The fact that Israelite women could be given a divorce certificate doesn’t mean that God thinks divorce is a good idea. He designed marriage to last forever—for both the couple’s and the children’s benefit—and the breakup of a marriage is always a disaster. We have learned, though, that we have to distinguish between marriage breakup, which is always wrong, and divorce, which is the legal recognition that a marriage has broken up. Moses’ law did not say that it was acceptable to break up a marriage; it merely prescribed the legal process that was necessary after a breakup had happened. It said that the man couldn’t have his cake and eat it; he couldn’t abandon his wife and expect her to be waiting for him at a later date. Whatever sin causes the marriage to break up, there should be a clean end. Neither partner should hold the other as a prisoner in a marriage that is dead.
Divorce and Remarriage in the Church, by David Instone-Brewer
