The Seriousness of the Sin of Remarriage after Divorce, part 2

This is a series of posts designed to convince people of the Biblical truth that remarriage after divorce is adultery and that the fact that the modern American Christian church has by-and-large rejected this teaching is proof that it is in a state of apostasy.  This article is the second in the series.  Click here to read the first article.

The Unforgiving Position on the Issue

Suppose a young teenage girl committed promiscuity and got pregnant as a result.  Suppose the young girl completely repented of the sin of promiscuity and was completely forgiven of it by God.  Would that mean that it is not a sin for the girl to have an abortion?  An abortion advocate (such as Obama) might argue that the girl would have to endure months of embarrassment, shame, labor pains, and fears and worries about how she is going to take care of the baby.  How can you punish the young girl with these things if she has been forgiven by God?  I would hope that no one reading this would fall for this argument.  The purpose of forbidding an abortion is not to punish young girls for committing promiscuity.  The purpose is to uphold the sanctity of life which is a moral absolute.  Forbidding an abortion does not in any way take away the forgiveness that the young girl received when she repented—not even a little bit.  Just because you have been forgiven of a sin, that doesn’t mean that you have now have a license to commit another, even if it supposedly alleviates some of the consequences of the first sin.  There are moral absolutes.

Now suppose a woman commits a sin against her husband which leads to a divorce.  Then suppose the woman repents of this sin and is completely forgiven of it by God.  Is it then acceptable for the woman to marry another man (while the husband she was divorced from is still living)?  No, it isn’t according the Scriptures.  The purpose of the commandment not to remarry is not to punish the woman for the sin that she committed and it does not take away the forgiveness she received when she repented—not even a little bit.  The purpose is to uphold the sanctity of marriage, to keep oneself sexually pure in God’s eyes refraining from that which is dirty and degrading.  Remarriage after divorce is called adultery several times in the Scriptures above which is a form of sexual immorality.  Is there any other form of sexual immorality which not dirty and degrading?  Why this one exception?

To further illustrate this point, suppose that a woman became pregnant by rape.  Suppose that she did absolutely nothing wrong that led to the pregnancy.  Is it then acceptable for her to murder her own baby?  I would hope that no one reading this would think so.  Even though the woman did nothing wrong, the murder of an innocent baby is still a murder which is absolutely wrong in all cases.  Similarly, even though a woman may have done everything that she could to keep a marriage together and committed no sin at all to cause the divorce, it is still wrong for her to marry another man while her husband that she was divorced from is still living.  This is because sexual immorality, as God defines it, is always wrong without exception.

Matthew 23:4 says of the scribes and the Pharisees, “They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.”  I suppose some people may conclude from this verse that Jesus never asks anyone to give up anything that is difficult to give up as a precondition of becoming one His followers.  This axiom is blown out of the water by Jesus’ discourse with the rich young ruler (Matthew 19:21).  Jesus doesn’t ask everyone to sell all of their possessions and give the money to poor before they can follow Him.  But any claim can be disproven with just one counterexample.  See also Matthew 16:24 and Luke 14:33.  Jesus does not ask everyone to give up marriage as a precondition of following Him.  But if He can ask a certain man to give up everything he has in order to follow Him, then there is no inconsistency in the premise that He requires certain people to remain unmarried for the rest of their life in order to follow Him.  This point is actually expounded on in the very context of some of the seven passages.  Matthew 19:10-12 (KJV) says,

His disciples say unto him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry. But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.

Like many Christians today, the disciples had a hard time accepting this teaching. That is why they say "[then] it is not good to marry." When Jesus brings up the subject of eunuchs, He is not changing the subject, but is rather continuing to prove His original point. If God allowed to men to become eunuchs (from birth or by the hands of men) then what does a divorcée have to complain about? If some even made themselves eunuchs (or "denounced marriage" as the NIV says) for sake of the kingdom of heaven, then it follows that this was God's will for those particular men. So why is it so hard to believe that it is not God's will for a divorcée to remarry?

As I said in beginning, I am not adding anything to or taking anything away from what the Bible plainly says about remarriage after divorce.

Click here to continue to the next article in the series.