INTRODUCTION
I hold a very high view of marriage. It's a beautiful gift from God, intended in its original pre-fallen context, to be a wonderful life-long, one-flesh union. I rejoice over marriages who have a strong and safe union, and I will do all I can to see broken marriages healed and restored. However, there are instances, where I believe divorce is permissible, including: adultery/sex addiction, abandonment, and abuse. I consider abuse a form of emotional neglect/abandonment to the relationship and the marital vows made to love, honor, and cherish.
This is not to say that a marriage, with occurrences of unfaithfulness, abandonment, or abuse cannot be healed and restored. With God all things are possible! However, in order for this to happen, the one on the receiving end has to implement boundaries (boundaries are an act of love!) and the one with the sinful behavior must demonstrate genuine repentance and take necessary steps to move toward accountability, healing, recovery, and transformation.
No matter one's stance on divorce, the church must take a stand to defend and protect those they are shepherding who are being oppressed. A victim (and her children) must be provided with support, safety, security. This is first and foremost.
Simultaneously, the abuser needs to be confronted (only after a safety plan has been put in place with the victim) and held accountable for their sinful behaviors. At the very least physical separation should always be encouraged when emotional/physical harm is happening to the victim and/or children.
So let's dive in to what Scripture has to say.
Psalm 9:9 says, "The Lord is a shelter for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble.”
Scriptures, all throughout the Bible, express the heart of God regarding oppression. Oppression, in the context of marriage, occurs when one feels burdened or weighed down as a result of a spouses unjust, unfair, abusive, manipulative, deceptive, controlling, or cruel exercise of authority or power. The tactics used can be overt or covert, which in a nutshell means either very obvious, blatant behaviors or things much more hidden, unseen, and hard to identify.
the headship that God calls husbands to is not one of entitlement, superiority, domination, or a "power over" authority. It's a position given that requires great responsibility to model, what Jesus so beautifully modeled, of "power under" servant leadership. It's about taking the lead in demonstrating a sacrificial laying down of one's life for their wife and walking in humility, gentleness, compassion, honor, and love.
Psalm 34:18 says, "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit."
God absolutely sees YOU in your places of pain, and desires to bring justice to your situation, be your shelter, and save you where your spirit's been crushed or burdened under the weightiness of your situation. You can read countless other verses on oppression HERE.
1 Peter 3:14 says, "But even if you suffer for doing what is RIGHT, God will REWARD you for it."
There is unavoidable suffering in this life, especially as believers there is the likelihood of suffering for righteousness sake. This simply means doing what is right in the eyes of God.
In the Bible there are many examples of suffering for doing right. Joseph suffered a prison sentence for doing what was right and fleeing temptation. Daniel suffered a night in the lion's den for doing what was right by continuing to pray to God even when ordered not to. Stephen suffered stoning and death for doing what was right and putting his faith in Jesus. Paul suffered time in prison for doing what was right and preaching the Good News even when told not to.
Silently enduring suffering in a destructive marriage or submitting to sinful behavior is not what Scripture is referring to when it refers to suffering that comes from doing what is right.
Ephesians 5:11 says, "And have NO fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather EXPOSE them."
We are called to have nothing to do with the unfruitful works of darkness, whether in an active or passive form. But rather, expose sin, evil, and wickedness. We are to walk in truth and in the light at all times. Whenever believers take a stand for TRUTH and come against and expose sin, even in the marital relationship, THIS is doing what is right...and there is a reward attached to this kind of suffering.
3 John 1:4 says, "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in TRUTH."
The Israelites, in the book of Exodus, suffered immensely at the hands of their Egyptian enslavers. They lived daily under an unjust and cruel exercise of authority and power. They did not know freedom...until one day when God provided them with a way of escape through the Red Sea Road. This road led them away from oppression, bondage, and slavery, and into a life of freedom.
They rejoiced in their newfound freedom, as they watched the wall of water crash down upon their oppressors. However, life didn't automatically become easy, comfortable, pain-free, and void of suffering. They traded out one set of challenges for a whole new gamut of struggles during their wilderness season.
The same can be said of divorce. It can feel like a Red Sea Road experience. On one hand, it can feel very freeing to leave behind oppression, abuse, mistreatment, betrayal, or emotional abandonment. But there is going to be a wilderness season on the other side. You may be free, but this won't be an easy, pain-free journey. It may be a different kind of hard, but it's still VERY hard.
Scripture reveals the heart of God for women and their protection. God HATES oppression in all forms. Below are specific passages in the Bible that address the topic of divorce. I am including some historical context information taken mainly from "God's Protection of Women: When Abuse is Worse Than Divorce."
MALACHI 2:16
I’m including three versions of Malachi 2:16 for comparison. Depending on what version you read, some state things in a manner that puts emphasis not on God hating divorce but on God rebuking THE HUSBAND who hates and divorces his wife.
It says:
NKJV- "For the LORD God of Israel says That He hates divorce, For it covers one’s garment with violence,” Says the LORD of hosts. “Therefore take heed to your spirit, That you do not deal treacherously.”
ESV- "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.”
NIV- "The man who hates and divorces his wife," says the LORD, the God of Israel, "does violence to the one he should protect," says the LORD Almighty. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful."
Malachi 2:16 is a well-quoted verse in the bible to condemn divorce, so I thought I would start here. Many have concluded, from this passage, that God condemns all divorce and regards it as an inherently immoral action. I've heard survivors of abuse share how this one verse kept them oppressed for years longer than they should have stayed. Joy Forrest of Called to Peace Ministries said, "I started quoting Malachi 2:16 over and over until I was convinced God hated divorce more than He loved me." I‘ve heard her say that Christian women stay an average of 3 1/2 years longer than the average abuse victim. Some marital conditions are worse than divorce.
Historical Context: This passage shows God’s heart for women who are wrongfully divorced by their husbands. Some of the men of Judah began divorcing their wives and marrying worshipers of other gods, which compromised the spiritual health of Israel. Malachi is expressing his anger at their actions. What is being condemned is not necessarily every divorce under every condition-but specifically husbands divorcing their Jewish wives simply because they would rather marry a foreign wife,
Exodus 21:7-11
Moses wrote: "And if a man sells his daughter to be a female slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. If she does not please her master, who has betrothed her to himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt deceitfully with her. And if he has betrothed her to his son, he shall deal with her according to the custom of daughters. 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."
Historical context: In the time of Moses, a man who was burdened financially would sell his daughter to other Israelite's in order to pay their debts. I know this seems unimaginable presently, but it was common in the ancient Middle East. Moses, however, put in place limitations on this practice to protect women from the cruelty of no longer being wanted by their husbands after being sold by their fathers.
Jewish case law of lesser to the greater means that if legal protection is provided for a slave wife, how much more would it apply to a free wife in Israel. Moses says if he marries another he must still provide his first wife (the slave) with food, clothing, and marital rights. If the husband deprived her of these basic provisions, he violated his responsibility (neglect) and he was to let his wife “go out free.”
The law served to protect a woman sold for the purpose of marriage from being taken advantage of by being reduced to ordinary slavery. For the sake of the woman involved, God commanded the Israelite who was unwilling to provide full wifely privileges to divorce her without return of the original bride price.
It by no means condones the man’s abandoning of his marital duties. This law indicates that, as a result of human sinfulness and stubbornness by refusing to maintain marital responsibilities, divorce could be prescribed as a lesser of evils. This law then helped strengthen the values of marriage. It clearly lays out how God viewed a man that took lightly his marital commitments.
DEUTERONOMY 21:10-14
It says: "Suppose you go out to war against your enemies and the Lord your God hands them over to you, and you take some of them as captives. And suppose you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you are attracted to her and want to marry her. If this happens, you may take her to your home, where she must shave her head, cut her nails, and change the clothes she was wearing when she was captured. She will stay in your home, but let her mourn for her father and mother for a full month. Then you may marry her, and you will be her husband and she will be your wife. But if you marry her and she does not please you, you must let her go free. You may not sell her or treat her as a slave, for you have humiliated her."
Historical Context: In addition to providing protection for a daughter who was sold, Mosaic law provided marriage, divorce, and remarriage protection even for foreign women captured by Israelite soldiers as prisoners of war. According to Moses, even a woman who was taken as a wife from the spoils of war was to be given the protection of law. If her husband became dissatisfied with her, he had to treat her as he would a wife from his own people. He was not allowed to subject her to brutal treatment. Instead, the law required him to give her a certificate of divorce.
DEUTERONOMY 24:1-4
It says: “When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, when she has departed from his house, and goes and becomes another man’s wife, if the latter husband detests her and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her as his wife, then her former husband who divorced her must not take her back to be his wife after she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.”
Historical Context: Moses wrote this law that would have caused a man to think twice before divorcing his wife. Because by divorcing his wife, he would forfeit the right to remarry her if she married someone else in the interim. This restriction would discourage a casual attitude toward divorce and remarriage.
Since Moses did not condemn the woman’s second marriage, we can be sure that it was not a statement about her moral condition after her divorce. In other words, the husband is not making a public accusation of adultery. The law of Moses required death for adulterers, not a provision of divorce (Dt. 22:22).
Instead, the point was to assure that she would never again be an eligible wife for her first husband. Moses’ toleration of divorce was not to suggest that God was approving a man’s right to divorce for any reason. Jesus clearly declared that God made this allowance because of the hardness of men’s hearts (Mt. 19:8).
MATTHEW 5:31-32
It says: "Furthermore it has been said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery."
Historical Context: For starters, we see how, on many occasions, Jesus showed a respect and consideration for women that was not common in that time period. A few examples are him showing compassion to a woman caught in adultery (Jn. 8:3-11) and the care and respect shown for a woman who had been married multiple times
(Jn. 4:7-30). Jesus cared well for women in a time period when they were considered second class citizens.
An influential group of rabbis was teaching that on the basis of Deuteronomy 24:1-4, a righteous man could divorce his wife for any and all reasons. Jesus is taking issue with "divorce for any reason." He was challenging the religious teachers who focused more on the letter of the law while ignoring its intent. Remember God cares about right relationship with Him and others-this begins in the heart, which is the root of sinful behavior.
In this passage Jesus wanted to address the deeper issues of the heart. He wanted husbands to understand what their actions of, divorce for anything less than sexual unfaithfulness, had on their wives.
The consequences of divorce were devastating for women. Her life was ruined, by contrast, no harm was done to the man. Society did not support divorced woman or offer a means of her supporting herself in a decent manner. Some women had to resort to prostitution.
So, in this context, Jesus is confronting the self-righteousness of hard-hearted men. He was focused on those who were "adulterizing" their wives by causing them to live in a way that fell short of God's original intent.
MATTHEW 19:3-9
It 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.”
Historical Context: The religious leaders had an agenda, in approaching Jesus with their questions, to see if they could put Him in a position of disagreement with Moses. When Jesus refers back to God's original intent for marriage, he is not taking issue with Mosaic allowances for divorce and remarriage that has already been considered. He was defending the sanctity of the marriage covenant from those who sought to devalue it for personal gain.
Jeff Crippen says this, “When He gave His instruction about divorce, he was talking to (or about) men who treacherously divorced their wives. Think about it. These are the people he was talking to. He was not speaking to a woman who came to him pleading for rescue from her evil husband.”
Jesus was not responding to a situation of women in distress. He was being a voice (protecting women) by confronting self-righteous men who were trying to use Moses to justify their right to divorce for any reason. They were “adulterizing“ themselves, their wives, and their wives’ future husbands by divorcing for any and every reason.
Jesus was intentional with his words, in order to speak to the specific heart issues of his audience. He wasn’t seeking to declare God’s only or final word on marriage, divorce, and remarriage. As we will see in a passage from 1 Corinthians, the apostle Paul discussed additional issues.
A comparison could be made just a few verses later. In Matthew 19:16-22, a rich young ruler approached Jesus to ask what he must do to be saved. Jesus, again spoke very specific words to address the heart issue of his audience. He tells the man to sell everything, give all he has to the poor, and come follow Him. The man left sorrowful because he had so many possessions. This was not a declaration of the only and final say on salvation. Nothing was mentioned of not being saved by works but by grace through faith.
Jesus saw that the man‘s “first love” was all his stuff. His heart belonged to his belongings and that would have to change to follow Jesus, as He would need to be his first love above all else. Another wealthy person could have asked the same question, and Jesus would have responded differently, if their possessions did not hold the same weight in their life.
This passage on divorce only for sexual unfaithfulness would be out of context to quote to a victim of abuse whose seeking safety and refuge. The reason is that the words were being spoken to men, who dealt treacherously with their wives, or in other words to the ABUSERS!
1 CORINTHIANS 7:10-15
It says: "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."
Historical Context: Paul begins chapter 7 by saying, "Now concerning the things of which you wrote." So, this indicates he is writing a response. in verses 2-3, it shows that the Corinthians were asking questions about marriage and the role of sexual intimacy within marriage. Corinth culture was plagued with sexual indulgences, which caused some to advocate for sexual abstinence, even within marriage. This was thought to be how one could show complete devotion to Jesus.
He responds saying he wished all could live a life with undistracted devotion to Christ, however, he was realistic enough to know that would require a special calling to live out one's life unmarried. So, he recommends marriage for those who could not be solely focused on service to the Lord without sexual temptation. It is within this context that Paul is urging wives to not divorce their husbands, but if they did, to remain unmarried or be reconciled.
Paul then goes on to address additional situations that Jesus hadn't mentioned. When Paul references that, "A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases," he was relieving the conscience of those living with unbelieving partners who no longer wanted to be married. By adding "God has called us to peace," he clearly understood the intent of the marriage covenant.
Paul did not sit down to write a treatise on divorce and list all of the biblical grounds. Rather, Paul received a letter from the Corinthians asking about several situations in their church. One of those situations was an unbeliever abandoning a believer, and Paul answers that the believer is allowed to divorce. Jesus had added further onto Moses’ words regarding marriage and the conditions which a relationship may be lost...now Paul does the same. He discusses additional issues of marriage and divorce that had not been addressed by Jesus.
CONCLUSION
As stated at the beginning, I value marriage deeply and do not take divorce lightly. Divorce was never part of God's original design of marriage. An "easy-divorce" philosophy, where disappointment, boredom, or self-centeredness give way for leaving a marriage, should never be supported or encouraged.
But we cannot ignore those facing an oppressive, abusive, destructive, neglectful, and covenant-breaking marriage, this would be neither biblical nor Christlike. The solution is not to ignore the realities of those facing abusive marriages. Nor is it to urge women to stay in an abusive marriage simply because sexual unfaithfulness has not occurred. Abuse is neglect and emotional abandonment.
The wisdom of Moses should not be ignored, nor the teachings of Christ misunderstood or taken out of context on the subject of divorce and remarriage.
Mosaic law allowed a marriage to end as a result of a hard-hearted man. This served to protect woman from being subjected to ongoing contempt, neglect, or from the shame of being an unwanted married woman. A formal certificate of divorce declared the marriage ended and made allowance of the legal freedom to remarry.
Moses also put into place that a divorce so completely dissolves a marriage that the man who divorces his wife is forbidden from ever marrying her again if she has been remarried, divorced, or even widowed in the meantime. This was intended to strengthen marriages and cause men to think twice before making such a decision.
Jesus was not discounting what Moses had to say in allowing divorce for the hardness of heart. He also wasn't acknowledging situations where husbands refused to honor their marriage commitments. Moses had already spoken on those circumstances. The first-century Jewish community often had little regard for the rights of women. Therefore, Jesus gave such men only one basis on which they could divorce their wives.
The biblical context in which Jesus spoke and Paul wrote, were aimed at self-righteous men who were willfully divorcing their wives for any and all reasons. They were not addressing women in distress, living under the weight of hard-hearted contempt and abuse.
In Mark 2:27 Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” The same can be said of marriage. Marriage was made for man, not man for marriage. Jesus demonstrated more concern about people and showing love toward those the law was made to protect than the letter of the law. God is more concerned about people within the marriage, especially those who are oppressed and abused, than the letter of the marriage law.
Every situation is unique and has differing factors that need to be considered and handled with wisdom, care, and prayer. I would encourage anyone experiencing abuse, who is seeking to make significant decisions, to surround yourself with a team of support: a counselor, church leadership, family/friends, local domestic abuse agency, domestic abuse support group, and a domestic abuse advocate.