[b][size=small]Does Divorce Mean, "Seperated But Still Married"? Part 2[/size][/b]
By Robert Wurtz II

In Part 1 we demonstrated clearly that Paul was speaking to those who 'knew' the Mosiac Law in order to make an analogy from the Old Covenant. Not all would have known the 'Law' or he would not have addressed those who had a working knowledge of it specifically. Given the fact that Romans 7 is the fulcrum from which the argument for Unconditional Matrimony is made- it is necessary to understand what was happening within its proper context. To understand how important this is one need only look at the doctrinal statements of ministries that hold to Unconditional Matrimony. They candidly call marriages between couples that have a living spouses 'adulterous' no matter why the original divorce took place and they use Roman 7 to do it. They believe that God calls the people adulterers in this passage and so should the Church. They will not fellowship with such Saints as they view them as sinners.

Again, Paul was not teaching on marriage here, he was teaching on our freedom from the Law of Sin. Therefor, based upon what is known about the Mosiac Law, we can better understand what Paul [i]did not[/i] mean by what he said. He could [i]not[/i] have meant that a woman that had a 'former husband' under the Mosiac Law according to Deuteronomy 24 was called an 'adulteress' because women that have 'former husbands' have no husband, they are [i]free[/i] to remarry based upon the conditions previously set forth. Nor can we impose the clarification that our Lord set forth in Matthew 5 and 19; that would be an [i]expostfacto[/i] judgment that made divorced women in the Old Testament adulteresses [i]retroactively[/i]. This simply cannot be because where [i]there is no law there is no transgression[/i] (Romans 4:15). To take this position is to condemn multitudes who lived before Christ via His clarified teachings.

Proponents of Unconditional Matrimony contend that divorce does not mean 'dissolution', but merely 'seperation.' This allows the accusations against previously married women to hold force with their misinterpretation of Romans 7:1-4. For those who are unaware of where the battle lines are drawn in this debate, they are clearly drawn and hinge on whether or not a biblically sanctioned divorce 'dissolves' the marriage as completely as [i]death[/i]. If death is the 'only' means by which a marriage can be dissolved then we have some perplexing problems with the Old and New Testament. One example is found in I Corinthians 7:27-28. Here we read:

[i]Art thou bound unto a wife? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife. But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you.[/i]


Let us first examine Romans 7:27 and use 'death' as the only legitimate means of being 'loosed' from a wife. Paul states; "Are you bound unto a wife- seek not to be loosed." The root word for 'bound' here is [i]deo[/i] and is the same as Romans 7. Logic would have it that if death were the only means by which the person was 'loosed' in this passage from their former spouse then Paul was saying to the one who was not loosed from his wife that he ought not to murder her. If death were the only way Paul understood being loosed- he would have to be saying; "seek not an occasion to murder her!" This seems highly improbable that Paul would have exhorted a Christian man not to kill 'someone.' So we must understand 'loosed' to mean something here other than death. What could it be? No doubt it was a biblically sanctioned 'loosing.' This is unacceptable to those who hold to Unconditional matrimony because of the natural progression of scripture. The very next verse reads:

[i]But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned.[/i] There are clearly two people mentioned in this passage. There is the "thou" and the "virgin." Who is the 'thou'? The 'thou' is the person that is recognized by Paul as legitimately 'loosed from a 'wife' that Paul encouraged to remain single. However, he states that if the 'thou' that has been loosed from a wife marry they have [i]not[/i] sinned, but shall have 'trouble' in the flesh, but I spare you. If we are consistent in our exegesis of the passage we must conclude that a man should not seek to be loosed from his wife through divorce, but if he is already divorced he should not seek to be remarried. But if he does seek remarriage he has not sinned.

A common rebuttal of this is to say that Paul was speaking to the virgins of the previous verses. Yet, this would make no sense as it would cause the passage to read, "And if the 'virgin' marry she (the virgin) hath not sinned and if the 'virgin' marry she hath not sinned." This redundance would make no sense. This one verse when read in this light sets aside the whole of the Unconditional Matrimony doctrine by showing the farce of death being the only legitimate means of dissolution.


God Bless,

-Robert

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Robert Wurtz II

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Cindy

[b][size=small]Does Divorce Mean, "Seperated But Still Married"? Part 3[/size][/b]
By Robert Wurtz II

We established in part 2 that ‘death’ was [i]not[/i] the only means of dissolving a marriage. But what would the other means be? If God had joined the people together and no man is to ’put asunder’, who can put asunder other than death? Is death all that could save a man from a fornicating spouse? Would God intervene? Clearly there are but two that can dissolve marriage; death and the decree of God. Man simply cannot ‘put asunder’ what God hath joined together. This would have been a sore point for the Pharisees that were used to ‘making the word of God of none effect by their traditions.’ The decree of men cannot dissolve a marriage, but the unchaste [i]behavior[/i] of a spouse can.

From here on out we move into the area perhaps of the greatest controversy concerning what are commonly called [i]exceptions[/i] that contradict the 'death only' dissolving of a marriage. It has been said, that there is no need to be dogmatic when one only need submit the evidence. In this case we have the Gospels, which contain basically twenty-four verses of scripture that pertains to marriage and divorce. Of those 24 passages one is found in Luke, eight are found in Mark, none are found in John and fifteen are found in Matthew.

No matter what view one takes concerning the relative passages in which our Lord clarified the issue of marriage, fornication, and adultery one thing is certain; our Lord exalted marriage to the highest level of esteem ever conceived for those who heard His words.

We are told by tradition that in the New Testament period there were two prevailing views on the marriage and divorce issue. The one view was that of Rabbi Hillel and the view of Rabbi Shammai. A simple description of them can be found at the Jewish Virtual Library. An excerpt reads: [i]Hillel was the more popular of the two scholars, and he was chosen by the Sanhedrin, the supreme Jewish court, to serve as its president. While Hillel and Shammai themselves did not differ on a great many basic issues of Jewish law, their disciples were often in conflict. The Talmud records over 300 differences of opinion between Beit Hillel (the House of Hillel) and Beit Shammai (the House of Shammai). [/i] Hillel taught that a man could divorce his wife for any trivial reason. Shammai taught that the phrase "some uncleanness" in Deuteronomy 24 applied only to sexual immorality, (Hebrew Zanah GK. Porniea) and therefore the only grounds for divorce in Israel was adultery. This issue sets the stage for the following passage in Matthew 19:

[i] The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made [them] at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away? He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except [it be] for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.[/i]

The first point I wish to make is that the word ‘except’ denotes and ‘exception.’ Radical Unconditional Matrimony proponents would say, “No exceptions!” This clearly contradicts our Lord’s attempt to answer their question and clarify his answer with additional information.

The second point I wish to make deals with the question that the Pharisee’s posed to our Lord;... [i]Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? [/i] There is no real word for ‘wife’ in Greek, the term is [i]Gune[/i] and it means ‘woman.’ It is clear that our Lord was not being asked about putting away an ‘espoused wife’ or he had used the term [i]Mnesteuo[/i]. He was being asked about the present wives that the men lived with. To say that the simple use of ‘wife’ is sufficient in Matthew 1:20 to indicate that our Lord was referring to ‘espoused’ in Matthew 19 would not work hermeneutically. There are 18 chapters of scripture between the two uses of the word. For those who do not understand this it would be like referring to God as ‘Him’ before first referring to Him as ‘Lord’ in an earlier sentence or part of the sentence. We could refer to God as ‘Him’ if it had been already established who the ‘Him’ is we were talking about previously (in reasonable proximity) and it would serve to eliminate the redundancy of saying His proper name over and over. Therefore, scripture established Mary as Joseph’s espoused woman in Matthew 1:18 and to her simply as his ‘woman’ two verses later. It is impossible to conclude that in Matthew 5 or 19 that "espoused” is in view when there is no indication whatsoever that this is what is being said. One would have to be intentionally misleading to try to assert they meant ‘espoused’ if they did not say ‘espoused’.

The primary weight of the passage rests on the Greek word Porniea. What does the word mean? It corresponds to a word that the Hebrews certainly knew- [i]Zanah[/i]. This word means;

to commit fornication, be a harlot, play the harlot
a (Qal)
1 to be a harlot, act as a harlot, commit fornication
2 to commit adultery
3 to be a cult prostitute
4 to be unfaithful (to God) (fig.)

Our Lord gave no indication that he meant anything other than “illicit sexual intercourse.” He spoke the word as it was then and is now [i]commonly[/i] understood.

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Robert Wurtz II

Let's say that the second marrige produces children. Then the man comes under conviction and desires to "make it right". Should he leave the woman he is currently married too?

I have been trying to make sense of this thread for some days now, so this is a general comment, which may seem out of place or even inane, for which please bear with me.

Elsewhere I have mentioned that reading the Old Testament like a big picture book is the way I've made most sense of it. In many places, there are scenarios which unmistakably reflect God's relationship with man, or, His desired relationship. Because this symmetry is so clear, I cannot avoid interpreting the spiritual meaning again and again.

Above, Robert lists meanings for the Greek and Hebrew, ending with

'4 to be unfaithful (to God) (fig.)'

I want to suggest emphatically, that there is a mistake in our thinking, if '(fig.)' is really true. Are we saying that we are now born again figuratively? (I realise this will be a different verb, but I'm sure you get my meaning.) No -- I'm sure none of believe we are saved only 'figuratively'.

In other words, being unfaithful to God, is only figurative if one reads the Old Testament like it is a story (pure fiction) about people who never really existed in a relationship with a deity who is equally unreal. If we say the Old Testament is [i]non-fiction[/i] with regard to the Hebrews, then it is also true with regard to God; in which case, their spiritual relationship with Him was also non-fiction.

When earlier, the Bible says that God shut Noah into the ark before the Flood. GOD DID shut Noah into the ark before the Flood. When the Bible says God gave instructions for the tabernacle, and it was made, and He came down and filled it... He really did come down and fill it. And, when sacrifices were offered, the sins of the people [i]were[/i] atoned for and those who worshipped other gods [i]were[/i] cut off. And some chose to die in the wilderness because of unbelief. And so on.

So, when Israel [i]is[/i] unfaithful to God, this is a spiritual condition which non-figuratively affects them. Just as new birth non-figuratively affects us. The reason I point this out, is to make sense of the picture language, which is only picture language, but nevertheless contains pure spiritual truth which explains aspects of God's heart to our dull understanding.

Before I give an example of this, today, I was looking at a few of the basic scriptures which have been mentioned in this thread and was struck by one thing which I've never noticed before (which many of you probably know). In almost all, it is the man who has the active role. I know I'm slow, but, think spiritual pictures here. So it is the man who leaves his father and his mother. It is the man who cleaves to his wife. It is the man who puts away his wife with a bill of divorcement. It is the man who commits adultery [i]against[/i] his wife, or, by taking a divorced woman to himself, or by looking lustfully at a woman who is unobtainable, presumably because ][i]he[/i] is already married and should not be looking at anyone else, or, she is married too.

TonyS has been touching on all of this but I wasn't 'getting' it. I'm beginning to see much more clearly that the onus under the Mosaic Law was almost entirely on the man, who, whether he was faithful in keeping the Law or not, was given the role of being head of the household. You can't give God anything but credit for total consistency in His attempts to communicate truth to us. This bias towards the man being the 'do-er' in these relationships also non-verbally (you know what I mean) tells us something about the likelihood of a wife doing any of the non-cleaving, initiating the committing of adultery or divorce (mentioned by Mark). It also casts very clear light on the hypocrisy of the men who brought the woman to Jesus 'caught in the very act' in John 8, without bringing the man which the Law held responsible and who had probably initiated the liaison - just a thought.

To my mind, there is another issue, which is the long history of God and His people, the Jews. Without expressing an opinion, I can see that it is reasonable to argue Jesus was speaking to Israel. He said so again and again. This could also carry the weight that He is implicitly saying it is possible to keep the Law, to those who have an ear to hear; BUT, it is also clear not all of Israel had an ear to hear His words of eternal life, which totally obliterate the Mosaic Law for Jewish Christians. This seems to pose the church a problem, which Paul recognised in 1 Corinthians 7.

It is quite remarkable that he manages to offer sensible advice for everyone, regardless of whether they have come to the Lord from Judaeism or any number of Gentile cultures, (are married already, unmarried or about to lose their spouse) based mainly on the relationship they were in at the time of their conversion. In general, while recommending celibacy so a person may devote him- or her-self to serving the Lord, he accepts the principle of marriage for those who wish to marry. But, what to do if a Christian man is now married to a non-Christian woman? It seems to me that he is calling the believer to let the unbelieving spouse depart, and not to seek to remarry. He is being called upon to be passive, not active.

One other new thing strikes me as I read. Now, in the church, it is ok for a man or a woman [i]not[/i] to marry, whether virgin or single again. Was this a departure from cultural norms?

Paul suggests that some will be happier to remain unmarried. He also leaves the onus on the unbeliever to leave the marriage. The believing man has a responsibility to his wife, whether or not she is a Christian. And if she leaves, Paul's first choice of action is to recommend [i]not[/i] to replace her. But, he recognises it is better to be married than to burn, whether previously unmarried, or widowed. I think this is an important principle to accept.

There is also a clear pronouncement on the woman's spiritual authority, ('1 Cor 7:14 for the unbelieving husband hath been sanctified in the wife') and Paul recognises the woman may feel powerful enough to put away her husband. Again he counsels against being pro-active with her spouse's unbelief in this way.

20 Each in the calling in which he was called--in this let him remain;

Then Paul addresses servants (slaves) who had the potential to lose their wife and children on being set free, in certain circumstances.

Exodus 21:7 " And if a man sells his daughter to be a female slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. 8 "If she does not please her master, who has betrothed her to himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt deceitfully with her. 9 "And if he has betrothed her to his son, he shall deal with her according to the custom of daughters. 10 "If he takes another [wife,] he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, and her marriage rights. 11 "And if he does not do these three for her, then she shall go out free, without [paying] money.

The dear saints who found themselves in this situation were to think of themselves as [i]free[/i].

At the end of the chapter in Corinthians, the discussion seems to be about virgins who have the opportunity to remain single at home with their birth family, but, they choose to marry. Paul says [b]they are taking on an obligation for as long as their husband lives, then if he dies, they are free to marry again in the Lord, to whom they choose[/b]. This is indeed an exacting standard. Perhaps there would be an extra layer of commitment between Christians, who might find themselves isolated from being considered for marriage to anyone else? This suggests a breaking away from arranged marriages? And an acknowledgement that having left parents for marriage, a woman remains her own person to choose to remarry in the Lord, if she wishes to, after becoming a widow, remembering both Christian men and women were not bound by the Law any more with responsibilty to take in widows and orphans. I believe this now passed to the church, the household of faith.

Without returning to the Old Testament in this post, I want to state the obvious again. It is all very well having a codified template of the ideal standard in each scenario, but I do come down heavily on the twin truths of coming to and walking in the Light (and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses you from all sin) and following the Voice of the good Shepherd.

Don Francisco famously pointed out many years ago, Christians are in danger of making divorce the second unforgivable sin. This may have raised an uncomfortable acknowledgement at the time, but reading this thread has left me with the impression there is room for greater realism about the condition of a saved person, than so far has been fully acknowledged; that is, we still make mistakes and have to live with the consequences.

Not all mistakes are retrievable in 3D. The only thing which [i]is[/i] always retrievable is our standing with God, even if we spend the next 20 years detained at His pleasure, finding out what those consequences happen to be. And we should be grateful some consequences in 3D are not worse - which is not to say that the bearing of some, tax us to our limits and throw us even more completely on His grace for strength to endure. God finds us out - those He knows and those He does not. I'm not sure we can force the latter to comply with scriptural principles.

Sometimes we have to acknowledge we missed the boat to retrieve a marriage, painful as that truth may be. This is not to say don't try, don't pray, don't wait, but, it is to say the way forward is in God, whether our repentance is required, whether we need to be healed or whether the honest truth is that we are glad to have been 'loosed'. How many eligible Christian divorcees choose celibacy for the rest of their lives? How realistic is it to expect them to? Are we not back to the words of Jesus, for the ultimate option?

Matthew 19:12
for there are eunuchs who from the mother's womb were so born; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are eunuchs who kept themselves eunuchs because of the reign of the heavens: he who is able to receive [it] --let him receive.' (Young)

Hi Lahry,

I think I asked something similar, but it didnt' get answered.

I asked if someone came for counsel, confessed they were having an extramarital affair which produced 3 children, his wife had no children, what would the counsel be? Should he depart from the adulterous relationship or depart from his wife who doesn't have any children?

If Jesus and Paul call a remarriage "adultery", there is no difference in the scenerios. Is having children together what makes a marriage? I do not believe so. Blessings, Cindy

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Cindy

Robert,

I put out the challenge, so I'll start with your first post here:

Robert,

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Robert Wurtz II

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Robert Wurtz II