Is it scriptural to divorce your unbelieving spouse?
Question:
Dear Brother Jeff.
Good day and God bless.
Brother Jeff, you answered me concerning a brother who divorced his wife, without what Matthew 19:9 taught us. This Sunday our brethren replied regarding the divorced couple. They reckon the sister in the picture divorced her first and second husbands because they were unbelievers (I Corinthians7:12-16), so she had the scriptural right to divorce both of them.
Brother, can you please shed light for me on this reply from the congregation?
Thank you.
Answer:
"But to the rest I say, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he must not divorce her. And a woman who has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to live with her, she must not send her husband away. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy. Yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave; the brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us to peace. For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife?" (I Corinthians 7:12-16).
Paul's command is not being followed. He states that a Christian married to an unbeliever must not divorce his or her spouse. Your brethren reversed Paul's statement to say that Christians can divorce their unbelieving spouses.
Now, if the unbeliever decides to leave the marriage, then that is his or her decision. The Christian is under no obligation to hold the marriage together. However, nowhere in this passage does Paul give the divorced spouse permission to marry again. What he said just before was that a divorced Christian is not to marry again. "But to the married I give instructions, not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not leave her husband (but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband should not divorce his wife" (I Corinthians 7:10-11).
Christ gives one exception to this general rule: if a spouse is involved in fornication, then the spouse not involved in sin could choose to divorce his spouse, and he would be allowed to marry again. However, the guilty spouse would not be allowed to marry again while his original spouse remains alive (Matthew 19:9).
