Is divorce sin

[mghalpern]

I am very disappointed by alot of responses here. There are different circumstances for everyone. This issue is debated almost as much as whether or not it's a sin to drink alcoholic beverages or get tattoos. Point is, every single Christian will have a slightly different opinion on the issue and so I think threads like these are merely a breeding ground for discontentment, dissention among brothers and sisters in Christ, doubt, guilt, and shame. I would almost be willing to bet money those who say "divorce is a sin and wrong in ALL situations" has either never divorced, never even been married, or has never been married to an abuser or adulteror/adulteress. Until you've been there you really don't have the right to interpret the Scriptures in the manner you see fit to condemn those doing things differently than you feel they should.

I have heard so many different opinions on divorce.

1. It's only acceptable in cases of adultery
2. It's only acceptable if you're the husband being cheated on, but not the wife.
3. In cases of abuse or sustance abuse it's acceptable.
4. If you're being abused you are not allowed to divorce, only separate and pray for healing and reconciliation.
5. If you remarry you're committing adultery and if you don't divorce your new spouse and reconcile with your ex-spouse you will go to hell for living in unrepented sin.

I'm just saying, I agree with oldrooster. Unless you've been there and experienced that pain, don't condescend by saying "I'm sorry for your pain....BUT you're still a vile sinner for divorcing the man who beat your relentlessly or your wife whom you caught having sex with countless other men in your own bed". If you feel at peace with God and your decision then I wouldn't worry how others interpret the Scriptures. If God gives you peace, don't allow people in your family, your church, or online make you feel guilty and ashamed.

fluffy_rainbow... You said...

If you feel at peace with God and your decision then I wouldn't worry how others interpret the Scriptures.

If they felt at peace with god and their decision in the first place, they probably wouldn't be here seeking input to their situations. If you feel at peace with your situation, great! But there are a lot of people who haven't decide right from wrong, or God's will regarding divorce and remarriage, so they come looking for more information and maybe, just maybe, the Lord could use a site like this to convict one's heart toward His will for their life (and God's will will never contradict His Word)...Michael

PS You are welcome to join the debates by adding your perspective (preferably supported by Scriptural references) and take a position on a topic, but criticizing everyone for being critical of others (in your opinion) is not productive, nor does it display your intelligence. We would be happy to "hear" you make your arguments and support them well with evidence/facts. I really think that it would help us all consider the many thoughts that exist out there and may change or reinforce our own positions...Michael

 

[fluffy_rainbow]

If they felt at peace with god and their decision in the first place, they probably wouldn't be here seeking input to their situations.

You're absolutely correct. That's why I said in my other thread that I would never come out and tell someone "oh yes, get a divorce...yep, that's the ticket". Divorce is not something to take lightly. Sadly, marriage is taken so lightly these days so it's no wonder divorce is taken just as nonchalantly. I would never advise someone to divorce just because of adultery or abuse or because they're bored. There should always be measures taken to prevent it. My ex and I tried counseling, called upon dilligent prayer warriors, asked for our parents' guidance and it still fell apart. Now maybe we both could have tried harder, but at what expense? Him bringing me home an STD or beating me to death? I believe that even in cases of adultery there can be reconciliation. I don't believe it's perfectly acceptable to show the "A" card and throw in the towel just because it seems like an easy, Biblical "out". My parents' marriage survived adultery and now they are strong in the Lord and more in love today than they were the day they married. Many couples can survive an affair. Oftentimes abuse is caused by substance abuse. In those cases it would be preferable for the victim to seek safe refuge until their spouse can enter into a rehabilitation center and get clean and sober. Some people though marry those with severe mental and emotional disorders that really never change, even if they pray for healing. You can't change people and people can't change if they don't want to. Sometimes it's fight or flight and the dangers of the fight far outweigh the burden of sin that comes with the flight.

PS You are welcome to join the debates by adding your perspective (preferably supported by Scriptural references) and take a position on a topic, but criticizing everyone for being critical of others (in your opinion) is not productive, nor does it display your intelligence.

You are right. I was angry and I sincerely apologize for responding in anger. As far as the Scriptures I know we should look to the Word of God for all of our answers; however, everyone interprets it differently. We are not meant to understand everything until we enter the throneroom of Grace. Arguing amongst ourselves about is just as non-productive as me criticizing the criticizers. Look at the varying opinions of the Scriptures. Desi believes divorce is never Bibical. Others believe it's perfectly fine in cases of adultery. Others think it's acceptable in cases of adultery and abuse. All opinions can be supported by the Scriptures. It's about looking into our hearts and seeking God's will above anything else and I believe God's will is that we try the best we can to take marriage as seriously as He does and use divorce as a last option. In cases where adultery is tearing a couple apart at the seams and causing great strife, I believe God would want the couple to seriously consider making it work, but wil still forgive them if they part ways and later find the person He intended them to be with in the first place.

 

[johan777]

Sexuality Is Designed by God as a Way to Know God More Fully

God created human beings in his image—male and female he created them, with capacities for intense sexual pleasure, and with a calling to commitment in marriage and continence in singleness.1 And his goal in creating human beings with personhood and passion was to make sure that there would be sexual language and sexual images that would point to the promises and the pleasures of God’s relationship to his people and our relationship to him. In other words, the ultimate reason (not the only one) why we are sexual is to make God more deeply knowable. The language and imagery of sexuality is the most graphic and most powerful that the Bible uses to describe the relationship between God and his people—both positively (when we are faithful) and negatively (when we are not).

Listen, for example, if you can without embarrassment, to both the positive and the negative in God’s words spoken through the prophet Ezekiel. Keep in mind that God has chosen Israel from all the peoples on the earth to experience his special covenant love, until the day when the Jewish Messiah, Jesus Christ, would come and live and die in the place of sinners, so that the gospel of Christ would overflow the banks of Israel and flood the nations of the world. So what we hear God say about his Love for his people Israel in the Old Testament is all the more true of his relationship to those who believe in his Son, the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Here is how God describes that relationship with Israel according to the prophet Ezekiel, chapter 16. He speaks to Jerusalem as the embodiment of his people and rehearses over a thousand years of history. Starting at verse 4:

On the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in swaddling cloths. 5 No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you out of compassion for you, but you were cast out on the open field, for you were abhorred, on the day that you were born. 6 And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, “Live!” I said to you in your blood, “Live!” 7 I made you flourish like a plant of the field. And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment. Your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare. 8 When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness; I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God, and you became mine. 9 Then I bathed you with water and washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil. 10 I clothed you also with embroidered cloth and shod you with fine leather. . . .

That’s a picture of God’s utterly free and undeserved mercy. That is how Israel was chosen. That’s how you were brought from death to life and from darkness to light and from unbelief to faith, if you are a believer. “I said to you, ‘Live!’ and made you flourish. I married you. You are mine.” That’s how Israel began. That’s how the Christian life begins. The Mighty mercy of God. Then he goes on with the image. Ezekiel 16:13ff.:

Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was of fine linen and silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour and honey and oil. You grew exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. 14 And your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed on you, declares the Lord God. 15 But you trusted in your beauty and played the harlot because of your renown and lavished your whoringson any passerby; your beauty became his. 16 You took some of your garments and made for yourself colorful shrines, and on them played the harlot. The like has never been, nor ever shall be. . . . 32 Adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband! 33 Men give gifts to all prostitutes, but you gave your gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from every side with your whorings. . . .

There’s the picture of the faithless Israel. Her idolatry—her turning from the Lord God to foreign gods—is pictured as the work of a harlot. And I say again what I said at the beginning: God created us with sexual passion so that there would be language to describe what it means to cleave to him in love and what it means to turn away from him to others. Now comes the word of judgment. Ezekiel 16:35ff.:

35 Therefore, O prostitute, hear the word of the Lord: 36 Thus says the Lord God, Because your lust was poured out and your nakedness uncovered in your whorings with your lovers, and with all your abominable idols, and because of the blood of your children that you gave to them, 37 therefore, behold, I will gather all your lovers with whom you took pleasure, all those you loved and all those you hated. I will gather them against you from every side and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness. . . .

It may look as though God was finally finished with Israel. Judgment has fallen. The wife was put away. But that is not the last word. God hates divorce. Therefore, though he judge and separate, he will not finally forsake his covenant people—his wife. He will make with her a new covenant, and bring her back to himself at the cost of his Son and by the power of his Spirit. Ezekiel 16:59ff.:

59 For thus says the Lord God: I will deal with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath in breaking the covenant, 60 yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant. . . . 62 I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, 63 that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord God.

The end of the story is that God, after giving up his faithless wife into the hands of her brutal lovers, will not only take her back, and not only make with her a new and everlasting covenant, but will himself pay for all her sins. Are there debts this prostitute owes? This husband will pay them. “When I atone for . . . all that you have done, declares the Lord.” Indeed he will pay with the life of is own Son.

And so in the New Testament, after Jesus Christ has died and risen and is gathering a people for himself and his heavenly Father, the apostle Paul calls all husbands to live with their wives like this (Ephesians 5:25-27). Model your love on this kind of love:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

This is the fulfillment of Ezekiel’s vision: “I will remember my covenant with you . . . and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant. . . . and you shall know that I am the Lord . . . when I atone . . . for all that you have done.” Jesus Christ creates and confirms and purchases with his blood the new covenant and the everlasting joy of our relationship with God. And the Bible calls it a marriage. And pictures the great day of our final union as “the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:9).

(Extract from a message by John Piper http://desiringgod.org )

 

[mghalpern]

johan777... How awesome!...thanks for the post...Michael

 

[bringingup4forHim]

i too feel as though divorce is too easily decided on. i stayed for 10 years through abuse (physical) and pornography. my children have suffered greatly. i chose to stay and wait on God's time. He then showed me the terror my children have suffered and the future they have to look foward to. even now, my husband is threatening me with the wrath of God if i do not come back. he has told me that i am offering my children up to satan by leaving him. sometimes the sin of divorce is less than the alternitive.