What if the innocent party isn’t so innocent?
Question:
Good morning brother,
In Matthew 19:9, the Scripture teaches that a person can divorce another if the other person has committed adultery. My question is: Could the person trying to divorce the other not be able to go through with a divorce if they aren't innocent? For example, me and my wife are going through hard times in our marriage, and during those times, I'm not giving her much attention so she has an affair. Or in light of I Corinthians 7:5, if I was to deprive her of sex and she was to have an affair. I'm trying to understand the idea of the innocent party. Could a person’s actions cause them not to be able to divorce their spouse? I struggle to answer this question because within a marriage sex is given exclusively to a husband and wife. Not only that, God is also involved in this marriage. So regardless of what your spouse may do or say, my main commitment is to God.
Answer:
Where you are having difficulty is with the phrase "innocent party." Let's first note that the phrase does not appear in the Bible. People use the phrase because we are talking about two people, one who had committed fornication and the other who had not committed fornication. This gets to be wordy so people resort to a shorthand: "The guilty party" and "the innocent party." "Guilty" in such a context doesn't mean a person has committed every possible crime. The only sin under consideration in Matthew 5:32 and Matthew 19:9 is fornication. In the same way, "innocent" in the context of divorce is understood to refer to being not guilty of fornication. It doesn't mean the person is innocent of contributing to the problem.
You are correct in observing that in many instances, the person who wasn't involved in fornication was complicit in disrupting the marriage. However, one person's sins do not excuse another person's sins. It does not mean the person who wasn't involved in fornication is sinless. The person may face the wrath of God because he failed to do his part in maintaining his marriage and living up to the terms of his covenant. However, the law still allows him to divorce his spouse because of the spouse's fornication.
Divorce is never required. Often, I find that the person who wasn't involved in fornication is willing to forgive his spouse's sin and work on the marriage. I encourage people to solve problems, forgive, and honor their covenant. It is only when a spouse is set on committing fornication regardless of the efforts of his spouse that divorce should be considered as an option.
