Something disappointing about the question itself is that it assumes we no longer live in “biblical times.” In my opinion, that could not be further from the truth. A simple point I like to make when this question comes up, and it comes up more often than people think, is that people treat “biblical times” as if the Bible is no longer necessary as a moral compass, as if God’s Word is outdated, and as if human nature has somehow improved.
When that assumption shows up, I point people to the closing verses of Acts. Luke ends Acts with Paul still preaching, still teaching, and still calling Gentiles to hear the salvation of God (Acts 28:28–31). Luke, the author of the Gospel of Luke and Acts, wrote what he received from eyewitness testimony, and he records Paul’s words as the gospel moves outward to the nations. The point I am making is that the idea that we are “past biblical times” often flows from the same human pattern that Acts records: rejection of God’s truth, followed by people living as if they no longer need it, living according to their own worldly wisdom.
Paul repeats the same reality in Romans: Israel’s “blindness in part” continues “until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in” (Rom 11:25). In other words, the story is still unfolding. So when a Gentile claims we no longer live in “biblical times,” I hear more than a cultural opinion; I hear a way of thinking that wants permission to detach from biblical authority.
And that leads into the heart of the question. Because once someone assumes we are “beyond” biblical authority, they tend to treat divorce as a matter of personal preference and modern ethics rather than covenant faithfulness before God. That is the foundation I want to lay for the first part of the question: many people use the “we’re not in biblical times” mindset as a license to follow the world’s wisdom and the world’s ways (and Scripture warns us about everyone simply doing what is right in their own eyes, Judg 21:25).
Now, on the historical side, the shift in Protestant perspectives on divorce reflects a reorientation from biblical authority to secular frameworks. Early Protestants grounded divorce and remarriage in Scripture, identifying limited grounds, most commonly adultery (cf. Matt 19:9) and desertion (cf. 1 Cor 7:15), as legitimate exceptions. That represented a departure from medieval Catholic doctrine, but it still remained constrained by theological conviction.
However, the Reformation also helped move marriage into the category of civil life in many Protestant societies, because marriage was increasingly treated as a civil matter rather than a sacrament. As marriage came to be understood as essentially a civil contract, it fell under state jurisdiction, and laws began to vary according to legislators’ views of justice or expediency, rather than being governed by Scripture’s covenant framework (Mal 2:14–16).
The decisive shift did not occur solely during the Reformation, but through modern secular philosophy. Enlightenment thinking elevated autonomous reason and prioritized the individual’s pursuit of happiness. Over time, that framework pressed divorce law toward extensive liberalization: the modern idea that a person has the “freedom” to exit an unhappy marriage and pursue a new version of happiness. In practice, that way of thinking has shaped the surrounding culture so deeply that many Protestant churches now function as if civil law is the real authority, while biblical constraint becomes optional or merely “ideal.”
The consequences have been profound. As Western societies became increasingly secular, marriage was treated primarily as a civil contract, and divorce became progressively normalized. What began as Protestants trying to recover biblical teaching on marriage ultimately helped enable divorce to be decoupled from theological constraints, a trajectory the Reformers themselves likely would not have anticipated or endorsed.
As I said at the outset, worldly wisdom is often the root that leads to secularism: religious preferences replace biblical authority, marriage becomes “my contract,” church authority is minimized, and personal happiness becomes the highest standard. In other words, everyone does what is right in their own eyes (Judg 21:25).
I cannot tell you how many divorces I have seen justified this way, because one spouse, more often the husband, decides he wants to pursue adultery with a younger woman because his wife is no longer satisfying him. He wants to chase lust and fulfill the passions of his flesh. God calls that sin. And for a man or woman to abandon vows and break covenant faithfulness is not simply “self-care.” Scripture treats marriage as honorable and covenantal, not disposable (Heb 13:4; Mal 2:14–16; Matt 19:4–6).
Thus, just as many rejected Christ when He came as the suffering Servant (Isa 53), we in the modern West cast off the moral compass we desperately need. We are guilty of rejecting God’s truth when we allow selfish pursuits to rule us, and we are “without excuse” when we suppress what we know and excuse what God calls sin (Rom 1:20–2:1).
Nothing has changed about the human heart since the so-called “biblical times.” God is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb 13:8). And Scripture still stands: “Let God be true but every man a liar” (Rom 3:4).
Thus, the result is that modern society has influenced Protestant perspectives on divorce by steadily shifting marriage from a biblical covenant under God’s authority into a civil contract governed by personal fulfillment, secular law, and “what seems right” to the individual.
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