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 VI – COMMENTS ON LUKE 16: 18 (R.V.)
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.
This is Christ’s second statement on divorce. In His first public statement on the subject (Matt. 5,32), He did not make provision for a spouse’s putting away an adulterous mate to marry another; neither did He make provision for a chaste woman (an innocent party), to marry another man, even though her husband had committed adultery by divorcing her and marrying another.
Before discussing this text fully, it would be well to consider the relation of the Apostle Paul to Luke and his Gospel.
A. Paul’s Relation to Luke was Like the Relation of Peter to Mark.
The ancient tradition that Mark’s Gospel is essentially that of Peter, and Luke’s essentially that of Paul is corroborated by their general character and form.
( Milton S, Terry: Biblical Hermeneutics. Grand Rapids, Zondervan Publishing House, n. d. p.558.)
Tertullian, [A.D. 160-222], who said that Mark was the interpreter of Peter, said that Paul enlightened Luke in the preparation of the Gospel of Luke. Irenaeus, [A.D. 120-200], said that Luke who was the companion of Paul presented his Gospel as it was preached by the Apostle Paul. Origen, [A. D. 185-253] said that Luke’s Gospel was the Gospel commended by the Apostle Paul. Jerome, Eusebius and other Church fathers were of the same conviction.
(W. Graham Scroggie: A Guide to the Gospels. London. Pickering & Inglis Ltd., 1948. p.360.)
B. The Context of Luke 16 :18 is Related to The Text of Luke 16:18
The words of Luke 16: 18 were addressed to the same class of people as those of Matt, 19: 1-9, namely, the Pharisees, who believed that they could freely divorce their wives for virtually any cause and especially for the sin of adultery. Those of the Pharisees who believed that one might specifically divorce and remarry for the cause of adultery were of the School of Shammai. They based their conviction for such right on Moses’ divorce permission (Deut. 24: 1 -4), which was quoted in full on page 88. They justified their right to divorce and marry another and the right of the divorced wife to many another on Moses’ divorce permission. Christ immediately, prior to Luke 16: 18, said to them (the Pharisees):
Ye are they that justify yourselves in the sight of men [for sundry evils, embracing the divorcing “of wives for manifold causes including adultery}; but God knoweth your hearts; for that which is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. The law and the prophets were until John: from that time the gospel of the kingdom is preached, and every man entereth violently into it. presseth into it(A.V.)](R.V.).
Christ told the Pharisees that a new order, a new kingdom had come with the preaching of the kingdom of God and that It would require spiritual violence on their part to enter this kingdom, for its demands were very high. Truly it would take great violence of soul for these Pharisees to discontinue their loose practices relative to divorce, as well as their other ungodly deeds.
Christ knew how difficult it was for the Pharisees to hear His Word on divorce. To be denied this privilege was to them like striking off their right hands. Jesus said, therefore, that they must press(v:.16 A.V.) violently intothe moral standards of His kingdom, self-discipline being indispensable. What God hath joined together is “one flesh.” The Pharisees must, therefore, face up to God’s standard of marriage as fixed at the beginning. The innocent(spouse) disciple of Christ and of thekingdom of God is willing to be a eunuch for the kingdom’s sake..for he knows bythe grace of God how to contain himself.
Many in Christ’s day could not receive the higher ethic of His kingdom which He announced in the Sermon on the Mount and which embraced His teaching on divorce (Matt.5:31,32). It was too ideal for them. It is, unhappily, too high for many professing Christians who claim to have experienced the doctrine of John 3:5 which, indeed, should give them power to measure up to the high standards of the Lord Jesus Christ and His kingdom. Happily, the experience of John 3:3,5,6 is open to all who will receive Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord (Jn.I:12, 13: Rom.10:9,10,R.V.). The power of then new birth is described by the Apostle Paul in Rom. 8:4:
For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us. who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
The Spirit of God indwelling the believer will enable him to fulfill Edenic standards of righteousness, including God’s original standard of marriage.
There were many in Christ’s day who pressed into the kingdom of God. The strait gate through which they entered was indeed very narrow; so nanow they had to leave every sin behind them. The Apostle Paul spoke of the seriousness of measuring up to Christ’s standards of the kingdom of God. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; ADULTERY [He who marries another while having a living former mate commits adultery (Matt. 19,9; Luke 16:18)], FORNICATION . . .wrath, strife . . .and such like: of which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things, shall not inherit the kingdom of God (Gal.5:19-21).
C. In Luke 16: 18 Christ Reiterates His Abrogation of Moses’ Divorce Permission.
The emphasis of Matt. 5 :32 is on the sin of a husband in causing his wife to commit adultery by divorcing her and then her consequent sin of presuming to marry another when her first marriage was stlll intact. The emphasis of Luke 16:18, however, is twofold: first, it is the sin of a husband in marrying another after divorcing hiswife, and second,as in Matt.5:32, the sin of the divorced wife in presuming to marry another on the grounds that she had been put away and that her husband in remanying, had committed adultery. His divorce and remarriage, however, had not dissolved the first marriage union of which she was a part.
The FIVE WORD School and all evangelicals believe that a Hollywood star who divorces his chaste wife and marries another while the former wife is still living is in a state of adultery because he has not by a court’s decree dissolved his marriage union before God, nor has his subsequent marriage dissolved it. The FIVE WORD School strangely allows the first wife to marry again because it asserts that the husband by his remarriage commits adultery and thus brings (its private interpretation of) the exceptive clause of Matt.19:9 into action. How amazingly contradictory is this school’s reasoning! In one breath its followers say that the remarried Hollywood star is living in adultery because he is still before God married to his first, chaste wife, and in the next breath, they say that the wife may get a divorce from him (dissolve the marriage and marry another because he has committed adultery. If he is still married to his first wife, she ( the first wife) must still be married to him. The Bible knows of no marriage that is a one way union! To accept the FIVE WORD doctrine of divorce is to return presumptously to the divorce permission of Moses (Deut, 24: 1-4) which Christ so clearly and forever abrogated! In Matt. 5:32b; 19:9b and Luke 16:18b, He said that such wives who marry another are caused to commit adultery and that those who marry them commit adultery! Did Christ approve of such adultery? God forbid the thought! “From the beginning it was not so “(Matt.19:8b); death and death alone dissolved a marriage union. Under Moses adultery called for the stoning of the unchaste spouse(Deut.22:22), not the divorcing of such an individual. FIVE WORD theology sets up a CHAIN REACTION of divorce and remarriage not only within the Church but without the Church also. The careless, compromising Church of today is responsible for the fearful increase of divorce. FIVE WORD THEOLOGY multiplies it, and smiles upon adulterous unions within the Church.
As observed in the discussion of Matt.5:31,32, the wife could not remarry upon being divorced because Christ abrogated her former Mosaic permission to do so, and likewise He abrogated Moses’ toleration of a husband ‘s putting away his wife. Her sin of remarrying was the sin of adultery because her first marriage union remained undissolved despite her husband’s subsequent remarriage after divorcing her. Similarly, the sin of the husband in Luke 16: 18 in marrying another was adultery because, obviously, his first marriage union was still unbroken. The sin of the wife of Luke 16: 18 in marrying another, after the husband remarried following his divorcing her is adultery, notwithstanding the fact her husband had committed adultery in marrying another, because his first marriage union was undissolved. He could not by marrying another abrogate CHRIST’S ABROGATION of MOSES’ toleration of divorce which dissolved a marriage union for virtually any cause. Christ as clearly abrogated Moses’ toleration of divorce in Luke16:18 as in Matt.5:3I,32.
Does not the reader, in the light of these two texts (Matt. 5:31, 32; Luke16:18) now see clearly that the sin of adultery on the part of a spouse does not free the other mate to divorce such a partner for the purpose of remarriage? The Pharisees could not have failed to get the full import of His divorce statement (Luke 16: 18) just described. Why should we fail to do so today? Shall we look at ISOLATED text for the answer to this problem, or to all of the divorce texts given by Christ and the Apostle Paul? Indeed, the Pharisees on this occasion were of the same schools as those who later faced Christ with the respecting divorce when He spoke to them in the setting of Matt. 19: 1-12 and Mark 10: 1-12. In either case, the members of the school of Shammai were represented in the group. Christ closed the door to divorce for this school, as well as for the Pharisees in general, for the followers of the school of Shammai rested their hope for divorce for adultery on Deut. 24: 1-4.
As we noted already under Matt, 5:32, Christ could not abrogate the first part of Moses’ divorce permission and not the second part without so indicating. He was dealing with Moses’ divorce permission as a unit and thus he also abrogated the right of the woman to remarry despite her husband’s marrying another. The husband under Christ’s law could not and did not dissolve the first union by marrying another; neither could the divorced wife dissolve the first union by marrying another, for Christ’s law was but a reiteration of God’s original marriage law in Eden which makes husband and wife ONE FLESH for life.
The FIVE WORD School insists that Luke 16: 18 does not treat adultery in marriage as a cause for divorce, but we have seen above that Luke16:18 contradicts this assertion when viewed in the light of Christ’s entire abrogation of Moses’divorce permission. If under Christ a divorced wife could marry another when her husband married another, then Christ’s abrogation of Moses’ divorce permission (Matt. 5:31; 32; Luke 16: 18) was meaningless, and His several statements on divorce were completely contradictory. Could Christ in the same statement (Matt. 5:3I , 32) abrogate Moses’ divorce permission and then deny it?
D. Four Possible Alternatives Within the Text of Luke 16: 18 Are:
(1) It is a chaste husband who puts away a chaste wife, or
(2) It ls a chaste husband who puts away an unchaste wife, or
(3) It is an unchaste husband who puts away an unchaste wife, or
(4) It is an unchaste husband who puts away a chaste wife.
The sum of the matter of Luke 16: 18 is that a husband of whatever sort who puts away a wife of whatever sort, and remarries, commits ADULTERY, and a man who remarries a wife (whether chaste or unchaste) who has been put away by another commits ADULTERY. There can be no doubt that this text as well as Matt. 5 :32 makes no provision for the innocent wife, of either of the two texts just mentioned, to divorce a guilty husband with the inherent right of marrying another. This holds equally true of Matt. 19:9b.
Beyond any doubt, Luke 16:18 prohibits an innocent wife from marrying another, even though her husband marries another before she marries again. How amazing, therefore, is the reasoning of the FIVE WORD School. They insist on modifying the meaning of Luke 16: 18 by the exceptive clause and their unique interpretation of Matt. 19:9. Two texts already have closed the door to the FIVEWORD School’s interpretation of Matt. 19:9, which they allege supports the right of an innocent party to remarry when he has divorced his unchaste spouse. Would it not be more reasonable for the FIVE WORD School to modify the apparent meaning of Matt.19:9 by twotexts, Matt.5:31,32and Luke16:18, not to mention Mark 10: I I, 12; Rom. 7 :2, 3 and I Cor, 7: 10, I I, 39, rather than reverse the matter and insist on modifying the many texts by the one text, and that by their singular and private (II Pet. I :20) interpretation of it?
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. Rev. Wells makes a point in this section that deserves a bit more contextual commentary:
On page 33 of the physical book, Wells says: “He could not by marrying another abrogate CHRIST’S ABROGATION of MOSES’ toleration of divorce which dissolved a marriage union for virtually any cause.”
However, carefully-translated texts taken with the relevant cultural context narrows the application of Moses’ “permission” to the Jewish betrothal period, and to fornication (uncleanness) committed prior to consummation of the marriage. It is still possible the Pharisees were trying to apply the Mosaic allowance more broadly than its original purpose, but this is moot since the abrogation applied broadly.
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