In previous articles, I have clarified several teachings relating to biblical divorce which are commonly misinterpreted – and therefore incorrectly taught – when exposed to the light of Scripture.
Among these teachings is the notion that – regardless of whether you obtain a divorce for just cause – you are prohibited from remarrying and, as a result, remarriage constitutes adultery.
Dear reader, I can assure you from the outset that such teachings are untrue and, yes, I can prove it. So here we go…
The Marriage Covenant is a Conditional One
In marriage, there are three parties to the covenant – the bride and the groom – and God. The man and woman make a solemn agreement before God to uphold the vows that define the expectations and obligations of the covenant. The husband and wife then exchange rings that signify their mutual devotion to one another.
Wedding vows include a promise to love, honor and cherish one another in sickness and in health, for better or worse, richer or poorer and to be faithful sexually to one another until death parts them. These are not singular vows but mutual ones.
Each party in the marriage should be able to anticipate that the spouse will treat them with love, respect and honor, that they will both feel cherished and well cared-for. Should illness befall one, the other will do what is right and necessary to care for the one who is suffering. Through hard times, the couple agrees to remain stalwart in unity, faith and trust.
“For better or for worse” references the natural struggles of life in a hostile world, but they should never justify compelling one marriage partner to tolerate the “worse” behavior of the other partner if it is intentional and/or habitual. Similarly, “richer or poorer” recognizes that financial struggles should not negatively impact the marriage bond. But this oath does not justify one spouse controlling or using resources in such a way as to make the other spouse suffer materially due to selfishness or a lack of self-control.
The covenant vows also mandate faithfulness, particularly with regard to sexuality, but this should also be understood to represent a commitment to keeping our spouse as our highest priority – second only to our relationship with God. These covenant oaths are not just words, but should be viewed as solemn, purposeful and timeless.
Yet all too often, one struggling to live with a neglectful or abusive partner may hear, “Remember: ’til death do us part.” This one phrase among the vows is oddly elevated above all other aspects of the covenant. But that one phrase does not diminish or trump any of the other vows but rather reflects a natural outcome of keeping the oaths that precede it.
Death is acknowledged as the final and only force that can ultimately separate a covenant-honoring couple. Although many teach that keeping the covenant is the highest priority regardless of how it is being lived out, such a teaching ignores, diminishes or brazenly negates the solemnity of the vows and conditions upon which the covenant is founded! A covenant is confirmed by the practical evidences of its sanctity, while the trampling of the marital covenant may rightly incur serious consequences, for marriage should never provide a haven for sin. Such consequences, including the possibility of divorce, should not be taken lightly, but they should also be viewed as a matter of personal conscience before God.
Some will conjecture saying, “No one is perfect. We are all going to make mistakes and fail at times. Should we just ditch our marriages? What about counseling, healing, forgiveness and restoration?”
Of course, we must all accept and acknowledge one another’s imperfections and occasional failures, and these do not necessarily represent covenant-breaking; and of course, in hard cases, if there is genuine repentance and the offended party has peace about reconciling, then a redemptive outcome may be possible. But again, these are matters of personal conscience before God which outsiders have no right to judge.
So, is marriage a covenant or not? Here, we cannot have it both ways.
If marriage is a covenant, then that covenant is founded upon the oaths that define it. Should those oaths be violated, then serious (and even permanent) consequences may be appropriately imposed. Conversely, if the covenant is deemed absolutely permanent and unbreakable while the oaths that define it are deemed meaningless, then – by definition – you do not have a covenant at all; you have bondage.
So let us soberly acknowledge that marriage was designed to be a sacred covenant, a loving, respectful and unifying relationship that is an earthly reflection of the love relationship between Christ and His bride, the church. (Ephesians 5)
It is precisely this covenant which we must somberly revere and never permit any to mock, pervert or exploit.
Yes, marriage is a covenant relationship.
What About the Woman at the Well?
Now let’s take a fresh look at Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman He happened to meet at Jacob’s well. This encounter chronicles the longest conversation with Jesus recorded in the New Testament.
So Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.”
For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
Therefore, the Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
She said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? “You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?”
Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”
The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.” He said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband;’ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.” – John 4:7-26
So it is that, upon meeting her at the well, Jesus asks the woman to draw from it and give Him a drink. She expresses shock that He would ask since, as a Samaritan, Jesus’ Jewish brethren would forbid Him from even speaking to her. Jesus immediately turns the conversation from one of addressing His bodily thirst to the most incredible offer imaginable. He offers to satisfy her spiritual thirst – forever.
She welcomes Jesus’ offer, imagining what a blessing it would be to not have to go such a long way to draw water every day, at which point Jesus tells her to go get her husband, and she readily admits that she does not have a husband.
Jesus immediately responds by acknowledging that she had, in fact, been married five times and was living with a man who was not her husband.
Many teachers stop here to point out that that Jesus was compelling the woman to face her moral failings when it came to marriage.
But if that was the case, it would have been more likely that she would have run away in shame. But I do not see Jesus shaming her. He was acknowledging her painful history – a history interlaced with rejection. How stunned she must have been to discover that He knew it all.
But if, as many teach, only the woman’s first marriage was lawful and her subsequent marriages were not, wouldn’t Jesus have acknowledged that she had been married one time and had five adulterous relationships? Yes. But, He didn’t.
Based on what our Lord Himself said, clearly all five marriages were lawful. Based on the revelation that the man with whom she was residing was not her husband, there are only two options: either the woman’s fifth husband had failed to lawfully divorce her but instead, he “sent her away” without a writ, leaving her lawfully bound to him, and she was either living with another man for her own survival or – even having been lawfully divorced, the man with whom she was living was simply unwilling to marry her. What she received from our Lord was compassion, not judgment.
When the woman confesses her belief in a coming Messiah, Jesus immediately declares Himself as the One for whom she and God’s people had been waiting.
Even more telling, after Jesus’ encounter with her, she did not run home in tears. On the contrary, she couldn’t wait to share the conversation she’d had with Jesus with any who would listen that she was confident that she had just come face to face with the Messiah!
Our Lord chose a woman with a painful history from an unpopular culture to play a powerful role in spreading the good news of the coming of the long-awaited King of Kings.
It cannot be understated that Jesus always demonstrated compassion for the outcasts and the hurting – and so He did here. Our Lord set the example by accepting a woman with a less-than-perfect past right where she was.
“From that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all the things that I have done.” John 4:39
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