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About Jesus - Steve Sweetman Divorce
– Remarriage The words in this article are for those who want
clarification on what the Bible says about divorce and remarriage. It is also
for Christians who may feel condemned because they have gone through a tragic
divorce. These words are not for
those who are looking for an escape from their present marriage.
If these words become that for you, then you misunderstand what the Bible
says concerning this subject. The things I write come from my personal experience
as well as my understanding of what the Bible says concerning this issue.
My
Personal Story The onset of middle age hit me in a devastating
way. I had recently turned forty
years old and had found myself heading for the big “D”.
I had watched my brother and one of my best friends go through their divorce only
three years earlier. It was then that I started formulating what I felt the
Bible said about this subject.
Because this horrible aspect of life hit two people
so close to me I gave the subject lots of consideration.
I began to see what the Bible said. I
began to see and hear what others said. I
also saw how the Evangelical church
treated divorced people in times past. One
thing I failed to consider was such a thing happening to me, but it did, and it
wasn't very nice. It was in the spring of 1992 when I found myself on
the centre of the floor in tears. There
were people gathered around me with their hands laid on me in prayer.
It was a Tuesday night family group gathering at the house of a friend
who I had recently met. The tears
were tears of sadness. They were also tears of comfort due to the touch of the
Lord and the love of his people in that room. My friend had just moved to I stayed away from the church until after my wife
had physically left me and our home. Soon
after the tragic departure I went to this home group again.
One of my fears was relieved right away.
That was the fear of being ostracized from the church because of being
divorced. You see the Evangelical church, and in particular
the Pentecostal arm of evangelicalism, did not treat those who had been divorced
very kindly. Yes, they could come to
church and give their tithe, but to function within the church was a different
story. I wanted to function.
I wanted to do something in the church.
I had always been active in some kind of Christian ministry but I feared
my new situation would leave me sitting on the side-line, unable to participate.
I was glad that this new group of
people accepted me into their fold, despite the situation I found myself in.
As in my brother and friend’s case, I did
not want this upcoming divorce. I
didn't want to be a single man. I
wanted to remain married to my wife of fifteen years, but I had no choice in the
matter. This decision had been made,
and not by me. I could only respond
to my wife's choice in a way that
properly represented our Lord Jesus Christ.
This is where proper Biblical understanding comes in.
The one who is left must follow Jesus in this matter, not only for his or
her own benefit, but for the benefit of the children.
Besides, we are to follow Jesus no matter what situation we find
ourselves in. That means our
commitment to Him must be intact. It
is also important to find comfort, refuge, and instruction to the one or two to
whom Jesus has joined you to. Daily
get-togethers with one of my best friends was salvation for me.
I needed to find myself in the midst of brothers
and sisters in Christ who loved and cared for me, and whom I could love and
serve in return. I did find such a
group of believers and in the process have come to certain conclusions,
conclusions that are based on what I understand the Scriptures to say concerning divorce and
remarriage. I use
the term “divorce and remarriage”, not simply the word divorce.
Divorce is bad enough, but remarriage is even worse in many evangelical
circles. When it comes to a Biblical
study you must put the two words together. In
most cases a divorce will turn into a subsequent remarriage and this is where
the clarity from Scripture needs to be seen. I am not an expert on the subject but I do feel
that I have something to say about this subject, both from my personal
experience and from Scripture. So let me share with you what I see and hopefully
it will help you in one way or another. It
may help you in your own situation as a divorced and remarried person.
It may help you in the way you think of others who find themselves in
this situation, even if you're not. It
is evident that there are many people in the church today that are divorced and
or remarried. Due to the high percentage of Christians today who
have been divorced and remarried, it is a subject that does need attention.
It is a subject that does need to be looked
at from a Biblical perspective. There
needs to be clear thinking on this subject in order to help those in need.
To those who have gone through divorce and are now
remarried or thinking of being remarried it is vitally important for you to
understand certain Biblical truths about this subject.
The future of many things is at stake here, including your second
marriage. God
Hates Divorce In Malachi 2:16 the Lord says with no uncertainty,
"I hate divorce (NIV)." Before
we say anything else we need to know how God feels about this subject.
This scripture says it very plainly.
He hates divorce. Our society has come a long way from these words.
We accept divorce as "par for the course."
We seem to think that our first marriage is a trial run for the second.
It's just common place to think you'll have more than one partner in
life. It's sad, but this mentality
prevails among Christians as it does among non-Christians. It is interesting to note why the Lord feels so
strongly about divorce. Malachi 2:14
gives the reason why God hates divorce. It says, "you have broken faith
with her…" (NIV) Faith and trust is basic to God’s nature.
All that we know about faith and trust are found in God.
He is faithful in every aspect of His existence.
We can trust Him implicitly. The
foundation of our salvation is based on faith and trust.
Hebrews 11:6 says, "without faith it is impossible to please
God." Ecclesiastes 5:5 says, "it is better not to
make a vow than to make one and not fulfill it…"
The Lord takes vows and agreements very seriously.
The marriage vow is a covenant. This
covenant was first created by God Himself at the beginning of time when He
created Adam and Eve. This is important in our discussion as we will see
later on. The marriage covenant is
not an idea thought up by men and women. It
is a product of God’s thinking. It
is part of creation. It is God’s
“original purpose” for a man and a woman. We know that God does not think well of broken
commitments as seen in the Ecclesiastes verse.
We as a society have gotten very sloppy when it comes to breaking
agreements with one another. God
hates mistrust and broken covenants, especially the covenants that He
has instituted. You can now see why the Lord hates divorce.
Divorce is all about broken covenants,
mistrust, and destruction of
Godly relationships. Divorce flies
in the face of who God is. Now that
we know how God thinks about divorce, we can see what else the Bible says about
this subject.
Jesus
And Divorce – Matthew 19
It would be worth your while to read Matthew
19:1-13. It is this passage where we
see how Jesus thinks about
“divorce and remarriage”. He
speaks more about the subject here than anywhere else.
Let me tell you the story in my own words. The Pharisees were always trying to trick Jesus by
asking Him hard questions. On this
occasion they asked Jesus, “is it lawful to divorce your wife for any and
every reason?" They specifically used the words “for any and
every reason” because that is what they were allowed to do.
A man at this time in Jewish culture could divorce his wife for all sorts
of reasons. It is a good thing that
they did not have toasters back then, because if they did, and if a wife burned
her husband’s toast, she might well be out of the house as well as out of the
kitchen. Hoping to catch Jesus with the wrong answer, the
Pharisees sat back and listened to Jesus. Jesus
replied by saying, "haven’t you read that in the beginning the Creator
made both men and women and for this reason they should leave their parents and
become one in marriage. Therefore,
what God has joined together let no man separate." The Pharisees replied by saying, "then why did
Moses give us the right to divorce our wives?" Jesus replied by saying, "Moses allowed you to
divorce your wives because of the hardness of your hearts, but this was not
God’s intention from the beginning." The Pharisees were trying to get Jesus caught up in
a discussion of the Old Testament Law, but He refused to be drawn into that
discussion. He took the Pharisees
back to God’s original intention for men and women, that was seen clearly at
creation. Jesus went back to God's
original reasoning for the creation of men and women.
The Pharisees wanted to argue over maters of law, which in this case was
a matter of concession on Gods part. It
wasn't what He really wanted. God may
have permitted divorce through the Law of Moses, but that was not God’s idea
when He placed Adam and Eve in the garden. He
wanted them to be husband and wife forever.
He created man and then He created woman to stand along beside man..
He did not create men for men. Nor did He create women for women. God created a man to have a wife, and a woman to
have a husband, and unless the Lord tells you otherwise you can accept this as
God’s will for your life. There is
no need to question this because it is clearly God’s intent in creation as
seen in the Bible. Jesus continued on speaking to the Pharisees.
He said, "if any of you divorce his wife , except on the basis of
marital unfaithfulness and remarries another woman he commits
adultery." In reality when Jewish men were divorcing their
wives for any and every reason and then remarrying another woman, they were in
fact committing adultery. Now there
was one exception to this rule. Jesus
said that if your wife is unfaithful to you, if she gives her body to another
man, then you are permitted to divorce her.
In this situation, when you remarry another woman you are not committing
adultery. This "exception
clause" is very important to know and to understand.
Many evangelicals in the past have failed to read these words in
scripture, but they are there. If you find yourself divorced due to a spouse’s
unfaithfulness and you are wanting to remarry you need not worry.
Jesus clearly says that you are permitted to do so without committing
adultery. All along the disciples were listening to the
dialogue between Jesus and the Pharisees. When
they heard these words, it was their turn to speak up.
They said, “if this is the case with a husband and a wife, then it is
better not to get married”. They
were basically saying that if I can’t divorce
my wife for any and every reason, it's not worth getting married in the first
place. The disciples, who were men,
thought that it's just too hard to live in harmony for any length of time with a
woman. Therefore, why marry? Jesus answered by saying that not everyone can
accept this teaching. By this He
meant that there is a place for singleness, but not everyone has the ability to
be single. He told them that some
men are called by God to singleness. Other
men were born not having the ability to make a woman
pregnant. Still others were made
sterile by men by choice.
So if you're not called by God to be single, or if your reproductive
organs work, or if you haven't sterilized yourself, it's God's will for you to
be married, even if your first wife leaves you.
God's original intention for men and women is still in effect.
This was quite a discussion. To sum it up, Jesus
was saying that God’s “original intention” was that a man should have a
wife, and that a woman should have a husband.
When they marry, they become one in flesh. Their marriage should last for
life. Yet if a spouse became one in
flesh with someone else while being married, this was grounds for a divorce.
The covenant based on trust is broken.
Therefore if you are divorced and or remarried because of your spouse’s
unfaithfulness, you are not committing adultery.
This is the Word of the Lord for you.
In theological circles this is known as the "exception clause." What
About Mark 10? Mark 10:1-13 is the scripture that many
evangelicals like to point out. It
is the same as what we have just seen in Matthew 19.
The main difference is that it has a few omissions.
It is a shortened version of Matthew 19.
So when you read Mark 10, it is imperative to read Matthew 19 along with
it in order to get the whole story. This is a matter of hermeneutics, how we
read, study, and interpret the Bible. You must read all of the scripture in
context pertaining to a subject. You
don’t leave any scripture out. If
there appears to be a contradiction, then you have not fully understood what the
Bible is saying. The Bible does not contradict itself.
We simply haven’t fully understood what it is saying as yet. In Mark 10:10 Jesus says that if any man divorces
his wife and remarries, he commits adultery.
The exception clause concerning being unfaithful is not in this verse.
So if you read this verse alone, you would believe that remarriage after
a divorce was wrong, and would be considered adulterous. But
we do not read this verse alone, do we. We
do not read any verse by itself. Once
reading Mark 10:10 we turn to Matthew 19 to see the complete picture.
We do not know why Mark omitted the exception clause, but he did.
We also know that Matthew included it.
When you combine the two passages you then get a more
complete picture. You then realize
that remarriage as a result of an adulterous spouse is scripturally permitted.
Luke
16:18 Luke 16:18 adds another thought.
Jesus said, and I quote from the NIV, "anyone who divorces his wife
and remarries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced
woman commits adultery." This verse does not have the “exception clause”
concerning unfaithfulness in it either. We
now know that there is an exception to this rule that both Mark and Luke don't
comment on,
which is spousal adultery. The last part of this verse tells us that if a man
marries a divorced woman, he is committing adultery, even though he may not have
been married and divorced himself. So
what does this mean? If a man marries a woman who divorced her husband
for any reason except unfaithfulness, then that man is committing adultery by
marrying her. But if she properly
divorced her husband because he was unfaithful, then the man marrying her is not
committing adultery. The point to be made here is that when remarrying
you need to know who you are marrying. You
don’t want to marry someone who has divorced his or her spouse for a non
scriptural reason, unless there is true repentance found in the divorced person
you are marrying. This is for your
own benefit. At this point we do need to understand that people
can sin by divorcing their spouse without scriptural reason, but they can also
find forgiveness after they repent of what they did.
Forgiveness is the cancelation of a sin.
When one truly repents, God cancels the sin, and so should we.
Therefore , if you marry a person who divorced for wrong reasons, if he
or she repents, it is not considered adultery for you to marry such a person.
More
About Forgiveness
You may ask, "I am a Christian and I have
married a person who divorced for the wrong reason, what about me?
Am I committing adultery?" This
is an important question and needs a Biblical based answer. When someone comes to the Lord in true repentance
and faith, they are forgiven of all their sin.
Sin is cancelled, wiped out completely from the mind of God.
It's as if the person had never committed any sin in the first place.
They will no longer be held accountable for sin.
This includes adultery, and any other sexual sin.
God does not forgive or
cancel some sin and not other sin like adultery.
He forgives all sin, except for unbelief or rejection of Him.
This theme pervades throughout the whole New Testament.
I don’t think I need to list all the scriptures that teach this.
We are completely washed clean of all sin upon repentance and trust in
Jesus. God the Father sees us as
sinless, not because we are, but because of what Jesus did for us on the cross.
If a man or a woman who has been previously
divorced for all of the wrong reasons comes to the Lord in repentance and faith,
and then remarries, he or she is clearly doing nothing wrong. If a backslidden Christian divorces for the wrong
reasons, and finds true repentance and faith again, and then remarries, he or
she is doing nothing wrong, and the person who marries such a person does
nothing wrong. Let us never say that the Lord will forgive a drug
dealer, but won’t forgive a divorced person of sin.
Sin is sin. All sin is alike
when it comes to forgiveness. All
sin separates us from the Lord. The
only difference when it comes to sin is that some sin has more severe
consequences than other sin. The
drug dealer may have many scars to deal with after coming to the Lord.
The one who lies or steels may have less scars to deal with. Be assured at this point.
If you are walking with the Lord, whatever your past was like, it is all
behind you. Feel confident. You can
remarry. If you find yourself in a divorced situation of no
fault of your own, be assured that it is God’s original purpose for you to be
married, unless He says otherwise. If you have divorced someone wrongly and have found
true forgiveness upon repenting, then you too can be assured that remarriage is
for you, unless the Lord says otherwise. It is all because of God’s original intention for
us. This point is important to know.
No matter what place we find ourselves in at the present, it does not
change what God originally intended for us.
His “original purpose” for making man and woman was for them live
together in marriage. If you find yourself single and divorced, if you are
walking with the Lord in true repentance and faith, then be assured, remarriage
is for you. What
Does Paul Say Paul has some things to say about this subject as
well, which we need to look into. It
would be good for you to read the whole chapter of 1 Corinthians 7.
I want to point out a few thoughts at this stage in our discussion. First of all we need to know that Paul was a single
man. Some have said that at one time
he was married. Whether this was the
case or not is hard for me to know. We
do know that at the time of writing this letter he was single, and proud of it.
As a matter of fact he encourages all to be single, so they can give
themselves totally to the work of the Lord. But as
Paul says in verses 1 and 2 of 1 Corinthians 7, "because there is so much
immorality, so much sexual temptation out there, a man should have a wife, and a
woman a husband."
There is nothing
wrong with this. He says in verse 9
that "it is better to marry than to burn with passion."
It is thus clear that in Paul's thinking one major part of marriage is
the sexual relationship between husband and wife. Christians
should not de-emphasize this. I
believe sexual relations between a husband and wife is more than physical.
It's a mystical union as well, and expresses in human form the intimacy
Christians should have with their God in times of true worship.
"Better to marry than to burn" doesn’t
sound real spiritual does it. But this is how God made us in the beginning.
It is all part of God’s “original intention” for us. Paul goes on to say that once you are married you
should stay married, even if you have an unbelieving spouse.
Maybe you became a Christian after you got married and your spouse is
still unsaved. Maybe your spouse has
turned from the faith. Paul says
that you should stay with that person”, and live a Godly life so that you will
win him or her over to the Lord Jesus.
In verse 15 he says, "if an unbeliever leaves,
let him do so. A believing man or
woman is not bound in such circumstance…"
The reason why Paul says we can let an unbelieving spouse go is so we can
live in peace. Living in peace and
not instability is important in our lives. Without
peace it is hard for us to do the will of our Lord. This is an important scripture because it is giving
another reason why someone might find himself or herself in a divorced
situation. Your spouse leaves.
You tried to live the life of Christ, yet he or she still leaves.
You let him or her go, and now find yourself single again.
Paul would suggest to remain single. But he says that if you remarry you
do no wrong. The reason being once
again is because it is God’s “original intention” for us to be married,
unless He says otherwise. Concerning the words "let him or her go."
When Paul says "let go", I believe that means to let go,
physically, mentally, emotionally, and legally.
Let go in all ways. This may
take a while, but unless you let go in all these ways, you will not find
happiness in a new marriage, and you won't find the peace Paul is speaking of
here. In verse 39 Paul says to the widows concerning
remarriage, that it is okay as long as you marry someone "who is in the
Lord". I believe the same would
hold true to the woman who finds herself alone due to the death of her
relationship with her husband. Marry
someone who is “in the Lord”, who is “walking with the Lord”. or else
stay single. You never marry anyone
who is not with the Lord. What
Have We Learned? In conclusion let us review what we have learned
from Scripture. To begin with we
know that it was God’s original plan for a woman to be married to a man, and a
man married to a woman. Apart from
each other they were incomplete.
They were meant to be together as husband and wife, making one complete
unit. Due to the appearance of sin which was seen in man’s disobedience, the
harmonious relationship between man and his wife was lost.
As a result of men and women’s hardness of heart God allowed for divorce. He
only permitted it in the Law of Moses. He
did not desire it. He hates divorce.
He hates broken trust. With our fallen nature in mind, for those who feel
divorce and remarriage is a reasonable alternative to a better life, that's not
so. You only exchange one set of
problematic issues for another set. Conflict
is part of any relationship. How we
deal with conflict is the issue to understand.
Even though God permitted divorce He still hates it
as He hates all sin. The time came
when He could no longer turn His
back on sin. The smell of sin rose
from the earth so bad that He did something about it.
Sin had to be dealt with. Punishment
for sin had to be made. And so it
was. Jesus was punished for our sin.
Yet He was not defeated when He was punished.
He did not stay dead in the ground. He
rose from the dead and ascended into the heavens above and sat on the throne of
the universe. From this throne He
offers us salvation, the cancelation of sin, and His Holy Spirit.
Jesus alone, and those He has joined us to can help us in our marriages.
Concerning the sin of divorce and adultery there is
forgiveness to the person who repents and has true faith and trust in Jesus.
There is also restoration and recovery for those who have been hurt from
divorce. There is also hope for
remarriage to the one who has been damaged by divorce.
There is the hope of restored life in marriage which was God’s
“original plan”. For those who continue in their adulterous ways and
neglect to find repentance and true faith, there is no other hope.
They remain in their lost state of being.
For the Christian who understands the Truth of the Word of God there is
new life which includes a new marriage, if he or she finds themselves in a state
of singleness. New life starts with a true understanding of what
the Bible says about this subject. When
we read Matthew 19, Mark 10, Luke 16 and 1 Corinthians 7, we will see that there
is hope for the divorced Christian. We
will understand the exception clause concerning your spouse’s adultery, as
seen in Matthew 19. We will see that
if your unbelieving spouse wants to leave, you can let him or her leave, as seen
in 1 Corinthians 7. We can see that
through repentance and true trust in Jesus there is cancelation of sin.
That's all sin, adultery included. We
are free to live as God originally planned for us to live, which includes a
happy relationship with a second husband or a second wife.
From my own personal experience I learned a lot.
I won't get into all of that. There's
just two things I'd like to say along these lines.
First is, you can't make someone love you.
I tried. It doesn't work.
That's where, when the time comes, you let go. Secondly, when you are the one left behind, you
must obey Jesus and live within the boundaries set forth in scripture.
You don't retaliate. You
stand on the side of truth at all times. You
don't go out and find sex outside of marriage to release your sexual tension.
I'm convinced, that if you stay within the boundaries of scripture, Jesus will
look after you, but if you don't, I don't believe He's obligated to look after
you. He's certainly looked after me.
Now that we have established the fact that there is
marriage after divorce, we need to know how to make this marriage work.
It has been said, "you don’t necessarily have a good
marriage
- you make your marriage good." We
will end on this thought, and realize that making your marriage good is a
subject for another book.
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