03.14. CONCLUSION

CONCLUSION

Scripture teaches that God created marriage for life and so He did not create it with an ‘exit.’ Jesus came to earth to repair all that had been broken by the fall into sin. That included the broken institution of marriage. The blood of Christ washes away all sins of marriage and His redeeming work alone makes the restoration of marriage possible. He poured out His Holy Spirit who gives the necessary grace for husband and wife to live together in unity: the husband doing what he can to lead his wife and the wife doing what she can to be the helpmeet for her husband. The Holy Spirit gives daily renewal, enabling both the husband and the wife, each day anew, to seek the other’s best interests - despite each other’s sins and shortcomings. Is there an escape hatch in marriage? Did God create marriage with a door in and a door out? No! “For the LORD God of Israel says that He hates divorce...” (Malachi 2:16). The only door out is death. Divorce tears apart what belongs together. Even if a marriage comes to the point of divorce, the aim is to bring back together what belongs together. God calls us to keep intact that unity which He created in the beginning between husband and wife. Let each of us in our own place and marriage pray for this unity and work at it.

Whilst the society we live in makes divorce so easy, let us never look to divorce as the way out of marital strife. Divorce, a man-made solution, and hence a sinful solution, cannot solve the effects of sin as experienced in marriage. God’s solution to the brokenness of this life, in all its facets, marriage included, is the cross of Christ. On the cross Christ demonstrated, to the fullest extent, the forgiveness and self-denial that alone can keep any marriage intact.