1. God hates divorce: Malachi 2:16. A Christian cannot do what God hates. 2. Divorce before God does not proceed because by definition the Christian marriage lasts until the death of one of the spouses: Matthew 19:6 3. Those who divorce remain married before God and if they remarry they will be in a union considered adultery: Luke 16:18, Mark 10:11-12, Matthew 5:32, Matthew 19:9, Romans 7:2-3 , 1 Corinthians 7:10-11 4. In extreme situations the Bible provides for temporary separation but not divorce as this makes the possibility of reconciliation difficult, which is the Divine ideal: 1 Corinthians 7:10-11 5. God forbids divorce: 1 Corinthians 7:10-11 6. He who divorces “makes his spouse sin” because that person cannot have legitimate sexual relations with anyone other than his legitimate partner. Matthew 5:32. Long before the legal execution of their divorce, the spouses are already separated (de facto divorced), even within their own homes, in most cases consciously forcing situations of infidelity so that their legal divorces can proceed. Christian divorces are not because of fornication but because of manipulation. Infidelity is the alibi they use to achieve their goal of marrying again. 7. No spouse is authorized by God to be judge or executioner of his or her partner: Matthew 7:1-2 8. Even the worst of spouses can be reached by God's grace and become a good husband or wife: Isaiah 1:18, Exodus 33:19. 9. The time God gives a sinner to repent and turn from his sin is his entire life. There is no reason, logic, or biblical support to consider that a spouse cannot change. While there is life there is hope. Ecclesiastes 9:4 10. Divorce is apostasy from biblical truth, it is a deviation from the clear teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ in the gospels. A divorced person is an apostate. 2 Timothy 4:3-4. In the Greek language the word divorce is ἀποστάσιον or apostasion, which is related to the word APOSTASIS (apostasy). 11. True love does not cease to be, does not cease to exist, does not end: 1 Corinthians 13:13 12. Divorcing because of the defects of one's spouse contradicts the grace of God. The Bible says that God is infinite in mercy and grace. The limit for a human being to achieve the grace of God is the moment of his death. It is the same with marriage, it only ends with the death of one of the spouses: Jeremiah 31:3 13. God asks us to forgive all the faults of our neighbor all the time: Matthew 6:14 14. There is no text in the Bible that authorizes divorce. 15. God is the best example of what an offended spouse should do. Israel was a fornicator and adulterer before God all the time. God giving them a letter of repudiation was a way of telling them that they were free to leave, that He could not force them to stay. Repudiation is not divorce. If someone divorced and went after other gods, it was them because of their rebellion and even so the Lord never stopped looking for them to reconcile with them. Jeremiah 3:12 says it very clearly. Those who say that God divorced Israel have not read the full text. 16. That adultery is a reason for divorce is a myth, a concept that is very popular and practiced but is not true according to the Bible and cannot be proven by it. In fact the Bible says just the opposite. The entire book of Hosea teaches us that even in the case of an unfaithful, adulterous and fornicating spouse, the marriage continues and the faithful spouse must seek out the unfaithful one to redeem him. 17. Matthew 5:32 and 19:9 do not authorize divorce or remarriage. We have shown with the Bible at least 52 reasons to reject that divorce is possible "because of fornication" because in verse 6 of Matthew 19 the Lord had already said that "what God puts together, let no man separate." The exception or exclusion of that phrase does not apply to legitimate marriages but to those that do not have the approval of God or that are illegitimate. Leviticus 18 lists such unions. The apostle Paul, using the same word porneia or fornication, pointed out incest in 1 Corinthians 5:1. 18. No one is innocent of faults in marriage. Divorcing because of the spouse's faults is nothing more than hypocrisy, but in a different way, we all commit faults. We all always have a debt both with God and with others because we are not perfect or infallible. This is taught in the parable of the two debtors: Matthew 18:23-35 19. Divorce is a 100% selfish act and reflects the complete opposite of what genuine Christianity based on love is. 1 Corinthians 13 20. Divorce is a tree that only bears bad fruit: Matthew 7:20. There is nothing good about getting divorced but there are an incredible number of dire consequences. Follow this link to see some of them: 21. A divorced man cannot be a preacher or minister because he is no longer the “husband of one wife” but of several: 1 Timothy 3:2 22. Divorce destroys the basis of society, which is the family, and opens the doors to all other evils. 23. Divorce reflects the opposite of God's relationship with his church. Whoever supports and practices divorce rejects the plan of God who is unconditionally committed to his bride, the church. God is working to purify his church and spouses must work together for their mutual well-being until the end: Ephesians 5:25-27 24. John the Baptist reproached the divorce and remarriage of Herod the Tetrarch, saying, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife”: Mark 6:18. That message is also for all those who married a divorced man or woman. 25. Jesus chivalrously told the Samaritan woman that her multiple “husbands” were not husbands before God: John 4:18. That same recrimination is in force for all divorced and remarried people: “The one you have is not your husband.” 26. Marriage is a covenant and whoever abandons it is disloyal and breaks that covenant against the will of God: Malachi 2:14 27. Those who are divorced forget the covenant of their youth and are rejected before God: Proverbs 2:17 28. Even in the case of an unbelieving spouse, the faithful must remain faithful to the marriage covenant: 1 Corinthians 7:13 29. If a rebel abandons his faithful spouse, he cannot and should not fight to make him stay. 1 Corinthians 7:15 says that to keep peace you must let go and remain alone as indicated in 1 Corinthians 7:11. There is no divorce or remarriage authorized here. God never contradicts his orders or changes his mind. 30. Divorce is falling from faith that God can restore the marriage or keep us faithful if we are left alone. “Without faith it is impossible to please God”: Hebrews 11:6 31. Divorce entails a trial before the world, which is prohibited by God to his faithful. 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 32. Divorces involve lies, false testimony, misrepresentations, gossip and exaggerations in the vast majority of cases, if not all. All this under oath before a worldly court. Before, courts required evidence to justify divorces. Yet getting to the truth was and remains almost impossible. But nowadays divorces are unilateral in most countries. In the United States, for example, they only ask that the spouse note in their claim that their marriage “is irrevocably broken,” which before God is a lie. By the grace and power of God no marriage is irrevocably broken. 33. Divorces are a horrible testimony of the faithful before unbelievers. The mere fact that the divorce rate of believers is higher than that of unbelievers is a shame for the gospel. 34. The true cause of all divorces is the hardness of the human heart, which is nothing other than rebellion: Matthew 19:8. Violence and infidelity are just the excuses that Christians use to make their legal divorces proceed. 35. There is no record in the entire Bible of a faithful child of God ever being divorced. Not even in the Old Testament, where there was polygamy, did faithful children of God get divorced. The record of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 is a description of what the hard-hearted or aggravated rebels did and not a law of God at all. This is what our Lord Jesus Christ specified in Matthew 19:7-8. 36. The vast majority of Christians divorce with the aim of remarrying. There is no record in the entire Bible of any faithful person remarrying for any reason. 37. Divorces and remarriages would be the only doctrine that current Christians practice without there being a single case of it in the entire Bible. This contradicts and breaks the principles of healthy biblical understanding and hermeneutics. 38. Divorce is disobedience to God and all disobedience is sin: 1 John 3:4 39. The practice of divorce originates in ancient Mesopotamia, in literal Babylon that had sunk into all kinds of pagan practices. Today it remains the same, divorce is fashionable and part of the eschatological Babylon that Revelation speaks of. God commands his children to leave the practices of that Babylon: Revelation 18:4-5 40. Divorce and change of partner do not solve the problems of marriage. This is demonstrated in the statistics. Second marriages divorce at a higher rate than first ones and have even more serious problems. 41. Divorce is a sign of evil in the end times as it was before the flood: Matthew 24:37-39 42. Worldly courts do not have the power to separate what God has joined together because they are men and God said that “what God has joined together, let no man put asunder”: Matthew 19:6 43. Divorce and remarriage is consecutive polygamy, that is, one couple after another without limit. That is why many are already going through 3, 4 and even more marriages. 44. Genuine marriage, as it was at creation, was restored in the new testament. The model for Christians is the teachings of Christ and Paul, without divorce or remarriage. 45. Divorce and subsequent remarriage degrade, as it is recorded from the Old Testament: Deuteronomy 24: 4 46. Remarriage is not a covenant and therefore there is no blessing from God in it: Galatians 3:15 47. Divorce is anti-Christian and those who promote and practice it act as antichrist: 1 Thessalonians 2:3-4 48. In the entire Bible, not a single woman is recorded as being divorced. Currently, 70% of divorces are requested by women, even Christian women. 49. Divorce is pandering and makes God look like a panderer: Numbers 14:18 50. The weight of biblical evidence is overwhelming against divorce. There is not a single biblical text that authorizes divorce or remarriage but there are many that prohibit them.
In the Bible there is not a single case in which infidelity was resolved with divorce and remarriage. Today in some countries more than half of Christians divorce and marry another person based on their partner's infidelity. Does this make any sense? Using reason, common sense and logic we must say no. Those who, in contradiction to biblical reality, practice remarriages are based on Matthew 5:32 and 19:9, specifically on the phrase “except for the cause of fornication,” which some versions incorrectly translate “except for the cause of infidelity.” We have so far presented 37 biblical reasons to reject this divorce position. Each of these reasons in itself should be able to be resolved to make that interpretation viable. Otherwise it is discarded.
REASON # 38: HOW DID CHRIST SOLVE THE CASE OF ADULTERY/INFIDELITY? Someone would say, “well the Bible does not record that infidelity was resolved with divorce and remarriage because no case was presented.” That would be implausible. Both divorce and infidelity were as common in those times as today. But we do not see the Bible recording the event of the church judging some adulterer giving his partner the right to marry another person. In fact, the Bible prohibits it: Matthew 5:32 and 19:9, Mark 10:11-12, Luke 16:18, Romans 7:2-3. However, we do find a specific case in which Christ himself was faced with adultery/infidelity. As it is the only registered case, we have to give it great importance. If Christ had taught that in the new covenant the punishment for the unfaithful is that his partner divorces him and that the supposedly innocent have the right to marry another person, this would be the opportunity to see that verdict. The story is in John 8:1–11, a woman caught by the Pharisees in the act of adultery. Wouldn't this be the opportunity for Christ to put into practice what divorceists say he taught in Matthew 5:32 and 19:9? We know well that this was a trap. What the Old Testament law indicated was that she was to be stoned to death. What would Jesus do? Well we have the story of what he did. We know him well. He did not judge her or condemn her. I do not indicate gathering the church board to discipline or disunite it. Nor did she call her husband to tell him that because his wife had been unfaithful he could divorce her and go find another wife or that he could forgive her and continue blaming her for her sin as many do today. All this divorce scaffolding is catapulted not only in the clear teachings of the Master but also in the way He faced a real case of adultery. Christ's solution to this sin is the same as to all others: Go and sin no more. This simplicity is annoying for spouses offended by their partners. It is also true for modern blood-hungry Pharisees. No longer a literal blood (because today's laws like the Roman ones of those days do not allow it) but that represented by ridicule, censorship, public trial before family, friends, society and church. In divorce, the wider the diffusion of the sin of the unfaithful, the more justified the new marriage of the supposedly innocent is. Well, that's not what the Lord did. What would this woman's husband do? The story doesn't say it. We do not doubt that in this sexist and divorced society he was given a divorce certificate and another one was obtained. But at least it is clear that Christ does not condone such a position. WHAT IF THERE IS A RE-INCIDENCE? There are those who relate this woman to that of Magdala from whom Christ removed 7 demons. Whether this is true or not, it is a reality that human beings are linked to our carnal nature until the last day of our lives and we can fall again, we can repeat the same sin. This is not noticeable when the sin is gossip, watching soap operas, lying, judging others, envying, being haughty, saying bad words, being selfish, etc. But when it comes to adultery it is a big scandal. Once again, and unfortunately for the divorcers, there is no indication in the Bible that God's treatment of a repeat offender of adultery is different from that of a repeat offender of any other sin. God will always be there ready to remove the seven demons, that is, remove evil from us as many times as we ask him. This does not mean that we must take God's grace into play, which will be very delicate and will endanger our eternal salvation. We cannot play with evil. That is not the point at issue. The point is that a spouse is not authorized to set limits on any of his partner's sins as a starting point to get another one. The sacred scriptures do not teach that. SEPARATION MAY BE NECESSARY AND USEFUL What the Bible does say is that if a divorce occurs, the one who is faithful to God must be left alone: 1 Corinthians 7:10-11. In other words, it is understood that there are extreme situations where separation can occur, and even divorce, when one of the spouses requires it in order to marry another person. In those cases, the one who is faithful will have to be left alone and in prayer so that his or her husband is reached by the power of God and becomes what God desires in fidelity and commitment. How do we know who was at fault in a divorce? Here we reach the point of being able to say it: Whoever asks for a divorce and runs off to find another partner has all the responsibility for the divorce and is possibly also the real culprit of the problems that occurred in the marriage, even if his partner fell into infidelity. That's the most important part to understand. Divorce is the cause of divorces and even adulteries or infidelities. The person who mistakenly believes that God authorizes them to get a new partner if their spouse is unfaithful at some point will not do their part responsibly to make their marriage work because where they are really focused is on their new partner. This person will go to the extreme of contributing to making his partner fall into infidelity because he knows that this fact will give him complete freedom, looking good to everyone, to have a new one. One of the analyzes in relation to the adulterous woman is that her own accusers had made a plot against her and the person who had made her fall was present and that is why when they were confronted by Christ they had to leave because their conscience accused them. The evil of human beings has no limits. The last moment to resolve the innocence or guilt of a spouse in the face of a divorce will be in the final judgment, where even the most intimate intentions of the heart will come to light. On the other hand, we will know who is genuinely seeking to please God in obedience in relation to their marriage, when that person remains only looking for a way to achieve reconciliation and see that their relationship works. So, and in conclusion we have that neither in the days of Christ nor today the solution to any problem of marriage, including infidelity, is divorce and remarriage. The Christian solution to all sin problems is redeeming grace and an attitude of forgiveness between spouses as many times as necessary. And if the circumstances are so extreme that they threaten the health or life of one of the spouses, they must be left alone to better serve God and others. It is what the Word of God teaches. To see the other 37 reasons against divorce based on Matthew 5:32 and 19:9 follow the links below: