'Til Death Do Us Part

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by Beatrice Victoria Ang

In the beginning, God established a covenant between man and woman: marriage. People enter into contracts with one another all the time—paying rent, enrolling in institutions, hiring services—but all these are human inventions. None of them hold the distinction of being personally ordained by God, and certainly not during the infancy of creation.

Marriage has that distinction, but you don’t see it nowadays. With annulments and divorces happening left and right, marriage has been reduced to a piece of paper.

But that piece of paper is actually a symbol, isn’t it? If you don’t want to pay for your dinner, you can’t just tear the receipt and expect you won’t be served a lawsuit on a platter. How much more is there a Higher Witness to your marriage than your certificate.

Christ is clear, “What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate (Matt.19:6).”

Why, then, did Moses permit divorce? Because, Jesus says, your hearts were hard (Matt. 19:7-8). Humanity took the ideal of marriage—one man, one woman, joined together all their lives—and sullied it with polygamy, cruelty, and fornication. It grew worse. At the time of Moses, you could only give your wife a certificate of divorce and send her away if you found something indecent about her (עֶרְוַת דָּבָר). No one even knows what that phrase really means anymore—you know why?[1] Because men were soon divorcing their wives for any and every reason.[2] What happened? Well, with every generation, people got farther and farther from God’s ideal for marriage because they got farther and farther away from God.

Jesus had to set them right. It was not this way from the beginning (v.9). Divorce should not be the norm.

Marriage is no trifling matter. For this reason, differences in personalities, falling out of love, interfering in-laws, unexciting sex life, barrenness, mid-life crisis, inexplicable unhappiness, the desire to be single and free— these are hardly things worth separating over. Husband and wife must stay committed even as they work through their problems, for better or worse, for all their days on earth. A man who stays with an invalid wife all her life though she can give nothing back, for instance, is praiseworthy indeed for keeping his covenant of love.  

Yet, in cases where there is threat to life, marital unfaithfulness, or abuse, it seems divorce is the only way out. Does that make divorce a permissible last resort? Many would say so, if they do not recommend permanent separation at least. Among the Gospel writers, Matthew brings up marital unfaithfulness as grounds for divorce but does not elaborate. It would be equally fruitless to bring in Paul’s (well, not his, but the Lord’s) instructions in 1 Corinthians 7, since it is but a reiteration of the principle that wives and husbands should not separate, which we have already established. They do not deal with exceptions, but common sense tells us there has to be exceptions. I appeal to the character of God.

If we think of the character of God and consider His hatred for murder, especially the mutilation of the imago dei, and His compassion for the weak, then the protection of one’s own life and well being (not to mention of the children’s) must take precedence over upholding the marriage covenant. In these circumstances, we allow for divorce. What about remarriage?

Here, the Bible seems to make no exceptions. So long as the spouse is alive, a divorced person who remarries is guilty of adultery. Jesus says so in the three Gospels that mention the subject of remarriage (Matt. 19:11; 5:32; Mk. 10:10; Lk. 16:18). Paul affirms it (Rom. 7:3).

But the human heart cries out that this is no longer a question of right or wrong. The real question is: if I get divorced and I remarry, would God forgive me? The petition for forgiveness is an acknowledgement that they know in their hearts they’ve fallen short of God’s ideal for marriage; they know they’ve made a mistake—whether in marrying rashly in the first place or in not fighting for that marriage when the going got tough. But they’re longing for a second chance at happiness—and they’re wondering if God would begrudge them that.

What if my wife’s unfaithfulness has caused her to contract a life-long disease? I cannot reconcile with her. She has caused me to suffer enough—can’t I go find my happiness with another, more worthy partner? What if my husband never changes for the better? How can I wait for a scoundrel all my life?

God forgave even adulterers (Jn. 8:1-11). If you choose to remarry, God would forgive you for that. But that’s just it with us humans, isn’t it? We like His forgiveness—we don’t care about honoring Him.

So here are my last words on this topic (for now)—for men and women both:

Oppressed one, it is up to you. If you choose to separate from your spouse, you are justified. If you choose to remarry, you are forgiven. But if you choose to remain as you are (separated but unmarried), then we are with you in your desire to honor God.

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[1] Though I am not convinced of his interpretation, Anthony Garrett’s article provides a helpful background for the problem of understanding this phrase, "A New Understanding of the Divorce and Remarriage Legislation in Deuteronomy 24:1-4," Jewish Bible Quarterly 39, no. 4 (October 1, 2011): 245-250, ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials, EBSCOhost (accessed July 1, 2013).

[2] This was no doubt debated during Jesus’s day, for the Pharisees used it to test him. For a compelling discussion on how Jews may have viewed divorce during the time of Jesus based on literary analysis of the gospel accounts, extrabiblical accounts, and the Dead Sea scrolls, see C D. Elledge, "‘From the Beginning It Was Not So...’: Jesus, Divorce, and Remarriage in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls," Perspectives In Religious Studies 37, no. 4 (December 1, 2010): 371-389, ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials, EBSCOhost (accessed July 1, 2013).