Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 09:1 (Nov 1946)
Article: Divorce
Author: John J. Murray

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WTJ 9:1 (Nov 1946) p. 31

Divorce

John Murray

THE question of divorce is one that perennially interests and agitates the church. This is true whether we think of the church in the most restricted sense as the local congregation or whether we think in terms of the church universal. The faithful pastor of the local church may consider himself happy indeed if he does not find himself embroiled in the complications associated with divorce and marital separations. And when we consider the matter more broadly we find deep-seated differences of viewpoint and interpretation within the historic branches of the Christian church.

It would be presumptuous to claim that a study such as is now being undertaken will resolve the many difficult questions involved. Nevertheless a better understanding of the teaching of Scripture may be promoted if the pivotal passages are discussed in correlation with one another and some attempt is made to bring the relevant Biblical data to the forefront for reflection and study.

It is quite apparent that the first Biblical passage bearing upon the question is Genesis 2:23, 24. At the very outset this enunciates the nature and basis of marriage and clearly implies that divorce or the dissolution of the marriage bond could not be contemplated otherwise than as a radical breach of the divine institution. It is impossible to envisage any dissolution of the bond as anything other than abnormal and evil. Our Lord’s comments with reference to this Scripture and the institution underlying it are to the effect of showing that the marriage bond is originally and ideally indissoluble. The rupture of this divinely instituted human bond is conceivable only if there is first of all the rupture of divine-human relations. The breach of the divinely instituted order of right and troth and love in the human sphere must presuppose the breach of troth with God.

WTJ 9:1 (Nov 1946) p. 32

This breach of troth with God did, of course, occur in the fall. It was not indeed through the desecration of the marriage bond that sin entered. It was by another avenue. But since sin did enter the question naturally arises: how does the abnormal situation created by sin affect the marital relation? A new complex of conditions and circumstances enters by sin and since sin desecrates all relationships we are bound to face the question of the bearing of sin upon the sanctity of the marriage bond. Granting the basic and original principle of the indissolubility of the marriage bond, yet, by reason of sin, are there any conditions under which the marriage tie may be dissolved with divine sanction and authorisation?

When we ask this question we must never f...

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