The disciples did not miss the importance of Jesus’ words [concerning marriage, divorce and remarriage]. They considered it a hard saying. They said, “If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry!” Or, if a man can never rid himself of a wife, even if she be a poor cook and housekeeper, a nagger and a bickerer, a poor mother and a boring companion . . . then it is better not to marry, and thus run the risk of spending a lifetime with such a person.

And of course, in the disciples thinking a woman would be running an equal risk. At this point Jesus introduces the subject of eunuchs; some are eunuchs by birth, some by the hands of men, and some have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. The context makes clear that Jesus is saying that a man or a woman who has been put away by his mate, or who has put his mate away, must become a eunuch for the kingdom’s sake; that is, this person does not remarry, but learns to live without a mate in the kitchen, living room, and bedroom.

Now the Church of Christ, and the pilgrim husbands and wives within her, must be faithful to these words if she is going to reveal that she is the Bride of Christ.

For the reason that marriage is an unbreakable bond is to be found in the fact that the Church can never be separated from her Savior!

Christ will never leave those for Whom He died. He loved them unto death!

And Christ will not even allow His people to forsake Him, even though they sin and commit adultery; rather He brings them to confession of their vile sins, forgives them, and leads them in a new way!

To allow the remarriage of separated, or what the world calls divorced persons, is a practical error that finds its way, cancerously, into the very doctrine of the church. For first of all, the fellowship of pilgrims called church denies, when it allows such remarriage, that her salvation is an everlasting certainty in Christ, and that the bond between Christ and the Bride is of such a permanent nature that the gates of hell cannot destroy it. Man might not like that, but he cannot have it both ways: the picture and the reality must correspond. If one is enduring and firm, so is the other; if the picture is breakable and flimsy, so is the reality.

In the second place, if adultery in the physical sense is allowed in the church and-at the communion table, then be sure that all kinds of other iniquitous practices will soon follow. This is observable in the churches today. Those who have left the Scriptural truth concerning marriage are those who also fall away in other areas of doctrine. Doctrine and life become corrupt simultaneously because the truth is one.

I fear that the reasons for this carnal inroad into the life of the church are basically two.

The church has become a man-pleaser rather than a God-pleaser. She does not want to seem old fashioned, too traditional or unchanging, nor has she any taste for discipline. There must be room for a little bending and a lot of tolerance.

Secondly, there is an improper stress placed on the importance of the here and now, as if the present time and circumstance is all there is! “Do you mean to tell me,” one deserted wife wailed to me, “that God wants me to live the rest of my life without a husband and my children without a father, just because I picked a bummer?”

When I assured her that was the will of God for her according to the Scriptures, her response was that she knew what the Bible said but she did not believe it!

Well, it was not given her to receive, but the answer is still Yes.

And God will take care of the deserted wives and the fatherless children in His tender mercies. The answer is Yes also because God has something far better in mind for His people than earthly marriage, He will give them a place at the everlasting wedding feast!

By Dale H. Kuiper