Who is the Man?

“Is it lawful for a MAN to divorce...” (Matthew 19:3).

“Therefore what God has joined together, let no MAN put asunder [ apart ]” (Matthew 19:6b).

Who is this “man”? Who is the one promoting the separation? Can anybody outside the marriage divorce the husband and wife if they themselves did not want to be divorced? Of course not! You may be able to physically separate the husband and wife from each other, but not the marriage or “oneness” that they possess in their hearts. The “man” in Matthew 19:3b, 6b are the marriage partners. “Therefore what God has joined together, let not ...[the marriage partners] ...separate” (Matthew 19:6b). The Scripture is saying, concerning a God-ordained marriage, not to let the original desire to separate or divorce, grow out of the husband's or wife's heart. The Scripture does NOT say, “therefore what God has joined together, let not GOD separate,” but “let not man (the marriage partners) separate” out of self-gratification.

There is a vast difference between us doing something from our own self-gratification, and us carrying out the loving will of our heavenly Father. The very actions themselves that we carry out may appear to “look” the same, but the unseen part that makes the difference between a sinful act and a righteous act, is the desire of your heart. DIVORCE ITSELF IS NOT WRONG, BUT WHEN IT’S USED FOR SELFISH PLEASURE, IT IS!

God Brings Together and God Pulls Apart

We act as though we believe that once God has “joined together” a man and a woman, that He somehow loses His sovereign position as God, and cannot separate the two if the situation warrants it. As we have just read from Ezra and Nehemiah, that is just not so. God is God! For “...He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens” (Romans 9:18). (See also Exodus 33:19.)

We see God using His sovereign right to remove the kingdom, a type of family headship, from one of the greatest kings ever: Solomon. “[For] ...King Solomon loved many foreign women ...[For] ...the Lord had said to the children of Israel, ‘YOU SHALL NOT INTERMARRY WITH THEM, NOR THEY WITH YOU. Surely they will turn away your hearts after their gods...’ So the Lord became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned from the Lord God of Israel. Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, ‘BECAUSE YOU HAVE DONE THIS [married against My will], and have not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded you, I WILL SURELY TEAR THE KINGDOM AWAY FROM YOU and give it to your servant’” (1Kings 11:1,2,9,11).

It has been wrongly taught that breaking a marriage covenant should NEVER be done. But we forget that God is jealous for a righteous holy-living people. When we join into covenant agreements that fly right in the face of His will, be assured that He will expect us to correct it; not just to keep on going as if nothing had happened and ask Him to “bless” it.

The vow, “to death do us part” that we make at our wedding is not found in the Bible. We can’t even keep ourselves by our OWN strength in the love of God, and yet we are going to commit ourselves to love someone else forever? A scriptural vow that would be more appropriate to promise one another on our wedding day would be: “By the GRACE OF GOD, AND THROUGH HIS STRENGTH, I GIVE myself to you all the days of my life, to have and to hold, to love and to cherish....” For in ourselves we are weak.

However, because of being born again into Christ, we CAN do all things through Christ who gives us the strength through His grace (See Philippians 4:13). As we yield our heart to God, everyday His glorious love will flow from Him, through us, and to our mate. The only thing that will ever separate our hearts on this earth is when we pass on to meet our Maker.

The Scripture that says for us to, “have no other gods before [you]” (Exodus 20:3) deals with relationship. For RELATIONSHIP IS COVENANT! Therefore, if there is a relationship in our life that we want more than what the Lord God wants us to have, we are in covenant relationship outside of His will. When God’s relationship with us is interfered with by another relationship, He will ask us to make the proper adjustments in our heart or break the relationship. If we won’t give the relationship its proper place or separate on our own, He Himself will start the process for it to break. The very bonds of the relationship will start to crumble and many times, it isn’t pleasant.

That’s what happened to King Solomon; “...because you have done this [you entered a marriage covenant you weren’t supposed to], and have not kept MY covenant ...I will surely tear the kingdom away from you...” (1Kings 11:11). God, in revealing the steadfastness of His heart, used King Solomon as an example to the future generations.

A Nation: A Reflection of Marriages

Why does God command us not to marry outside of His family, and specifically, for us to ask Him to choose our mate for us? What is behind satan’s strategy in hurrying us to marry without first seeking God and waiting for the mate that He is so delightfully preparing for us?

God is the one who created the earth and the fullness thereof. The whole world and all of creation was given to the first man, Adam to rule over. Adam gave it over to satan and now both righteousness and evil cohabitate in the same world (See Luke 4:6, Proverbs 18:21). Because of this there must be a separation between the two natures. Therefore, we must choose between the nature of “Life,” and the nature of “Death” (See Deuteronomy 30:19).

Satan’s strategy for the husband or wife is to have an unrighteous spouse, thereby mixing the godly with the ungodly and producing unrighteous children. Because the children are our future leaders, they will lead the people away from God and from doing right. “For righteous exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34). Moreover, when a fair portion of that generation of children lives out their corruption and unrighteous, the future of the nation is in jeopardy. Therefore in this case, separation and divorce is a method to save.

When the desire to marry comes from our own selfish heart, for our own selfish purpose, and for our own selfish gratification, you can be assured that disaster is looming in the air. “Did not Solomon, King of Israel, sin by these things? Yet among many nations there was no king like him, who was beloved of his God; and God made him King over all Israel. Nevertheless, pagan women caused even him to sin” (Nehemiah 13:26). This caused Solomon’s whole nation to crumble, because families make up a nation.

Therefore, when separating or divorce comes from God’s heart through man, it’s to save people. That is whether the marriage went bad, or was bad from the beginning. God is doing the separating to have a righteous people, for “righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.”


There are many critical keys in this book regarding divorce, remarriage, submission, interracial marriage and relationships. Click on Divorce: God's Will? to order.