Did God really divorce and remarry?

[_Steve]

I received the following email (and sent the following response) this morning:


Hi Steve

I downloaded your sermons on Divorce and Remarriag and have listened to them a couple of times. It sounds like our paths are very similar (sadly). I have the divorce papers on my desk from my wife. Like you, i was determined to make the marriage work. But my wife was determined to marry the father of the child she conceived in her second affair. I have been trying to determine God's position on this matter and wondered whether you would be able to point me to some of your existing material that might answer a couple of questions on what you said.

I like your treatment of covenant and God's marriage to Israel as an example for us to follow. I have listened to lots of sermons on this topic and i think you are one of the few that noted this as a significant way to determine how we should behave towards an unfaithful wife. I agree with you that divorce is ok since it looks like God did it. You quoted Is 50.1 as proof but i dont think that helps your case given it seems to say the opposite :-) I have listed it below from the Message which i think is a fairly accurate paraphrase.

The Jer 3 passage is a good one to use though. However, I assumed you noted that in v8 God says he divorced Israel but in v14 He says He is still married to Israel. And verse 20 says Israel left the Lord which is actually parallel with Is 50.1 To me this throws some confusion on what exactly happened - was the Lord really divorced or married.

Ok, but what is the question you're asking by now. Assuming God did divorce Israel, at what point did He remarry and did the divorce make that remarriage possible? You referred to Zec 11 to describe the breaking of the covenant. That passage describes Christ's crucifixion as well. So the covenant was broken at the same time that one of the covenanting parties died (ie God). God remained faithful to unfaithful Israel right through the OT, even well after he says he gave her a bill of divorce. So, if He did divorce Israel, God didn't seem remarry anyone else (ie the church) until after His own death which was necessary to end the covenant He had with Israel.

Do you agree that this ending of a covenant through death seems to be perfectly in accord with Rom 7.2-3 and 1 Cor 7.39 where it indicates that a person is bound as long as a partner lives and that a person is released from a marriage only when the partner has died? And do you agree that the event that made God's remarriage possible was not the divorce as you suggested in your lecture, but rather Christ's death? If you don't agree, then why did it take Christ's death to end the Old Covenant (Heb 9.15-16)? Why was the old covenant still active even after Israel's repeated idiolatry (adultery)? Doesn't God's faithfulness to Israel even after the divorce suggest that we don't have the right to remarry since God didn't until He 'died'?

Thanks for considering this?
Andrew

Isa 50:1 MSG GOD says: "Can you produce your mother's divorce papers proving I got rid of her? Can you produce a receipt proving I sold you? Of course you can't. It's your sins that put you here, your wrongs that got you shipped out."



Hello Andrew,

Thanks for writing about these matters. I am truly grieved to hear of your painful situation, and hope that you are receiving grace to help in time of need.

The points you make from the prophets are good ones, but difficult to assess in terms of their validity or relevance to this matter.

The paraphrase of Isaiah 50:1 does seem correct, given the context. Yet, the verse still mentions (twice) that Judah has been "put away," which many scholars take as a synonym for "divorced." It may, in this case, refer to a preliminary separation, which could lead to a formal divorce, but needn't, and where no official legal action has yet been taken.

The passage in Jeremiah, I believe, is best explained by seeing 3:14ff as an appeal to the faithful remnant, with whom God still recognizes an unbroken covenant. God gave Israel (in context, the Northern Kingdom) a bill of divorce, which has proven to be permanent.

However, His covenant stands with those who are individually faithful. With these, He promises to enter into a New Covenant (31:31-34). He invites any individual in the "divorced" kingdom to be a part of this covenantal remnant. Hence, He speaks of bringing "one from a city, and two from a family." This is the same thing, I believe, of which Isaiah speaks in Isaiah 10:20-23—

"And it shall come to pass in that day that the remnant of Israel...will depend on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. The remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the Mighty God [i.e., to Jesus (cf., Isa.9:6)]. For though your people, O Israel, be as the sand of the sea, a remnant of them will return..."

The Church is thus described, alternately, as 1) a new entity, established by a New Covenant, and 2) as a continuation of the true, original Israel, represented in a remnant. When spoken of the first way, the metaphor of divorce and remarriage seems apt; when spoken of in the second sense, it is more like God is still married to part of the original "wife."

The main thing, I suppose, is that God is said to have "put away" Israel, and given her a "writing of divorce." In these passages, He is using terms that come from Deuteronomy 24, where the right to remarry after divorce seems to be taken for granted.

You are correct, I believe, as seeing the technical moment of God's divorce from Israel as being the event of Christ's death. Hebrews makes death the point at which some covenant transactions (e.g., the execution of a will) occur. However, I believe that it was the fact of the divorce, not the fact of the death (though both were simultaneous) that occasioned God's determination to take another wife. In the Old Testament, death was not a necessary precondition for a man to take a new wife, nor for God to take a new covenant people in place of Israel (Deut.32:21).

In the case of God's remarrying, since He is the "male" partner, it would not even be necessary for Him to divorce His first wife in order to take another, since husbands were entitled to have more wives than one simultaneously (Ex.21:10/ Deut.21:15), and God even speaks of Israel and Judah as two wives to whom He was married at the same time (Ezek.23:4).

Romans 7:1-4 and 1 Corinthians 7:39, in my judgment, do not rule out every instance of a woman's remarriage during her spouse's lifetime—but only during the time that she "has a husband" (Rom.7:2; cf. John 4:17-18), meaning, while she is still married. This means that a woman could not have two husbands simultaneously (in contrast to the conventions for men). In any case, these verses do not speak of the obligations of husbands at all.

For these reasons, I believe that the analysis given in my lecture is valid. I am sure (and I hope) that remarriage is not in the forefront of your mind at this painful time. However, I do not believe that you are obligated to remain single until the death of your wife.

By the way, I have a written resource on divorce and remarriage at my website, under the "Topical Articles" link.

[Guest]

Thanks for your detailed reply Steve. I have a couple of comments that perhaps you (or others) could elaborate on:

1) It seems that you are suggesting that God divorces part of His wife only (ie the Northern kindgom). Or, put differently, God had two wives and he divorced the unfaithful one. Neither seems right to me.

2) I have no problems with God divorcing Israel. The issue I have is with the remarriage. It seems to me that after the divorce God continues to remain faithful to His divorced wife@*. And then He only take's his new betrothed (ie us) after His own death. That is in accord with the Rom 7.2-3 that a marriage bond exists as long as the two parties are alive. Given that the 'remarriage' only started after the death of Jesus, it seems impossible to attribute the grounds of the remarriage solely to divorce. It may have been, but could it not also have been solely on the grounds of the death of one of the parties?

3) Isn't Hosea all about God being amazingly faithful* to a grossly unfaithful people? And isn't this book representative of God's dealing with Israel and Judah throughout the entire Old Testament? It seems to me that, if i wish to act like God acts, then i would do as Hosea did and remain faithful to a wife who is grossly unfaithful to me. Mt 5.39-48 seems to amplify this attitude. Steve seems to be drawing the conclusion that God divorces unfaithful people and remarries thus we can also. That seems to me to be focusing in on half a dozen (valid) verses and forgetting the entire OT testimony of God's continued faithfullness to an unfaithful people. Not seeing the forest for the trees?

Thanks to anyone who has the time to respond!
Andrew

@Hos 2:2 GNB My children, plead with your mother---though she is no longer a wife to me, and I am no longer her husband. Plead with her to stop her adultery and prostitution.

*Hos 3:1 GNB The LORD said to me, "Go again and show your love for a woman who is committing adultery with a lover. You must love her just as I still love the people of Israel, even though they turn to other gods and like to take offerings of raisins to idols."

[Guest]

And then He only take's his new betrothed (ie us) after His own death.

Firstly the allegorical comparison between marriage and Gods covenants only go so far.
To try to compare marriage in any absolute manner to Gods covenants with man is sheer folly.

Secondly, Jesus death was not about ending the old covenant...it was about ratifying the New.
http://studies.assembly-ministries.org/ ... ?f=20&t=66

The old simply became obsolete when the new replaced it...so again, we have a situation that cannot be compared to divorce and remarriage in any absolute manner.
http://studies.assembly-ministries.org/ ... ?f=20&t=65

What we can compare is that God did indeed give a writ of divorce by His very own words, and then many years later that covenant (Mosaic) was finally made obsolete as He ratified a new covenant with a new bride.

it is impossible to compare aspects of marriage to Gods covenant with man because human 'brides' are not made up of literally millions of individuals whom some may be cast out while a faithful remnant can be kept (unless we all want to be polygamists, that is)

That is in accord with the Rom 7.2-3 that a marriage bond exists as long as the two parties are alive

Romans 7 is not a teaching concerning marriage, otherwise Paul has left out the fact that Deut 24:1-4 DID give provision for divorcement without the death of the spouse.
http://studies.assembly-ministries.org/ ... 2&p=12#p12

Isn't Hosea all about God being amazingly faithful* to a grossly unfaithful people?

It absolutely is !
And then in Zechariah 11 we see a prophecy about His finally ending that covenant with all the people (even the remnant, but these were immediatly brought into the new covenant by faith in their Messiah)
http://studies.assembly-ministries.org/ ... ?f=17&t=44

Hosea was commanded to marry this woman for a purpose. His example has no more relevant to marriages today than Moses parting the Red Sea has to do with anything