1 Cor. 7:8-16

God Hates Divorce…But Loves Divorced People

1 Corinthians 7:8-16

⁸Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. ⁹But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

¹⁰To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. ¹¹But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.

¹²To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. ¹³And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. ¹⁴For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.

¹⁵But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. ¹⁶How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

God hates divorce. We know that God hates divorce not just because Paul or any other Biblical writer said that God hates it. God himself, speaking in the first person has said this. In Malachi 2:16, we have a clear pronouncement from the mouth of Yahweh saying, “I hate divorce.” Let’s look at the context of that verse. “It is because the Lord is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. ¹⁵ Has not the Lord made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth. ¹⁶“I hate divorce,” says the Lord God of Israel.”

Notice how Malachi referred to a husband’s wife. She is:

· The wife of your youth

· Your partner

· The wife of your marriage covenant

· The Lord has made them one

Like Jesus and Paul, Malachi appealed to the one-flesh description of marriage found in Genesis 2:24, For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. Divorce breaks this beautiful and powerful bond between a man and a woman. Therefore God says, “I hate divorce.”

I have not seen more than about ten minutes of the PBS program, Antiques Road Show, but I do know that this group of appraisers travel around the U.S. looking for valuable antiques that people find in old attics, storage sheds and living rooms. The attraction of this program is that it makes one think that almost anyone could have a valuable antique right under their nose and not even know it. Those who bring their old pieces to the roadshow wait with baited breath as their family heirloom or garage sale find is carefully scrutinized. Will it be worth only a few dollars, hundreds of dollars or thousands of dollars? Imagine if you found this vase buried in the bottom of a box in your attic. It is a pretty vase, but is it worth anything? Did your grandma buy it at K-mart thirty years ago or is it a priceless antique? You won’t find this particular vase in a garage sale or even on the Antiques Roadshow because it is a 650 year old vase from the Chinese Ming Dynasty that sold last June for $10 million. Now what would happen if someone came along, lifted this priceless vase high in the air and threw it to the floor smashing it into a hundred pieces? Even if you were not the owner you would still be shocked by this act of insanity. If you were the owner your heart would immediately sink at the thought of losing $10 million in a mere second of time. But if you were an admirer or a collector, you would be sickened at the loss of this beautiful and irreplaceable work of art.

How much would you be willing to pay for this painting? I wouldn’t fork over much money because it looks like something my kids could make. In fact, I think my kids could do better than this! This is not a Picasso or a van Gogh, but last November this 60 year old painting sold for $140 million. What if you fed this painting through an industrial-sized paper shredder? What if you did the same thing to this pretty lady, the Mona Lisa, valued at nearly three quarters of a billion dollars?

Many people would be upset if you destroyed works of art such as a Ming vase or a priceless painting, but these are mere inanimate objects. They may have a price tag and historical value attached to them, but they are still just things. Unlike these inanimate objects, a marriage is God’s work of living art, precious in his sight. But divorce smashes this ireplacable, priceless living work of art.

Let’s think for a moment how the divine artist formed the first marriage. First, we know that this artist is a world renowned sculptor, who not only sculpted Adam from the clay of the earth, he even made his own clay! After breathing life into his highest achievement in creation, he then made a complementary counterpart to this man by creating his other half, some women might say his better half. When God finished creating Adam and Eve, he was still not finished, was he? After he was done creating man and woman, God presided over the first wedding ceremony. Like a proud father, he presented the bride to Adam, who was overjoyed to see her. Adam exclaimed, “Lord, she’s better than a cow!” Of course he meant that she was infinitely better than any of the animals when he said, “Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” Adam was one excited groom. Eve was created not only for Adam but also from Adam, so the first marriage in all creation brought together two separate people and joined them as “one flesh”. As God presided over that first wedding ceremony, I don’t know if at the end he said, “You may now kiss the bride,” but I am pretty sure he did say, as Jesus said, “Therefore what God has joined together let man not separate.”

Do you see that the pinnacle of God’s creation was not Adam. The pinnacle of God’s creation was not even Adam and Eve, but the pinnacle of his creation was the covenant formation of the first marriage. Marriage is the living work of art created by the divine artist. Therefore, when a marriage ends in divorce, it is much worse than smashing a priceless Ming vase on the ground. It is far more heinous than feeding a priceless painting into a paper shredder. Divorce is the destruction of a living work of art and the artist hates it when his priceless artwork is destroyed. This is why God says, “I hate divorce!” He truly hates every aspect of a divorce, but he doesn’t hate it like a human artist would hate to see his artwork destroyed. A human artist is sinful and is chiefly concerned about himself. But God hates divorce not only because it destroys his living work of art, but because the work of art is a living being. God knows the pain of divorce is driven deeply into the soul of his precious people. God knows that the pain of divorce reverberates through the inner being of a man or woman and does not leave any aspect of the person untouched. The pain of divorce penetrates into every nook and cranny of a person’s heart and leaves them changed forever. All of this is why God hates divorce. He hates divorce precisely because he loves the covenant of marriage.

But do you know who else hates divorce? Ex-wives hate divorce. Ex-husbands hate divorce. Children hate divorce. Family court advocates hate divorce. Judges hate divorce. Friends, parents and families hate divorce. Pastors hate divorce. In twelve years of pastoring I have only married six couples, and two of them are divorced already. Last Fall I got a call from the husband of the first wedding I performed explaining to me that his wife was leaving him. I listened to him cry and pour out his pain and sorrow. I called his wife to try to talk her out of her decision. As I said, I have performed six weddings but I have never been able to talk someone out of a divorce. I think that is because those I have talked with had already made the decision to divorce. This illustrates the fact that divorces never begin with the signing of divorce papers. By the time I have talked with these people, they had already experienced many years of sin and problems. Many couples spend their married years erecting walls between them and their spouse one brick at a time. Each time there is a hurt another brick is laid in the wall. Every time sin and selfishness is unconfessed another brick is laid. Brick by horrible brick this enormous wall of divorce is built between them until the time comes to file the divorce papers, only one or two bricks are left to complete the wall. Divorce then is not the building of this wall but the final brick in the wall. We all know that the steps leading up to a divorce are filled with selfishness, bad choices and great sin. Not every divorce is a sin. There are two allowances for divorce. Paul explains one exception in this passage: abandonment by an unbeliever. In Matthew 19 Jesus explains the other: divorce is allowable for the reason of porneia—a broad term for many kinds of sexual immorality. Sometimes a divorce will put an end to a terrible amount of sin in a marriage. Sometimes it is necessary to end ugly abuse. Therefore it is true that not every divorce is a sin but it is also true that every divorce was preceded by sin.

This is another reason why God hates divorce; because he hates all of the sin and pain that leads to divorce. Therefore, if every divorce is the result of months or years of problems, then every marriage is either moving toward divorce or away from it. If you could take every marriage that ended in divorce you could probably retrace the line that led to the divorce and see where they began to go astray. Unless your name is Brittney Spears or you live in Hollywood, on your wedding day, every bride and groom desires to move toward marital intimacy and away from marital strife. Every marriage starts with this uphill climb toward marital intimacy. And it is an uphill climb. Good marriages take good effort. The slide downward toward marital strife is an easy path, like sliding down an ice-covered hill on a shiny new sled. Anyone can slide down this hill toward marital strife and at some point, every marriage that ends in divorce begins down this slippery slope. But that is not the end of the story. Any slide toward marital strife and divorce can be overcome, but the further down the slope you slide, the steeper and more difficult it will be to climb back up. With the gospel of Jesus Christ it is never impossible to climb back up and repair damaged marriages, but it will not be easy.

This diagram can also help us to see why God hates divorce. He hates it not because the final act of divorce is so sinful but because it is so far from the living work of art that he created. God created marital intimacy and the further a married couple slides away from this marital intimacy the less and less it looks like his creation. Every marriage exists somewhere on this diagram—either moving toward marital intimacy or toward marital strife and divorce. The big question for the day is: where would you place your marriage on this diagram? And the equally important question is: where would your spouse place your marriage on this diagram? Chances are your spouse has a different take on your marriage relationship. He or she will rank it either higher or lower than you do.

Here are thee applications for us.

1. If you are married, I have an assignment for you for to do this afternoon. (Football is all over so you should have lots of free time and no excuses!) After lunch sit down with your spouse and both of you answer this question about where your marriage sits on this diagram. After you have identified the placement of your marriage discuss how you can move your marriage forward. Even good marriages will begin to slide if they are not taken care of. Remember, it is always easy to slide down the hill but it takes effort to go up. For example, when Paul said for husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church, I don’t think that meant to take it easy.

2. If you are not married but think you will be one day—teens and young people I am mostly talking to you right now—ask yourself if you have understood the Biblical picture of marriage. Most young people have a very immature and usually selfish understanding of marriage. You think that marriage is about finding someone nice who likes you a lot and will take care of you for the rest of your life. You may think that marriage is all about warm feelings and storybook romances like you see in the movies. If you continue to have this Hollywood version of marriage in your mind as you get older, you will be setting yourself up for great difficulty and probable failure. Does your vision of marriage include a lifelong covenant that is created and ordained by God to be a living work of art? If that is not your vision then you will be following after a cheap imitation of artwork that you can buy on the clearance shelf at Walmart. Teens and even children that are here—now is the time to build your Biblical vision for marriage. Don’t ever settle for anything less than this.

The third application is for those who have had a divorce in their past and are still healing from it. Chances are that might include more than half of the people in this room, whether it happened to you or your parents. Let me restate the title of this message—God hates divorce…but he loves divorced people. If you still have festering wounds from a divorce, please know that god can heal those wounds. God can and does bring beauty out of our ashes. I have not experienced divorce, but my dad’s first wife divorced him, and though I felt badly that my dad had to go through that period of rejection from his first marriage, I can’t say that I am sorry because I would not be here today if he had not divorced an married my mom. God is not only the Creator of all things good he is also the redeemer of all things bad. Last summer I met my dad’s first wife for the first time in my life. It was sort of a surreal experience at first, but the woman I met is a kind and sweet lady in her mid-eighties. Also, she was baptized for the first time about a year ago and is attending church regularly. All divorce results from sin. You may have had a small or large part in that sin, but no matter, God can forgive you your sins and can heal the sins of others against you. God hates divorce, but he loves divorced people.

Rich Maurer

February 11, 2007