Luke 16:18 (NIV) “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”
To many these days, these words of Jesus seems unnecessarily strict and harsh. After all, there is so much divorce and remarriage these days that many figure that God simply needs to get with the times. But, like everything else Jesus said and taught, His words and guidance are timeless, based solidly on the character of the godhead.
Divorce was nearly as common in Jesus’ day as it is today. Since the law contained procedures for divorcing a wife, some of the leading rabbis taught that divorce was fine with God, as long as you made sure to dot all of the i’s and cross all of the t’s.
But divorce, then as now, had far-reaching social consequences, especially for the woman involved. In those days, there were few legitimate jobs for women, so a divorced woman could frequently find herself without any means of support (alimony and child support did not exist back then), and would be forced into illicit work to support herself. God knew that, because the hearts of His people were hard (Matthew 19:8), they would have a hard time being faithful in marriage, and so divorce would happen. So He set in place safeguards and procedures designed to slow the process down and allow for sober reconsideration.
But still, these leaders and their disciples would divorce their wives for any and every reason, including burning a meal, and quickly marry someone that they found more desirable. In doing this, as Jesus pointed out on several occasions, they were missing the point of what marriage was designed by God to be, and what it did. As Jesus pointed out in Mark 10:5-9, drawing on the history contained in Genesis 2:21-24, God created marriage right along with the creation of the first man, and the first woman, who was actually created out of the first man. What was one, God recreated to be two distinct persons, and in marriage He joins those two back into one flesh.
That is the basis of marriage, and the basis of the heinousness of divorce. Divorce results in the tearing apart of the one-flesh union created in the marriage covenant, causing powerful damage to both parties, as well as to any children brought into being through that union. So to divorce someone in order to marry another breaks a union that God has blessed, and illegitimately tries to make that same kind of union with someone else.
Today, as then, divorce has been normalized, regulated, and is widely accepted as tragic, but as something that inevitably happens. But God does not accept divorce as readily as people do. Jesus laid out the standard for divorce in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:31-32), with marital unfaithfulness, not requiring divorce, but being the only legitimate grounds for divorce, since the adulterer has already broken the marriage covenant by being unfaithful. This standard seems unreasonable to some, but it is the only standard that takes into account what God actually designed marriage to do and to be. That is also a key reason why marriage should be entered into solemnly, and with clear eyes toward the intended spouse. Many, if they knew that they would absolutely have to stay married to that persons for life, would look at any prospective spouse very differently, and would perhaps end up choosing differently.
Father, You are right on the money when You point out that we, like the society of Jesus’ day, have lost track of what You designed marriage to do and to be. And from that faulty worldview, we have constructed our own standards for divorce, often far removed from what Your word says. Help us, Lord, to see all of this clearly, so that we can live by Your word, instead of by the norms of our secularized society. Amen.