4. Once again we must not
let gender be the key phrase. It would be just as right to say the husband who
divorces his wife as the wife who divorces her husband. The idea of putting
away means just that. When you put something away, you do so for certain
reasons. (a) you do not consider it as trash, and you are not willing to
dispose of it. (b) You think that someday you will once again have need of it.
(c) You save it to give to someone else. Like some women save their wedding
dress in hopes that their daughter or granddaughter might wear it. (d) You put
it away because it is not used everyday. (e) You tell your children to put
their toys away. This means that you do not want them left laying around. You
want to keep some order to your environment. The putting away in this
discussion is not of this nature.
Let us look at the word for divorce. Apoluo means to free fully. Literaly we
must relieve them. We must let them go by releasing them. We tell them to go by
dismissing them. As a result we make them depart or go. In a figurative sense
it is to let die. This means that we are to put them away as Abraham had to put
away Sarah when she died. It is as if they are dead to us and thus we are no
longer bound to fulfil our duty to them. We pardon them. This does not mean
absolute forgiveness, but a release from their bondage or captivity (some feel
marriage is a captivity [but I don't]). Specifically the word means to divorce.
It means to let them depart or go (with some sense of finality). It means to
let go or to loose. It means to put away or to send them away. It means to
release them from your binding oath once given. It is to set them at liberty,
not to remarry again, but by taking yourself away from them.
To divorce someone means that the duties and responsibilities of the marriage
are terminated. It means that the priviliges are also suspended and taken
away.
If we divorce our spouse because of fornication, then we have the right to
remarry. If we divorce our spouse for any other reason, then we do not have the
right to remarry.
Of course our society and our government will say that it is acceptable, but
God says otherwise. Since when did our society or our government respect the
laws of God? Only when the laws were convient and acceptable. You used to think
that murder was unacceptable in society. But with genocide and hatred and
abortion, and mercy euthanasia, you get a different opinion. Our society used
to condemn adultery. But now it seems that anyone that gets into bed with
anyone is an acceptable standard, and they seem to glorify those who do so with
many. This does not make it right. If our laws of the land allow divorce for
any cause, it does not make it right (Acts 4:19).
Go to the next section
"And I Say Unto You"
Return to the index Divorce and
Remarriage