“For the LORD God of Israel says that He hates divorce…”
Malachi 2:16
Divorce is an unnatural thing. Yes, it’s common in our society, but the separation of something that is joined together can only come by force, and leaves the two parts irreparably damaged. God’s heart is broken when two people make the decision to sever the covenant that they’ve made, just as He is grieved with any other sin.
Now there are instances where God allows for a divorce, as in the case of adultery, but it is not required if the two parties are both willing and able to reconcile.
The problem is that many divorces occur with nothing other than a difference of opinion or the “I just don’t love them anymore” excuse. We don’t consider divorce as sin, but when we ignore what God says and do what we want instead isn’t that by definition sin? We don’t mean to say that it is the unpardonable sin, but sometimes we tend to sugarcoat it to the point that we no longer think we need pardon. Like all other sin it begins in our hearts, and if it is not dealt with, it begins to fester and our hearts grow hard toward our spouse.
God is very clear on His stance against divorce in the Bible. We just may not like what He has to say on the matter. In our society we’d rather find a new way of interpreting difficult passages in the Bible, then actually come to terms with the hard truths God wants us to learn.
Unfortunately, to me it is no surprise, as many Christian marriages have failed to accomplish their intended purpose, which is to demonstrate God’s glory by reflecting His union with His people.
There are numerous reasons why marriages fail, but ultimately the number one reason is that our motivation for getting married is flawed. We all get married for selfish reasons. In our society, romance takes the place of love. We see inflated, impossible expectations for love set up in the media through movies, TV and Harlequin novels, and when those expectations aren’t met then that leads to disappointment and ill feelings.
Where would we be if God skipped out on us when times got tough? Or when we weren’t lovable anymore? Or maybe when we “aren’t the person He thought we were”?
In reality, marriage was instituted by God to demonstrate how God could make man in His image and still be one with His creation. God took woman out of the man (in essence from the man’s image) and brought the two parts back together in sexual union. Sexual intimacy was created by God as a picture of the intimacy He desires to have with His people. It is no wonder that the enemy is attacking marriage and sexuality in general with both barrels. These are direct attacks on the image of God in an attempt to rob God of His glory.
True love requires a choice to be made.
God has chosen us from before the foundation of the world and He isn’t going to leave us just because we’re not perfect or even if we have committed spiritual adultery. We are the bride of Christ and there are many places in scripture that paint a beautiful marriage between men and God with Him playing the role of the faithful husband.
For those of you who have gone through a divorce, there is grace available to you. God loves you and your spouse. In fact, He knows exactly what you are going through because He experienced the Greatest Divorce in history. The one that He loved spurned his advances and cheated on Him time and time again. An incredibly graphic depiction of God’s heart can be found in Ezekiel 16. Take a few moments to read that chapter.
God longed for reconciliation with His estranged spouse so desperately that He sent His Son to bear the brunt of all of the wrongs done in every marriage since Adam & Eve. In Paul’s 2nd letter to the Corinthian church, He says,
“Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
2 Corinthians 5:18-21
As humans we often spend all of our time and energy trying to find a way out of difficult things instead of spending the same time and energy to FIX the difficult things. The same is true in our marriages. Christians often look for “acceptable” reasons to divorce their spouse instead of looking for ways to reconcile. The message of the Bible is reconciliation and God has made us ministers of reconciliation. How can we be effective ministers if we are living examples of separation?
However, we do see God’s grace in the Scriptures in that He forgives our mistakes and does not hold the innocent party responsible. Paul said (paraphrase) “As much as it is up to you, live peaceably” but when we give up on something that is so precious in God’s sight then there are more problems that need to be dealt with in our lives besides our broken marriage. Aren’t we glad that with God there are no “irreconcilable differences”?
And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made [them] at the beginning ‘made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate…He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.”
Matthew 19:4-6, 8