We at CSM are actually believers in Jesus Christ, not just business people addressing the Christian
market. We have examined the Scriptures with a commitment
to accept what they say about divorce, remarriage and the implications for those providing forums for people
to meet mates.
In Matthew 19:6 Jesus declares a deep truth and a fundamental command: "So they are no longer two but one
flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate."
In the gospels of Mark and Luke, Jesus declares unconditionally that remarriage after divorce is adultery.
Mark 10:11-12
He answered, "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her.
And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery."
Luke 16:18
Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits
adultery.
In Matthew alone Jesus talks of an "exception clause" which seems to exclude divorce for
some certain reason from the devastating pronouncements of the other two gospels.
Matthew 5:32
But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for "porneia", makes her commit
adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery"
Matthew 19:9
And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for "porneia", and marries another
commits adultery.
Just what is excepted is the subject of much controversy
because Jesus did not speak His original words in English. It hinges on the meaning of one word,
"porneia". Opinions among translators about what "porneia", means
in English range far and wide with the major question being whether "porneia" includes
marital infidelity. The main alternative translation is that "porneia" is limited to
fornication during the engagement period. Not surprisingly, this translation gets little play in today's
environment of unbridled divorce and remarriage in the churches, but it is the only view that
harmonizes the exception given by Jesus in Matthew chapters 5 and 19 with the larger body of unconditional statements made
by Jesus and the apostle Paul. This view is as follows:
Matthew wrote to Jewish believers, which is why the "porneia" exception is only in Matthew.
In Jewish culture marriages were by contract that included the engagement and the ceremony as two parts of the same whole.
You didn't just change your mind, fire off an email to your betrothed and walk away as in western cultures today. The validity of the marriage was contingent on
the bride, (unless a widow) being a virgin on her wedding night. If she was found not to be a virgin, the husband had the
right to divorce her. Thus, when Joseph discovered Mary was with child, he assumed she
was guilty of fornication and was planning to exercise his right to divorce her, even before the wedding ceremony.
(For expanded treatment, see
"What Jesus Said About Divorce and Remarriage" ).
Many today are violently opposed to this view because it totally excludes marital infidelity after consummation of the
marriage as grounds for divorce and means those who have remarried after divorce are living in adultery.
But then that is precisely what Jesus said.
After Jesus came the apostle Paul, writer of much of the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 7:10,
Paul declares unequivocally, "To the married I give this charge (not I but the Lord): the wife
should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband),
and the husband should not divorce his wife."
In Romans 7:2-3, Paul says: "Thus a married woman is bound by law to
her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be
called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive."
Paul states this fundamental truth yet again in 1 Cor. 7:39 --
"A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives".
Beyond the Scriptures themselves we have the
beliefs and practices
of the early church fathers, those closest in time to Jesus and the apostles. These earliest church leaders were unanimous in the belief and
teaching that NO remarriage is legitimate while the original spouse is alive. Their view was that what Jesus has
declared to be adultery, man cannot make legitimate by issuing a new marriage certificate.
Adding it up, we have numerous Scriptures in four different books of the Bible, all stating unconditionally that
under no circumstances is remarriage after divorce legitimate in the eyes of God while the original spouse is still alive.
We have the views of the early leaders, who unanimously
held the same.
There IS another linguistically,
culturally and contextually sound interpretation of "porneia" other than as justification for
divorce, or remarriage after divorce. To believe that "porneia" excuses divorce for marital
infidelity we must accept that there is a glaring conflict in scripture -- that Jesus and the apostle Paul contradicted
themselves and each other by unconditionally declaring remarriage to be adultery but also legitimizing it under certain
circumstances. When we disconnect our minds from a preconceived belief that remarriage after divorce must be permitted, we
find the weight of scripture is against it.
Now we can simply accept all this evidence and realize the church has taken a terribly wrong turn and must return to
its original doctrine and literal obedience to God's word, or we can insist that divorce and remarriage must be permitted at
all costs, no matter how much damage is done to individuals, church and nation.
How Bad Does It Have to Get?
For the past 50+ years the churches have moved away from literal obedience to the Scriptures and increasingly placed their
stamp of approval on divorce and remarriage; And because the church is all that restrains evil in the nation,
when the church rejected literal obedience to the Bible, it abandoned the NATION to those evils as well as itself.
LOOK AT THE RESULTS:
- 1.4 million babies are aborted annually in America, 36 million since 1974.
- Homosexual marriage is NOW legalized in the state of Massachussetts.
- Euthanasia is being practiced in the state of Washington.
- The nation is awash in pornography.
- In Canada, even deeper in spiritual decline than America, laws have been passed
and used
to persecute anyone who condemns homosexuality.
- Emboldened by these victories, the pedophiles, sado-masochists, beastiality lovers, etcetera, ad nauseum are lining up
behind the homosexuals and pornographers to receive society's blessing on their perversions.
These evils have not come from the efforts of pagans to destroy the Christian heritage of America,
as hard as they have tried, but because the churches themselves have rejected God's rules for living and brought about what
centuries of attacks by God-hating barbarians had failed to accomplish: Taking the salt and light out of the
church, destroying its restraining influence on the culture and nation, leaving the barbarians free to inundate the
land with a floodtide of evil and, with their foot on the chest of a comatose church, shake their fists in
exultant hatred at God Almighty.
Suddenly, highly visible church leaders like James Dobson, Chuck Colson and others are alarmed at
how bad things have gotten and have put out urgent calls for Christians to get active in the cultural war, yet the churches
continue to provide the sodomites with their main argument: that christians have already "desanctified" marriage
with their rampant divorcing, failing to respect it themselves and thus have no moral high ground from which to bar sodomites from it. A Federal Marriage Amendment to the US constitution prohibiting the use of the word "marriage" for State sanctioned
homosexual unions (but not the unions themselves) has been put forward. Yet legislation
alone is not the answer. No laws will stop the flood of evil, because at its core, it is not a legal or a political problem,
but a spiritual one that is rooted in the church itself. If we cannot connect the dots between the massive rejection of the
words of Jesus about divorce and remarriage by today's churches and the evils darkening our land, we are more blind than
the CIA and FBI were before 9/11. Until the churches repent of the sin in their own camps, they will have no more success
in restraining these cultural cancers than the Israelites had against Ai while Achan's sin festered in his tent.
There Is Still Hope
Although deep and angry clouds are gathered over our land, the promise of our merciful God in
2 Chronicles 7:14 still gives hope for America. "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble
themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their
sin and will heal their land." However, we also see in 2 Chronicles 36:16, in God's final indictment of the tribe of
Judah before ejecting them from the land of Israel, there comes a time when God unalterably commits a nation to destruction.
"...the wrath of the Lord rose against His people until there was no remedy."
Today there are many voices telling us the Bible's teachings on divorce and remarriage don't mean what they say and can be
freely ignored. Pastors maintain, "It's the culture" or "We shouldn't kick the darkness for being dark", as they preside
over churches with a 50% divorce rate and adulterers lining their pews, while revisionist theologians are busy crafting new "interpretations" to bring Jesus'
teachings in line with the sexual promiscuity of today's churches.
Yet all of us have a duty to search the Scriptures
ourselves, regardless of what others have taught us. Nobody else will be with us when we stand before Jesus. If we truly
believe "man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God"
(Matt.4:4) we must accept the words of Jesus Himself and the apostle Paul, God's "chosen instrument" (Acts 9:15). We are
not free to ignore them, reject them, or interpret them into the opposite of what they say, simply because they do not fit
with permissibility of remarriage after divorce.
If you are divorced, then for your own sake, the sake of God's kingdom and the health of your nation, we urge you
to consider the Scriptures with utmost gravity as you think about your future. For those contemplating first time
marriage, be very sure you understand what God will expect of you when you take a marriage vow.
