“I desire children but my wife does not become pregnant. May I divorce her and marry another wife?”

July/August 2015 – Grace & Truth Magazine

QUESTION: I was married before coming to Christ. I desire children, but my wife does not conceive or become pregnant. May I divorce her and marry another wife?

ANSWER: Your problem is not an uncommon one, but it is one that God’s Word clearly answers. Before looking into 1 Corinthians 7 and other passages dealing with this question, let’s just look briefly on what God intends for human marriage to be.

In Ephesians 5:21-33 we see that marriage takes place between a man and a woman (regardless of human laws and court opinions, this is the only kind of union that God recognizes as marriage), and that such a marriage is meant to symbolize the lovely relationship between Christ and the Church. Our blessed Lord “loved the Church and gave Himself for her” (ESV) – this is how much we husbands are to love our wives. Wives are to submit to their own husbands as the Church is subject to Christ. Can we picture Christ, who loved the Church enough to die for it, ever divorcing His Church? Can we picture the Church, for which He gave His life to purchase for Himself, wanting to divorce Him? Our faithfulness and fruitfulness for Him, or our lack thereof, does not affect His love for us in the least. Let’s not spoil the pictures God wants to display!

It is natural for a man to want to have children. Psalm 127:3 tells us that “children are a heritage from the LORD” and that “the fruit of the womb is a reward.” Yet we know that not every couple is able to have children. Such an inability to conceive children is commonly regarded as the woman’s problem, but there are situations where the responsibility for barrenness lies with the man.

Hannah, who became Samuel’s mother, had prayed fervently for a child (1 Sam. 1-2). Think of Sarah who waited for many years before Isaac was born in Genesis 21. Remember Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist? She and her husband “were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless” (Lk. 1:6 NKJV). God had something special in store for each of these women in answer to their prayers. He delights to bring strength out of our human weakness.

God hates divorce, He tells us in Malachi 2:16. Divorce, the Lord Jesus indicates, was not from the beginning but was later permitted because of the hardness of man’s heart (Mt. 19). We never read of a godly man in Scripture divorcing his wife because she was barren! Isaac pleaded with the LORD for his wife Rebekah in Genesis 25:21. God Himself gave Abraham (Abram) the good news that Sarah (Sarai) would bear him a son (Gen. 15). How important it is that we men pray for our wives and children!

In 1 Corinthians 7 the Lord gives believers clear directions with regard to divorce. Elsewhere, the believer is told not to be “unequally yoked” with an unbeliever (2 Cor. 6:14). But a person may find one partner in a marriage getting saved while the spouse continues to be unsaved. Should the believer in such a situation leave the unbeliever? “No,” says the Lord. If the unbeliever leaves, let him do so, but the believer should not leave the unbelieving partner as long as such a one consents to live with him or her. Where one partner in a marriage is the Lord’s, the other partner and any children they may have are sanctified – set apart as objects of the Lord’s special interest. The Lord loves to keep families together and may well save the unbelieving partner or children because of His interest in the believer. Thus a believer is never to initiate a divorce where the unbeliever is content to live together with him or her.

While fornication (sexual immorality) may be – not must be – a ground for divorce (Mt. 19:9), and a believer should rather let an unsaved partner go than to give up his faith in Christ, we should note carefully that nowhere in God’s holy Word is the inability to conceive or to bear children given as a reason or justification for divorce and remarriage. While children are a heritage from the Lord (Ps. 127:3), and a couple may well pray for such blessing from the Lord, they are not an essential component of a marriage. The Lord has allowed many married couples to be childless. Sometimes He has led them to adopt children. Other times He has given them special opportunities to work with children to reach them for Himself. Oftentimes He has given grace to a couple to simply accept their childlessness as His path for them, and they have sought and found His blessing in walking therein with Him.

Answered by Frederick W. Grant