Progressive Marriage Interpretation (Part 1)
"And there is nothing new under the sun," observed Solomon (Ecc. 1:9b). Olan Hicks arose in the last century with a new slant on the subject of marriage and divorce. Whether he originated his views or obtained them from someone else scarcely matters; they were false. Now comes along someone to carry on his errors: The Progressive Primitivist, which is surely a misnomer since there is nothing primitive about the view.
A better name would be The Progressive Postmodernist (which Brother Daniel Denham proposed). One might also consider as appropriate The Disastrous Definitionist, since he (as Hicks did) makes an effort to redefine what the term adultery means. Whether Mike Hisaw (our Regressive Protagonist) is sincere or not—only God knows. What we do know is that he is wrong. And, yes, it is a fatal error.
Definition of Adultery
Take a few seconds to think about a definition for the term adultery. How would you define it? Sure, look it up in a dictionary if you must. You will find something like what is recorded in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: "Voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and a partner other than the lawful husband or wife." That definition is fairly standard and, more importantly, it squares with reality. It also fits the way the Bible describes the sin.
The word adultery appears 33 times in the King James Version of the Bible. It is used in four different ways. It may refer to:
The physical act (as described in the dictionary and mentioned in John 8:4).
The spiritual act (Jer. 3:9).
The mental act (Matt. 5:28).
The marital act (Matt. 5:32; 19:9).
Hisaw (as did Hicks before him) strives diligently to define adultery as obtaining a divorce decree or taking vows of marriage with someone who is not authorized to marry. These actions—which do not include sexual intimacy—constitute (they would have us to believe) an additional definition of adultery. Surely no one would make such as outrageous claim—unless they were trying to defend a false doctrine.
Hisaw himself provides this definition: He answers the following question, "When is the adultery over?" in the following manner. "The act of adultery itself stops when the marriage ceremony is over." What? Yes, you read it correctly. Art and Anna are married, but they have "grown apart." They obtain a civil divorce. Art decides he wants to marry Zelda. That ceremony, according to Hisaw, is the act of adultery. As soon as Art and Zelda say, "I do" and are pronounced husband and wife, they have committed adultery, but then it's over.
Art committed adultery when he divorced Anna, and he committed adultery again (according to this definition) when he "married" Zelda. But now everything is all right; they can stay married because adultery does not involve a sexual relationship (they claim). Many false teachers begin by changing the definitions of words that we all know the meaning of. If one hundred people were randomly selected and asked to define the word adultery, how many would omit the sexual component from their answer? How many would define adultery as a divorce decree or a marriage ceremony? Zero. Where are the quotations from scholars to support these ridiculous definitions?
Back in 1995, Terry Hightower collaborated with Gary Grizell to produce diagrams which illustrate the absurdity of the view then held by Olan Hicks (and now apparently by Hisaw and others). They were included in Studies in Matthew, one of more than twenty books edited by Dub McClish for the Annual Denton Lectures. Terry examined and commented on Matthew 18-19. Reproduced in next week's Spiritual Perspectives are his diagrams from pages 243, 244, and 245. They were aimed at combatting Olan Hicks' teaching then, but they will serve to refute Hisaw's doctrine, also.
David and Bathsheba
What is the advantage in proposing such a doctrine? The upshot of the matter is that it is only wrong (adultery) for Art to divorce Anna and then marry Zelda. Those two actions constitute adultery—instead of the sexual relationship Art and Zelda experience now that they are "married" (1 Cor. 7:1-5). Art and Zelda can live together as husband and wife as long as they desire to do so. Entering into the marriage was a sin, but continuing in it is all right.
And Hisaw cites David and Bathsheba as proof. He cites 2 Samuel 12:9-10, which is quoted below. Nathan is speaking to David:
"'Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon.
Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.'"
The main point in these verses is that David killed a man unworthy of death in order to have his wife. Why did David think it was necessary to kill Uriah? To take another man's wife while he was still alive would have been adultery. Therefore, David saw to it that Uriah was killed in battle with the people of Ammon. Why?
David knew that if Uriah were dead, Bathsheba would no longer be married to him. David, then, becomes free to marry her without anyone raising any objections. Why can't anyone object? Death ends a marriage. David sinned because he murdered to ensure that she was free to marry him, which is the objection offered in 2 Samuel 12:9-10.
What command did David violate, doing evil in God's sight? "You shall not murder" (Ex. 20:13). He did not do it himself, personally; he arranged it so that the people of Ammon would cause Uriah to die in battle. David was clearly wrong in this action, and his reason for doing so was wrong, also. He wanted another man's wife (which violated the tenth commandment—Exodus 20:17).
While it was wrong to obtain Bathsheba the way he did (murdering her husband), it violated no law to marry his wife afterward (since Uriah was deceased). Paul teaches plainly on this issue in Romans 7:3:
So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man.
When David and Bathsheba married, was she married to another man? No. Was David married to another woman? Yes, he had multiple wives and was a practicer of polygamy, which God allowed. He could add a woman to his harem, if he so desired. He could not acquire, however, another man's wife; she needed to be single (and in this instance was a single widow).
This situation does not match what couples are doing today. Many are unscripturally divorcing and, therefore, are still married to their first mate (even if they are legally separated). To marry again and live in a state of intimacy constitutes adultery. Art and Zelda transgress God's law when they live together as husband and wife. Art is not entitled to have her. But David and Bathsheba violated no law of either God or man in marrying.
Then why did Nathan condemn David? For killing Uriah in order to have his wife. Once Uriah was dead, Bathsheba was free to remarry. David is condemned for the killing (and the reason behind it). God, however, finds no fault in the marriage itself.
Matthew 19:9: Can We Understand the Meaning?
One of the key passages dealing with marriage, divorce, and marrying another is Matthew 19:3-12. It begins with a question that Jesus' foes asked Him: "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?" As most people know, there were two schools of Jewish thought. The followers of Rabbi Hillel took a very loose view of marriage and would have answered, "Yes, a man can put away his wife for any reason he so desires." Those who followed Shammai would answer, "No, such is not the case." Jesus, however, appealed to the Scriptures—to the book of Genesis, in fact.
"Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So, then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate" (Matt. 19:4-6).
What are some truths expressed in these three verses?
1. God designed marriage for one man and one woman for life. Notice that male and female are singular—one of each sex. This means that God is not the author of polygamy or homosexual "marriage." These are inventions of man and corruptions of marriage. None of these aberrations is valid. God should know (as the architect of the institution). He designed marriage the way we see it in Genesis.
2. Marriage was designed to be permanent. What else can one make out of verse 6? God not only designed marriage; He joins the man and the woman together. Since God joined them together, who is man to attempt to dissolve it? If the husband and wife separate, how do we expect God to respond? Do we think He will say, "Oh, sure, go ahead. Split up. Oh, and it's fine if you desire to seek someone else. I guess I wasn't too realistic to expect the two of you to stay together. Marry someone else until death do you part—or whenever."
Today, some marriages can't last five years. Imagine staying together 900 (or so) years, as Adam and Eve did. Thus far we have not even arrived at Matthew 19:9, yet we already see God's disposition toward the permanence of marriage; therefore, how can some (Hisaw, Hicks, and others) argue in favor of it being acceptable to divorce and remarry at will? Their mechanism for doing so is erroneous, and they are violating the design and purpose of marriage, which should be obvious by the fact that unscriptural marriages, when once entered into, are acceptable to them.
Jesus' detractors wanted to know why Moses allowed divorce, and Jesus answered the reason was their hardness of heart, "but from the beginning it was not so" (Matt. 19:8). Then comes the conclusion: "And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery" (v. 9). No, our Lord is not talking about the marriage ceremony. Those who enter that new relationship and remain in it commit adultery as long as they are in it.
Hisaw repeatedly insists that no one can prove "keeps on committing adultery" is the correct translation. He claims it could be either a one-time action (punctiliar) or ongoing. If that is so, then Jesus did not answer the question. And He might as well have gone to the next topic and queried, "Is there anything else I can not answer for you?" If it can be read either way, then not only do we not know what it means; neither did they.