Matthew 5:31-32 (NIV):  “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’  But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.”

Divorce was not in God’s plan for marriage in the beginning.  When God created the man and the woman, Adam and Eve, and placed them in the garden together, they were the prototype of what He designed marriage to be:  one man, one woman, one flesh, for life (even if that life was to extend to over 900 years, as theirs did!).

The one flesh aspect of marriage is about much more than sex  It has to do with the fact that God created men and women to be complimentary, physically, spiritually, mentally, and emotionally.  They were designed to fit together, like puzzle pieces, so that in their union they became together many times more than they were apart.  It was this uniquely powerful union between a man and a woman, a union with elements of strength that cannot be duplicated by any other union or partnership, that God designed to be the core of the family.  As children are created by this union, the care and nurture of them is designed to be shared by the parents, each one bringing the strengths of their gender to enrich the lives of each child.  In this way, each child would receive a full-orbed nurturing environment that would not only help them to grow into strong and fully functional adults, but would also equip them to play their role in raising up succeeding generations with the same benefits.

Again, divorce was never given as an option in marriage in the beginning, because that was not the way the union was designed.  When the two became one flesh, to bring in divorce would have the same effect as chopping a human body in half!  No good can come of it; only pain, suffering, severe loss of function, and death.  No, from the very beginning, the union of one man and one woman was designed to be permanent.

But then sin entered the picture.  Sin breaks everything, even things that were originally created to be perfect forever.  And people began to twist even marriage.  The first corruption was promiscuity – seeking sexual satisfaction outside of the one-flesh union.  This again caused brokenness in the union, and destroyed what God designed.  Some tried to legitimize this behavior through “plural marriage,” like Lamech and his two wives Adah and Zillah (Genesis 4:23-24).  But how can someone be “one flesh” with more than one other person?!  The simple answer is they can’t.  It is a corruption of what the true union was designed to be, and is, of necessity, other and infinitely LESS than the original design.

The corruption of plural marriage resurged throughout history, especially among the wealthy and powerful.  But God never sanctioned it, and it usually led to tragic consequences, as can be seen all throughout the Bible.  That is because it corrupted and weakened what God had created in the beginning.  Separation also began to arise after a time – someone would grow dissatisfied with their spouse, and decide that they didn’t want to be one flesh with them any longer.  Usually they just left and “hooked up” with someone new, leaving the original spouse (and often children) to fend for themselves.  This willingness to break the one-flesh bond and to be united with someone else betrayed a hardness of heart that was willing to put one’s own desires so far ahead of God’s design and the good of the family that was already in exitence, that a person was willing to inflict, and suffer, pain, in order to pursue them.  It was because of that hardness of heart that God ultimately codified procedures for divorce.  (Cf. Matthew 19:3-9)  It allowed the leaving to be formalized instead of haphazard, and required that there be moral grounds for the divorce (Originally adultery on the part of the woman, since, in that society, men had the prerogative of leaving.  But, over time, the words “something indecent” in God’s original decree (Deuteronomy 24:1-4) were twisted to allow divorce for practically any reason).  But, again, divorce was NOT in God’s original plan for marriage.  It was a sad accommodation to the sinfulness of mankind.

These days, with no-fault divorce laws, divorce, even in the Church, has become normalized.  God’s people seem to be ignorant of the fact that divorce is actually a symptom of sinfulness, not an expression of freedom.  Divorce that is the result of the sin of adultery is a tragedy that impacts both of the partners, any children, and family members on both side.  It is a tragedy that can be avoided simply by both spouses being completely devoted to God and to each other, just as He designed marriage to be in the first place.  Divorce for any other reason is a sin, a willful breaking of a holy covenant sworn before God in the marriage ceremony.  (Note:  It is not an unforgiveable sin, but must be genuinely repented of and forgiveness asked for and received in order to begin to heal the damage to one’s soul.)  And it is a sin that tends to create more sin when the partners remarry.  They carry the baggage from their previous failed marriage(s) into the second one, and far too often end up divorcing again!

To many this sounds unduly harsh, and many people come up with situations where God should be okay with a divorce.  But the fact is, when you mess with marriage, you are messing with a miracle.  You are tainting something that God created to be a very particular way, and to accomplish a very specific thing.  When a man and a woman come before God, in the presence of witnesses, when they swear the covenant before God that creates the union into one flesh, they become a miracle; something that the mere workings of man cannot create!  And, if they remain true to the covenant, no matter what, God will use that miraculous union to show the rest of the world what true love and faithfulness are really all about.

Father, thank You for the miracle of marriage.  Thank You for the wonder of becoming one flesh with my wife in every area.  Forgive us, Lord, for abasing what You have created, for making it into a mere social contract; for warping and twisting it into all kinds of things other than what You created it to be.  Help us, as Your people, to recapture what You truly designed marriage to be, and to submit ourselves to You and to our spouses so fully that divorce need never be an option.  Amen.