God Makes The Man And Woman One

By Myron Horst

Marriage is more than a marriage certificate from the civil government. In marriage, God makes the man and the woman one. God says about the being made one aspect in Malachi 2:15: "And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth."

Jesus also stated that it is God who joins a man and woman together as one flesh in marriage: "And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.'" Matt. 19:4-6

Divorce is a legal action that the civil government (not God) has established. A couple may go to the church to get married, but they have to go to the civil government to get a divorce. The Church cannot grant a legal divorce. Although divorce can end the legal aspect of a marriage, it cannot end the "one" aspect of the marriage which God has joined together. Once divorce occurs, a person is not single again in God's judgment, and therefore not free to marry another person even if their first spouse has remarried. The "one" union with their spouse can only be ended by the death of one of the marriage partners. According to Jesus, a marriage cannot be ended by the legal proceedings of the court.

In the same passage in Malachi 2 where God states that he makes the man and woman one, God also clearly states that after divorce the marriage is still binding "yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant." (Malachi 2:14) Divorce does not end the "one" aspect of the marriage that God joined together when they were married.

God also says, "So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man." Romans 7:3.

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