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.

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...

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.