The Bible doesn’t allow divorce on grounds of mutual love that has died

Published 1:35 pm Thursday, August 6, 2020

Dear Rev. Graham: Is it OK to divorce simply because a couple no longer has the same kind of love they had when they first married? — M.T.

Dear M.T.: The impact of divorce on children is staggering and the full negative impact is still to be assessed as the psychological and emotional scars break through to harm future families.

One of the primary reasons for the breakdown in the home is that we have forgotten the Biblical commands relating to marriage and the family, commands which never change. The Bible doesn’t allow divorce on grounds of mutual love that has died. The Bible says God hates divorce because, as Jesus taught, marriage is a picture of the unity between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. It is a God-blessed unity.

Divorce tears at the very fabric of “the two that become one.” Satan has tried to disrupt this from the beginning, wanting to be coequal with God. His sin of pride caused his expulsion from Heaven. Satan was successful in tempting our first parents into sin, thereby breaking the unique relationship between man and his Creator. Satan also tried to pry Jesus loose from His relationship to the Father when he tempted Him in the wilderness.

Today, Satan is eating away like a large termite at the foundation of marriage and the family. Satan never changes, but neither does God. There is no marriage that is beyond repair in the sight of God. If we will first submit ourselves to Christ and then our marriage into His care and keeping, nothing is impossible with God.

It requires humbling ourselves and laying aside our pride and desire to please ourselves. Only then will God bring healing to a marriage. The first step in healing a marriage begins with the husband and wife. God will then provide the salve that heals.

————

(This column is based on the words and writings of the late Rev. Billy Graham.)