Malachi Chapter Two, God's Hatred Of Divorce

 

Malachi 2:15 But did He not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. [16] For the LORD God of Israel says that He hates divorce, for it covers one’s garment with violence,” says the LORD of hosts. “Therefore take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously.”

 

Malachi now takes Israel (and us) on a history lesson. The NIV translates the opening of the verse as, “Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit.” The HCSB renders it, “Didn’t the one God make us with a remnant of His life-breath?” The NKJV (derived from the KJV and the Received Text) elaborates on a point otherwise overlooked. The word “them” in the verse is italicized, which means the translators added it for the purpose of clarity. The KJV renders the verse, “And did he not make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit.” So it becomes an “us” verses “them” issue. I believe the passage is illuminating a progressing point that began with verse 11, crowning now in verse 15. The holy institution God loves, the covenant between husband and wife examined in the last two verses, culminates in its antecedent: Adam and Eve. The verse, if taken from this perspective would read as a historical lesson, a reminder that God could have made our original parents differently, but He did not. Creating Eve, He immediately presented her to Adam, who also immediately accepted her as wife, and they wed under the auspices of God.

The verse’s context in this entire passage alludes to the Adamic reference, and marriage’s origin in God’s very good world. Marriage, then, in its primal state, was likewise very good, without blemish, because our first parents had not sinned yet. Malachi held up the first marriage as a demonstration of what the marriage construct was meant to look like. Eve was created by God out of Adam’s side, not formed from the dust like he was. Both of our first parents were God-breathed. Though only Adam is directly mentioned receiving God’s breath in Genesis 2:7, the shorter account of their creation in Genesis 1:27 states that, “God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Both then were given life by our Lord, so they might have fellowship with Him and one another. Our first parents were representatives of humanity; and their marriage typified the union God sought for all of their descendants. When God brought Eve to Adam he waxed poetic, saying in part, “This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh,” Genesis 2:23. Adam intimated that he knew God had taken her out of his side. Knowing that, he surmised that she was meant to be kept close to him, not only physically but also emotionally and spiritually. They were to have union on every level as husband and wife.

 

Moses, commenting on Adam’s passionate poem toward Eve, writes, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh,” Genesis 2:24. Returning to Jesus’ commentary about this passage, we’ll go to Mark. “But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’ For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, ‘and the two shall become one flesh’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate,” Mark 10:6-9, see also Matthew 19:4-6. Several profound points are made within. First, Adam and Eve existed at the beginning of the creation. Jesus, being God incarnate, with but a few words, upended Darwinian Evolution’s theory for anyone who claims to believe that Christ is their Savior. Adam and Eve stood with God at the beginning of creation. God made two distinct genders: male and female. Biologically they are complimentary for numerous reasons; foremost of which that is of interest to us presently is sexual intercourse. Our bodies’ reproductive organs are expressly designed to accommodate a member of the opposite sex, for the purpose of procreation. We’ll expand on this more shortly. The two, through marriage, become one flesh. This is a euphemism for sexual union, see Genesis 24:67, Ruth 4:13. Jewish custom was that the groom would come and, after a period of betrothal, take the bride from her father’s house to his own. They would be accompanied by friends who would sing and dance as they returned to the home they would share where the couple would be ushered into a bridal chamber where the marriage was consummated through sexual union before festivities continued. The Jews apparently understood the phrase of, “one flesh,” as physical consummation. Why is this? It is a stark symbolic expression of the intimate union husband and wife was expected to share until death finally dissolved their covenant.

 

Once joined through matrimony, man and woman are “one flesh.” Paul speaks to married couples, saying, “The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does,” 1 Corinthians 7:4. Jesus’ declaration that they are no longer two but one flesh is sobering and redefining when it comes to our conception of modern marriage. We can’t even share our bank accounts with each other any longer. Marriages lack trust, mutual respect and love. Sex has become a running gag in our culture, or a toy to be played with no matter how young you are. But God considers intercourse a binding covenant. “Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For “the two,” He says, “shall become one flesh,” 1 Corinthians 6:16. The woman at the well had fallen victim to the sin of ‘marrying’ too many people. As she spoke to Jesus, the Lord told her to call her husband, a command that must have touched a sore spot. Replying that she had no husband, Jesus answered, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly,” John 4:17, 18. Man’s low view of marriage does the institution no justice, and the resultant actions that come from treating it with casual contempt always bring awful results.