REVEREND MlLTON T.WELLS  (1901-1975)

EASTERN BIBLE  INSTITUTE

GREEN LANE,  PENNSYLVANIA

1957 – (Public Domain)

 

 

Note by Standerinfamilycourt:    Rev. Wells was an Assemblies of God Pastor and served as President of the Eastern Bible Institute in Pennsylvania,  now known as the University of Valley Forge.

Our Lord Jesus Christ would have called his scholarly work, with its rigorous application of all the principles of hermeneutics to the scriptural texts on marriage “faithful”.

The author uses the term “Five-Word-School”  for those who reject Christ’s teaching, centered around Luke 16:18 and other scripture, that the marriage covenant is dissolved only by the physical death of one of the spouses; those who instead prefer to center their view around Matthew 19:9 according to the Erasmean / Lutheran / Calvinist rendering, in such a way as to contrive a “biblical exception” (except it be for fornication) to justify remarriage after civil divorce.  

 

CHAPTER V –   COMMENTS ON MATTHEW 5:31, 32

It was said also, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement; but I say unto you, that every one that putteth away his wife saving for the cause of fornication, maketh her an adulteress and whosoever shall marry her when she is put away committeth adultery.

It is important to observe that the context of this passage of scripture is a part of the Sermon on the Mount wherein Christ repeatedly quotes from a command­ment of the Mosaic Law or repeats a concept of the Old Testament setting forth the moral views enunciated therein, and then abruptly cries, “BUT I SAY UNTO YOU . . .  ”   and then immediately thereafter states a higher ethic of the same moral principle in question.

A. The Righteousness of the Pharisees Versus the Righteousness of Christ as Set Forth by Context (Matt. 5:20,32).

The moral standards of the Pharisees of Christ’s day were very low, for Christ said:

I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed therighteous­ness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven   (Matt.5,20).

The Pharisees were strong on observances of minute, external rules of mens tradition.  Christ emphasized the inner state and motivations of the heart.  In verses 21-25, He showed that anger is incipient murder, and in verses 38-44 that a divinely sanctioned retaliation is to “turn the other cheek” and to “go the sec­ond mile.”

To the Pharisees, care to avoid an overt act of unchastity was the important thing.  To  Christ, the look of the eye and the thought of the heart were more im­portant.  To Him, the look of lust (coveting one of the opposite sex unlawfully) was adultery already committed In the heart (Matt.5:28).

To the Pharisees,  divorce was a moral convenience for greater personal hap­piness.  To Christ. it was a glaring immorality.  The Pharisees said, “Do we not have Moses ‘law for a basis for putting away our wives?  Did not Moses say:

When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.  And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife. And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement,   and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth. her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife;  Her former husband. which sent her away may not take her again to be his wife, after she is deilled; for that is an abomination before the LORD; and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an lnheritance (Deut. 24:1-4)?”

B.  Moses’ Divorce Permission Abrogated by Christ (Deut. 24:1-4)

There can be no doubt that in Matt.5:3I, Christ specifically refers to  Moses’ divorce permission(Deut.24:1-4). The Master’s statements in Matt.19:3-9 and Mark I0: 3-6 confirm that fact.

How shocked must the Pharisees have been to learn that Jesus said, “It was said.. . .(referring toDeut.24:1-4) . …BUT I SAY UNTO YOU….” It is important at this point to notice the rest of Matt.5:32:

Every one that putteth away his wife,  saving for the cause of fornication, maketh her an adulteress and whosoever shall marry her when she is put away committeth adultery (R.V.).

Christ’s statement of Matt. 5: 32 completely reversed Moses’ divorce permis­sion. Indeed , He abrogated it.  By His sweeping statement He said  that a hus­band who put away a chaste wife “causeth her to commit adultery (A. V.)”  and he who married such a woman, whether before or after the husband married anoth­er, committed adultery also. This is clear because in contrast Moses’ divorce law ( Deut. 24: 1.-4) permitted such a woman to marry again whether or not herhusband had married another.  Christ revoked Moses’ temporary permission of di­vorce to bring humanity back to God’s original marriage law which was estab­lished in Eden (Gen. 2: 18-24). The permissive law of Moses (Deut. 24: 1-4) was a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ’s superior way of life.

Let us inquire more deeply into the reason why the “chaste wife” above was forbidden to marry another. The Scripture states that the husband who puts her away “causeth her to commit adultery… The question is this: why would she commit adultery by marrying another if her former husband had himself committed adultery ­by remarrying after divorcing her?   The answer is simply found in carefully answering other searching questions.  Was the husband’s second marriage a valid one according to Christ?  Did Christ approve of a man’s marrying   another woman after he had put away his chaste spouse?  Certainly He did not!True, the Pharisees did. Did the husband invalidate the marriage bond with his first wife by marrying another?  If this be so, then everyone who wishes to gain a di­vine title to another woman as his wife has but to remarry for any cause and presto, his marriage bond is broken!   By sinning,  He has established his marriage before God.  The ultimate conclusions to which the reasoning and logic of the FlVE WORD School lead are, indeed, frightening!  Many an evangelical pastor agrees with the author in his position in this paragraph but denies it in practice by officially condoning the state of remarried divorcees in allowing them to hold offices in his church.

If the husband in question did not invalidate his first marriage bond by marrying another, then neither may the wife marry another while her first marital union stands before God.  Indeed, as Christ said, she commits adultery if she re­marries.  Certainly the Lord Jesus did not teach that every so-called innocent might remarry while the former spouse was still living; in fact. He did not teach that any innocent mate could remarry.   He said:

Every one that putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery; and he that marrieth one that is put away from a husband commit­teth adultery ( Luke 16: 18 R.V.).

C. Divorcing   of   Adulterous   Mate   is not Approved   by Christ According   to Matt. 5:32.

Note that the sin of adultery is in the foreground in the context and text of Matt.5:32.   Its immediate context begins at verse 27, where Christ refers tothe commandment, THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY (Ex.20:14), and then immediately He lifts it to a higher interpretation than the Pharisees were wont to give it.   Was He referring to the lust of Pharisees forother wives more beautiful or more genial than their own when He said, “BUT I SAY UNTO YOU, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her [as did David after Bathsheba] hath committed adultery with her already In his heart”!  Then Christ shocks the Pharisees again by linking sin to the divorce action of a man who puts away a chaste wife by stating that such a man “causeth his wife to commit adultery,” and adds that he who marries her “committeth adultery. ”  Elsewhere Christ says that he who divorces her commits adultery in marrying another(Mart.19:9; Luke 16:18, 12).

Observe also that the sin of “putting away” (divorcing) a wife with the obvious purpose of marrying another (for that is the reason the Pharisees put away their wives) is likewise in the foreground. The right of a man to put away an adulter­ous mate to marry another is not in the foreground, nor is the right of the innocent divorced mate to marry another in the foreground.  Let the reader keep the verse in focus with its context and its true intent, and he will not fall into the trap of erroneous interpretation.

The main thrust of Matt. 5:32 states nothing about the right of a man to put away his unchaste mate to another.  The FlVE WORD School finds a self­-originated secondary thrust in the text and erroneously makes it the prominent teaching of Christ in the passage.   By emphasizing the exceptive element of the verse, they distort the purpose and intent of Christ’s declaration at this point.

Christ no more approves an “innocent mate’s right” to divorce and marry another by the exceptive element of Matt.5:32 than does the Apostle Paul ap­prove slavery in Eph.6:5: “Servants [Greek–doulos slave], be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fearand trembling  in single­ness of your hearts, as unto Christ.”

The exceptive element. “saving for the cause of fornication,” was not intro­duced to put Christ’s stamp of approval upon a husband’s divorcing his wife for adultery.  The right or wrong of it is not before the reader in the text.  The man who puts away a wife because of FORNICATION is mentioned only in passing to bring out the main thought namely, that it is a heinous sin to put away a chaste wife to marry another.     This practice was common among the Pharisees.

The reason for Christ’s introducing the exceptive clause in Matt.5:32 becomes apparent if one reads the verse without the exceptive clause.   It follows

But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife….causeth her to commit adultery ….

The text makes no provision for an innocent husband to dissolve his marriage, should his wife commit adultery, so that he might marry another. The exceptive element is introduced as a qualifying clause to say in effect: “unless he previous­ly made herself a fornicator by her unchaste conduct.”  The man who puts away (rightly or wrongly) an unchaste wife does not  cause her to be guilty of her previous adultery nor does such action cause her to be an adulteress.  Christ inserted the exceptive clause so that the Pharisees would not understand Him to say that one of them would have caused his wife to commit adultery in putting her away if she had of herself committed adultery already. Whether the Wife in question had committed FORNICATION before or after marriage is not stated, if we are to take the word in its widest signification.

Felix L. Ciriot, Th. D. , in his book, Christ and Divorce, has stated:

The “exception-clause” occurs twice; in Matt.5:32 and again in Matt,19:9.  But the first time it does not, even by implication, give support at all to the idea that remarriage after a divorce given on the grounds of adultery is permitted. Thefunction of the “exception-clause” in 5:32 is quite different. There it is equivalent to the qualifying clause, “unless she has already  made herself an adulteress by her own misconduct.  The passage says nothing aboutthe remarriage of the husband.  What it says is that any husband who divorces his wife makes himself morally responsible for her becoming an adulteress, it being assumed, apparently, that she will either remarry or be incontinent outside pretended wedlock, and in either of these cases will have become an adulteress. The function of the “exception-clause” in this passage is, then, to cover the obviously exceptional case that, if she was divorced for adultery, in that case the husband will not be morally responsible for her becoming an adulteress since she was one already-the reason why she was put away. Thus the “exception-clause” in this passage has no bearing at all on any right of remarriage In the husband.

(Felix L. Ciriot: Christ and Divorce. R. A. Ciriot, 3006 Wheeling Street, El Paso,Texas, 1945,   pp. 3,4.)

The evil of divorcing a chaste wife In Matt, 5:32 is viewed from the stand­point of the dreadful effect upon the wife. The verb underscored in the phrase”causeth her to commit adultery” is one word moicheuthenai in the Greek. Professor John Murray of Westminster Theological Seminary has indicated in his text on divorce that the verb moicheuthenai is in the passive voice and that such gives the phrase this literal effect,   “he causeth her to suffer adultery. ”

(John Murray:   Divorce. Philadelphia, The Committee on Christian Education , The Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 1953, p.21)

The man is not in Matt. 5 :32  said to commit adultery (as stated In Luke 16: 18) in putting away the chaste wife. He is, however, said to be implicated In his wife’s sin of adultery, should she marry another after he has divorced her and married again.  She obviously commits adultery because her husband had no right to   divorce her. According to Christ, the divorce was invalid.  In the case just described,  the wife could not put all the blame for her sin of adultery upon her hus­band,  but neither might the husband be exempted or exonerated from guilt in this matter.  Indeed, the husband is morally responsible for her possible unchastity when she is put away, for it is assumed that she will find it so difficult to remain continent in her single state that she will unlawfully marry another. It would have been more difficult for an innocent wife of that kind to remainun married in Christ’s day than today, because she had been steeped in thetraditionsof the schools of Hillel and Shammai, which permitted women to marry again in accordance with their interpretation of Deut. 24:1-4.

A. S. Worrel’s translation of the New Testament is of assistance at this point:

 BUT I SAY TO YOU, THAT EVERY ONE WHO PUTS AWAY HIS WIFE, EXCEPT ON ACCOUNT OF FORNICATION,  MAKES HER COMMIT ADULTERY : AND WHOSOEVER MARRIES HER WHEN PUT AWAY COMMITS ADUL­TERY (Matt.5:32).

By the above statement Conservatives believe that Christ was In effect saying:

You my hearers, of the schools of Hillel and Shammai, have taken for granted that it is right to give a bill of divorcement to a wife for one (thecause of adultery) or for any cause, because of your interpretation. of Moses’ declaration in Deut.24:1-4, and have concluded the same that it is also right for divorced, chaste wives to marry again when divorced, BUT I SAY UNTO YOU,   that whoever gives a bill of divorcement to a wife causes her to commit adultery (unless she has previously committed FORNICATION: and in that case it is clear that the husband did not cause her to commit unchastity), and further he who marries the divorced wife commits adultery also.  By this state­ment I declare that the Mosaic permission for the divorcing of a wife and the remarrying of the divorcee (even though she be an innocent spouse) is not ap­proved of God, I have come to re-establish the law of marriage as instituted by God at the beginning in Eden, for such is the law of My Kingdom, the KINGDOM OF GOD.  The Mosaic law of divorce and remarriage is forever abrogated by me!  Therefore the divorced wife described above who marries again, and he who marries her commits adultery since their marriage is not valid before heaven.  Their union is an adulterous union because the marriage bond of the wife with her first husband is not dissolved.  Under the law of marriage of the KINGDOM OF GOD a bill of divorcement is of no effect in dissolving a marriage union.

Christ could have added, according to His statements in Luke 16:18 and Matt.19:8:

Every one that putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and he that marrleth one that is put away from a husband commit­teth adultery (R. V.).

Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.

Dean Henry Alford of Canterbury, in discussing the problem of whether the marriage of the innocent party after separation (on account of fornication) is for­bidden by Matt. 5:32 or 19:9, states:

Certainly it would appear, from the literal meaning of our Lord’s words, that it should not be allowed for if by such divorce the marriage be altogether dissolved, how can the woman be said to commit adultery by a second   marriage?  Or how will St. Paul’s precept (l Cor. 7: 11) find place?  For stating this as St. Paul does, prefaced by the words “not I, but the Lord, “ it must be understood, and has been taken, as referring to this very verse  [Matt,5:32] or rather (see note there) to Ch.19:9 and consequently can only suppose fornication as the cause.  Besides which, the tenor of our Lord’s teaching in other places . . . seems to set before us  the state of marriage as absolutely indissoluble as such however he may sanction the expulsion a mensa et thoro of an unfaithful wife.    

(Dean Henry Alford: The New Testament for English Readers, Chicago, Moody Press, p.33)                         

 

A considerable portion of the FIVE WORD School’s argument is based on the meaning of the word divorce as it views it.  The liberals of the divorce questionare driven to an extensive treatment of this word because they are in such poverty of text to support their position.   Indeed, they can ill afford to get along without the alleged support of Matt. 5:32 if it can be even weakly established that it is in their favor.  The FIVE WORD School cannot objectively claim Matt, 5:32 as support for the reasons already given in the discussion of this text.   Since this verse does not discuss either the right or wrong of putting away an unchaste mate,  the meaning of the word divorce here is, therefore, of no significance in settlingthe problem of the right of an innocent mate to divorce his unchaste spouse and marry another.

The divorce liberals admit that Matt. 5:32 is a very weak reed upon which to support their doctrine of divorce, since it has nothing within it like the phrase which follows the exceptive clause in Matt.19:9(A.V.). The phrase is under­lined [bolded] in the quotation which follows: “except it be for fornication and remarrieth another.” There is no declaration in Matt.5:32 which may be taken, even by implication to state that an innocent spouse who puts away his unchaste mate can marry again if the verse is properly understood within its context.

How do followers of the FIVE WORD School get around the problem?  In the first place, their circuitous and illogical method causes them to assume that their interpretation of Matt. 19:9 on an a priori basis is sound, thereby representing Christ to teach that He authorized an innocent party to divorce a spouse who com­mits adultery with the inherent right to marry another while the former mate still lives.  In the light of that assumption,   they secondly read their interpretation of Matt. 19:9 into Matt. 5:32 because it contains the word divorce in reference to putting away one who has committed FORNICATION.   They believe that the fact that 5:32 also contains an exceptive clause further enhances their a priori posi­tion.  Thus, presto, they apparently have two divorce texts allegedly support­ing their doctrine of divorce.

Followers of the FIVE WORD School would not have made such a glaring error had they proceeded differently,  but at the very beginning of their study of the doctrine of divorce they presumptively set up their view of Matt. 19:9 as an esatablished postulate.  This they did before examining objectively and independ­ently all the divorce texts to determine their separate meaning and ultimately from them to deduce the general tenor of the Bible’s teaching as a whole respect­ing divorce.  Hence their “postulate” reduces itself to a mere assumption made too early in the analysis. Too often in the Christian Church a teacher’s wish is the father of his theological thought.  See the full discussion of the meaning of the word divorce in its bearing on the subject on pages 121 through 124.

 

D. Marriage Bond is not Dissolved by Adultery

 

The paragraphs above indicate the fact that an act of adultery does not dis­solve the marriage bond.   According to Matt.5:32, the chaste wife of the text cannot dissolve the marriage union by divorcing her adulterous husband and thus free herself to marry another.  Under Moses, it was the death of the adulterer by stoning which dissolved the union and freed an “innocent party” to marry another.  It was death and only death “from the beginning” and not divorce which erased the union of husband and wife so far as Christ was concerned.  The Apostle Paul reaffirmed this fact in Rom. 7:2, 3 and I Cor. 7:39.  He clearly taught that death and death alone dissolved the marriage union.

Some of the FIVE WORD School reason that because the innocent spouse was freed from the unchaste spouse by the stoning to death of the adulterous mate under the Old Testament(Deut.22:22), that that fact indicates that God appar­ently considers an innocent mate loosened from his adulterous partner as truly under grace as under law because such an erring mate is allegedly reckoned be­fore God to be as good as dead when he commits the immoral act.  Accordingly, the securing of the bill of divorcement from the state is taken to be but a perfunctory requirement to certify before men what has been previously accepted by God before heaven.  By such a principle a spouse would today consider herself free from her marriage bond when her mate was thrown into life imprisonment for first degree murder because the Old Testament would have required the death penalty (Deut. 19: 11- 12) as do many states in our country today.

If the stoning of an adulterous mate in the Old Testament provides a principle for the dissolution of such a union in both Old and NewTestaments alike, then by the same token. parents today may consider themselves free from further respon­sibility for their incorrigible child (Deut, 21: 18-21).  Indeed, if liberal divorce theology is correct in its reasoning at this point, a parent of today is automatically released from further obligation to a child as soon as he manifests the character described above, for under the law he would have been stoned (Deut.21:21), and would thus cease to sustain any relation to the parents.  See more detail on the subject of this paragraph in the Appendix on pages 176 and 177.

Such a principle as the above would also mean that no unmarried fornicator, although converted to Christ, should be privileged to marry under grace, for al­though living in the new dispensation, he should be stoned to death, and is,there­fore, as good as dead to the privileges of marriage ( Deut.22:22-27). There is not a vestige of Scripture in the New Testament supporting such a teaching.  To the contrary,  Acts 13:39 assures such an individual that he may be justified from his sin by faith in the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts.13:39; I Cor,6:9-II). Christ did not, in Matt. 5:32 or elsewhere, state that when a wife or husband committed adultery the innocent mate should not forgive such an one and perpet­uate the union, or that he should marry his unchaste spouse over again because the adulterous act had automatically disolved the union.   Indeed, the union of such mates is still intact.  Adultery, therefore, does not dissolve the bond of marriage.   Christ does not say that it is a sin to forgive an unchaste mate and continue to live with him or her,  but this would be true if adultery automatically dissolved the union as many of the FIVE WORD School allege.

If it be true that adultery dissolves the marriage bond, then it would be wrong for a spouse to live with his unchaste mate for a single day. Happily, the Scrip­ture does not support such a thought.   If adultery dissolves the marriage union, then a man might cease to be married and not know it if his mate secretly committed adultery.   In that case, he would be committing adultery by living with an unmarried woman !!

(Andrew Telford: Why No Divorce.   Philadelphia, Berachah Church, n.d.)

A premium is put on adultery if it severs the marriage bond; a spouse unhappily married would thereby be encouraged to commit adultery or to make a pretense of committing it.

The above establishes the fact that it was not adultery, even under Moses, which dissolved the marriage union, but the stoning of the adulterer. Indeed, so long as the adulterous person lived, the marriage was, intact.  The severity of the law of Moses provided for the cleansing of the land of Israel from adulterous people through stoning.  Under grace, the adulterous spouse is given anoppor­tunity to get right with God by an extension of life.  His period of probation is lengthened because of Calvary.

The putting to death. of the adulterer or adulteress was not specifically for the purpose of releasing innocent mates to marry other spouses; it was to free the land of such pollution lest such evil become a destroying cancer in the society of Israel.   The Scriptures (Deut. 22 :22, 24) speak of the purpose of the putting to death by the nation of such immoral men and women in this fashion:

So shalt thou put away evil from the land.

If the FIVE WORD School insists that adultery dissolves the marriage bond, it is pertinent to ask why the union should not be destroyed for other flagrant sins which, in similar degree,   destroy the fidelity of one spouse to the other.   Some examples of such are persistent cruelty. criminality, and neglecting to support the spouse and home because of drunkenness or gambling.  It is important to remember that an isolated act of infidelity may be the result of a momentary pas­sion; but cruelty, neglect, or desertion are deliberate.  Certainly these must de­stroy the marriage bond even more effectively than adultery from the standpoint of human reason.   How can one answer this?   To such a question there seems   to be no satisfactory answer.

(Kenneth E. Kirk: Marriage and Divorce. 2nd ed. London, Hodder andStoughtonLtd.,1948, p.84).

The idea that adultery is the cause that breaks the marriage union   arises out of the fact that there is an overemphasis on the sexual side of marriage in this adulterous generation. It is made the focal point of the happiness of marriage, a kind of marital recreation. Rather, marriage is a vocation, a high call­ing from God for a purposed, life-long union in outpoured (agape) love, regard­less of the unworthiness of the mate.  Such love is Christ’s love, and has He not asked God’s children to love their mate as He loved the Church(Eph.5:25) ?  A marriage which is built upon and centered in sex is bound to come to grief. Even modern psychologists are deeply aware of this fact.

Many actors of the movie world, who have been divorced and remarried a num­ber of times are, as Billy Graham has said, ”living in adultery, ” even though their several marriages have been legalized by some state’s divorce laws.  The probability is that many of these people could have obtained a second, third, fourth or fifth divorce on the grounds of FIVE WORD theology, for does not this school permit one to divorce an adulterous mate and marry another?  And does not this school permit a mate to marry another when his spouse has married again?  The Hollywood practice of divorce and remarriage will be the practice of many in evangelical churches which adopt FIVE WORD divorce doctrines. This is prov­en by the fact that today so many professing, divorcee Christians are marrying again contrary to Scripture (Luke 16: 18), because they are strongly encouraged to do so by the loose divorce doctrines and practices of the majority of Protestant churches.   Not a few of these churches are evangelical in their profession of faith.

Indeed, men and women can secure bills of divorcement nullifying their mar­riages under state’s laws which permit them to marry again, but Christ did not permit men to do so.  And what Christ forbids as unrighteous cannot be made righteous by man!  Certainly Christians should not presume to secure divorces for remarriage from offices of a state when the divine government of God forbids it. A divorce parchment under Moses was important; it is not so under Christ.  He does not make allowance for any document which will dissolve a marriage for any cause.

Christ’s position is supported by the Lord’s action in the Old Testament (Jer.3: 1,8, 14).  Verse one states that the LORD pleaded for his adulterous wife to return, contrary to the provision in the divorce permission of Moses (Deut.24,4). Verse eight shows that He had given Israel a bill of divorcement for her adultery in accordance with His permission to Israel under Moses, but verse fourteen states:

Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am married unto you.  (A.V.).

Return, O backsliding children, saith Jehovah: for I am a husband unto you (R.V.).

 

The LORD of the Old Testament acted in keeping with the statement ofthe LORD Jesus of the New Testament.   He said:

Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so (Matt.19:8).

 

Note that the LORD did not look upon the bill of divorcement as the dissolu­tion of His marriage union with Israel, The FIVE WORD School replies that this statement in Jeremiah is but an analogy. That is right; it is a true analogy, and the principle still holds. However, was not Israel married to the LORD?  ls idolatry,  the spiritual sin of adultery, less evil than the physical sin of adultery?   Is it less evil to play the harlot with God than with man?

True, the LORD put away Israel and gave her a bill of divorcement because she was a harlot (Jer. 3: 1, 8) and had many lovers; but so much did He love her that He did not close the door to her return by dissolving the marriage by a di­vorce parchment, for as noted above. He said that He was still married to her, and that He was still her Husband.  He remained true to her although she long continued unfaithful to Him.  He asked that this message from His heart be con­veyed to her:

Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the LORD; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the LORD, and I will not keep mine anger forever(Jer.3:12).

The FIVE WORD School persists in viewing the reaction of men (spouses)to ADULTERY as seen under law. Christ would have us view the sin of ADULTERY and our reaction to it as seen under grace.

No trespass offering was provided for the sin of adultery under law; thank God,it is otherwise under grace.   See Acts13:39:

And by him [Christ] all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.

 

The LORD Jesus said:

 

Pray ye…and forgive us our debts,  as we forgive our debtors…For if ye forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will also forgive you; But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (Matt,6:9, 12, 14,15).

 

Nowhere in Scripture does God fix for the race, as a whole, a period of so many weeks, or so many months, or so many years for them to repent of theirsin before He will be reconciled to them.  He is already reconciled to sinners who offend Him.

 

God .. . hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation:  To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them (IICor.5:18,19).

 

God is reconciled to sinning men before they even turn to Him. He waits for them to accept His reconciliation and forgiveness, and does not in the meantime close His door of grace to them by fixing a universal period of five weeks, or five months, or five years, or twenty years during which they must come or forfeit the reconciliation which He offers.   Christ bids us follow the LORD’S example.­

Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee: Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift   (Matt. 5:23, 24).

If he refuses your readiness to be reconciled to him, should you close the door of reconciliation to him? This a spouse does by divorcing an adulterous mate and then marrying another.  Reconciliation is henceforth impossible.  Happily, God does not shut the door of reconciliation to a backslidden, worldly Christian who is considered an adulteress in His sight (James4:4).  God grant that the so-called innocent party may be as longsufferingl

The Word of the LORD of Israel and of the Church is:

A new commandment I give unto you. That ye love one another; as I have loved you,   that ye also love one another (Jn. 13:34).

May a Christian forgive another before he repents and personally acknowledges his wrong? What did Jesus say?

And when ye stand praying, forgive if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses (Mark 1l:25).

A true Christian forgives one who has wronged him before such a one even asks him for forgiveness. He is reconciled to him, like His Lord, before he returns to acknowledge his offense.

Back to Chapters III and IV

Continue to Chapter VI

Appendix

 SIFC Note:  Rev. Wells is comprehensively on target here with monumentally important forgotten and ignored truth that would revolutionize churches today if the heresy of “biblical” grounds was contritely repented of, and practices changed accordingly, so as to no longer offend a holy God, and perhaps even obtain His last-minute mercy for our nation and government.  He does, however, make two points that do not have biblical support, or that directly contradict the biblical principles he is righteously advocating.  These bear specific cautionary mention:

(1) on page 27 of the physical book he states (while referring to Jeremiah chapter 3 text):  [ “Verse eight shows that He had given Israel a bill of divorcement for her adultery in accordance with His permission to Israel under Moses…”]
(We note that there does not seem to be support anywhere in scripture for any inference that God “approved” of Moses’ expediency, and in fact, Jesus’ mention of it in Matthew 19 seems to take a disapproving tone, to the careful reader.   Additionally, we shall see whether materials in the Appendix deal with the very narrow cultural circumstance relating to the Jewish betrothal period to which Deut. 24 actually applied.  This is not mentioned in the chapters of Rev. Wells’ main text.)

(2) on page 29 of the physical book he states:  [“If he refuses your readiness to be reconciled to him, should you close the door of reconciliation to him? This a spouse does by divorcing an adulterous mate and then marrying another.  Reconciliation is henceforth impossible“. ]
(Wells does not state why he made this remark, so we shouldn’t speculate, but if that which he has so meticulously supported with faithful principles of scriptural interpretation for the first five chapters is fully true, then neither the civil divorce nor the second or any subsequent marriage is valid in God’s eyes, and remains a state of continuous adultery subject to the loss of inheritance in the kingdom of God reiterated in 1 Cor.6:9, Gal. 5:21 and Heb. 13:4.   Rev. Wells seems to be stating a presumption while not (here) offering any scriptural support for it, which seems a bit unreasonable in light of all the arguments he has so authoritatively made.  It could be as simple as his personal doubt that a once-adulterous mate would ever be convicted by God to stand for their covenant marriage, once the spouse they wronged had entered an adulterous remarriage.  He could be implying that physical termination of the ongoing remarriage adultery, with reconciliation / restitution toward the only true spouse God recognizes would be “compounding the sin”.   If so, then soul matters less than the appearance of propriety and man’s sensibilities.   He seems to be also forgetting that “nothing will be impossible with God”, and that it is God who pursues a wandering spouse and changes the hearts of both spouses, unbound by any such circumstances.
To be fair, Rev. Wells did not live long enough to see such reconciliations and restorations start to very frequently occur in the faithful church, nor the prevalence arise in unmarried cohabitation entrapping spouses and producing children–as immorality proliferated far more than he could ever have envisioned prior to the unilateral divorce regime implemented in the last 5 years of his life.   He did not live to see how much more rapidly the resulting foundationless subsequent civil-only “marriages” fell apart than did the forsaken covenant marriages.  He did not live to see the move of God where disciples become convicted upon discovering they had married someone else’s spouse by these very standards, and they voluntarily exit the adulterous union.   In recent practice, neither a non-covenant “marriage”, nor non-covenant children in such a “marriage” has proved to be a permanent barrier to reconciliation of covenant spouses to the only valid marriage in God’s eyes. )

 

 

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