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...
"The deliberate contrast in Jeremiah 3:1 between the law that Moses laid down for the Israelites in Deuteronomy 24 and God’s own behavior towards His wife points out that the New Testament Church must not determine her marriage doctrine and practice from Deuteronomy 24."
ReplyDelete---Professor David J. Engelsma
The Bond Yet Unbroken:
The first verse of Jeremiah 3 proves, in a striking, indeed, startling way, that God was still MARRIED to DIVORCED Israel. To Israel who had "played the harlot with many lovers" and whom God had already divorced, according to verse eight, God called, "Yet return again to me." This was a call to His wife, as verse one makes plain: "They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man’s, shall he return unto her again? Shall not that land be greatly polluted? But thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the LORD."
Whereas it was not permitted in Israel for a wife divorced from her husband and remarried to another man to return to her first husband, God called His wife back to Himself, even though she had committed adultery with many companions and even though God had divorced her.
Divorced Israel REMAINED the wife of the LORD.
What is striking, even startling, about this insistence on the maintenance of the marriage and on Israel’s return to her rightful husband is the contrast between God’s marriage to Israel and a law governing the earthly marriages of the Israelites.
Verse one refers to the law concerning divorce and remarriage in Deuteronomy 24:1-4. Deuteronomy 24:1-4 forbade a husband who had divorced his wife, on some other ground than her adultery, to take her back, if a second husband divorced her, or died.
God, however, will take His wife back, even though she gave herself to many lovers and despite the fact that He had given her a bill of divorce.
The law of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 was merely Moses’ tolerance of deviation from God’s original ordinance of marriage on the part of hard-hearted Israelite men. It was a stop-gap measure, somewhat to protect vulnerable women, who otherwise would have been passed around like property.
This was Christ’s analysis of Deuteronomy 24:1-4, and indictment of the kind of people for whom the law was necessary, in Matthew 19:8: "Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives."
Deuteronomy 24 does not reveal the truth about marriage, divorce, and remarriage. It reveals the wickedness in marriage of hard-hearted, that is, unbelieving, men. The truth about marriage, already in the Old Testament, is revealed in Jeremiah 3:1: Even though He must divorce an unfaithful wife, God MAINTAINED the marriage and CALLED His wife back to Himself.
Verse fourteen of Jeremiah 3 is decisive, and explicit, regarding the question, whether God divorced an original wife so as to annul the marriage and open the way for Himself to marry another.
Addressing faithless, divorced Israel, Jehovah exclaimed, "Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am MARRIED unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion."
Although His wife was unfaithful, although she committed adultery with numerous lovers, although she was as yet impenitent, and although God had divorced her, God was STILL her husband, and she was STILL His wife. The bill of divorce did not touch, much less dissolve, the marriage bond: "I am MARRIED unto you."
Indeed, the fact of the marriage is the reason why God called Israel back, as it is the reason why she ought to come back, to live with Him: "For I am married unto you."
---Professor David J. Engelsma
http://www.marriagedivorce.com/mdreform2.htm
Interesting thought. Thanks. Will have to Check out your link.
ReplyDelete