God's Views on Marriage and Divorce

Today’s world is really mixed up about marriage, isn’t it? Millions of people are living together out of wedlock: either because they view marriage as “just a piece of paper” or they want to “try it out and see if they like it.”

While at the same time the gay population is fighting for the right to be married!

Both of these views reject Christian morals and God’s plan.

When God created Adam He knew Adam needed a companion. Someone to help him and share his life. Eve was God’s gift to Adam. God performed the first marriage ceremony when He brought Eve to Adam. The Bible says in Genesis 2:24, “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife and they become one flesh.”

A beautiful thought about this is when you find the right person for you the longing you feel has to do with the fact that the woman was formed from man’s rib. They were in fact at one time “one flesh”.

Many people today don’t seem to feel like there is a special person for them. If they do get married they go into it with the attitude that, “If it doesn’t work out this time, I can always try again.”

Divorce is mentioned in several places in the Bible. While Moses’ law allows for divorce in Deuteronomy 24:1 Jesus says in Matthew 5:32 that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unfaithfulness, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

When marriage is treated lightly, divorce comes easily. But, Mark 10:9 says, “What therefore, God has joined together let not man put asunder.” Here may lay the problem. A lot of people who are married never asked God whom they should marry! God had never really joined them at all. Most people who get married do so because they fall in love, but look at what God says in Malachi 2:14, “The Lord was witness to the covenant between you and the wife of your youth” and “she is your companion and your wife by covenant.”

He doesn’t call the spouse a lover. He calls the spouse a companion. Not that there is anything wrong with love, but sometimes love is just based on chemistry or attraction. Two things that come and go. We fall in and out of love.

Remember God created Eve as a companion. In life you will experience the “worse, the poverty, and the sickness” part of the wedding vows, and you will want a friend to go through those experiences with you. We also see from this verse that marriage is a covenant. It is not “just a piece of paper”. It’s between a man, a woman, and God. It is holy.

The reason God hates divorce is because He loves marriage so much. It is His perfect plan for a man and a woman to live in companionship under His covenant for all their lives.

Click here to see more about Christian marriage and sexual purity