The power to define the terms is the power to win the debate

I read, with interest, an article on the "Faithful Word" website, regarding the thought of getting back together with your first husband or wife after one or both of you have been remarried in the meantime.

The Faithful Word, on remarrying an original spouse

The author of this web site supports his or her position rather well - the arguments seem reasonably well thought-out, and based on the presuppostions brought to the consideration, it seems he or she is trying to be fair to the argument, and the consideration at hand.

As I see it in review (and I read it recently, though not just now, before I write this review, so please bear with me if I miss a finer point or two) but it seems there are a couple presuppositions that are made in this particular assessment of the situation which seem to be made incorrectly, and which I wish to challenge, or at least to try to challenge with some thoughts of my own.

The position presented is basically that the wedding vows initiate the marriage covenant. It is not sex that forms the marriage bond, and as such, the "adultery" that occurs when a remarriage takes place is an ACT of adultery, not a STATE of adultery. The adultery is the act of making a new marriage covenant, when there is one that is still in place previously, (logically, I would assume, because the divorce didn't end the first marriage covenant.) And so "adultery" occurs "in the act of making new wedding vows." The position presented on that web site says that the sex that occurs in the new marriage is not sinful; it was the initial act of making the wedding vows to the new spouse that was an act of sin, and it is that act of sin that needs to be repented of, and repentence from that doesn't mean busting up the new marriage to put the old one back together; instead, repentence means acknowledging that the sin of adultery had been committed in the making of the vows, but the new vows stand, and they should be maintained.

I've heard this argument before. It's the common one made from that side of the fence on the divorce-remarriage debate. But the position has its problems. First of all, it seems there some logical "quantum leaps" taken here (unintentionally, it seems obvious enough, but quantum leaps in logic, nonetheless).

First of all, the commonly understood definition of "adultery" by any biblical or non-biblical scholar is sex by one (or both) of the partners in the marriage with anyone outside of the marriage. It has been said before that the power to define the terms in an argument is the power to win the debate. And in this case, it seems in order for this argument to be made, you have to buy that author's position that adultery occurs with the making of wedding vows. That seems a real stretch. The reason that Jesus said that divorcing a spouse and making wedding vows to another person is entering into an ONGOING CONDITION OF ADULTERY (and that is what it says in the greek - not an act, but an ongoing condition) is because the point he was making was the fact that simply proposing new wedding vows to a new bride or groom doesn't automatically mean that God is putting His blessing on this new "marriage" simply because we invoke His name to do so. Jesus' point was made around an obvious assumption - the assumption that new wedding vows were made in order to legitimize the acts of sexual intercourse which would afterwards be "justified" in the mind of the new husband and wife because of the vows somehow making it right. Jesus' point was that the new vows didn't change anything - the ongoing living condition that would result after the new vows is simply a condition of living in an ongoing state of adultery.

Another common problem that I see in the author's logic is such as is in his analysis of the passage in John, chapter 4, where he is speaking of Jesus with the woman at the well. This paragraph I will quote from the website itself:

"...it was Jesus who said she had had five different husbands, and the man she was living with at the moment was not her husband at all (John 4:18). From this we know that simply living with someone and having sex with them does not make them a spouse, for marriage requires a binding contract. We also know that Jesus considered each one of her previous marriages to have been real marriages, for He called each of her five previous covenant partners 'husbands' even while recognizing that the last lover was not a 'husband.' "

First of all, the author says, "From this we know that simply living with someone and having sex with them does not make them a spouse, for a marriage requires a binding contract." This is true. But then he says, "We also know that Jesus considered each one of her previous marriages to have been real marriages, for He called each of her five previous covenant partners 'husbands' even while recognizing that the last lover was not a 'husband.' "  This is not necessarily true, at all.

The new testament looks a fair bit different when you look at it in Greek than when you look at it in English. For instance, there are a few things to note that are significant before you even begin to look at the translations. In Greek, there is no different word for wife or woman, there is no different word for husband or man. The only way to tell which is implied is by context, and if the person is referred to as "the man" or "a man" or "her man." Similarly, it is "the woman" or "his woman." If it says, "her man" or "his woman" it is translated "husband" or "wife." Secondly, the expression "to have" or "had" in the context of discussion about husbands and wives is pretty much a synonymous term with "married." For instance, when the Sadducees approached Jesus with the story of the seven brothers, they used this expression - "the first one had her, the second one had her..." and it was understood in the context, and is translated so, that they were saying these brothers all married her. (Another curious little tidbit is that there is a word for widow in greek, but no word for widower; read that into 1 Corinthians 7 and it takes a different flavor, but that is a different topic.)

Anyway, look at what it says from the Greek, and then let me try to put a different "spin" on what it says (we all have 'em - like it or not, every translation has a "spin" on the text based on the presuppositions brought to the translating table). And so, based on this same text with Jesus and the woman at the well, but looking at it with the presupposition that remarriage is an ongoing condition of adultery, based on the greek... what it says is...

"... the woman answered him and said, 'I have no man.' Jesus said, 'you said correctly, for you do not have a man, for you have five men, and the one you are having now is not your man."

What it means (how it is interpreted, which is what any bible translation requires - an understanding of what it says, and what it means when it says it, when spoken in the words of another language) What I believe it means (with good reasons to say it, also...) is...

"Jesus said, 'you have spoken correctly, that you do not have a husband, for you have become married to five men, and the one to whom you are now married is not really your husband." That's a mouthful! And as controversial as it seems to be, I think there is ample justification to translate it this way. It all depends on the presuppositions you make theologically before you try to interpret the text in the original based on language and cultural considerations before you try to translate it into your current language.

If you make the presupposition that divorce ends the covenant (or, as in the case of The Faithful Word, here) you make the assumption that the new wedding vows break the old one) then you interpret "the one you now have" as a lover (as "The Faithful Word" does) rather than as a husband by law (as I and many others believe); if you make the assumption, based on the Greek text, that Jesus spoke of the ongoing new marriage as an ongoing condition of adultery, then you will translate Jesus' words here as "the one you are now married to" as a "husband," yet not one she is entitled to have in God's eyes, because it is an adulterous marriage. "The husband you have now is not your husband."

Like I said before, the power to define the terms is the power to win the debate. If we define adultery as making new vows rather than having sex outside of a legitimate marriage, then we can justify a whole bunch of stuff as now legitimate. But if we define adultery as sex outside of marriage, then we have to see in Jesus' words a statement that declares remarriages are not legitimate in God's eyes. And so, in this case, the question becomes, "if it is an ongoing condition of adultery, rather than a single act of adultery, then what does repentence look like?"

I have heard others, such as Craig S. Keener and Voddie Baucham propose the idea that the adultery that Jesus was speaking of was an act of adultery, and not a state of adultery, but the greek in these passages does not bear this out. The early church fathers, when they spoke of these sayings of Jesus in their writings all understood Jesus to be referring to an ongoing state of adultery, rather than a mere "single act" of adultery. And they were familiar with the common usage of the greek, and understood this, so much so that in their writings on the subject, they spoke even more clearly of this adultery as an ongoing condition, and they even went so far at times as to require church discipline until these new "marriages" were repented of and walked away from.

In fact, Craig Keener makes the very bad argument (in my opinion) that Jesus could not have been speaking of adultery in these cases as being an ongoing condition, because if he did, then it would mean that all these divorced and remarried people we see today are living in a state of adultery, but this just doesn't seem that it can be the case, and so we have to conlude from this that Jesus' point was really about an act of adultery, not an ongoing condition of adultery. This seems to be constructing an argument based on the conclusion you want to make. It seems to be bad logic. Defining remarriage as an act of adultery rather than a state of adultery (based on what you can do with the English translation) and redefining adultery to include the idea that marriage vows are adultery, rather than sex outside of marriage being the adultery changes the whole conversation.

As I said before, the power to define the terms is the power to win the debate. But careful consideration of the terms requires some tweaking from "The Faithful Word" on this post. As Walter Martin once said, "if words don't mean in context what they mean by definition, then we have lost the ability to communicate."

As always, your thoughts are welcome.

Revised Post - The Butterfly Effect

There is an interesting phenomenon described as "the butterfly effect" that says that some things are very sensitive to influence by other things, and a small change at one place can sometimes result in large differences somewhere else, later on. And, on a practical note, the implication is that, sometimes, when you mess with something, you REALLY mess with the future in ways you have no idea how much...

I've studied this whole issue of divorce and remarriage for over a year now in great depth. There is a lot I've learned that I had no idea about before. I had previously read from most of the popular books on the subject - Craig S. Keener, Jay Adams, Guy Duty, and others. Something that never seemed to get much coverage from any of the popular authors on the subject is the history of the manuscripts from which we get our bibles. And I think this is extremely important.

You see, when translators work going from Greek to English, they sometimes have to translate what the words say, sometimes what the meaning is, and sometimes they have to choose one over the other. And many of these passages dealing with divorce and remarriage are subject to this kind of decision-making in translation. But the translators typically learn the theology of divorce and remarriage from English texts before they learn to understand Greek, and so they often lean on tradition and predetermined theology for translation as much as they do the actual Greek manuscripts when push comes to shove.

But what if there was a wrinkle in the history of the transmission of the manuscripts? You can go to a link for this history, which is both interesting and disturbing:

A look at what Erasmus did to the text of Matthew 19:9

The short take on it is this, though. Erasmus was a humanist theologian in the Catholic church who justified his idea, contrary to Catholic theology, that divorce should be allowed in some circumstances. And it is this Erasmus who was responsible, in his day, for coming up with the Greek New Testament from which Calvin, Luther and others did their work. They at first praised him for his great work on this new Greek new testament, but later wrote him off as a pervert and a pedophile. But in the meantime, they bought into his manuscript where he had introduced a single word into Matthew 19:9 - the Greek word "ei" which changes the meaning of Matthew 19:9 completely.

With this change, the passage reads, "anyone who divorces his wife, except for fornication, and marries another, commits adultery." Without this change, the passage reads, "anyone who divorces his wife, even if for fornication, and marries another, commits adultery."

Later editions of our greek manuscripts have since had this change corrected, and yet our modern translations still translate this passage as if the "ei" is in there.

If the greek of the passage is considered with the "extra" word, it would seem to say in Matthew, "anyone who divorces his wife, except for pornea, and marries another, commits adultery." Without the extra word, a clearer rendering of the text into English might well be "anyone who divorces his wife (not speaking of pornea here) and marries another, commits adultery." The question then becomes, "what does pornea here mean?" It can mean adultery, and is at times used this way, but in the context, it might be just as reasonable to consider that Jesus was referring to any number of things besides adultery (especially since he used the word adultery in the same sentence). I would suggest, in keeping with the otherwise consistent interpretation of all the other texts in the new testament, he might be referring to marriages considered invalid in God's eyes - and which therefore should be undone because they never were lawful in His eyes. It's a thought....

This might be a fair understanding, since in Matthew's telling of the story, the gospel writer is writing to Jews, and they would have been familiar with the Shammai-Hillel debate about the reason for divorce, which is why Matthew includes, "is it wrong to divorce for every and any reason." And I believe that Jesus was saying "anyone who divorces (except where the divorce would be required because of an 'uncleanness' - pornea - that violates the law of marriage because it was never a legitimate marriage in the first place) and marries another enters into a state of adultery...."

There is a place for tradition, I know. But there is also something to be said for stating what is true, no matter how painful it is. After looking at what Matthew emphasized to the Jews, and Mark emphasized to the gentiles, what I believe Jesus was saying was this: "anyone who divorces his wife (unless it was an illegitimate marriage in the first place, in which case it should be undone) and marries another, commits adultery." This is essentially the same as what he says in Mark 10. Any legitimate marriage is not undone by divorce; though the laws might support it, the covenant is still in place, which is why Jesus calls the next marriage an ongoing condition of adultery.

So what happened after Erasmus introduced the "ei"? Luther eventually wrote Erasmus off as dangerous, the manuscripts have been corrected so that they no longer show this mistake. But it was translated "except for fornication" in the KJV based on this error deliberately planted in the greek manuscript at the time. And now, who can question the KJV?

OK. Now, having said that, I have to state the reasons for why the opinion I just spouted off should be taken with a grain of salt. It's interesting to look at these passages and to try to determine what Jesus was speaking about; but it's also helpful (perhaps, anyway) to look at how the early church interpreted the Matthean exception. And if you look here,

A Look at the Historical Views on Divorce and Remarriage in the Early Church

You will see the following: the Shepherd of Hermas (A.D. 90) taught that if a husband had a wife committing adultery, he was required to divorce her, as a means of disciplining the wayward wife, but also required not to remarry, as he needed to remain single so as to take her back as his wife if she repented of the adultery; Clement of Alexandria, in A.D. 208, wrote that "if a man divorces his wife, except for adultery" he causes her to commit adultery. But he refers to the divorce as a separation, not that it ended the marriage - more of a space, for discipline. And he also said that anyone who would take the divorced woman as his wife was perpetuating her adultery; Origin, A.D. 250 said that if a man divorced, except for adultery, he was causing her to become an adultress - so he read Matthew as "except for" (though not as a permission to remarry, and neither could the woman, because their union was still a covenant in God's eyes); and if you look at the others, it seems they generally saw adultery/fornication in the same way - divorce was allowed in the case of consistent promiscuity. So Jesus' "except for fornication" was seen by the early church to be referring to adultery just as easily as anything else. But it didn't end the covenant, and if a remarriage occurred, it was considered a state of adultery, which needed to be repented of.

Some Questions To Think About

Some questions to think about:

God hates divorce. Are there some things He hates worse?

Do you know the first divorce that was mentioned in the Bible?

Did you know there were times that God REQUIRED people to divorce?

If adultery is an exception for divorce, then why did Paul not mention anything about it in 1 Cor. 7 ?

If Jesus gives an exception only for marital unfaithfulness, and Paul gives an exception only for desertion, then are they contradicting each other?

If they aren't contradicting each other, but they are simply stating general concepts to make a point, but they all assume their audiences understand that exceptions are implied, then how many exceptions are there?

If there might be other exceptions, how far can they go? Abuse? Sexual abuse only? Or physical abuse? What about mental cruelty? What about the unwillingness of a partner to be intimate with their mate? What about neglect? What about emotional neglect? How far can you wander down the path of exceptions before it becomes such a wide basket of exceptions that the rules don't really mean anything anymore?

If Jesus was understood by his followers as having exceptions implied when he was quoted in Mark, then why did His disciples have such a wild reaction to what He said?

If Jesus was saying that remarrying was an act of adultery, rather than entering into a continuing condition of adultery that needed to be repented of, then why did everyone in the first five centuries of the church, who spoke the koine greek the new testament was written in, all get it wrong and think he meant an ongoing state of adultery, when we, as 21st century english speakers can see so clearly that He merely meant an act of adultery?

If the remarriage is only a single act of adultery (as Voddie Baucham would say), then when does the adultery occur? Is the making of the new covenant on the afternoon of the wedding the act of adultery? Or is the consummation of the new marriage on the evening of the wedding the act of adultery? If they really are husband and wife in Jesus' eyes, then why is it adultery? When does it cease to be an act of adultery? Is it a sudden end (perhaps during the consummation of the new marriage) or is it something that "gradually becomes non-adulterous"?

If the proper response after remarrying is to stay in the new marriage even though it is adulterous (as John Piper would say) then where is there any other precedent or parallel in the bible that says you shouldn't have started a lifestyle of sin, but now that you've started it, you need to keep doing it forever?

If Deuteronomy 24 is a commandment that if you've divorced and remarried, no matter the reason, then you can't ever go back and remarry the first spouse because it made her to be defiled, then what was it that defiled the woman so that they could never remarry? Was it the fact that she had sex with another man? Does Hosea line up with that? Was it because there was a new marriage vow formed? Does king David line up with that (2 Sam 3:12-15)? Does GOD even line up with that (Jer. 3)?

Just some questions to think about. Your opinions are welcome...

Your thoughts, my thoughts...

I'm sure everyone has an opinion that may contain some truth or some things to consider. I'm looking at a lot of perspectives on this whole divorce and remarriage issue, trying to sort out good logic from bad, good theology from bad, trying to discern the Lord's heart and mind on this one. I have a leaning, but I'm interested in your thoughts, particularly if they differ from mine. "As iron sharpens iron..."

I think we all learn in many ways, particularly by wrestling with ideas that don't always agree with us. Truth is truth, whether we like it or not.....

If you have any thoughts, comments, questions or suggestions about some of the web pages listed or on any previous blogs, please feel free to post a comment or question. If you have something not addressed in a blog but would like to comment, I would be willing to put up a new blog post for comment and feedback.

Thanks.

Missions, Evangelism, and Theology: Remarriage and the Believer -1 Corinthians 7:15

A thought on 1st Corinthians 7:15

Missions, Evangelism, and Theology: Remarriage and the Believer -1 Corinthians 7:15


Input and comments, pro or con, are always welcome....

Jesus' original hearers vs. Fifteen centuries of church history

George Santayana once said, "Those wo do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." I believe there is a lot of truth in that. I do believe we can avoid repeating the tragedies of history if we learn from its mistakes. But I think it is equally possible that we can forgot those parts of the past where they got it right, and in doing so we invent the mistakes of a new day.

 When I look back at the history of the church regarding the issue of divorce and remarriage, it strikes me as odd that for the first 15 centuries of the church, divorce and remarriage appears to be universally seen as a state of adultery. Not an ACT of adultery, but a STATE of adultery that needed to be repented of. And yet, in the last 50 years or so, it seems that even in strong evangelical Christian circles, the predominant view in the church is that God allows for divorce and remarriage under some circumstances, and approves of and blesses those second marriages.

I will not say I understand all of the issues of church history on this issue. But if Stephen Wilcox is correct, then perhaps that was the period in time in the 1500's (by means of Luther and Erasmus) where, on the issue of divorce and remarriage, the camel got its nose under the tent; and what was sowed to the wind then is now being reaped as a whirlwind.

Please follow the link above, and see for yourself what he says. According to Wilcox (as I understand him) it seems that Erasmus was a rather pragmatic and agnostic "theologian" who "approved" divorce to appease King Henry the 8th. And Luther, who was rather frustrated with many of the issues he had with the Roman Catholic church, was perhaps a little too quick to toss the baby with the muddy theological bathwaters of his day. Until then, it seems all of church history records a pretty much clear voice on the issue of divorce and remarriage: remarrying while a former spouse was still alive was always seen as a continuous state of adultery, and was something that required repentence to recognize the original marriage as a covenant which could only be broken by death.

There are many voices that speak today from conservative evangelical circles regarding this issue of divorce and remarriage. They hold all kinds of positions, all with what appear to be strong biblical reasons why they are right and the others are wrong. Bill Gothard would say the original marriage is the only one God recognizes, and a remarriage while the original spouse is alive needs to be undone, because it is not a valid marriage in God's eyes. Jay Adams would say that God allows divorce and remarriage for adultery or for desertion by an unbeliever; Craig S. Keener would say that God allows it for more reasons than these, such as cruelty or abuse. His book, "...And Marries Another" is a very well researched book, which gives perhaps the best defense of this position I have seen. And then there are men like Voddie Baucham and John Piper who would argue that even though the first marriage has a covenant which cannot be broken, and remarriage is not allowed, if a couple is currently in that position, they need to keep the remarriage intact anyway. Their idea is that divorcing the new spouse is wrong; two wrongs don't make a right.

It is no wonder that, with so many dissenting positions by good, God-fearing Christian teachers and theologians, there is much disagreement among Christians today about whether or not God permits divorce and remarriage. The average Christian will notice that there are bible teachers who are well known and effective in teaching people about Christ, and some of these people are divorced and remarried, with God blessing their ministries. So perhaps God is OK with the divorce and remarriage after all?

I have two thoughts on this. First of all, I think that God blesses a ministry, not because the minister always get everything exactly doctrinally correct, but in spite of the fact that he or she does not. God looks for obedient hearts, and I believe any good bible teacher that God is using has, as his or her central theme, the idea that God is always God, and we are not. We need to be totally surrendered to Him, no matter the cost. Doctrine is a means to that end. And if you look at the heart of the message coming from Jay Adams, Craig S. Keener, John MacArthur, Bill Gothard, Voddie Baucham, John Piper and others, it is always this. And because this is their heart, God blesses their ministries because they are surrendered, as best they can be, to the lordship of Jesus Christ.

The second thought I have with it is this. Just because someone is seeking God's heart and is surrendered to the lordship of Jesus Christ, it doesn't automatically mean they will always get it right. And for this reason, you need to compare their ideas one against the other, and against the reference standard of the word of God, praying and seeking God about what He wants you to do. These bible teachers would all tell you the same thing. And in the end, you need to act on what you believe God is showing you. I have learned from hard experience that if you are seeking hard after God, and you are heading in the wrong direction, He has an uncanny abiliity to get through to you about it. And so you need to be careful and much in prayer about an issue such as this one. Because it is also possible to hear clearly from God, and yet be blinded to that truth after not doing what He tells you. And He WILL let you do the wrong thing. And He WILL let the consequences hurt you, to get your attention.

Just because the prevailing opinion in the church in our day leans in the direction that divorce and remarriage are alright by God's measure, doesn't mean God really is alright with it. (It doesn't mean He's not, either. That's just the point - the prevailing opinion needs to be constantly examined and course-corrected.) If you went back in history, many in the church believed slavery was alright, too. Many in the church, who 30 and 40 years ago believed in a pretribulation rapture of the church, no longer do. The idea of a premillenial, pre-tribulation rapture of the church didn't even exist until the later 1800's. In the last 30 years, the "pre-trib" part has fallen out of favor. Opinions and popular concensus change over time. What was considered right in the past might not be now. What the church of the future may find someday is that some of our 21st century ideas were rather unfortunate, to say the least.

When I think back on what I remember from Keener's book (I read it a long time ago; I'll admit I've only glanced again at it lately, and see it differently now, after viewing some arguments from the other side) what I remember is a lot of thorough research which pointed to the idea that Jesus' followers in his day would have all heard his sayings through ears that would have understood the same exceptions to his rules, and so these exceptions weren't even written because they were taken for granted with the original audience. For instance, Keener believes all his hearers would have heard the "adultery" exception on remarriage, though only Matthew records it. But now that I read how all of the early church history spoke of divorce and remarriage, it makes me wonder how the whole church missed it for all of those centuries. Those people in the early centuries of the church, who understood the greek of the New Testament better than any of us likely do - because it was their mother tongue - must have all gotten it wrong, if Keener has gotten it right. I am forced to the conclusion that they better understood what it said, but understood less what it meant. I am forced to conclude that, though they knew well what the bible said, they no longer had a clue what it meant by about one or two generations after Jesus walked among us.

I'm not sure if I can take that ball and run with it. If the bible is our measure of faith and conduct, how are we to have any idea if we have it right, if we don't all have an intimate knowledge of the Hebrew culture to which Jesus spoke? I remember speaking to a Jewish rabbi once, who told me that evangelical Christians know what the bible SAYS, but the Jews know what it MEANS. This seems to be a train that could be heading down the tracks fast...

As always, your thoughts are welcome. And if I've got the history or the positions wrong, please feel free to correct. (in a spirit of grace, though. I want this to be a family-friendly blog.)

A Curious Irony in the "Should I Remarry My Original Spouse" debate

I wouldn't say that this particular observation I've made is a universal thing, by any means. In the whole "should I remarry my original spouse" debate, there are always many sublte shades of differences in the opinions about the issues. They are complex and there are well-meaning, clear-thinking people on all sides of the debate.

But an ironic theme I see when I read the books or visit all the websites that speak to the issue of remarrying an original spouse after divorce and remarriage, is that typically the sites that have an Arminian leaning in their theology (that a Christain can lose his or her salvation) tend to push toward the idea that a marriage is an indissoluble covanent; whereas the Calvinistic sites (those who believe that salvation is eternally secure and cannot be lost) tend to see marriage as a covanent that can be broken.

If a Christian marriage between a husband and wife is a representation of the relationship between Christ and his church, why is it that those who say someone cannot lose his or her salvation see that the marriage covanent can, in fact, be broken? How is it that those who see that Christ could, in the end, divorce us (the Arminians) say that nevertheless, we cannot divorce our mates on earth, because in God's eyes, that covanent is still in place, (though we pretend it's not) and this covanent cannot be broken, no matter how we try to pretend it is?

It's just an observation I've made. And, as always, your thoughts are welcome.

Voddie Baucham and The Permanence View of Marriage

One sermon that has gotten a lot of traction in Christian circles lately is one by a very gifted preacher by the name of Voddie Baucham, regarding the "permanence view of marriage" - a view that says the bible allows no exceptions for divorce and remarriage, and that no matter the marital state one is in, he or she should remain in that state - the current marriage is ended only by death; anything other than that is adultery in God's eyes.

You can hear the sermon here

Sermon Audio Download of the sermon


He begins the sermon by quoting from a book titled, "Divorce and Remarriage: a Permanence View" by Jim Eliff (a book also getting a lot of discussion regarding this issue) where he quotes the author as saying...

Divorce and wrongful remarriage are forgivable sins. We want to start here, at the heart of our faith in Christ. When Jesus died, He did not fail to atone for the misdeeds of His people in this critical area. Even the person who has acted as wrongly as possible in this matter may be fully forgiven, and may have a fulfilled life of service to God after repentance. Also, God mercifully blesses many second marriages that began sinfully. This is a mystery for which we can all be extremely grateful.

Voddie then expounds his case for why marriages should never be undone; and even if you find yourself in a marriage after divorce, you should not undo the second marriage to restore the original one. He has many valid points to make in this sermon, and he does so with much grace and love toward those who might find themselves in such a situation.

For those of you who have not heard this sermon, you can go to it at this link:



While I appreciate Voddie's heart in this matter of how to handle a person who is divorced and might be remarried while the original spouse is still alive, and while I appreciate so many good points he makes along the way, I find what I believe is a bit of a hole in his logic near the end of his sermon.

Toward the end of the sermon, he addresses this issue of whether or not a second marriage should be redone to put the first one back together. I am not here saying that I subscribe to the position that an "adulterous" marriage should be undone to put the original one back together. (I'm not saying I don't hold it, either. Perhaps it should; but my jury is still out on that one.) What I am saying is that Voddie's argument at the end of this sermon to make this case is flawed in my opinion. Because I find it a flawed argument, I am posting my opinion about it here to get some good discussion going about this point.

Here is what Voddie's argument is. He starts out making the statement that Jesus never says that to stay in the second marriage is a continual act of adultery. Voddie states that the remarriage is an ACT of adutery, not a state of adultery. The ACT of divorcing and then the ACT of remarrying and then the ACT of intimacy is the adultery - he says we don't see anywhere Jesus saying that every act of intimacy in the new marriage is another act of adultery - he says that only the original remarriage is adultery, and after that (I suppose?) God now blesses the new marriage, and we should stay in it. He says that continuing in the new marriage is not a continued act of polygamy or polyandry.

To prove this presupposition, he points to the passage of scripture where Jesus is talking to the woman at the well, and he says to her, "you have had 5 husbands." not "you currently have 5 husbands." He says that Jesus never said to her that you currently have 5 husbands because you're married to all of them and so you're committing polyandry."

Here is where I think his argument is flawed. My first problem I have with his logic is that the greek Jesus uses when he says "and whoever divorces and marries another commits adultery,"  in the Greek, is implying it IS a continuous state. For Voddie to state that it is an ACT of adultery rather than a STATE of adultery is a theological conclusion rather than a textual one. While the Greek here doesn't HAVE to imply it is a continuous state of adultery, it is the first sense one would get from a reading of the Greek text; therefore, the conclusion he draws is to argue for the non-obvious interpretation of the text in Matthew rather than the obvious one. Every theologian has to do this to a greater or lesser degree, but it is a weak argument when the text leans toward arguing something different.

Secondly, reading this conversation with Jesus and the woman at the well, and reading all of that into the conversation expects that Jesus would have talked to her with a paragraph instead of a sentence so that others would not later misread this conversation as a doctrinal treatise. You see, the woman was familiar with Jewish law at the time. The Jews allowed for divorce and remarriage, even though Jesus said it was adultery to do so. But in this conversation with her, his point was simply to let her know she had been married 5 times so that she knew he was a prophet; not to expound to her with great detail why what she did was wrong so that she would know she was a sinner. (She already knew that).

While Voddie's point might seem valid from his side of this fence, it is a weak argument from the side that sees it as a continuous state of adultery. From that perspective, this conversation was not intended to make a statement about divorce and remarriage; it was a conversation to show how Jesus interacted with a particular person at a particular time, without getting into exactly the type of conversation the Pharisees were constantly trying to draw him into. This point should not be missed.

The third logical mistake it seems he makes is this: he says, "NO. NO. To divorce and remarry the original spouse is wrong - you don't recommit a sin in order to demsontrate your repentence for the first time you did it." But those who see it as adulterous don't see it as doing something wrong to end a marriage that God never blessed because it was adulterous from the start; they see it as necessary obedience.

Voddie says that Jesus never accused her of having 5 husbands currently, and he never accused her of being in polyandry. What he seems to miss is that those who do say you need to undo the new ones to redo the first wouldn't say that either. He is attacking the absurdity of an argument from the other side that the other side would already agree with him about. They never said it was polyandry. They merely said it was adulterous.

The power to define the terms is the power to win the debate; especially when the other side is not there to defend itself. Those who say the adulterous marriage should be undone would not say the woman currently had 5 husbands. They would say if her first one was still alive when she married the others, then each of the other marriages other than the first would be illigitimate and adulterous, and she should return to the first because she was committing adultery against her first husband.

In my opinion, neither side should take a hard doctrinal stance on the implication of this particular verse on this particular issue, as Jesus' statement was not meant to point out to the woman the particulars of how badly she had sinned in her life, but to make her realize who Jesus was - the man who knew her life, her sins, and was willing to speak to her anyway. And it's all this verse is about.

If we are to come to solid conclusions about these issues, we need to be careful to let each side define its own terms as they use them in their own arguments; otherwise, though we speak the same words, we've lost the ability to communicate.

Your thoughts on this discussion are welcome.

Wading through the issues of Divorce and Remarriage

It always amazes me how good, God-fearing people who love the Lord with all their hearts can come to such different conclusions about so many issues regarding doctrine and biblical interpretation. While good people can differ, I think it is always good to consider the different points of view posed by believers on controversial issues. Obviously, when opinions differ, we can't all be right. We may all be wrong, or all partly right. And even among our differences we can often find common ground. But we need to be "prayerfully careful" that we examine everything in light of the scriptures, properly interpreted.

Divorce and remarriage is one of those issues that needs some careful examination, as the opinions by evangelical writers and teacher vary greatly, with great ramifications, no matter what conclusions are determined. There are good, Godly men and women who believe that divorce and remarriage are permitted for any number of good reasons; there are those who believe divorce and remarriage are permitted only in the case of adultery by a spouse or be desertion of a believer by an unbeliever; there are those who believe that divorce is allowed in these situations, but remarriage is not. And then there are those who believe that any remarriage is adultery and must be repented of by ending the subsequent, adulterous marriage and returning, if possible, to the original one, or remaining single while the original spouse is still alive; and there are yet others, such as John Piper and Voddie Baucham, who believe that any divorce is wrong, including divorcing the "adulterous" spouse to return to the first - their thought is that two wrongs don't make a right.

I have read many dozens of websites, books, blogs and the like on this issue. Some offer opinions that seem more informed than others (on all sides of the various fences, by the way). And although my position has been changing on this issue somewhat over both the past years, and recently in the past few months, I am still trying to discern what God's heart is about the issue. There are many points that are raised on all sides of the debate. There are also many questions which are raised by one side which don't always seem to be addressed by the others (and visa-versa). There is good and bad logic; there is good and flimsy handling of the original languages and the cultural contexts which need to be considered. There are often times where ideas are read into the texts used to prove or disprove positions when the text doesn't HAVE to be saying any of those things at all.

I am undecided on the issue. But my intent here is to start a blog and perhaps a "dialog" with some of you who may read it - as iron sharpens iron, perhaps we can bounce some ideas around about what God's heart is in this matter. I don't expect that everyone will see it the same way; but my intention here is to try to spark some honest discussion about these issues with like-minded Christians who are trying to discern what God's heart is on this issue. I will be posting ideas as I have opportunity to do so, regarding the different aspects of this puzzle. Perhaps between us, we can all come to a clearer understanding of God's heart and mind on this issue.

I will be posting more pages and the like, but in the meantime, any general (thoughtful, honest) comments are welcome.