Luk 16:18 Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.
...caused quite a stir...warranting a plethora of comments pro/con (last count 470!) for those who are born again and whether or not they are at liberty to re-marry. It was quite an interesting discussion to follow. One which made me research and found this article:
WHAT IS THE REFORMED DOCTRINE OF DIVORCE?
Even the most cursory examination of the statistics concerning divorce in America reveals figures that are nothing short of staggering. In the 60 years between 1920 and 1980 the divorce rate more than tripled. The United States now has the highest divorce rate in the world and at least half of all U.S. marriages will end in divorce. About half of those divorces will involve children, for a total over one million children experiencing the divorce or separation of their parents yearly.1
What these figures should tell us is that America has become what one author has called a "Divorce Culture," and as such we can expect divorce to continue to impact every part of our society, including the church. In light of this situation it is imperative that Reformed churches have a coherent policy regarding divorce that accurately reflects the teaching of Scripture. Today most states have passed legislation that allows for what is called a "no fault divorce." As the name implies, this is a divorce in which neither party is judged to be at fault and the reasons are usually ones of emotional incompatibility, or "irreconcilable differences." In this kind of divorce neither party must prove that the other has broken the marriage covenant by some act of sin, only that they no longer wish to be married to the other person. Is this a valid divorce by biblical standards? The purpose of this essay is to answer this kind of question by briefly examining the scriptural evidence and the historic Reformed consensus on this issue in an attempt to frame a "doctrine of divorce".
Reformed theologians have long realized that the general thrust of the teaching of the Bible is against divorce, God himself does not mince words on the subject when in Malachi 2:16 he declares "I hate divorce". This stems from the fact that marriage in the Bible is intended to be an inviolable covenant bond between one man and one woman for life. Genesis 2:24 frames the creation ordinance of marriage in the following terms "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh." There is no indication that this marriage bond was ever intended to be severed in life and there is every reason to believe that had man continued in an unfallen condition, divorce would never have entered into the world. But as the Bible makes clear, the fall occurred and since that time man’s entire nature is now thoroughly corrupted by sin. Because of this, the Bible makes provision for, and regulates divorce. As Jay Adams puts it, "the concept of divorce is Biblical".2 But before we move on to consider how God regulates divorce in his word, we need to consider the fundamental difference between marriage and divorce. Marriage is a creation ordinance and a blessing from God. God declared in Genesis 2:18 that "It is not good for the man to be alone" and therefore he gave man the gift of marriage to correct the situation, that he might continue to declare of his creation that it was "very good" (Gen. 1:31). Divorce, on the other hand, postdates the fall and stems from the hardness of men’s hearts. Nowhere in the Bible is divorce spoken of as a positive institution, although as Adams points out, the Bible does not "always, under all circumstances, for everyone, condemn divorce."3 But while we can recognize that there are situations in which divorce is permissible, we can also see that it is never an unmitigated good. God hates each and every divorce -- and that includes his own divorce of his own sinful people Israel in the Old Testament (cf. Jeremiah 3:8)
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