Expert: Pastor Don Carpenter - 11/5/2007

Question
Hi,

I told you in a previous email how I exchanged vows with my fiancee, in a non-official ceremony, and you said that we are not married in God's eyes, even though I think we are. But say I was to find another girl and leave my current fiancee and wanted to marry the other girl, would I need to send my current fiancee a bill of divorce (even an unofficial one)? Would I be getting married scripturally if I just left my current fiancee (with whom I exchanged vows in a non-legal manner) and then just married the other girl legally without my fiancee breaking the covenant of our vows and me not even giving her a bill of divorcement (even if its just a piece of paper where I say that I'm divorcing her, a non-legal paper which has nothing to do with the courts). Can I just leave my fiancee, even if she's been faithful to me, and hook up with another girl? Would that be scriptural? After all, my fiancee and I exchanged vows and we meant it, even if it wasn't legal and without human witnesses.

I am not planning to do this, I have no other girl. I'm just asking theoretically. I've asked some other pastors and about half said that in God's eyes we are married, and half said we are not.

Josh

Answer
Hi Josh,

The whole concept of a bill of divorcement is a legal proceedure, showing that Marriage is also a legal, publci and binding covenant.  Of course you would not need to get a legal bill of divorcement in order to undo your secret vows.  The very nature of them being out from under the eyes of governmental law and publically binding witnesses shows that you have never truely been married.  If you were on an island, isolated from all humanity that would be another situation.... a secret vow made without the binding obligation of law or witnesses would not then require a legal document to break it up.... it never existed.

I hope that this helps.

In Christ
Pastor Don