Marriage Was Not Intended to Be a Tool in the Hand of Oppressors

When our Lord said, “What therefore God has joined together let no man separate” He was addressing the men of Israel’s desire to oppress their wives by throwing them away for any reason. Sadly the permanence view of marriage people have taken our Lord’s words and used them to oppress the same people for whom Jesus was protecting.

Some wives and children become oppressed when their husband and father suddenly dies or abandons them. Without a provider they quickly become destitute and their options become very bleak. With nobody to take care of them they often fall prey to the worst elements of this world.

But some spouses are oppressed because they are held captive in their marriage to a wicked person who delights in doing evil. That person abuses them and nobody from outside the home can help because the marriage relationship protects the abuser. And abusers are good at tormenting their “loved ones” right up to what the law allows so that they cannot be arrested and/or legally removed from the victims lives. Worse yet Christians stand by with the threat of the damnation of the oppressed victim if he/she dares to seek for a divorce to free themselves from their oppressor.

Our loving Father in heaven has made provisions both in Israel and in Christianity to care for the widow and the orphan. Christians are commanded to protect them and care for them. It is a sin to sit back and do nothing while a fellow saint is homeless, starving and unable to care for themselves.

In the very same way God has made a provision for those who are oppressed inside of their marriages. It is so unlike the character of God to hold His children captive to a lifetime of misery at the hands of a godless marriage partner. Those who withhold divorce as a way of escape for those oppressed by godless marriage partners are more like Muslims, who use sharia laws to oppress their women, than they are like Christians.

The two great commandments would have God’s people loving Him with all of their soul, mind and strength and would have them loving one another as they love themselves. It is not like God to make laws or institute ordinances that force the oppressed into a lifetime of sin and misery. God’s lovingkindness provides mercy and grace to the oppressed.

Most often God’s lovingkindness comes through the mercy and grace of a blessed marriage to a loving, Christian spouse. But when people, because of their hardness of heart, through the use of deception oppress a child of God, then God’s lovingkindness is seen in the mercy and grace of the dissolution of illegitimate marriages freeing the believer to remain single or marry in the Lord. When marriage itself becomes something of an idol, then in their worship of it God’s people lose sight of righteousness and God’s everlasting lovingkindness.