When Divorce is Mercy

(All Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James except where indicated otherwise.)

Today, I’m going to approach a difficult topic, mostly because it’s been on my mind and heart for quite awhile and there are probably a lot of people who wrestle with the same questions I do regarding God’s perspective on an issue that affects a lot of people’s lives in this day and age. I’m talking about the subject of divorce.

I’m not digging into this topic in order to look at every reason divorce occurs. I think we can all accept the fact that none of us are perfect and failed relationships occur because of selfishness. After all, if we all loved like Jesus, divorce simply wouldn’t happen.

However, because of the Fall and mankind’s innate self-centeredness, God set up some guidelines for handling certain unacceptable behaviors within the marriage covenant. I call them the three A’s that equal the great “I”: adultery, addiction, abuse. And they all stem from “I”-centeredness, or in Scriptural terms: Idolatry of the heart.

Thank God, not everyone suffers from the 3 A’s, but all of us, to varying extents, suffer from the Big I. As believers in Christ, we are called to continually submit our attitudes, words, and behaviors to the refining work of the Holy Spirit through His personal touch, His written Word, and fellowship in His Church.

Since we have all hurt one another at times, I praise God that Jesus set an example for us when He said to the self-righteous religious leaders, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone” (John 8:7). He reminded them of the Father’s heart when dealing with broken rules, “What God desires is mercy and not sacrifice” (Matthew 12:7).

Jesus set an example of mercy that we are commanded to follow, so when someone admits their failures and repents of how they’ve hurt another, we don’t hold their pasts against them. We recognize with gratitude that God’s mercies are new every morning, and we seek to extend the same grace He does (see Lamentations 3:22-23). We extend the second chances that Jesus, at the Cross, purchased for all of us. After all, if not for grace, who could stand? As believers, we recognize that our right-standing with God is through the righteousness of Christ alone.

But there is another question pressing on my heart, a question that a number of pastors will answer with a definite yes, but with which I painfully disagree. The question is this: Is divorce always a sin? And the question that automatically comes after it: Is remarriage after divorce to someone other than the original partner always sin?

I believe the heart of the Father as well as Scripture answers to both: Not always. It depends.

To make a judgment call on a behavior, one must know the reason behind the action. First, sin is anything that separates us from God. It’s rebellion and pleasing self above pleasing God. It’s the big “I”. Second, sin is always a matter of the heart, which may or may not be identifiable by behavior.

Let me give two examples among many in Scripture. First, consider Mary, the mother of Jesus. When she became pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit, her neighbors and family judged her. Joseph, because he was a God-fearing man, felt he had no choice but to divorce her. But her heart was right with God (Matthew 1:18-20). Her pregnancy was not the result of sin but of complete surrender to God’s will (Luke 1:38). Second, consider Jesus healing on the Sabbath. The Pharisees were irate that He would break a “holiness” law by working on the Sabbath. Jesus declared that the Father was more concerned with setting captives of demonic bondage and human suffering free than in keeping traditions and the appearance of holiness. (see Luke 13:10-17, 14:1-6, 16:15)

These examples do not refute the fact that all too many divorces occur simply because couples are not willing to submit to the refining work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. Relationships, especially family ones, are the primary place where God teaches us to love sacrificially. He said to husbands, “Lay down your lives for your wives as Christ laid down His life for the Church” (see Ephesians 5:25-29). In a culture of instant gratification and give-me-my-rights mentality, too many people tell an unhappy wife or husband, “Sure, go ahead. You’re unhappy. Get a divorce and find someone better.” That’s not the Father’s heart. 

God will never advocate divorce as a quick out when a relationship gets costly, and godly leaders will be diligent to remind struggling couples of the verse in Malachi 2:16, “God hates divorce.” Then they quote Jesus in Matthew 19:6, “What God has joined together, let not man separate.” And if someone’s really intent on divorce, an even more humbling verse is applied: Jesus said, “Whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery” (Matthew 19:9).

At this point, couples can submit to the Word of God, fall to their knees and beg the Holy Spirit to give them the power to love even when it seems impossible. And God hears their prayers. Or they can harden themselves to the Word of God and say, “I’ll do what I want. God wants me happy.” And they don’t understand that a change in circumstance isn’t where joy lies. Joy rests in the bosom of the Father, doing His will, and heeding His voice.

But what about a third scenario? The scenario that occurs when any one of the 3 A’s is involved: adultery, addiction, or abuse. This is when one spouse cries out for God’s love to be able to endure the inexcusable and love the other spouse even in the midst of extreme pain and repeated offenses while the other spouse keeps right on doing their “A”, unbelieving or uncaring about how much their words, attitude, and actions are hurting others. In this scenario, after crying out for love that surpasses human love and receiving it yet still enduring great pain and torment, the spouse with the soft, gentle heart cries out, Oh, Lord, who can stand?

Ministers will point out that separation is permissible within Biblical guidelines. Separate in order to reconcile…which in some cases is sufficient to bring a spouse to recognition of his/her harmful behavior, words, and attitudes. But what if it isn’t?

Jesus said, “Moses allowed a man to write a divorce document because of the hardness of your hearts.” (Matthew 19:8) Whose hardness then? I think a lot of believers live with an abusive spouse because they are afraid of the condemnation of the church if they are the ones to initiate divorce.

Which leads me back to my initial question: Is divorce always sin?

To answer that, I have to ask a couple more questions. First, can God sin? No, of course not. Second, can God condemn something He Himself has done? No.

So let’s read Jeremiah 3:8-10. “She saw that I divorced faithless Israel because of her adultery. But that treacherous sister Judah had no fear, and now she, too, has left Me and given herself to prostitution. Israel treated it all so lightly—she thought nothing of committing adultery by worshipping idols made of wood and stone. So now the land has been polluted. But despite all this, her faithless sister Judah has never sincerely returned to Me. She has only pretended to be sorry. I, the Lord, have spoken!” (NLT)

This Scripture leads us to a dilemma. God says He hates divorce yet He declares that He divorced Israel. How can we reconcile these two seemingly contradictory statements? We know God isn’t hypocritical, so the answer lies in context. What is the context of God initiating a divorce?

Idolatry.

Not adultery. That is simply the metaphor used to explain why God hates idolatry so much. So what is idolatry? Not just the pagan idea of bowing before a statue. Ezekiel 14:2-5 tells us idolatry goes much deeper than that. It’s rooted in the heart. “These people have set up idols in their hearts.” In fact, in Jeremiah 8:9-12, God takes it a step further. He outright states to those in rebellion: “Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord, so what wisdom do they have? Therefore I will give their wives to others, and their fields to those who will inherit them, because from the least even to the greatest everyone is given to covetousness, from the prophet even to the priest, everyone deals falsely…. Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed, nor did they know how to blush.”

“I’ll give your fields and wives to others.” This statement is in the context of slaying the idolaters. Throughout the Old Testament, God brings this indictment: “You are covetous liars, pretending to love God but living for your own pleasures and covering your sins with religious jargon and rituals” (see Isaiah 58:1-4). Jesus brings the same indictment of those who serve in appearance, “They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their works they do to be seen by men…. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation” (Matthew 23:4-5, 14).

Religious, emotional, and psychological abuse within marriage are even more rampant than physical abuse. How do I know this? Because the statistics show it. Physical abuse never stands alone. It occurs after the stage has been set with verbal beatings and a destruction of the partner’s self-worth. Psychological abuse manipulates the mind, making the partner believe they are going crazy because the lies they recognize with their heart are always denied and rationalized and the abuser is always changing the “rules” of the relationship. Emotional abuse happens when a person is devalued, told they deserve to be hurt, and that they’ll never be good enough. Religious abuse occurs when the other forms of abuse are justified with religious verbiage, including Scripture. Religious abusers quote verses that highlight the spouse’s “sins” and put the abuser in charge. Both men and women can use Scripture as a cloak for vice.

How sad.

And God hates this abuse and pretense even more than He hates divorce.

He said to idolatrous Israel, “Because of your transgressions, I have written you a certificate of divorce” (see Isaiah 50:1). God was calling them out on their sins and refusing to be united with them anymore.

He still calls abuse out today, in any form that it occurs.

Idolatry sets “I” up as god. Ask anyone who has come out of the abused end of an abusive relationship. They’ll say immediately, “Yes, my spouse/partner wanted my total obedience I was to be completely subservient to his/her will or I was disciplined (punished). I had no voice.” In essence, an abuser wants worshipped.

When abuse occurs, the abused as well as the abuser always has a choice. The abuser has a choice to repent of following the pride of Lucifer and setting themselves up as god (see Isaiah 14:12-17). The abused has the choice: Do I obey (worship) God or man? (see Acts 5:29)

Remember the temptation in the desert? Lucifer, now Satan, said to Jesus, “Fall down and worship me.” Jesus rebuked him completely, “The Lord your God, Him only will you serve” (Matthew 4:8-10).

Pornography also is a sin of idolatry. And Jesus said to even look at someone with lust (sexual fantasy) is also adultery (Matthew 5:28). He wants to expose the heart. He also wants us to understand how intensely God feels about idolatry/sexual immorality. Idols/lusts of the heart are equal in God’s eyes to the outward action.

Remember what the Apostle Paul said? He said, “How can we eat at the Lord’s table and the table of demons?” (I Corinthians 10:20-22) He said the table of demons is a symbol of idolatry. And he said we have to choose: whose side are we on? Are we going to serve God with a pure heart, or worship demons?

Did you know that the call to “put away” foreign wives in Ezra 9-10 and Nehemiah 13:23-29 was the only way back to holiness that the priests offered? In Old King James’ English, to “put away” meant to divorce. It’s the same verbiage that prophets used in calling people to “put away” the foreign gods among them. In the Old Testament, the Israelites were commanded to put strange wives from them because their foreign wives had introduced foreign gods (idols) into their homes. These men wept in grief, but did as they were commanded because of their deep desire to be right with the Lord. At that time, the children from these unions were considered contaminated by sin and were also put away (Ezra 10:1-3). In the New Testament, Paul declares such an action is not needed if the unbelieving partner is willing to stay because the children are consecrated by the believer (see I Corinthians 7:14).

Paul further writes that if the unbeliever chooses to depart, the believing spouse is not under bondage to remain in the marriage or under bondage of the Law’s condemnation (I Corinthians 7:15). We are not responsible for someone else’s choices.

However, there are times when an abusive or idolatrous partner refuses to leave. An abuser’s mentality views the spouse and children as “property.”  The status and control they have the relationship is exactly what feeds their ego, so they will use anything—whether physical battery or religious condemnation—to keep the other spouse in submission.

Dear Ones, the Holy Spirit is continually calling His people to purity and full submission to HIS Lordship. He will call us as a couple if we will listen, but He will honor our free will and call us as individuals if He sees that one partner is willing to submit but the other spouse continually hardens his/her heart to the conviction of the Holy Spirit (see Hebrews 3:7-13).

He calls us to “Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you” (II Corinthians 6:17). The Apostle Paul writes, “If the unbeliever is willing to stay, let him/her remain. Do not divorce them” (see I Corinthians 7:12-13). Why? Because God is drawing the hearts of the lost. But for those who “profess to know Christ but in works deny Him”, God has a stricter demand (see Titus 1:16 and Matthew 18:15-17). His convicting presence will confront that son or daughter until they repent or outright rebel. This rebellion will often escalate the religious abuse and any other abusive behavior against the people who dare bring accountability. In Jeremiah 44:15-27, Israelite men were confronted with allowing their wives to worship idols, but they refused to repent. They sided with their foreign wives, and Jeremiah told them that God would no longer speak to them.

Furthermore, the Apostle Paul states clearly in I Corinthians 5:11-13, “But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person…. Therefore, put away from yourselves the evil person.”

Dear Friends, are there ever circumstances where God grants permission for divorce, declaring it is no longer sin but rather a pursuit of holiness? I am answering a definite Yes. In cases where the refining process has brought one spouse to the Cross while the other spirals into darker idolatry: The answer is Yes.

Even more than that, in such cases, His “Yes” to divorce is an act of mercy.

In the Old Testament, a man or woman who deliberately defied God through idolatry or adultery was to be taken out and stoned (see Deuteronomy 13:6-10 and 22:22). In certain cases, where the offense was subtle yet malicious, the Lord smote the offender Himself. Think of Abigail’s cruel husband, Nabal, whom the Lord killed. Abigail then accepted David’s proposal of marriage (I Samuel 25:37-39). Think of Tamar’s marriages, where God struck down the men for their refusal to fulfill their God-ordained duty to her (Genesis 38:6-10).

Today, suffering spouses are crying out in their heart for God to protect them, cause a radical change of heart in their spouses, or get them out of a relationship that only hurts them over and over. Yet, as they seek counsel, there are still church leaders today who heap on shame and condemnation, contributing to men and women staying in marriages that are not marriage at all because the abuser has turned the union into a master-slave relationship. And the abused goes along with the sham to keep the outward appearance and avoid being labeled with a scarlet letter.

So Jesus in His mercy peels off the label “Marriage” and exposes the slavery and idolatry it’s turned into. And He reminds us of that Scripture, which says if a brother (or sister) has sinned against you and refuses to repent after the church has confronted him gently on the error of his ways, to treat such a one as an unbeliever (Matthew 18:15-17). And I believe—no, I know—that Jesus gently whispers, “I know the truth, little one. Don’t be afraid anymore. I’ve come to set the captive free” (Isaiah 61:1).

When we dare to believe, the yoke of oppression lifts as the last vestiges of our union dissolves like mist. Because the Holy Spirit can never be one with the demonic spirit that an unrepentant heart has embraced (see I Corinthians 6:15-17 and 10:14-22). So we are set free while the Father whispers, “I’ll pursue my lost son or daughter. I’ll never relent. How can I give them up? My compassion and pity overwhelm me!” (Hosea 11:7-9)

 And in His great mercy, He says, “Divorce” and relents from decreeing “Death.”

He wants to set two captives free.

But I can only make the choice for me.

Yet this realization leads us to our second weighty question: Is remarriage after divorce to someone other than the original spouse sin?

After all, Paul the apostle says that a spouse who separates or divorces is to remain single or reconcile the marriage (I Corinthians 7:10-11). If a divorced spouse(s) repents and shows a genuine change in attitude, word, and behavior then reconciliation is possible.  Even when God divorced Israel, His ultimate intention was to bring them back into union with Himself (Jeremiah 3:12-14).

But HOW was He going to bring them back? Not as idolaters (adulterers, addicts, abusers), for holiness cannot embrace uncleanness and light cannot fellowship with darkness (II Corinthians 6:14-16). Instead, God declared, “I will make a new covenant with you. I will put a new heart in you and give you a new spirit. I will write my laws on your heart so you will obey me and know me as the Lord” (see Ezekiel 36:25-27) In other words, God’s plan throughout history has been to redeem us out of darkness, purify Himself His own special people, and fellowship intimately with us by giving us as a chaste, pure bride to Christ (Ephesians 1:4-6, II Corinthians 11:2).

When we trust in Jesus’ redemptive work on the Cross, we are united with Him. We become “one spirit with Him” (I Corinthians 6:17). In this way, marriage represents the beautiful intimacy and union that God has created us to have with Him. Reconciliation and remarriage, therefore, would only occur after trust has been reestablished that both partners will pursue the Lord’s will and heart for marriage together.

But what about remarriage when the other partner remains single?

In today’s society, this question is generally waived but for those of us who want to be remarried (or have remarried) a Godly person, when we read the Word and because we have a deep longing to walk in the will of God, the first-glance answer provokes an intense pain. It would seem that, except in cases of out-and-out adultery, Jesus is sentencing us to a life spent waiting either for the original spouse to repent and genuinely change (which may never happen) or being single, even when we have children to raise and a God-given desire to experience what marriage was meant to be.

First, is there any hope of reconciliation? Second, what does mercy for the abused say?

As shown above, divorce in many cases is the Lord’s mercy. In cases of the 3 A’s, it is meant to bring freedom to a captive and not punishment.

In Romans 7:2-6, Paul explains how grace in Christ Jesus swallows up the requirements of the law. He explains it in the context of marriage: “For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man. Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead that we should bear fruit to God. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.”

In other words, our union with darkness has ended. In fact, we’re the ones who have died to that old way of life! We’ve been buried with Christ and raised with Him, so Paul is able to exclaim with joy, “Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us” (Romans 8:33-34).

So then God does not deal with us according to the past but according to our present identity in Christ. We are beloved children of God, and “If God be for us, who can be against us? He who did not withhold His only Son but delivered Him for us all, who shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:31-32)

 Proverbs 18:22 says, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.” The glory of the New Covenant is that blessings are given, not earned. In fact, Paul says we’re foolish if we believe after we’re saved that we have to now earn the goodness of God in our lives (Galatians 3:1-3). Our Heavenly Father delights to lavish His love upon us, and because our righteousness is in Christ (and not by keeping a law-code), we can be confident that He will work all things together for good and withhold no good thing (I John 3:1, Galatians 2:16, Romans 8:32, Psalm 84:11).

This means we can trust our Father’s heart. We don’t have to go out there looking for a new spouse, for God promises to be our Husband always (Isaiah 54:5-6, Hosea 2:19-20). Neither do we have to live under condemnation, believing that because we’re divorced God can no longer bless us with a beautiful marriage (Romans 8:1-4). Jesus is a personal God, and He deals with us on an individual, unique, and specific basis. He speaks to us as individuals and leads us along the path He has created for us into a future He created for us before time again (John 10:27).