Spiritual Perspectives
“TILL LOGIC DO US
PART”
Gary W. Summers
Without question, we all like to see
people have a second chance. In the Olympics, contestants sometimes get two
tries. Occasionally, those who make a
mess of their lives receive an opportunity to begin again; others do not
survive their reckless follies. Certainly, we all get one and only one lifetime
to determine where we will live eternally (Heb.
Several doctrines
attempting to rationalize divorce and remarriage have undoubtedly been born of
the desire for people to have a second chance. Some have been badly mistreated by a spouse
(although adultery was not committed), and we commiserate with them. Eventually, the question will be asked, ‘Would
it be all right if I remarried?” Being
aware of all the pain and suffering this person has already experienced, many
succumb to the temptation to grant approval despite the person’s ineligibility.
Compassion should
not be confused with commandments. Some
lose their marital privileges be-cause they made costly mistakes. God did not tell His people in Ezra’s day,
“You shouldn’t have married those foreign wives, but since you did, and some of
you even have children, go ahead and stay with them.” The fact was they had violated God’s law, and
repentance required that they separate themselves from the women to whom they
were not entitled (Ezra
Some sins yield
more tragic consequences than others. All
the sorrow in the world can not bring to life the murder victim. Once one gives his word, he cannot take it
back no matter what the cost (ask Jephthah). Unscriptural divorce and remarriage cannot be
wished away with tearful regrets. Separation from one another is the painful but
correct solution for those involved in an unlawful union. The people of Ezra’s day recognized their guilt and its solution.
The sad reality
is that not everyone gets a second chance. Sometimes the innocent suffer, but it is better
that a few experience hardship than for God’s institution of marriage to become
devalued, which is what occurs when human wisdom is allowed to re-place Divine
directives. Only a few seem to be taking
their marriage vows seriously at the current time. When people develop the “disposable marriage”
attitude they have no incentive to be careful about selecting a mate. Thoughtlessly, they enter into the most
intimate union God ever provided for human beings. The prospective mate may be profane,
un-godly, immoral, and completely disinterested in spiritual things, but
careless individuals continue in head-strong fashion—regardless of any advice
or counsel that family or brethren offer.
They have learned, after all, that there can always be a next time.
Mechanisms of Justification
The problem for
the “second-chanceists” is Matthew 19:3-9, in which
Jesus sets forth the truth about marriage and divorce. Anyone who reads the passage immediately sees
its clear meaning. Understanding it and
accepting it, however, are two different things. Many have treat-ed the steely Matthew 19:9 as
rubber so they can twist and contort it into something it is not. Following is a brief sampling of some of the outlandish
efforts.
One
theory is that those inflexible verses constitute a “covenant” passage,
which means that they apply only to Christians. The implication is that Jesus’ teaching would
not apply to non-Christians—only to those who have al-ready been baptized for
the forgiveness of their sins. Therefore,
once they become baptized, all those past marriages could be dispensed with. If such were true, young people would probably
want to delay being baptized until they found a mate they could be satisfied
with.
The flaw in this
theory is that God holds all people accountable to His will—Christian or
atheist. The Bible plainly states, “For
all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom.
Jesus is going to
judge mankind (John
“He who rejects Me,
and does not receive my words, has that which judges him—the word that I have
spoken will judge him in the last day” (John
Words refers to the body of teaching which the
Lord began and which the apostles completed. Notice that a person may reject Christ and His
words, but he will still be judged by them because all are accountable to Him. The idea that Matthew 19 applies only to
Christians lacks any kind of Biblical support while contradicting other
teachings of Christ.
A second
theory designed to explain away Matthew 19:3-9 is the exact opposite of
the first, which shows the degree of animosity that exists toward the
passage—brethren will run in any direction to try to get away from it. At least
one individual has alleged that this teaching of Jesus has no application to
the Christian (or anyone else) because Matthew is not part of the New
Testament! The fact is that the Gospel
accounts of Jesus’ life have been considered by virtually everybody to be part
of the New Testament for centuries. Most
people understand that Jesus lived during the final days of the Old Covenant
era.
The things He taught, however, belonged to
the new covenant. Our Lord lived during a transition period. The old law was
not yet done away (which is the reason Jesus kept it), and the new was being
inaugurated (but would not be fully effective until the day of Pentecost).
Jesus never violated the Law of Moses, but He taught the principles of the
kingdom. Had Jesus’ doctrine been made
null and void on the day of Pentecost, the application of John 12:48 would be
severely limited, applying to nearly no one. Furthermore, what are we to make of
Deuteronomy 18:18-19? Moses was told:
I will raise up for them a Prophet
like you from among their brethren, and will put My
words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. And it
shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He
speaks in My name, I will require it of him.
Jesus fulfilled
this prophecy (Acts
A
third attempt to invalidate Jesus’ teaching is seen in the affirmation:
“He was only explaining the law of Moses.” What would be the purpose of clarifying the
Law of Moses when it would shortly be eradicated anyway? Jesus, in Matthew 19:9,
went back beyond the Law of Moses to the very beginning as the basis for His teaching
on marriage, divorce, and remarriage. Besides,
the law was nailed to the cross—not the law plus Jesus’ clarifications (Col.
2:14).
The fact is that
Jesus was teaching New Testament doctrine. Resolving conflicts between brethren in Matt-hew
18:15-17 is not repeated anywhere else in the New Testament; was that just
another clarification of the Law? No,
Jesus was teaching “the gospel of the kingdom” (Matthew
Most people can
read Matthew 19:3-9 and understand it easily enough. Emotion, compassion, and
life’s personal tragedies have clouded the vision and good judgment of a great
many brethren. The problem is so severe that they will dispense with logic and
grasp at any theory of man’s that comes along. Like Baptists refusing to yield to the force
of Mark
A
fourth way "around" Matthew 19:3-9 involves redefining what
the word adultery means. Some
argue (vainly) that adultery is committed at the time the new marriage takes
place: "Whoever marries another (except for sexual immorality) commits
adultery." Now who would have ever
understood a sexual term like adultery to have merely referred to the ceremony
itself? Only desperation could concoct such an explanation.
But the attempt is futile because the
Bible refutes this notion just as it does every other false doctrine. Herod had
put away his wife, but not for adultery (at least, not on her part). Then he married Herodias,
his brother Philip's wife. Did John condemn the marriage ceremony?
No, he condemned their ongoing relation-ship.
It was not solely the entrance to the marriage that was wrong; it was continuing
it that John condemned: "It is not lawful for you to have her."
Yet we have people today who argue that,
although it was wrong to enter such a relationship, it is
okay to continue it. If this explanation
were true, John would not have been put to death. Herod understood John's preaching to mean that
he must give up Herodias. Had John permitted them to
continue in the "marriage,” they would have had no reason to kill him. Some members of the church will not tolerate
God's Word on this subject today, either. They have insisted that faithful preachers be
fired (capital punishment not being allowed). But all the disobedience in the world (or the church)
will not change the truth taught herein.
A fifth attempt to negate the force
of Matthew 19:3-9 is to say that 1 Corinthians
This view presumes that Jesus' teaching
was not directed at all people. If Matthew
19:3-9 applies to all marriages, then there can be no further exceptions. "But Paul says that, if the unbeliever
departs, the Christian is not under bondage." Below is what Paul wrote:
But to the rest I, not the Lord, say:
If any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with
him, let him not divorce her. And a woman who has a husband
who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce
him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving
wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean,
but now are they holy. But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother
or sister is not under bondage in such cases. But God has called us to peace (1
Cor.
Some observations concerning this passage,
what is said and what is not said, are in order. In
Paul makes it clear that, if the
unbeliever is willing to live with the believer, there should be no separation.
…..
They
are not living in sin; their children are not illegitimate. Their marriage is valid—even if they became
husband and wife as sinners and one of them had since become a Christian. Paul did not say that the marriage was invalid
or that it needed to be done all over again.
Any one who is married before obeying the Gospel is married afterward,
also. Baptism does not change relationships!
But what if the unbeliever is not happy
with the new religion his partner has adopted? What if he says, "I don't like the new
you. You used to stay home on Sundays
and cook my dinner; now you're gone half the day with a bunch of people you
never even knew before. Furthermore, you won't join me in the idolatrous activities
we used to enjoy. Then you ask me to
quit swearing, and you won't even get drunk with me and go par-tying any more. What kind of religion is it that won't let you
have any fun? You either give up this
new god, Jesus, or I'm outta here."
Of course there
is no such conversation in the text, but there is evidence of a conflict of
some kind, and the argument is over Jesus and His influence in the life of one
who has been born again.
A person is either content with the
other's conversion to Christianity, or he is not. If he does not mind, there is no problem; if
he does, then there is discord. The solution is to let
him depart—a brother or sister is “not under bondage” in such cases.
The problem here arises in trying to
define the phrase not under bondage. Some have understand-ably concluded that the
Christian is free to marry some-one else. It does seem to be implied, doesn't it? How can we know that drawing such an inference
is incorrect?
First of all, we know from the fact that Paul
had just verified that they were in actuality married. The two are husband and wife; can Paul then
turn right around and say to the Christian, “But if he doesn’t like your being
a Christian, go ahead and dump him and get somebody else”? [If such were the case, a plethora of
discontented husbands and wives would become Christians---just to make the
change.] Surely we cannot bring
ourselves to believe that Paul would write so much about the importance and
sanctity of marriage and then in one verse minimize and destroy all of the
noble concepts that he labored so hard to establish.
The second flaw in concluding that Paul is
granting permission to divorce and remarry is that he does not specify anywhere
in the text that remarriage may follow the departure. Many infer that possibility from the phrase not under bondage, but he does not say
any-thing further in that regard.
The third objection to such an
interpretation is that it does indeed countermand what Jesus taught. He said that divorce could be obtained ONLY
for sexual immorality. Is Paul adding to
what the Lord said, “AND IF YOUR MATE DOESN'T LIKE THE FACT THAT YOU ARE A
CHRISTIAN”? While Paul might reveal
God's will on something Jesus never touched upon, he could not contradict
anything the Lord had already specified so clearly.
The fourth objection is that another
explanation satisfies the context: the phrase not under bondage could mean something other than divorce and remarriage,
such as "the brother or sister is not under bond-age to sacrifice his or
her Christianity to satisfy the unbeliever," which fits the sentiment of
the text. If the unbeliever is content
to dwell, there is no problem. Departure
arises from a discontented mate's dissatisfaction with Christianity. If the choice for a woman involves giving up
Christ or her husband, she is free to give up the mate. She is not "bound" to keep her
husband from leaving at the expense of her spiritual health and well-being. If the unbeliever is content, let him dwell;
if not, let him depart. This decision does not automatically free a person,
however, to marry some-one else.
How ironic that all five of these
"explanations" of Matthew 19:3-9 contradict one another. The "covenant" passage explanation
excludes non-Christians from responsibility; the "Matthew is not part of
the New Testament" idea absolves Christians and non-Christians alike, as
does the "redefining of adultery" technique and the "Jesus was
just clarifying the Law" gambit. Finally,
we have this strategy for Christians married to non-Christians to divorce and
remarry, also. There are only three
categories into which married people fall (as the following chart shows):
Confident and scholarly brethren have assured us that those in all three
categories have the right to divorce and remarry. Apparently, Jesus was preaching to what mathematics
defines as the empty set (no elements in it). When He spoke the words recorded in Matthew
19:3-9, He evidently made statements which applied to no one. How unlike the Lord to so waste His time! Or are some wasting our time in vain attempts
to justify that which our Savior defined as sin?
*Send comments or questions concerning this article to Gary Summers. Please
refer to this article as: "Whatever the article name from above is (
Return
To Article Index