Expert: Brenda Martin - 7/9/2006

Question
Hi Brenda,
 Thanks for the speedy reply, but I don't agree with your interpretation. It is FORNICATION that is grounds for divorice NOT ADULTERY. Fornication is sex between unmarried people. Adultery has married persons involved. So if two marry, and we are supposed to be virgins, right? - if later one finds out that the other admits to 'fornication'before they were married then that is grounds for divorice because that person thought the other was pure. Now it's another story if they are up front with each other BEFORE they get married. This is why in 1 Cor. 6:9-11: There is a distinction between fornicator and adulterers. The two sins invole sex but the circumstances are different.
thanks,
David R.
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Followup To

Question -
Hi Brenda,
  I was reading a prior post where you stated that the Bible teaches adultery is the only grounds for divorice. Where is that found in the Bible?
thanks,
David R.

Answer -
Matt. 19:8, 9: “[Jesus] said to them: ‘ I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except on the ground of fornication [extramarital intercourse], and marries another commits adultery.’” (So the innocent mate is permitted, but not required, to divorce a mate who commits “fornication.”)

1 Cor. 6:9-11: “Do not be misled. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men kept for unnatural purposes, nor men who lie with men . . . will inherit God’s kingdom. And yet that is what some of you were. But you have been washed clean, but you have been sanctified, but you have been declared righteous in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and with the spirit of our God.”

(This emphasizes the seriousness of the matter. Unrepentant adulterers will have no part in God’s Kingdom. Yet, people who formerly committed adultery, perhaps even improperly getting remarried, can gain God’s forgiveness and a clean standing with him if they are genuinely repentant and exercise faith in the sin-atoning value of Jesus’ sacrifice.)

All the best
Brenda


Answer
Jesus stated the principle governing the Christian congregation—that “fornication” (Greek por·nei´a) is the only valid ground for divorce.

The Greek word in this text is porneia, now its true, porneia is sometimes used in a limited sense, as applying to sex relations between unmarried (single) persons. An instance of such a limited usage is 1 Corinthians 6:9, where “fornicators” are mentioned separately and in addition to those who engage in such other sexual vices as adultery and homosexuality.

But just before this, at 1 Corinthians 5:9-11, Paul used the same word when counseling Christians not to mix with “fornicators.” Is it reasonable to think that here he referred only to immoral unmarried persons? That could not be so, for chapter 6 sets out a broad range of illicit sexual practices that must be shunned, including adultery and homosexuality.

Likewise, Jude 7 and Revelation 21:8, which show that God judges unrepentant “fornicators” as worthy of eternal destruction, could hardly be limited only to unmarried persons that have sex relations. And the Jerusalem governing body’s edict at Acts 15:29, “to keep abstaining . . . from fornication,” must be understood to have the wide field of application.

So, then, “fornication” in the broad sense, and as used at Matthew 5:32 and 19:9, evidently refers to a broad range of unlawful or illicit sex relations outside marriage.

Porneia involves the grossly immoral use of the genital organ(s) of at least one human (whether in a natural or a perverted way); also, there must have been another party to the immorality—a human of either sex, or a beast.

Brenda