This particular article is going to displease a great deal of people. For those of you who are NOT Christians, be advised that the Laws of God will still apply to you, however, because you rejected Christ, this will just be one more of many sins laid at your doorstep.
God takes a pretty serious view of Marriage and Fidelity. If you look in the book of Exodus, Chapter 20 and Verse 14, you will find that God commands us not to commit Adultery. This commandment is placed right alongside the commandments not to commit Murder, not to commit idolatry, etc. In other words, this is a BIG rule to be careful about not breaking. This is a Salvation-specific event, make no mistake about it. You cannot break this Law, without repenting, and expect entrance into Heaven… it isn’t going to happen.
I believe that this is the MAIN law that Christians disregard, to their own destruction. For literally millennia, individuals were careful to observe God’s strictures, but in the last few centuries, complacency has crept in. For example, in the United States, until approximately the 1940’s, if you wished to sue your spouse for divorce, you had to prove Adultery, or it was a no-go situation. Now, you don’t have to prove ANYTHING. All you have to do is tell the Judge you no longer wish to share your life with this person, and your marriage no longer exists, in the eyes of the human courts and laws.
But what about God’s eyes? Are you divorced, in His eyes?
Here is what God has to say about Divorce, taken from the book of Malachi:
Mal 2:13 Here is another thing you do: You cover the LORD'S altar with tears. You moan and groan because he no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them from you.
Mal 2:14 But you ask, "Why aren't our offerings accepted?" It is because the LORD is a witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been unfaithful. Yet, she is your companion, the wife of your marriage vows.
Mal 2:15 Didn't God make you one? Your flesh and spirit belong to him. And what does the same God look for but godly descendants? So be careful not to be unfaithful to the wife of your youth.
Mal 2:16 "I hate divorce," says the LORD God of Israel. "I hate the person who covers himself with violence," says the LORD of Armies. "Be careful not to be unfaithful."
Pretty strong language, isn’t it? The Christian who has set their heart on deserting their spouse will refuse to read this material, believe me. He/She will also ignore the following commandment that Christ, Himself, set forth:
Mar 10:1 Jesus left there and went into the territory of Judea along the other side of the Jordan River. Crowds gathered around him again, and he taught them as he usually did.
Mar 10:2 Some Pharisees came to test him. They asked, "Can a husband divorce his wife?"
Mar 10:3 Jesus answered them, "What command did Moses give you?"
Mar 10:4 They said, "Moses allowed a man to give his wife a written notice to divorce her."
Mar 10:5 Jesus said to them, "He wrote this command for you because you're heartless.
Mar 10:6 But God made them male and female in the beginning, at creation.
Mar 10:7 That's why a man will leave his father and mother and will remain united with his wife,
Mar 10:8 and the two will be one. So they are no longer two but one.
Mar 10:9 Therefore, don't let anyone separate what God has joined together."
Mar 10:10 When they were in a house, the disciples asked him about this.
Mar 10:11 He answered them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman is committing adultery.
Mar 10:12 If a wife divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery."
Many will then point to the book of Matthew:
Mat 5:31 "It was also said, 'Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a written notice of divorce.'
Mat 5:32 But now I tell you: if a man divorces his wife for any cause other than her unfaithfulness, then he is guilty of making her commit adultery if she marries again; and the man who marries her commits adultery also.
This is a problematic scripture for me. It is the only one like it, throughout the Bible. In no other place does God say divorce is okay, under certain conditions. I wonder now if this wasn’t modified later by persons with an agenda, so that they had a loophole to validate the wickedness of their hearts. Even Paul, with whom I have a GREAT DEAL of issues, gave zero wiggle-room for divorce. Read what he put down in his one of his letters to the city of Corinth, Greece:
1Co 7:10 I pass this command along (not really I, but the Lord): A wife shouldn't leave her husband.
1Co 7:11 If she does, she should stay single or make up with her husband. Likewise, a husband should not divorce his wife.
1Co 7:27 Do you have a wife? Don't seek a divorce. Are you divorced from your wife? Don't look for another one.
You will note that women are commanded not to leave their husbands, but if they do, they must remain alone or else return to their husband. Men aren’t even given the choice of leaving and remaining alone, we are commanded to remain with our wives, no exceptions. He goes on to say that we are not to divorce one another. If we are already divorced, we are not to remarry.
So how should we take this, in light of what Jesus said in Matthew 5:32 about divorce being permissible in the case of Adultery? Since there is no way to know for certain that Jesus DID NOT say this, we must accept that there is ONE exception to God’s Law about Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage. If Christ said it, His Word supersedes all else, even other parts of the Bible that might be interpreted to mean otherwise.
So what is the situation of the person who is Divorced, then?
If they are divorced because of their own Adultery, they are prohibited to ever marry again, period. To remarry would be committing Adultery, anew, and the person they marry would also be an Adulterer, for they took the spouse of another. I would like to point out, however, that even in cases where our spouse committed adultery against us, we are required to forgive them, if they repent. In other words, if your husband cheated on you, and left you for another woman, then repented of it, Jesus DOES expect you to forgive him and take him back. However, if he marries again, you cannot take him back, as illustrated in Deuteronomy:
Deu 24:1 This is what you must do if a husband writes out a certificate of divorce, gives it to his wife, and makes her leave his house.
Deu 24:2 She might marry another man after she leaves his house.
Deu 24:3 If her second husband doesn't love her and divorces her, or if he dies,
Deu 24:4 her first husband is not allowed to marry her again. She has become unclean. This would be disgusting in the LORD'S presence. Don't pollute with sin the land that the LORD your God is giving you as your property.
Let there be no mistake about it, Jesus is an Equal Opportunity God! His rules about marriage apply to both women and men, and it doesn’t matter if it says “man” it means BOTH.
So if your husband or wife runs off with another, and marries them, then your spouse is dead, to you. You cannot take them back, even if they divorce the other person or that person dies.
What if your divorce isn’t for adultery? Neither party may remarry, then, for they would be committing adultery by doing so, and so would the person they marry.
What about the person who was divorced before they became a Christian, whether for their own adultery, or some other reason? If they remarried before they became ‘saved’, would their marriage still be adultery?
Yes.
God’s Laws apply to every human being on this earth, whether or not they acknowledge Him as their god. In the case of the new Believer who realizes their sin, they would have to repent of committing that sin (repent meaning that they would not have committed it, if they could, nor would they commit it again), and I believe at that point, their marriage would be Valid in God’s Eyes. Because of His own statement in Malachi that He hates Divorce, I do not believe God would require them to divorce, after they repented.
However, you cannot remarry deliberately, knowing that you are forbidden, and expect to get away with it later, by “repenting”. God knows the Intent of your heart, and THERE ARE NO LOOPHOLES IN HIS LAW.
In the case of the non-believer, this is actually irrelevant. When they come before God at the Judgment, they will stand guilty of rejecting Christ, which is the ultimate Sin. Anything else they have done will only be icing on the cake, their rejection of Jesus will send them to Hell.
Now, for those of you who committed adultery, yet later repented, if you cannot go back to your spouse, you must remain alone for as long as they live. After they have died, IF YOU HAVE REPENTED OF YOUR ADULTERY, you may remarry. If you have not repented, you WILL go to hell, make no mistakes about it, whether or not you have remarried.
If your spouse divorces you for some other cause BESIDES adultery, it is my opinion that you may not remarry, unless they already have. At that point, they have committed adultery, and you are not permitted to take them back, so they are dead to you. I want to emphasize that I could be mistaken about this, as you may still be forbidden to remarry as long as they are still alive, regardless of their own adultery, so you should pray deeply about this before you take a step that could damage your salvation… in any event, I would spend the rest of my life alone before I would risk my eternity with Christ, but you must work out your own salvation, this is not something I can guarantee to you by God’s Word, because the Bible doesn’t really say anything, one way or the other, about this.
So, as you can see, God takes Marriage extremely seriously. It is one of the Big Ten, one of the Commandments that can cost you your salvation. If you want to know how severe this one is, in His Eyes, consider the fact that His proscription against Homosexuality, which all Believers KNOW is forbidden, is not one of the Commandments…
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