Expert: Hoyt Roberson - 1/11/2011

Question
QUESTION: I was in discussion with a minister who claims that one who is in a second marriage that was not rightful because there was not adultery in the first, that the person in the second marriage should break it off. This is because if they repent then they will end the adultery, which he says is perpetual as evidenced by Romans 7: 1-3. To quote him:

"Notice that a woman who marries again, with no right to do so, is called an adulteress as long as her first husband remains alive. Adultery is not a one time act of breaking the marriage covenant. Adultery is having sex with someone while under the terms of a covenant with another person. Therefore, you came to the wrong conclusion. Adultery can be an on-going sin, just like any other sin that is not repented of."

What are your thoughts on this?

ANSWER: Ethan,

Since you asked for my thoughts, these are them:

The minister is missing the point and is guilty of both twisting Scripture and using a proof text considerably out of context.

Paul's discussion in chapter 7 is about being tied to the Law. As an example of THIS SPECIFIC POINT, he uses the marriage example. Paul's discussion here is not about adultery per se.

What Paul is saying is that if a woman abandons her husband, she's guilty of adultery. There is nothing necessarily continuous about it. She has violated her original commitment; abandoning her husband is sufficient to determine that. Remaining married to another person does not "add" to adultery because it doesn't impact the fact that she has already abandoned him.

So, Paul's context isn't about marriage and therefore, crafting a rule from this discussion is a dangerous thing to do; and the verse doesn't say what the minister wants it to say.

Simply, he's wrong.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: He also adds that the reason that it is continuous adultery is because though divorced, they were not released their original marriage. I should've given more context. The context was a hypothetical situation where we have some who divorced for reasons other than adultery, then that person remarried. He says that God never nullified the first covenant whether the man did or not, therefore the first covenant still stands and adultery is continuously committed because he is now living with another woman. My thought was that if he confessed that he was sinful by remarrying, that the second marriage still shouldn't be broke off.

"Yes. People wrongfully separate, but such a separation does not mean that God has released them from their covenant. That is why we also read: "Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband. But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife" (I Corinthians 7:10-11). You cannot fix wrongs with additional wrongs."

Thanks for your thoughts. Does this change your thoughts with more context? I should've given you more to begin with, sorry.

Answer
Yes, this is a common argument. Unfortunately, the view is considerably flawed. God does not pretend that people remain married when they're divorced. God knows people get divorced, and once that happens, they are no longer married in God's eyes.

Simply, once you're divorced, you're divorced. God doesn't like us jettisoning our spouses, but he knows we do it. The sin is in failing to keep our commitments, not in not being reconciled.

The preference is that we would reconcile, but if we don't, we don't. Both spouses need to move on.

The view espoused by the minister creates more problems than it solves. If you are remarried after divorcing, his view would argue that you should now divorce your new spouse, abandon any kids you may have had with the new spouse, and return to your original spouse. Does that sound like what God would want you to do?

I think not.

So, God knows people divorce and while that isn't the preference, when it occurs we need not pretend that it didn't.

Hoyt