Why God Hates Divorce

We were looking at a conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees concerning marriage from Matthew 19. We saw that Jesus pointed them back to the book of Genesis to see God's intent for marriage. Then we looked at where God said he hated divorce. That was the message that came through loud and clear in Malachi 2:16, "For the Lord God of Israel says that He hates divorce."

but didn't God condone divorce? That was the accusation of the Pharisees. In Matthew 19:7-9 we read, "They said to Him, 'Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?'" The Pharisees were referring to Deuteronomy 24:1-4, a passage in which Moses mentions divorce. But the only command from that passage was that if the wife following the divorce married someone else and then got another divorce, her first husband could not remarry her because she was defiled. But, "See," they said. "God, through Moses, commanded that people should get a divorce." They twisted the Scripture then just as people do today.

Jesus answered this way from Matthew 19:8, "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.'" No, it was not commanded. God graciously permitted divorce as a concession to the innocent party.

Divorce was never God's intention. Rather it was the result of sinful men with hardened hearts. Divorce is never called a sin in Scripture, but it is always caused by sin - by some one's sin and by some one's hardened heart. At least one person in the relationship persists in sin refusing to repent and restore. Some one's sin is the cause of the divorce, but the other party could certainly be guiltless - an innocent victim of that sin. And that is the very reason why God gets so angry at divorce. God cares about the heartache of the innocent party. He cares about the heartache caused by the hard heart of the guilty party. So God permitted divorce for the protection of the innocent spouse so the innocent spouse could gain relief from the continuing, unrepentant sin of the other.