What God Hath Joined Together

    We are embarking on a search for answers to a serious and perplexing problem: To discover the truth about the binding character of the institution of marriage. In our day, virtually every church and denomination has decided that under certain conditions a marriage can be broken and the divorced are permitted to remarry.

    Such permissive rules are taught and preached as the Word of God. Solemnly, pastors claim that they have the full authority of God to encourage divorce under certain conditions and to call God to witness the joining together in marriage of those who have been divorced from their first spouse. What does the Bible say about this?

    To understand the Biblical teachings concerning marriage and divorce, we must start with an understanding of the ceremonial laws of the Bible, where God first spoke concerning marriage and divorce, and their relationship to the world and church of today. Many theologians of our day believe they have in the ceremonial laws a Biblical basis to permit divorce and remarriage. In their misunderstanding of these laws, they have made a caricature of the ceremonial laws and used them to justify divorces.

WHAT ARE THE CEREMONIAL LAWS?

    When Christ was on earth, He spoke in parables and "without a parable spake He not unto them" (Mark 4:34). Sometimes Jesus told the people He was telling a parable. At other times He simply told a story and from the setting in the Bible we know it was a parable. For example, frequently He would begin a story or a declaration with the words "the kingdom of heaven is like." When He used these introductory words He was teaching with a parable.

    A parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. That is, a parable is a story or illustration taken from the secular world, but the application relates to some aspect of salvation. It might teach some aspect of Christ’s death or resurrection; it might relate to faith in the life of the believer; it might emphasize the sending forth of the Gospel; it might point to Judgment Day.     Because of the nation of Israel was an intimate part of the Gospel story, some parables teach about God’s plan for them. For example, in Matthew 21:33-45, the parable of the wicked husbandmen points to the fact that the kingdom of God would be taken away from national Israel and given to others.

    In the Old Testament, this teaching method was used extensively; for example, in the types and shadows God employed in the ceremonial laws which outline worship activities and in the civil laws which governed much of the Israelites’ civil pursuits.     These laws are called "ceremonial laws" by theologians because on the earthly, physical level they were to be rigorously obeyed by the nation of Israel.

    After Christ had hung on the cross, the physical aspect of these laws was no longer to be obeyed. Now only the heavenly meaning inherent within these laws is to continue. When Christ hung on the cross the great curtain separated the holy of holies from the holy place was torn apart from top to bottom by the finger of God. This signaled the end of the literal, physical keeping of the ceremonial laws. From that time forward the eyes of believers are to be focused only on the spiritual teachings set forth in the ceremonial laws as opposed to the literal, physical keeping of the ceremonial laws.

    In fact, when the New Testament church met together to decide which of the ceremonial laws were to be obeyed by saved Gentiles, they concluded in Acts 15:28-29: For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things; That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.     Thus, the observance of ceremonial laws ended. The ceremonial laws ran the gamut from blood sacrifices and burnt offerings to the dimensions and characteristics of the temple building and laws concerning planting fields and weaving cloth.

    These laws were to be obeyed by Israel literally, as earthly experiences, but they were to realize that the earthly event was only a shadow or type of some aspect of God’s salvation. In Colossians 2:16-17, God emphasizes this principle: "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ."

    Included within the ceremonial laws were laws concerning marriage. Three of these were especially noteworthy.

BELIEVERS ARE NOT TO BE UNEQUALLY YOKED WITH UNBELIEVERS

    The first of these three laws was given to national Israel when they were coming into the land of Canaan. Deuteronomy 7:2-4: And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them; Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.

    The first part of this commandment points to the spiritual judgment of the unsaved at Judgment Day, when believers will judge those who must be sent to

    hell for their sins (I Corinthians 6:2; Revelation 2:26-27). The earthly application is that Israel was to destroy the nations of the land of Canaan.

    The second part of the commandment points to the spiritual principle that believers are not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers. The nation of Israel typifies the body of believers in Christ. The heathen nations surrounding Israel typify the world with its enticements and temptations. Men of the nations of Israel were not to marry heathen wives, and believers are not to become attached or "married" to the world. God declares in Isaiah 52:11: "Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord."

    In this exhortation the Israelites were effectively told that they were to divorce themselves from that which was unclean. The literal, earthly application meant that if (in violation of Deuteronomy 7:2-4), they had married heathen wives, they were to divorce them. The truth of this can be seen dramatically in the Book of Ezra.

    The last two chapters of Ezra reveal a sad and traumatic experience faced by Israel. Under the leadership of men like Nehemiah and Ezra, a number of Israelites had returned to Jerusalem. In Jerusalem they discovered that a number of the men had married heathen wives who had borne children. Ezra 9:2-4:

For they have taken of their daughters for themselves, and for their sons: so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of those lands: yea, the hand of the princes and rulers hath been chief in this trespass. And when I heard this thing, I rent my garment and my mantle, and plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down astonished. Then were assembled unto me every one that trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the transgression of those that had been carried away; and I sat astonished until the evening sacrifice.

    In answer to the serious charge of violation of the commandment of Deuteronomy 7:2-4, the leaders of Israel made an important and difficult decision. They decided that these men must be divorced from their heathen wives. Ezra 10:2-3:

And Shechaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the songs of Elam, answered and said unto Ezra, We have trespassed against our God, and have taken strange wives of the people of the land, yet now there is hope in Israel concerning this thing. Now therefore let us make a covenant with our god to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them, according to the counsel of my lord, and of those that tremble at the commandment of our God, and let it be done according to the law.

    The decision was to let it be done according to the law. In Isaiah 52:11 God’s law decreed that those who had become involved with the unclean thing were to depart from that which was unclean. In the practical sense, if an Israelite

    married a heathen wife, he was to divorce that wife, which was the way Ezra and the other leaders understood that law. Ezra 10:10-12:

And Ezra the priest stood up, and said unto them. Ye have transgressed, and have taken strange wives, to increase the trespass of Israel. Now therefore make confession unto the Lord God of your fathers, and do his pleasure: and separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from the strange wives. Then all the congregation answered and said with a loud voice, As thou hast said, so we must do.

    We read in Ezra 10:16-17:

And the children of the captivity did so. And Ezra the priest, with certain chief of the fathers, after the house of their fathers, and all of them by their names, were separated, and sat down in the first day of the tenth month to examine the matter. And they made an end with all the men that had taken strange wives by the first day of the first month.

    Combining the commands of Deuteronomy 7:2-4 and Isaiah 52:11 with the last two chapters of Ezra, we see that the earthly application of the first ceremonial law concerning marriage is that there was Biblical divorce. If a man violated the law of Deuteronomy 7:2-4 by marrying a heathen wife, the law of Isaiah 52:11 decreed that he was to correct that sinful situation by divorcing that wife.

    The spiritual or heavenly meaning introduced by these laws continues today. In II Corinthians 6:14-17 God declares:

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.

    God is emphasizing that believers are not to be unequally yoked to anything that is of the kingdom of Satan. This can be someone we are planning to marry, or it can be any situation in which we become so entangled with the world that it is like being married to the world.

    If we find this condition in our lives, we are to separate ourselves from it. We are to turn away from the unclean condition. Turning away from the world is what God was typifying by the Biblical divorce presented in the last two chapters of Ezra.

    Since the men of Israel were to divorce heathen wives, what about a mixed marriage of today wherein a believer is married to an unbeliever? Is the believer to divorce the unsaved spouse?

    In the New Testament when God says "Israel," He means the body of the believers. The Old Testament men of Israel were not to marry heathen women, and the New Testament men of Israel, the true believers, are not to marry unsaved people. Does that mean that God intends for a believer to divorce his unsaved wife? God answers this question in I Corinthians 7:12-13.

But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him.

    God further answers this question, when He speaks of the wife who is married to the unsaved husband, in I Peter 3:1:

Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives.

    God says there is not to be divorce in the case of this kind of marriage. Thus, the earthly application of the ceremonial laws of Deuteronomy 7:2-4 and Isaiah 52:11 is no longer observed. No longer do these laws provide a valid basis for divorce.

    The heavenly meaning of these laws continues today. Anyone who is so involved in or attached to the world that he seems married to it is to turn away from it. He is to separate himself from the unholy alliance.

    Thus, until Christ went to the cross, a biblically sanctioned divorce was required when man violated Deuteronomy 7:2-4 by marrying heathen women. The earthly aspect of this law came to an end when Christ died (I Corinthians 7:12-13, II Corinthians 6:14-17, I Peter 3:1).