FIVE HUSBANDS AND TWO MEN: Christian Divorce and Re-Marriage? (Part 15 of 18)

31.  God Hates Divorce

It is commonly said that “God hates divorce.”  Of course, divorce is not the ideal marital situation, and the angels in heaven do not celebrate because a divorce has occurred.  Does anyone expect God to say, “I love divorce”?  No.  All the same, a lack of the ideal does not limit the options of God.  The Great Potter still makes other “good” options out of marred clays (Jeremiah 18:4-6).

It grieved God “that he had made Saul king over Israel” (1 Samuel 15:35), but that did not foreclose David from being made king.  God greatly regretted “that he had made man on the earth” (Genesis 6:6), yet He made a way for His fallen creation.  Divorce is not God’s ideal, but that does not limit the options of God (Genesis 24:7-8; 1 Samuel 13:13-14; 16:1), especially when they are options provided by Him. God did not institute divorce, but God recognised it all the same (Jeremiah 3:1; Deuteronomy 24:1-4).

If we should say in absolute terms that “God hates divorce” (and interpret that to mean that He forbids it); if “God hates divorce” means that whoever divorces is damned for doing what God hates, yet Jesus provides a ground for someone not only to divorce but to remarry, then Jesus stands guilty of rebelling against God, for allowing someone to do what God categorically and thoroughly forbids.   And Paul would be as guilty as his Master Jesus, for providing more options for people to rebel against God.  God Himself would be a self-contradictor for hating something so absolutely, yet allowing Moses to allow people to do it, under whatever excuse.

Furthermore, if that is the correct interpretation of the passage, then either the prophet Malachi was a confused prophet, or Jesus and Paul were wrong; otherwise, we are wrong in our comprehension of the passage.  What, then, does that passage mean?

The passage quoted to indicate God’s hatred is Malachi 2:16, which says that He “hateth putting away” – not divorce.  Sometimes the putting away was the outcome (or final stage) of a divorce, sometimes it was not.

For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the LORD of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously (Malachi 2:16).

The original Hebrew word translated as “putting away” is shalach, which is interpreted by Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary in the following ways: to send away, to send out, cast away or cast out, forsake, leave, let depart, push away, put away, put out, etc.  Although the same word is used in some cases for divorce (Jeremiah 3:8), when we read the present passage in context, it appears to be describing the same situation addressed in Chapter 19, on the distinctions between divorce and putting away.  It seems strange to say that God hates something but does not forbid it; that something is not a divine ideal, but is a concession all the same.  That is the necessary clarification to be made.

In that passage, God addresses “putting away” in the general context of such hypocrisy as when a bad man conceals violence under the beauty of “his garment,” while he deals “treacherously” (or deceitfully) with the wife.  It is like, as they would say, giving a dog a bad name merely to kill her.  He puts away his wife under a vain pretext (false or base charges), and he does not give her the certificate of divorce, which frees her to be married to another, because he intends to punish her by keeping her single and thus technically guilty of adultery if she should be married to another.  It’s treachery.  God hates such treachery and violence to another, all covered up with a fine garment or three-piece suit and elaborate religious activities.

God expresses a dislike for divorce, not a prohibition of it.  In the broader context of Malachi 2:16, it is clear that God was warning against the dishonest and treacherous actions often linked with divorce, rather than divorce itself.  The key is to seek a balance between upholding the sanctity of marriage and acknowledging legitimate grounds for divorce, as provided in the scriptures. This balanced approach helps reconcile the seemingly contradictory statements about divorce in the Bible, highlighting that while divorce is not ideal, it is sometimes a necessary concession due to the hardness of human hearts and the realities of life.

That is the main message of the chapter: wickedness against one another, with the treachery in some divorces being one of the examples.  In verse 10, the prophet asks, “Why do we deal treacherously EVERY MAN AGAINST HIS BROTHER [not wife], by profaning the covenant of our fathers?”  In the next verse, he laments again that the nation of “Judah hath dealt treacherously” – not a husband.  In verse 13, the prophet further describes the religious hypocrisy of treacherous worshipers, “covering the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping, and with crying out” while being deceitful and wicked to one another.  God was not going to receive or regard their hypocritical sacrifices anymore.  Verse 14 spotlights another instance of treacherous abuses, by someone who “hast dealt treacherously” (bagad [Heb] – deceitfully, unfaithfully, acted covertly) with “the wife of thy youth” while still appearing very ceremonially religious.  The prophet repeats in verse 15: “and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.”  He directly addresses treachery, not divorce, but cites divorce merely as a further instance of the areas of human relations in society where treachery occurs.  By the time we get to verse 16, the message is clear, that the Lord “hateth putting away” – the treacherous pillaging of the woman by no less guilty a man, who wearies the Lord with his mask of religious piety (v.17); a man who is wicked to his neighbour while maintaining (or covering up with) the outward appearances of devoutness.  As in Matthew 5, where Jesus speaks against divorce in the context of other issues of horizontal human relationships (see Chapter 16), Malachi 2 addresses treachery in human relations, marriage being one of the arenas in which it occurred in that society.

Even if the passage should be interpreted to mean that God hates divorce (in the sense that He forbids it absolutely), that is not the only thing that He hates.  He hates robbery, He hates lies, He hates many other sins.  Some innocent victims have been mercilessly wounded and stigmatized with the cudgels of such scriptures taken out of context.  If we were truly concerned about all the things that God hates, we would not lightly excuse those who do other things that He also hates.  Unfortunately, we condone some who do the things that God hates and condemn others who do the things that we hate.  See the following scriptures, for instance, of things that God also hates, but which we really do not:

16 These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:

17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,

18 An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,

19 A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren (Proverbs 6:16-19).

Read that list again, of six things that God hates, and a seventh that is not only hated but is an abomination.  If we should justly execute that ‘word of the Lord’ and expel everyone who does any of those things that God hates, some churches would be empty: proud people with their very proud looks; hearts that plot wickedness while they dance in church and dine with others; liars, even when they give ‘testimonies’ in church; false witnesses – not just against others but sometimes against themselves when they deliberately sign a false birthday on their documents; those who shed innocent blood by abortion or by sponsored assassinations; and those who sow “discord among brethren,” so as to gain a cruel advantage.  Did I just call your name in any of those items on the list?  “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her” (John 8:7).  Let’s continue, not just with things that the Lord hates, but worse things; things that are an abomination to Him:

• A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight (Proverbs 11:1) – does this describe some businessmen in the church?
• The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD … (Proverbs 15:8) – is there anyone like that in our choir or among our deacons, who brings fat but wicked ‘sacrifices’?
• He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the LORD (Proverbs 17:15) – might we find some bishops and magistrates or judges in this category, in matters of church politics and ethnic discriminations, who, for money and other material advantages, have condemned the innocent and freed the guilty? These wealthy workers of abomination we have decorated with denominational and national honours, while we publicly hanged lesser sinners.
• You must not bring the earnings of a female prostitute or of a male prostitute into the house of the Lord your God to pay any vow, because the Lord your God detests them both (Deuteronomy 23:18, NIV). The Kings James Version says, “… for even both these are abomination unto the LORD thy God” – have we been as meticulous to enforce this in our indiscriminate collection of tithes and offerings?

If we should truly enforce the word of the Lord, we should sanction not only the one who has unfortunately had a divorce, but also anyone guilty of any of the items on the list above, and guilty also of other abominations and hated behaviours not listed there.  It would be hypocrisy not to do so.  No sin is holier than the other. God hates all sins.

Finally, if “God hates divorce” means that it should never occur, and anyone who has ever had a divorce is an offender of God, yet God Himself says in Jeremiah  3:8 that He had divorced “backsliding Israel” for her “adultery” with idols and “given her a bill of divorce,” then God contradicts Himself, and is a breaker of his own code.  That won’t be our God.  We have misinterpreted Him.

32.  Hardness of Heart

It is argued by some that since the original concession of Moses was in response to the hardness of men’s hearts (as Jesus said), whoever benefits from that original concession in the form of a present divorce must be hard-hearted, in fact, implicitly a rebel against God.  In other words, that it takes hard-heartedness to get a divorce or be divorced.

That theology is faulty.  If every divorce is the result of a hard heart, and every divorce means being guilty of a hard heart just for the fact that the original concession for divorce was based on that condition, then by the same logic, if a father’s assassination was the reason for a scholarship to his unfortunate children, all the children who benefit from that death are equally the murderers of their father; if we became independent through the violent aggression of ancestral freedom fighters, all present benefactors of that history are implicitly violent people guilty of all of the things that those ancestors might have done wrong in the process of their agitations; and if the government increased salaries as a result of a protest in which the vice president was shot dead by a protester, all beneficiaries of that salary increase are as guilty as the shooter.  It is amazing how far we may sometimes push the Bible to say what we want it to say.

This category of theologians insists that since Moses gave the initial concession because of men’s hardness of heart, hardness of heart is the explanation for all divorces, or that everyone who has ever had a divorce is hard-hearted.  To show the world, therefore, that one’s heart is superior to that of the men in the generation of Moses, one has to stay in every marriage, even if it were a Samaritan kind where one was being kicked out, or the Delilah model with one’s anointed head on the gallows.  They imply, furthermore, that everybody who has never had an open divorce is more soft-hearted than everyone who has ever had a divorce.  By implication, one who has never had a divorce is a better person than all that ever had a divorce.  I ask, was hardness of heart the condition that Paul was addressing when he allowed divorce where one party can no longer stand the ‘new religion’ of their partner, and decides to move on?  Does softness of heart mean living with what is killing?

From The Preacher’s diary, 

July 20, 2021. 

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