Janine (12 Nov 2007)
"To Dawn Re Divorce"


Dawn,
Thank you for sharing your wonderful story of God's protection and grace.  What the church needs to rethink regarding "the BIG D"  is that while it is a hateful thing and far from God's plan for humanity, God allowed it.  With Moses, He allowed it because human beings are fallen creatures.  Jesus' admonitions regarding divorce reflected God's perfect standard.  They were not prescriptions for saying if you have done this, then you have somehow committed an unpardonable sin.  Paul comes along and gives additional words concerning divorce and because of persecution notes, "are you bound to a wife?  seek not to be loosed.  Are you loosed from a wife?  Seek not a wife.  But and if thou marry, thou has not sin; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned.  Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh." 1 Cor 7:27-28.  The loosed from part uses the same terminology as that used in divorce.  Loosed from meaning once bound to but no longer.
 
It may be stated, well that is loosed from for biblical reasons.  First, that isn't what it said.  But second, okay.  Let's give that to you.  So, remarriage is somehow a sin. Is God's forgiveness so shallow that this is a sin that he can not and does not forgive?
 
Divorce is a pet "sin" that the church likes to pick on.  It needs to repent of what it has done to divorced people .  We are ALL sinners and NOBODYS marriage is beyond danger - simply because we are fallen people.
 
Remember, God Himself was a divorcee.  He divorced Israel.  He will also take her back again. He commanded the children of Israel to divorce their foreign wives.   If divorce in and of itself were a sin, would He have done that?
 
No, the sin is not the divorce.  The sin is in what leads up to divorce.  Poor choices and evil actions/thoughts.  Yet, for all of our faultiness, we serve a God who specializes in working with broken vessels.  And, as we turn to Him with nothing to offer but our own messed up lives; He says, "now, you can be useful."
 
Isn't it cool how God can use our inperfection to His glory and our good?