Lessons #213 and 214
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+ 1. It is best to use this note after you have listened to the lessons because there are +
+ comments given in the actual delivery not in the note. +
+ 2. The Bible abbreviations are as follows: CEV =Contemporary English version, +
+ CEB = Common English Bible, ESV= English Standard Version, +
+ GW = God’s Word Translation, ISV = International Standard Version, +
+ NAB=New English Bible, NASB= New American Standard Bible, +
+ NEB= New English Bible, NET = New English Translation, +
+ NLT = New Living Translations NJB = New Jerusalem Bible, +
+ NJV = New Jewish Bible, TEV = Today’s English Version. +
+AMP = Amplified Bible, UBS = United Bible Society +
+ 3. Notes have not been edited for grammatical errors. +
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Summary of teaching on Divorce and Remarriage (1 Cor 7:10-16)
... 12 To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. 13 And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. 14 For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. 15 But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. 16 How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?
As we considered the instructions about divorce in 1 Corinthians 7:10-16, we indicated that after considering the section, we will consider the issue of whether it is permissible to divorce and if so if remarriage is ever permissible. The reason for this consideration is that Apostle Paul in quoting the Lord Jesus appeared to indicate that divorce is never permitted let alone remarriage. The clause that implies remarriage is not permissible is in the last clause 1 Corinthians 7:11 And a husband must not divorce his wife. The clause that implies that remarriage is not an option is the first clause of 1 Corinthians 7:11 But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. But then we have the sentence of 1 Corinthians 7:15 A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances. We indicated in course of our study that the phrase not bound implies that the believer is free to remarry. The entire issue of remarriage after a divorce has been one that is debated among interpreters of the Scripture. It is not my intention to go into any detail about this subject at this time since we have done so in the past when we studied the Gospel of Luke. Therefore, if you are interested in the details of this subject, I suggest you go back and review that study beginning with lesson #413 on our church’s website. However, what I intend to do is to focus on specific facts concerning the question of remarriage after divorce.
A first fact concerns the treatment of marriage and remarriage in Judaism as that was the background for Jesus’ teaching about divorce. Marriage in the ancient Near East was viewed as a contract that involved payments, agreed stipulations, and penalties for breach of the contract. This is certainly the case among the Israelites. It is therefore not a surprise that the Bible speaks of marriage in terms of a covenant in Malachi 2:14:
You ask, "Why?" It is because the LORD is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.
The phrase the wife of your marriage covenant is subject to two interpretations. It could mean the wife in question is a member of God’s covenant people or the wife who entered into an agreement or covenant with the husband. It is the second meaning that is intended in this passage since according to a commentator, the term designating the wife as “partner,” with which the phrase is in apposition, is from a Hebrew root that “frequently designates persons who have come into association by an agreement or contract.” Furthermore, there are other passages in the OT Scriptures that clearly indicate that marriage was regarded as a covenant at that time, as we read, for example, in Proverbs 2:17:
who has left the partner of her youth and ignored the covenant she made before God.
The word “covenant” used here is e taken by some to be the pledge or a pact with God not to commit adultery. Thus, some take it that what the woman in question broke or forgot is her wedding vow made before God and so by committing adultery became unfaithful to God. Anyway, the point is that marriage was considered a covenant or a contract or agreement. This may be because marriage in the ancient world, although still true today, in some cultures involved payments. There were usually two kinds of payments involved in marriage. The first payment known as “bride-price” (known among the Jews as mohar) was paid by the groom to the bride’s father and it sealed the betrothal. The amount was usually equivalent to ten months wages of a laborer. The second payment known as “dowry” (Jewish equivalent is nedunyah), which is paid to the bride by her father. This dowry could be understood as the daughter’s share of her father’s estate. By the way, except for a few cultures this practice of dowry is practically non-existent, so it is an example where a common practice among Noah’s children has been lost. In any event, the dowry not only helped the couples, but it was a form of personal security to the daughter on which she could live on in case of death of her husband or divorce. Of course, if the husband divorced the wife without cause, he would normally return the dowry to her but if she divorced her husband without cause, she forfeited all or portion of the dowry. This practice to some extent, discouraged divorce. The idea of divorce without cause implies that there were certain stipulations written down in the marriage contract and if the stipulations are violated then the divorce that follows is that due to an acceptable cause in which case the penalty is the loss of dowry.
Divorce was practiced among the ancient people. Abraham divorced his slave wife, Hagar, and it seems that God did not disapprove of his action, according to Genesis 21:10-12:
10 and she said to Abraham, "Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac." 11 The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. 12 But God said to him, "Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.
The point is that divorce was practiced among the ancient people including the Israelites. However, only among the Israelites that women had greater rights in marriage, and greater opportunity to remarry after divorce. One of the distinctive practices specified in the Law that was not known anywhere in the ancient Near East is the issuance of divorce certificate to a divorced woman as specified in Deuteronomy 24:1:
If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house,
The divorce certificate was indeed a right for a woman to remarry and to protect her from the charge of adultery both from her ex-husband and the new husband she might remarry. You see if the woman did not have a divorce certificate and she remarried, the new husband could charge her of adultery or fornication because he would discover that she was not a virgin. According to the requirement of the law, a woman that was discovered not to be a virgin at the time of marriage was subject to death penalty, as indicated in Deuteronomy 22:13-21:
13 If a man takes a wife and, after lying with her, dislikes her 14 and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, "I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity," 15 then the girl's father and mother shall bring proof that she was a virgin to the town elders at the gate. 16 The girl's father will say to the elders, "I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her. 17 Now he has slandered her and said, 'I did not find your daughter to be a virgin.' But here is the proof of my daughter's virginity." Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town, 18 and the elders shall take the man and punish him. 19 They shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the girl's father, because this man has given an Israelite virgin a bad name. She shall continue to be his wife; he must not divorce her as long as he lives. 20 If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the girl's virginity can be found, 21 she shall be brought to the door of her father's house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father's house. You must purge the evil from among you.
A woman with a divorce certificate would use it to show the reason she was not a virgin is that she had been married before and divorced. Without this document, the woman had no way of defending any charge of sexual immorality against her. Therefore, the divorce certificate was not only a right to remarry but served as protection against charge of adultery. Now, we do not have the wording on a divorce certificate anywhere in the Bible but there are good reasons to believe that it was similar to the wording found in standard rabbinic divorce certificate that states: “You are allowed to marry any man you wish.” In any event, any true divorce carries with it right to remarriage. The right to remarry is a basic right that was communicated in the Jewish divorce certificate. This right was also true in Greco-Roman world. For, it was against the Roman law for a divorced woman to remain single for more than eighteen months after her divorce. We are told that Augustine’s law made it a duty of all Roman men between the age of twenty-five and sixty and Roman women between ages twenty to fifty to be married. Widows could remain unmarried for two years, and divorcees for eighteen months, but then they were expected to remarry.
A second fact concerns valid grounds for divorce in the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry. In the NT times, there were several valid grounds for divorce based on the rabbinic interpretation of various passages of the Hebrew Scripture. Two general categories of grounds of valid divorce were developed from what was considered a husband’s obligation to the wife in marriage relationship in Exodus 21:10-11:
10 If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights. 11 If he does not provide her with these three things, she is to go free, without any payment of money.
This passage provides three marital rights to a slave wife: right to food, clothing and marital love. The phrase marital rights in verse 10 is translated from a rare Hebrew word (ōnāh) that appears only here in the Hebrew Scripture. Basic Hebrew lexicons indicate the word means “right of cohabitation, that is, marital right of sexual intercourse.” But because of its rarity, some have contended that the word here should mean “oil as a necessity of life.” This notwithstanding, the more general accepted meaning is “sexual intercourse.” In any event, these rights were specified as part of the marriage contract. If any of these rights was denied, the slave wife was to be given her freedom. This freedom, of course, is the right to remarry. Because these three rights of food, clothing, and sexual intercourse were considered part of the marriage contract then they eventually were valid grounds for divorce. In other words, if any of these is not met by either spouse then that would be a valid ground for divorce.
It is true that there are three rights defined in this passage, but the rabbis classified them into two categories: material neglect and emotional neglect. Material neglect consisted either of food or clothing or both. Emotional neglect consisted of denial of sexual relationship. Thus, the first two valid grounds for divorce during the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus were material neglect and emotional neglect. From available records, there is no evidence of dispute among the rabbis that these were valid grounds of divorce. In effect, they were accepted as valid grounds of divorce and certainly our Lord knew of them. The differences among Jewish rabbis were in the matter of the details of these categories in defining what constitutes material or emotional neglect. For example, the School of Shammai permitted a man to take a vow not to have sex with the wife for two weeks and still not be guilty of emotional neglect and the School of Hillel permitted a week. The rabbis went further to specify what could be considered the minimum permissible frequency of sexual relationship between husbands and wives in order for them not to violate the requirement of Exodus 21:10. They say that those who are unemployed should have sex every day; workers, twice a week; ass drivers, once a week; camel drivers, once in thirty days; sailors, once in six months. Of course, when a wife refuses to comply her punishment was a monetary fine that would be deducted from her dowry or inheritance until it is exhausted. For the man, the fine was to keep increasing the amount of the dowry to the wife that would be given to her in case of divorce. In any event, there was no disagreement among the rabbis that material neglect and emotional neglect were two valid grounds for divorce.
A third ground for divorce among the Jews of the NT times was infertility. It was argued that the primary purpose of marriage was to procreate. In fact, one of the 613 laws identified in the Torah by rabbinic Judaism has to do with the command “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth” (Gen 1:28 NIV). Therefore, any couple who did not have children within ten years of marriage was expected to divorce and remarry someone with whom they might be fertile. This ground for divorce was not universally accepted among the rabbis. Related to this ground was divorce given to a woman whose husband took part in a smelly occupation such as a tanning or a coppersmith. These related grounds were abused since a woman could ask for divorce by claiming that the husband was impotent or that she found his smell offensive. Consequently, there were some restrictions. Nevertheless, in the NT times infertility was a permissible ground of divorce but not a compulsory one.
A fourth ground for divorce was adultery. According to the law, adultery was a capital offense, but it seems that in the NT time the Jews no longer applied this punishment probably because of Roman domination. Instead, the punishment for it was divorce without the repayment of dowry or marriage inheritance (ketubah). This ground had problem in that it was impossible to prove because two reliable eyewitnesses were required to confirm that adultery took place. Because a woman would forfeit her dowry if she was divorced on this ground, there was the tendency for men to try and frame their wives. Furthermore, men would even attempt to divorce their wives on the ground that they were encouraging adultery. Encouragement of adultery could involve a woman going out of the house with her hair loose or her arms bare. A woman who encouraged adultery by revealing too much of her beauty could be divorced. Interesting, a woman could not divorce her husband on the ground of adultery because it was reasoned that the law permitted polygamy so that technically it was impossible for a man to be sexually unfaithful to his wife.
A fifth ground of divorce in the NT times was the “no–fault any matter” cause that was a new type of divorce introduced by the Hillelites. This was a major area of disagreement in the first century among the rabbinic groups, that is, between the School of Shammai and the School of Hillel. The Mishnah, we are told, recorded a highly abbreviated version of the debate in that it reports the position of the School of Shammai as: “A man should not divorce his wife unless he found in her a matter of indecency, as it is said: For he finds in her an indecent matter.” And the position of the School of Hillel as: “Even if she spoiled his dish, since it says For he finds in her an indecent matter.”[1] It was this debate that Jesus was asked to way in, in the question recorded in Matthew’s gospel that we will examine later. The debate was based on the authorization of divorce certificate in Deuteronomy 24:1-4:
1 If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, 2 and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, 3 and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, 4 then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled. That would be detestable in the eyes of the Lord. Do not bring sin upon the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.
There were two areas of contention among the School of the Shammai and School of Hillel with respect to this passage. The first concerned a Hebrew phrase with two words (ʿěrwāh dāḇār) rendered in verse 1 of the NIV as something indecent. A literal reading of the Hebrew phrase is either indecency of a matter or nakedness of a matter. The rabbis also had a problem with the word “matter” because it was apparently superfluous.
The Hillelites interpreted the Hebrew phrase in question as a reference to two different grounds of divorce: “indecency” and “a matter.” Therefore, to them, one could base a divorce on an act of “indecency” or on “a matter,” which they interpreted to mean “any matter.” Since “any matter” encompassed other grounds for divorce, this single ground could be used by anyone seeking a divorce.
The Shammaites took the same Hebrew phrase not to mean two different grounds of divorce but one ground of divorce since they read the phrase as “a matter of indecency,” which then they interpreted as adultery. Consequently, in contrast to the Hillelites, they taught that there was only one ground of divorce. Now, in reading the ruling of the Shammaites one could wrongly assume that they took adultery as the only ground for a valid divorce. But that is not the case since they also accepted the three obligations of Exodus 21:10-11 (food, clothing, and conjugal rights) as valid grounds for divorce.
A second area of disagreement among the two schools based on Deuteronomy 24:1-4 was the procedure for writing and presenting of divorce certificate. We are told that the Shammaites said that once a divorce certificate was written, it could be given to the wife at any time while the Hillelites said that it had to be written just before handing it to her, and there were many rules about how it should be given and about the fulfillment of conditions that might be attached to the divorce.
The difference in the view of the procedure for obtaining a divorce is due to the last clause of Deuteronomy 24:1: and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house. The Hillelites took the three verbal phrases writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her, and sends her from his house to constitute three distinctive acts, all of which were necessary for a divorce to be valid. Therefore, the stages involved in divorce were the writing of the certificate, putting it into her hand or her agent’s hand, and sending her away. To them the divorce was not valid until any other conditions specified in the certificate or the marriage inheritance had been fulfilled. However, to the Shammaties, the whole process of divorce was encompassed in the writing of the certificate, and that once this was done the woman was a divorcee. In any event, two documents and several actions were required for any divorce to become final and valid. The first document was the “divorce certificate” which the man or his representative wrote. A second was a receipt or “quittance” which the wife gave to her husband to affirm that she had received full payment of her inheritance (ketubah). A court was not normally needed but if the woman was to forfeit her inheritance due to her misconduct, then the court would become involved to make the ruling, otherwise the woman’s family could sue the man.
Based on human nature of gravitating to path of least resistance, it is not difficult to recognize whose teaching most of the people followed. The teaching of the Hillelites provided easier divorce requirements than that of the Shammaites. Those seeking divorce normally went to a court presided over by a Hillelite judge who would approve “any matter” divorce without requiring evidence in contrast to a court presided over by a Shammaite judge who would require the one seeking divorce to provide evidence of neglect, unfaithfulness or infertility. So, divorce became easier in the Hillelite court. This situation with “any matter” divorce is similar to what some scholars said has contributed to high rise in divorce in this country, which is the introduction of the “no-fault divorce law,” that was first signed into law in 1969 by the then governor of California, Ronald Regan. Of course, in the first century the vast majority of Jewish divorces were “any matter” divorces in a Hillelite court.
Once a valid divorce takes place, remarriage was normal and even expected. The woman was now free to marry anyone she wished as indicated in the wording of every divorce certificate “You are free to marry any man you wish.” However, it is not technically true that a divorcee could marry anyone she wished since certain restrictions were applied to her. She could not marry the man with whom she was suspected of committing adultery. She could not marry a former husband if she had married in the meantime according to the requirement of Deuteronomy 24:4, and definitely she could not marry a priest. But these are not the only restrictions. She was not allowed to marry a non-Jew, which was often stipulated in her divorce certificate. A copy of a first century divorce certificate contained the following words: “that you are free on your part to go and become the wife of any Jewish man that you wish . . .”[2]
Any remarriage that involves invalid divorce was technically regarded as adultery. This would be the case if there was a mistake or problem in her divorce certificate. Another situation that would lead to technical adultery was the case where a woman remarries based on news that the husband who had gone away from home had died. Now, if it turns out that the news was wrong as would be indicated by the eventual return of her husband then the woman has technically committed adultery with her “new husband.” The consequence of this invalid marriage is that the woman must leave both men and she is not entitled to her inheritance (ketubah). She would leave the new husband because she was in adulterous relationship, and she could not return to the first husband because her second marriage makes her ineligible to be his wife according to the instruction of Deuteronomy 24:4.
We have considered divorce procedure among the Jews in the first century, so we need to mention briefly the divorce procedure of the Greco-Roman world as that also affects the interpretation of divorce and remarriage in the NT. Since marriage was considered a matter of mutual consent in the Greco-Roman world, when that consent broke down the marriage ended. This means that either the husband or the wife could end the marriage at any point either by declaring that it was over or simply by walking away from the home. In fact, we understand that it was even not necessary to inform the other spouse but simply to walk away. We are given an example of Messalina, the wife of Emperor Claudius, who celebrated a wedding marriage with her lover Silius without sending any formal notice of divorce to the emperor. But someone who heard about the wedding came and informed the emperor that he was divorced.[3] The implication is that, unlike the Jews, divorce-by-separation was tolerated in the Greco-Roman world. Furthermore, in practice, unlike the Jews where only men had the right to initiate a divorce, men and women had equal right to initiate a divorce. There was no need to give any advance warning of divorce or even to name the grounds for divorce. The one who wanted to divorce the other would move out of the house if he or she did not own the house. But if it happens that the owner of the house wanted the divorce, he or she would simply tell the other to leave. Interestingly, neither the husband nor the wife had the power to prevent the divorce. Hence, you see, that divorce in the Greco-Roman world was a simpler process than with the Jewish world of the NT times. This historical background is essential in understanding the next fact we consider.
A third fact concerns the teaching of Jesus Christ on divorce as reported in the gospels. This fact is that there is no contradiction in the teaching of Jesus Christ regarding the subject of divorce. We say this because of different records we find in the gospels. On the one hand, the record in Matthew’s gospel indicates that there is ground for a valid divorce that permits remarriage, as recorded in Matthew 19:9:
I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
On the other hand, the record of Luke seems to allow no ground for a valid divorce and so no remarriage, as we read in Luke 16:18:
“Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
As we indicated previously, our purpose in this summary of the subject of marriage, divorce and remarriage is not to go into detail treatment but merely to give information in a concise manner. Therefore, we will simply point to reasons that although these two passages appear contradictory, but they are not. The preceding context of Luke 16:18 indicates that the Lord Jesus had respect for the OT Scripture as implied in Luke 16:17:
It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law.
Because of the respect the Lord Jesus had for the OT Scripture, He would not teach anything that would negate any portion of it, especially the grounds for divorce given in Exodus 21:10-11. If we bear this in mind, it would be easier to recognize that the Lord Jesus could not have given a full treatment of the subject of divorce either in Matthew’s or Luke’s record concerning the subject of divorce but was concerned with only one of the valid reasons for divorce. Furthermore, the apparent conflict is resolved if we recognize that the version of the teaching of the Lord Jesus regarding divorce recorded in either Luke or Mark is an abbreviation of the teaching recorded in Matthew. You see, abbreviation was a common procedure in the ancient world when it is assumed that the reader needed only to be reminded of some key points with the hope that he will fill in the details from his background or to supply a missing condition. Take for example, The Lord Jesus’ teaching about adultery in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:28:
But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
In reading this assertion one is expected to fill a condition that is an exception for this teaching to make complete sense. You see the clause anyone who looks at a woman lustfully means to look at a woman with a desire to have sex with her. Now, Jesus did not qualify the woman. He simply said, “a woman.” An implication of this clause is that if a man looks at his wife with the desire to have sex with her that he would have committed adultery in his heart. But there is no way that a husband could commit adultery with the wife. Therefore, Jesus expected His audience or those of us who are the recipient of this teaching at the present time to fill in the condition “except she is his wife.” Today, we use abbreviation when it is easy for others to fill in the details based on their common background with the speaker. For example, if in course of teaching I say that during the Second Coming we will receive a resurrection body. Every believer would understand the expression “Second Coming” as a reference to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, but an unbeliever would say that I make no sense because he would ask the question, “the second coming of what!” So, we understand that it is a normal practice to use abbreviation when the exception is understood or when the detail is easy to fill in by the hearers. It is therefore our assertion that the passage in Luke 16:18 is an abbreviated form of Jesus’ teaching on divorce and remarriage so that there are some missing information assumed in this statement that when supplied would indicate there is no conflict between the records of Matthew and Luke.
A fourth fact in the subject at hand we are considering concerns reasons to avoid divorce. The Lord Jesus’ teaching on the subject on divorce and remarriage is primarily concerned that believers should do their best to avoid divorce. Thus, there are at least three reasons the Lord Jesus provided to discourage divorce as recorded in Mark 10:4–9:
4 They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.” 5 “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. 6 “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ 7 ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, 8 and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
A first reason is that divorce was not God’s original plan. This reason the Lord linked to the way things were at creation when God created man and woman as husband and wife. He did not intend for marriage to be temporary. Adam and Eve did not divorce each other and in fact they could not have done so because that would be an impossible thing to do. There was only one man and one woman so to whom will they return to if they divorced each other. It is true that Adam was deceived by his wife but that was no reason for him to divorce her. My point here is that if those who enter marriage do so with the mentality that there is no one to return to if they divorced each other then they would work harder to make their marriages work out.
A second reason Jesus commands against divorce is the damage done in the family unit. You see the word therefore that begins verse 9 of Mark chapter 10 refers to how things were with the man and the woman at beginning but also to the concept of oneness. Jesus’ point is that because the husband and wife have become one, then to attempt to divide “one” result in what is no longer a whole but something fragmented. It is rare for divorce to take place without leaving the parties with some form of emotional scar or brokenness. Therefore, Jesus is saying that division of that which is whole results in that which is unhealthy. Because divorce brings so much problem it should be avoided at all costs.
A third reason to avoid divorce is that marriage is from God. Many probably have forgotten that it was God who instituted marriage by bringing Adam and Eve together as the first human couple. So, Jesus once more asserted this truth in the clause of Mark 10:9 what God has joined together. The expression “joined together” is translated from a Greek verb (syzeugnymi) that means “to make a pair,” “to join two persons in marriage relationship.” With the clause what God has joined together, the Lord Jesus reminds us that while human beings may perform the marriage ceremony that it is God who ultimately performs the actual joining together of two individuals – male and female – to form one.
We considered three reasons the Lord commands against divorce but there is also a fourth reason that the Holy Spirit provides for believers to strive to avoid divorce. It concerns the spiritual impact of divorce on children. There is no doubt that divorce has an emotional impact or physical impact on children but more important than these is the spiritual impact. The Holy Spirit through Apostle Paul provided this reason using the divorce of those believers in mixed marriages since we read in the last clause of 1 Corinthians 7:14 Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy that we have interpreted to be concerned with presence or lack of spiritual influence on children. In practice, what this means today is that when those involved in mixed marriages divorce, their children would become exposed to confusing standards. This is how this happens in the case of shared custody of children in divorce. If a child spends an alternative weekend with the parents that are of opposite spiritual life, the child gets a mixed message of the importance of spiritual things, not minding that the child may be exposed to different moral standards. So the child spends a weekend with a believing parent that takes the child to a local church but the next weekend the child spends it with an unbelieving parent who does not take the child to a local church, the child becomes confused as to the relevance of going to church. This same situation may exist in a slightly different manner where two believers divorced one another. The impact would not be much evident when the child is, say, less than twelve years of age since most local churches have about the same approach to teaching little children in their churches. This is not to say that there are not some local churches that expose little children to serious teaching of the Bible but that most do not but the impact of this may be minimal at a very young age. However, once the child enters the teen years then the difference in the kind of local church that a child is exposed makes a difference. Let’s say that each parent attends church and so would take the child to church when the child is with the particular parent. If one parent is in a local church where there is no serious teaching of the word takes place and the other belongs to a local church with serious teaching, the child would also get a mixed message of the importance of the word of God in the spiritual life of a believer. The point is that the spiritual life of a child is affected by divorce carried out by the parents. Based on these reasons provided in the Scripture, we can say that the Lord Jesus commands against divorce as the ideal situation to which all believers should aspire.
A fourth fact in the summary of marriage, divorce and remarriage concerns valid and invalid reasons for divorce. The reason to be clear about this fact is that it determines the right to remarry or not. If a divorce is valid then remarriage may take place but not so if the divorce is invalid. An invalid reason for divorce is the spiritual status of a spouse who wants to remain married to the believing spouse. This means that because a believer is married to an unbeliever is not a valid reason for divorcing such a person. In other words, it is not permissible for a believer to divorce an unbelieving spouse simply because of the spiritual state of the spouse. Having said this, we should also note that the spiritual state of an unbelieving spouse could be a valid reason for divorce if the unbelieving spouse is not willing to continue the marriage. What this means is that for a divorce due to the spiritual status of an unbelieving spouse to be valid, the unbeliever must be unwilling to remain married to the believing spouse and should be the one that initiates the divorce. We are saying that according to the passage of 1 Corinthians 7 that we have considered, the believer should not be the one that initiates the divorce based on the spiritual status of the unbelieving spouse. It does not mean that a believing spouse may not initiate a divorce only that it could not be because the spouse is an unbeliever but based on any other valid reason for divorce. Another valid reason for divorce although not directly stated in the NT or by the Lord Jesus but it is stated in the OT Scripture is failure in marriage obligations. These obligations are material and emotional neglects stated in Exodus 21:10-11. Of course, failure to fulfill sexual obligation is another part of the failure in marital obligations. Still another valid reason for divorce is adultery. This is clearly stated in the Scripture, but we need to make comments about this ground of divorce because of its nature. It is true that when a spouse gets involved in adultery the person has broken the bond created through sex in the marriage, but such a bond is reparable so to say. We mean that if there is genuine repentance of the sin, the believer who is offended by the adultery does not have to divorce the guilty party. Forgiveness should rule. The spouse hurt by such sin should be willing to forgive such a sin since we are encouraged as believers to be forgiving to others because we ourselves are recipients of God’s forgiveness in Christ as stated in Ephesians 4:32:
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
That aside, there is an advice that is worth giving based on the Scripture and human nature regarding the issue of adultery. It is that if a spouse commits adultery, but the other spouse does not know about it then the person should confess it to God and get away from it. There is no need to tell the other spouse about this sin unless the guilty person has decided to divorce the other spouse. This may seem to be deceptive in nature, but it is not. I realize that guilty conscience drives people to want to confess sin against others, but adultery is different. The reason is that once a person confesses to the other spouse about infidelity, that creates a problem in the mind of the one that was wronged by the adulterous act. The problem is that it would be difficult for the one offended not to think of it during sexual relationship with the guilty one. There is going to be something in the mind of the one that was harmed that would cause problem during sexual act in that the person would have in mind that someone other than the individual has had sex with the spouse. It is for this reason that I advise the guilty individual that if the other spouse does not know, to deal with the sin between the individual and God but not to confess it to the one who was harmed. The advice I have offered is not a matter of a personal opinion. No! I base this on the reason given in the Scripture that indicates that once a woman has been divorced and remarried another person, she could never return to the first husband as stated in a passage we cited previously, specifically Deuteronomy 24:2–4:
2 and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, 3 and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, 4 then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled. That would be detestable in the eyes of the LORD. Do not bring sin upon the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.
The sentence she has been defiled means that the husband would view the wife as having been involved in adultery. He would see her as someone who has had sexual relationship with another man other than himself. Being defiled in a context that involves sex refers to having sex with another person. This we may deduce from the instruction given in the law concerning how to deal with a jealous husband, as stated in Numbers 5:13–14:
13 by sleeping with another man, and this is hidden from her husband and her impurity is undetected (since there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act), 14 and if feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure—or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure—
It is because the other spouse would always have the thought that the spouse has slept with another person that I made the recommendation I did.
In any event, if a person divorces a spouse based on the valid reason for divorce, then that gives the person the right to remarry. However, if the divorce does not fall into the valid reasons, then there are only two options left for the believer that divorces the spouse. A first option is that a believer whose divorce is wrong should remain single the rest of his/her life unless he/she subscribes to the second option we are about to state. The second option is that of reconciliation. This, of course, assumes that the person did not marry some other individual since such would make it difficult to return to the first spouse according to the passage in Deuteronomy that we cited. Anyway, we have given a quick summary regarding biblical teaching about marriage, divorce, and remarriage. Again, if you are interested in the full teaching, I refer you to the lessons that cover the topic in greater detail in Luke study.