Marriage as a holy indissoluble vow

In the Bible, marriage is a holy union entered into between a man and a woman before God.  As such, it is a holy vow before God that cannot be taken lightly.  It is a holy vow, and ideally, it is indissoluble in character.

Marriage as a civil contract

BUT, please take note that the Bible also addresses marriage as a contract.  All contracts are based upon a meeting of minds – that is, people must agree, not only to take each other, but also they must agree on the terms and conditions of the marriage.

1. There must be consent: the man and the woman must freely consent to have and to hold each other.
2. There must be an object.  In this regard, the object of the contract is to build a home and family; as well as to enhance the personal well-being of the marriage partners.
3. There must be a consideration: the partners must mutually love, respect, care and financially support each other.
4. There are terms and conditions which are presumed in marriage: it is exclusive.

Implications of marriage as a civil contract

1. When the partners who have entered into the marriage do not fulfil their obligations and duties, they are in breach.
2. Under the civil law on contracts and obligations, there are two remedies to an aggrieved party when a contract is breached: the aggrieved party might ask for the performance of the obligation after it has been breached and ask for damages for the breach (the contract is not terminated); or, the aggrieved party will consider the contract to have been terminated and can also ask for damages.

The Scriptures recognize both the ideal and the practical aspects of marriage.  The Scriptures speak of marriage ideally (holy indissoluble vow and union) but it also speaks of marriage practically (as a contract).

Isaac and Rebekah

Please note in Genesis, when Abraham was old, he sent his trusted servant Eliezer to find a bride for his son, Isaac.  Eliezer found a suitable candidate in Rebekah and he negotiated (with goods and precious finery) with the family for their consent and for the consent of Rebekah.  When Isaac saw Rebekah coming, he loved her and he took her into his mother’s tent.  This shows that he agreed to be bound by the terms of the marriage.

Rebekah also agreed to marry Isaac.  In fact, Rebekah loved Isaac and agreed to be his wife even before she saw him (this is why Rebekah is a picture of the Church of Jesus Christ who loves the Groom, Jesus Christ and agrees to be wed to Him even if the bride has not seen Jesus Christ in person).  When she saw him, she was fascinated with him as she saw him afar.  When she finally met Isaac up close, she went willingly with him and became his wife.

Mary and Joseph

In the New Testament, Mary had already been promised or engaged to Joseph.  They were betrothed to each other and were considered already to be married before society although Joseph still had to build their house which is why they were not yet living together.  Still, both of them were under the obligation to maintain their chastity for each other because that is their contractual obligations.

Divorce for infidelity and adultery

In the OT, Moses allowed for divorce on the ground of infidelity or adultery.  And Jesus Christ, in the New Testament confirmed that divorce is available for the breach of the obligation of sexual exclusivity of marriage.  Jesus Christ said that divorce was allowed because people’s hearts were hardened (it means they were not loving as they should and they were not submitting to the authority of God who commands love and submission within marriage).

Divorce for domestic violence and abuse

1. Exodus 21:7-11  The case of the betrothed slave

In the OT, a man may sell his daughter into slavery to pay a debt.  Often, a man sells his daughter to pay a debt on condition that the daughter will not be a slave but will be the creditor’s wife, or the creditor’s son’s wife.

This passage speaks of a female whose father has given her to a creditor to be the creditor’s husband or the creditor’s son’s husband.  This passage address the very practical reality of what to do with the female if, after she is delivered to the creditor, the creditor or her son is not pleased with her.

The creditor is obliged to send her back to her father for her father to redeem her (buy her back).  In the meantime, he is to treat her as his own daughter: he has to clothe her, feed her and protect her.

If the creditor fails to treat the female slave as his own daughter (mistreats her by not feeding her, not clothing her and not protecting her) then she is allowed to go FREE.  Her father need not pay to redeem her and she can go free – she is released from her marriage vows.

If the creditor or his son fails to treat her as a prized wife, the creditor or his son cannot keep her around as a slave (meaning, they cannot go on abusing her or working her until she pays for her father’s debt and her own).  She is free.

Her freedom is given to her because of the creditor’s or his son’s failure to abide by the obligations of marriage:  to feed, clothe and protect the wife.  If so, then in our time, when a husband who has agreed to marry a woman and married her, then proceeds to abuse her, she is within her very right to be free because the man is in breach of his obligation to love his wife.  In cases of domestic violence, the man is violating the terms and conditions of the marital vow to love his wife and treat her kindly.  The domestic abuser has, himself (or herself) violated the marriage vow.  When the abused wife or spouse leaves that marriage, she is not dissolving her marriage – she is merely acting within her rights after her abuser has breached the marriage.

 

1. Deuteronomy 21:10-14 The case of a woman who is a prize of war

The Bible addresses the very common practice of soldiers seizing a woman as a spoil of war.  In ancient times, when a nation wars against another and defeats the other, they can take all the properties of the defeated nation as spoils of war.  Women are property and they can be taken as a prize.

When women are taken as a prize, they are either made slaves or made wives.  Remember the story of Naaman?  He was a captain of the Syrian host.  He had continuously won wars against Israel.  Consequently, he had given his wife a Jewish slave, a young girl.  Apparently, Naaman and his wife treated their slaves kindly because the little Jewish girl who was their slave felt “kindly” toward her master.  She certainly felt free to speak her mind to her mistress and tell her all about the prophet of God in Israel who can heal him of his leprosy.

So, it does happen: women were taken as slaves to live in a household; or, taken as a companion to a wife or daughter, and even be treated as a daughter.  So, it also happens that some prisoners of war are taken as wives.

Deuteronomy then says that when Israelite soldiers take a woman as a prize of war and desire her to be his wife, he is free to take her (whether she consents or not).  But she is to be treated as a wife — not as a slave.  If it happened that the soldier, after he had taken her to his home, finds her displeasing, he cannot treat her as a slave anymore.  This means he cannot sell her to another (because he had already had sex with her as she was his wife for a time).  He cannot treat her brutally – he cannot physically abuse or assault her, either.  She is to be set free.

 

So, what?  See Matthew 19:4-6

As Jesus Christ has said, marriage is a union between a man and a wife.

1. This is implies, why, as a Bible believer I cannot believe or support that “marriage” comprehends homosexual unions between males or between females.  To believe in homosexual marriage is to take a stand against Christ who confirmed that as far as God was concerned, marriage was, by design, a union between a man and a woman.  It was so in Genesis, when God created Eve for Adam and it was still so in John 2 when Jesus’ first miracle was to celebrate a marriage by turning water into wine.
2. The House and the Senate can pass a law allowing for homosexual marriages – they are well within their rights to do so.  And homosexual marriages may be accepted as legitimate unions sanctioned by the state — homosexuals are certainly well within their civil and political rights to claim their right to marry and for their marriages to be recognized.  That is their Constitutional right.
3. Our Constitutional rights do not change God’s word or God’s design or God’s plan or God’s view on marriage.  As marriage is a purely civil union these days (you can get legally married even outside the church), homosexual marriage can be argued as the pinnacle of the separation of church and state.  That is, legal marriage within the courts can comprehend homosexual marriages; whereas church marriages may or may not allow homosexual marriages – I suppose it depends upon a church’s moral and spiritual backbone.  And as the state cannot encroach upon the churches, the churches cannot complain if the state allows homosexual unions which churches refuse to perform.  And, in turn, pastors cannot be sued for refusing to officiate a homosexual marriage because it violates their freedom of religion.

Jesus Christ has said that as far as God the Father was concerned, marriage should be indissoluble.

1. This means that marriage is an exclusive union.
2. This means that in order to marry, a man must be able to support his wife without depending upon his family because he is expected to leave his parents and his home to be with his wife.
3. This means that in-laws cannot interfere with the marital relations of the husband and wife.

Jesus Christ also said that God the Father also recognizes the stubbornness and hardness of men’s hearts.

1. God is not unaware that there are men who beat their wives and wives who beat their husbands.  God is not unaware that there are men who verbally lash their wives just as there are wives who belittle their husbands at every turn.
2. This is why God provided for divorce.
3. Divorce is a way out of a marriage that is abusive and a marriage where the marital vows are honoured in the breach than in the fulfilment (it means that married couples stay together as a couple even if their union is toxic as a battlefield and dysfunctional as a junkyard).
4. Divorce is not a sin when divorce is sanctioned by the Scriptures: in cases of infidelity, adultery and when a spouse abuses the other.

 

My challenge: if Jesus Christ himself is aware and recognizes that divorce is available because of man’s sinful stubbornness and hardness, why do we tell our battered women to stay in their dysfunctional marriages because “what God had joined together, let no man put asunder?”

 

I decided to write about this because of a friend of a friend who married in the Philippines.  After she got married, the woman became a Bible believer and professed salvation.  Prior to leaving for the US as a nurse, she was attending a Bible Baptist Church.  She left for the US as a nurse and was granted permanent resident status there.

She brought her husband along as she had a right to bring along her spouse. Unfortunately, until her husband gained legal permanent resident status himself, he would not be allowed to legally work. After the husband gained his green card, he refused to work.  The woman supported herself, her family in the Philippines and her husband’s extravagant lifestyle in the US.  The husband began to take on vices: he drank, he engaged in online gambling and there were rumors that he was using crack and could be dealing in crack, himself.

When the woman confronted her husband, he beat her.  The beating continued intermittently.  Once, on a vacation in the Philippines, she asked advice of her pastor.  She wanted to know if she could divorce her husband without incurring the wrath of God.  The pastor advised her to stay with her husband because what God had joined together, let no man put asunder.

Luckily, because of a charge for possession of crack the man has been deported.  He has since been unfaithful to his wife and is living in with another – the woman has divorced her husband and is enjoying her freedom.

It is for her and for thousands like her that I write this blog.  May you find God’s word and God’s will on the matter.  May you find the boldness to act in faith and according to the will of God.