Be Reconciled to God
Finding our way back together in a world that is coming apart
This newsletter is chapter VII of an upcoming eBook on the scandal of Church-sanctioned divorce. If you haven’t already done so, please check out chapters I, II, III, IV, V, and VI, as well as the preface, afterword, and appendices A and B.
An exceptional covenant
Some say covenants are made to be broken. Still, not even in his wildest dreams did Moses imagine the scene that would greet him as he descended the Mountain of God.
It was the sound that first assaulted his senses (Exodus 32:17, 18). The sound of war? No. Singing. Not the songs of deliverance the people had lately sung (Exodus 15:1–21), but rather an oppressive chant.
Moses weaves his way methodically down the mountain like a sure-footed ram, horns lunging1 and heart pounding. Hellish flames engulf the prophet at the base of the mountain as garish beams of gold refract into his undimmed eyes (Deuteronomy 34:7). The idolatrous din reaches a hideous crescendo. The people are caught in the very act: a bonfire of bestial adultery (Exodus 32:19):
“And as soon as he [Moses] came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses' anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets [of the covenant, containing the ten commandments] out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.”
Israel, God’s covenant partner (Exodus 24:7–8; Jeremiah 31:32), had played the whore. Their freshly minted vows lay shattered on the ground. If ever there was a time to cut ties and start over, it was now. And to Moses’ dismay, that was precisely what God proposed to do (Exodus 32:7–10, emphasis mine):
“And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’’ And the Lord said to Moses, ‘I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.’”
Talk about the test of a lifetime.2
Remember, Moses’ forty year death march with the people through the wilderness was just getting started (Numbers 14:29), and it could not have gotten off on a worse foot. If this was how the people behaved when God Himself was on the mountaintop next door, etching the law onto tablets of stone with His own fingertip (Exodus 31:18, 32:15, 16), then what else were they capable of?3 Perhaps it would be better not to stick around and find out.
One thing was for certain: the honeymoon was officially over.
The marriage between God and His people was shaping up to be a bumpy one indeed.
To add to the intrigue, Moses, at least ostensibly speaking, now had an out. And not just any out, but one offered to him by no less than God Himself. If Moses was viewing the situation from a merely human perspective (Matthew 16:23; Mark 8:33; 1 Corinthians 3:3), his decision would have been a no-brainer: goodbye Israelites—hello Mosesites!
But that’s not what Moses did, quite the opposite, as it turns out (Exodus 32:11–14, emphasis mine):
“But Moses implored the Lord his God and said, ‘O Lord, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people, whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did He bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your burning anger and relent from this disaster against Your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom you swore by Your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’’ And the Lord relented from the disaster that He had spoken of bringing on His people.”
Nailed it.
Moses knew the ways of God (Exodus 33:13; Psalm 103:7). He did not let his ego and selfish interests impede God’s greater agenda.4 He cared more about God and His people by covenant than he did about himself and his mere flesh ties to the people. Blood may be thicker than water, but covenant is thicker than blood. Moses’ main concerns were God’s main concerns, namely, His reputation and covenant obligations as Israel’s LORD. God had skin in the game, so to speak, and Moses grasped the infinitely high stakes involved in God’s entering into such a unique pact with a people. Indeed, nothing else like it had ever occurred in human experience (Deuteronomy 4:7, 8; Psalm 147:19, 20).
Forget Moses’ name—God’s name was on the line here. If Israel failed in the end,5 then so did Israel’s God. They were His people now, and they were in this thing together, for better or worse.
Moses refused to take advantage of what appeared to be an exception to remaining in the covenant due to the sin of idolatry, the spiritual equivalent of adultery (Isaiah 57:8; Jeremiah 3:20; Ezekiel 16:15–30; etc.). He understood that unlike mere manmade covenants, the holy, everlasting covenant between God and His people was different (1 Chronicles 16:15–18; Luke 1:72, 73).
Moses leveraged this truth to “remind” God that when He entered into covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He swore by His own self to deliver on His promises (Genesis 15, 17, 22:15–18; 26:3–5). When a holy God enters into a covenant with sinful man, God always finds a way to uphold His end of the agreement, even when man fails to uphold his end (2 Timothy 2:13, emphasis mine): “if we are faithless, He remains faithful—for He cannot deny Himself.”
Do you see it now? That’s the key insight here. Since we are called to be holy as God is holy (Leviticus 11:44, 11:45, 19:2; 1 Peter 1:16), we must treat holy covenants as our holy God treats them. If your main takeaway from this story is “See, we are free to leave a covenant if it is broken!” then you have missed the point entirely.
The point is, God doesn’t do “take backs.” He doesn’t lie or change His mind or go back on His word like we do all the time (Numbers 23:19). When He makes an oath, He keeps it (Hebrews 6:13–18):
“For when God made a promise to Abraham, since He had no one greater by whom to swear, He swore by Himself, saying, ‘Surely I will bless you and multiply you.’ And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of His purpose, He guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.”
Amen! It doesn’t get more emphatic than that folks.
Though the people of this present evil age (Galatians 1:4) may toss out their marriage contracts like used Kleenex, it is not so with God—He is always, always, always faithful to His promises (Romans 3:3, 4):
“What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written, ‘That You may be justified in Your words, and prevail when You are judged.’”
Brothers and sisters, God plays for keeps. He is “in it to win it.” His “Yes” means “Yes” and His “No” means “No” (Matthew 5:37). When He signs His holy name to an agreement, you better believe He means business (Romans 11:1, 2a, 29, Amplified Bible):
“I say then, has God rejected and disowned His people? Certainly not! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected His [chosen] people whom He foreknew. […] For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable [for He does not withdraw what He has given, nor does He change His mind about those to whom He gives His grace or to whom He sends His call].”
The application to marriage is loud and clear: When God seals a marriage union between a husband and wife, putting His very name on it, and tells us through His beloved Son, whom He commanded us to heed (Matthew 17:5; Mark 9:7), “Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate” (Matthew 19:6; Mark 10:9), we must never, ever, ever treat that covenant like an ordinary human agreement. God is in that covenant with you, and there is more at stake in keeping it than you can fathom. It is not only the husband and wife who make vows on the wedding day (Ephesians 5:31; cf. Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:5; Mark 10:7; 1 Corinthians 6:16):
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
They shall indeed. God Himself will see to it.
So we see that God-ordained covenants are as exceptional as the God who creates them. Unlike human contracts, God’s covenants do not admit to exceptions, loopholes, or out clauses. That is how man operates, not God. God’s covenants are holy because God is holy, and whatever He touches becomes holy (Exodus 3:4, 5, 19:20, 23, 31:13). This is why we call marriage “holy matrimony” in the first place. God’s holy covenant of marriage has nothing in common with man’s unholy prenuptial agreements!
Marriage is a unique, divine institution, created directly by God Himself. As such, it has His finger prints all over it. It represents the holy mystery of the union between Christ and His bride-Church (Ephesians 5:31, 32), which in turn reflects the eternal unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the holy Trinity (John 17). Marriage is an absolutely sacred thing.
Yes, some may say covenants are made to be broken, but God says otherwise!
Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! His steadfast love endures forever!
The foolishness of forgiveness
Does your heart leap within you as you begin to internalize these truths? Have you begun to catch a glimpse of something truly beautiful beyond the reaches of this dreary world? Have you sensed something in this vision of marriage that is even better than life itself (Psalm 63:3)? If so, then may what follows serve to fan the embers of our hearts into full flame (Luke 24:32; 2 Timothy 1:6).
Here’s the bottom line: The steadfast, loyal, devoted, unfailing, ever-faithful, never-ending, covenant love of God is what it’s all about. Without it, we are utterly lost. If our marriages fail to display this kind of love during the storms of life, but only pretend to do so when skies are blue, then our marriages have truly failed. Christians who wish faithfully represent their namesake must remain faithful to their covenant spouses, especially when they are unfaithful to them!
Yes, you read that correctly. That was not a typo. For if “a friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity” (Proverbs 17:17), then how much more should a husband and wife love one another in times of tragedy, scarcity, and yes, even profound moral failure? Will we abandon such a friend when he or she need us, and the Lord, most?
The world sees plenty of marriages between fair-weather friends. What it desperately needs are marriages that showcase a divine love that the world has neither seen nor known, a love it never dreamed was possible, a love that brings it to its knees exclaiming: “God is really among you!” (1 Corinthians 14:25).
What hope do ordinary, flawed folk such as ourselves have of displaying such a love? The most sure hope there is my friend (Romans 5:5):
“And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.”
Jesus, as always, summed it up perfectly (Matthew 19:26b): “With man, it is impossible, but with God, all things are possible.” With the help of God’s Spirit, one can see how worthwhile and yes, even doable these things are. Without His help, they are absurdly impractical.
This is why we must be born again of the Spirit (John 1:12, 13, 3:3–8). We must have the Spirit of almighty God dwelling in us, and we must be continually filled with Him (John 6:63a; Ephesians 5:18). Apart from this, we can do nothing (John 15:5b).
For those who do not have the Spirit of God, and thus do not understand Him and His ways (1 Corinthians 2:14), the idea of honoring a covenant that has been horribly violated is an offensive joke. It is impossible for the natural man to apprehend such staggering, unwavering commitment because it is impossible for him to love and appreciate the things of God (1 Corinthians 2:9, 10, 14).
To help us lay hold of what He is like, God provides countless illustrations throughout scripture. Recall for instance His apparently scandalous instructions to the prophet Hosea (Hosea 1:2):
“When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, ‘Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.’”
“Great,” Hosea must have thought to himself, “I can’t wait for the reception.” Who would sign up that kind of relationship? God, that’s who (Hosea 3:1, emphasis mine):
“The Lord said to me, ‘Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods […].’”
Christian, behold your God. Take careful note of His ways. They may be foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, they are the power and wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:18–31).
When viewed from heaven, Hosea’s tragedy becomes divine comedy, his unseemly betrayal a holy allegory. Oh that God would stamp eternity on all our eyes6 to see our lives as He sees them!
The British pastor David Pawson told a story of a man from the north of England whose wife left him shortly after marriage for a life of sexual promiscuity. Despite the urging of a Christian friend to divorce her for a more worthy partner, the man replied “Never speak to me like that about my wife; she’s my wife, and I shall love her as long as there’s breath in her body.” And that’s just what he did. When she contracted disease and was on her death bed, there he was caring for her and praying over her with outstretched hands. Now that is the covenant love of God. The world, with its transactional, consumeristic love, is simply oblivious to it.
Think about it, dear Christian: Where would we be without the mercy of God to the adulterer? Hell, that’s where. Remember, we were all adulterers when Christ found us (Matthew 5:28; 1 Corinthians 6:9–11)! Do we really want to go down this road of divorcing our guilty partners for adultery? If you were the guilty party in such a scenario, wouldn’t you want to be forgiven and at least provided the opportunity to enter back into right relationship with your estranged partner?7 “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12). This is Christianity 101.
Let’s not sugarcoat it: few things in life are harder than forgiving a spouse who has cheated on you. In fact, without the Spirit of God active in your life, such forgiveness is a pipe dream. Forget it. It ain’t happening. At least not the real deal, from-the-heart forgiveness that God requires (Matthew 18:21–35).
If you can’t imagine extending forgiveness this radical to your spouse, then perhaps you yourself have not received the radical, life-changing forgiveness of God. Or maybe you have stifled the Spirit’s influence in your life (1 Thessalonians 5:19). It may be that you are devoid of the Spirit altogether (Romans 8:9).
If any of these scenarios is an even remote possibility for you, then you must repent and ask the Father to give you His Spirit for the impossible tasks He’s called you to (Luke 11:13; Romans 8:15). That’s why the Spirit was poured out in these last days (Acts 2:17). It is what the New Covenant is all about.
The New (marriage) Covenant
The situation in the days of Jeremiah and Ezekiel could not have been more desperate.
The southern kingdom of Judah, like its northern neighbor Israel before it, was barreling towards a historic national meltdown: destruction and exile at the unsparing hands of the Babylonians. Judgment day was coming.
And yet tragically, for all the repeated, heart-rending warnings of the prophets, the people merely dug their heels in deeper and deeper, refusing to own up to and turn from the very sins that would prove their downfall.
And what a fall it was.
God’s temple was toppled, the city walls reduced to rubble. Fly-infested corpses lay strewn about the streets like rotten fruit beneath a barren tree. Worst of all, the covenants with Abraham, Moses, and David appeared irreversibly damaged, their promises like distant memories.
As He had done with her faithless sister Israel, God had now officially handed unfaithful Judah her divorce papers (Jeremiah 3:8). It seemed there was no going back to the way things were, when God and His young bride were in love and the possibilities were endless (Ezekiel 16:8, 15, 32):
“Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your naked body. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign Lord, and you became mine. […] But you trusted in your beauty and used your fame to become a prostitute. You lavished your favors on anyone who passed by and your beauty became his. […] You adulterous wife! You prefer strangers to your own husband!”
…
As low as the marriage had sunk, this is not where the story ended. God never leaves His people without hope in this life.
In this midst of these unthinkable calamites, God spoke through these same prophets of a better day, and a better covenant (Hebrews 8:6), one that would finally resolve the heart of the problem all along: the sinful heart of man (Jeremiah 17:9).
Hear is that unbelievable promise, in words of the weeping prophet (Jeremiah 31:31–34, emphasis mine):
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put My law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
And in the words of the prophet of hope (Ezekiel 36:24–28):
“I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes and be careful to obey My rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be My people, and I will be your God.”
Weeping prophets sometimes shed tears of joy.
Though God’s people had profaned His name in the sight of all the nations (Jeremiah 23:11, 15, 34:16; Ezekiel 36:16–23), ran roughshod over His covenant stipulations (Exodus 19-24), and erased the line between the clean and unclean (Ezekiel 22:26), nevertheless, for the sake of His own great name and to vindicate His own holiness (Ezekiel 36:21–23), God would fulfill His covenant oaths. Amazingly, God would do this through a New Covenant that would so transform His people, and indeed peoples the world over (Revelation 5:9), that they too would finally fulfill their end of the covenant by loving God through keeping His commandments (Exodus 19:8; Deuteronomy 6; John 14:15; Romans 8:3, 4; Philippians 2:13).
The land of their fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, would one day be restored to a faithful remnant (Isaiah 10:20–23; Jeremiah 31; Romans 11:26). The covenants, though mortally wounded, would be resurrected in Christ (1 Corinthians 15). The marriage, against all odds, would be restored (Jeremiah 3:11–25).
Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! His steadfast love endures forever!
Is that not a far better redemptive story than our substitute salvations? “And so, after a long, rocky relationship, God finally left the exiled Israelites for the Phoenicians, and they got along famously. Good for God! He finally found the right one.” That is most definitely not the story God is telling in the world, nor the plot He wants our lives to follow.
Friends, you can say that God gave you permission to divorce your covenant partner and marry another until you’re blue in the face, but it just ain’t so. That would literally be an ungodly thing to do, for God never abandons His covenant people (1 Kings 6:13; Psalm 94:14). He remembers His covenants forever (Psalm 105:8–11). He would never give us permission to do that which He would never do Himself. God and His ways are the standard of our conduct (Matthew 5:48; John 13:34; Ephesians 5:1), not fallen man and his ways (Romans 12:2).
This does not mean, as some may accuse, that there are no consequences for covenant disobedience, only that the door to reconciliation must never be shut while the consequences are meted out. And make no mistake about it: God will ensure that both parties will reap what they sow, whether good or ill (Romans 12:18, 19; Galatians 6:7, 8).
In fact, entering into the blessings of a covenant is always contingent on obedience to the terms of the covenant (Genesis 17:9–14; Exodus 19:3–8; 2 Samuel 7:12–16). If we miss out on these blessings, even for eternity, that’s entirely on us, not God (2 Timothy 2:11–13). This has been God’s policy for His covenant people from the start (Deuteronomy 4:25–31, emphasis mine):
“When you father children and children’s children, and have grown old in the land, if you act corruptly by making a carved image in the form of anything, and by doing what is evil in the sight of the LORD your God, so as to provoke Him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess. You will not live long in it, but will be utterly destroyed. And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD will drive you. And there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. But from there you will seek the LORD your God and you will find Him, if you search after Him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the LORD your God and obey His voice. For the LORD your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them.”
In the final analysis, the conditional aspects of God’s covenants do not negate the unconditional, any more than faithlessness on the part of one covenant partner justifies faithlessness on the part of the other. Covenants are treated with such seriousness precisely because of their binding nature. They demand our utmost care and attention not because they are so fragile that they would wither and die without us, like needy houseplants, but rather because they are so vital and enduring that we would wither and die without them, like exiles from the tree of life (Genesis 3:22; John 15:5, 6; Hebrews 2:3).
As believers, God has vowed to each of us what each of us has in turn vowed to our spouses: “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5b; cf. Deuteronomy 31:6, 8 and Joshua 1:5). God never reneges on His vows, so neither should we. He went to unimaginable lengths to win back His unfaithful bride, so what’s our excuse? Our marriages, and indeed our entire lives, must testify to the world of these “exceedingly great and precious promises” (2 Peter 1:4). Only then will we see God for who He truly is: “high and lifted up” (Isaiah 6:1).
Lift up your gaze
For some of our readers, the view of marriage presented here will seem strange, if not downright misguided. “I mean, people break legal contracts and move on all the time, so what’s so special about marriage? It’s just so…odd.” Right, or as the Bible would describe it, “holy.”
To our minds, such reactions to what we are presenting here indicate that we are on the right track. Indeed, we are convinced that the state of marriage is so abysmal in our sexually unhinged modern culture that unless we as Christians are accused of holding to a narrow, inflexible, almost hopelessly naïve view of marriage, then we’re probably missing the mark.
Ultimately, Christians who divorce and remarry do so because they don’t know God, or least not very well. Our estrangement from God leads to estrangement from others. Our eyes are not fixed on Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), but rather on ourselves, our sinful spouses, and our troubled marriages. Our focus becomes myopic, lacking all perspective. All we really want to know is “Do I have an out?” and, if not, “Will God forgive me anyways?” But those who ask the wrong questions are sure to get the wrong answers.
We plug our ears to the voice of God and conscience. We steel ourselves against the gracious invitations of His Spirit. Slowly, we work up the “courage” to do the dark deed. Hardness of heart sets in, and soon, we find ourselves tuning God out of entire sectors of our lives. We may even begin to scoff at the few oddball holdouts we know who have the temerity to point our sin and call us back to the God we’ve spurned (Isaiah 30:11): “Forget all this gloom. Get off your narrow path. Stop telling us about your ‘Holy One of Israel.’” If you ever find yourself uttering such scornful words, then watch out! You have lost sight of the good way (Jeremiah 6:16) and are headed straight for a ditch (Matthew 15:14).
Lift up your gaze Christian! How long will we content ourselves with such a lame, low-level Christian existence?
God is infinitely holy! He’s “holy, holy, holy” (Isaiah 6:3; Revelation 4:8). His standard is absolute perfection, and not only for Himself, but for His followers as well (Matthew 5:48). Given this, why would God ever say the following regarding divorce and remarriage: “I hate it, it’s normally adultery, and I would never do it, but you can…” Brothers and sisters, that is not the voice of God, but rather that of the forked-tongued enemy of our souls, who specializes in speaking out of both sides of his scaly mouth. Don’t buy this snake oil. Instead, look to the man lifted up on the cross and be healed (Numbers 21:8, 9; John 3:14)!
Think about it: Do divorce and remarriage do justice to the example that Christ set for us to emulate? No, it is lightyears off and we all know it (Ephesians 5:25–27):
“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”
Husbands are to love their wives in such a way that they are made holy through consistent acts of costly, selfless love. Jesus’ love transforms adulterers into chaste virgins. Is your marriage aimed at love-wrought miracles, or merely having your “needs” met? Our savior’s love for His destitute, down-and-out bride was nothing short of a revelation from heaven, a shining light that this world’s darkness could not comprehend (John 1:5). Christ calls each of His followers to love one another with this same kind of love (John 15:12, 13, emphasis mine):
“This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”
Sacrificial love is the distinguishing mark of Christ’s disciples (John 13:35) and God expects each of us to love one another as He loved us in Christ (1 John 4:11, emphasis mine):
“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
If this love is absent from your life, then you haven’t lived (1 John 3:14, 4:20).
The Bible’s vision of marriage as a resilient, lifelong commitment is not only true, it is glorious—in it, “Loving devotion and faithfulness have joined together; righteousness and peace have kissed” (Psalm 85:10).8 In the context of marriage, steadfast love and mercy transform not only the recipient, but also the giver, as well as their children and their children’s children (Psalm 103:17-18; Ephesians 5:28, 6:1–4). Covenant commitment unleashes possibilities far grander than mere contractual obligation ever could. It cultivates the kind of love that stirs souls and moves men to sing:9
“My song is love unknown—my Savior’s love to me; love to the loveless shown, that they might lovely be. Oh, who am I, that for my sake my Lord should take frail flesh and die?”
Here’s a test for your doctrine of marriage and divorce: When practiced, does it cause men to fall on their faces in adoration of God? Or does it merely “make sense” to the average, unregenerate mind?
There is a logic behind God’s simple, stunning ground rules for broken marriages, but it is not the logic of this age (1 Corinthians 2:6). The people of this age place man and his selfish interests at the center of marriage and make personal happiness at all costs its organizing principle. As Christians, we must place God and His prerogatives at the center of our marriages, with unity and loyalty for the sake of God’s glory as the goal.
If we do this, our focus will shift from splitting up what was meant to stay together, the work of the enemy (John 10:10; 1 John 3:8), to bringing together what should never have split up, the work of Christ (Romans 5:1; Colossians 1:19, 20). Like our Father in heaven, we will become advocates of reconciliation rather than divorce, peace rather than enmity (Matthew 5:9): “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”
The ministry of reconciliation
Our insistence on the Biblical standard of “marriage ‘til death” is often accused of being unrealistic given the inherent messiness of life east of Eden. The Biblical view seems outdated in a day when marriage itself is increasingly viewed as a cultural vestige of an age long past. But it is these claims, and not the Biblical standard, that are truly out of touch with modern realities.10 If it appears that our heads are stuck in the clouds, then so be it—at least they’re not buried in the sand.
The fact is, the Church’s misguided teachings on divorce and remarriage have gotten us so twisted up relationally that cutting the proverbially Gordian knot is not going to be easy. We’ve simply tied the knot too many times, and with too many partners, for that to be the case.
But beyond the severed pieces of the broken ties that bind us lies something so pure, so noble, so right (Philippians 4:8), that it makes every short-term loss worthwhile in the end (2 Corinthians 5:18–21, emphasis mine):
“All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Can one think of a better mission statement for our marriages, for the Christian life in general? Reconciliation to God would solve all of our marriage problems, for we part ways with God long before we part ways with our spouses (Psalms 51:4).
To rightly divide the scriptures (2 Timothy 2:15) and properly counsel our brothers and sisters in struggling marriages (Matthew 7:3–5; John 7:24; Ephesians 4:29), the Church must wholeheartedly embrace the ministry of reconciliation.
One of the biggest mistakes made in discussions of divorce is failing to distinguish between “divorce” and “separation.”11 Though we often conflate the two, they are, in fact, polar opposites: Divorce seeks to end a marriage with the intent of marrying another; separation seeks to save a marriage with the intent of getting back together. The goal of divorce is alienation, but the goal of separation is reconciliation.
Here is God’s heart behind the strategy of separation and a glimpse into why He demands such an approach from us (2 Samuel 14:14, emphasis mine):
“All of us must die eventually. Our lives are like water spilled out on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God does not just sweep life away; instead, He devises ways to bring us back when we have been separated from Him.”
Believer, this is our God! The rationale of separation holding out for reconciliation lies at the heart of the Gospel and reflects the will of God for all creation (Colossians 1:19–23, emphasis mine):
“For in Him [Christ] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, He has now reconciled in His body of flesh by His death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before Him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.”
It is God’s fundamentally forgiving, merciful disposition that gives rise to this strategy (Exodus 34:6, 7; Deuteronomy 4:31). Man slams the door shut, locks it up, and throws away the key—God stands waiting at the open portal, poised to receive the returning prodigal (Luke 15:11–32). Man is impatient and eager to move on to the next thing—God, who is love (1 John 4:8), “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7). Man cherishes his offenses and resists restoration (Proverbs 18:19)—God never despises the truly penitent (Psalm 51:17; Ezekiel 33:11; John 6:37; Hebrews 8:12).
God is one (Deuteronomy 6:4), and His desire is for us to be one as He is one (John 17:11, 21, 22). It is His intrinsic love for unity and, failing that, reconciliation, that motivates all that the inspired authors of scripture say on divorce and remarriage. It is why, for example, Paul was so keen to share the following charge from the Lord to married couples (1 Corinthians 7:10b, 11, emphasis mine):
“the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife.”
Reconciliation was even behind Paul’s permission for believers to allow their unbelieving spouses to depart (1 Corinthians 7:15). We know this because immediately after this concession, Paul says, in effect, “You never know if this will be the very thing will eventually lead to your spouse’s salvation” (1 Corinthians 7:15, 16, author’s paraphrase).
Depart to convert? Separate to reunite? Precisely. Again, this is the counterintuitive wisdom that comes from above, not the commonsense “wisdom” that comes from below (James 3:13-18). Is your priority in separation saving your wife, or saving your life (Matthew 16:25)? Paul’s priority was clearly the former, not the latter. Remarrying another was the furthest thing from his mind.
For many couples, separation may represent the best last resort for working through their marital problems.12 Separation is a regrettable, but sometimes necessary measure that allows married individuals to live apart, ideally only for a season, for the purpose of creating space for regrouping, repentance, recovery, and hopefully reconciliation (1 Corinthians 7:15, 16).
Indeed, there are situations in which mutual physical separation, or even the more extreme measure of “disciplinary ‘divorce,’”13 are not only permissible, but required. Such separations are needed to protect the vulnerable and isolate and expel evildoers in the hopes that they will repent (Matthew 18; 1 Corinthians 5:1–13; Titus 3:10–11). Even so, such measures must never be taken casually, for the default command to believers is “do not separate/divorce, insofar as it is within your power” (1 Corinthians 7:10–13, 27, author’s paraphrase).
There are some who erroneously believe that sins such as adultery, abandonment, and physical abuse are so serious that they dissolve the marriage covenant,14 thus rendering it null and void. To these individuals, merely stating that such behaviors profoundly violate the covenant, but nevertheless do not utterly destroy it, does not take adultery seriously enough. In their minds, the marriage permanence view inadvertently diminishes the sanctity of marriage by paving the way for abuse after abuse with little to no consequence.
Nothing could be further from the truth!
The fact that marriage is a lifelong covenant that is indissoluble apart from death does not mean that it can be violated with impunity. On the contrary, God’s faithfulness to Israel did not mean that she got away with even the least of her infidelities (Deuteronomy 7:9–11, emphasis mine):
“Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and keep His commandments, to a thousand generations, and repays to their face those who hate Him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates Him. He will repay him to his face. You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you today.”
These are not the words of a needy, codependent spouse. God doesn’t play games when it comes to honoring His holy covenants, and neither should we. As God’s people, we must not only expect husbands and wives to treat one another with love and respect, we must demand it (Ephesians 5:21–33; 1 Peter 3:1–7). Should any among us begin to treat their marriage vows with contempt, we should not hesitate to hold their feet to the fire, for God surely will.
There are severe consequences to violating the marriage covenant,15 so much so that when God lists the blessings for obeying His covenant alongside the curses for disobeying it, the latter absolutely dwarfs the former (Leviticus 26:14–45; Deuteronomy 28:15–68). Clearly, God is not shy about employing deterrents. There are incentives to keeping covenants, and boy, are there ever disincentives to breaking them.
That said, it is ridiculous to claim that upholding the sanctity of marriage is best achieved by permitting its dissolution for any and all manner of violations. Talk about counterproductive! On the contrary, the permanence view is ideal for upholding the sanctity of marriage for the very reason that it does not countenance the countless grounds for divorce bandied about by the other views. Willful, unrepentant, grievous sin is grounds, not for divorce and remarriage, but rather for strong, no-nonsense discipline, including sometimes separation or even engaging law enforcement if civil crimes have been committed.
Yet even then the believer must never remarry after separating, but rather must leave open the possibility of reconciliation (1 Corinthians 7:10, 11), to whatever extent it is possible. This is because marriages are binding so long as both spouses are living (Romans 7:2, 3; 1 Corinthians 7:39) and there is always a chance, however seemingly remote, that the wayward spouse will repent (Romans 12:18; 1 Corinthians 7:15, 16).16 God provides a very limited number of moves for those who are married, and all are geared toward keeping covenant and reconciliation: 1) Stay together until death, but if you separate before then, either 2) remain “single”17 or 3) get back together. That’s it.
In setting things up this way, God has not “trapped” us in our marriages, binding us to “the old ball and chain.” Rather, He has hemmed us in with love and placed His merciful hand of restraint upon us (Psalm 139:5), for our own good (Deuteronomy 10:12, 13). In marriage, God has provided us with every incentive to do the right thing, not perverse incentives to settle for sin. We should be eternally grateful to Him for such a wise, loving arrangement.
Burned bridges, dead-end streets
Of course not all separated couples will reunite. Not all broken marriages can be restored. Even forgiven sins have consequences (2 Samuel 12:10–14). This is partly why Jesus’ teaching on celibacy comes on the heels of His disciples’ incredulous response to His statements on divorce and remarriage (Matthew 19:10–12):
The disciples said to Him, ‘If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.’ But He said to them, ‘Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.’”
Although reconciliation is the most desirable outcome for couples when permissible, the Bible makes it clear that reconciliation is not permitted for a separated and/or divorced husband and wife if either has entered into an intervening marriage with another person. Although all separated and/or divorced spouses can reconcile in the sense of forgiving one another in Christ (Ephesians 4:32; Colossians 3:13, 14) and making amends where appropriate (Matthew 5:23, 24; Luke 19:8, 9), if either spouse enters into an additional marriage, then getting back together is no longer an option. This is true even after the spouse(s) from the subsequent marriage(s) die(s).
Indeed, this scenario is expressly forbidden, and in the strongest of terms, in the Old Testament’s classic text on divorce, Deuteronomy 24:1–4 (emphasis mine):
“When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house, and if she goes and becomes another man's wife, and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies, who took her to be his wife, then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.”
If you have been closely following our arguments on divorce and remarriage, you may immediately be tempted to accuse us of cherry picking from the law of Moses. “Wasn’t one of the main points of Jesus’ teaching on divorce that the standard for marriage is found in creation law rather than in later Mosaic amendments to that law?”18 Yes, and that is precisely why the prohibition in this passage still applies to marriages today. Although Moses’ concession of divorce was not grounded in creation law (Matthew 19:8; Mark 10:5, 6), his forbidding of reconciliation for divorced and remarried spouses was (Genesis 2:18–25).
We can illustrate this point by comparing laws pertaining to marriage with kosher laws governing clean and unclean foods; though the former laws are rooted in creation and apply to all men for all time (Matthew 22:30; Revelation 21:1), the latter were instituted in Israel alone and only until the coming of Christ (Galatians 3:19).19 Thus, when the kosher laws had served their purpose (Leviticus 11:43–45; Deuteronomy 14:2, 21), they became obsolete (Galatians 3:15-29). If this is the case for laws governing the eating of unclean foods, which is not evil in and of itself (Romans 14:14; 1 Timothy 4:3–5), how much more is this true of laws conceding divorce, which arose from the evil, unbelieving heart of man (Matthew 19:8; Mark 10:5; Hebrews 3:12)?20
Thus, when Moses describes a man divorcing his wife, only to later take her back after her second husband either divorces her or dies, and refers to such a scenario as an “abomination” and “sin,” we know that this same assessment holds for today because marriage has always been and always will be marriage. This is true whether we consider marriage before the fall or after it, preceding the law of Moses or following it, B.C. or A.D. From the beginning, marriage has always been one man and one woman for life. When it comes Moses’ divorce compromise, however, this is plainly not the case (Matthew 19:8, emphasis mine): “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.”21
Today, most Christians would have no qualms whatsoever about a divorced couple reuniting after an intervening marriage or marriages. There are even well-known Christian leaders who promote such sinful remarriages as amazing testimonies of redemption.22 In their case, this saying of Jesus proves true (Luke 16:15b): “For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.”
Ancient Jews certainly understood the scandal of such degrading behavior on the part of a man. For example, Philo of Alexandria said the following when commenting on Moses’ divorce legislation:23
“But if any man should choose to form an alliance with such a woman, he must be content to bear the reputation of effeminacy and a complete want of manly courage and vigor, as if he had been castrated and deprived of the most useful portion of the soul, namely, that disposition which hates iniquity, by which the affairs both of houses and cities are placed on a good footing, and as having stamped deeply on his character two of the greatest of all iniquities, adultery and the employment of a pander [i.e., a pimp];24 for the reconciliations which take place subsequently are indications of the death of each [person]. Let him, therefore, suffer the punishment appointed, together with his wife.”
Although the impropriety of such disreputable remarriages may be lost on us today, it certainly was not lost on the Jews, much less God.
Far from rubber stamping divorce and unlawful remarriage, Moses’ regulations were intended to curtail divorce, placing critical guardrails on its excesses. Ironically, the whole point of Moses’ forbidding reconciliation for divorced and remarried spouses was to cut off a potential legal loophole that could be misconstrued as legitimizing adultery!25 Are we so gullible as to think that Jesus would do the exact opposite by setting up just such a legal loophole to legitimize adultery among His followers (Matthew 5:32, 19:9)? Not a chance!
And what can be said for the husband whose divorce causes his former wife (Matthew 5:32a) and her new husband (Matthew 5:32b; Luke 16:18) to become adulterers? It is hard enough to end one’s own adulterous remarriage for a life of singleness, but how can one possibly set right the adultery one has forced another to step into? Only two things can be done in this situation: 1) Confess the sins that one has committed to God and to the offended parties; and 2) share with them the nature of their predicament and the pathway to repentance from unlawful remarriage.26
It is for reasons like these that the locus classicus of Jesus’ teaching on divorce is stated in the form of an urgent command, rather than a casual suggestion (Matthew 19:6; Mark 10:9). He was not saying “Ideally, what God has joined together, man should not separate. Having said that, I am a very understanding Messiah, and I realize this isn’t a perfect world. One has to be a realist in such matters.” No, what He was saying was “What God has joined together, man, do not separate!”27
Why was Jesus so forceful in urging us not to go down the roads of divorce and unlawful remarriage? Because He understood where those paths led and would spare us from burned bridges and dead-end streets.
The great divorce wager
As we approach the end of this extended study of the Biblical teaching on divorce and remarriage, we wanted to step back and reflect on the options before us as American Christians with the help of one of our favorite non-canonical authors, the apologist and literary giant C. S. Lewis.
Lewis’s book The Great Divorce is a classic exploration of the afterlife and the eternal consequence of our everyday choices. In this story, souls from hell called “Ghosts” embark on a tour of heaven, where they have numerous conversations with the residents, called “Solid People.” Through these exchanges, we are given glimpses into the psyche of those whose earthly trajectory ends in eternal death in contrast to those destined for life. In encounter after encounter, we witness the Solid People doing their best to convince their lost loved ones to let go of the various grudges that are keeping them hell-bound and to join them in bliss. Tragically, in case after case, their efforts are to no avail.
Lewis’ point is that the final destinations of saints and sinners are utterly divorced from one another. They are on completely different paths. In spite of our efforts to merge the two, they are forever divergent. There is no bridging the chasm between them (Luke 16:26).
Although Lewis was not referring to marital divorce in his book’s title,28 the “imaginative supposal”29 that I described above provides powerful lessons on the topic of divorce and remarriage.
Like the Ghosts who are unwilling to part ways with the sins that keep them stuck on the road to perdition, we modern Christians have latched onto practices that, in turn, will not easily loosen their grip on us. Divorce is damning us, and yet we refuse to part ways with it. Though it is totally antithetical to the ethos of the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5–7), we insist on smuggling it through the narrow gate. As Lewis said in the preface to The Great Divorce:
“You cannot take all luggage with you on all journeys; on one journey even your right hand and your right eye may be among the things you have to leave behind. […] If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell.”
When it comes to divorce, unlawful remarriage, or any sinful misstep, how does one ultimately get back on the right path? Again, Lewis says it best (preface):
“I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A wrong sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot 'develop' into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit […] or else not. It is still ‘either-or.’”
Sadly, Lewis’ own marriage late in life to divorcee Joy Davidman, which occurred while her husband the novelist William Lindsay Gresham was still alive, was conducted in circumvention of Church of England policy at the time forbidding such unions.30
To approve of, encourage, or participate in adulterous remarriages, or to treat them with apathy or noncommittal neutrality31, is to imperil men’s souls. Whatever our particular temptations are on this issue, Jesus asks each one of us, point-blank, “Is anything worth more to you than your eternal soul?” (Mark 8:37). And yet, like the prodigal son who demanded his inheritance prematurely, only to squander it (Luke 15:12; cf. Proverbs 20:21), or Esau who sold his birthright for a mess of pottage (Genesis 25:29–34), we continue to forfeit our eternal rewards, or even our very souls, for the fleeting pleasures of sin (Hebrews 11:25).
This is insanity. It needs to stop.
Taking a page from Pascal’s playbook, we would like to the close this book with what we’re calling “the great divorce wager.”
If those who teach the marriage permanence position advocated here are wrong, then at worst they have temporarily prevented some morally suspect, albeit merely lifelong relationships from taking place. God will chastise those who teach this mistaken view for laying a burden on His people that He never did (Matthew 23:4), but the people will enter safely into heaven relatively unscathed.
However, if the divorce-permissive teachers are wrong, then at worst they have set their people up for the shock of their afterlives on judgment day (Matthew 7:22, 23). These teachers will incur severe judgment for lowering God’s standards (Matthew 5:19; Matthew 18:6), putting both themselves and their followers at risk of missing out on the kingdom of heaven altogether (Matthew 15:14).
It will not do to simply “agree to disagree” on such matters. God tells us to flee from sexual sin (1 Corinthians 6:18; cf. Genesis 39:11, 12), not flirt with it. We dare not kid ourselves as to the gravity of the choice before us (1 Corinthians 6:9–11, emphasis mine):
“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
If you have been blowing God and His commandments off until now by divorcing, unlawfully remarrying, or enabling those who do (Romans 1:32), then you are putting both yourself and others at risk of being cast into the fires of hell. If that sounds a bit over the top coming from us, then take it from Jesus Himself (Matthew 5:27–32, emphasis mine):
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.
It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, apart from sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”
If amputation is preferable to an eternal “cutting off” in the case of lust alone, how much more should those who find themselves in adulterous marriages go to any lengths necessary to extricate themselves from such a soul-impelling snare? If you are a God-fearing man or woman, do not roll the dice with your eternal destiny over a mere “momentary marriage”32 (Luke 12:4, 5):
“I tell you, My friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear Him who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear Him!”
This is not fear mongering. It is a loving appeal from someone whose eyes are wide open to the dangers of everyday adultery.
Just as Peter denied that he knew the Lord three times (Matthew 26:69–75; Mark 14:66–72; Luke 22:55–62; John 18:15–18, 25–27), Christians who divorce, unlawfully remarry, and refuse to separate afterwards have denied their Lord three times over. If you are guilty of this three-fold betrayal, do as Peter did: weep bitterly (Luke 22:62), turned back to the Lord you have turned your back on (Luke 22:31, 32), confess your love for Him as often as you denied Him (John 21:15–17), and serve Him for the rest of your days (John 21:18, 19).
Know for certain that you will stand alone before Christ on judgment day. On that day, it won’t matter what your pastor or friends from church told you, however well-intended they may have been. No one else will stand in your place. No other authority will vouch for you, except the word of God, if indeed you have its backing. Don't wait until you are standing naked before God to find out whether or not you were right on this topic (Hebrews 4:13, 9:27). Don’t throw your lot in with adulterers (Psalm 50:18). It will not end well for you if you do (Hebrews 13:4, emphasis mine):
“Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.”
We beg you, dear reader, if you are hearing the voice of God in what we are sharing, harden your hearts no longer (Hebrews 3:7, 8). That’s what got us into this divorce debacle in the first place (Matthew 19:8; Mark 10:5).
Instead, build your life on the solid rock of God’s clear commandments, not on the sinking sand of supposed “exceptions” (Matthew 7:24–27). That is no way to live the Christian life.
Repent, confess your sin and forsake it, and you will find mercy with God (Joel 2:13; Acts 3:19; Romans 10:13).
At the end of the day, amid the many sermons preached and gallons of ink spilled on the topic of divorce and remarriage, there are really only two distinct landing places: Divorce for no reason at all and divorce for any reason at all. Everything in between these two positions is merely on its way to one side or the other.33 The two are at perfect odds with one another. One is right, and one is really, really wrong. One will win the day, and the other will lose. One will be vindicated, the other vitiated.
This is the “great divorce” dividing modern Christians. Marriage and life are on the one side, divorce and death on the other. The roads are clearly marked. The signs point in opposite directions.
Which will you stake your soul on?
“Wisdom will save you also from the adulterous woman, from the wayward woman with her seductive words, who has left the partner of her youth and ignored the covenant she made before God. Surely her house leads down to death and her paths to the spirits of the dead. None who go to her return or attain the paths of life.”
—Proverbs 2:16–19
The end of divorce
The Church desperately needs a reckoning on divorce. Although we have reached the final chapter of our eBook on divorce and remarriage, the fight to end divorce in the Church is far from over. There’s still much work to be done. In the forthcoming afterword to this book, we will share personal lessons and pastoral exhortations to help us navigate the path forward to restoring marriage to its proper place both in the Church and in the culture.
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The Hebrew word used to describe Moses’ shining face after speaking with God on Mt. Sinai is קָרַ֛ן (qaran), or literally “To shoot out horns, rays” (Exodus 34:29, 30, 35). It is for this reason that Moses is often depicted in artwork as having horns. See, for example, Lee Jefferson, “The Horns of Moses,” Biblical Archaeology Society, 2023.
This would not be the last time that God tested Moses like this (Numbers 14:11–20). Certainly, given the obstinance of the people and the countless times they put God to the test (Numbers 14:22), it would have required extraordinary levels of restraint to resist the urge to wipe them out altogether and restart God’s redemptive program with a clean slate. But, of course, as both God and Moses understood, this would cast massive doubt on God’s ability to fulfill His covenant promises (Exodus 32:12; Numbers 14:16; Deuteronomy 9:28). Furthermore, because unbelief is endemic to fallen human nature, this would only serve to kick the problem further down the road, for whatever people God may have chosen next as His standard bearers would surely have had the same issues as the Israelites.
Especially considering that the first two commandments God inscribed were “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Exodus 20:3) and “You shall not make for yourself a carved image” (Exodus 20:4a)!
In interceding for the people rather than doing what was in his apparent self-interest, Moses was yet again passing up on what appeared to be an opportunity of a lifetime for something far greater: suffering the disgrace of Christ with God’s people for the global fame of God’s great name (Hebrews 11:25, 26). What a man.
Note the qualification: “If Israel failed in the end,” meaning total and ultimate failure. Of course, Israel failed time and again, but, as God’s word makes clear, the elect among her never failed to enter into God’s covenant promises (Romans 9:6, 11:1, 2). Indeed, when all is said and done, “all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:26). Praise the Lord!
This expression is based on a quote attributed to Jonathan Edwards: “Lord, stamp eternity on my eyeballs!”
It is not only for the guilty party’s sake that we forgive—Jesus reminds us that the forgiveness of the offended party is also on the line: “But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matthew 6:15; cf. Matthew 5:7, 6:14; Mark 11:26). If we are merciful, we will be shown mercy (Matthew 5:7), but if not, we will get what we’ve got coming (James 2:13): “For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.”
It is no coincidence that the Psalms are chock-full of references to God’s covenant faithfulness, especially against the backdrop of Israel’s unworthiness. For example, regarding the Davidic covenant (Psalm 89:30–35):
“If his [David’s] children forsake My law and do not walk according to My rules, if they violate My statutes and do not keep My commandments, then I will punish their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes, but I will not remove from him My steadfast love or be false to My faithfulness. I will not violate My covenant or alter the word that went forth from My lips. Once for all I have sworn by My holiness; I will not lie to David.”
And the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants (Psalm 106:6, 39–41, 44, 45):
“Both we and our fathers have sinned; we have committed iniquity; we have done wickedness. […] Thus they became unclean by their acts, and played the whore in their deeds. Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against His people, and He abhorred His heritage; He gave them into the hand of the nations, so that those who hated them ruled over them. […] Nevertheless, He looked upon their distress, when He heard their cry. For their sake He remembered His covenant, and relented according to the abundance of His steadfast love.”
Here again we see a perfect balance between the goodness and severity of God (Romans 11:22), between His mercy and justice (Micah 6:8). God neither abandons His covenants nor allows them to be trampled like doormats, for to do either of these would be to permit the belittling of His infinite dignity (Exodus 20:5; Isaiah 42:8; Galatians 6:7).
“My Song is Love Unknown,” Samuel Crossman, 1664.
Our modern culture of no-fault divorce is so rampant, that even nominally Christian influencers like Steven Crowder (see “The Next Front in the GOP’s War on Women: No-Fault Divorce” by Tessa Stuart of Rolling Stone) and Pearl Davis (see “Anti-feminist YouTuber Pearl says she thinks divorce should be illegal and women shouldn't have the right to vote” by Lindsay Dodgson of Insider) are calling for radical reform of U.S. divorce law.
This distinction in no way undermines the Biblical teaching of the indissolubility of marriage apart from death. To borrow from Jesus’ language on this topic (Matthew 19:6; Mark 10:9), man must not separate, but may under certain circumstances (1 Corinthians 7:10–13, 15), but man cannot divorce, and may not under any circumstance (Matthew 5:32, 19:6–9; Mark 10:9–12; Luke 16:18).
Separation is a very weighty decision that should not be made lightly. However, where appropriate and when done with wisdom, it can serve as a brilliant strategy for softening hard hearts and helping steamed up sinners cool off and come around. We’ve all heard the sayings “familiarity breeds contempt” and “absence makes the heart grow fonder.” Sometimes, you don’t know what you have until you no longer have it. If left unchecked, the deceptive human heart can turn a good, if not a great thing into something contemptible and repulsive (2 Samuel 13:1, 2, 15; Jeremiah 17:9). As the poet Milton wrote: “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven” (Paradise Lost, Book I, Lines 254, 255). This saying is true (Titus 1:13a), particularly of marriage. A little distance can go a long way.
“Disciplinary ‘divorce’” refers to a situation in which a spouse is deprived of bread and board due to a grave violation of the marriage covenant, especially one that is repeated and/or habitual. This was practiced in the Early Church, being described, for instance, in The Shephard of Hermas (Mandate 4.4, emphasis mine):
“I said to him [the “Shepherd,” i.e., the angel that Hermas is dialoging with], Sir, permit me to ask you a few questions. Say on, he said. And I said if a man has a believing wife in the Lord, and finds her in some adultery, does the man sin by continuing to live with her? As long as he does not know, he said, he does not sin. But if, say, the husband knows about her sin, and the woman does not repent, but on the contrary remains in her fornication, and the man continues to live with her, he is guilty of her sin and a participant in her adultery. Then what, sir, I said, should the man do if, say, the woman remains in this passion? Let him divorce her, he said, and let the man remain by himself. But if, say, when he has divorced his wife, he marries another, he also commits adultery. I said, Therefore, if, say, sir, after the wife has been divorced, the woman repents and wishes to return to her own husband, shall she not be taken back? Yes, truly, said he, if, say, the husband does not receive her back, he sins, and brings great sin upon himself.
Clearly, he that has sinned and repents must be received back; yet not often, for to the servants of God there is but one repentance. For the sake of her repentance, therefore, the husband ought not to remarry. Thus the case stands with both wife and husband. Not only, said he, is it adultery if, say, one defiles his flesh, but clearly, even he who, for instance, performs [sexual] things after the likeness of the heathen, he commits adultery. So then, also if one continues in such deeds and he does not repent, stay away from him and company not with him; otherwise you are also a partaker of his sin. On account of this you are commanded to remain single, whether wife, whether husband, because it is possible in such situations there may be repentance.”
Critically, as this passage makes abundantly clear, even disciplinary “divorce” requires that the individuals involved either remain unmarried (to another person) or else reconcile (1 Corinthians 7:10, 11). Despite such individuals’ physical, and perhaps even legal separation/divorce in the eyes of man, they are still bound to one another for life in the eyes of God. Hence, the word “divorce” in the term “disciplinary ‘divorce’” is used advisedly and placed in quotation marks avoid misconceptions.
God Himself made use of this extreme measure as a last ditch effort, so to speak, to turn His unfaithful spouse Israel back to Him (Jeremiah 3:8). In a shocking prophetic illustration, God gave faithless Israel a certificate of divorce, as it were, sending her away into exile by the hands of the Assyrians. God’s intent in doing this was to alarm His serially unfaithful, unrepentant bride into repentance after exhausting all other options. However, God did not divorce Israel in the sense that He dissolved His covenant with her, dishonored His vows (Genesis 12:1–3; Genesis 15; Exodus 19:1–24:18; 2 Samuel 7; Hebrews 6:13), and married another nation (Hosea 11:8). May it never be (Romans 6:2, 15)! Despite Israel’s countless whoreings, God remained faithful, even after divorce!
Some would say that such sins merely render the marriage covenant “dissolvable” rather than automatically dissolving it. According to this view, the innocent party may end the marriage in such cases, should they choose to do so, though they are certainly not required, or even encouraged to.
See “The stench of death” in chapter VI “Divorced From Reality.”
To those who would say that there is absolutely no hope of their prodigal spouse repenting, Paul would reply: “How do you know?” (1 Corinthians 7:16). Because only God knows the future for certain (Isaiah 46:10), we must allow for the possibility of reconciliation in the event that a departed spouse repents. Otherwise, we prioritizing illicit temporal satisfaction over eternal salvation.
“Single” as in “not living with or marrying another person,” not as in “free from the bond of marriage.”
See “How Jesus reset the divorce debate” in chapter II “The Lord of Marriage.”
This why Jesus and the Apostles were entirely consistent in declaring all foods clean (Mark 7:19; Acts 10; Romans 14:14; 1 Timothy 4:3–5) while at the same time condemning sexual immorality, such as adultery (Matthew 5:27–32, 19:3–9; Mark 10:5–12; Luke 16:18; John 8:11; 1 Corinthians 6:9, 10; Hebrews 13:4).
Put another way, although there is nothing intrinsically evil with eating an oyster, having sex with someone besides your husband or wife is always and everywhere forbidden as an inherently sinful act of adultery. Another example of this is murder, which was condemned as sinful from the beginning when Cain murdered Abel (Genesis 4:6–12). This is because both adultery and murder violate creation law, specifically, God’s uniting of man and woman in marriage (Genesis 2:24) and His creation of mankind in His image (Genesis 1:26, 27, 9:4–6). Clearly, with respect to laws set forth at creation, which long preceded the law given through Moses, God has not changed His marching orders!
Incidentally, some Christians believe that since Moses granted divorce, it is reasonable to assume that Jesus would do the same. Divorce may not be God’s perfect “plan A” will, but it is sometimes His permissive “plan B” will. But if Moses permitted divorce for hardness of heart (Matthew 19:8; Mark 10:5), would these same individuals claim that Jesus granted divorce among Christians for the same reason? Aren’t Christians supposed to be soft-hearted and obedient to God’s laws as new creations in Christ (Jeremiah 31:33; Ezekiel 11:19, 36:26; Hebrews 8:10; 2 Corinthians 5:17)?
See for example “Together Again: Mario and Mechelle Murillo remarried after 14 years apart” from Charisma. Mario refers to this remarriage as “the greatest miracle in the 38-year history of his ministry—a story of ‘love lost and reborn.’”
This is not hyperbole, as there is evidence that one of the motivations behind remarrying a divorced wife was financial gain. See for example William Heth, “Jesus on Divorce: How My Mind Has Changed.” The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. 2002; 6(1): 4–29. See also William F. Luck Sr., “Termination of Marriage in the Mosaic Law” in Divorce and Re-Marriage: Recovering the Biblical View. Richardson, Tx: Biblical Studies Press, 2009 (2nd rev. ed.). Hence, some view this passage as a form of estoppel law, which prevents someone from using a law (in this case divorce) for one purpose initially only to later take advantage of the same law for the opposite purpose.
See p. 7, 27, Heth, “Jesus on Divorce: How My Mind Has Changed.”
One might accuse a former spouse of having a selfish motives in telling a divorced former spouse to end his or her remarriage with another partner. However, since reconciliation between the original spouses is out of the question, this accusation loses much of its force. That said, resentment, revenge, and jealously are still likely to exert some influence in such a case. As such, great care and wisdom should be employed to protect all parties from being outmaneuvered by personal biases in the joint effort to bring each individual involved into conformity with God’s will (Deuteronomy 19:15; Proverbs 11:14; Matthew 18:15–17; 1 Corinthians 10:12; Galatians 6:1).
p. 345, Leslie McFall, The Biblical Teaching on Divorce and Remarriage. Comberton, Cambridgeshire: 2014.
The book’s title is actually a play on William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, the thesis of which Lewis took issue with.
Lewis used this term to describe the nature of the book’s setting and to distinguish it from speculative guesswork at the actual conditions of the afterlife, something he wished to avoid (see the preface to The Great Divorce).
Though well intended, Lewis’ personal views on divorce were clearly misguided. He believed that there ought to be a sharp distinction between marriage as practiced by the Church and marriage as enforced by the state, a view which was at odds with much of his thinking on other topics (Jake Meador, “Why C.S. Lewis is Wrong on Marriage.” Mere Orthodoxy, 2012.). Indeed, Lewis’ close friend J.R.R. Tolkien took issue with his stance on divorce, stating:
“I have never felt happy about your view of Christian ‘policy’ with regard to divorce […]. No item of compulsory Christian morals is valid only for Christians […]. Toleration of divorce—if a Christian does tolerate it—is toleration of a human abuse […]. And wrong behavior (if it is really wrong on universal principles) is progressive, always: it never stops at being ‘not very good,’ ‘second best’—it either reforms, or goes on to third-rate, bad, abominable.”
Clearly, Lewis’ take on marriage has not aged well, while Tolkien’s was prophetic.
See, for example, pastor Jason Myers’ sermon “‘…Except for Sexual Immorality…,’” Bethlehem Baptist Church, 2018.
Credit to John Piper’s book This Momentary Marriage: A Parable of Permanence (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2009) for this phrase.
If you doubt this claim, witness how the classical Erasmian “two exception” position among conservative evangelicals has slowly morphed into an increasingly liberal view in recent years. The reason for adopting the very general position that “Breaking the marriage covenant is a ground for divorce” is because Jesus and Paul’s divorce texts apparently “do not require us to conclude that there are two and only two grounds for divorce” (p. 35, 36, Andrew Naselli, “What the New Testament Teaches about Divorce and Remarriage.” Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal. 2019; 24: 3–44.). Paul said “A little leaven leavens the whole lump” (Galatians 5:9)—the now rapidly multiplying “divorce exceptions” are no exception!