Christians do not believe in divorce. However, there are some other ‘Christians’ who believe that that does not mean that under no circumstance should marriage be dissolved. The world of Christianity is highly divided on the issue even if they read the same Bible. Whoever is married and their marriage was conducted in Church has at least recited the traditional Vow known to most of us. While the Marriage Vow has words that are not derived from the Bible, these words are coined to prove the commitment of each partner to the other. If am to take a vow with my wife, this is how it should go:
I, Isaiah White Tumwine, take thee, Esther Kakuze., to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth.
These words should be appreciated in their deeper meaning of what it means to live with a fellow sinner in the reverence of God. The key phrase in this traditional vow is: according to God’s holy ordinance. God wants every choice in marriage to be according to his will. Marriage, therefore, is the will of God and the Bible in its introductory chapters asserts the same.
The Marriage Institution
Marriage is one of the first divine institutions we see in the Bible. Early on, when man was created, it was declared by God Himself that it was ‘not good for man to be alone’ (Genesis 2:18). Man being alone was the first imperfection that appeared in the all-perfect creation of God. When God detected what was not good, he also made a resolution to make for the lonely man a suitable partner and so he made a woman for Him.
God did not make another man to give company to the lonely man, that wouldn’t be marriage but sociology but rather he made a woman for a man – that is the true nature of marriage. Marriage is a union between one man and one woman not between a man and a man or a woman and a woman or even between a man and a beast (Genesis 2:19-20).
Besides what various cultures do, marriage is about LEAVING and CLEAVING, two adult individuals must leave not only their parents but everyone else and cleave to their spouses (Genesis 2:24). You don’t carry your spouse to your sociology neither do you carry your sociology to your marriage but you leave it altogether and cleave to your spouse. Marriage is not a corporate business where you serve different clients but rather marriage is a mono-business where you serve only one master.
The Importance of Marriage
Divine marriage is the seed of a Family and the family is the foundation of a Community and the community is the plant upon which we harvest a Nation. In other words without proper stable and consistent marriages, you cannot have a family which is the nucleus of a community and without functional communities, you can’t have an organized nation. Dysfunctional marriages breed improper families and then broken communities and that is how we end up with shuttered nations.
Marriage is the beginning—the beginning of the family—and is a life-long commitment. It also provides an opportunity to grow in selflessness as you serve your wife and children. Marriage is more than a physical union; it is also a spiritual and emotional union. This union mirrors the one between God and His Church (Ephesians 5:25). The family is ordained by God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan. Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honour marital vows with complete fidelity.
Marriage is sacred and was ordained by God from before the foundation of the world. Jesus Christ affirmed the divine origins of marriage: “Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?” (Mathew 19:4-5)
From the beginning, the sacred nature of marriage was closely linked to the power of procreation. After creating Adam and Eve, God commanded them to “be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth,” (Genesis 1:28-30) and they brought forth children, forming the first family. Only a man and a woman together have the natural biological capacity to conceive children. This power of procreation—to create life and bring God’s spirit children into the world—is divinely given. Misuse of this power like in the manner of divorce, undermines the divine institution of Marriage.
No Divorce
Divorce has permeated our world so that the marriage rate and the divorce rate are almost equal. This is not restricted merely to the non-Christian community. Christians are also flocking to psychologists’ offices, courts of law, marriage counsellors and others church councils seeking to resolve seemingly irreconcilable conflicts in marriage. Not only are personal lives in a quandary, but even the lives of children, relatives and the communities altogether are shuttered by the decision to divorce a God-Ordained couple.
Pastors and Bible scholars have varied on the issue of divorce and remarriage and one wonders what an ordinary Christian is to do with all this confusion. If the experts can’t agree, and even some pastors have already fallen victim to the problem of divorce, what is the laity left to do or even think in such a time? As mentioned earlier, people are divided on the question of whether a Christian can divorce their spouse or not. The Bible has been used to defend the positions of its readers and not its position. We attempt an objective position through the texts that are commonly applied in such discussions.
Grounds for Divorce in the Old Testament
In the Old Testament, there are three grounds for divorce.
The first is in Ezra 10:1-12 divorcing wives because they were gentile equivalent to non-believers. They did this in reference to the law in Deuteronomy 7:1-6.
The other two grounds for divorce are in Deuteronomy 24:1-4 where a man is allowed to divorce his wife for particular UNCLEANNESS (24:1) while the other ground a man can divorce his wife for ANY reason (24:3).
All these grounds for divorce were due to the hardness of the hearts of Old Testament people but not the will of God (Mathew 19:7-8)
God’s Attitude towards Divorce in the Old Testament
How God thinks about divorce regardless of those Jewish cultural laws that serve as a ground for divorce in the Old Testament is plain and simple. God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16). Divorce being a legal separation of the marriage union, the Legal Certificate of Divorce talked about in Deuteronomy 24:1-4 and metaphorically through the prophets like Isaiah 50:1 and Jeremiah 3:8 is contradictory to the institution of Marriage built upon Love. No legal procedure should separate what God and love have put together (Mathew 19:6) and it is a commandment by Christ-God not to divorce (1Corinthians 7:10). For the Gentile or unbeliever ground for divorce in Ezra 10:1-12 and Deuteronomy 7:1-6, Jesus inspired Apostle Paul not to divorce your non-believer spouse (1Corinthians 7:13-15) for there is no Jew nor Greek (Galatians 3:28-29)
Grounds for No Divorce in the New Testament
The most popular passage used to defend either no divorce or the exception clause for divorce is Mathew 19:1-9. Jesus was confronted by the Pharisees who wanted to trap him into subscribing to one of the two existing schools of thought on the matter of divorce. There was the Hillel Liberal school that argued you can divorce your wife for ANY reason (Deuteronomy 24:3) and the Shammai Conservative school that insisted divorce was allowed due to a particular UNCLEANNESS (Deuteronomy 24:1).
Jesus took no position but His. And Jesus’ position was no divorce and whoever divorces and remarries commits adultery (Mathew 19:9). Adultery, therefore, is no ground concerning the acceptability and permissibility of divorce: first, the Greek word used as an exception for divorce in Mathew 5:32 and 19:9 is not ‘Adultery’ (Moichea) but Pornea which is translated as ‘fornication’. The problem is that by definition, adultery is sexual immorality by at least one married person while fornication is sexual immorality by the unmarried.
This exception clause is only in Mathew but not in Mark 10:11-12 and Luke 16:18 where the same event is reported. The only way out of marriage is Death (Romans 7:3).
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24) 