What God Joined Together - Family Radio

Even the marriage that was consummated as an act of rebellion against God
is still a marriage which God has made into an indissolvable union. This does
not make God guilty of sin, because God cannot sin. Rather, in accomplishing
His divine purposes, God utilizes the sinful desires of man.
For example, God allowed the brothers of Joseph to commit the dastardly
crime of selling their younger brother into slavery so that later, Joseph, as
Prime Minister of Egypt, would be able to save them from starvation.
Likewise, God can utilize a sinfully contracted marriage for His own
purposes. God informs us that once a marriage is consummated, a union has
come into being by the action of God.
For that reason, God speaks of the wife being bound to the husband
(Romans 7:2; I Corinthians 7:39). If the wife is bound to the husband, then it
logically follows that the husband is bound to the wife. Earlier in our study, we
saw that the word “bound,” which God uses in these verses, means to be “tied
to” or “shackled together.” Remember that God declared that only He could
break the marriage union. He does this by claiming one spouse in death.
THE MARRIAGE UNION MAY NOT BE BROKEN BY MAN
Counselors who encourage quarreling spouses to try a trial separation are
in violation of God’s Word. Divorce, which is so much in vogue in our day, is
a terrible violation of God’s edict concerning marriage. Rather than
encouraging separation, the Bible insists that the bodies of those who are
married belong to each other (I Corinthians 7:3-5). No matter how badly the
marriage is going, that principle is to be observed. Woe unto us when we take
these matters into our own hands.
God underscores the sacredness of the marriage union in Mark 10:11-12:
And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry
another, committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall put away
her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery.
Romans 7:2-3:
For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband
so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law
of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to
another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead,
she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married
to another man.
Jesus restates the principle in Luke 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.” Surely the Bible could
not be any clearer! There is not to be separation! There is not to be divorce!
28 What God hath joined together...