“God never commands us to divorce a cheater.” – Christian “expert”
“Technically true, God never explicitly commands us to divorce a cheater. BUT God DOES repeatedly and explicitly command His people to put adulterous cheaters to death!” -Divorce Minister.
I am so tired of hearing pastors and other Christian “experts” spout off to faithful spouses this nonsense regarding divorcing a cheater!
If we are going to go all legalistic on this number, then we ought to be forming lobbying groups to petition our government to reinstall Biblical punishments for adulterous spouses.
“If a man commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife, both the man and the woman who have committed adultery must be put to death.” -Leviticus 20:10, NLT
I do NOT recommend re-instituting the death penalty for adultery.
So, let’s just drop the rigid legalism on divorce as well.
Often, the discussion of divorce among Christian leaders does not take into account the Old Testament passages that demanded the death of cheaters. God takes adultery very seriously, folks!
But, DM, we are now under grace. That’s why we don’t put the adulterous to death. We aren’t under the Law.
True, we live under God’s mercy and grace today.
Yet it is a perverted sort of mercy or grace to pardon a perpetrator of adultery’s penalty only to add on demands on their victim that were never there while under the Law:
Namely, to add on the demand to remain married to an adulterous abuser (who otherwise would have been dead under the Law).
A fuller biblical perspective on divorce and adultery would extend mercy and grace to both parties:
1) The cheater gets to keep his or her life. That’s mercy.
2) The faithful spouse is free to divorce the adulterous abuser of his or her soul without shame or stigma. In fact, divorcing the cheater ought to be billed by Christians as an act of righteousness and mercy (see Leviticus 20:10 and Matthew 1:19).
I have no problem extending mercy to cheaters. But let us extend it to faithful spouses as well!
