divorce and remarriage.
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Hi blue,
Yes, I understand that divorce, no matter what reason, was never a part of God's design for marriage and, as I said, that applies to divorce across the board. Whether it's over money or anger or jealousy or a spouse just seen as not fulfilling what the partner wants out of a relationship or whatever reason one might have to break their marriage vow. However, my question is more focused and pointed towards why Jesus excepted adultery.
God bless you.
In Christ, Ted
Yes, I understand that divorce, no matter what reason, was never a part of God's design for marriage and, as I said, that applies to divorce across the board. Whether it's over money or anger or jealousy or a spouse just seen as not fulfilling what the partner wants out of a relationship or whatever reason one might have to break their marriage vow. However, my question is more focused and pointed towards why Jesus excepted adultery.
God bless you.
In Christ, Ted
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Ted, im not certain I have the answer, but Israel was given a covenant with God. That's much in the same manner with the marriage. If Israel went after other God's he had the authority to break his covenant. He was very patient and didn't break his covenant immediately, but Israel kept adulterating herself.
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Hi mike,
Right, but for those who don't have the answer, they probably should tread with caution in giving wisdom regarding exactly what God considers to be some 'god ordained' grounds for divorce. I read it all the time on these threads, "God says that its ok to divorce, you have His blessings, if your spouse cheated on you." Then, of course, there are those who then go into great and expository detail about what adultery' really' means. "If your spouse is involved in inappropriate contentography why that's certainly adultery." "If your spouse doesn't give you the attention that you think you deserve that's certainly adultery." Etc. If your spouse is doing anything that can be tenuously construed as not being 'faithful', then voile', that's adultery.
I don't believe that the teachings of Jesus or the commands of God give us any 'godly' reason to believe that divorce is ok in any circumstance. However, we're all sinners! So, if a born again believer does find themselves in the tangles of a divorce -- Jesus died for that sin too. So, in my counsel to those asking about divorce, including for myself, divorce is a sin before God. Our vows say that we will see this relationship through in good or bad. Good or bad being defined as times of wealth and times of poverty. Times of joy and times of sorrow. Times of faithfulness and times of unfaithfulness. The born again believer's position, I believe, should be one of great, great, great forgiveness for those who have sinned against us, and as far as it is within that person's power to adhere to the vow they made before God.
Did your spouse cheat on you? Forgive them! Did your spouse lose their job and now we're out of money? Forgive them. Is your spouse entangled in inappropriate contentography? Forgive them. My vow to my wife that I made before my God is that I will be there by her side through good and bad until we are separated by death. If she cheats on me, I understand that she's just a human being and subject to the same failings and frailties and temptations that the rest of us experience. If we're broke and out of money and the house is being repossessed and the car is gone, it has no bearing on the vow of my marriage and was, in fact, clearly explained at that time that I wouldn't let such things as that destroy my marriage.
Now, that's the marriage of someone who loves God. All the rest of the people of the world, even those who claim to be Christian but will be standing in that line of 'many' crying out to Jesus about all their righteous deeds done in his name, they are free to do whatever their heart tells them to do. I know that God has made clear to me that my heart is wicked and I'm not to rest on my understanding of things, but His. And just as has been mentioned on this thread, the issue and excuses we use to try to wiggle out of our vows to God as if that isn't a sin, is that our hearts are hard.
God bless you.
In Christ, Ted
Right, but for those who don't have the answer, they probably should tread with caution in giving wisdom regarding exactly what God considers to be some 'god ordained' grounds for divorce. I read it all the time on these threads, "God says that its ok to divorce, you have His blessings, if your spouse cheated on you." Then, of course, there are those who then go into great and expository detail about what adultery' really' means. "If your spouse is involved in inappropriate contentography why that's certainly adultery." "If your spouse doesn't give you the attention that you think you deserve that's certainly adultery." Etc. If your spouse is doing anything that can be tenuously construed as not being 'faithful', then voile', that's adultery.
I don't believe that the teachings of Jesus or the commands of God give us any 'godly' reason to believe that divorce is ok in any circumstance. However, we're all sinners! So, if a born again believer does find themselves in the tangles of a divorce -- Jesus died for that sin too. So, in my counsel to those asking about divorce, including for myself, divorce is a sin before God. Our vows say that we will see this relationship through in good or bad. Good or bad being defined as times of wealth and times of poverty. Times of joy and times of sorrow. Times of faithfulness and times of unfaithfulness. The born again believer's position, I believe, should be one of great, great, great forgiveness for those who have sinned against us, and as far as it is within that person's power to adhere to the vow they made before God.
Did your spouse cheat on you? Forgive them! Did your spouse lose their job and now we're out of money? Forgive them. Is your spouse entangled in inappropriate contentography? Forgive them. My vow to my wife that I made before my God is that I will be there by her side through good and bad until we are separated by death. If she cheats on me, I understand that she's just a human being and subject to the same failings and frailties and temptations that the rest of us experience. If we're broke and out of money and the house is being repossessed and the car is gone, it has no bearing on the vow of my marriage and was, in fact, clearly explained at that time that I wouldn't let such things as that destroy my marriage.
Now, that's the marriage of someone who loves God. All the rest of the people of the world, even those who claim to be Christian but will be standing in that line of 'many' crying out to Jesus about all their righteous deeds done in his name, they are free to do whatever their heart tells them to do. I know that God has made clear to me that my heart is wicked and I'm not to rest on my understanding of things, but His. And just as has been mentioned on this thread, the issue and excuses we use to try to wiggle out of our vows to God as if that isn't a sin, is that our hearts are hard.
God bless you.
In Christ, Ted
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So what I'm understanding is your moving the opposite direction from what Scripture says. The other side says,"yes we know it's wrong, but we shouldn't be punished when we need companionship. We'll work hard to make the next one right with God". Then your side says, "The Scripture means nothing when Jesus says adultery is the only acceptable option allowing a remarriage after divorce". I agree with much of what you say, but this position is not Scriptural. I get you feel it needs to be more stringent or people will abuse this law. God knows the heart. They don't fool him. We shouldn't change the Scripture because we want a stricter value system set.
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Thank you for that post. So true. couple of things.
God did not break the covenant with the Jews, they failed to see it fulfilled in Jesus, but Jesus will still return and reighn for a thousand years in keeping with those old promises. Some Jews in the Temple were trying to cut God off from His bride which includes all the world, people from every nation and race. Like the Good husband who protects His wife God protected us so we would not be cut off from Him. With the Jews that was the engagement with the Church that is the Bride, but we maybe at the wedding but it has not taken place just yet.
I mention divorce to my wife, it was someone claiming to be in the church that put the idea in my head and kept putting the idea in my head, so I thank you for putting God's truth back in my head. I was never going to divorce, my sinful nature said yes and my heart said i will allow you to play it out to a point. My wife wanted to start taking a prescription drug she was addicted to, we went through hell to get her off it and she could have died many times. I threaten divorce if she went on it, we had a huge fight about it. I was desperate, I didn't know if we would survive another round with it. My heart would not let me leave, by my mind say use everything you can to stop her. So I did, the one thing I knew would brought up the D word. ever since that woman involved with the church put the idea in my head i been thinking about. I wonder if she did not want me, and that was her move for me. God has been ripping that seed out. If you take the D word off the table, then you can focus on your marriage. Your post remind me of that. very good post.
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Hi blue,
Absolutely correct! God did not break any covenant with the Jews or any that He has made to anyone else. His covenant regarding the law was that 'if' they followed it, He would bless them. 'If' they didn't, He would curse them. He certainly kept that covenant.
I'm glad that you stayed the course in your marriage and I think that's what God asks of His children. The rest of the world can do whatever pleases their heart, but we strive to do that which pleases God.
God bless you.
In Christ, Ted
Absolutely correct! God did not break any covenant with the Jews or any that He has made to anyone else. His covenant regarding the law was that 'if' they followed it, He would bless them. 'If' they didn't, He would curse them. He certainly kept that covenant.
I'm glad that you stayed the course in your marriage and I think that's what God asks of His children. The rest of the world can do whatever pleases their heart, but we strive to do that which pleases God.
God bless you.
In Christ, Ted
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Hi mike,
No, I believe that you are misreading the Scriptures. Jesus never said that adultery was the only acceptable option allowing a remarriage after divorce. What Jesus said was that except in the case of adultery, if a man divorces his wife he turns everyone that ever has anything to do with them into adulterers. The reason he excepted adultery, as I've previously mentioned, is that in the case of adultery the parties of the marriage are already adulterers in the exact same way that Jesus imputed the adultery in his example.
Let's think this through. Two people are married. Neither of them commit adultery, but they are unhappy in their marriage for whatever other reason and get a divorce. The man and the woman are now going to be adulterers if they have any sexual relations after their marriage ends. That's what Jesus is saying, right?
Two people are married. The wife commits adultery. Now the man can go out and have other sexual relations and he is not an adulterer. Why is that if neither of them commits adultery and their marriage breaks up that they are then adulterers in their future relations, but if the wife commits adultery then the man is free?
So, here's why I believe Jesus said what he said in the way that he said it. To wit: Except in the case of adultery if a man divorces his wife he causes his wife to be an adulterer and he himself becomes an adulterer. If the wife committed adultery, then if the man divorces his wife he isn't going to make her adulterer. She already is one. He didn't make her one.
Of course the entire issue, rather than resting on these words of Jesus, should rest, rather, on the words of God. I hate divorce! God declared. Now what child of God wants to do the things that God hates. What child of God honestly in his heart believes that what God meant to say was, I hate divorce, unless one of you cheats. There are only a very, very few times that God declares that He hates something. Personally, I don't think myself important enough to God, that I can go out and willfully do one of the very few things that He has declared to me that He hates and expect to stand before Him and hear Him say, "Well, I hated it when everyone else did it, but you, you're special."
Understanding that God hates divorce, I know that His Son didn't say anything that changed that. Nowhere do we find Jesus ever saying that any cause of divorce is ok. All Jesus was doing was pointing out to married couples the consequences to their nature if they divorced their wife for cause other than adultery. He doesn't ever renounce God's word regarding divorce.
Finally, and maybe more important than all of these other issues, God has promised to forgive me in the same way that I have forgiven others. I'd rather forgive my wife and continue with the marriage because I know that that's exactly the same kind of forgiveness I'm asking from God. I lived a good 40 years of my life as an adulterer and fornicator in the eyes of God in both my physical and spiritual life. I want Him to forgive me for that and I know that He will -- if I forgive that same in others.
So, go ahead! Divorce your wife for infidelity. Ruin your marriage, your home and your children. Hurt them all and then wait for God to do the same to you. Maybe we should read up on Gomer. I also think it good to consider that when Jesus explained why Moses - not God - gave the people a law concerning divorce he quickly points out that it was because of their hard hearts. I can't speak for you, but I don't want to present a hard heart to God.
As I started off saying in the earlier thread, I listen to this excuse for divorce all the time. I've used it myself! But I strive not to let my struggles with sin to allow me to try and justify my sin through God's word. The law was sent to convict me of sin and thus it does. When my wife and I divorced because of infidelity, it was a sin. I thank God daily that He sent His Son to pay the price for that sin rather than my bearing it for all eternity, but it was still a sin.
God bless you.
In Christ, Ted
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OTOH:
As for younger widows, do not put them on such a list. For when their sensual desires overcome their dedication to Christ, they want to marry. Thus they bring judgment on themselves, because they have broken their first pledge.
Besides, they get into the habit of being idle and going about from house to house. And not only do they become idlers, but also busybodies who talk nonsense, saying things they ought not to.
So I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander. -- 1 Timothy 5
Although Paul is discussing widows, everything he said applies as well to young divorcees. As well:
Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.-- 1 Corinthians 7
Again, this applies as much to young divorcees as to widows.
This is why congregations should not forbid divorcees from remarrying, although they should encourage and help the divorcee remarry properly: In the Lord.
(Exception: If they do forbid remarriage, they should materially support divorced parents so that poverty doesn't become a trap for them).
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Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. -- Matthew 19
What was "not this way from the beginning?"
Surely, divorce was not that way in the beginning...but also, the hearts of husbands were not hard in the beginning. The hardening of Adam's heart was one of the curses of the Fall...demonstrated by how immediately he threw Eve under the bus the moment God questioned him. That was pretty cold, Adam.
Jesus' reason for the Mosaic permission of divorce is not the act of adultery itself. The explicit reason is "because your hearts were hard." If the hearts are not hard, then there is no reason for divorce.
I will a bit further--and I think it's justified--to say that "hard hearts" includes both parties. It includes a hard-hearted adultering spouse as well as a hard-hearted victim.
A Christian would not have a hard heart in either case, but a softened, repentent heart and a softened, forgiving heart.
In the Christian, Christ-led, Spirit-filled marriage, an incident of adultery could happen--especially if we include mental adultery.
But in that same Christian, Christ-led, Spirit-filled marriage, the adulterer would be "soft hearted" enough to repent; the victimized spouse would be "soft-hearted" enough to forgive and re-instate.
IOW, when Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery, "Go an sin no more," if the woman repented, a Christian husband would accept her back.
Therefore, for a Christian the "adultery exception" really only applies when the adultering spouse refuses to repent--effectively abandoning the marriage (see 1 Corinthians 7 about abandonment of the marriage). It does not apply to the adulterer who has repented and desires to re-commit to the marriage.
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98cwitr
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I am going to have to disagree. Paul is talking about widows and widows only. To say otherwise is to twist Scripture. When he says "unmarried" he means those who have never been, otherwise we undo and contradict what Christ said about remarriage in Matthew 19. A widow has not broken her bonds of marriage due to adultery. We cannot ignore what Christ said about this topic.
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In that case, if you are correct, then the young wife who has been abandoned by her husband must be excommunicated from the congregation, because Paul is conclusive that young, unmarried women will cause trouble.
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We have a number of divorced women in the congregation...most of them are okay...it's the married ones I worry aboutSo much gossip....
That is called "selection fallacy." You don't actually know how many of those women are "lusting in their hearts."
What would make a young abandoned wife more holy than a young widow? Or what would make a young widow less holy than a young abandoned wife? How is the young abandoned wife any less likely to burn with desire after being abandoned than she did while she was married?
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Speaking of adultery I was engaged to my high school sweet heart she cheated on me while we were engaged got pregant and wanted me to raise the kid i said no and left her because it would not be fair to the kid he would be a reminder of her adultery. Have you ever had a woman cheat on you? If not then you do not know how insanely jealous you get and you can't trust her at all. It is hell, i think this is why Jesus said for this reason only.
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Crowns&Laurels
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A plain reading of scripture dictates that if a divorce is not because of adultery then the divorce is not justified, and the whole thing afterward is just a path and an end result of whatever adultery brings under it's guise as another marriage.
The historical churches differed. For example, the East held to adultery as a means of rightful divorce, where the West held to nullification only under the grounds that one can prove their insincerity in having married in the first place. The Roman Church seized adultery as justification, declaring that the rite of marriage, if done in full desire, cannot be broken. This no doubt has every thing to do with 'until death do you part' in the rite altogether. It also holds up the Church's fixation on rites.
People who have actively divorced and remarried repeatedly and looking for a good comfort or promise just aren't going to find any- any that's real, anyway, until a lot of the damage is resolved and one comes to terms with God.
Christians should stop attempting to water down the reality of these things.
The historical churches differed. For example, the East held to adultery as a means of rightful divorce, where the West held to nullification only under the grounds that one can prove their insincerity in having married in the first place. The Roman Church seized adultery as justification, declaring that the rite of marriage, if done in full desire, cannot be broken. This no doubt has every thing to do with 'until death do you part' in the rite altogether. It also holds up the Church's fixation on rites.
People who have actively divorced and remarried repeatedly and looking for a good comfort or promise just aren't going to find any- any that's real, anyway, until a lot of the damage is resolved and one comes to terms with God.
Christians should stop attempting to water down the reality of these things.
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