Caroline H said:
Don't you know that you can't just take one passage and nullify the rest of the Bible with it?]
Yes I do, and I'd ask that you hold yourself to that same standard. Every verse in the Bible consistently teaches that the marriage union is joined by God for life, and that all subsequent relationships while a spouse lives is the sin of adultery.
What do you say about the passages that say it is permissible in cases of adultery?
No such passage exists. Perhaps you're referring to the situation where Jesus was asked by the Pharisees about an Old Covenant Law pertaining to fornication. For one thing we are not under the Laws of Moses, and secondly this fornication clause was for a woman who had fornicated prior to the marriage, and her husband discovered this on the wedding night:
Deuteronomy 22: 13 "If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then turns against her, 14 and charges her with shameful deeds and publicly defames her, and says, 'I took this woman, but when I came near her, I did not find her a virgin,' 15 then the girl's father and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of the girl's virginity to the elders of the city at the gate. 16 "The girl's father shall say to the elders, 'I gave my daughter to this man for a wife, but he turned against her; 17 and behold, he has charged her with shameful deeds, saying, "I did not find your daughter a virgin." But this is the evidence of my daughter's virginity.' And they shall spread the garment before the elders of the city. 18 "So the elders of that city shall take the man and chastise him, 19 and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give it to the girl's father, because he publicly defamed a virgin of Israel. And she shall remain his wife; he cannot divorce her all his days. 20 "But if this charge is true, that the girl was not found a virgin, 21 then they shall bring out the girl to the doorway of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death because she has committed an act of folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father's house; thus you shall purge the evil from among you.
This is the fornication (porneia) that Jesus was referring to to the Pharisees which He acknowledged was in the Law of Moses.
Matthew 19:3-6
Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?" And He answered and said, "Have you not read that He who created them from 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 they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate."
First of all, the entire claim that God allows divorce and remarriage is refuted by Jesus immediately when the Pharisees ask Him the question, because His answer was an unequivocal NO! The Pharisees then go on to question Him about the Old Covenant Law and an apparent “exception†offered there:
Matthew 19:7-9
They *said to Him, "Why then did Moses command to GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE AND SEND her AWAY?" 8 He *said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. 9 "And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for fornication (porneia), and marries another woman commits adultery."
The obvious fact that many people ignore when reading this passage, is that the context of the “exception†is in the Old Covenant Law for Old Covenant people. It is irrelevant therefore for New Covenant believers regardless of what it was referring to, but when we look at what the Law being referred to in Deuteronomy actually says, it is clear that even this provision was not for “divorce†as it is practiced today. The types of divorce that people today are committing are called "adultery by Jesus, which by definition means that they are extramarital relationships, and they are still bound to their original spouse:
Luke 16:18
"Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries one who is divorced from a husband commits adultery."
This explains why in the book of Mark we have additional information about what Jesus taught to His disciples after they had left the Pharisees and gone back home. To them Jesus explicitly and unequivocally stated that there are no such exceptions for New Covenant people of any kind:
Mark 10:2-9
Some Pharisees came up to Jesus, testing Him, and began to question Him whether it was lawful for a man to divorce a wife. 3 And He answered and said to them, "What did Moses command you?" 4 They said, "Moses permitted a man TO WRITE A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE AND SEND her AWAY." 5 But Jesus said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. 6 "But from the beginning of creation, God MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE. 7 "FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER, 8 AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 "What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate."
Clearly this is the same incident, but if you read on it is clear that the statement Jesus made is to His disciples afterward and not to the Pharisees about the Old Covenant Law, which explains why His answer does not include the "porneia" provision, but instead specifically says there are no exceptions whatsoever to New Covenant people:
Mark 10:10-12
In the house the disciples began questioning Him about this again. 11 And He *said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her; 12 and if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery."
We actually have a Biblical example of the Old Covenant provision almost being implemented by Jesus’ earthly father Joseph:
Matthew 1:18
Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. 19 And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her awaysecretly.
We see that Joseph mistakenly assumed that Mary had fornicated during his betrothal to her, and intended to implement the Old Covenant Law to dissolve the covenant. Obviously he was informed that the child was from God’s Spirit and never carried out the Law, but nevertheless this passage confirms how it was meant to be applied. If he had opted to imloy this law, then the Law of Moses declared that he couldn't take her back later if she remarried:
Deuteronomy 24: 1 "When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house, 2 and she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man's wife, 3 and if the latter husband turns against her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her to be his wife, 4 then her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the LORD, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance.
As you can see, the Law of Moses only allowed a man to divorce his wife if he found indecency in her, “WHEN HE MARRIED HER.†This means that she had fornicated prior to him marrying her, which is why Jesus said that the Old Covenant Law allowed “divorce†for the cause of “fornication.â€
In Old Covenant marriages, the family of the man would normally make a covenant with the family of the bride offering a dowry. If it was accepted the two were regarded as husband and wife from that day forward, but they still continued to live separately for a period of time called the “betrothal.†Therefore they were husband and wife because they made a binding covenant, but not yet “married†which means they actually lived together as one flesh. It was during this point of time that he could divorce her, but only for this one specific cause. As Deuteronomy 22:19 specifically said: If she hadn't been found guilty of this one specific sin (fornication) that "she shall remain his wife; he cannot divorce her all his days". So the perminency of marriage has always been in effect under both covenants, except for this very limited provision which has nothing to do with "divorce" as we know it today. These have never been lawful anywhere in scripture under any covenant.
The Laws in Deuteronomy stated that he could dissolve this covenant, if when he married her, he found that she had already fornicated with someone else. In other words, she had defrauded him of the virgin bride that he agreed to marry when the covenant was made, so he could dissolve the covenant and marry someone else, but he could not ever take her back if she married again.
This context is entirely different than "divorces" that are not done according to the Laws of Moses, which is what Jesus was condemning the Pharisees as "adulterers" for performing. Even though they were under the Laws of Moses, their divorces and subsequent remarriages were adultery because they weren't done for the cause of premarital fornication only as the Law stated. Therefore it is important to distinguish between legal Old Covenant divorces, and illegal ones that do not separate the marriage bond. One cannot remarry a spouse that was done legally under the Laws of Moses, but any other "divorce" is not recognized by God as legal, so those marriages are never dissolved as far as He is concerned. It cannot therefore be immoral to return to someone whom one is legally bound to, so that provision is not applicable to this discussion.
SealedEternal
