Marriage
Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage
www.rlfaber.com/marriage.html
Version 2 - June, 14, 2024
R. L. Faber
dating
Preface: This article is written with the believer in mind who
struggles with the proper interpretation of marriage in the Bible.
Dating, marriage, divorce, and remarriage are a bit complicated in
our modern days. Even though we have the Bible, there are many different
ideas of how to apply the scriptures to Christian living.
Introduction
There are a few ideas I would like to mention right from the start.
I want you to know where I am coming from. I want to be true to
Jesus and I believe he is very serious about marriage. Jesus says
that from the beginning God "made them one" (he made the two one).
Of course, there is the exception clause that everyone knows about.
But I want to be careful to interpret so I are not just like the
Pharisees... making excuses. I want to be careful to listen to
Jesus within the context of the whole counsel of God. I may have
initial impressions based on our culture and how the Christian
historical traditions have led us, but I want to listen to what
God is saying to us.
In These Modern Days
In my case, I am responsible to not be led astray by the various
winds of doctrine or by teachers who are saying things that itching
ears want to hear. In other words, God has given his Word, and
in the main, it is very clear.
In these modern days, I have many conveniences and tools to
help us understand His Word. Unfortunately, even in my lifetime,
I have seen the shift in struggling to understand God's Word
by personal Bible reading, to a reliance on other men to
explain it to us. Today, the internet and instant experts at
our fingertips can explain any passage in a compelling way.
But there is something beneficial in the old way where I
struggled to understand God's Word. In the days before the
modern internet tools, I was less distracted. You can dig
into God's Word if you try, but you can also get distracted.
Many Christians feed off the constant stream of books and blogs
to help them understand God's Word. I recall having to wait
many years to find answers. But the process of reading without
instant gratification has some benefits. In those days, I recall
wondering about some questions I had... meditating on God's Word
to compare scripture with scripture. I recall much more time
without answers. I recall a strong reliance on the teaching
of scripture. Today we live in massively distracted times.
I wonder how many Christians are reading their Bible for the
scriptures to affect them before they turn to an internet video.
The Caution of My Early Years
In my case, the danger was to assume I knew what the Matthew
"exception" was without realizing it might be hidden from me.
As a young kid reading the Bible, the seriousness of Jesus and
the attitude of the Pharisees stood out very clear.
I could not figure it all out, but I could see the seriousness
of what Jesus was saying about marriage. I could see the
confirmation in Paul's writings and I took Paul's writings as
a more clear commentary on what Jesus meant. After much reading
of Paul's letters, I felt Jesus was strong and solid, but that
there was an Old Covenant context that made some of his saying
a bit difficult. I understood more from Paul since Jesus seemed
to agree that he would send the Holy Spirit to help clarify some
things. I could see the obvious priority of the New Covenant
teachings. I also spent much time in my Bible in my teenage
years, and my thoughts on marriage were strengthened. Things
that were first impressions when I was 8-10, were reviewed when
I was 12-18. It may have been in my teenage years when I read
something in a book about "betrothal" explianing the Matthew
"exception." It was much later, however, when discovering
John Piper's article, that the idea seemed to make very good
sense.
An Example of Faithfulness and Waiting
During my Bible reading, I noticed the heroine Anna. Luke 2:36-37
explains how she lived with her husband for seven years from when she
was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four.
This helped confirm my understanding of 1 Cor 7. In the midst of
all kinds of marriage-related conditions and states of life, Paul
seemed to advise people to stay in the condition they were in.
I dismissed the usual dismissal of Paul's ideas because of
"the present distress." Many Christians suggest that Paul only
cared about his crazy ideas because of a time of "distress."
Paul says it like this, "in view of the present distress"
(1 Cor 7:26). But I noticed that Paul said "from now on" (1 Cor 7:29).
This meant for all time into the future.
I expected that Paul would give more clarity if the
present distress was only a temporary situation.
The phrase "from now on", includes today.
I could see that someone who wanted to avoid Paul's advice could
try to wiggle out of the implications, but I wanted the safe
interpretation. Paul seemed to be saying that he advised Christians
to stay single, but that if Christians got married, it was not a sin.
Whenever Paul did say getting married was acceptable,
he was dealing with a single person.
This all related back to Anna. She could have easily gotten
married after her husband died, but she didn't. Today there
is the suggestion that divorced men and women have so much
pressure, so they just have to get remarried.
They have to marry someone, even though the one they married
is still alive. This is clearly not listening to 1 Cor 7 or
Romans 7. This is not interpreting the Bible with a New Covenant
perspective that sees the Holy Spirit adding clarity to the Old
Covenant context of Jesus. This is certainly not listening to Luke,
who was clearly writing to Gentiles. Instead of listening to the
clear teachings, they look for teachers who work hard at finding
alternate explanations for the Matthew "exception." These Christians
really just want what they want.
In my case, I wanted to know God's Word and will for my life.
I wanted to please God, and understand His Word.
I had heard the preachers, but I wanted to go to the source.
I was trying to compare scripture with scripture and not to be
following the ideas of men. It was much later, after getting married,
that I noticed more Christian friends with complicated stories.
I felt the advice in 1 Cor 7 about remaining in one's situation
to be good advice.
The Clear Passages and The Exception
For me, the clear passages in Romans 7:2-3 and 1 Cor 7:39 were
enough to doubt Matthew's exception for the modern Christian.
I thought of Paul as having Holy Spirit-inspired clarifications.
At some point, I wondered if anyone would ever really know what
the exception meant. I respected Paul and the prophecy of the
Holy Spirit to explain what Jesus meant. Jesus said he would
send the Holy Spirit and I sensed important clarifications in
the writings of Paul.
After many years of waiting, I found modern explanations that
seemed to make sense of the Matthew "exception."
The explanation was that the "exception" in Matthew is tied
to Jewish marriage customs.
I could see that Joseph was trying to get out of his betrothal
until after his dream.
Understanding Jewish betrothal in biblical days helps one better
understand this "exception."
The clear passages in Mark, Luke, Romans, and 1 Corinthians
needed to be honored.
It did not make sense for the strong clear statements about
marriage to stand on their own without their own
exception clauses (Mark, Luke Romans, 1 Corinthians).
I found Paul to be abundantly clear and
exceedingly careful in dealing with this important issue.
I noticed how Christians dismissed Paul in this and other
passages.
As I learned more about life as a teenager, I continued to maintain
that the natural man tends to look for escapes from God's guidelines.
If Jesus said, "do not make an oath", I noticed Christians quietly
ignoring this command. If questioned, they would have some excuse
and feel perfectly justified in believing their softer interpretation.
The harder interpretation was that the verses that said not to
divorce and left off the exception actually meant what they plainly
said. The harder interpretation seemed to be what Jesus wanted, but
I didn't have the information about the Jewish customs as clear when
I was younger. Knowing the heart of man and the simple clarity of
the clear passages left me very sure that marriage could only be with
one person for life. But everything became more clear when I found
some interpreters who had thought about this more than I had. When the
explanation of the Jewish betrothal was explained, it made perfect
sense that Matthew, writing to a Jewish audience, would include this
exception. If I was misunderstanding Paul and the 2 gospels
(Mark 10:11-12 and Luke 16:18), then I wanted to be on the safe side
at least for my personal life situation.
The New Testament says that all these things (in the Old Testament) were
written for our instruction (Rom 15:4). But as I was reading in Ezra
this morning, I came to the difficult situation of Israel having sinned
by marrying foreign women and having to send them away. How do we understand
this passage and all the scriptures in our modern day when applied to the
complicated cases of divorce and remarriage that we see? The church today
has apparently achieved the same record as non-Christians by divorcing at
the same rate (or nearly so). Are we doing something wrong? My thoughts
on this topic go back to age 9 when I studied the Bible at boarding
school. I tried to figure out God's will, but the topic was too difficult.
I became pretty clear about
Romans 7, but the
topic of marriage/divorce/remarriage was more difficult. Since then I
have certainly thought about this more, but I still consider this a
difficult topic and I find increasing divergence among Christians.
I do not really want to differ from Christians on this topic, but I feel
compelled to write. I also believe discussion is good for Christians.
This article is not for everyone. Some Christians may not be the ones
Jesus says are willing to accept his teaching. These are just our thoughts,
but I believe in the
othertrend community of
interpretation.
Questions about the OT and NT Teachings (Ezra, esp)
The New Testament teachings on marriage, divorce and remarriage have been
argued about at great length. And I will come back to them. But before
that, I wish to set them aside and begin with some background in the
Old Testament since they will come up anyway with any careful discussion
of the New Testament teachings. The New Testament teachings are written
to Jewish disciples, Pharisees and the early church, with a background
assumption of knowing the Jewish Old Testament teachings. So let's
first touch on our new inspiration from reading in Ezra.
I have to say clearly and strongly that we (mostly Gentiles) are not in
the same situation as the Jews in the days of Ezra and I sense that this
passage has been used wrongly to cause trouble. Certainly, God wanted
Israel to be holy and separate from the Canaanites. Certainly, the words
are strong... to send the foreign wives and children away. This is a
crazy idea from our modern perspective. But it is not for us in a direct
way of application. It may be for us in some sense, but there is always
a need for wisdom when applying the Old Testament cases to our New Testament
cases. So the foreigner may be somewhat like an unbeliever, but we also
have clear New Testament instruction from Paul on keeping the marriage
alive with an unbeliever (1 Cor 7). So this tells us to be careful in
our interpretation! There is no simple application possible. When reading
Ezra, I had many thoughts about application, but I have to pause and think
about how to reduce these thoughts to a few words here (I could easily
write down all our thoughts and that would take pages and would distract).
But I was encouraged by Ezra's approach of knowing God's word, fasting,
tearing his clothing, and praying that "no one can stand before you because
of this" (Ezra 8:36), even though I know he had not done this. I am
interested in how the men were called, how the elders were called on to
assist, how the practical situation played out with meeting in the open
in heavy rain, how the sin was great and could not be sorted out in a
couple days, etc. There are so many bits that we can learn from this
story besides application to marriage/divorce and remarriage. The main
thing I get from this is that marriage in the Old Testament was serious
in the eyes of God and casual in the eyes of many Israelite men. God
did expect them to send their foreign wives away and God does not expect
Christians in our day to send away their non Christian spouses (1 Cor 7).
God is holy and would consume Israel if they ignored him (Ezra 9:14-15).
This is a great starting point for helping us figure out how to proceed
in our modern marriage mess.
Marriage is a model of Christ and the Church. It is God's plan and desire
for us to keep marriage for a picture to the world.
A good marriage is spoken of by Jesus as being impossible with man but possible with God.
Things often get so bad, many are encouraged to get "professional counseling."
It is sad that this cannot be handled by the church in light of 1 Corinthians 6.
The many problems could be a symptom of the current state of the church being very passive
and generally non-relationally oriented. There is a lot of pew-sitting absorbing brilliant
presentations, but very little person-to-person relationships where men and women are
held accountable to each other holding views that I will explain.
(traditional church vs
the other trend)
A great problem can be seen in the high divorce rate that exists even among Christians.
Very often the divorce rate is about the same between Christians and Non Christians.
I believe this is partially the result of a very bad theology that is alive in the church.
The whole topic of divorce and remarriage is a hot topic but I think it is hot because
of the spiritual battle behind it. I think the scripture is clear... if we listen carefully.
Instead of taking time setting the background, I will quickly state our position.
The Betrothal View of Matthew's Exception
Many people focus on the exception that seems to allow divorce and remarriage
based on the exception in Matthew's Gospel. Even before hearing a good explanation
of the betrothal view and why Matthew may have included the exception, I was
not comfortable with this view. I thought it a bit strange and wondered about
the exception, but I felt that the other verses that said marriage was for life
were more clear and its better to stick with the clear. Unfortunately, I have
noticed an increasing number of Christians taking the more liberal view and
interpreting Matthew as allowing divorce and remarriage in exceptional cases.
The betrothal view, says, no. That is not really an option. It says, if you
are a Gentile, then there really is no exception. A wife may be able to separate
in rare cases (1 Cor 7), but the clear verses do not really grant biblical freedom
to divorce or remarry. This article explains the betrothal view.
John Piper's view on divorce and remarriage
I agree with this view because I think it best explains all the verses in
the Bible dealing with divorce and remarriage. John Piper was apparently
writing about this in 1986, but I was not aware of his views until about
2010. I came to these views by studying scripture alone, and then later
found some others who held this view and explained it to us with a little
more clarity. But John Piper does a very good job explaining the view.
I hold to a view that I believe is more biblical, and simple,
but not popular.
I know those who hold to the traditional view (more liberal view) also think
they are being biblical. I think they are accommodating current views more
than following the biblical text. So this remains a hotly debated issue today!
I believe Christians are married for life. I do not believe in the view that
if you mess up, you should return to the first wife. Instead, I believe, if
you mess up, you should stay in the situation you are in (1 Cor 7). In the
super strict view, as very few people believe, one is supposed to abandon
a second marriage and return to the first spouse, because only the first is
valid. The situation is complex and there are OT passages that seem to relate.
There are the Deuteronomy and Ezra passages, for example. But I put a favoring
weight on what Paul says in the New Covenant in 1 Cor 7. Also, I strongly
believe in avoiding church-splits because of these views. In other words,
if you are in power in the church (elder, pastor, missionary, etc), you
should not move toward splitting a church because some in the church hold
to the more liberal view. I would say, ok, that is your view... can you
defend it from scripture? The discussion should happen. Christians should
be involved in discussing differences. Study should happen. Cases should
be brought up. If you can find uniformity and unity in your local church,
that is great. But in our world today, that seems unlikely. So generally,
this means being careful to avoid splitting the church over this issue.
I have mostly read the book by Piper: "What Jesus Demands from the World",
which explains this view that Jesus does not permit remarriage except for
porneia-betrothal type cases. The book explains the view very well, and I
think this article is in full agreement with it.
Unfortunately, most of Protestant Christianity does not agree with this view.
I can't help but feel that may be one of the reasons for such a high
divorce rate among Christians. The Christian testimony of unbroken marriages
is a real shame. I think of one of Evie Tournquist's songs, "Broken up people."
These are our thoughts. I know other Christians disagree.
The Super Strict View
Some are more strict and say that a remarried person should
leave the current marriage and return to the original marriage. I do not
agree with this, but we do agree with most of the arguments presented in
this view which explain that remarriage is not permitted according to Jesus.
This view is presented here:
Divorce and Remarriage - ReasoningByGrace.org
From a lady in California responding to the "reasoningbygrace.org" view,
whose husband is not a believer.
The issue for me is not so much forbidding divorce as it is
forbidding remarriage. God divorced Israel, only to take her back,
but never to remarry someone else. It's amazing to me how our
gracious God uses all the things in this earth as examples to
illustrate for us His ideas so that our small human minds can grasp
heavenly concepts.
The other matter is hermeneutics...
My take on this Bible-understanding tool is that one takes the clear
passages to shed light on the more unclear passages, and that the
unclear passages cannot contradict the more abundant clear ones. For
example:
Clear Passages...
Mark 10:11-12
Luke 16:18
I Cor. 7:39
I Cor. 7:11
Rom. 7:2-3
The bottom line of these passages is that ONLY death separates a marriage.
Now the two slightly different passages in Matt 5 and Matt 19 have, in
the minimum, a hint of the same bottom line. But whatever
interpretation we make of the two small clauses cannot contradict the
clear teaching we have already grasped in the other passages. It is
not the other way around, the unclear defining the clear. Is this a
not the proper handling of hermeneutics?
The last matter is that of desertion ending a marriage. I Cor. 7:15
cannot also contradict the above clear passages, especially in light
of verse 11 where the woman is told to remain unmarried or else be
reconciled. 'Bondage' in verse 15 can't mean 'no longer married', but
more like no longer under submission or to have to chase after.
'Peace' here does not mean divorce. Is a marriage to an unbeliever
any less of a valid marriage than a marriage between believers that
desertion and not death would end it?
I personally believe that the reason this subject is so difficult is
because of the state of the church in America. Easy-believism, cheap
confessions of faith where no true repentance has taken place, and
decisions for Christ abound. No death has taken place to remove one
from the law of sin and death. Christ is added to one's own dead
works. This is spiritual adultery. The parallel is in American
marriages...the one-flesh relationship is now not only broken by
death, but for every other reason, thereby committing adultery when
remarriage takes place. How can Christians have anything to offer
unbelievers when their practices are the same, i.e. the pursuit of
happiness, very American? I thought our pursuit was the glory of God.
We must never forget that God has granted us EVERYTHING pertaining to
life and godliness...to live godly in Christ Jesus, and to count it a
privilege to suffer for His name's sake in the pursuit of holiness and
sanctification knowing that our God is the God of all comfort. If we
go the way of the world, why should anyone want what we have?
If this teaching of divorce/remarriage is part of the foundational
teaching of your mentor and also a foundational part of your own
current system of theology, then changing it would have an immense
effect on your life and relations to many people that you love and
care about. This is not something to take lightly because it would
call for a lot of restructuring.... but, if it means drawing closer to
God with a larger sense of awe of His holiness, purity, loveliness,
worshipful adoration, and walking closer in obedience to His revealed
Word to be a light in this wicked and perverse generation....then it's
a no-brainer.
Implictions for Dating
Here are some thoughts on the modern idea of
dating.
REFRENCES