Can We As Christian's Divorce And Marry Again? Does God Really Permit It?
Question : I saw your post on marriage and was wondering what the bible says about being divorced and then getting married to someone else? Can you do this and still be in line with the word of God? Thank you for all the postings, they are a blessing to me.
Answer : Marriage is a sacred thread that binds a human in the will of God and keeps him or her blessed in life when one keeps the covenant of marriage that has bound them.
Actually marriage is a holy institution that has been put in place when God first created the first man and woman to live in this earth.
Adam the man was created first from the "dust of the ground" and was put inside the garden of Eden (Gen 2:7-8). He was put there to tend and keep the garden in a excellent condition with the help of God (Gen 2:15). God commanded the man to obey Him and walk according to His will for his life (Gen 2:16-17). It was not Adam who went to God and asked for a life partner, but it is God who looked deep in to Adam's heart and found that it is not good for man to be alone and decided to make a helper comparable to him (Gen 2:18). In other words, every man who is born in this planet earth has been destined for greatness and completeness by God within this relationship of intimacy in marriage between a legally bound man and a woman for life.
God created all the animals, birds and every beasts of the fields and then took Adam to name them all and show him that all his creation are in pairs except he himself who is naming all of it (Gen 2:20). With this experience God must have made Adam to understand that he too needs a pair to be made complete. Once Adam understood this, he must have clearly expressed his desire for a companion to God. God who knows the thoughts of every man (Psa. 17:3; 44:21; 139:1-4; Acts 15:8), decided to do a small surgery to take one of his ribs and out of it form a woman who can reproduce and fill the earth.
Have you ever thought why God decided to do this surgery to take man's rib, and out of it make a woman? God could have taken another mass of dust again from the ground and could have easily blown in to it the breath of life to form a woman (Gen 2:7). He chose to take man's rib to form a woman because man will always remember to look for completeness within the boundary of the institution of marriage for completeness in life. Woman who is formed out of man's rib would be close enough to her husband's bosom to comfort, strengthen, be a companion and friend for life (Gen 2:21-22). Eve was a person who is comparable to Adam in intellect, body design and spiritual thirst for God's presence to keep her glued to her mate. God was the first clergy to conduct the legal act of marriage in the garden of Eden. God is the one who first instituted this act of marriage, hence it is a holy institution to all men.
The rib of man was made in to a woman by God and then she was brought to Adam so that she could become his companion for life. What can we learn from this? God knows our need for a life partner and therefore if we wait for Him, He will bring that right person to us in the exact time which he has predetermined for us. God does not choose a person to be our mate only when we ask Him, but rather before we were born God has chosen the right person (Psa 139:16), but only brings them when we wait for Him and pray for His will to be done (Isa 30:18; Matt 6:8, 10, 31-34). Or else we will miss this person whom God had prepared for us beforehand.
Adam got excited when he saw Eve for the first time and uttered the following words to God, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” (Gen 2:23). As Adam himself was operated in order for one of his rib to be taken out under a supernatural anesthesia by God which brought deep sleep to him, How could he say towards God that Eve was the "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man"? Because of the spiritual revelation he received from his spirit-man inside him. In other words, even though Adam in his body fell in to deep sleep, his spirit-man untainted by sin was so sharp to see all those things that God did to him while he was asleep bodily (1 Tim 2:14). Praise the Lord. When a husband seeks the Lord in a family setting regularly, he will be able to understand his wife in the spirit-man by revelation apart from his physical ability to know her. This is the reason for a family to be prosperous in unity of mind and understanding each other, there needs a revelation for a man in his spirit from God in order to intimately understand the wife God has given. True intimacy in a family goes beyond just a physical one in to the deep realm of the spirit.
Finally God pronounced the first marriage vows over Adam and Eve seeing that Adam was willing and excited to take Eve as his wife for life. This is what God said over the first family, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." (Gen 2:24). In other words, the two shall become one in the One who joined them. When God pronounced both Adam and Eve as joined together and were destined to continue to live as one flesh, they were spiritually joined together with a glue of the Spirit of God which joined them spiritually (Mal 2:15). To become one flesh does not mean after marriage the wife or husband cease to exist separately as individuals, but their purpose in life have becomes one, that is to glorify God through this godly fellowship, intimacy and being faithful to the covenant of marriage. This is why God hates any kind of divorce whether it is for good or bad reason (Mal 2:16). God says to all men to hear what they hear in their spirit-man for a restoration and renewal to take place in their marriage. Physical and soulish emotional intimacy does not have the potential to keep the family intact through the troubled times which only spiritual intimacy can do.
Divorce is strictly prohibited by God except for infidelity and He hates all divorces that takes place (Matt 19:9; Mal 2:16). Most families get destroyed when either the husband cannot love his wife unconditionally or the wife refuses to submit to her husband unconditionally. These are not things that cannot be done by any human naturally except through that spiritual help that comes from the Spirit of God who has joined the husband and wife to be one in flesh (Eph 5:25, 22). If the husband remains the spiritual head of the wife and covers her weakness by the power of the Lord, then the family will remain strong for life (Eph 5:23; 1 Peter 3:7).
When Jesus spoke about the will of God for a man and a woman, he first pointed to the example of Adam and Eve in creation as the will of God for all humans (Matt 19:4). In other words, one wife for life is the will of God for all humans. At the time when Jesus was born, divorce was a normal thing in the religious setting of the Jews. So the religious heads of those days asked Jesus, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?” (Matt 19:3). Jesus pointed to Adam and Eve as the first instance of God's will revealed for all humans alike.
In other words, Jesus was emphasizing that a person once in to marriage cannot consider divorce for any reason as a way out. Jesus pointed to God's Holy Institution of marriage in the beginning as the answer to the question the religious Pharisees asked, it says, " 5 ..., ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Matt 19:5-6). Here Jesus says, once we are in to a Holy marriage covenant, it is for life and it is the only perfect will of God, but to get separated is the work of man which is not in the original perfect will of God. God only joined the first couple in marriage and did not at any other time in history supply any certificate of divorce directly to Adam and Eve later or to any other couple which symbolically shows that divorce is not at all an option in marriage according to God.
Immediately the Jewish experts in law pointed to the law of Moses and asked Jesus what about Moses who said it is OK to divorce with a legal certificate under certain circumstances (Matt 19:7)? Jesus gave a clear answer to it by saying, Moses permitted divorce because of the hardness of men's heart during that time. Moses never insisted on monogamy because the law keeping Israelites hearts were hardened by legalism (Deut 21:15). Men like David, Solomon and many others ruined their life and family life by depending on Moses law which permitted polygamy. Even though polygamy was permitted to a normal Israelite because of the hardness of their heart, yet for kings separate instructions from God discouraged taking mutiples wives for themselves (Deut 17:15-17). Again because of a lustful hardened heart many kings of Israel never took pains to keep these laws and lived like any other normal man and they all reaped for what they have sown in their lives as a result of it (Gal 6:7). We are kings and priests of God according to the New Testament standard, so we ought to live in a higher standard under the grace of Jesus which God has set for us and not according to the law of Moses which is of a very low powerless dispensation (1 Peter 2:5, 9; Rev 5:10). People who walked by the law were hardened in their hearts and usually became legalistic without the grace of God guiding them. It will be hard for them to walk in humility to God and His original will as they were all ready to walk by following the Law of Moses and hence God allowed Moses to permit them to divorce in certain cases (Deut 24:1-4; 5:26-30; Gal 3:19; Mic 6:8). The man who follows the law shall live by the power of the law which only convicts them of sin when they do, but it does not give them the power to overcome it and live happily in a good standing and relationship with God (Rom 10:5; 7:13).
We in the New Testament as Christians cannot point to the Old Covenant and say that it is Ok to divorce, now we cannot give it as a valid reason because we are not under the law of Moses but under the grace of of our Lord Jesus which gives us the power to have one wife for life as with Adam and Even in the perfect will of God (Rom 6:14). Now in the New Testament, we have been graced with the Holy Spirit to not just have the Holy Spirit with us and upon us, but to have him in us which brings the help, guidance and empowerment of the Holy Spirit 24/7/365 available and makes Him to be closer to us than the air we breathe (John 14:17; 16:13-14; Acts 1:8; 17:28).
The good principles that is taught in the New Testament regarding marriage and divorce are,
1) Do seek for the basic requirement of getting married with a believer which is the minimum good level of the will of God (2 Cor 6:14-16; Rom 12:2).
2) When a person already have a husband or wife who is still a unbeliever after they have come in to the faith, then if the unbelieving wife or husband wants to get divorced from their spouse for their faith, let them depart peacefully (1 Cor 7:13). If the unbelieving husband or wife is willing to live with the believer, then one should not divorce them against their will (1 Cor 7:13). The whole family will become sanctified by either the husband or wife who believes in the Lord, so that the children who grow under their godly guidance will become holy according to God's view point (1 Cor 7:14). But just because a unbelieving husband or wife become sanctified in the sight of God does not guarantee their salvation until they willingly accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior personally (1 Cor 7:16).
3) God commands that a wife is not to depart from her husband, if she departs either she should get reconciled or remain unmarried and a husband should not divorce her wife under any circumstances (1 Cor 7:10-11).
4) Either a husband or a wife has rights to divorce their spouse only if they have been unfaithful in physical infidelity to the marriage partner and the covenant of marriage after their marriage (Matt 19:9). The one who divorces for any other reason and marries another commits adultery before the eyes of God and also makes another person who will marry their ex-husband or wife to commit adultery when they go on to marry him or her.
5) One wife for life is the New Testament prescription for all believers (Matt 19:4-6).
6) Live in such a way that the unbelieving husband or wife gets so excited to see your life and conduct, and therefore accept the Lord Jesus as their Lord and Savior seeing you (1 Peter 3:1). Let your lifestyle speak to your unbelieving spouse.
7) Live not by the Law of Moses which has become obsolete and is ready to be thrown off in a matter of time (Heb 8:13), but rather learn to look to the teaching of the Lord Jesus who has given us a "better covenant" which is established on "better promises" (Heb 8:6). The man who lives by the teaching of Jesus will be like a man who builds his house on the foundation of a rock which cannot be shaken by any storms of life (Matt 7:24-25). To live under law will keep you under the curse of the law, but living under the grace of our Lord Jesus will keep your married life blissful, blessed and make you a blessing to many families around the world (Heb 8:6; Gal 3:10, 13-14; Gen 12:3).
May God help us all to build a beautiful family on earth and experience heaven on earth through it.
Much Blessings....
Answer : Marriage is a sacred thread that binds a human in the will of God and keeps him or her blessed in life when one keeps the covenant of marriage that has bound them.
Actually marriage is a holy institution that has been put in place when God first created the first man and woman to live in this earth.
Adam the man was created first from the "dust of the ground" and was put inside the garden of Eden (Gen 2:7-8). He was put there to tend and keep the garden in a excellent condition with the help of God (Gen 2:15). God commanded the man to obey Him and walk according to His will for his life (Gen 2:16-17). It was not Adam who went to God and asked for a life partner, but it is God who looked deep in to Adam's heart and found that it is not good for man to be alone and decided to make a helper comparable to him (Gen 2:18). In other words, every man who is born in this planet earth has been destined for greatness and completeness by God within this relationship of intimacy in marriage between a legally bound man and a woman for life.
God created all the animals, birds and every beasts of the fields and then took Adam to name them all and show him that all his creation are in pairs except he himself who is naming all of it (Gen 2:20). With this experience God must have made Adam to understand that he too needs a pair to be made complete. Once Adam understood this, he must have clearly expressed his desire for a companion to God. God who knows the thoughts of every man (Psa. 17:3; 44:21; 139:1-4; Acts 15:8), decided to do a small surgery to take one of his ribs and out of it form a woman who can reproduce and fill the earth.
Have you ever thought why God decided to do this surgery to take man's rib, and out of it make a woman? God could have taken another mass of dust again from the ground and could have easily blown in to it the breath of life to form a woman (Gen 2:7). He chose to take man's rib to form a woman because man will always remember to look for completeness within the boundary of the institution of marriage for completeness in life. Woman who is formed out of man's rib would be close enough to her husband's bosom to comfort, strengthen, be a companion and friend for life (Gen 2:21-22). Eve was a person who is comparable to Adam in intellect, body design and spiritual thirst for God's presence to keep her glued to her mate. God was the first clergy to conduct the legal act of marriage in the garden of Eden. God is the one who first instituted this act of marriage, hence it is a holy institution to all men.
The rib of man was made in to a woman by God and then she was brought to Adam so that she could become his companion for life. What can we learn from this? God knows our need for a life partner and therefore if we wait for Him, He will bring that right person to us in the exact time which he has predetermined for us. God does not choose a person to be our mate only when we ask Him, but rather before we were born God has chosen the right person (Psa 139:16), but only brings them when we wait for Him and pray for His will to be done (Isa 30:18; Matt 6:8, 10, 31-34). Or else we will miss this person whom God had prepared for us beforehand.
Adam got excited when he saw Eve for the first time and uttered the following words to God, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” (Gen 2:23). As Adam himself was operated in order for one of his rib to be taken out under a supernatural anesthesia by God which brought deep sleep to him, How could he say towards God that Eve was the "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man"? Because of the spiritual revelation he received from his spirit-man inside him. In other words, even though Adam in his body fell in to deep sleep, his spirit-man untainted by sin was so sharp to see all those things that God did to him while he was asleep bodily (1 Tim 2:14). Praise the Lord. When a husband seeks the Lord in a family setting regularly, he will be able to understand his wife in the spirit-man by revelation apart from his physical ability to know her. This is the reason for a family to be prosperous in unity of mind and understanding each other, there needs a revelation for a man in his spirit from God in order to intimately understand the wife God has given. True intimacy in a family goes beyond just a physical one in to the deep realm of the spirit.
Finally God pronounced the first marriage vows over Adam and Eve seeing that Adam was willing and excited to take Eve as his wife for life. This is what God said over the first family, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." (Gen 2:24). In other words, the two shall become one in the One who joined them. When God pronounced both Adam and Eve as joined together and were destined to continue to live as one flesh, they were spiritually joined together with a glue of the Spirit of God which joined them spiritually (Mal 2:15). To become one flesh does not mean after marriage the wife or husband cease to exist separately as individuals, but their purpose in life have becomes one, that is to glorify God through this godly fellowship, intimacy and being faithful to the covenant of marriage. This is why God hates any kind of divorce whether it is for good or bad reason (Mal 2:16). God says to all men to hear what they hear in their spirit-man for a restoration and renewal to take place in their marriage. Physical and soulish emotional intimacy does not have the potential to keep the family intact through the troubled times which only spiritual intimacy can do.
Divorce is strictly prohibited by God except for infidelity and He hates all divorces that takes place (Matt 19:9; Mal 2:16). Most families get destroyed when either the husband cannot love his wife unconditionally or the wife refuses to submit to her husband unconditionally. These are not things that cannot be done by any human naturally except through that spiritual help that comes from the Spirit of God who has joined the husband and wife to be one in flesh (Eph 5:25, 22). If the husband remains the spiritual head of the wife and covers her weakness by the power of the Lord, then the family will remain strong for life (Eph 5:23; 1 Peter 3:7).
When Jesus spoke about the will of God for a man and a woman, he first pointed to the example of Adam and Eve in creation as the will of God for all humans (Matt 19:4). In other words, one wife for life is the will of God for all humans. At the time when Jesus was born, divorce was a normal thing in the religious setting of the Jews. So the religious heads of those days asked Jesus, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?” (Matt 19:3). Jesus pointed to Adam and Eve as the first instance of God's will revealed for all humans alike.
In other words, Jesus was emphasizing that a person once in to marriage cannot consider divorce for any reason as a way out. Jesus pointed to God's Holy Institution of marriage in the beginning as the answer to the question the religious Pharisees asked, it says, " 5 ..., ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Matt 19:5-6). Here Jesus says, once we are in to a Holy marriage covenant, it is for life and it is the only perfect will of God, but to get separated is the work of man which is not in the original perfect will of God. God only joined the first couple in marriage and did not at any other time in history supply any certificate of divorce directly to Adam and Eve later or to any other couple which symbolically shows that divorce is not at all an option in marriage according to God.
Immediately the Jewish experts in law pointed to the law of Moses and asked Jesus what about Moses who said it is OK to divorce with a legal certificate under certain circumstances (Matt 19:7)? Jesus gave a clear answer to it by saying, Moses permitted divorce because of the hardness of men's heart during that time. Moses never insisted on monogamy because the law keeping Israelites hearts were hardened by legalism (Deut 21:15). Men like David, Solomon and many others ruined their life and family life by depending on Moses law which permitted polygamy. Even though polygamy was permitted to a normal Israelite because of the hardness of their heart, yet for kings separate instructions from God discouraged taking mutiples wives for themselves (Deut 17:15-17). Again because of a lustful hardened heart many kings of Israel never took pains to keep these laws and lived like any other normal man and they all reaped for what they have sown in their lives as a result of it (Gal 6:7). We are kings and priests of God according to the New Testament standard, so we ought to live in a higher standard under the grace of Jesus which God has set for us and not according to the law of Moses which is of a very low powerless dispensation (1 Peter 2:5, 9; Rev 5:10). People who walked by the law were hardened in their hearts and usually became legalistic without the grace of God guiding them. It will be hard for them to walk in humility to God and His original will as they were all ready to walk by following the Law of Moses and hence God allowed Moses to permit them to divorce in certain cases (Deut 24:1-4; 5:26-30; Gal 3:19; Mic 6:8). The man who follows the law shall live by the power of the law which only convicts them of sin when they do, but it does not give them the power to overcome it and live happily in a good standing and relationship with God (Rom 10:5; 7:13).
We in the New Testament as Christians cannot point to the Old Covenant and say that it is Ok to divorce, now we cannot give it as a valid reason because we are not under the law of Moses but under the grace of of our Lord Jesus which gives us the power to have one wife for life as with Adam and Even in the perfect will of God (Rom 6:14). Now in the New Testament, we have been graced with the Holy Spirit to not just have the Holy Spirit with us and upon us, but to have him in us which brings the help, guidance and empowerment of the Holy Spirit 24/7/365 available and makes Him to be closer to us than the air we breathe (John 14:17; 16:13-14; Acts 1:8; 17:28).
The good principles that is taught in the New Testament regarding marriage and divorce are,
1) Do seek for the basic requirement of getting married with a believer which is the minimum good level of the will of God (2 Cor 6:14-16; Rom 12:2).
2) When a person already have a husband or wife who is still a unbeliever after they have come in to the faith, then if the unbelieving wife or husband wants to get divorced from their spouse for their faith, let them depart peacefully (1 Cor 7:13). If the unbelieving husband or wife is willing to live with the believer, then one should not divorce them against their will (1 Cor 7:13). The whole family will become sanctified by either the husband or wife who believes in the Lord, so that the children who grow under their godly guidance will become holy according to God's view point (1 Cor 7:14). But just because a unbelieving husband or wife become sanctified in the sight of God does not guarantee their salvation until they willingly accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior personally (1 Cor 7:16).
3) God commands that a wife is not to depart from her husband, if she departs either she should get reconciled or remain unmarried and a husband should not divorce her wife under any circumstances (1 Cor 7:10-11).
4) Either a husband or a wife has rights to divorce their spouse only if they have been unfaithful in physical infidelity to the marriage partner and the covenant of marriage after their marriage (Matt 19:9). The one who divorces for any other reason and marries another commits adultery before the eyes of God and also makes another person who will marry their ex-husband or wife to commit adultery when they go on to marry him or her.
5) One wife for life is the New Testament prescription for all believers (Matt 19:4-6).
6) Live in such a way that the unbelieving husband or wife gets so excited to see your life and conduct, and therefore accept the Lord Jesus as their Lord and Savior seeing you (1 Peter 3:1). Let your lifestyle speak to your unbelieving spouse.
7) Live not by the Law of Moses which has become obsolete and is ready to be thrown off in a matter of time (Heb 8:13), but rather learn to look to the teaching of the Lord Jesus who has given us a "better covenant" which is established on "better promises" (Heb 8:6). The man who lives by the teaching of Jesus will be like a man who builds his house on the foundation of a rock which cannot be shaken by any storms of life (Matt 7:24-25). To live under law will keep you under the curse of the law, but living under the grace of our Lord Jesus will keep your married life blissful, blessed and make you a blessing to many families around the world (Heb 8:6; Gal 3:10, 13-14; Gen 12:3).
May God help us all to build a beautiful family on earth and experience heaven on earth through it.
“A happy family is but an earlier heaven.” — George Bernard Shaw
Much Blessings....
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1 comment:
Great answer. I appreciate the time you took to truly explain from the point of God and the Bible.
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