Part IV: Miscellaneous Questions
A. Does the Person Who Is Put Away Because He Committed Fornication
Have the Right to Remarry?
Matthew 19:9 clearly says that no divorced person has the right to
remarry unless God expressly says so.
Divine law opposes divorce and remarriage. One can do it only if he is
an exception to God's law.
The innocent party is a stated exception and may therefore divorce and
remarry. What passage allows the one who is put away for fornication
to remarry? What right do we have making exceptions when God did not
make them?
The reason God forbids divorce and remarriage is that He holds people
responsible to fulfill their marriage covenant (cf. Rom. 7:2,3; Mal.
2:14-16; etc.). Can you name any Bible case in which a person has a
Divine obligation to fulfill certain responsibilities, but he is
released from this obligation because of his own sin?
If the fornicator may remarry, then he suffers less severe
consequences than an innocent person.
The passage clearly teaches that if a person is put away when he is
not guilty, he may not remarry. If the fornicator may remarry, he is
better off being a fornicator than being innocent!
Justice is one of the weightier matters of the law (Matt. 23:23). What
kind of justice makes one who is guilty better off than one who is
innocent? Is this not rewarding sin?
Why wouldn't this be true for members of the church too?
If the guilty party is free to remarry, would this just be true for
non-members who then get baptized? Why not also members who commit
fornication, are divorced, then repent?
Suppose we have two couples in the church: Bill and Sue; Tom and Jane.
Sue commits adultery with Tom. Bill Scripturally divorces Sue, and
Jane Scripturally divorces Tom. Bill and Jane are free to remarry
because they were innocent, so they marry one another. If put-away
fornicators are free to remarry, all Sue and Tom must do is to repent
of their adultery, and they are then free to marry one another! And
the church must remain in fellow****p with all four of them!
Some argue that, if the fornicator may not remarry, then the innocent
party is bound to two separate people.
They say that we are teaching that second marriages are adultery
because the divorced person is still bound to his first companion. But
if an innocent person can put away a fornicator and then remarry, then
the first bond must be broken. If so the fornicator is not bound
either, so he can remarry too. To deny this is to say that the
innocent party, who put away the fornicator and remarried, is bound to
two people with God's approval.
But God determines whom He holds to their marriage vows and whom He
releases. Both people made the first marriage covenant. The sin of the
fornicator is of such nature that God releases the innocent party from
the obligation he entered. But God can still hold the guilty party
committed to keep his promise to have the ***ual union with no one but
his first spouse.
In this case, God obligates the guilty party to keep his promise but
frees the innocent party from his. Note that it is possible for one
person to be bound by the terms of a covenant, even after other
parties have been freed from it.
The fornicator has forfeited the right to have a lawful and scriptural
wife. He no longer has a claim on her as he would have if he had
remained pure. But if, because of his sin, he has no claim to his
first companion, by what means could we reach the conclusion that he
has the right to such a claim on some other woman? Apparently he has
lost the right to have that covenant with any woman.
B. What about the Case of Spousal Abuse?
The question of spousal abuse is just one of many terrible situations
people may find themselves in when they have a bad marriage. Others
that come to mind are: spouse who is a drunkard, gambler, spends
family funds selfishly, thief or other criminal, sent to prison for
crime, etc.
Or the problems may come from situations which are not the fault of
either spouse. This could include a spouse who becomes an invalid from
accident or disease, spouse who is imprisoned for years or must leave
town for years to flee religious persecution or for preaching the
truth (as in Bible examples), etc.
All these, like spousal abuse, are terrible situations. But I find no
Scripture that justifies divorce in any of these cases. In the case of
spousal abuse, there may be some things a Christian could do about the
situation, but divorce is not one of them.
Possibilities might include: (1) Appeal to legal authorities for
protection. This may even include an injunction that the abuser must
leave the spouse alone completely for a period of time. Or it may lead
to a jail term for the abuser.
(2) So far as I can tell, a Christian is always free to flee a
situation that endangers his/her physical life or safety. Christians
often fled to escape persecution. Most certainly, if there are
children who are in danger, the Christian must act to protect the
children.
(3) It is possible that the above steps may even lead to or
necessitate a legal separation, as long as the spouse continues to be
abusive. I realize that abusers often promise to change, and it would
seem they should be given op****tunity to change. This would involve
difficult decisions by the one who had been abused, as to whether to
go back.
But the main point is that the action taken must recognize that the
marriage bond continues and that neither party has the right to end
the marriage or to remarry. Divorce is not a Scriptural option.
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