DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE

In the meantime, you folks just go on annuling marriages -- which makes the children illegitimate, right?

You are incorrect. The "legitimacy" of a child is a titular status (i.e. it only has to do with a title/name) under the dicatates of the positive law (what the State considers). When two parents do not share in a sacramental marriage (i.e., the Catholic term for a Christian marriage "in the Lord" - as Paul would say it) while simultaneously being considered married by the State, their children are legitimate. The legitimacy of children is a civil matter.

The points we saw which I referred to were given to us by ministers who were not just Christian, but also Bible scholars. I respected their opinions.

I can refer you to Bible scholars who deny the deity of Jesus Christ. If, let's say, you come to the point in life where it would be easier for you to deny the divinity of Jesus Christ, would you like to consult these scholars as well to confirm your hypothetical future doubts as to Christ's divinity?

Scholar or no scholar, I am approaching the text from three angles: (1) What is stated in the text, (2) The nature of "covenant", and (3) The history of interpretative stances within Christianity (90 to 419 A.D.):

1. If a spouse persists in adulterous behavior and there is no other alternative, the marriage relationship can be terminated by the innocent party. (Hermas, Clement, Jerome, Augustine)

2. Spouses that are divorced for any reason must remain celibate and single as long as both spouses live. Remarriage is expressly prohibited. (Hermas, Justin Martyr, Clement, Origen, Basil, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine)

3. To indulge in lust with the mind is to be guilty of adultery of the heart. (Justin Martyr)

4. Whoever marries a divorced person commits adultery. (Hermas, Justin Martyr, Clement, Origen, Basil, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine)

5. Whoever contracts a second marriage, whether a Christian or not, while a former spouse lives is sinning against God. (Justin Martyr, Ambrose)

6. God does not, and the Church must not, take into account human law when it is in violation of God’s law. (Justin Martyr, Origen, Ambrose)

7. God judges motives and intentions, private thought life and actions. (Justin Martyr)

8. The marriage covenant between a man and a woman is permanent, as long as both husband and wife are alive. (Clement, Origen, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine)

9. It is a serious offence against God to take another person’s spouse. (Basil)

10. The Church must charge all persons who are in possession of another living person’s former husband or wife with adultery. (Basil)

11. Sexual relations are a marital right that is limited to one’s own husband or wife. (Hermas, Justin Martyr, Clement, Origen, Basil, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine)

12. Sexual relations with one’s legitimate spouse protects from sexual sin. (Ambrose)

13. Marriage and sexual relations with a remarried spouse while a former spouse lives is the sin of adultery. (Hermas, Justin Martyr, Clement, Origen, Basil, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine)

14. It is a serious mistake to believe that it is simply one’s right to divorce a spouse and take another. Even though human law may permit such a thing, God strictly forbids it, and cannot, and will not honor it. (Clement, Origen, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine)

15. Anyone who follows human customs and laws regarding marriage, divorce and remarriage, instead of God’s Divine instructions should stand in fearful awe of God Himself. (Clement, Ambrose)

16. All lawmakers, in and out of the Church are warned, to their peril, to hear and obey the Word of the Lord in regard to His commands on marriage and divorce. (Ambrose)

17. Christians are to stop making excuses and trying to find justification for divorce and remarriage. There are no valid reasons acceptable to God. (Jerome, Augustine)

18. A marriage is for life. No matter what a spouse turns out to be, or how they may act, what they do or don’t do, or the sins they commit, the covenant remains fully in effect. A remarriage while a former spouse lives is not marriage at all, but sinful adultery. God does not divide the one flesh relationship except by physical death. (Hermas, Clement, Origen, Basil, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine)

19. Marriage is a lifelong covenant that will never be invalidated by God while both parties live. (Hermas, Justin Martyr, Clement, Origen, Basil, Ambrose, Augustine)


Is the marriage covenant more indissoluble than a covenant the Lord Himself makes? But those can be broken: Lev. 26:23-45 (which also includes its re-establishment)

This passage from Leviticus, far from embracing your interpretive stance, places a hole right in its foundation. Helen, this is all about God keeping covenant and Israel breaking covenant.

Like the law of gravity, the covenant isn't done away with. If the terms of the covenant are kept, the blessings of the covenant are administered. If the covenant is violated, the curses of the covenant are delivered. I can jump off of a 20 story building, and my action does not do away with the law of gravity; I incur the curse of a broken body.

This disciplinary cursing is what is spoken of in Lv 26:25, "And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute vengeance for the covenant." After all of the prophetic curses are enumerated in this chapter, the good news that God will remember his covenant of old is reiterated, "I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the LORD" (Lv 26:45). Even though Israel breaks the covenant, the covenant remains; the covenant isn't broken; Israel is broken.

It behooves me to know what makes you think this passage, in any way, indicates that the covenant God made with Israel is dissoluble.

Deut. 31:15-18

This says, "they will forsake me and break my covenant." Again, this bespeaks of Israel's breaking covenant.

Joshua 7 -- the one who violates the covenant is killed.

i.e., incurring the covenant curses.

1 Kings 19 -- God tells Elijah that all except the 7000 who have stayed faithful to the Lord are to be killed due to the violation of the covenant.

i.e, incurring the covenant curses.

The list goes on. The entire idea of a covenant is that it is a promise of death to the one who breaks it. You spoke of 'the marriage covenant.' That is no different. In ancient Israel it was physical death.

Yes, you are correct.. those who broke the covenant incurred the covenant curses, and those who kept covenant achieved the blessings of the covenant.

Prov. 2 shows the transition to spiritual death.

And so what kind of death do you think the curses incurred for breaking covenant with God in the Old Testament are figurative of? The death of the life of God in our souls. When we break covenant through sin, we damage our souls. When this sin is serious, we incur what St. John calls mortal (deadly) sin in 1 John 5.

Hence, when one breaks their marital covenant "in the Lord" through the grave sin of adultery, they commit a mortal/deadly sin and thereby lose the indwelling presence of God in their soul. This is truly death! This is the spiritual death of mortal sin.. breaking covenant, thereby damaging (venially or mortally) one's own soul.

This is why Paul is able to write, "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers" (1 Cor 6:9).

The act of adultery is a grave sin that kills the life of God in our souls. God instructs us of this spiritual death, which deals with grace - that of which our senses cannot detect because it is supernatural (above nature) - by way of the punishment incurred through the judicial precepts of the Mosaic Law.

And since the marital covenant is inviolable and you may still very well have a husband out there apart from the man with whom you are now living, guess what you do when you engage in the marital act with your significant other today? You break covenant; you commit adultery.

This is the clear teaching of Jesus Christ - true God and true man: "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery" (Mk 10:11-12).

This is serious and no light matter. Not only that, but when you - Helen - instruct other Christians in this wayward fashion of liberally interpreting Scripture to fit your lifestyle, you lead others down the broad and easy path, which is paved with good intentions.

When he didn't just 'break' but smashed the marriage covenant into a thousand pieces, I was free.

Oh no Helen.. your husband didn't smash the marriage covenant into a thousand pieces. He smashed himself into a thousand pieces. He will be judged by Almighty God for his direct violation of the marital covenant, and he will pay the price if he does not repent. The covenant is not what is broken; we are broken when we violate the covenant.

That is what happened to Israel. They broke the covenant, but this doesn't mean that the covenant was really broken in and of itself to where it is no longer extant. The covenant remains. What is truly broken is Israel, who bore the redemptive curses of the covenant when they broke it. And, God, faithful to the covenant, continued to remember the covenant, as the Leviticus passage shows us.

I urge you to consider this particular Protestant's extensive, clear, and in-depth research on the matter (he disagrees emphatically with you):

http://www.marriagedivorce.com/mdgodsword5.htm

[ May 04, 2003, 01:29 PM: Message edited by: Carson Weber ]

 

Helen, you seem to be saying that a person who is saved and then is unfaithful to his/her spouse is "dead to God" and at the same time "has eternal life".

Does anyone else see this as a contradiction?

 

Carson: I found it interesting to say the a covenant cannot be dissolved or broken.

That is not what I said. I said that a covenant cannot be dissolved, but can be broken. To "break covenant" means to violate the terms of the covenant, thereby incurring the curses of the covenant.

This is what Jesus did on the Cross. God himself bore the curses of the Old Covenant, thereby fulfilling the covenant in order to renew and transform it in the New Covenant.

"Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us - for it is written, Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree' - that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." (Gal 3:13-14)

Notice that Christ redeems us so that we can share in the blessing of the Abrahamic Covenant. How is this so? Because each successive covenant builds upon the former, includes it, renews it, and elevates it. The New Testament doesn't abolish the Old. It fulfills it.

"Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them." (Mt 5:17)

We are no longer under the law but under Grace.

You are correct. We no longer are condemned by the Law because we have been justified by Jesus Christ and have been and are continually renovated in the heart by the power of the Holy Spirit, which the Law did not have the power to accomplish.

Again, in the New Covenant, we are not under the Law, but the Law itself is a part of the New Covenant insofar as the New Covenant fulfills the Old. For example, the Law has three different types of precepts: moral, judicial, and ceremonial. With regards to the moral, the New Law of the Holy Spirit gives us the power to not only fulfill but go beyond the written moral precepts of the Old Testament. This is what Scripture calls "the Law of Christ".

"Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ" (Gal 6:2).

With regards to the ceremonial, the animal sacrifice of the Old prefigured and awaited the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which alone takes away sin (cf. Epistle to the Hebrews). And for the judicial, Jesus Christ incurred the capital punishment due to our transgressions.