Divorce in the Bible

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[This was one of a series of talks called ‘The Big Issue’. Here you have the notes.]

Introduction

More marriages end in divorce than ever before. The Office for National Statistics show that 42% of marriages in England and Wales end in divorce¹ and the average marriage is expected to last for 32 years. Marriage and divorce is one of the more difficult ethical areas that Christians have to wrestle with.

Marriage breakdown is a sad and heartbreaking reality across western society today. Some of us will have experienced a marriage break-up personally and almost everyone will have encountered a marriage break-up it in our workplace, in our family or friendship circle.

As counsellors Rosi and I touch the lives people who have suffered the heartbreak and trauma of a broken marriage with all the acrimony and self-doubt that this brings about. The consequences of a breakdown are felt in a much wider sphere than just the couple themselves as children, relatives and friends in the church may all share some of the pain.

Changes in the church

Whereas divorce was at one time virtually unknown among Christians (or at least it was treated with a heavy dose of confidentiality) we are now seeing more and more Christians going through this trauma. We are sometimes aware that, given earlier help, some of this tragedy could have been avoided.

Divorce, however, is not the end of the story. Many who suffer a failed marriage find themselves attracted to another partner and eventually feel they would like to begin again and make a fresh start. The difficulty for the Christian is the question of how to maintain God’s benchmark of marriage being a permanent relationship with the human reality of marital breakdown. The position is compounded when a couple, one of whom has been divorced, ask the church to sanctify their marriage with a Christian wedding service.

I’m not going to pretend that this is an easy area or that the Bible is simple to interpret on this area (if it was, we wouldn’t have considered it for our ‘Big Issue’ series at cafe church!). Here, then are some guidelines that have been carefully thought through in the light of scripture.

We want to maintain two parallel motives; firstly to keep scripture as our authority in these matters of faith and conduct and secondly to assert that, if there is anywhere on earth that forgiveness, renewal, recovery and restoration can be discovered, it’s got to be here! in the body of Christ.

While researching for today’s talk I discovered a friend of a friend who had suffered the tragedy of a broken marriage and went to a church to see if she could find some kind of spiritual reality in all her pain. The vicar of the church told her in no uncertain terms that as a divorcee she was not eligible to take communion. She said to our friend later “I will never go to church again!” and so far as either of us was aware, she has so far kept her promise. I don’t blame her.

In reality every case is individual and relationships sometimes become so entangled that the ideals we strive to live by prove to be unattainable. In these situations (and they are more common that many people think) we find ourselves having to choose between several options, none of which is perfect.

Whenever a marriage fails there are invariably actions the Bible puts into the sin category not far beneath the surface. Anger, betrayal, bitterness, lying, selfishness and even violence are usually present, even if they are cleverly concealed. Usually neither partner is completely innocent.

This means that Christian couples have a high responsibility to work at their marriage as Eph 5:21-33 indicates. Their aim should be to keep it vital and fresh and not to assume that good marriages just happen. It is equally the responsibility of the church to help Christian brothers and sisters who are facing difficulties in their marriage to resolve these in an atmosphere of confidentiality (we want to spare their blushes), encouragement (we want to help people in trouble) and reconciliation (we want relationships to be fulfilling). After all we are all sinners being saved by God’s grace and no marriage is ever perfect.

As a principle divorce should only every be countenanced as the lesser of two evils. So we only consider the idea of divorce if a greater evil would be committed by the couple staying together. If the situation that is measurably beyond resolution then divorce is a regrettable but necessary alternative to perpetual misery.

The Bible and divorce.

Here are some key scriptures which relate to our theology of divorce. The comments you have here are only preliminary and I am very aware that there may be issues which this scamper over the Bible’s evidence leaves untouched.

Deuteronomy 24:1-2

1 If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house [… and so the law goes on].

This sentence tells us two things; firstly, divorce was allowed in the children of Israel and secondly, it was a publicly recognised act as legally binding as the original marriage. So divorce was being practised and recognised even in the earliest times among God’s people. The precise categories of ‘indecency’ are not described here but included things like sleeping with another man.

Unfortunately some Israeli men took this as a green light for divorcing their wives for trivial reasons. So when Jesus was challenged over it, he asserted the sanctity of marriage in God’s eyes and closed the door on casual divorce.

Jeremiah 3:8

I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce and sent her away because of all her adulteries

In this passage divorce was used as an illustration of what happened between God and the Israelites when his people went astray and turned to their own devices. The covenant of a binding relationship between them had broken down and the rest of the prophecy waxes lyrical about God’s continued love and his desire to bring his faithless people back to Him.

Malachi 2:16

16 “I hate divorce,” says the LORD God of Israel, “and I hate a man’s covering himself with violence as well as with his garment,” says the LORD Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith.

It is very clear that divorce is detestable to God, but so are many other things the Bible which are detrimental to our spiritual lives and relationships. So Malachi offers a way of avoiding this – guarding your heart, your inner self and your motives.

The Hebrew is not easy to translate and here is another of the NIV series translations:

“The man who hates and divorces his wife,” says the Lord, the God of Israel, “does violence to the one he should protect,” says the Lord Almighty. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful.

This passage also gvi

Matt 1:18-20

18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.

19 Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

This passage doesn’t teach about divorce itself, but it give us a small clue about how divorce was regarded in the first century. In particular a divorce was necessary to break an engagement even before the public celebration of the marriage had taken place. It helps to emphasise the sanctity of the husband-wife relationship, even in its embryonic stages.

There is another insight in this passage. In order to avoid tarnishing her reputation Joseph was going to do his best to keep his break-up from Mary out of the public eye and, presumably, the gossip channels. There was an element of shame and disgrace attached to a divorce of this type and he wanted to protect her from its pain.

Matthew 5:31-32

31 “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’

32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.

The context of this passage is Jesus’ sermon on the mount, a summary of his ethical teaching which his wider group of disciples would be familiar with. The big question here is the extent to which Jesus’ remarks should be seen through the lens of their culture of the time and to what extent they are absolute.

Was he addressing a particular situation that they faced in their day that we do not face in our own, or was Jesus saying something that was absolutely binding on all people from that day to this?

When Jesus said “It has been said” he was referring to the passage we looked at a moment ago in Deuteronomy where divorce and the certificate of divorce have been assumed as legally acceptable (even if not ethically desirable). Jesus here makes no reference to the reason for the type of divorce to which he is referring – he just accepts that it’s happening. Therefore we can see several assumptions behind this statement

First, that a divorce has already taken place (or at least in the process of taking place) “’Anyone who divorces his wife”. Divorce in Jesus day was very different from today because only the man could initiate it and, depending on which school of teaching the man came from, he could do it for almost any reason. Some especially trivial reasons caused enormous heartache and pain. So long as he gave his wife the right divorce papers he could get rid of her almost at will. Therefore women were in a precarious situation under this law.

Second, Jesus is assuming that when a man gets rid of his wife in this way, she, as a single person now, is able and likely to remarry – otherwise she could not be regarded as an adulteress (because she hasn’t formed a new relationship with another man)

So when the second marriage takes place – as Jesus contemplates at the end of the sentence (v32) both the woman and the new man on the scene are guilty of adultery – i.e. breaking a marriage bond which God has recognised.

Thirdly, there is a real theological problem here in relation to the nature of sin. If one man’s action (of divorcing his wife – in the 1st century way) causes the estranged woman to be regarded as a sinner (an adulteress) we have a situation where one person’s actions cause another person to be classed as a sinner. It’s like me stealing something and you being held accountable for it before God – I’m sure you’d be the first to put up your hand and say “that’s just not fair”. I think one way of resolving this is to understand (as Jesus appeared to) that when a person divorces he or she is regarded as a single person once again so that then the estranged wife only becomes an adulteress when the new marriage is entered into

Matt 19:3-12

3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

a trick question – posed to trap Jesus into taking one side of an argument that raged at the time between two popular and influential rabbis

4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’

5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?

6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

“Haven’t you read?” – of course they had! But Jesus is strongly hinting here that although these Pharisees may have read the law they were failing to live by the law

7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”

So here is Jesus doing what he so often did – to go behind God’s law to look at the motives rather than just the actions

8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.

“because your hearts were hard” – it was not God’s intention that divorce should take place.

His benchmark is a one man and one woman for life – but God is a realist. He recognises that human nature, being sinful as it is, will screw up marriage sometimes! This has significant practical spin-offs. It means that we should always seek in the first instance to bring warring married couples back together – reconciliation should be our first aim – and sometimes it happens! Second: if there is hardness of heart that cannot be resolved and healed them a period of separation (as a breathing space) may be called for. Third, only if all other options have been exhausted should a Christian couple go for a divorce – recognising the pain and suffering that the divorcing process will give them – and especially their children.

10 The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”

here the disciples themselves recognise that Jesus standard is so impossibly high

• 11 Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given.
• 12 For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

Jesus, however, made it clear that divorce should never be a first or an easy option. It should never be the casual affair or done for trivial reasons as some of his contemporaries were advocating. They proposed a wide range of ‘grounds for divorce’ but Jesus maintained that marital unfaithfulness was the just about the only allowable reason