Some of the Biblical Teaching on Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in Outline Form

 

1. The most important biblical passages touching on the question of marriage, divorce, and remarriage include Genesis 2:18-24; Deuteronomy 24:1-4; Malachi 2:13-16; Matthew 5:31-32; 19:1-12; Mark 10:1-12; 1 Corinthians 7:12-16; Ephesians 5:22-33; and 1 Peter 3:1-7.  Scholars and pastors who love Scripture and hold fast to its supreme authority disagree to some extent about the interpretation of these passages, so what I am setting forth in this handout is a discussion of my own personal conviction, based on my own grappling over many years with the texts above.

 

2. Most importantly, the Bible affirms that marriage from the beginning, even before there was sin in the world, has been established by God the Creator as a covenant relationship between one man and one woman that includes the fundamental promises that, by God’s grace, the husband and wife 1) will love one another with a steadfast love, and 2) will keep themselves only unto one another so long as they both shall live (Genesis 2:24).  God thus wants the “default setting” of all married couples to be complete sexual and emotional faithfulness, until they are parted by death.  “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:6).  God created marriage to bring joy to human beings and, more deeply, to be a glorious picture to the world of nothing less than the loving, covenantal relationship between Jesus and the church (Ephesians 5:25-32).

 

3. However, because of our human sin (Mark 10:5), God allows divorce in a certain limited number of cases.

 

4. My belief is that the Bible clearly allows for (but does not require) divorce by the offended spouse in cases of sexual immorality like adultery and homosexual acts (Matthew 19:9) and in cases of abandonment (1 Corinthians 7:15).  This appears to be the historic position of most Protestant churches concerning the grounds for divorce.  For example, The Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) says regarding this issue: “Although the corruption of man be such as . . . to put asunder those whom God hath joined together in marriage, yet nothing but adultery, or such willful desertion as can no way be remedied by the Church or civil magistrate, is cause sufficient for dissolving the bond of marriage” Westminster Confession, Chapter 24, art. 6. 

 

5. Are there other cases in which divorce might be scripturally permissible?  That is a hard question to answer, and I think the Bible always wants us to err on the side of trying to save marriages, but there may be some cases.  For example, many years ago I counseled with a wife who had discovered that her husband was literally the not the person he had represented himself to be prior to the marriage.  In other words, he had fraudulently induced her into marrying him.  Because in this case the whole marriage was an act of fraud by the husband, I concluded that the Bible would allow that wife to divorce that husband.

 

6. My personal opinion is that Matthew 19:9, which is admittedly a difficult text to interpret, allows for remarriage by the person sinned against in all cases where the Bible allowed the prior divorce.  I also believe that Scripture allows remarriage by a person whose former spouse has divorced him or her unbiblically.  I do not believe that the Bible allows remarriage by a person whose sin caused a divorce or by a person who divorced his or her spouse unbiblically. 

 

7.  All of us know that divorce, even where biblically allowed, is always a tragedy that causes deep pain and lasting consequences in the lives of the divorced parties and in the lives of their children.  Virtually every divorced person I have ever talked to describes going through a divorce as being something like walking through the aftermath of the death of a close loved one.  The church must seek to minister the grace and love of Christ to families caught up in the tragedy of divorce. 

 

8. If you are the one whose sin caused your former spouse to divorce you, or if you divorced your spouse for unbiblical reasons, understand that divorce is not the unforgivable sin.  God loves you and wants to supply you with his grace and mercy, especially through his people, to help you deal with your sin and experience his healing grace.  If you confess your sin to the Lord, he will be faithful not only to forgive your sin but also to cleanse you from it (1 John 1:9).

 

9. If your former spouse was guilty of sin that led to your divorce, or if your former spouse divorced you unbiblically, only the Lord can give you the grace you need truly to forgive that former spouse and to experience the fullness of spiritual and emotional healing God has for you.        

 

10. If you divorced someone unbiblically some years ago, or if someone divorced you unbiblically some years ago, and neither one of you has remarried, please consider before the Lord whether it is possible for you to seek reconciliation and remarriage to your former spouse.   

 

 

 

 

The Covenants of the Bible

Here is some teaching I have developed on the covenants of the Bible, based on the “new covenant” passage in Jeremiah 31:31-34.

 

·         Jeremiah 31:31- YHWH promises that at some indeterminate time in the future, he is going to “make a new covenant” with his people.  Let us get at the meaning of this key phrase by answering the following questions about it.

 

o   #1- When will YHWH bring about this new covenant?

§  He says he will do so in days to come, meaning an undefined time in the future.

§  Jesus said at the time of the Last Supper with his disciples that the new covenant was coming into effect with his crucifixion the following day (Luke 22:20; see also 1 Corinthians 11:25).

§  Hebrews 8 quotes Jeremiah 31:31-34 and adds that with the advent of the new high priesthood of Jesus Christ, the new covenant of this passage has now come into effect.

 

o   #2- What is a covenant?

§  My working definition of “covenant” is “an agreement between two parties that stipulates the terms of their relationship.”  In the ancient world most covenants were made between a stronger party (like a local king) and a weaker party (like a farmer needing that king’s protection).  One Bible scholar thus defines “covenant” more specifically as “a relationship between persons, begun by the sovereign determination of the greater party, in which the greater commits himself to the lesser in the context of mutual loyalty, and in which mutual obligations serve as illustrations of that loyalty.”  (Michael D. Williams, Far as the Curse is Found: the Covenant Story of Redemption (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2005), 45-46.)

 

o   #3- What are the covenants of the Bible? (I am setting forth in this section one classic position on the covenants, which is the position espoused by Reformed theology.  Many Bible scholars who love Scripture would set forth a different framework for the covenants.)

§  The covenant of redemption is the agreement among the three Persons of the Trinity, made in eternity past, to redeem humanity through the life, death, and resurrection of the second Person of the Godhead (John 17:2, 6; Philippians 2:8; Isaiah 53:10; etc.).

§  The covenant of works (or covenant of Creation) is the agreement God entered into with Adam, as the head of the human race, the terms of which were that if human beings would obey the Lord’s commands, he would bless us, and if we disobeyed, he would punish us (Hosea 6:7; Romans 5:12-21; 7:10; 10:5; Genesis 1:28-30; 2:16-17; etc.).

·         The problem is, of course, that because all human beings are sinners who sin (Romans 3:23), none of us can make ourselves right with God through the covenant of works.

§  The covenant of grace is the agreement God has entered into with all of his people of all times, whereby he saves us by his grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, in such a way that he is eternally our God, and we are eternally his people (v. 33; Leviticus 26:12; Revelation 21:3; Jeremiah 24:7; 30:22; Ephesians 1:4-5; 2:8-9; Romans 3:21-26; etc.).  (For this discussion on the covenant of grace I am indebted to Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1994), 519-22.)

·         My understanding is that both the old covenant and the new covenant are different phases (or dispensations) of the one overall covenant of grace.  I would also argue that God’s covenant with Abraham to give his people land and make them numerous (Genesis 15:1-21; 17:1-27) is part of the covenant of grace, as is God’s promise to King David to grant him an heir who would have an eternal reign over the people of God (2 Samuel 7:1-29).

·         The old covenant is specifically the phase of the covenant of grace that included the Law God gave through Moses to his people, with all its ceremonies and observances (2 Corinthians 3:14).

·         The old covenant Law was a product of God’s grace to his people (Exodus 20:1-2).  The giving of the Law did not nullify the grace of God in his covenant with Abraham (Genesis 15:6; Galatians 3:16-18).  The old covenant ceremonies looked forward to the new covenant realities.  For example, the animal sacrifices of the old covenant looked forward to the once-for-all-times sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for the sins of his people (Hebrews 10:1-4).

·         Here is a great irony of the covenant of grace.  Christians are able to be parties to the covenant of grace because Jesus Christ the God-man kept on our behalves the covenant of works!  Jesus never sinned.  He perfectly kept all of God’s law all the time (2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 1:19; etc.).  When God saves a sinner by justifying that sinner, God credits to that sinner the righteousness of Jesus, which means the Lord imputes to that sinner Jesus’ keeping of the covenant of works (2 Corinthians 5:21; Romans 4:1-12; etc.).  In this sense we are saved not just by the covenant of grace but also the covenant of works—Jesus’ keeping of the covenant of works on our behalves!

 

§  #4- Who are the parties to the new covenant?

·         Verse 31 says the parties are God on the one hand and “the house of Israel and the house of Judah” on the other hand.

·         The New Testament makes it clear that the phrase “the house of Israel and the house of Judah” means “all believers living after the time of the death of Jesus on the cross and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit at the day of Pentecost” (Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25; Hebrews 8:1-13; 2 Corinthians 3:1-18).

·         We should not be surprised at this identification of the new covenant and the church age, because the New Testament calls Christians the “son of Abraham” (Romans 4:13-25; Galatians 3:7-9).

 

The Intolerance of the "New Tolerance" Toward Christianity

News item: Vanderbilt University, which was founded by Methodists in the 1870’s as a Christian institution of higher education, earlier this year informed Christian groups on campus that they must comply absolutely with the school’s non-discrimination policy, which means they must allow atheists or students involved openly in serious sin to be candidates for their leadership, or be banned from campus.

 

News item: Ron Brown, an assistant football coach at the University of Nebraska, has spoken out publicly on the Bible’s condemnation of homosexual activity as sin.  In response a member of the Lincoln, Nebraska, Board of Education wrote to the chancellor of the university demanding that it fire Coach Brown.

 

News item: The University of Illinois in 2010 terminated the contract of adjunct professor Kenneth Howell (whom the university later reinstated) because in a class on Roman Catholic doctrine, he set forth the Catholic Church’s historical teaching on homosexual acts as sin.

 

            What in the world is going on in the United States of America?  We could multiply the three news stories cited above many times over, because we read more and more of open hostility toward public advocacy by Christians of historical Christian moral and doctrinal teaching, especially in our universities.  Without being paranoid or practicing fear-mongering, we may rightly ask what the source is of this increasing hostility toward historic Christianity.

 

            Dr. D.A. Carson, research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, has put his finger on one of the sources of this hostility in his wonderful new book The Intolerance of Tolerance (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012).  In the book Dr. Carson helpfully distinguishes between what he calls “old tolerance” versus “new tolerance.”  The “old tolerance” flowed from the religious and free speech rights set forth in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  Dr. Carson also believes the “old tolerance” flows from the character of God, who exercises amazing tolerance and forbearance toward sinners (Romans 3:25; Acts 17:30; Exodus 34:6), yet who at the same time insists that there is one and only one way to salvation (John 14:6; Acts 4:12), and that one day he will judge all people (Romans 2:16; Revelations 20:7-10; etc.).  The “old tolerance” held there is absolute truth, and those who sincerely believe they have access to that absolute truth should defend that truth vigorously and freely in the public square.  But where one person disagrees with another person about the content of absolute truth, each person should listen to the other person respectfully, and each person should defend the other person’s legal and moral right to express freely his or her views in public.  (The only exception would be where a person in his speech advocates violence or other conduct that is dangerous to human health, society, or human life.)   

            In religious matters the “old tolerance” said that while I might disagree with the claims to truth made by other religions, I must respect the practitioners of those other religions, and I must defend their right to advocate the ideas of their religion in the public square.

            The “new tolerance” is very different.  The “new tolerance” begins with the belief there is no absolute truth.  (I have never heard anyone who claims there is no absolute truth explain to me adequately why the statement, “There is no absolute truth,” is not itself a statement of absolute truth!)  The “new tolerance” also says that if there are positions it considers intolerant, then people who advocate those positions should not have the right to advocate those positions in the public square.  In other words, the one view that no one is allowed to hold is intolerance, which intolerance the “new tolerance” redefines as “any questioning or contradicting the view that all opinions are equal in value, that all worldviews have equal worth, that all stances are equally valid” (Carson, p. 12). 

You can see from this discussion just how radically different the “new tolerance” is from the “old tolerance,” and this distinction helps us make sense of the increasing number of headlines in which America’s cultural elites single out Christian doctrine and moral teaching as (in its view) intolerant and thus liable to censoring.  It turns out the “new tolerance” is very tolerant when it comes to almost everything but historical Christianity, toward which the “new tolerance” is in fact rabidly intolerant (and thus the title to Dr. Carson’s book). 

How should Christians live in a society in which the “new tolerance” dictates increasing intolerance of historic Christian doctrine and moral teaching?  The temptation for the church, of course, is to try to get along in society and avoid suffering by watering down biblical teaching that is offensive to our cultural elite.  Compromising on biblical truth is not the course, however, advocated by the Lord Jesus Christ, who reminded Christians that because the world opposed and persecuted him because of his truth claims, it will also oppose and persecute us his disciples when we assert those same truth claims (e.g., John 15:20; 16:33).  Dr. Carson rightly notes that in a world of the “new tolerance,” Christians must persevere courageously in confronting the world—in love and humility—with the absolute claims of the gospel.  However, we must also be ready to suffer persecution for the cause of the gospel, to which the “new tolerance” is opposed, all the while rejoicing that God would count us worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus (Acts 5:41).

May Almighty God grant his church in America the courage and love we need to live in these difficult days of the “new tolerance.”