Divorced from the Law

March 29, 2009

Today's Reading: Deuteronomy 23-24 and Romans 7

The reading in Deuteronomy discusses how a man has the right to divorce a woman who is “displeasing” to him. The description for what is displeasing is pretty vague, but in Moses’ time, it allotted for a lot of interpretation.

As a child from a divorced home, I can’t help but disagree with that law. Nowhere in that law does it say who gets custody of the kids, or what to do with the kids’ anguish when their parents are splitting up.

No wonder why Jesus completely dissed that law when he was on Earth. I think there is a part where the Pharisees or someone asks him about the divorce law, and Jesus said: “Moses wrote that law for you, not for God” or something to that effect.

Romans talks about this law a little, and then mentions that if a divorced woman marries, it is just as good (or bad, in this case) as an adulteress. Paul uses this to illustrate that the law was once something that we were married to, but Christ’s death killed it. It isn’t the law that really died, but Christ’s rebirth raises us above the sinful nature.

The rest of Romans Seven seems to read very confusingly. At first it seems clear, by saying that the sinful nature is dead, and we can rejoice in the fact that we are free. Everything looks all good until Paul gives the whole “Oh, wretched man that I am” shtick. I’m not certain whether he is describing his life before Christ or after Christ.

Personally, I would like to think that any marriage to sin that was dissolved by death. I mean, if sin was my wife, and she was a heartless one, I would glad to be get rid of her. If I had to divorce this “wife of sin”, metaphorically speaking, it just wouldn’t be the same.

So, is the last verse of Romans Seven talking about a divorce of sin, or the death of sinful nature. For me, I would prefer having the sinful nature dead, and in the ground. I don’t want to have to pay alimony to it, or be dragged out in a court battle. As a married man with kids, I don’t want to have anything to do with divorce.

No, let’s make it a clean break. I don’t want to have God and the devil playing tug-of-war with my soul as the rope. I have picked my side, and I am removed from the sinful nature.