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Marriage covenant is a covenant of love.  Since God is love (1 John4:8), it is a covenant of God.  No one therefore, can put aside the covenant (Matt 19:6). Divorce therefore, goes directly against God; and those who remarry after divorce commit adultery (Luke 16:18). God is therefore, not pleased with the offering of those who divorce their spouse (Malachi 2: 13-14).

  God always stays faithful to His covenant with us. When we were unfaithful to Him, He brought us healing by sacrificing His own life.  As believers, we are called to love our spouse just as Christ loves us (Eph 5:25).  The Lord told Hosea (Hosea 3:1), "Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes." We therefore, have to be faithful to our covenant with our spouse, even when there is unfaithfulness and hurt; and bring healing to our spouse by our prayers, sacrifices and support.

    Divorce is absolutely prohibited by the Gospels (Mk 10:11-12, Luke 6:18; Matthew 5: 31-32). In Matthew’s gospel the exception is for unlawful marriages.  The exception in the Greek text is porneia (which means incest or fornication), and not moiceia (which means adultery). The exception is for marriages between close relatives, which according to Mosaic Law (Lv 18:6-18) were unlawful, because, they were considered as incest. According to some authors it also refers to Jewish betrothal process, in which, prior to the marriage, if it was discovered that the bride was not a virgin (had committed fornication), the groom could back out. Such was the case when Joseph had planned to back out, when he found out that Mary was pregnant with Jesus.

Hello arunangelo,

Greetings in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is true that God hates divorce. Many of those who have gone through a divorce hate it as well.

Why do you think God divorce Israel seeing He hates it so much?

Jer 3:8 “And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.”

Have you ever wondered why the Word of God says Joseph was a JUST man when he planed on divorcing Mary when he thought she was unfaithful?

Mat 1:18 “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. 19  Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily.”

God bless
Pilgrim

The divorce God hates is divorce in a marriage He has ordained.  Not all marriages are of God.  Simply because a couple decide to marry, run to the altar and invoke the name of God does not mean that marriage is of God.

The reason the divorce rate is as high in the Christian community as it is in the world is because so many Christians do not bother to ask GOD who they should marry (if He wants them to marry at all) but simply ask God to bless THEIR choice. 

In the United States the religious marriage ceremony has been replaced in many (if not most) cases by the State civil ceremony where the couple, the witnesses and the pastor performing the ceremony are required to sign a State marriage license and the churches have generally bought into the idea the a couple is not married unless they have had a State civil ceremony.  There is no Biblical support for making a marriage a State affair.

Chaplain Bob,

My wife and I did have to get a Marriage License 34 years ago, but we didn't consider our marriage to be anything other than the most serious vows before GOD. Our ceremony was between us and God, and I might add that it included a sermon from God's Word.

Maybe this is the reason why so many marriages fail today. We had the license, but we only cared about what God thought about our marriage. Further, we had pastors on various sides of the family making sure that we knew what REAL marriage was long before the ceremony. I must give thanks that God has richly blessed our marriage, our children, and our children's children. We tried to make the LORD the Head over our home. We made some mistakes along the way, but the LORD never makes mistakes. I'll simply say that the secret to a happy marriage is yielding to the LORD.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Psalms 111:7-8 NASB  The works of His hands are truth and justice; All His precepts are sure.  They are upheld forever and ever; They are performed in truth and uprightness.

The Lord told Hosea (Hosea 3:1), "Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes." We therefore, have to be faithful to our covenant with our spouse, even when there is unfaithfulness and hurt; and bring healing to our spouse by our prayers, sacrifices and support.

Bethrotal was the firsr part of marriage, and was completed a few months later when the husband took the wife into his house.

There are many differnt views by those who are against divorce about this 'fornication' issue.

Can you explain to us why the rest of these 6 are errant ?

 The divorce/remarriage issue is one of the most argued topics today among christians. Among the remarkably varied beliefs there are a great many variances even within a given doctrine. An example would be the ''fornication'' (greek "porneia" (strongs g4202) issue.

      Here are a few of the differing ideas on what ''porneia/fornication'' is believed to be by those of the anti-remarriage camp(S)....

    1) Some of the anti-remarriage doctrines teach that this ONLY applies to Jews, even today, and that divorce was never permitted among the gentiles.
    2) Some state the same, that it was for the Jews alone, but now has evolved into a matter of unlawful PREmarital sex for all people, Jew or gentile.
    3) Other believe it only applies to a person who is either divorced and remarried themselves or married to a divorced person, that they are in ''fornication'' by Jesus' words and putting away is permitted under these conditions.
   4) Another group actually claims that ''fornication'' is ONLY incestuous marriages for which Jesus is giving permission to divorce. But that would mean that in Acts 15 that the Jerusalem council was ONLY prohibiting sex with ones blood relatives and omitting the multitude of other sexual sins possible (bestiality, prostitution, etc).
   5) One of the newest additions to the list of ''fornicators'' is one I just found where ''fornication'' is said to be ''miscegenation", or the interbreeding of races (so now I guess God is sending folks to hell if one parent was Jewish and the other spanish (/sarcasm)
   6) Even others admit that ''fornication'' in Matthew 5 an 19 is adultery, as we believe, but that Jesus isnt permitting remarriage under ANY circumstances.

Porneia...aka ‘’fornication’’

http://www.geocities.com/divorceandremarriage/11.html

Porneia is not limited to any particular sexual act.
It is sexual sin in general committed by anyone, with anyone( including animals) married or not.

Sex was created for a man and his wife...outside of that it is fornication...porneia....whoredom

while I agree with your concept of asking God whom we should marry...my life being a testimony to this fact....that does not alter that once married, even to an unbeliever, we ARE indeed 'married' to them before God.
1 cor 7 is proof of that fact..

Betrothal was fully binding and lawful marriage.
When Joe was about to put Mary away, he was divorcing a wife.

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=995&letter=B&search=betrothal


.

That is an opinion that is not supported by Scripture.  To marry outside of God's will (and we've all been taught that God has a plan for our lives) is being just as disobedient as doing anything else outside of God's will.  As far as non-believers are concerned what makes you think that, when a person has no relationship with God, getting civilly married all of a sudden gives the non-believer a relationship with God?

Bob, not to sound like I'm beating up on you dear brother, but I'm going to have to agree with one of the items FoC listed about that Greek word for "fornication" from our Lord Jesus in Matthew 19:9.

Because God is also making a comparison to spiritual adultery (false worship) in Malachi 2:11 and Jeremiah 3 with the idea of spiritual divorce between Him and His people, that points to that word "fornication" (Greek 'porneia') meaning sexual relations outside the marriage, and is thus a reason for legimate divorce. Also, God commanded Hosea to take a harlot for a wife (Hosea 1). The reason? It was to be a sign to Israel of how they had played the harlot (spiritually) against God in falling away to idol worship. So Hosea probably wouldn't have married a harlot otherwise.

Those in OT times who put their wife away did it for not simply liking their wife, or because they wanted to take another (that's part of what Malachi 2 is about, for the even the priests were doing that, even marrying strange wives - see Ezra 9).

That doesn't make God's institution of marriage any less sacred, because He has made a marriage contract (covenant) with us that He will not go back on. But we can break that contract with Him by going into spiritual harlotry. That's what old Israel did, and thus 'they' were the ones who caused the spiritual divorce from God. This spiritual part of the Message is still in effect today, all the way up to Christ's return, and is why He gave parables involving spiritual virgins, travailing with child, being espoused to one Husband, etc. That would mean the deeper reason why God hates divorce is because of how Satan led one-third of God's children into rebellion with him, and is still trying lead as many as will to commit spiritual harlotry against God before he goes into the lake of fire.

In Christ Jesus,
Dave

sure its supported in scripture.
A marriage to an UNbeliever is CLEARLY prohibited in 1 cor. 7....to take an UNbeliever as ones spouse.
But Pauls not tell the believer to LEAVE the unbelieving spouse if they are pleased, but to stay with them.

this case clearly shows that it is NOT Gods will that we marry an UNbeliever, but once married we ARE indeed married to them...barring being tricked into marriage or something similar as with Jacob and Leah...

1Co 7:14  For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.


This is saying that they are sanctified in the marriage. It does not say anything about it being a relationship with God, just that the marriage is sanctified in the eyes of God.

I'm certain this applies to half an unsaved, married couple getting saved and not to a Christian who marries in violation of the "Be not unequally yoked..." command.  Nothing is said about the MARRIAGE being sanctified, just the husband or wife.  You can't read more into it than is there.

CB, I agree that it is in reference to an individual being saved after the marriage and not in violation of the be not unequally yoked because if we look back into verse 10 at the start of this conversation of verse 14 it is talking to those that are already married. However I must disagree with you on the rest. If you read this verse in context it is talking about the unification of a man to a woman in marriage not the individuals. It is saying that both (the man and the woman) would both sanctified together as a whole, not just the believer.

regardless, it IS a valid marriage in Gods eyes or we would not be called to remain in it