When is Divorce Permissible for a Christian?
There are many different views on divorce in the church today (I want to make this clear I am not married and not even close to being married). The Roman Catholic Church doesn’t allow for divorce for any reason. If a person wants a divorce, the marriage has to be annulled. There are many pastors who believe in marriage permanence, however is that biblical? That’s what I’ll look at in this post (all Scripture quotations will be from the New King James Version unless otherwise stated).
First of all, let’s take a look at what Jesus said when it comes to divorce. Jesus was approached by the religious leaders and asked about divorce. Here is what the passage from Matthew 19:3-8 says
The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?”
And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?”
He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.”
Look at what Jesus said. He didn’t say that divorce could happen for just any reason. Divorce was permitted in the case of sexual immorality, which encompasses way more than adultery (many marriages have survived affairs, but it takes hard work to rebuild the relationship after that). Sexual immorality would include sexual assault and rape within the marriage (I’ll discuss more about abuse later in the post). It would also include one of the partners in the marriage viewing pornography. Sexual immorality encompasses so much more than just simply adultery and we have to be honest about that (sexual immorality would also encompass incest and sexually abusing children among other things). One thing I’ll say before moving on to the next topic is that anyone who coerces their spouse to have sex, that is a sin. Sex should always be freely given and enjoyed by both the husband and wife.
The Law of Moses permitted divorce for sexual immorality and that’s what Jesus was referring in the passage I referenced. The Law of Moses didn’t just permit, but commanded divorce in the case of a husband failing to provide for his wife (in this case a second wife; the Law of Moses permitted but did NOT command polygamy and nowhere in Scripture is polygamy commanded; that is a big difference; polygamist Mormon groups will twist Scripture to support polygamy). Exodus 21:10-11 states
If he takes another wife, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, and her marriage rights. And if he does not do these three for her, then she shall go out free, without paying money.
The husband was supposed to provide for his wife or wives (polygamy is not God’s design for marriage; go read Genesis 2:24 and Jesus quoted from Genesis 2:24 in His conversation with the Pharisees). If he didn’t, he was to divorce her. A husband who doesn’t support his wife and children financially if he is physically able to do so is not a man who should be respected, and the wife should divorce him and go find a man who is not a deadbeat.
In Ezra, the men who had married foreign wives while in Babylonian captivity were commanded to divorce them. In Ezra 10:9-15 it says
So all the men of Judah and Benjamin gathered at Jerusalem within three days. It was the ninth month, on the twentieth of the month; and all the people sat in the open square of the house of God, trembling because of this matter and because of the heavy rain. Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have transgressed and have taken pagan wives, adding to the guilt of Israel. Now therefore, make confession to the LORD God of your fathers, and do His will; separate yourselves from the peoples of the land, and from the pagan wives.
Then all the assembly answered and said with a loud voice, “Yes, as you have said, so we must do. But there are many people; it is the season for heavy rain, and we are not able to stand outside. Nor is the work of one or two days, for there are many of us who have transgressed in this matter. Please let the leaders of our entire assembly stand; and let all those in our cities who have taken pagan wives come at appointed times, together with the elders and judges of their cities, until the fierce wrath of our God is turned away from us in this matter.” Only Jonathan, the son of Asahel and Jahaziah the son of Tikvah opposed this, and Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levite gave them support.
The apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 7:10-15 that divorce is allowed in the case of desertion (when Paul tells men to love their wives, that was a countercultural command as infidelity was rampant in marriages in his day among Gentiles). He writes
Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband. But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife.
But to the rest I, not the Lord, say: If any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her. And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases. But God has called us to peace.
When Paul wrote his epistles, many people were coming to the faith, and many of them had unbelieving spouses. Paul did not tell the spouse who had come to faith in Christ to divorce his or her spouse, but if the unbelieving spouse deserted the believing spouse, then divorce was permissible. Also, the person who had been deserted was allowed to remarry.
The apostle Peter had something similar to say regarding women in marriages with unbelieving husbands in 1 Peter 3:1-4. Peter writes
Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives, when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear. Do not let your adornment be merely outward—arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel— rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.
I’m now getting back to the subject of abuse. The Bible does not specifically mention abuse. However, if one remembers the marriage vows and what they say, it’s clear that abuse of any kind is breaking the vows of marriage and is therefore a Scriptural reason for divorce. It doesn’t matter if it’s physical abuse, sexual abuse within the marriage, emotional abuse, or verbal abuse, the marriage vow has been broken, because a person who loves his or her spouse will not abuse them. Abuse would also include abuse of the children within the marriage. If one of the parents is abusing the children, especially physically or sexually, the other parent needs to get out of that marriage as quickly as possible to spare the children more harm. If a person is being abused in a marriage in any way, that person needs to get out of that marriage as quickly as possible, and if it’s physical or sexual abuse go to the police and file for a restraining order after filing a police report.
There are those who do not believe that abuse is a Scriptural reason for divorce because they will use Malachi 2:16 in many translations states that God hates divorce. However, not all translations translate that passage in that way (from what I’ve heard the earliest English Bible translations did not translate Malachi 2:16 that way). In the English Standard Version Malachi 2:16 it reads
For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the LORD, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the LORD of Hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit and do not be faithless.
Does God hate divorce? Yes, and the reason is that it destroys the family, and God created the family unit. However, what God hates more than divorce, is an unjustified divorce. It is not a sin to get divorced, provided there are biblical reasons for the divorce, and abuse, especially physical and sexual abuse, both of which are crimes, is a justified reason to file for divorce.
Last year, news came out that John MacArthur, one of the most prominent Calvinist ministers and the most prominent cessationist in the United States, if not the world, publicly shamed a woman in 2002 who refused to take back her husband after he had molested their children (her ex-husband is currently in prison for the crimes; she hadn’t yet filed for divorce, but had filed for separation and had a filed a restraining order against her husband; she would later file for divorce).1 She was also excommunicated for refusing to take back her husband. That behavior is shameful, and no pastor should do that. If my pastor did that, I would be calling for his removal, because that’s inappropriate. That woman had every right to protect her children.
In conclusion, the Bible does not support a marriage permanence view of marriage. While marriage is designed by God to be permanent, God gives reasons in Scripture that are reasons for divorce. As stated earlier in the post it is not a sin to divorce, provided the divorce is for biblical reasons.
Good resources on divorce are Gretchen Bakserville’s lifesavingdivorce.com and Sarah McDugal’s WILD (wildernesstowild.com). Both women are Christians who were trapped in abusive marriages and who have since divorced; McDugal’s marriage just happened to be to a pastor.
Julie Roys, “EXCLUSIVE: MacArthur, Shamed, Excommunicated Mother for Refusing to Take Back Child Abuser”. The Roys Report, March 8, 2022, Accessed on August 6, 2023. https://julieroys.com/macarthur-shamed-excommunicated-mother-take-back-child-abuser/