Can Christians Divorce?
1) Direct Answer
No. God’s will is one man and one woman for life. A Christian is not to divorce. If separation must occur, the believer is to remain unmarried or be reconciled. Remarriage while a living spouse remains is adultery.
2) Scriptural Explanation
- From the beginning: “They two shall be one flesh…what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:4-6).
- God hates putting away (Malachi 2:16).
- Jesus restored the original standard: “Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so” (Matthew 19:8).
- The “exception” Jesus named is fornication (Matthew 19:9; 5:32). Now notice, Scripture itself shows what that means: Joseph “being a just man…was minded to put her away privily” when he thought Mary had been unclean before they came together (Matthew 1:18-19). That deals with discovering unchastity at the start of the union—not granting a license to dissolve a consummated marriage.
- After marriage is joined, Jesus said plainly: “Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery” (Mark 10:11-12; Luke 16:18).
- Paul confirms: “Let not the wife depart… but and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband” (1 Corinthians 7:10-11). A believer is “not under bondage” to force an unbelieving spouse to stay (1 Corinthians 7:15), yet this does not open the door to remarriage; he later says, “The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth” (1 Corinthians 7:39; Romans 7:2-3).
- Leadership standard: an overseer must be “the husband of one wife” (1 Timothy 3:2). That’s why men who came into the faith already with more than one wife were received as believers but not placed in church office.
3) Simple Clarifying Logic
- God joins; man must not tear apart what God joined.
- Moses permitted divorce because of hardness of heart; Jesus lifted it back to God’s first intent.
- If divorce were allowed for any later offense or convenience, Jesus would not have called remarriage “adultery,” nor would Paul have commanded separated believers to remain unmarried or be reconciled.
- If an unbeliever departs, the believer is called to peace; but Scripture still binds the marriage bond while the spouse lives.
4) Short Reinforcing Statement
Come as you are, repent of past wrongs, and walk clean from now on. Don’t break up more homes. If you’re already entangled, stay as you are and live faithfully to Christ; but do not seek remarriage while a living spouse remains. God honors His Word and heals where we submit to it.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
The Voice of the Sign
64-0321E §47
And then we find out that when John came (out of the wilderness again, a lover of the wilderness) with a message straight to modern women---living divorced, and married, and remarried---he cut the thing to pieces. He never come from any school; he come from God, a man sent from God. And he condemned the modern women---against them hard---and he never pulled no punches. But he plainly said the time was at hand: the Messiah was going to speak. Look at that. Now, compare the time of Elijah's first coming with some of...
He was to pass that way
57-0727 §20
...disgrace the way our American women act. I got a clipping out of the paper, that I believe, it was about sixty percent of the boys that went overseas in this last war, was divorced from their wives before they come back: their wives running off with somebody else in these defense plants, working. She has got no business in a defense plant. A woman's place is at home with her children. And when she... Now if her husband's sick and she has to work, that's different. But woman's place is at home in the kitchen; and w...
The invasion of the United States
54-0509 §78
...you're a missionary, they don't like... Say, "What are you going to tell us to do, how to sing dirty songs about our wives, or about our girls? You going to tell us how to divorce our wives? Teach us how to drink whiskey and go the way we do?" That's what we are. We call ourselves a religious nation, the Christian nation. Well, them heathens in Africa could teach us morals, how to live. The rottenest place, in the United States ... or, the world, nearly, is this nation, how it's got. I'm an American, certainly. Bu...
Marriage and Divorce
65-0221M §62
That's why God forbids her to teach His Word. That's right. I Timothy 2:9-15: "I suffer not a woman to teach, or to have any authority..." See? And also I Corinthians 14:34: "Let your women keep silent in the churches, for it's not permitted to them to speak, for they are commanded to be in silent, also saith the law." But today, what does the church do? They make her pastors, evangelists, when the Bible completely forbids it! And the Bible said: "...as also saith the law," making it run in continuity, the whole th...
Marriage and Divorce
65-0221M §87
...pregnancy of the Word of God to bring forth a child of this age, the seed child. Amen. I hope you understand. Couldn't be pregnated, no. So what did He do? Put her away in divorcement. That's right. But she dares put Him away. He put her away. He went right on revealing His Word to the body and vindicating and saying by Himself. His children begin to kind of look more like Him because it's fully maturing, or they become children of the Word---not children of the church, children of the Word. And the bride will be...