was a dear Christian man who
loved her and wanted to marry her. Surely, they reasoned, it must be in
accordance with God's will for those children to have a Christian father to
care for them!
So again the church, in its pity and
compassion for this woman, appointed study committees to research the
possibilities of biblical divorce for desertion and biblical remarriage after
divorce. And again victory was assured. Indeed, these theologians successfully
convinced themselves that the Bible allows divorce for desertion and remarriage
after divorce. And so not only could this dear lady divorce her scoundrel of a
husband, but she was free to marry this fine Christian man who had fallen in
love with her.
Many in the church now believe they have
God's blessing to divorce and remarry. Indeed, even deacons and pastors are now
freely divorcing and remarrying. And the world, taking its cue from the church,
becomes a wasteland of broken homes.
Simultaneously, the church, taking its cue
from the world, tacitly gives assent to the dreadful sin of birth control. This
not only encourages the world to go deeper into this particular sin, but also
opens the door to increased fornication. Where forty years ago it was rightly
considered to be shameful and repugnant for unmarried individuals of the
opposite sex to live together, now it has become commonplace. Indeed, sexual
restraints of any kind have almost disappeared.
Along with all of these step-by-step violations
of God's laws for the protection of the family unit, have come shattered lives
of men, women, and children whose families have been hopelessly broken. The
havoc is so widespread and of such magnitude that no words can accurately
describe the full extent of the horror story.
Indeed, it is no wonder that God's judgment
is on the church of today. I am afraid that the primary blame for the
destruction of the marriage institution and the family unit must be placed at
the door of the church, for it has the Word of God that indicates divorce is
not to be countenanced. The church is the institution that has rewritten the
rules to accommodate these sins of its members.
But what can we do? We must do the same
thing that must always be done when we find sin in our lives. We must repent!
We must turn away from all of these rebellious rules that permit divorce and
remarriage. We must cry out to God for His mercy and forgiveness.
And we can't wait for another denomination
or even another church within our denomination to agree with us that we have
sinned. I personally must repent if I have had wrong thinking about these
questions. And the church I belong to must repent.
Unfortunately, few will repent. The sins
that have developed and have been accepted as the marriage institution has been
slowly but surely destroyed are so widespread and so interwoven into the fabric
of our churches that there is little hope for that. This is particularly so
because we are so close to the end of the world. These dreadful sins evidence
the fulfillment of the prophecy that most men's love will grow cold. May God
have mercy on us!
Wonderfully, however, those who truly want
to be obedient to God's Word can still move in the direction of a more holy
life. If we discover wrong practices or wrong doctrines in our life, we can
repent of them. God is gracious. He does forgive! And the Bible is just as much
a guide for our lives today as it has ever been.
Could it be that there will be those who
humbly will give heed to all that God teaches? Although we cannot turn this
massive destruction of the family around, individually we can grow in holiness
by becoming more obedient. This is the heart's desire of every child of God.