Divorce and Remarriage

Amen.

Usually the word of God is enough.

[ December 11, 2002, 10:12 PM: Message edited by: WisdomSeeker ]

 

Wisdomseeker, that is exactly why I keep asking my why I even continue to post on this.

Thankfully, some have been willing to go wherever truth goes and not use circumstances to object to objective truth.

Have a nice day.

 

I think you (plural) are on thin ice when you throw out things like this. In defense of PTW (with whom I disagree), there is a legitimate way to see the exception clauses as consistent with a position that allows divorce and no remarriage. Even though I disagree with that position, I also disagree with those who pretend that it is as simple as "ignoring Scripture." I have encouraged all of us to back off the rhetoric. Let's go slow when we start down the path of accusing people of twisting or ignoring Scripture. There may well be a time to do that; this is certainly not it.

To me, the exception clause extends to both divorce and remarriage. To others, it extends only to divorce, and not remarriage. For them, adultery/fornication would permit a divorce but not a remarriage. I do not know what PTW's particular stance is since I haven't read that closely what he has said about it. Let's just be careful about such accusations.

However, I would urge teh same thing on PTW's part. Do not assume that we "are not going where the truth leads us" just because we have a different position. Some of us have thought long and hard about this and have arrived at a different place through the exegesis of the relevant passages.

All things being said, this is probably an "agree to disagree" topic, like it or not.

[ December 11, 2002, 04:38 PM: Message edited by: Pastor Larry ]

 

Pastor Larry,

Your graciousness on this issue is much appreciated from me! I like to see when people can disagree and still be so nice...it is refershing and encouraging. I respect your views as well. We are still studying on this topic,but I think both you and PTW have been more than gracious.

Thanks!
Molly

[ December 11, 2002, 04:46 PM: Message edited by: Molly ]

 

Abiyah: We do know that God did divorce Israel. It was because as God said she kept playing the spiritual harlot with other gods and nations.
The Church is called the Bride of Christ.

In reality I am betwixt and between what I believe on this because how do you separate this all out when you are dealing with the Trinity and 3 persons therein?

We can say God the Father divorced Israel but many scholars as I posted before believe that it was God the Son that had all the interactions with Israel such as when God appeared to Abraham, the One on the throne whom Moses and the elders of Israel saw, etc. So how does this all play together? If it was the Son who divorced Israel then is not the church the Bride of the Son? I can understand some confusion here on how all this works.

PTW: Again this is not my interpretation. All and I do mean all translations has the exception clause. Whether it says Fornication, Adultery, Sexual impurity, unfaithfulness they all mean the same thing. THis is black and white.

 

Pastor Larry, we have hashed this one out more than once. I do appreciate the way you can discuss something.

I was referring to those who clearly object because they have done it. That is not any reason to disagree with a particular theological position. In and of itself, I think that is twisting scripture.

John MacArthur is a particular favorite of mine. He teaches the majority position. I hardly think he is ignorant.

John Piper is another favorite. He teaches the minority position. Neither of these guys are slouches.

 

I do not know how to spell it out any clearer. I know the exception clause is there. I say that according to Jesus, it was for those under the Law. Do you understand this?

 

[ December 11, 2002, 10:13 PM: Message edited by: WisdomSeeker ]

 

This is a tough subject. It is not only tough be-
cause the Bible seems (to me) to be unclear in
some areas, but also because we want to fall
back upon compassion--or, at least, most of
us do.

I have known both men and women who were
treated worse than the family dog, and I have
watched them stay in marriages I would not
remain in for a week. I don't know how they do
it. So while I have stated that I am personally
against divorce and remarriage, with my
beliefs stopping at my own personal space,
you can see how long I would last in an
abusive marriage. I am not even sure I could
take living with a non-believer!

This is so heart-rending.

 

PTW: I hear you use the excuse that this was under the law yet you have not addressed which I have brought up why Jesus said that he did not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it and that not one jot or tittle would be removed until the end of Time.

Also as far as the law goes there is much speculation about what Paul was talking about because Paul used the words, Touch not, Taste not and handle not which indicates the ritual laws or ceremonial laws. I know the stance many Baptists take on this subject that the entire law was done away with including moral laws. You claim there is no separation but when studying Orthodox Judaism it teaches you there are differences between moral and ceremonial laws. It seems like John wrote "And how can we be sure that we belong to him? By obeying his commandments. If someone says, "I belong to God, but doesn't obey God's commandments, that person is a liar and does not live in the truth. I John 2:3-4.

Ok PTW you say the law is done away with. We no longer have to obey any commandments. John says something totally opposite and even says that if you don't obey the commandments you are a liar.
Then someone is preaching a second gospel here.

John reiterated the same in John 3 by saying Anyone who does not obey God's commands and does not love other Christians does not belong to God.

So If Jesus said and John said we are to obey what Jesus said then explain to me how you can say it was under the law and done away with.

 

Well, after 17 pages, I can tell you I do plan on marrying again, and if it's a sin, may I be forgiven.

 

PreachtheWord, I realize that you have been engaged in post after post, replying to many different people. But since the thread is to be closed today, I am bringing this back up to see if you have time to address it.

Brother PTW, I am not asking for presentation of situations and scenarios, neither do I object to further study of the subject. But I am simply asking what YOU mean when you say it is a one time thing. It sounds like you are saying that it is adultery at one particular moment in time, but that it does not continue to be so. Am I understanding you correctly?</font>[/QUOTE]Simply put, if one is entering into adultery by remarriage, why does it not continue to be adultery throughout the marriage (which was entered into unscripturally)?

 

If it no longer is adultery, after the one time event, this assumes repentance, then why are some pastors against marrying a couple, when one or the other has a living spouse?

Because the issue is so personal, we each seek for and find justification for our desire for divorce.

When from the beginning God did not intend this. When we marry, we become one flesh. We no longer are ourselves but one with our spouse. When divorced, remarried, we enter this union with another. If in a marriage we engage in fornication (which I still believe different from adultery), then we also unite with the third person, this second union creates division, it undermines our principles.

When we are saved we are united with Christ. when our view on our union with the spouse of our youth is so undermined, it is much easier for the union with Christ to be undermined, not dissolved, but undermined and thus hindered. Same with our union in physical real marriage. This is not dissolved, if we are united with one, divorced, then united with another, then we have confusion.

I believe the two, being once united, but now divorced, if remarrying, should reconcile. Otherwise, I am not sure the adultery ceases, though forgiveness is granted by Grace.

God Bless.
Bro. Dallas

 

rlvaughn, I am going to try and answer you as best as I can. I have tried to do that with everyone so far.

This is indeed a "sticky" situation because sin messes up everything. We all know that it is not God's design for divorce to take place. We can unite on that fact.

The reason I believe you should not break up a new union is because they have begun a new union. Let me explain. Surely, people in Corinth divorced and remarried. Paul said in 1 Cor. 7 (I think 28-31) that you are to remain in whatever state you are in. He is immediately talking about slavery but teaches the same principle in marriage. So, Paul tells those to remain where you are. Besides that, all kinds of havoc would be unleashed if people left their remarriage and tore more kids' lives apart. The kids are the truly innocent in the divorces. They just know mommy and daddy don't get along and they hurt because of it. Once God's original design has been broken by remarriage, I think it is the wisest thing to do to protect the kids as much as possible. I realize kids aren't always in the picture, but many times they are.

Also, the world does not understand the concept of divorce and remarriage and forgiveness and other ideas from a Christian perspective. If they saw people divorcing, remarrying, divorcing, and going back, and etc, they might look on it as a sort of legalized partner-swapping (forgive the crudeness). Is that a good testimony?

 

An accusation was made that those who were remarried only responded the way they did because of their circustance but in my case that is not true.

I did not get married until 82. I had friends who divorced because of adultery in their marriage in the 70's and I believed then the scriptures showed they had a right to remarry.

An accusation was made towards all those who had remarried that we had hard hearts and no matter how many times we have posted our stories we are still considered hard hearted. It did not matter that there was more than one incident of adultery. It did not matter that some were not only cheated on but some experienced verbal and physical abuse.

Christians talk about a God of love and mercy but what Preach the Word has been describing in his beliefs is a God who insists on punishing the innocent instead of the wicked. I have heard his hollow words that states he is against any form of abuse but no where did I see him say that person had a right to divorce their spouse because of the abuse.

What is totally frightening to me is I have met different men and (I am not alluding towards anyone on this site) who took a stand against divorce and remarriage and the reason why is they were keeping their spouse in an abusive marriage.
THey kept threatening their spouse with losing their soul and living in adultery.

I guess the woman whose husband molested his own children would have to stay married to him or just separate? Then you have the woman whose husband molested his other relatives including grandkids. I guess she has to stay married to him even though he has committed such contemptible acts of degradation. I guess these women have to live empty and lonely lives because God is punishing them for the crimes of their husbands.

I have heard it said that there are no innocent parties. That usually the non cheating spouse did something to make their spouse cheat on them. At least this is the assumption and belief. It is like certain individuals are giving permission to spouses that it is ok to cheat as long as there is a reason.

If someone would talk to my ex spouse she would tell them just like she told me that I had done nothing wrong and it had absolutely nothing to do with our private life. She just decided she prefered women over men.

I know without a shadow of a doubt that I was not hard hearted. I spent 17 years in a marriage where my wife cheated on me and got pregnant but had a miscarriage. Would not do any housework or would not cook or do yard work. Got pregnant with my child but caused a miscarriage by going against doctors orders and traveling out of town when I was away on a business trip. Moved out to take care of her mom for 4 years. Caused me to lose my job then kept me from getting another one for two years because she was afraid I would leave her while she was taking care of her mom. Started running up credit card bills on me and putting us in financial ruin. Started refusing to give me more than $100 of her salary while she put the rest in a savings acct of her own leaving me not able to pay everything because my salary would not cover everything. Had affairs with three different women. Took 35,000 from her mom to bring her lesbian lover from Canada about 5 times. Her mom had to get a home equity loan on her home that she had paid off to be able to survive and I was the main signer for the loan and when her mom died she took the 30,000 that was left on the loan and blew it in two month.
She had lied to me for 8 years that she wanted to have another baby but I found out that the reason she never got pregnant was she was taking birth control pills. When it was thought I had a stroke in 98 which was not the case she would not give me time of day even when I had a year and half later took care of her when she had major surgery. The final straw was when she took off in June of 99 and went to meet her Lesbian lover in Chicago to go to a gay pride conference and left her mother with me and I did not have power of atty and her mom had a heart attack on me. She had told her sister in law where she would be and when I tried to reach her I could not find her. I finally left messages on our call notes that she need to get home because her mom had a heart attack and then she called me and chewed me out for leaving the message.

I forgave and forgave and forgave and when she finally told me she wanted out of the marriage so she could live the gay lifestyle I let her have her divorce and went with her to sign the papers.

I have no guilty feelings that I walked away and I have no guilty feelings that I remarried. At least I know for sure I serve the God of mercy and grace and not the one that others serve.

 

I also wanted to add to this that I don't believe anyone on this thread feels like a person can divorce for any reason and be remarried. No one here adheres to the Hillian belief.

 

Two things:

1. I am against criminal activity. To keep saying this hrhema is antagonistic at best and immature at worst. Give me a break.

2. I serve the God of mercy and grace. If you are implying we don't serve the same God, you are suggesting one of us are not saved. It must be the cold-hearted cynic that stresses obedience.

 

PTW: Why get offended and say someone is being antagonistic or immature. I did say I know you say you don't believe in violence but you have made it very clear in your past posts that in your opinion that is no reason for divorce. It is not I who called us Hard hearted. I am also not the one who kept bringing up OJ Simpson and Nicole Brown which is a case of spousal abuse which led to a death. Also I did not direct my last comments to anyone in particular.

I have not been the one harsh and judgemental of others. You have even by stating you believed our adultery has been forgiven in reality you have called everyone on this thread who remarried as Adulterers or Adultresses. This is what has caused so much anger and animosity towards you not only from me but from others. I for one feel like you have played God in judging others. You need to leave us in the hands of God and let him be our judge. Matter of fact I feel you need to take into account just like Jesus said to the crowd "He that is without sin let him cast the first stone." As far as what is taught sin is sin and there is none perfect including you.
Also if anytime since you have been married you have lusted in your heart you my friend have committed adultery according to what Jesus said.
So in reality how many men are there today who are guiltless of Adultery. Very few if any.

 

Wow!

I will add that the other names that were called in addition to adulterer/ess were liar and hard hearted. Name calling...never an effective way to get your point accross. Tears have been shed, spirits have been quenched...all in the name of righteousness?

I'm glad this thread will be closed in a couple of hours.

God bless you all. May we post kinder in the future...even when we disagree.

Thank You Dr. Bob.