Marriage 104

The Heinous Doctrine of Divorce

In the preceding parts of this discussion we have shown that, based on the Judaic and Christian Scriptures, marriage is a permanent bond between a man and a woman, defined as occurring at an initial act of sexual intercourse. Regardless the amount of intellectual and/or emotional discomfort this may create in current Western society, disregarding that fact has done an incalculable amount of damage within Christianity, destroying relationships and causing mental and emotional harm to children and adults alike.

From the words of Jesus, in Matthew 5:31-32 He stated,

“It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.”

And Matthew 19:3-9

And there came unto him Pharisees, trying him, and saying, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And he answered and said, ‘Have ye not read, that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh? So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. They say unto him, Why then did Moses command to give a bill of divorcement, and to put her away? He saith unto them, Moses for your hardness of heart suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it hath not been so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and he that marrieth her when she is put away committeth adultery.”

As well as in Mark 10:2-9,

“And there came unto him Pharisees, and asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? trying him. And he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away. But Jesus said unto them, For your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of the creation, Male and female made he them. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh: so that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”

And Luke 16:18

“Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.”

It was the express teaching of Jesus that (1) when the two join together in sexual intercourse they become one flesh, (2) that such joining is an act of God without any further action or sanction by any other authority, and (3) it is a bond which human agency cannot break. Thus Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6:16,

“What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.”

and in 1 Corinthians 7:10-11,

”But unto the married I give charge, yea not I, but the Lord, That the wife depart not from her husband (but should she depart, let her remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband); and that the husband leave not his wife.”

and verse 39,

” A wife is bound for so long time as her husband liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is free to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.”

This was not a new teaching. Recall that after the return to Judea by the exiles, there had been intermarriage with the non-Israelite people who had either been transplanted in the land by the Babylonians, or who had wandered in due to the depopulation that resulted from the war with Babylon. Ezra forced the men who had married foreign wives to divorce them (Ezra 10). It was further related by Ezra (Ezra 10:44),

“. . . and some of them had wives by whom they had children.”

Now if the Scriptures are searched, it is truly stated that God’s people were not to intermarry with the heathen. However, nowhere in the Torah is it commanded that a man who had married a foreigner must divorce her. Thus the words of Malachi, in opposition to Ezra’s act (Malachi 2:13-16),

“And this again ye do: ye cover the altar of Jehovah with tears, with weeping, and with sighing, insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, neither receiveth it with good will at your hand. Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because Jehovah hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously, though she is thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.And did he not make one, although he had the residue of the Spirit? And wherefore one? He sought a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. For I hate putting away, saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, and him that covereth his garment with violence, saith Jehovah of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously.”

It is one of those interesting facts of Scripture, that while Jesus quotes Malachi, He never quotes Ezra.

We have alluded previously to the influence of patriarchal societies in regard to marriage customs. One of the marks of a patriarchal society is the practice of inheritance through the father. It is stressed repeatedly throughout the Tanach. The entire purpose for granting a divorce was not to end a marriage; God did not change the decree made at the first marriage. His purpose in permitting divorce was to provide for the innocent parties who would be affected — the children — to have some inheritance somewhere.

If a man divorced a wife with whom he had children, those children retained all their rights of inheritance even if their mother remarried. However, if she remarried without a formal release of the ketubah, any children she might have from that time on would be considered children born outside of wedlock and with no inheritance rights. A man who had children with a woman who was not free from the contractual relationships of her marriage had no obligation to provide an inheritance to those children; since she had no divorce papers. She was not free to contract with the second man because she was still under contract to the first. Consequently, it was considered a duty, a mitzvah, for a man to grant a divorce to a wife who left him, and the “chained woman”, the “agunah” who leaves her husband and who has not been granted a divorce, is still a problem in Jewish law today.

In no way, however, did the granting of a divorce undo the sexual intercourse that had instituted the marriage. While Graeco-Roman culture made the marriage contract the primary “glue” of the marriage, the mistaken idea that it did so carried on into the Church Age and was generally accepted because it was the pattern and practice of the pagan peoples among who the Christians dwelt. The first three centuries of church history are replete with the efforts of the bishops to purge as many vestiges of Judaism from Christianity.

Early on the simple concept of marriage as held by Jesus and His disciples began to be corrupted by the early bishops, who first suggested, then demanded, that couples obtain the permission of the church, through the bishop, to marry. That then developed into requirements that the marriage be formalized by the bishop, and ceremonies were developed to standardize the process. Along with this, the catechisms of the churches were developed to include a definition of marriage quite apart from the one in Scripture, and instead to echo the laws and customs of the Roman Empire.

The Church holds the exchange of consent between the spouses to be the indispensable element that "makes the marriage". The consent consists in a "human act by which the partners mutually give themselves to each other": "I take you to be my wife" - "I take you to be my husband." This consent that binds the spouses to each other finds its fulfillment in the two "becoming one flesh". If consent is lacking there is no marriage. - Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1626-1629

Note that in Roman Catholic theology, it it is the consent (agreement) rather than the sexual intercourse that "makes the marriage" -- a refutation of the teaching of the Apostle Paul, and of Jesus. The relationship of marriage thus became a “sacrament” which needed to be performed in a church by a church official. Protestantism got rid of most of the sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church, except for baptism, communion, and marriage.

The Anabaptist movement generally removed marriage from the list of sacraments, but due to the statements of Paul in 2 Corinthians 6:14,

”Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers: for what fellowship have righteousness and iniquity? or what communion hath light with darkness?”

and 1 Corinthians 7:39,

” A wife is bound for so long time as her husband liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is free to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.”

even the Anabaptists, and most professing Christians today, maintained a belief that a wedding ceremony somehow makes a marriage more valid. This is because the concept of "equal yoking" and "only in the Lord" required some sort of validation by the congregation that such a relationship existed.

As the Church became more entangled in the governing of the relationship of marriage, it had to face the problems that arose when the relationships soured. For centuries the Roman Catholic Church had traditionally refused to permit divorce since that was the teaching of Jesus, but it then adopted the position that since it had defined marriage as a matter of consent, that if somehow that consent were fraudulently obtained or in some other way shown to be illegitimate, then the marriage could be annulled by decree of the church. A semantic ploy, the argument being that if the marriage were invalid (by the Church’s definition) then annulment was not the ending of a marriage, since (by the Church’s definition) the marriage had never occurred. It was a small step from there to recognize divorce, using the same reasoning.

Within Protestantism divorce was once considered to be possible only because traditionally most Protestant groups ceded the authority to legitimize marriage to government. If civil authorities had the right to regulate marriage, then they could also dissolve marriage. Thus, divorce was viewed as possible, but nevertheless sinful. In the latter part of the 20th Century social pressures began reshaping that area of Protestant theology, to the extent that what was once deemed shameful became acceptable; the Roman Catholic position that marriage required mutual consent became the norm. Thus, if the situation within the marriage changed such that consent was no longer there, the marriage would become void and divorce would end it.

The words of Jesus, however, can never be relegated to the dustbin of history if one is to call himself a true disciple. “What God has joined together is impossible for man to take apart.” A divorce decree may be granted by a civil authority, but it has no validity in Scripture with regard to ending a marriage, and the following points can be summarized from the teaching of the New Testament:

1. When a man and woman engage in sexual intercourse, the two become one flesh by the act and decree of God, and the bond cannot be broken except by the death of one of the partners. Divorce never ends a marriage.

2. A woman who engages in sexual intercourse with a second man commits adultery against her first partner, if the first partner is still living.

3. The only legitimate reason for a man to permanently separate from his wife is because he discovers she was involved in fornication prior to the marriage. If he permanently separates from her for any other reason, he is guilty of causing her to commit adultery.

4. If a man permanently separates from his wife for any other reason than that she committed fornication prior to marriage, and takes a second wife, he commits adultery.

5. A man who engages in sexual intercourse with a woman whose husband is still living commits adultery.

There is no leeway in the teaching of Jesus for the practice of divorce. The way is very narrow, yet we will see that there are other misunderstandings about the mystery of marriage.