Ask the Pastor 72

Is Divorce sin?

We noted in the last article the high divorce rate in our country and even among church going people. We also noted that marriage is a viable institution and should be valued by society as that which establishes the basic foundational institution of any society. Therefore, is it a sin to divorce and can a person who is divorced marry again. We will first consider if a divorced person can remarry. There are at least two views on the subject of divorce and remarriage, both of which have a great deal of scholarly work to defend them. It is clear that divorce is not in the will of God Mt. 19:4-6; but the Lord God allowed divorce in the law of Moses due the hardness of their hearts Dt. 24:1-4; Mt. 19:8. The argument occurs in the “exception clauses” in Matthew 5:32; 19:9 for sexual immorality and in I Corinthians 7:10-16 for desertion. The question arises, is a person who has been divorced, which may not be of their choosing, are they free to remarry? On the one side there are those who say no, because to do so would be adultery Mark 10:11-12; on the other side, there are those who say yes under the conditions of immorality or desertion. Inasmuch as marriage is a picture of the Church (Eph. 5:22-33), and we read that God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16), then we may conclude that it is not the ideal for Christian marriage, but if we do conclude that if either divorce or remarriage is sin then it is no different from any other sin and can be forgiven by the grace of God through the shed blood of Christ (I John 1:9).

Have questions about the Bible? Send them to Dr. Greg Koehn at gak4850@gmail.com and read the answer here in this article.