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.
[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).
