Divorce is a nasty thing. Almost everyone is willing to agree with that. It breaks apart families, scars children, and destabilizes culture. We know this.
But nearly everyone insists that their case is different.
After all, you just don’t understand how unhappy I/he/the children are with things the way they are. You don’t understand how I/he/we have changed since we first made our vows. You don’t understand how we just can’t resolve this/these issue/s.
Yes, divorce is painful–but don’t you dare judge me for this. I’m just doing what I have to do. I’m a victim, my ex is a victim, my kids are victims. None of us are to blame for this divorce. It just had to happen.
Don’t worry. We’re amicable. We’re doing divorce like it should be done, looking out for the interests of the children. We’re not squabbling about who gets what. We’re addressing this like rational adults, like Christians–that is, except that we’re blaspheming the name of the Lord.
A little harsh?
I don’t think so.
I am convinced that the very concept of “Christian divorce” is blasphemy against a faithful God.
Why?
Because Christian marriage (actually all marriage, but Christian marriage especially) is designed to be a reflection of God’s relationship with mankind.
“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”
~Ephesians 5:22-33
In a very real sense, every Christian marriage is like Hosea’s marriage–a prophetic picture of God’s love for and faithfulness towards the one to whom He has espoused Himself.
And when Christians divorce, the moral of our story reads that God is unfaithful, that God bails when the going gets tough.
In other words, when Christians divorce, we write a blasphemous play in which God is unfaithful.
Furthermore, as Christians, we testify that God makes the broken whole, that God redeems sinners, that God’s love covers a multitude of sins.
When we, as Christians, divorce, we testify with our lives that God is not able to make our broken marriage whole. We say that God cannot redeem THAT sinner. We say that God’s love is not enough to cover HIS (or HER) sins.
We blaspheme the name of the Lord.
Please do not think that divorce is the only way Christians blaspheme. In fact, it could be said that we blaspheme every time we lie, steal, cheat, fornicate, remain unforgiving, etc. But I don’t see the evangelical church excusing those sins in the same way I see them excusing divorce. That’s why I single out divorce–not because it’s the only example of lifestyle blasphemy, but because it has become a normative and acceptable part of the evangelical experience. This ought not be so.
At the same time, I must also point my readers towards the Scriptural teachings on divorce–teachings which give guidelines for divorce in the case of sexual immorality and when an unbelieving spouse divorces his/her believing spouse. See Matthew 19:9 for the former and I Corinthians 7:12-15 for the latter.
One of my very best friends, a devoted Christian, is going through a very painful divorce right now from her husband, a man I have sat in Subday School with fit the past 15-20 years. She has Biblical grounds (& plenty of them!), but it was actually her husband who left and filed for the divorce. This, of course, doesn’t make it any easier, and the personal impact on me & other members of our church has been severe. It is a tragedy when Satan gets a Christian’s eyes off Jesus.
A tragedy indeed.