Grounds for Divorce

"And [Jesus] answered and said to [the Pharisees], 'Have you not read that he who made them at the beginning made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'?  So then, they are no longer two but one flesh.  Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate."    They said to Him, 'Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?'  He said to them, 'Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.  And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.'" Matthew 19:4-9

A sad fact of our society is that many Christian marriages have been affected by sexual immorality, whether it be adultery or addiction to pornography, resulting in the breakdown of the covenant relationship between a husband and wife.  Sometimes the relationship is able to be restored, or renewed, if true repentance occurs, but this is not always the case. While I was listening to Dr. R. C. Sproul teach on this passage the other day, I keyed in on one point that he made regarding the church's role in addressing such situations.  He said he has seen, time and time again, the church wrongly pressure the offended spouse to restore the marriage, if the one who committed the sin repented and asked for forgiveness.  Sproul said that, indeed, the offended party is commanded to forgive the offender as a brother or sister in Christ, but Jesus does not teach that the marriage relationship must necessarily continue.  He recognized that marital infidelity has the potential of completely destroying the trust and bond between a husband and wife, and is therefore grounds for legal divorce. 

I think this distinction is important for the church community, so that we might extend grace to the offended spouse, if he or she decides to proceed with the divorce.  Sometimes the sexual sin/abuse has been so devastating, that there is absolutely no trust on which to continue the relationship.  Sproul gave the analogy of a Christian businessman who had an employee who embezzled a very large sum of money, who later repented of his sin and asked his employer for forgiveness.  As a Christian, the employer is commanded to forgive the man, but he is under no obligation to continue to employ him. The trust is no longer there.

Any thoughts from you readers?