From the Old to the New Testament, God speaks about marriage.
I invite you to read these passages and ask the Lord what He is saying.
Could you pray before you read this, to read it like you never have before?
To pray to understand the Word, in light of truth, not your circumstance.
What I have done in this blog, is simply state scripture about marriage.
I have also included what I believe that means for us today in orange, though the text needs no interpretation.
Genesis 2:18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. God created and desires marriage.
Genesis 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall join to his wife: and they shall be one flesh. This is meant for a man and woman, a heterosexual relationship.
Exodus 20:14 You shall not commit adultery. Clear.
Exodus 22: 16-17 If a man seduces a virgin who is not betrothed and lies with her, he shall give the bride-price for her and make her his wife. If her father utterly refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the bride-price for virgins. If you have sex with her, she is your wife. But pops gets a say in it and you will pay like she is your wife, if he won’t give the blessing. This is a whole new understanding on getting your dad’s approval.
Leviticus 21: 13-14 (to the priests) And he shall take a wife in her virginity. A widow, or a divorced woman, or a woman who has been defiled, or a prostitute, these he shall not marry. But he shall take as his wife a virgin of his own people. The priests are to be set apart.
Deuteronomy 22:13-21 If a man takes a wife and, after sleeping with her, dislikes her and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, “I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,” then the young woman’s father and mother shall bring to the town elders at the gate proof that she was a virgin. Her father will say to the elders, “I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her. Now he has slandered her and said, ‘I did not find your daughter to be a virgin.’ But here is the proof of my daughter’s virginity.” Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town, and the elders shall take the man and punish him. They shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the young woman’s father, because this man has given an Israelite virgin a bad name. She shall continue to be his wife; he must not divorce her as long as he lives.
Jewish girls were to be virgins at marriage. The man didn’t “like” his wife anymore, so he comes up with a lie…but a “justifiable reason” for divorce. (Also noted in Matthew’s gospel to a Jewish audience that held this same stance on virgins at marriage.) Yet God required him to be punished (pay fine) for slandering this girl’s reputation and he had to stay married for life.
If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the young woman’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done an outrageous thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you. This was how serious God took purity.
Malachi 2:14-16 You ask, “Why?” It is because the Lord is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.
Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit. And what does the one God seek? Godly offspring. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth.
“The man who hates and divorces his wife,” says the Lord, the God of Israel, “does violence to the one he should protect,” says the Lord Almighty.
So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful. Be faithful. Protect her. Don’t leave her.
Matthew 1:19 Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. This law carried into the New Testament with the Jewish community of a Jewish girl being a virgin. It would have been okay for Joseph to divorce Mary, as it APPEARED she wasn’t a virgin….though she was.
Mark 10:9: “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” A command. Let no one separate. When two become one, it would be extremely painful on your part to try to pull it apart. I heard after the death of a child that divorce is the 2nd most devastating thing in a person’s life.
1 Corinthians 7: 1-2 Now for the matters you wrote about: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” 2 But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. Sex is for a man and a woman in a marriage covenant.
1 Corinthians 7:10-11 To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. 11 But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife. If she divorces, you can’t get remarried. But you can get back with your husband. As long as he didn’t remarry…see Jeremiah 3:1 If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and marries another man, should he return to her again? Would not the land be completely defiled?
And Deuteronomy 24:1-4 also speaks to this.
If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled. That would be detestable in the eyes of the LORD. She can’t return to her first husband after being married to another man even if the second husband dies.
1 Corinthians 7: 12-16
To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.
But if the unbeliever leaves, let it be so. The brother or the sister is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?
This is Paul speaking and he makes it known, this is “not the Lord.” But either way, it still doesn’t say you are free to remarry. It just allows to separate.
1 Corinthians 7:39 A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord. You are bound, like glue, like two becoming one…like “stuck” until your spouse dies. That’s covenant. If your hubby dies, you can remarry a Christian.
Ephesians 5: 22-33
Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Jesus is the head. The husband is meant to be like Jesus to his wife. A wife can submit to this and respect him, as the husband has a high call to be Jesus to her.
Next blog on how God makes a covenant with us and we with Him: How that displays His heart for marriage.
