The House on the Rock

Articles - Denis Podorogniy

Is it Permissible for Christians to Divorce

Some inexperienced ministers or "kind-hearted" Christian friends may advise married couples to divorce if one of them just suspects his/her partner of adultery. Advice like that for a person can be "permission from God" to divorce. But before being so categorical, it is necessary to make some things clear:

1. You must never make a conclusion based on an isolated Scripture or without understanding the context of the verse.

When we search the Scripture we shouldnt make a conclusion without the whole picture. Matthew 5:27-28 says: "You have heard that it was said,  Do not commit adultery. 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." 

Lets take a moment to note the difference between the words "adultery" and "fornication". These two concepts differ considerably from each other. "Adultery" is the act of marital unfaithfulness. "Fornication" is not only the infidelity act, but also immorality, intemperance, or dissoluteness as some translations say. Comparing many translations we can see that "fornication" is not only an infidelity act but a sexual depravity. Sexual depravity has to do with life in disorderly sexual connections, and perversions. That means a person has chosen depravity as their way of life.

Many people ask: "Isnt adultery breaking a covenant?" Yes, it certainly is breaking the marital covenant, but we must understand the spirit of the Scripture. When Gods people sinned one could say that they broke covenant with God, and breaking covenant is betrayal. For God, this could have been grounds for dissolution of His commitment to the Covenant. But the Bible tells us that God continued to carry out his magnificent plan of salvation for fallen mankind. He didnt turn his back on man but He sent His Son to this sinful earth because of His great love for them.
John 3:16 says "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." And today we (the Church) have salvation. Paul says: "if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself. "

The Israeli people turned away from God many times , but when they repented sincerely God forgave them and showed them His mercy. He always had people through whom He continued to act.

Gods heart is always open to save people no matter how deep the apostasy they were in. In history, every time God was betrayed, He denied neither mankind in general nor Israel or the Church.
 

2. The New Testaments standards are much higher than those which were in the Old Testament.

There are many commands in the Law of the Old Testament which serve as a deterrent for sin. It was mans nature to hate and thats why the law commands "You shall not murder" (Exodus 20:13). It was not difficult for man to look at their neighbors wives and husbands with lust, and that is the reason there was a command, "You shall not commit adultery" (Exodus 20:14).

But when Jesus came He raised the standards of the law saying, "anyone who is angry with a brother (or sister) will be subject to judgment and anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 5:22, 27, 29). The standards have risen because with Jesus Christs coming we didnt just get the New Covenant command against sin, but we got the strength to avoid sin.

In the time of the Old Testament it was said that Moses, "permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her [his wife] away because of your hardness of heart" (Mark 10:4, 5).

In the New Testament God says to us, "I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 11:19). We cant speak about hard-heartedness now, because thanks to Christs sacrifice we have been given brand-new hearts.

Can we say that adultery is part and parcel the fall of man? Remember what Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 says, "Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work. If they fall down, one can help the other up. But pity those who fall and have no friend to help them up!"

Very often a man doesnt understand or realize all the responsibility and consequences of his actions. A man can experience pleasure in his flesh at the moment of adultery, but the spirit of this man is immediately grieved. His destiny isnt enhanced, but destroyed. And when a person breaks marital faithfulness there are usually two victims not one. Both they whom remain faithful and the one who fell are victims. It is somehow easier for that one who remained faithful than the betrayer, because the latter is on the way to hell. The couple will have to undoubtedly go through the pain of offence, but the act of adultery is still not a good reason for to divorce at once.

Being in such a situation, many people have remained faithful to God and to their unfaithful partners; having fought for their marriage, and won.
 

3. One can be driven to adultery.

Very often there can be reasons within the family why one of the partners decides to commit adultery. For example, one of them avoids physical intimacy for a long time because of conflicts or some other reasons. It may become the reason for unfaithfulness. Of course, the sinner is certainly to blame and not worthy of excusing - they directly broke the Covenant. But, the partner put their hand to it indirectly, they dont have any right to take a position on a pedestal as an insulted righteous one. There must be an unbiased appraisal of the situation. You should speak and listen to each other. You need mutual repentance. Both of them need to make efforts to get out of this situation.

It is difficult to suffer from the sting of adultery. The one who was unfaithful will have a great deal of negative sequences follow, such as; mistrust, spoiled reputation, preconceived attitudes from others, suspiciousness, etc. It requires much time and many efforts to get over that. As it is written, "it is impossible to bring fire against the breast without burning your clothes." But all the same, you should do your best to save your family.

4. Divorce with an unbeliever.

In the Scripture there is a verse which believers quote to justify their wish to divorce (First Corinthians 7:15-16). "But if the unbeliever leaves, let it be so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. How do you know wife whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?"

The terms for divorce are described very clearly here; the unbeliever in marriage doesnt want to live with the believer. Paul indicates a plausibility here about this situation. It is that if the family was formed when both husband and wife were unbelievers but then one of them came to God and the other doesnt want to live with his/her partner just because of their belief. But more often the reason for divorce is not persecution for belief itself, but persecution for foolishness. That partner who became a Christian begins to visit a lot of morning and evening meetings, various rehearsals, visiting, conversations, talks etc. One of them leads a busy Christian life and the other suffers loneliness. Then there appear some other reasons for discord: disagreement about donations from family budget; unfinished home and family duties; quoting Biblical verses in place and out of place; talking on the telephone for hours about ministry affairs etc. All this will slowly take normal family relations into a deep crisis. As a result, the unbeliever hardens against God, against all believers, against the Church instead of being sanctified by the believer. He can consider the Church to be guilty of his own family breakdown and not even suspect that the Church doesnt teach or encourage these kinds of conduct in the family.

Such problems mean that the believer lacks maturity and wisdom. And when the driven to despair unbeliever makes a decision about divorce, then it will be very dishonest of the believer to come to the Church and say that they have to agree on divorce because of persecution for Christ and it is according to the Scripture. But Pauls words about divorce have the context of persecution for belief, but not foolishness. If the believer were a normal husband/wife, the question about divorce wouldnt arise at all. This is the fundamental reason why there are so many censures towards different churches and why the word "sectarianism" is so often used against us.

Some believers can act slier still. They can have the unbelieving partner and family problems, but instead of resolve them, they connect with someone in the Church and entertain allusions that they would get along with this person very well. At this they understand that according to the Scripture they have no right to initiate divorce. But to reach this aim, they begin slowly to vex their partner...bringing them to the point when they themselves will make a decision about divorce as something final.

What do you think what Gods appraisal of it will be? Frankly speaking, which of these is the real provoker of divorce? - The believer is! This is not equal to persecution for Christ. We must completely do all our family duties before our partner (independently of the fact whether he/she is a believer or not), before children, and before parents.
What Paul is talking about is when the believer does everything he/she must do, but the unbeliever doesnt want to have the believing partner in spite of everything. When the cause of their discord is relationship with God it perpetuates an attitude of sin. In such a case Paul says that "A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace". But until there is no hope the believer must do everything in his power to keep the family safe.
 

5. Regarding the practice of temporary separate living.

In special circumstances, there can sometimes be a reasonable justification for temporary separate living arrangements of a married couple. But that given reason is not grounds for forming another marriage. For instance, if one of the members of the family exposes the lives of the other people in the family to danger by their behavior like a drunkard husband who becomes aggressive and constantly beats his wife and children. What shall we do in this case? 

In situations where there is a real threat to health or life of members of the family you shouldnt give a divorce but you also must not go on "humbly" enduring these abusive conditions. Consider the practice of temporary separate living. In this case the person should declare their wish to preserve the family, but because of impossibility to live together and for safety, they have to decide to live separately for a while. Its quite possible that the guilty partner will collect themselves and "come to their senses" when feeling the threat of losing their family. But such a parting should not become a separation for a very long time. Long separation has never affected positively the problems of families. Partners get used to living separately and then they may not be willing to live together again. In addition to this, the latest memories they have from their living together were only negative. You should communicate about your desire to restore relations, qualifying your terms: "If you stop drinking, beating, stealing everything, and so on." So if there is a real necessity in separation, then it must be:
1)      for  a short time;
2)      accepted without anger;
3)      while continuing to make attempts of restoring relations.

In this situation its quite wrong to choose an easy way out and decide to divorce. You must not agree to separate living concealing a hidden wish to follow shortly with divorce. The main motive for these actions must be to defend ones life or health and also the life and health of other family members. Other reasons for such a decision may be drug addiction or mental disease in period of exacerbation.

There are many bitter examples when real tragedies have happened in families. People were killed or got bad injuries because the believers saw danger but didnt take steps in due time to get out of trouble. The reason for such passivity was wrong understanding of Biblical humility causing people to submit themselves and endure where they should take action.

Biblical teaching about family, as well as teaching about any other sphere of life, can sometimes be filled with extremes. In life we can hear and see people rush from one extreme to another while they endure patiently and silently "with faith and humility" those things which are unreasonable to bear (beating, humiliations, violence, child abuse, and so on), or not having enough time to make reasonable decisions, they act rashly giving their partner a divorce, leaving home or turning him/her out of the house in anger.

Conclusion:

Very often during consultation, people only tell their side of the story because they want to represent themselves in a favorable light. They rationalize their actions against the unfaithful partner. They are concerned about the opinion regarding them and their situation the consultant will have. But if a person wants to be honest with himself then it is very important for him to set aside his own feelings and consider the will of God. We must not adjust Gods Word to our situations, but ourselves to Gods Word.

It is important never to forget that Jesus name is translated Savior. He saves not only our souls, but our health, families, our society, nations,...and He can and wants to recreate and restore the most hopeless marriages as well.

So there are only two biblical reasons for divorce with the chance of getting married afterwards:
1. One of the partners leads a depraved life and has chosen this immoral way consciously to the degree that he doesnt want to change anything in spite of many persuasions.
2. An unbelieving partner chooses not to live with the believer because of their relations with Christ despite the fulfillment all their family duties.