Michael Allison - 17 December 2007 02:02 AM

On top of this, though Jesus permitted the man to divorce his wife if she committed adultery (and by Jewish law she would therefore be put to death) and therefore he could have remarried, because his wife was dead...but then again while one man and one woman was ideal there was nothing forbidding a Jewish man from having two (or more) wives, so it wouldn’t be a case of remarriage it would be a case of another marriage…
Also if you combine Jesus’s statement with Paul’s, while the man can legally divorce his wife for adultery under the new covenant she would be forgiven not killed therefore the man is not allowed to remarry for his spouse is still alive, even though he has the right to divorce her it does not give him the right to remarry, but rather as Paul says he must be reconciled or begin a celibate life.

Hello Michael,

I am wondering why Jesus gave us the exception clause in Matthew 5:32 and Matthew 19:9. I always thought it was so that the innocent party (who did not commit adultery could be free to remarry. After all they did not commit the act that broke the marriage. Jesus recognises the broken world we live in, he is not allowing remarriage for convenience sake, but allowing exceptions for adultery.

Perhaps, Haha, I certainly feel in over my head at the moment, I generally stand by what I said, though I’m certainly open to convincing, perhaps someone with a bit more knowledge about biblical divorce could swing me in the right direction.

In the days of the two testaments, people were very much bound by Jewish laws, or customs.

People who were married and divorced, lived in a world much different to our world today. Perhaps it was a more difficult world for the divorced woman to live in, much similar to widows. So a more strong demand was placed in marriages remaining intact. Were husbands in those days as brutish or violent to their wives? Would they have been able to run off with the girl of their dreams and leave the family, being under Jewish laws to some extent?

I know that the words of scripture apply today, as much as they did then. But, some of the rules applying to those days are not applying today. We live in a different culture and society, with more checks and balances. Certain mores and customs do not apply in Australia today.

Could it be that a woman who has lived in unbearable circumstances, that has had to divorce the offending husband, could be free to live in a happy marriage, instead of solitude and unfulfillment for the rest of her life? Would God demand this unhappy life for her, and is this the litmus test?

Like when Jesus’ disciples ate and picked grain on the sabbath, and were upbraided by the Pharisees. The spirit of the law was important, not the letter of the law.

I voted that one could marry a divorced woman under certain circumstances. But surely not if she left her husband because of attraction for yourself. This is real adultery.

I think a reasonable time must elapse before a divorced woman could consider remarriage. But sometimes financial circumstances are a factor. And also strong physical attraction between people, which begs sexual union between people. Surely marriage is better than burning in hell!

The wisdom of Solomon is surely needed for this problem.

Angus asked;

Anyhow, the suggestion that remarried divorcees are necessarily living in a state of ‘perpetual sin’ I find untenable. What would those who hold this belief suggest to address this ‘sin’? Another divorce?

Ezra 10 deals with this issue, however it is a response that is under old covenant law.

“We have been unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women from the peoples around us. But in spite of this, there is still hope for Israel. 3 Now let us make a covenant before our God to send away all these women and their children, in accordance with the counsel of my lord and of those who fear the commands of our God. Let it be done according to the Law. 4 Rise up; this matter is in your hands. We will support you, so take courage and do it.”
5 So Ezra rose up and put the leading priests and Levites and all Israel under oath to do what had been suggested.... 10 Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have been unfaithful; you have married foreign women, adding to Israel’s guilt. 11 Now make confession to the LORD, the God of your fathers, and do his will. Separate yourselves from the peoples around you and from your foreign wives.”

This is where I think divorce is endorced, although it does only say separate and not the actual word divorce.  It also doesn’t indicatate if the people were intended to remarry.

Michael, I found the book Called to Faithfulness helpful, you can download it in PDF for free here

quick summary

When a ‘marriage breakdown’ happens, and one person leaves, and even enters into a marriage-type relationship with another person, what then? Is the original marriage still there?

This book is written by men and women who have been through the deep hurt and confusion of a marriage breakdown. At the time of writing, none of them has been reconciled to husband or wife. But each has come into a transforming experience of God’s faithful and forgiving love. As a result, they know themselves to be called by God to be faithful in love to their estranged husband or wife, no matter what, and they tell of God’s faithful love sustaining them in that.

As a result, they know themselves to be called by God to be faithful in love to their estranged husband or wife, no matter what, and they tell of God’s faithful love sustaining them in that.

What if their ex-spouse has remarried (as mine has)? I think a call to remain “faithful” to the marriage in such circumstances is unhelpful - even potentially adulterous.

In such a situation would not being ‘faithful’ mean staying celibate?

Here is a Standing Committee report on what we are discussing,
here

In light of what Craig S says,

What if their ex-spouse has remarried (as mine has)? I think a call to remain “faithful” to the marriage in such circumstances is unhelpful - even potentially adulterous.

The Bible clearly speaks of it being an evil act for a man to divorce a wife, remarry, and then go back to his original wife.  It would be just as evil for the same to be said for a woman to do so.

Can there be a distinction made between the maturity of Christians when they get married between new born babes in Christ and older mature Christians and their marriage falls apart?

What about in cases of serious illnesses, where a spouse has a mental health issue - and I speak of a specific case of a very Godly Christian man, I know whose wife had schizophrenia and he ended up divorcing her, with much sorrow and regret.

Should he be bound for ever to live a life of celibacy? I don’t think under the spirit of the Gospel, God would have condemned him if he did ever remarry.

Michael Allison - 17 December 2007 07:11 PM

In such a situation would not being ‘faithful’ mean staying celibate?

It seems strange to say that being faithful to a marriage means celibacy. Even telling your ex- that you are still “faithful” to the marriage is potentially destabilising on the second marriage. At any rate, I can’t see any scriptural evidence of such an equivalence.

I highly recommend people work through the article CraigB linked to above. I’d also recommend Chapter 24 of the Westminster Confession, which comes to pretty similar conclusions.

The best book length treatment of the subject I came across was Jay Adam’s Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible.

I just thought I’d put forward the verse Craig B mentions here;

The Bible clearly speaks of it being an evil act for a man to divorce a wife, remarry, and then go back to his original wife.  It would be just as evil for the same to be said for a woman to do so.

Deut. 24:1-4 (ESV)

“When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house, [2] and if she goes and becomes another man’s wife, [3] and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies, who took her to be his wife, [4] then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.

Why do people think it is; that the woman is ‘defiled’ (verse 4) in this situation?

Personally I think it is because, as Jesus explains in Mark 10:12, that her remarriage has made her an adulterer.  Otherwise the instruction by Paul to reconcile would still stand.  However I have discussed this with Mark Tough over many emails a few years back and he came to a different conclusion.  He thought that because she remarried after getting a certificate of divorce, this meant that under the Law of Moses she was free to remarry without being guilty of sin.  Because if she was guilty of the sin of adultery it was punishment of death for an Israelite.

But this doesn’t explain why she couldn’t remarry her original husband.

Thax <><

Claude Mariottini, “professor of Old Testament at Northern Baptist Seminary since 1988,” says

The Hebrew makes a difference between sending a woman away and divorcing her. In Hebrew, the word שלח (shalah) means “to send away” while the word כרתות (keritut) means to dissolve the marriage by giving the woman a certificate of divorce. ...

The reason Yahweh hates “sending away” is because sending away is an illegal separation: the woman was put out of the house of her husband without a certificate of divorce. ...

It is clear then that in the Old Testament “sending away” does not necessarily mean “divorce.” It means that a man “gets rid of” his wife and sends her away from his house without any legal protection.

[see Malachi 2:16.  It is not “divorce” that God hates but “sending away” ]

A woman who was “sent away” but not given a “bill of divorce” was still married.  Her husband could keep her dowry and all the rest of her possessions.  So the bill of divorce served to protect women.

Matthew 19:3, 7-9 (YLT)
3 And the Pharisees came near to him, tempting him, and saying to him, ‘Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?’

7 They say to him, ‘Why then did Moses command to give a roll of divorce, and to put her away?’
8 He saith to them—‘Moses for your stiffness of heart did suffer you to put away your wives, but from the beginning it hath not been so.
9 ‘And I say to you, that, whoever may put away his wife, if not for whoredom, and may marry another, doth commit adultery; and he who did marry her that hath been put away, doth commit adultery.’

I read that as Jesus saying that there is an ideal to which all married people should aspire - they should stay married and stay together.  Nevertheless, given the stiffness of our hearts, sexual infidelity is grounds for ending a marriage and if it is ended it should be ended legally.  The Geneva Bible Footnotes says about verse 9 “Therefore in these days the laws that were made against adulterers were not regarded: for they would have no need of divorce, if the marriage had been severed by punishment of death.” That adulterers were liable to the death penalty (Lev 20:10) accounts, I presume, for the wording of Section V of Chapter 24 of the Westminster Confession, “In the case of adultery after marriage, it is lawful for the innocent party to sue out a divorce and, after the divorce, to marry another, as if the offending party were dead.”

Craig Thacker @ 2,

You wrote:

I would add that Paul suggests in 1 Cor 7:39

A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord.

So though Paul permits the divorce with an unbeliever that wants to leave he never suggests that they are free to remarry until that spouse has died.

But you forgot 1 Corinthians 7:15

But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases. NKJV

So now I will reveal my bias.  I was divorced 5 years after I left my first husband (because of his adulteries) and 2 years before I became a Christian.  I remarried, in church, with the bishop’s permission, 4 years after I became a Christian.  My second husband has had to deal with the difficulties of being father to a step-son and he has done so with Christian charity and at considerable cost to his own comfort levels and finances.  We have two sons of our own and they are both Christian.  In a couple of weeks my husband and I will celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary.  My ex-husband is, as far as I know, still living.  If anyone were to say to me that the last 25 years of my life have been lived in a state of “perpetual sin” because I’d remarried after a divorce, well, I think I’d want to tell him to get off his legalistic bike and consider that very risky thing called “grace”.

Remember how Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath?  Well, I think that marriage was also made for man, not man for marriage.  I’d go further than Craig S and say that remaining “faithful” to a finished marriage could not only be potentially adulterous but also potentially idolatrous, not to mention a bit creepy.  But whatever God has to do to wake up his slow-to-learn followers to the truth about who should be their first love is fine by me even if that does mean the bust up of a marriage.  Worse things have happened.

Craig Thacker said,

Why do people think it is; that the woman is ‘defiled’ (verse 4) in this situation?

Personally I think it is because, as Jesus explains in Mark 10:12, that her remarriage has made her an adulterer.  Otherwise the instruction by Paul to reconcile would still stand.  However I have discussed this with Mark Tough over many emails a few years back and he came to a different conclusion.  He thought that because she remarried after getting a certificate of divorce, this meant that under the Law of Moses she was free to remarry without being guilty of sin.  Because if she was guilty of the sin of adultery it was punishment of death for an Israelite.

But this doesn’t explain why she couldn’t remarry her original husband.

Craig, I think you are reading it from a distorted perception in that you have the mindset that it is the woman who is a sinner. I read it as being protective of the woman, and that this scripture is saying that the woman has been defiled by her previous husband - that it was he who sinned against her, and Moses is protecting the woman from being claimed back by her previous husband and instead is proclaiming her to be a free woman.

Perhaps It could also protect her from being used as a form of prostitution, husband selling her to another man for a short while, then taking her back - and then selling her again? .... I do say perhaps?

Perhaps It could also protect her from being used as a form of prostitution, husband selling her to another man for a short while, then taking her back - and then selling her again? .... I do say perhaps?

Very good.  Never underestimate the human capacity for sinfulness.

Dear all

I mentioned Ward Powers’ writings in my earlier post.

Here is the link:

http://www.wardpowers.info/MAD.htm

Powers’ writings cover these areas in great scholarly depth. I too married someone who was divorced nearly 25 years ago. By God’s grace I discovered Powers’ writings BEFORE I met her, and changed my thinking. Previously I had believed that adultery was the only grounds for remarriage based on Jesus’ words in Matt 6 and 19.

As I mentioned before, we must take off our 21st century Aussie glasses when we read God’s word, and ask why was it written? To whom was it written? What is the context? What were the issues that were being addressed? Such an understanding does not undermine God’s word, but helps it spring to life!!!

Please visit Powers’ website and read the sections of the book published online. Then buy a copy.

Grant

Thanks Craig B.
So the woman in the Deuteronomy passage is defiled because of her husband sin.  Though it is strange that one persons sin can make another unclean, though I think in the story of the Good Samaratian Jesus challenges this teaching in that the priest and the Levite wanting to stay clean were acting against the command to love thy neighbour.

Thanks much to think about.
Thax <><