OlanHicks.com

SUMMARY ON DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE

SUMMARY OF WHAT WE FIND IN SCRIPTURES ON MARRIAGE, DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE

1. Universal authorization: Marriage is an appointment of God, given as the way of moral purity for mankind on earth. God decreed it when the first humans were created, for “It is not good that the man should be alone.” His will was that a man and woman become “one flesh” and never  break it.

2. Marriage breaking is forbidden: Yet men were putting marriage asunder at the time Jesus was on earth. He said, “What God has joined together let not man put asunder.” This is an imperative command preceeded by the negative particle “me,” which literally is “man must stop putting it asunder.” Obviously it was not impossible, just wrong. This is what we should oppose, not marriage practice.

3. Why the bill of divorcement? Jesus said that because of the hardness of men’s hearts (or cruelty) Moses commanded that paper. It was the right thing to do and less cruel to the woman in the case where she was being put away. This did not put God in the position of approving the breaking of marriage. “From the beginning it was not so.” But He did not want women to be put out of the marriage and yet not released. That was cruel. Ironically that is exactly the situation that is recreated by the traditional theory, a person’s marriage is destroyed and they are put out of it, but they are not released from it. God opposed that and had Moses to write a measure to correct it. He opposes it today.

4. Meaning of “adultery.” There is no etymology connection between that word and sex. Jesus used it of the two acts of putting away a mate and marrying another. That was not a misuse.  In other scriptures it was also used of idolatry (Jer. 3:8), of friendship with the world, (James 4:4), of evil in general, (Hosea 7:1-4), etc. In Mark 10:11 Jesus said it is committed “against her,” the wife put away. Malachi called it “treachery.” (Mal. 2) Our English word “adultery” is actually a Latin word, from “adulterate” and its cognates. We all know that you adulterate something by polluting it. Thus it is a mistake to restrict the word “adultery” to a sex act only and then with that mistake to over rule what Jesus said in Mat. 19:9. In all cases of usage in the Bible it signifies betrayal of commitment, disloyalty to some kind of vows.

5: The teaching of Jesus: In the scripture section of Mat. 19:3-12 the subject is not marriage eligibility. The subject is the wrongness of marriage breaking or disloyalty in it. It was hundreds of years later that men revised it to make it be a discussion of marriage eligibility.

6. Rejection of celibacy: When the disciples suggested that celibacy might be a good thing (Mat. 19:10) Jesus replied, “Not all men can receive that saying,” and then explained that some are eunuchs and some are not. Paul said exactly the same thing in 1 Cor. 7:7-9, that some have the gift of celibacy and some do not. He said “Let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn.”

7. The final interpreters: Jesus appointed the apostles to be the final interpreters of His will and promised the Holy Spirit to guide them to be sure that they got it right and remembered all that He had taught them. Therefore what they understood Him to teach is the correct understanding. It is utter folly for men, when they find themselves disagreeing with an apostle as to what Jesus taught, to hold their understanding of Him and with it to over rule the apostolic understanding. When Paul said that every man should have a wife and every woman a husband to avoid immorality, he was right.

8. The devil’s side and the Lord’s side: In 1 Timothy 4:1 Paul said the Spirit predicted that in the latter days some would depart from the faith and give heed to teachings of demons. At verse 3 the first feature of what they would teach is “forbidding to marry.” As God’s people we should not forbid marriage.Unfaithfulness to marriage is what we are supposed to oppose. It is obvious why Satan would want marriage forbidden. It avoids immorality. He does not want it avoided, he wants it practiced. So of course he is against marriage. That is why he wants divorces to happen in the first place.

Conclusion: When Jesus was on earth he had constant opposition from the scribes and Pharisees. He told them that they needed to learn what God meant when He said through the prophet, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” That is a basic way of looking at sinners. It does not endorse the sin but rather seeks to bring the sinner out of the sin and get him delivered from it. “God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through Him might be saved.’ (John 3:17). Sticking with the scriptures exactly and avoiding the theories of men will put us into that way of looking at sin, condemning the sin but redeeming the sinner. This is not liberalism or compromise. It is God’s word precisely. Nothing else should be acceptable to the Christian.