Expert: John Fields - 11/9/2011

Question
I am the son of a Church of Christ Preacher and grew up in the Lords Church. My Dad preached in all the the communities nearby and as a child I went with him. Unfortunately I lost my Dad at an early age, I was only nineteen. I met a wonderful woman and we were married in our church. It was my fist marriage,and her third. Since then we have attended church regularly and have read the Bible every night in order to read it in one year and in our reading she has found a question about divorce and she feels she has committed me to adultery. Her previous marriages were abusive and did not factor in when I married her. I was saved at the Church of Christ as an adult and her at the Baptist church she attended as a youth. What do I need to advise her to do? I have insisted that God knows all and takes that into account and forgives all and she has not endangered me or her, am I right? If not what do I need to advise her?

Answer
Dear Joe,

The question you ask has been very divisive and has hurt a LOT of suffering people.

The sin of adultery, marriage-breaking, can occur in two ways, breaking the marriage while still in it by having a sexual relationship with someone not your spouse or remarrying after having divorced. When divorce occurs and adultery or sexual sin is not involved, the couple is to reconcile or else remain unmarried, seemingly, so that they can have the opportunity to reconcile later (1 Corinthians 7:10-11). It is a travesty that when Jesus died and forgave us so much that we would not find a way to forgive the one we are joined to and are obligated to forgive. The sin in a re-marriage in which sexual sin has not occurred previously is that we have been commanded to reconcile or remain single. When a re-marriage occurs, any chance of reconciliation is then over since a new marriage has been formed in the other one's place.

Some people say that you should repent of this sin by breaking your marriage AGAIN! Their reasoning is that they believe that you were never really married to the new person anyway because you are thought to still be married in God's eyes to the former person that you divorced and that God does not recognize the new marriage. Since according to them you are still married to the other person in God's eyes, each time you share the marriage bed with the new mate you are actually defiling your original marriage that was never actually broken in God's eyes. Is this true? I don't believe so. Look at the biblical evidence.

1. In John 4 Jesus has contact with the Samaritan woman by the well. In verse 18 Jesus says that she has had five husbands. What is the likelihood that this woman was married five times after having been widowed each time? Nil. This woman had been married five times and JESUS said she had FIVE husbands. So the idea that these were not real marriages is faulty. She was married FIVE times so she had FIVE husbands. Apparently she was not married at all and engaged in fornication (sex completely outside of marriage) when Jesus talked with her.

2. In Matthew 19:6 Jesus says "Let not man separate what God has joined together." Is man capable of TOTALLY separating what God has joined together by divorce and subsequent remarriage or not? Why would Jesus tell us we must not do this if it COULD NOT happen in the first place?

3. In Matthew 19:3-8 Jesus spoke concerning the law related to divorce and remarriage under Moses. Jesus referred back to it when He spoke on this subject. It says in Deuteronomy 24:1-4 (1) If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, 2 and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, 3 and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, 4 then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled. That would be detestable in the eyes of the LORD. Do not bring sin upon the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance. What was the penalty for adultery at this time? The penalty was death by stoning. Yet, whatever indecency these husbands found in their wives surely did not involve the stoning offense; therefore, they were LEGALLY becoming the wives of other men when adultery was NOT involved. Was God condoning "living in adultery?" No, He was not. Were these women still married in God's eyes to the men who had given them a divorce? Plainly, NO! Those who use this scripture further disturb many people who are already reeling and hurting from the many sins that are often committed and repented of from this sin. One of their many, many day to day uses of THIS scripture as a fix is that the person who has divorced and remarried when adultery was NOT involved should divorce again and go back to their original spouse. It escapes their notice that this is a DIRECT contradiction to the Law of Moses which was STILL in effect when the events of this proof scripture were happening. Under Moses the person who divorced his wife and remarried could NOT go back to the first and WAS in a legal and God recognized marriage (though admittedly poorly begun). This is one of many problems with that legalistic and unbiblical view-point.

So the question is how do you repent of the sin of marriage breaking? DO NOT break your marriage again. Stay with this man you have married and keep your vows to him. With what your struggles have been before it would appear that burning with passion would be a problem. Look in 1 Corinthians 7:9 But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. In my estimation, you need to remain married to avoid this.

Make certain that you have come to Jesus on His terms in the first place by having believed in Him, repenting of ALL of your sinfulness, having confessed Him as Lord, and being baptized in Jesus' name.

These things having been said, and though I am VERY confident that I am giving biblical truth in love on this issue, there are other viewpoints that take a very different view than mine. In humility I must acknowledge the possibility that I could be wrong. Honorable people have disagreed very much on this issue. What you do, do with God in mind, striving in faith through love. Pray for God's guidance in this matter and ask forgiveness for all of your sins regularly. Though a child of God remains in a forgiven state as long as they are walking in faith expressing itself in love, we ask His forgiveness because we want Him to know we love Him and are sorry that we sin and cause Him such distress by our sins. This is why we ask to be forgiven even AFTER we have been. If while doing the best you know how to do for God's sake you have still been wrong, while striving in love to be truthful, God's grace CONTINUES to cover you through Jesus. You must sincerely follow God through His Word the best that you are able and NEVER allow for ANY sin in your life. Strive for Jesus' heart to begin beating in your chest. Learn to love all of the things that Jesus loves and hate all the things that Jesus hates. I hope this helps.