Category Archives: Discipleship

Church Discipline, Connection of Unilateral Divorce to SSM, Discipleship, Divorce, marriage, Marriage Restoration, morality

Response to TGC’s “And What About Divorce?”

July 22, 2015 standerinfamilycourt 1 Comment

by Standerinfamilycourt

There are at least a couple of Calvinist / Westminster Confession- adhering groups with a prominent national “megaphone” who wish “standerinfamilycourt” would go find some other cause. Whenever they publish a blog twisting either the context, the language translation or some other crucial aspect of rightly dividing the 4 or 5 most abused scriptures in the bible, SIFC and fellow outstanding permanence-of-marriage bloggers attempt to set the record straight on their blog page comments, where our detailed response won’t get buried under literally hundreds of Facebook comments. We’ve been routinely censored in blog comments that fully met their posting guidelines (but politely rebutted their mis-assertions) and were typically removed — until recent days.

The blog piece by Kevin DeYoung that follows on The Gospel Coalition is from April, 2014, pre-dates the inception of SIFC’s blog and Facebook pages by about 6 months. Imagine our pleasant surprise to see OUR cover on the resurfacing of this blog to their FB page this week! We have been given much favor from the Lord to be able to connect with national voices, most of whom do earnestly believe they are seeking the spirit of God in marriage matters. We are especially blessed to do so before our first year has passed. Our aim has always been to bridge constituencies in pro-family advocacy, as well as act as a voice of conscience to the churches who disagree with the authentically-biblical position on the permanence of marriage (including SIFC’s own – the subject of another recent blog post on 7 Times Around the Jericho Wall).
If convictions about hypocrisy were not actually landing with these folks, it is unlikely that old blogs about it would be dusted off in this manner. Not only are they hearing it from the pagans and angry, vulgar “page trolls”, they are consistently hearing it from people who know their bible inside-out and who are fasting and praying for one more Great Awakening in this nation.

Kevin DeYoung begins as follows:

After last week’s post on gluttony, a host of similar comments bubbled up about divorce. Isn’t it hypocritical of Christians to protest so loudly about homosexuality when the real marital problem in our churches is divorce?

SIFC: Is the “real marital problem” in our churches truly “divorce”, Rev. DeYoung? A recent story in the Washington Post about the trend in marriage and divorce statistics from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics shows a steep drop off in both, that tracks in tandem. Presumably that trend is reflecting in the church, too, although fewer believers are probably spurning marriage as young people than in the world. Isn’t the real problem in the church rather the encouragement of remarriage that violates the standard Jesus gave in Luke 16:18, sometimes serially? And isn’t the root motivation for individuals divorcing in the body of Christ, stripped bare of its litany of classic excuses, really the desire to whitewash adultery through the sure anticipation of the evangelical church’s blessing on a remarriage? (A recent survey of evangelical church members by a national polling firm revealed that 90% of those who had been divorced said that their divorce took place following their conversion. )

As G. K. Chesterton put it, a century ago when the forces for civil family destruction were first marshalling the efforts that eventually resulted in the enactment of unilateral divorce:

“It may or may not be superstition for a man to believe he must kiss the Bible to show he is telling the truth. It is certainly the most grovelling superstition for him to believe that, if he kisses the Bible, anything he says will come true. It would surely be the blackest and most benighted Bible-worship to suggest that the mere kiss on the mere book alters the moral quality of perjury. Yet this is precisely what is implied in saying that formal re-marriage alters the moral quality of conjugal infidelity. “

Over many years debating these issues in my own denomination, I’ve often encountered the divorce retort: “It’s easy for you to pick on homosexuality because that’s the issue in your church. But you don’t follow the letter of your own law. If you did, you would be talking about divorce, since that’s the bigger problem in conservative churches.”

SIFC: Many would say to this (perhaps a bit flippantly) that we’re not under law, we’re under grace. Christ did indeed have a law prohibiting divorce of a covenant marriage, which Paul and the church fathers faithfully carried forward. Divorce, unless undertaken with a motive of restitution and repentance, is only a symptom of the underlying problem. In Matt. 5:28-30, Jesus got to the root cause: covetousness and lack of contentment which, unlike marriage, is truly genderless.

A Smokescreen
When it comes to debating homosexuality among Christians, the issue of divorce is both a smokescreen and a fire. It is a smokescreen because the two issues-divorce and homosexuality-are far from identical.

For starters, there are no groups in our denominations whose raison d’etre is the celebration of divorce. People are not advocating new policies in our churches that affirm the intrinsic goodness of divorce. Conservatives, in the culture and in the church, keep talking about homosexuality because that is the fault line right now. We’d love to talk (and do) about how to have a healthy marriage. We’d love for that matter to spend all our time talking about the glory of the Trinity, but the battle right now (at least one of them) is over homosexuality. So we cannot be silent on this issue.

SIFC: As we pointed out above, divorce doesn’t just happen in a motivational vacuum, so perhaps the more apt comparison to homosexuality is with legalized adultery (sequential polygamy) not with the civil pretense of dissolving what God has joined. Making the appropriate substitution, isn’t there a group in your church tasked with affirming a hard-hearted marriage decision, and the culturally-compliant celebration of “moving on”? (Would that group happen to go by the initials, “D.C.” or “D.R. “?) Seems there is just such a group, actually-in quite a few churches.

Is the reason people are not advocating new policies in the church to affirm the intrinsic goodness of remarriage perhaps because that task was fully accomplished at least a generation ago?
The battle and fault line would no doubt shift immediately from homosexuality, if the pastor would suddenly obey Jesus and announce that the church will no longer be performing weddings where one or both of the parties has an estranged living spouse, would it not? It seems that any time someone dares to tread on anyone’s sexual autonomy, explosive things happen. Instead, these churches are inappropriately silent on that issue of sealing the unrepentant in their legalized / sanctified adultery, even claiming with no truthful scriptural support that Jesus “allows” what He forthrightly forbade. If the term “smokescreen” is, in this sense, a defense to the charge of hypocrisy, it is well to remember that the latter tends to be in the eye of the beholder, and is quite difficult to hide from watching pagans. The louder the protest of the splinter, the greater the magnitude of the unremoved log.

And while we’re at it, Rev. DeYoung, is it not true that Ephesians 5:31 reminds us that the very essence of the “glory of the Trinity” is the upholding of the sanctity of that which, reflecting that very glory, Jesus made abundantly plain is indissoluble, this side of heaven? How can any rogue branch (or rotten trunk) of the body of Christ even think about holding forth on the glory of the Trinity when it systematically tramples under foot its most prominent symbol by solemnizing consecutive polygamy / polyandry, and even while misusing the name of the Most High to do so?

Just as importantly, the biblical prohibition against divorce explicitly allows for exceptions; the prohibition against homosexuality does not.

SIFC: Exceptions also tend to be in the eye of the beholder. The specific exception Matthew (alone) had in mind was for terminating the ketubah purchase agreement for the betrothed Jewish bride, who in this specific case, happened to be a bit too closely related to the groom, or had been compromised in some other way before the wedding. This context is not discerned by a superficial reading of the text at face value without filtering it through several of the five-C’s of hermeneutics, in this case:

content (accurate translation of key words like “porneia“),
context (Matt. 5 sermon on the mount abrogation of Mosaic law; Matt. 19:9 Roman prohibition against traditional Hebrew stoning of adulterous spouses)
culture (Jewish betrothal customs)
comparison (for example, with Mark 10:1-12 and Luke 16:18)
consultation (what did the early church fathers say about an “exception”? What did they say about the dissolubility of holy matrimony in general?)

The traditional Protestant position, as stated in the Westminster Confession of Faith for example, maintains that divorce is permissible on grounds of marital infidelity or desertion by an unbelieving spouse (WCF 24.5-6). Granted, the application of these principles is difficult and the question of remarriage after divorce gets even trickier, but almost all Protestants have always held that divorce is sometimes acceptable.

SIFC: The Westminster Confession is the 17th century product of an Assembly of clerics and members of British Parliament to produce a doctrine based on putting the commandments of Christ to a popular vote of carnal men. The portions that deal with marriage were greatly influenced by the apostate teachings of Catholic humanist Desiderius Erasmus. From the moment the words crossed His lips, most human flesh has held that Christ’s law of the indissoluble marriage bond was too harsh to uphold. Despite 400 years of uncorrupted doctrine upheld by the early church fathers, this tenet of the Protestant Church was established on a 16th century Erasmean heresy that is not supported by sound biblical scholarship. It is for these reasons that Protestants “have always held that divorce is sometimes acceptable”, but as Jesus told the first crop of Pharisees, “from the beginning, it was not so!” Application of Christ’s law of marriage is quite simple, actually.

Rev. DeYoung, when you are before the bema seat of Christ, and your works are being judged by fire, will you really be pleading to Him that you loved the Westminster Confession with all your heart, soul, mind and strength?

Simply put, homosexuality and divorce are different issues because according to the Bible and Christian tradition the former is always wrong, while the latter is not.

SIFC: Homosexuality and divorce may be “different issues” but both share the common trait of violating a non-negotiable element of God’s definition of marriage. Homosexuality violates Matt. 19:4 / Mark 10:7. Civil divorce and remarriage violate Matt. 19:6 / Mark 10:9. We will concede your last point however. According to the bible, homosexuality is indeed always wrong, but civil divorce is only not wrong when it is motivated to end an unlawful subsequent civil union, with Spirit-led repentance, restitution and restoration of the true covenant in one’s heart and mind. Today’s Pharisees would urge that person to remain in their adultery, at the potential expense of many souls, on the pretense that it is “extending the cycle of divorce” or is a “repeat sin”. God is showing this to be false with each covenant family He miraculously puts back together after decades of man’s divorce, and He sometimes does it with both families that Satan attempted to use the church as his accomplices to destroy for generations to come.

Finally, the “what about divorce?” argument is not as good as it sounds because many of our churches do take divorce seriously. I realize that many churches don’t (more on that in a minute). But a lot of the same churches that speak out against homosexuality also speak out against illegitimate divorce. I’ve preached on divorce a number of times, including a sermon a few years ago entitled, “What Did Jesus Think of Divorce and Remarriage?” I’ve said more about homosexuality in the blogosphere because there’s a controversy around the issue in the culture in the wider church. But I’ve never shied away from talking about divorce. I take seriously everything the Westminster Confession of Faith says about marriage. Marriage is to be between one man and one woman (WCF 24.1). It is the duty of Christians to marry only in the Lord (WCF 24.3). Only adultery and willful desertion are grounds for divorce (WCF 24.6).

SIFC: Is the Westminster Confession inspired? Why not preach directly from God-breathed holy scripture? Rev. DeYoung, you say that “willful desertion” is a ground for divorce. That’s strange, because Jesus surely didn’t say that (He said spouses joined by God can never again be two), and neither did Paul (he said a wife is dedetai
δέδεται to her husband as long as he lives) nor did Peter. By any chance, sir, do you happen to know the difference between the Greek root words “douloo” and “deo“? If the committee that signed off on the Westminster Confession knew this, they obviously chose to ignore it.

As a board of elders, we treat these matters with the seriousness they deserve. We ask new members who have been divorced to explain the nature of their divorce and (if applicable) their remarriage. This has resulted on occasion in potential new members leaving our church. Most of the discipline cases we’ve encountered as elders have been about divorce. The majority of pastoral care crises we have been involved in have dealt with failed or failing marriages. Our church, like many others, takes seriously all kinds of sins, including illegitimate divorce. We don’t always know how to handle every situation, but I can say with a completely clear conscience that we never turn a blind eye to divorce.

SIFC: Do you counsel people whose civil union does not meet Christ’s standard of Luke 16:18 to remain in their adultery? Do you delude them that this sin is the only sin that does not require full turning away and cessation? Do you counsel “married” homosexuals differently than “married” adulterers? HAVE YOU KNOWINGLY SOLEMNIZED IN THE PAST YEAR A WEDDING JOINING ANY PERSON TO SOMEBODY ELSE’S SPOUSE, IN GOD’S EYES?

And Undoubtedly Some Fire
Having said all that, it’s undoubtedly the case that many evangelicals have been negligent in dealing with illegitimate divorce and remarriage. Pastors have not preached on the issue for fear of offending scores of their members. Elder boards have not practiced church discipline on those who sin in this area because, well, they don’t practice discipline for much of anything. Counselors, friends, and small groups have not gotten involved early enough to make a difference in pre-divorce situations. Christian attorneys have not thought enough about their responsibility in encouraging marital reconciliation. Church leaders have not helped their people understand God’s teaching about the sanctity of marriage, and we have not helped those already wrongly remarried to experience forgiveness for their past mistakes.

So yes, there are plank-eyed Christians among us. The evangelical church, in many places, gave up and caved in on divorce and remarriage. But the remedy to this negligence is not more negligence. The slow, painful cure is more biblical exposition, more active pastoral care, more faithful use of discipline, more word-saturated counseling, and more prayer–for illegitimate divorce, for same-sex behavior, and for all the other sins that are more easily condoned than confronted.

SIFC: “but the remedy to this negligence is not more negligence“….We agree that there’s nothing more uncomfortable than telling a non-covenant couple (particularly a couple invalidly “married” in your own church) that their union will never be holy matrimony in God’s eyes because of the undissolved prior marriage bond indelibly recorded in the courthouse of heaven. But the “fire” that is dreaded here still sounds like the fear of man, instead of a holy fear of a deeply-offended Sovereign! Why is it that few recognize the judgment of that offended Sovereign that has been falling on our nation for four or five decades, and is now coming to a sodomous, polygamous, incestual and bestial crescendo?
Since it is clearly negligent to continue the practice of joining somebody’s covenant spouse to another while the rejected true spouse lives, Rev. DeYoung, BY WHAT DATE WILL YOUR CHURCH CEASE PERFORMING THESE ADULTEROUS CEREMONIES?

What is the resemblance, Rev. DeYoung, of your church with this church?

Now while Ezra was praying and making confession, weeping and prostrating himself before the house of God, a very large assembly, men, women and children, gathered to him from Israel; for the people wept bitterly. Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, said to Ezra, “We have been unfaithful to our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land; yet now there is hope for Israel in spite of this. So now let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives and their children, according to the counsel of my lord and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the law. Arise! For this matter is your responsibility, but we will be with you; be courageous and act.”

– Ezra 10:1-4, concerning the cleansing of marriage desecration the Lord required before He would restore Israel as a sovereign nation.

Or with this one?

“What is more astounding than the mere fact that the early Church taught and practiced the complete indissolubility of marriage for so long, is the fact that the Church chose to take its stand against the strong contemporary lax social and legal attitudes toward divorce which prevailed so universally all about them. The Church, today, feels that it is on the horns of a dilemma, because so many divorcees are coming to her for help and encouragement. Shall she accommodate the Scriptures to the apparent need of the unfortunate divorcees, or shall she uphold the Biblical standard of the indissolubility of marriage for any cause while faithfully discharging her duty to such distressed individuals? Every church of today which considers the lowering of its divorce standards should remember that the early Church stood true to the Biblical doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage in a world that was pagan and strongly opposed to the moral and marriage standards of the New Testament. Not only did the Church maintain her stand on the indissolubility in the early centuries, she changed the attitude and standards of the whole world toward it. Even today the whole Church of Christ and the entire western world is still reaping the rich benefits of that heritage. Shall the Christian Church of today be less courageous and faithful than the Church of the early centuries of the Christian era? Does she not under God have the same spiritual resources?

“There were other grievous social evils in the early Christian centuries. Slavery enveloped the Roman Empire of that age, yet the Christians did not set themselves to change the thinking of the masses against it, but they did set themselves to change the thinking of the masses toward marriage and divorce. Why did they not attack slavery with the same vehemence? The reason was that the Apostles had not received a “thus saith the Lord” from Christ respecting it. They had, however, received such in the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage. No sect or school of philosophy is known to have influenced the early Church in this teaching. From whence, then, did she get the teaching? Certainly she received it from the teaching of the Gospels and from the teaching of the Apostles, who had earlier conveyed the same orally (as well as in writing) to the leaders of the early Church who succeeded them.”

– Rev. Milton T. Wells, “Does Divorce Dissolve Marriage?” (1957), Chapter VIII.

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

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Church Discipline, Discipleship, Divorce, marriage, morality

Emulating a Faulty “Confession”: Assemblies of God 1973 Position Paper Exposed

July 19, 2015 standerinfamilycourt 2 Comments

by Standerinfamilycourt

The summer of 2015 brings not only the pivotal U.S. Supreme Court announcement unilaterally imposing same-sex “marriage” on all 50 states, it brings the annual mass gatherings, and new or revised position statements of various denominations of the body of Christ. The Southern Baptists conference in Columbus, Ohio convened just prior to the SCOTUS ruling, and an ERLC (Ethics and Religious Liberty Council) statement followed shortly thereafter reaffirming its official position on marriage.

The Assemblies of God will be gathering in Orlando, Florida in August for their biennial General Council, the first since marriage started to be (re-)redefined, this time by the courts rather than by amoral state legislatures. This gathering will be reminiscent of an earlier sultry August gathering in Florida forty-two years ago. In turn, that 1973 gathering turned out to be reminiscent of a gathering in England more than 300 years earlier called the Westminster Assembly. In both cases, a clear, firm commandment of God concerning the absolute indissolubility of marriage by acts of men was put to a popular vote of carnal, self-interested clerics who found Christ’s instructions to be too unpalatable for their contemporary flocks to live by. The outcome of the vote itself was all too predictable, but the fallout to the witness and integrity of the Church, in each case, took decades or centuries to fully manifest. In both cases, the word of God was twisted and re-interpreted while suspending the normal laws of hermeneutics and simple logic, to accommodate and justify the doctrinal vote. Jesus Christ was never given a vote in either assembly, despite professions of His “lordship”, and as a consequence, the Holy Spirit was displaced as the anointed Interpreter of sacred scripture.

Permanence-of-marriage blogger Neil Novotnak has done an excellent job of pointing out the scriptural and logical flaws in the Westminster Confession. This blog will attempt to do the same with AOG’s 1973 position paper “DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE Application of General Scriptural Principles“ which resulted from a General Council vote in the wake of multistate legislative enactment of unilateral (“no-fault”) divorce, and was approved by the General Presbytery. This popular vote removed official denominational by-laws that proscribed AOG pastors from performing weddings for any couple where either the bride or the groom had an estranged living spouse, and “removed from fellowship” any pastor who knowingly did so. (In the early 2000’s, the AOG quietly made it compulsory for its pastors to perform such weddings as it previously forbade for more than 60 years since inception of the denomination.)

This position paper introduces its Statement of Biblical Principles by citing some statistics,

Barna Group, “New Marriage and Divorce Statistics Released,” [March 31, 2008 – link no longer available]

and by stating:

“It is imperative at such a time that the Christian church clarify, teach, and faithfully uphold what the Bible says about marriage. The Church must also speak biblically to the issue of divorce and remarriage, which occur all too often as one, or both, marital partners abandon their Christian ethical commitments and responsibilities.” (page 1)

SIFC wholeheartedly agrees with the scriptural faithfulness of the first three points in the Statement of Biblical Principles, but begins to have a problem with point #4 (middle of page 2):

4. Marriage is to be sexually consummated. At the Creator’s command, the first man and woman were to “become one flesh” for purposes of procreation, bonding, and mutual pleasure in a safe and loving relationship (Genesis 2:24). Jesus himself reiterated the divine intent (Matthew 19:4,5) and Paul instructed Christian spouses faithfully and regularly to fulfill their sexual responsibilities to each other (1 Corinthians 7:3-5).

The errors:
(1) This description of purpose completely misses the most important purpose for biblical marriage, and neglects to mention that marriage was the very first of God’s sacred symbols, one that is prominently portrayed in almost every book of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, symbols of which God Himself told us He is jealously protective. Marriage was, from its Gen. 2:24 beginning, purposed to represent all of God’s inviolable, irrevocable covenants which were to follow, and also purposed to represent (rather than misrepresent) the relationship of Christ with His bride, the Church, as discussed by Paul in Eph. 5:28-31.

(2) The point #4 AOG discussion of “become one flesh” misses (or deliberately downplays) the most important aspects of what Jesus had to say in Matthew 19 and Mark 10–probably the same chronological occasion–about that process. Indeed, AOG’s text seems to deliberately stop at Matt. 19:5 in order to avoid the conflicting truth in Matt. 19:6:

The exact words of Jesus:

“Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” ( – according to Matthew)

“But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and the two shall become one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” ( – according to Mark)

These aspects are:

– God does the joining, and He enters the covenant as a participant, reflecting a supernatural and irreversible event, unique to the specific couple.

– “No longer two” occurs before the physical consummation (unless there was prior fornication between them) and is not primarily an ongoing process. Furthermore, this phrase clearly refers to how God henceforth views them in commanding no man to separate.

– The man leaves his father and mother, not a covenant spouse to whom he’s been supernaturally joined by God. The supernatural process is not replicated so long as both spouses live.

Every significant church father uniformly understood this for the first 400 years after Jesus went to the cross, and it was the basis, along with Luke 16:18, for the prior AOG by-laws banning adulterous weddings in the fellowship. St. Augustine perhaps best captured this scripturally-correct (and conveniently-overlooked)understanding:

“There is a ‘conjugal something’ (quiddam conjugale) which continues to exist between spouses so long as both are alive, even if they have separated, such that any second union can meaningfully be called adulterous.”

(3) AOG point #4 also pulls off a slimy, and sadly consistent, trick of the evangelical marriage revisionists of all stripes: they convert a commandment or fact of the Most High God into an “intent.” In so doing, they trivialize the stern warnings against adultery that came repeatedly from the lips of Jesus (such as Matt. 5:28-30), from Paul (1 Cor. 6:9-10, Gal. 6:7-8 and Hebrews 13:4), and from John (Rev. 21:8). They quite literally compromise souls out of the fear of man when they should be fearing God, who sovereignly has no “intents”, “designs”, “ideals”, “bests”, nor the like. They ignore the entire thrust of Christ’s sermon on the mount, of abrogating various Mosaic accommodations, His warning that His followers’ righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees, and that participation in the kingdom of God is at stake.

(SIFC is aware of no major scriptural issues with AOG’s point #5 dealing with homosexuality, and fervently hopes they are able to stand firm on the word of God in the coming years, suffering as necessary to do so.)

6. God intended marriage to be a permanent union. The man was to depart from his parents’ home in order to “be united to his wife, and … become one flesh” with her (Genesis 2:24). Both Jesus (Matthew 19:5) and Paul (Ephesians 5:31) quoted this passage from Genesis as the foundational premise of marriage. Translating Jesus’ quotation, Matthew used a Greek word for “united (kollaō)” that means “to be glued to, be closely bound to” (Matthew 19:5). Jesus added, “Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate” (19:6).

The errors:

(1) All of what was just said above about point #4 is of equal weight and force here, particularly error (3) above.

(2) Additionally, in the accurate discussion of the Greek root word “kollao” (actual word form used in the passage is κολληθήσεται – kollēthēsetai) above, there is omitted consideration of a contrasting word used in 1 Cor. 6:16-17 in speaking of sexual immorality that is devoid of the supernatural joining by God in Matt. 19:6. But before we go there, let’s mention that Matt. 19:6 is the ONLY usage of kollēthēsetai in canonized scripture (an important fact this is missed when limiting the discussion to the root word “kollao“). Let’s also mention that in Mark 10:7 the word used is “proskollēthēsetai“ προσκολληθήσεται (“cleave to”), which is used only twice in canonized scripture, the other usage being by Paul in articulating the supernatural, symbolic element of covenant joining in Eph. 5:31.

What is the contrasting word for carnal physical joining not accomplished by God but wrought by men in insult to God? It’s kollōmenos κολλώμενος. This is the word for joining that can be undone. In fact, it’s the word for joining that must be undone to be in right standing with God. (The significance of all of this will be reinforced when we get deeper into this errant position paper.)

7. God intended marriage to be monogamous. The Creator’s acts in establishing marriage are focused on one man and one woman. The order of marriage itself (Genesis 2:24) is directed at a monogamous pair, “man” and “wife” being singular. Polygamy did exist in the Old Testament era, of course. The first case was in Cain’s line (Genesis 4:19) with many Old Testaments examples, including some of the patriarchs, to follow. But polygamy is never held up to be the ideal. The Old Testament writers indirectly criticize polygamy by showing the resultant strife (for example, Genesis 21:9,10; 37:2-36; 2 Samuel 13-18). Passages that idealize marriage normally do so by speaking of one husband and one wife (see Psalm 128:3; Proverbs 5:18; 31:10-29; Ecclesiastes 9:9). Jesus also affirms that God’s ideal from the beginning was monogamy, speaking of “man” and “wife” in the singular, with the “two” becoming one flesh (Matthew 19:5,6). There is no reference to polygamy as a practice of the Early Church; and, in any event, it would be proscribed for leaders by Paul’s references to a “one woman man” (1 Timothy 3:2,12; Titus 1:6).

The errors:

(1) There’s that slew of wishy-washy “i -words” again! Intent, ideal….idealized…(review again AOG point #4, error (3).

(2) “There is no reference to polygamy as a practice of the Early Church; and, in any event, it would be proscribed for leaders by Paul’s references to a “one woman man” (1 Timothy 3:2,12; Titus 1:6).”
In light of the facts established above, that God uniquely and irrevocably joins a non-adulterous pair (i.e. no prior living spouse) never again to be two, but considered one person in His sight, we must consider not only the contextually-recognized type of polygamy (concurrent), but also prevalent type which point #7 of this position paper is aimed to appease (serial or sequential polygamy) . If covenant marriage is indissoluble except by death, as Paul made very clear (Romans 7:2-3; 1 Cor. 7:39), and Jesus forcefully stated in Matt. 19:6 / Mark 10:9, then to presume to marry another spouse while the first spouse is alive is serial monogamy or sequential polygamy, take your pick. The LGBT activist community and its supporters, have no problems at all discerning, and loudly voicing, the holes in the AOG’s official witness on this matter, so our denomination’s determined myopia is quite remarkable!

Is it beyond all realm of possibility that there was no mention of polygamy (of either variety), as a practice of the Early Church because what they did practice was holiness? And perhaps Paul meant precisely what he said to Timothy and to Titus, that remarried adulterers (by the standards of Luke 16:18) need not apply as deacon or overseer.

Pre-1973, those aforementioned AOG by-laws read as follows:

“(e) We disapprove of any married minister of the Assemblies of God holding credentials if either minister or spouse has a former companion living. “

We daresay that a sizeable proportion of those in attendance to General Council 2015 in Orlando will be remarried, sequential polygamists who benefitted from the rule change in 1973, whose credentials are no doubt impeccable as one-woman (at a time) men. Greek semantics aside, they will be influential, no doubt, among those casting the next votes on the commandments of Christ versus cultural relevance, if not this year, by 2017 when perhaps concurrent polygamy will be freshly legalized by court decree.

(SIFC is aware of no major scriptural issues with AOG’s points #8, 9 or 10, dealing with the covenant nature, the mutually self-sacrificing nature, or the child-nurturing nature of biblical marriage, other than the vacuous use of those aforementioned “i”-words, so we move on to the AOG’s application of their version of these principles.)

The Nature of Divorce

(Point 1- God Hates Divorce, pages 3-4)…”Divorce was not a part of God’s original intention for humanity. His purposes in marriage are hindered when the marital covenant is deliberately broken. The divine purpose can only be realized as the husband and wife subject themselves to Christ and each other, as described in Ephesians 5:21-31….God’s hatred for divorce, however, is not to be interpreted as condemnation of those who themselves are not at fault, but have been divorced and victimized by the ungodly actions of their spouses. The divorce laws and teachings of the Old Testament were designed to add a measure of protection for the innocent, not to heap guilt upon the victims of circumstances over which they had little or no control.”

The errors: The first sentence is a nefarious understatement, containing one of those “i”-words again. Divorce is an entirely manmade fabrication that purports to do what God expressly denied men any authority to do (Matt. 19:6; Mark 10:9), to deign to separate a supernaturally-joined one-flesh entity into two again, and remove God’s participation from an unconditional triune covenant. Only death does that (Romans 7:2-3; 1 Cor. 7:39).

The latter part of the statement seems even more nefarious. SIFC knows of no petition for dissolution of that which God says cannot be civilly dissolved that was initiated by any spouse’s actions. SIFC can confidently assure all readers from actual experience in the courtroom that actions, regardless how despicable, have no legal standing whatsoever in “family court” ! Petitions are filed by human persons, whether innocent or guilty of harm against the marriage. Those human persons, all other facts and circumstances aside, are therefore each guilty of rebelling against at least two of the Lord’s commandments, 1 Cor. 6: 1-6, and 1 Cor. 7:10-11 if they are followers of Christ.

Further, the argument that somehow the church’s policies of obedience to 1 Cor. 7:10-11, Romans 7:2-3 and 1 Cor. 7:39, heaps guilt on “victims of circumstances” is sinful on its face, and even worse, is based on nothing but emotions. This behavior has been emulated to great effect by the LGBT activists in the days since, because it works, though it is desperately without merit. Sons and daughters of the King are NEVER hapless victims. Presuming to assume a role as their defender (apparently against taking up the cross of Christ) of such deemed “victims” thrusts church leadership into a role that God intended only for Himself. As alluded to in the last sentence of this statement, Moses also made this error, and was rebuked by Jesus for it: “Moses allowed you to put away your wives because of the hardness of your hearts, but from the beginning, IT WAS NOT SO!”
(We will leave aside for now the additional fact that the Mosaic divorce law- as contrasted with the rabbinic degradations of it that came after the death of Moses – applied very narrowly to the Jewish betrothal period, and never applied at all to consummated marriages – discussed fully with the next point below.)

(Point 2- The Law regulated divorce, page 4)…”The Old Testament divorce law was thus a necessary hedge against human sinfulness. The Law provided that, while the husband was the only one who could initiate divorce, he could do so only under carefully prescribed circumstances (Deuteronomy 24:1-4; cf. 22:13-19, 28,29; Genesis 21:8-21).

The regulative nature of the Law is seen in the confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees who erred in saying Moses commanded that a man give a certificate of divorce to his wife, thus freeing him to send her away (Matthew 19:1-9). Jesus pointed out that Moses only permitted (epitrepō) them to divorce their wives—but even then not for “every cause” as was commonly practiced at the time (Matthew 19:3,7,8). Jesus accurately read the divorce provisions of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 where the Hebrew is a simple sequence that does not command divorce, but simply recognizes that it happens under certain circumstances.

The errors: We shall have to take a scholarly look at each of the scriptures cited above because most have been notoriously and unfaithfully interpreted over the past 500 years. Given the supremacy God’s design which rarely included any provision for ongoing estrangement between one-flesh spouses, however, we must take exception to the assertion that any manmade contrivance constituted a “necessary hedge” against human sinfulness. Such notions presume an impotent, rather than omnipotent God! The verses cited are typically quoted as “proof” that God generally provided for civil dissolution of marriage in certain circumstances. But looked at more carefully, they are specific courses of action beyond divorce in various specific circumstances, each a unique case and course of Mosaic action.
Further, however, Jesus plainly announced in His sermon on the mount that He was thereby abrogating the Mosaic divorce law in its entirety.

Situation #1 – the unconsummated fiancée, with “some indecency“:

When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house, and she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man’s wife, and if the latter husband turns against her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her to be his wife, then her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance. Deut. 24:1-4

(the “indecency” was typically a matter of consanguinity and the rules were there due to the Hebrew dowry and bride price. This would not have applied to a consummated marriage because of adultery, for example, occurring after the marriage. The penalty for that offense was stoning to death, which made “divorce” a moot point. That said, because in 6 B.C. the occupying Romans outlawed this practice throughout the empire, including in Israel and Judah, the Pharisees thought–in similar fashion to today’s Pharisees–that this law would serve as a handy compensation. Further note: this scripture is totally irrelevant to Christ’s commandment to be reconciled to our one-flesh covenant spouse, and to release any adultery partners to holiness. )

Situation #2 – the one-time consummation, evidencing prior lack of virginity (or false allegation thereof):

“If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then turns against her, and charges her with shameful deeds and publicly defames her, and says, ‘I took this woman, but when I came near her, I did not find her a virgin,’ then the girl’s father and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of the girl’s virginity to the elders of the city at the gate. The girl’s father shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man for a wife, but he turned against her; and behold, he has charged her with shameful deeds, saying, “I did not find your daughter a virgin.” But this is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.’ And they shall spread the garment before the elders of the city. So the elders of that city shall take the man and chastise him, and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give it to the girl’s father, because he publicly defamed a virgin of Israel. And she shall remain his wife; he cannot divorce her all his days. Deut. 22:13-19

This one should be self-explanatory because it is clear on its surface. However, note again that the penalty for betraying the marriage covenant through fornication prior to marriage consummation, since it was warranted in the ketubah, or betrothal contract making the Hebrew bride-to-be legally a wife was stoning, not divorce.

Situation #3 – the unbetrothed rape victim

“If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered, then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days.” Deut. 22:28-29

We do not see the relevance of this passage to covenant marriage but see that it was included, apparently, because of its mention of “divorce”. But while we’re on the subject, the Hebrew root word here is “shalach” which means “send away”. This is very different from civil divorce of today because it could be accomplished without any civil authority, unless there were extenuating circumstances such as in this instance.

Situation #4 – the repudiated concubine, cast out by the covenant wife

Without pasting in this long passage, Genesis 21:8-21, we will simply link to it, which is the story of Sarah sending Hagar away with her illegitimate son. We again do not see any relevance to the point being made in the paper, but it does appear to be another usage of “shalach“. If anything, it strengthens the inviolable and indissoluble rights of the covenant family which God mandated from the beginning. It shows that in the case of a concubine who was a personal maid, the husband was not the only one who could “put away” or “send away”.

(Point 3 – Jesus forbade divorce as contrary to God’s will and word, page 4)… SIFC agrees with this point in all respects, as stated.

(Point 4 – Paul forbade Christian couples to divorce….page 4)… SIFC substantially agrees with this point except for the subtle inference that there would be valid reasons to divorce a covenant spouse. The only valid reason to seek to be severed from any spouse would be to reconcile with a covenant spouse after realizing from Christ’s and Paul’s teachings that a subsequent civil marriage was adulterous.

(Point 5 – Paul forbade Christians to take the initiative in divorce simply because their partner was an unbeliever….pages 4-5)… “While making every effort to preserve the marriage, when the unbelieving spouse was definitely unwilling to continue, the believer should not, at all costs, attempt to restrain him/her. In these cases, abandonment, by implication, may be interpreted as grounds for divorce and remarriage.”

The last statement is patently false, conflicting with many other scriptures including 1 Cor. 7:11 and 7:39 within the same passage, but expressly conflicting with the law of indissolubility of covenant marriage except by death. Jesus bluntly stated at least three times that such a remarriage would constitute ongoing adultery per Luke 16:18; Matt. 5:32; and Matt. 19:9 (faithful texts). Dropping the inference in this false assertion, and instead taking our direction from Jesus and Paul, it eliminates the relevance of the awkward question that would otherwise go begging in this day of adulterous cohabitation and unilateral divorce, “what happens if you are abandoned by a believing spouse”?

Point 6 – Jesus permitted a Christian to initiate a divorce when “marital unfaithfulness” was involved…..page 5) Jesus did nothing of the sort! Both this assertion and its alleged support is deeply problematic on many levels. In 1957, Rev. Milton T. Wells, president of AOG’s Eastern Bible College (now Valley Forge University) wrote a scholarly book whose foreword was by none other than AOG’s General Superintendent at the time. This book, obtained from the Flower Pentecostal Heritage archives operated by AOG, is now in the public domain and is carried in its entirety on this blog. For an intellectually honest, faithfully rigorous, and hermeneutically-sound treatment of the arguments presented in Point 6, we refer the reader to this book, where exactly the opposite conclusions are reached.

AOG- 1973: The Greek word translated “marital unfaithfulness” in these passages is porneia,which would certainly include adultery in the context of these sayings (a pornē was a prostitute). However, porneia is a broad term for sexual immorality of various kinds, often habitual, both before and after marriage (Mark 7:21; Acts 15:20; 1 Corinthians 5:1; 6:18; Galatians 5:19; Ephesians 5:3; 1 Thessalonians 4:3).

This definition of “porneia”, whose Greek root, “porne” means to sell-off in the sense of commercial prostitution, is often cited by contemporary scholars as being a broadly inclusive heading of “sexual immorality”. However, there is significant evidence from 12 different lexicons and bible dictionaries / commentaries written prior to 1850 or so, that this definition has since been manipulated by translators with an agenda to falsely include immoral acts by married persons, where it originally applied only to various acts of immorality by unmarried persons. That’s why the older translations, including the Douay-Reims, the Geneva Bible, in addition to the King James version all translated “porneia” as “whoredom” or “fornication”, and treated it separately from adultery, as did both Jesus and Paul very consistently. Such treatment would be consistent with the discussions above of Deuteronomy 22 and 24 passages that deal only with an unconsummated or single-consummation bride situation. Rev. Wells was aware of this in 1957, and he discussed the same in his book. Other than relying on untrustworthy translation, this aspect of Point 6 is purely fabricated.

AOG- 1973: (Jesus did differentiate between porneia and moicheia elsewhere [Matthew 15:19; Mark 7:21] and the verb moicheuō is used in Matthew 5:32;19:9 to describe the actions of the sinful party who forces the divorce without a valid cause.)

These statements are all true. However, Jesus made it plain that there is NEVER a valid cause for divorce of a one-flesh covenant marriage under any circumstances, unlike an adulterous union in which God is not a covenant participant. Since Jesus was clearly talking about the covenant wife it is immaterial whether she was innocent or guilty of premarital immorality. If she was guilty, He is merely saying it wasn’t the husband who caused her to be guilty, but the time frame to “put away” such a wife has lapsed. If she is innocent, He is saying that the husband is forcing her into probable adultery by rejecting and abandoning her, so that he’s guilty not only of his own sin, but hers as well. In any event, He is saying that an otherwise-innocent man who marries somebody else’s discarded wife commits adultery. In other words, the innocent spouse may not remarry without also committing ongoing adultery. Unrepentant adultery sends people to hell. Inexplicably, AOG appears here to be correctly stating all of the objective facts, but not reaching a conclusion that those facts objectively support.

AOG – 1973: In Matthew 5:31,32 and 19:8,9, Jesus spoke of the man’s initiative in divorcing an immoral partner. In Jewish society, normally, only the man had that legal right—though certain upper-class women, as Herodias, seem to have done so (Matthew 14:3; note that in Mark 10:11,12, Jesus warns both sexes against groundless divorces). Clearly, the spiritual principle applies for either men or women. Moreover, it should be noted that Jesus granted permission to divorce only under specific circumstances where sexual immorality was involved. He did not, however, issue a command to divorce, since such action would rule out any possibility of reconciliation…..

It is seldom, if ever, that any single passage gives all aspects of truth on any single theme. To come to an understanding of any truth, we must take the whole of what the Bible teaches, and that is the intent of this paper.”

Jesus did indeed speak of the man’s initiative in divorcing an allegedly immoral partner, but said absolutely nothing that would condone it. Jesus considered all covenant marriages indissoluble except by death, and not at all dissoluble by men. The statement that divorce rules out any possibility of reconciliation is patently false and without biblical justification. Many such couples reconcile and remarry their covenant spouse, as only this is repentance in God’s will.

It is also true that to rightly divide God’s word we must compare with the whole of what the Bible teaches, in context, with correct language translation, consideration of cultural factors, and comparison with all other scripture on the same topic. When this is done, the faulty rendering of Matt. 5:32 and Matt. 19:9 to contrive an “exception clause” has even less support. Where is the comparison with Luke 16:18? Or with Malachi 2? Or Matt. 19:6? Or Mark 10:9?

The “Right” to Remarry

Pages 6 and 7 then launch into a 6-point attempt to recast what Jesus three times called adultery (Matt. 5:32; Matt. 19:9 and Luke 16:18 – “whoever marries one who has been put away commits [ongoing] adultery’) as biblically lawful establishment of a “new covenant” for the “innocent spouse”. This is very odd, because if the guilty spouse cannot remarry by this logic because the marriage covenant is undissolved, neither may the other spouse, innocent or guilty, with whom the marriage covenant is also undissolved remarry. As Rev. Wells succinctly put it: “We know of no one-sided marriages.” These are all the same false arguments we’ve already discredited above, until Points 5(b) and 6 which we will address here.

AOG 1973: Point 5b, page 7: “The objection sometimes is made that two passages, Romans 7:1-3 and 1 Corinthians 7:39, specifically say a woman is bound to her husband until death; therefore, believers may not divorce or remarry short of the death of their spouse.

Romans 7:1-3—A careful examination of the context shows that Paul’s point is to illustrate the believer’s freedom from the Law. In ancient Judaism, only the husband could initiate divorce. Therefore, his wife was bound to him as long as she lived, unless, of course, he chose to divorce her. Paul’s point is to show that the believer has died to the Law and is now alive to serve in the new way of the Spirit. The passage was not intended to address the problems of divorce and remarriage.

1 Corinthians 7:39—This verse appears to refer back to verses 8,9 which deal with those who have never married as well as with widows. So Paul is addressing widows whose husbands have passed away. The passage does not deal with the question of divorce and remarriage. Moreover, Paul has already addressed the problem of abandonment in verse 15 and shown that “A believing man or woman is not bound [that is, free to remarry] in such circumstances.”

Both arguments constitute presumptions and deceitful rationalizations. Both presume that divorce of a one-flesh covenant marriage can be accomplished, to begin with, in the courthouse of heaven, and such dissolution deemed valid there. Jesus spoke very forcefully that this was never the case. As we are seeing to an ever-increasing degree, civil law is one thing; God’s law is something else entirely.

There are five “C” ‘s involved in the principles of sound hermeneutics, and context is indeed one of them. But it does not follow in either the case of Romans 7:2-3 or 1 Cor. 7:39 that just because Paul is using Christ’s law of marriage in an analogy about something else, that the meaning is in that case taken out of context. It clearly is not out of context here. Its meaning, perfectly consistent with a preponderance of other OT and NT scripture, remains completely valid in this context by valid deductive reasoning (as contrasted with the widespread use of inductive reasoning attempted throughout this paper). To dismissively claim that these verses “do not address divorce and remarriage” is false on its surface:

Romans 7:3 “So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress.”

1 Cor. 7:39 “but if her husband is dead, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.”

Lastly, we need to deal with the assertion that “Paul has already addressed the problem of abandonment in verse 15 and shown that “A believing man or woman is not bound [that is, free to remarry] in such circumstances.” The presumption, blatantly contrary to both 1 Cor. 7:11 and 39, that an abandoned spouse is “free to remarry” is underpinned by a false translation of the word “bound” in verse 15, and by inferior inductive reasoning, when the facts are present to reach the opposite conclusion via deductive reasoning . In point 4 on page 6, this paper correctly renders this word as “douloo” meaning “not enslaved”, but fails to note that this is not the actual word for “marriage bond” that Paul used in verse 39 and in Romans 7:2. That Greek word is “deo“. Unless marriage is to be deemed to be “enslavement”, and in light of the conflict with the surrounding verses, it is not scholarly to infer a right to remarry from the usage of the word “douloo“. That would be inconsistent with the foundational principle that only death breaks the marriage covenant bond.

AOG 1973: Point 6, page 7: “Remarriage establishes a new marriage covenant. While Scripture makes it clear that errant spouses who sinfully break their marriage covenant do commit adultery, Scripture never places such guilt on the innocent partner. Those who argue that an innocent believer continuously commits sin by living in a new marriage have not a single shred of biblical evidence. Jesus clearly assumed that those who were divorced by sinful spouses, or those who divorced sinful spouses for “marital uncleanness” or abandonment, were free to remarry without any tinge of adultery. However, believers are to remarry one who“belong[s] to the Lord” (1 Corinthians 7:39) and the new marriage covenant is to be permanent.”

This is by far the most egregious statement in the position paper, having moved from unscholarly and misinformed to inexcusably slanderous of God’s character in covenant. God does not break any covenant in which He participates, nor does He enter into a duplicitous covenant at the expense of the first. There is no evidence offered in support of this slanderous statement, because there cannot exist such evidence. However, our previous blog addressed God’s character in covenant extensively with strong scholarly support.

The statement above that “Scripture never places such guilt on the innocent partner” is emotionally-charged and assumes an unhelpful perspective. While Jesus would not have sought to place “guilt” on anyone, He would bring conviction on everyone. He meant no malice when He stated, “whoever marries one who has been put away commits [ongoing – per the present-indicative verb tense] adultery.” He was merely stating that the marriage covenant is dissolved only by death, without exceptions. As for the allegation that there is not a “single shred of biblical evidence…that an innocent believer continuously commits sin by living in a new marriage”, we certainly have the Greek interlinear translations with Greek verb tense, for all three passages where Jesus made the clear statement, “whoever marries one who has been put away commits adultery“, Matthew 19:9, Matthew 5:32 and Luke 16:18. In each case, it’s the present-indicative form used for an ongoing state. Rev. Wells confirms this in his book by quoting two Greek linguistic experts. The words of Jesus repeated on three separate occasions is incontrovertible evidence to most. Jesus spoke of the state of being eunuch for the kingdom of God right after He dismayed His disciples that they could not put away their wives for any cause, including adultery, and expect to remarry without being guilty of living in an ongoing state of adultery due to the undissolved original marriage covenant that is neither dissolved by civil divorce nor adultery nor remarriage. There should therefore be far more concern for that innocent spouse’s soul than for their “rights” and feelings.

Anyone who has remarried adulterously, whether solemnized in church or otherwise, dare not stay in such a union or consider it permanent. Paul stated repeatedly that unrepentant adulterers will not inherit the kingdom of God, and that God avenges the adulterous defilers of the marriage bed. Jesus Himself said that it is better to gouge out an eye or sever a hand than miss heaven due to carnality, and made it clear that failure to forgive anyone, much less the one person on earth with whom we are one-flesh, will forfeit one’s own forgiveness by God. James warned that teachers of the law will be held to a higher level of judgment than those they mislead. This would certainly include those who counsel and seal people into the ongoing state of adultery by performing such weddings.

The remainder of the 1973 Position Paper discusses eligibility for leadership and for church offices, generally following the unscriptural standards set out above, and disagreeing that the ongoing state of remarriage adultery jeopardizes the members’ salvation. To that extent, these positions are at odds with instructions by Paul that such office-holders maintain their own households in good order, and be the husband of one wife, since adulterously remarried partners are serial polygamists due to the indissolubility by men of their original marriage bond.

In closing, we have now had occasion to observe whether the persecution and shame brought by the desecration of civil marriage due to legalizing same-sex nuptuals by judicial fiat, devoid of God’s redeeming intervention, would be enough to bring the church under godly sorrow, self examination and contrite repentance. So far, this has not been the case. In these couple of weeks the evangelical airwaves have been full of sermons drawing quite valid parallels with the fall of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians, while citing the warnings in Deuteronomy 28, and the resulting exile, but nobody is yet willing to admit it was due to Asherah worship by heterosexuals within the church. Nobody yet is talking about the moral purge that was carried out under the prophet Ezra that began with the shepherds of God.

We shall have to see whether the expected ascendancy of concurrent polygamists’ “rights” to further redefine civil marriage help the church to recognize its own practices sequential polygamy, and to repent, before the destruction of our nation becomes final in the Lord’s hand. Two other societies in history, prior to contemporary times, enacted unilateral divorce laws equivalent to those in the U.S., the Eastern Roman / Byzantine Empire, and Bolshevik Russia. Both societies failed within two generations because the church failed to be the church in standing against it.

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7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

Connection of Unilateral Divorce to SSM, Discipleship, marriage, morality

Revisiting The Call To Public Witness On Marriage

July 7, 2015 standerinfamilycourt 1 Comment

by Standerinfamilycourt

It seems that in its hyperfocus on homosexual marriage, the Southern Baptist Convention has missed at least 4 opportunities in its 2015 “Call to Witness” to shore up the requisite moral authority to speak to the Supreme Court and others about the biblical definition of marriage by reaffirming its permanence. That’s like trying to run the marathon on one leg: lots of effort, little effect and looking very silly in the attempt.

2015 COLUMBUS, OHIO

WHEREAS, God in His divine wisdom created marriage as the covenanted, conjugal union of one man and one woman (Genesis 2:18–24; Matthew 19:4–6; Hebrews 13:4); and

WHEREAS, The Baptist Faith & Message (2000) recognizes the biblical definition of marriage as “the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime,” stating further, “It is God’s unique gift to reveal the union between Christ and His church and to provide for the man and the woman in marriage the framework for intimate companionship, the channel of sexual expression according to biblical standards, and the means for procreation of the human race”; and

WHEREAS, God ordains government to promote and honor the public good and recognize what is praiseworthy (Romans 13:3–4); and

WHEREAS, The public good requires defining and defending marriage as the covenanted, conjugal union of one man and one woman; and

SIFC note: Missed 2015 opportunity to reinforce SBC’s The Baptist Faith & Message (2000) by reiterating that they will defend marriage as the covenanted, conjugal union of one man and one woman for life.

WHEREAS, Marriage is by nature a public institution that unites man and woman in the common task of bringing forth children; and

WHEREAS, The Supreme Court of the United States will rule in 2015 on whether states shall be required to grant legal recognition as “marriages” to same-sex partnerships; and

WHEREAS, The redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples will continue to weaken the institution of the natural family unit and erode the religious liberty and rights of conscience of all who remain faithful to the idea of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife; and

SIFC note: Missed 2015 opportunity to reinforce SBC’s The Baptist Faith & Message (2000) by reiterating that eroding religious liberty and rights of conscience of all who remain faithful to the idea of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife for life is just as undesirable as intolerance for those who oppose homosexual unions.

WHEREAS, The Bible calls us to love our neighbors, including those who disagree with us about the definition of marriage and the public good; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Columbus, Ohio, June 16–17, 2015, prayerfully call on the Supreme Court of the United States to uphold the right of the citizens to define marriage as exclusively the union of one man and one woman; and be it further

RESOLVED, That Southern Baptists recognize that no governing institution has the authority to negate or usurp God’s definition of marriage;

SIFC note: Nor does any church have authority to do the same by disregarding either its complementary, or its indissolubility and permanence.

and be it further

RESOLVED, No matter how the Supreme Court rules, the Southern Baptist Convention reaffirms its unwavering commitment to its doctrinal and public beliefs concerning marriage; and be it further

RESOLVED, That the religious liberty of individual citizens or institutions should not be infringed as a result of believing or living according to the biblical definition of marriage; and be it further

SIFC note: Living according to the biblical definition of marriage includes religious liberty to assert the permanence of man-woman first marriage, especially in the family court system of each state.

RESOLVED, That the Southern Baptist Convention calls on Southern Baptists and all Christians to stand firm on the Bible’s witness on the purposes of marriage, among which are to unite man and woman as one flesh and to secure the basis for the flourishing of human civilization; and be it finally

SIFC note: Missed 2015 opportunity to reinforce SBC’s The Baptist Faith & Message (2000) by reiterating that among the purposes of marriage are to unite man and woman as one flesh for life in order to secure the basis for the flourishing of human civilization.

If standing firm on the Bible’s witness is important, why not:

RESOLVED, members of the Southern Baptist Convention hereby pledge to honor the permanence of holy matrimony by ceasing to perform all wedding ceremonies where either the prospective bride or groom has a living prior spouse, and to remove from ministry any pastor who knowingly performs such a ceremony?

RESOLVED, members of the Southern Baptist Convention hereby pledge to honor the permanence of holy matrimony by expending political resources and moral influence to end unilateral divorce in every state in the United States?

RESOLVED, That Southern Baptists love our neighbors and extend respect in Christ’s name to all people, including those who may disagree with us about the definition of marriage and the public good.

SIFC Concluding Thoughts: It must be terrifying for Christian organizations to go up on a shoestring budget against the corporate-backed, well funded LGBT political machine. But was Israel not in the same place, in the natural against her adversaries? It appears the SBC is willing to play down some of its core biblical principles because it fears the loss of financial support, forgetting the God who pared down one army to only 300 so that His power would be manifest. He urges the battle is His, only fear Him alone and do not mock Him by violating His commandments.

Now I know that the Lord saves His anointed;
He will answer him from His holy heaven
With the saving strength of His right hand.
Some boast in chariots and some in horses,
But we will boast in the name of the Lord, our God.
They have bowed down and fallen,
But we have risen and stood upright.
Save, O Lord;
May the King answer us in the day we call.
– Psalm 20

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7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

Discipleship, morality

What about that Samaritan Woman?

July 6, 2015 standerinfamilycourt 1 Comment

By Standerinfamilycourt

“The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.” He *said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus *said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.” The woman said to Him, ‘Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet’. – John 4:15-19

Marriage revisionists (remarriage apologists) in the evangelical church love to trot out the story in John 4:5-42 just at the point where they can no longer refute context and language correction offered in rebuttal of their three or four “go-to” passages, which they insist justify remarriage while a covenant spouse is still living. Or it comes in handy when they agree with the accurate biblical principles that irrefutably point to the indissolubility by men of the marriage covenant, but in their squeamishness of the consequence thereof, they use this story to justify their counsel that people living in the ongoing sin of remarriage adultery should remain in that sin, despite the stern warnings in 1 Cor. 6:9-10 and Rev. 21:8 of risk to their souls, despite the idolatry entailed, and despite the trail of unreconciled relationship carnage and legacy of generational sin in sometimes TWO covenant families.

“Yup, we’ve got to admit that there is no pre-20th century scholarly support for the notion that the Greek “porneia” is generalized sexual immorality, notwithstanding our NIV bible translation to the contrary. OK, we concede that there’s no exception in Matt. 19:9 or 5:32 that truly applies to consummated marriages. But, Jesus never told the Samaritan woman she had to leave the man with whom she was shacking up, and be reconciled to her first husband…”

“Fine, you’ve showed us that there’s a clause that was amputated from Matthew 19:9, our favorite exception clause verse and that jettisoned clause reads, ‘whoever marries one who is put away commits adultery‘ (Just like Matt. 5:32 and the dreaded Luke 16:18 does.) Yeah, OK, “commits adultery” is, in all three verses, in the Greek tense indicating an ongoing state of sin, and not a one-time act. But Jesus said the Samaritan woman had five husbands, so that proves the marriage covenant must be dissolved by remarriage…”

“OK, so the word ‘bound’ in 1 Cor. 7:15 doesn’t mean ‘marriage bond’ since douloo isn’t the same Greek word as deo, but that Samaritan woman ….”

Thank goodness for that Samaritan woman, that fabled woman-at-the-well, lest the cause of hyper-grace cultural relativism be set back at least 50 years in the church! She is the coup-de-grace, the piece-de-resistance. By way of “reality-check”, there are a number logical issues to address before the thinking person relies too heavily on the woman-at-the-well to feel eternally comfortable in an ongoing situation that Jesus, in no uncertain terms, called adulterous on at least three separate occasions. Not only did He say so, all of his disciples’ disciples emulated Him in asserting this for the next 400 years after He went to the cross.

Without naming names or linking to their statements, let me say that it’s nothing short of amazing how many times I’ve seen some of the most disciplined theological minds today, even those who have written authoritative papers on the indissolubility of the original covenant marriage bond, fall back on this old saw simply because they feel squeamish about telling somebody who is civilly wed to someone else’s one-flesh covenant spouse that repenting of their ongoing state of adultery must be accomplished by severing the immoral relationship. Freeing that spouse to recover their inheritance in the kingdom of God (by either remaining celibate or reconciling with their rightful spouse) seems too sinful. After writing the scriptural truth with solid integrity and sound hermeneutics, they will then avoid bringing that truth to its only fitting outcome, and instead lapse into slovenly inference when discussing that Samaritan woman.

So, here are the top five reasons this S-W-A-W’s water jug of purported remarriage justification doesn’t actually hold water:

5. There are husbands, and there are “husbands“.

The Greek word for “husband” in John 4: 16-18 varies slightly by verse. Revisionists like to claim that Jesus recognized these remarriages as valid because He allegedly used the word “husband”. Maybe so, maybe not so much.

4:16 “Go call your [andra] ἄνδρα …” Root word, aner, which is translated “man; male human being”. It is used interchangeably for both “man” and “husband” in 31 occurrences in the New Testament, but there are several additional Hebrew words that refer more specifically to a lawful male spouse which Jesus did not choose in this conversation. Keep in mind, He was probably addressing the woman in either Aramaic or Hebrew, and this was then translated into the Greek text that is the basis for our English bible.

4:17 “The woman answered and said, “I have no [andra] ἄνδρα .” Jesus said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no [andra] ἄνδρα ’;

4:18 “for you have had five [andras] ἄνδρας, and the one whom you now have is not your [aner] ἀνήρ; this you have said truly.”

Strangely, the last usage where Jesus was referring in verse 18 to her partner in cohabitation “is not your husband [aner] ” is the least specific to the married state, while at the same time referring to the married state. Among the several words for “husband” or “male companion” in Hebrew that Jesus likely used one or more of in His 4:18 response to this woman when she said she had no husband: Strongs 376 (eesh / isha) אִישָׁ֔הּ , Strongs 582 (enosh) אֱנוֹשׁ , Strongs 113 (adon) אָדֹן , Strongs 1167 (ba-al / ba-lah) בַּ֫עַל .

Just as we have translation issues from Greek to English, there’s no doubt we have the same sort of translation issues from Hebrew or Aramaic to Greek. True to the “Content” law of hermeneutics, it is just as important to accurate scripture interpretation / application to explore why an alternative synonym was NOT used, as it is to correctly translate the word that WAS used. Wasn’t Jesus, after all, merely acknowledging the gaping chasm between Mosaic civil law and God’s law, even if He did actually use a consistent Hebrew or Aramaic word for civil marriage partner?

4. Mention of a circumstance or situation does not logically equate to condoning it. Nor does silence on a matter logically support pure inference.

This is the classic “David-and-Bathsheba” fallacy. (More recently, it’s the specious “gay’s OK” argument.) People seeking to justify sin by shifting the focus off of what Jesus actually said usually try to point to scriptural mention of some vice, typically polygamy or some instance of adultery that prospered to some degree. Bathsheba’s son became a mighty, wise and wealthy king. Jacob and David both had multiple wives and concubines and the Lord prospered them. Jesus is never recorded in any of the gospels as speaking against homosexuality . So it must stand to reason that because the author of the book of John didn’t record Jesus as telling this woman the obvious, that she was living in either fornication or adultery, trying to plug a hole in her heart that only Jesus could fill, then adultery must not be all that bad, nor ongoing, if she’s in a “loving, commited relationship”. (Sound familiar?) Since He wasn’t recorded as telling her she must leave this man and reconcile with her unique one-flesh covenant husband who had apparently divorced her under Mosaic law, or was deceased, then adultery or civil divorce must dissolve our marriage covenant with God and with our rightful spouse.

Those who try to make this argument are presumptuously overlooking many things. First, is it not far more reasonable, based on a host of corroborating evidence, including what Jesus consistently said in like situations, to fill the silence on this with the presumption that He did tell her “go and sin no more”, as He did with the woman taken in the act of adultery? After all, the Samaritan woman readily admitted her adultery. Second, Jesus was all-knowing, which was the whole point of this story in the first place. Is it not perfectly reasonable that as He took His deep look into her soul He already saw that she had reached a point of conviction over her sin so that it was not necessary for Him to voice it? Didn’t the living water make the immoral relationship redundant in her own heart? Jesus also didn’t dress her down for any number of other sins He likewise mentions in Matthew 5, such as gossip and slander. By that same logic are those things OK for us today?

3. The rough circumstances of this woman’s life reflected the very Mosaic law that Jesus was poised to abrogate in Matt. 5:31-32.

It was said, ‘Whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce’; but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Moses originally allowed men to divorce a bride via a “bill of divorcement” that then annulled the ketubah the binding Hebrew contract of betrothal if “some uncleanness” was found in her. He further said that in such circumstances the man could never remarry her if she had subsequently remarried. Jesus pointed out the hardheartedness of the Hebrew men that caused them to subsequently expand this permission into a “commandment” and extend the “grounds” well beyond the wedding night over the ensuing centuries, until the prophet Malachi rebuked them in no uncertain terms and bluntly told them that God was refusing fellowship with them because He was standing as a witness in covenant with the wife of their youth. Jesus further rebuked this practice by saying, “unless your righteousness exceeds that of Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” He took them back to the garden scene in Genesis 2:24 and reminded them that a man leaves his father and mother (not his covenant one-flesh wife) and is inseparably joined to the wife of his youth.

So, this woman had experienced some combination of multiple divorce under Mosaic law, and (possibly) widowhood. So exactly as Jesus stated in Matthew 5, with few opportunities to support herself, she was either forced to commit adultery, or had been found not to be a virgin during the betrothal. Because of the Mosaic law which Jesus had come invalidate, she was foreclosed by the traditions of Hebrew society from any chance of reconciliation with the man with whom God had once supernaturally made her one-flesh. Presuming he was not deceased, the abrogation of the Mosaic law cleared away that prohibition. Regardless of what happened after that, the weight of context of everything else Jesus taught about the absolute indissolubility of the marriage bond makes it far more reasonable to infer that her civil marriages lacked God’s participation and sanction, just as remarriage does today while an estranged original spouse is still living.

2. Speaking of laws, why do the basic laws of hermeneutics always get suspended every time somebody’s sexual license is at stake?

We have a wonderful pastor at our Assembly of God fellowship. He is passionate about discipleship and passionate that people in our congregation learn the basics of rightly dividing the word of God so that they become discerning of false teaching that would lead them off course. In a recent sermon series, he taught the five basic “C’s” or principles of hermeneutics:

(1) Content – which depends on confirming the accurate translation of the text, as well as what is described
(2) Context – the immediate setting or backdrop against which whatever is going on in the verse(s) unfolds
(3) Culture – the broader backdrop of customs and history
(4) Comparison – is there a vast body of scripture against which the verse can be validly compared? Has it also been tested against the five “C’s” ? Does the popular or the offered interpretation of the verse conflict with the larger body of scripture, or is it in harmony?
(5) Consultation – what do the scholars say? Caveat: if it’s a topic involving sexual morality, it is best to make sure some of that consultation is with commentary that pre-dates 1850 when the marriage revisionists began to undertake writing lexicons and commentaries and translating bibles. Further caveat: make sure you know who those authors were as disciples of Christ (or not). Some of them have very colorful backgrounds. Know about two historical individuals in particular who wrote rogue commentaries of 1 Cor. 7: Ambrosiaster (4th century A.D.) and his protégé, Desiderius Erasmus (16th century A.D.) who heavily influenced this aspect of the Protestant Reformation.

As “standerinfamilycourt” has demonstrated above, once the five “C’s” are applied to this liberal interpretation of the woman-at-the-well story, it becomes readily apparent that several of the rules of sound hermeneutics have been suspended, and sometimes by highly-credentialed theologians.

Specifically, reason 5 above exposes the imprecise translation of the word andra as “husband” which fails in the principle of Content
– reason 4 above shows failure in the principle of
Comparison
– reason 3 above exposes imprecision in two principles,
Context and Culture.
– reason 1 below exposes failure in a SIXTH “C” – Common Sense!

1. Will we REALLY accuse the Master of approving the continuation of an immoral cohabitation arrangement? Really?

Does the surface absurdity of saying “Jesus never told the woman to leave her present relationship” actually require any elaboration? OK, here it is:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.” – Matt. 5:27-30

In recent days I’ve read the words of more than one prominent theologian saying (presumably, with a straight face) that Jesus’ words were only hyperbole. Paul clearly didn’t think they were mere “hyperbole” when he penned 1 Cor. 6:9-10 and Hebrews 13:4 to the body of believers. I dare them to utter the word “hyperbole” to Jesus’ face as they are explaining why they performed “x” number of wedding ceremonies that sealed people in ongoing adultery when they had the credentials to know better.

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

citizenship, Connection of Unilateral Divorce to SSM, Discipleship, Fundamental Rights, Religious freedom

Courts and Religious Freedom Dichotomy: Coincidence or “God-incidence”?

July 5, 2015 standerinfamilycourt Leave a comment

by Standerinfamilycourt

“The alien who is among you shall rise above you higher and higher, but you will go down lower and lower…. he shall be the head, and you will be the tail.

“So all these curses shall come on you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the Lord your God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you….The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as the eagle swoops down, a nation whose language you shall not understand, a nation of fierce countenance who will have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young.” – Deuteronomy 28:43-45, 49

“Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things. But do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? ….You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God? For “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,” just as it is written.
– Romans 1:28-32

[UPDATE: On July 14, 2015 the 10th Federal Circuit ruled against an injunction protecting the non-profit Little Sisters of the Poor from the HHS mandate to provide abortifacients and birth control to employees against their 1st Amendment right to free religious exercise, while on July 17, 2015 a judge in Federal district court, in he 7th Circuit reached the opposite result and granted a permanent injunction to for-profit Tyndale House Publishers.]

One week after the cataclysmic 5-4 pronouncement of the U.S. Supreme Court in Obergefell v Hodges, a poignant reminder of a very different sort of religious freedom pronouncement came up in SIFC’s i-phone, as decided by all the same SCOTUS justices only a year ago, June, 2014. Obergefell held that a newly-minted 14th Amendment fundamental right to redefine civil marriage, and to state-enforced “dignity” (which nevertheless remains a perception of the heart, mind and will as reflected against the backdrop of God’s law) shall supercede the very first fundamental right enumerated in the Bill of Rights, our irreplaceable freedom of religious exercise and of acting on our right of conscience. Unlike Obergefell, that 5-4 majority based their finding on sound constitutional analysis, with appropriate respect for precedent. That 2014 case was Burwell v Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.

The Becket Fund, a public interest religious freedom law firm that successfully represented Hobby Lobby before the Supreme Court last year has also enjoyed a long list of judicial successes affirming Christian-owned profit and non-profit entities who object to the requirements in the Obamacare mandate to provide birth control and abortifacient drugs to their employees. In so doing, they are upholding a “non-negotiable” in the kingdom of God that dates back to the days immediately following the days of Noah’s flood. God promised with a rainbow reminder to never again wipe out all life on the earth in a single event, no matter how vile and wicked man became again. He laid down one expectation, however: honor life.

Of the dozens of HHS mandate cases filed by religious non-profit organizations and Christian-owned for-profit firms, there have been 28 successful injunction requests to bar enforcement versus only 6 cases denied, and 6 favorable Supreme Court orders resulting directly from the Hobby Lobby ruling. In the case of a similar number of for-profit firms, there have been 8 temporary injunctions and 39 permanent injunctions granted, versus only one denial.

By contrast, the same pro-family, religious freedom Christian law firms, such as Liberty Counsel and the Alliance Defending Freedom, who were so successfully defending their clients’ honor of life issues in court, were at the same time losing virtually every case in every state and Federal Circuit where they attempted to uphold only half of God’s definition of marriage – complementarity, but not permanence. Sanctity-of-marriage is God’s second “non-negotiable“, one that He expects to be defended from far more than only the gender-confused.

Some of the judges in those cases bluntly pointed out the brazen hypocrisy of attempted sanctity-of-marriage arguments which centered around the welfare of the children, but in the face of those states’ unilateral divorce laws which ruthlessly subjugate the rights of the children of covenant marriages to the (apparently) “compelling” state interest of sexual autonomy for the petitioning parent. For example, Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the 9th U.S. Circuit, in Latta v Otter eloquently opined:

“If defendants really wished to ensure that as many children as possible had married parents, they would do well to rescind the right to no-fault divorce, or to divorce altogether. Neither has done so. Such reforms might face constitutional difficulties of their own, but they would at least further the states’ asserted interest in solidifying marriage.”

In fact, several of these public interest legal firms who have in their mission statements expressed sanctity-of-marriage and religious freedom-of-conscience aspirations told SIFC in May, 2013 that the punitive confiscation of retirement funds from a non-offending Christian spouse to award to the offending petitioner as a result of an unwanted marriage dissolution was only an “incidental” religious freedom burden. The severe curtailment on technical grounds of the right to bring evidence in a dissipation of marital assets claim (that would otherwise defend against such confiscation) solely because of refusing to file one’s own petition based on biblical conviction was not an unconstitutional violation of freedom of conscience. Constitutional attorneys from a firm which regularly works for these legal ministries, once they were retained with SIFC’s personal funds, resoundingly disagreed with their assessment, and have filed her appeal accordingly.

What is even more uncanny as the marriage redefinition cases unfolded, is the unsoundness of the legal reasoning on which those cases were decided, especially the Obergefell decision. The favorable hand of God in the HHS cases was nowhere to be seen in the cases that would further desecrate marriage and bring fines and penalties to hundreds of Christian businesses in wedding-related goods, services and facilities. If marriage is a sacred symbol for the relationship between Christ and His church, where was the protective hand of God in those cases? Why was the situation so out of hand that two Justices who were performing these sodomy ceremonies and making biased personal statements before the oral arguments were even heard, were not strongly compelled to recuse themselves for the sake of retaining confidence in the integrity of the Court?

Like the harlot of the Book of Proverbs who eats and wipes her mouth, declaring she has done nothing wrong, the aftermath of the SCOTUS announcement shows a defiant, rather than a reflective and repentant mood among the nation’s most influential Christian evangelical leaders. Some even got into unseemly skirmishes with each other on the battlefield of their respective blogs and facebook pages. There is much talk of civil disobedience, of church leaders going to jail rather than follow a Federally / judicially-imposed national marriage law. There are state efforts to cease issuing marriage licenses to anyone. Nobody seems to even miss the conspicuous absence of the Most High so soon after His stunning presence in defeating the HHS mandate over the same 12 month period. Only a few are speaking publicly about the connection with unilateral divorce, and none are doing so with a view toward reforming or repealing these laws in order to fundamentally, rather than superficially, rebuild a culture of marriage.

Instead of any sign of contrition on the part of evangelical leaders in the week that has followed the Court’s announcement, in the form of a pledge to stop performing weddings where there is an estranged living spouse, or to work toward reform or repeal of unilateral divorce laws, all the talk was about circling the wagons around all marriages (whether covenant, or adulterous remarriages) to discourage future divorces, and to “educate young people to choose their spouses with more discernment”. (SIFC suggests they start with the most basic counsel: don’t marry somebody else’s spouse!)

Any suggestion is ignored or rebuffed that a real dilemma looms wherein pastors will find themselves counseling “married” homosexuals differently than those suffering the corruption reaped from their own flesh due to being in civil marriages whose roots were adulterous. Meanwhile, churches are bracing for a likely loss of tax exemptions and liability insurance, while perhaps not even understanding that a future of vandalism and harassment also awaits their events. Such was carried out in the past in various states by activists against congregations that continue to teach that homosexuality is immoral. In the UK, Canada, and several other countries, it has become illegal “hate speech” to read certain scriptures from a standard bible behind the pulpit. How will a church or denomination that couldn’t even withstand the “persecution” of people going down the street in order to defend the sanctity of biblical, covenant heterosexual marriage stand when unprecedented TRUE persecution ramps up?

Where was the Lord in 2013 when SCOTUS was formulating their decisions in the cases of Hollingsworth v Perry and United States v Windsor? Many fasted and prayed fervently for His intervention that would have prevented trampling of our Constitution that followed, and also prevented so much suffering for His servants running wedding industry businesses. Why didn’t that sway the Most High? Why did He instead choose to show Himself mighty in the Hobby Lobby case? Could it be that He was having a very hard time getting the attention of His shepherds, and was determined to keep trying?

SIFC is personally thankful for some of the precedents that came out of the various marriage redefinition rulings in the lower courts. Even when the Lord sent Judah and Israel, the apple of His eye, into captivity, He continued to prosper His people until they repented. He used the resources of her enemies and even urged the people to pray for the prosperity of Babylon while they were exiles in that land. The Lord shows Himself mightiest when He even goes so far as to turn the enemy’s own weapons back on the enemy. May it be so here, in Jesus’ name.

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

Connection of Unilateral Divorce to SSM, Discipleship, marriage, morality, Spiritual Warfare

“EXTRAPOLATION” ? – OR FOUNDATIONAL?

June 12, 2015 standerinfamilycourt Leave a comment

by “Standerinfamilycourt”

Interesting conversation between jousting theologians this morning over God’s definition of marriage. Attempts have been put forth by some to elevate complementarity (Matt. 19:4) over permanence (Matt. 19:5-6), against the competing attempt to deny complementarity altogether. Both views seem to miss the mark.

Extrapolation [per Merriam Webster]:

– the product or result of inference (values of a variable in an unobserved interval) from values within an already observed interval

a : projection, extension, or expansion (known data or experience) into an area not known or experienced so as to arrive at a usually conjectural knowledge of the unknown area <extrapolates present trends to construct an image of the future>

b : a prediction by projecting past experience or known data <extrapolate public sentiment on one issue from known public reaction on others

============================================

It should be noted that one of these jousters has written a scholarly paper calling into serious question both the “Matthean exception” and the “Pauline privilege” of contemporary evangelical lore which presume to excuse the civil dissolution of covenant marriage and the subsequent non-covenant “marriages” that Jesus defined (Luke 16:18; Mark 10:11-12) as ongoing adultery.

SIFC has had personal exchanges with one of the jousters on this topic in recent days:

[RG to SIFC, Facebook 5/30/2015:]

“…..I’m not going to rehash again the issue of remarriage after divorce. We both agree that it is wrong from Jesus’ standpoint but we disagree on several aspects. Some of your points in my view cannot reasonably sustained. That porneia can be used as a general term for sexual immorality of various forms (including adultery, incest, and homosexual practice, in addition to fornication and prostitution) for early Jews and Christians is beyond dispute (though you dispute it). That Jesus viewed homosexual practice as a more severe offense than remarriage after divorce is also, in my view, beyond dispute. A violation of the foundation is by definition more severe than the violation of a principle extrapolated secondarily from the foundation. And there are many other arguments that could be brought forward. As to whether Jesus would have insisted on dissolution of such relationships long after they were made, that is disputable, though my best guess is that he would not have, for various reasons that I have put forward elsewhere. I could be wrong about that. I understand your point of view…”

It seems the Westminster Confession, whereby Christ’s marriage commandment was put to a popular vote of 17th century Pharisees, must nevertheless be defended!

(Indeed, SIFC gets just as much challenge on some blog sites from the homosexualists that it’s the Matthew 19:4-end that’s “extrapolated” to extra-scripturally exclude “committed” homosexual unions from holy matrimony. This, too, is ludicrous! That serpent, evicted from the Garden, is going to revise the story and distract from the truth on this topic at every turn.)

“For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be [extrapolated] to his wife, and the two shall become [an extrapolation]. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the [extrapolation]. Eph. 5 31-32

“Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be [extrapolated] to his [sequential partner] and the two shall become [an extrapolation]? So they are no longer two, but [an extrapolation]. What therefore God has [extrapolated], (let’s just hope it works out).” Matt. 19:4-6

“So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The Lord God fashioned into [an extrapolation] the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said,

‘This is now [an extrapolation] of my bones,
And [an extrapolation] of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was [extrapolated from] Man.’

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his [extrapolation]; and they shall become [an extrapolation]. Genesis 2:21-24

Gentlemen, is it not considerably more accurate to say that it’s serial, sequential monogamy that’s been “extrapolated”? Why would an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent Yahweh have need to do anything but CREATE? Isn’t projection, prediction, and inference something that finite, fallible MEN do?

Why is the idea of the indissolubility of marriage so distasteful to evangelical theologians these days as a FOUNDATIONAL element that they would deny its obvious status as such? And do so, despite all the repeated references to this biblical creation-of-marriage foundation, from Genesis to Revelation?

In rebuking the Pharisees’ plans for marriage redefinition, would Jesus have taken them back to Eden to point out a mere extrapolation? After all, it was not exactly the morality or legitimacy of homosexual relations they were challenging Him on!

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

Church Discipline, citizenship, Connection of Unilateral Divorce to SSM, Discipleship, morality

Covering Thy Garment with Violence: WHY LUTHER RENDERED MARRIAGE UNTO CAESAR

May 22, 2015 standerinfamilycourt 1 Comment

by Standerinfamilycourt

Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints?
Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent toconstitute the smallest law courts? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life? So if you have law courts dealing with matters of this life,do you appoint them as judges who are of no account in the church? I say this to your shame. Is it so, that there is not among you one wise man who will be able to decide between his brethren, but brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers?
– 1 Cor. 6: 1-6

He saith to them: Because Moses by reason of the hardness of your heart permitted you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. – Matthew 19:8

In November, 2014 quite an interdenominational debate broke out between between church leaders over a document called The Marriage Pledge, as reported in First Things magazine. As of the date of the November article, 464 Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, Anglican, Mennonite, Catholic, Baptist and Pentecostal leaders had agreed on paper that if marriage was redefined by the courts to include homosexual unions, these leaders would discontinue their agency role of signing their respective states’ marriage certificates, and henceforth would only issue ecclesiastical marriage certificates for weddings they perform. If government benefits and state recognition of the marriage was additionally desired, the newlyweds would have a second stop to make down at the county courthouse. Clearly this was aimed at protecting their right-of-conscience before God, and to provide a way to bear witness to their communities. What was a bit less clear is the extent this measure, of itself, would shield these clergy folk or their churches from discrimination charges, given the homofascist bent toward coerced affirmation of homosexuality–regardless of any government-bestowed benefits they may claim to be pursuing from “marriage equality”. Also unclear was where this would leave divorce in the absence of a state certificate, a function the church has never administered (with the brief exception of the pre-medieval Roman Church under two sets of Co-Emperors for approximately two generations before that empire fell).

Prominent evangelical dissenters to this no-agency approach immediately protested that this is merely “grandstanding” and “sounding retreat” on the Church’s engagement in the public square, surrendering the moral influence over marriage definition without a fight. Ryan Anderson, of the Heritage Foundation said that this retreat was “premature”. Other Christian leaders, such as James Dobson of Focus on the Family, and Matt Staver, of the Liberty Counsel called for no retreat, but civil disobedience among the men of God, to the point of being jailed if need-be, to defend against the religious freedom violations that could be expected to accompany the judicially-mandated sodomization of civil marriage .

Standerinfamilycourt would like to suggest that a further motive underlies the dissent of the objectors to separating matrimony at the altar from the increasingly meaningless civil certificate available down at the courthouse. One of the online commenters to the mildly dissenting First Things article dated November 22, 2014 put half a finger on it, as follows:

“And how are the bona fides of those seeking Holy Matrimony to be established?
Is there a proposal to establish a system of courts to give clarity on who can marry and how marriages can be annulled? Is it proposed to offer Holy Matrimony to those who have been divorced? Will there be a difference between those who have contracted a marriage in a religious context and those who had only a civil ceremony and what of those who have a religiously validated divorce?
Will there be some national register to help prevent bigamous marriages? Might clergy facilitating (unknowingly) bigamous marriages be seen as having a liability?” – M. R.

It’s clear that if participating churches undertook such an initiative, there would be an administrative burden entailed, including some sort of secure central data base to detect potential bigamy or polygamy, something that would not be insurmountable to accomplish. As a practical matter, though, it seems the dissenters realize that the larger issue is that churches cannot and will not be able to administer divorce and should not administer annulment. Which brings us to the history of how and why the Church’s role marrying people got handed over to the civil authorities in the first place….

One of the impetuses of the Reformation, if honesty prevails, was a desire to find a way to provide for divorce, something the Roman Catholic Church, no longer wielding civil authority following the fall of Constantinople, returned to strictly prohibiting. Annulments were administered by the Church, but were more difficult to obtain than they are today. Martin Luther and the key figures of the Reformation including Calvin kept some corrupt company in the unsavory personage of one Desiderius Erasmus, a humanist who wrote (ever so much like the serpent in the garden):

“I record my pity for people who are loosely held together by an unhappy marriage and yet would have no hope of abstaining from fornication if they were released from it. I want to secure their salvation by some means, nor have I any wish for this to happen without the consent of the church. I am no innovator.

But it is possible that the spirit of Christ may not have revealed the whole truth to the church all at once. And while the church cannot make Christ’s decrees of no effect, she can none the less interpret them as may best tend to the salvation of men, relaxing here and drawing tighter there, as time and circumstance may require.

Christ wished that all his people might be perfect, no question of divorce arising among them, and the church has endeavoured to secure this full rigour from everyone. I am no supporter of divorce. But how can you be sure that the same church, in her zeal to find a way for the salvation even of weaker brethren, may not think that this is the place for some relaxation? The Gospel is not superseded; it is adapted by those to whom its application is entrusted, so as to secure the salvation of all men. My opinion is that we are misusing the interpretation of the gospel principles, with the result that the force of its teaching in our standards of behavior is fading away. To give an example, Christ so wished his people to abstain from murder that he did not permit men to be angry. We interpret this as meaning angry without cause. Likewise Christ so wished his people to abstain from perjury that he forbade an oath of any kind. This we interpret as meaning that we must not swear without just cause. In the same way he so much wished them to abstain from divorce that he forbade it altogether. What interpretation the church can put upon this, I do not decide. I wish she could interpret it so as to promote many men’s salvation. I do not make any final proposals on this point. I leave the right of decision to the church and content myself with drawing attention to the point.” (My Dear Erasmus, pp.110-111)

With that, Bro. E went slithering off into the night without so much as taking responsibility for his own deceitful rationalizations! As a result of this corrupting influence, several heresies have been evident in the Protestant Church from its founding:

that the standard Christ set was too high for men and women to attain (rejects the power of the Holy Spirit and true regeneration).
that happiness is a much higher good than holiness.
that lowering the moral standard will result in “more” salvation (ignores 1 Cor. 6:9-10 and Gal. 5:21 consequences of baptism without regeneration; fails to grasp that there’s actually no moral bottom to that strategy.)
that Jesus did not abrogate all attempts to dissolve marriage for any cause in Matthew 5 and Matthew 19, Mark 10, and Luke 16.
that identification with Christ’s death on the cross made salvation “secure” through “grace” regardless of the trajectory of one’s life afterward.

According to John Witte, Jr., Director of the Law and Religion Program, Emory University writing in the Journal of Law and Religion, Martin Luther saw civil jurisdiction over marriage law as the panacea to several evils that had emerged in Europe after Catholic canon law proved inadequate to regulate marriage in society at large, including prostitution, concubinage, clerics patronizing brothels, desertion, bigamy, incest, and the resulting backlash wherein parents were sending their sons and daughters into crowded monasteries and cloisters (“nunneries”) for escape. When we seek a solution without first seeking God’s face, the chances are good that this “solution” will not be consistent with the biblical commandments left by Jesus and Paul, hence the idea that (as Erasmus put it), “it is possible that the spirit of Christ may not have revealed the whole truth to the church all at once…….of weaker brethren, may not think that this is the place for some relaxation?“

The Church of today should have no problem following Christ in owning marriage only, for members only, and leaving marriage of the unregenerated to the state’s regulation. God’s design created only marriage and made no provision whatsoever for its dissolution. As the Manhattan Declaration (somewhat hypocritically) asserts, marriage belongs to God, not Caesar. As Jesus Christ asserted….”from the beginning, it was not so. What God has joined, let no man separate.” There is, therefore, no scriptural reason for the Church to offer any form of marriage dissolution.

Indeed, Luther handed marriage over to the legislation of the German state, and other Reformation figures did likewise in their own countries, because had they not done so, divorce would never have become available to satisfy this emerging Erasmean philosophy. For the reverse reason, today’s dissenting voices to the Marriage Pledge are in no hurry to recover accountable stewardship of holy matrimony from the increasingly unaccountable hands of Caesar. Most realize that to do so would necessitate Church acceptance that original marriage is indissoluble as Jesus Christ said it was, and that (therefore) remarriage where there is a living estranged spouse, is in all cases adultery, as Jesus made unquestionably clear was the case. (The scriptural authority for this is beyond the scope of this blog, but can be read at this link. )

It would be immoral for the Church to get into the divorce business, and impractical to administer willful sinfulness that attempted marriage dissolution represents. The Church would need to start teaching that if there is no civil marriage for the state to “dissolve”, the tax benefits should be less important than the generational and eternal benefits of rendering the secular state powerless to intrude on a marriage at the behest of only one spouse, and teach members to take seriously the threat to final salvation that unrepented remarriage adultery brings.

Further, the Church need not delve into or pass judgment on the circumstances behind any prior divorce in those who want an ecclesiastical wedding, as the commenter suggested above, if she simply submits faithfully to the judgment of Christ, repeated at least twice by Him: whosoever marries a [person] who has been put away commits [ongoing] adultery. Since the latter does not constitute a valid marriage in God’s eyes, taking back from the state her jurisdiction over only the marriage that God recognizes, is greatly simplified for the Church by obeying Him. For the same reason, the only inquiry that need be made of prior civil marriages is whether or not the prior spouse on either side is deceased (easily verifiable through public civil records at the outset, and a central data base thereafter). Weddings recorded under God’s law would simply no longer take place in the Church unless neither proposed spouse was still married in God’s eyes to anyone else. This would immediately clear the Church of all related hypocrisy charges and restore her witness overnight. The Church, after correcting heretical teaching concerning “biblical grounds” for divorce (i.e. neither adultery, nor dissertion, but solely and exclusively repentance from a biblically unlawful marriage according to Luke 16:18), would then leave it to the Holy Spirit to convict individual members whether they should consider dissolving unbiblical remarriages undertaken ignorantly due to decades of widespread false teaching. Churches should further emphasize ongoing celibacy after exiting the biblically-adulterous union or reconciliation with the true spouse for those who dissolve adulterous remarriages.

There are some churches already experimenting with the reform of finding alternatives to civil marriage who were earlier motivated by the abusive unilateral divorce system which is (or should be considered) wholly incompatible with faithful church doctrine. They advise people on matters such as property holding alternatives and other alternative means of leveraging their marital status without a civil marriage license. These marriages are likely to be treated as common law marriages for state purposes including child welfare. As mentioned earlier, it is unclear whether such an approach would provide any cover from LGBT activists who might potentially sue or bring discrimination charges attacking a thoroughly biblical definition of marriage according to Matt. 19:4-6. The reliance in that regard would be on the Lord’s protection, resulting from prayer and obedience.

[disclaimer: In providing the link reference above, SIFC does not endorse Pastor Matt Trewhella’s assertion: “God intended the State to have jurisdiction over a marriage for two reasons – 1). in the case of divorce, and 2). when crimes are committed i.e., adultery, bigamy. etc.” There is actually no biblical support for the secular state to have any jurisdiction over holy matrimony or to dissolve what He forbids to be dissolved – render unto God what is God’s. ]

The solutions suggested above are for reforming and purifying holy matrimony among the spiritually regenerated within the Church. Just as marriage is a covenant, it relies on the New Covenant in Christ’s blood, where He told us that His law would be written in our hearts. One irony of the Reformation is that few of its leaders truly served Christ and were regenerated in that way. Some endorsed polygamy by letter to the royal family when the occasion arose, and Luther was terribly anti-Semitic, later inspiring Hitler. As can be readily seen from the major writings, they thought that dismissing the moral law as seemed necessary for inclusion of sinners into the church (sound familiar?) would save them. Holding them to an “appearance” of morality without the Holy Spirit actually changing their hearts was imagined to be redemptive. The Catholic canon law was ineffective in bringing morality to the unregenerated largely because the Roman Church had a history since the days of the Emperor Constantine of taking almost the same approach, deeming people to earn salvation once included, and be sanctified by Church rites. Yet historical tracking of the results of Luther’s family law “reforms” show they yielded only a further slide in public morality.

The evils Martin Luther was seeking to address are very real and very likely to recur when the civil law is inherently immoral, both in its structure and in its delivery system. One could argue that the majority of those evils prevail under today’s “no-fault” regime (with the possible exception of shipping our youth off to monastic life to escape the resulting prevalence of societal immorality).

Civil law is therefore needed for the larger unregenerated segment of society who are not under grace, who cannot claim inclusion in the New Covenant whereby God’s law is written on the heart. However, civil law that discriminates between the Petitioner and the Respondent in protecting fundamental rights is as corrosive as anarchy. The Bill of Rights should protect the non-offending Respondent to the full extent that the system gives preference to the Petitioner regardless of the latter’s own hostile acts against the marriage. Enormous taxpayer burden results from the current failure of most state divorce laws to hold the at-fault party financially responsible. Liberal interests lately are eager to point to statistics that imply that the divorce rate is slowing or levelling off, and this is likely to be used to rationalize continued non-reform. However, a careful analysis of the data shows that unilateral divorce is growing most among couples married more than 30 years, and this is unexpectedly threating the retirement security of many due to the unconscionable features of the “no-fault” regime. Unilateral divorce also continues to drag down the marriage rates in many countries in favor of unmarried cohabitation, which has been proven to be very dangerous to the safety of any children involved.

The demand for homosexual “marriage” would simply not exist if the law held heterosexual marriage commitments binding merely to the extent that it protects business partnerships or commercial contracts. The fact that none of the political activism by the Christian Right over the past 30 years has been directed toward ending such an immoral and unconstitutional travesty is very telling, as contrasted with the massive efforts exerted to oppose abortion and “Wave Two” of marriage redefinition. If the U.S. Supreme Court does unilaterally impose homosexual marriage on all 50 states, a shift of focus to this neglected accountability could provide the silver lining that might restore God’s full definition of marriage a generation from now. If so, demand for deviant forms of marriage that cannot be easily and cheaply escaped would dry up in due time.

The banana in the jar represents a fallacious claim to a pseudo-biblical “exception clause” that is easily and overwhelmingly disproven by the application of disciplined, widely accepted principles of basic hermeneutics, which for some odd reason, tend to be suspended for this particular topic by evangelical Pharisees so hopelessly infatuated with Matthew 19:9. Will the monkey let go of the banana and break free of the jar when worldly persecution sets in– or shamelessly hold on tighter?

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

Discipleship, Marriage Restoration, morality, Spiritual Warfare

GOD’S CHARACTER AND HIS COVENANTS

May 18, 2015 standerinfamilycourt 1 Comment

olby Standerinfamilycourt

“These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. ” – John 14: 25-26

“And He teaches the humble His way.
All the paths of the Lord are lovingkindness and truth
To those who keep His covenant and His testimonies….The secret of the Lord is for those who fear Him,
And He will make them know His covenant.” – Psalm 25

As the anticipated day for the U.S. Supreme Court ruling approaches and we learn whether the nation’s highest judges have decided to provoke the Lord’s intensified judgment on our land by dictating that all 50 states define civil marriage to include sodomous unions, there has been quite a bit of false assertion among some nervous social conservative thought-leaders that adultery is somehow a lesser sin than sodomy:

Per Brian Fischer of the American Family Association in their blog called The Stand, May 19, 2015: “Now homosexual conduct is sexual sin just as adultery is. In fact, it is a worse form of sexual sin because it deviates even further from God’s design for sexual union than adultery does.”

Does it? So then, did God put Adam into a deep sleep, take a rib out of him, fashion his one-flesh covenant wife, bone-of-his-bones and flesh-of-his-flesh (Genesis 2), and… when he later decided she wasn’t making him “happy”, and he “deserved to be happy”, did God put him into a deep sleep again to take another rib out of him and fashion him a bimbo on the side? Or did God rather say, “the mouth of an adulterous woman is a deep pit. The man who is under the Lord’s WRATH falls into it…” (Proverbs 22:18) ? As Jesus put it, “FROM THE BEGINNING IT WAS NOT SO!” (Matt. 19:8)

And Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, normally a sanctity-of-marriage stalwart who is generally not prone to cultural relativism, remarked on his Facebook page last month in response to an interview with Pastor Andy Stanley concerning the embrace of homosexual practice in Stanley’s church [while taking displeasure in some rather astute Stanley banter about gay wedding cakes vs. those that celebrate adulterous remarriage]:
“Yes, Jesus regarded remarriage after divorce as a form of adultery (probably a weakened form since there is no evidence that he told divorced-and-remarried persons in his audience to separate). Yet his position on remarriage after divorce is extrapolated secondarily from a foundational male-female requirement for sexual relations, which foundation is directly overturned in the acceptance of homosexual unions. Stanley is adopting an approach that an action taken in a lesser offense would apply equally to a greater offense, which is bad logic. The closest parallel to homosexual practice in terms of severity would be a case of adult-consensual incest, not remarriage after divorce.”

SIFC believes is it more to the point, given the heaven-or-hell nature of both abominations, to point out in the alternative that there’s no evidence Jesus didn’t tell the woman at the well to leave her immoral cohabitation arrangement, and plenty of corroborating evidence that He did, even if this detail was not directly captured by the Apostle John in his gospel account. Did Jesus not tell His audience in His Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:27-32): “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.

“It was said, ‘Whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce’; but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery” ?

Jesus persistently used the present indicative Greek verb tense when He spoke of remarriage as ongoing adultery, (as Dr. Gagnon acknowledges himself in a 2009 paper), for as long as the illicit, idolatrous relationship persists. How then is all of the above NOT tantamount to telling people in His audience who lived that way to leave that life of sin or be prepared for the willful eternal consequences?

Dr. Gagnon, do you truly think it’s of no significance at all that the hell-bound list of offenses in 1 Corinthians 6:9, (which the Apostle Paul tells us will never be allowed to mock a holy God), gives adultery, and indeed every other form of heterosexual sin, much higher billing over sodomy? Is not the latter the evil spawn of the former, one to two generations later, following the Church’s widespread embrace of serial/sequential polygamy, which even characterizes the personal practices of many clergy? Do we learn nothing at all from Ezra, chapters 9 and 10 then?

[ Dr. Gagnon responded to SIFC’s rhetorical question in another Facebook string, as follows:

“In 1 Cor 6:9 Paul implicitly brings together porneia (here incest and sex with prostitutes, perhaps too fornication), adultery, and same-sex intercourse as instances of egregious sexual immorality. In 6:9-10 offenders known as pornoi head up the vice list, just as in 5:10 and 5:11. In 6:9 the word appears before “idolaters, adulterers, malakoi, and arsenokoitai.” Why isn’t the word grouped with the three other types of sexually immoral persons? The answer has to do with the fact that the incestuous man is called a pornos in 5:8 and his actions porneia in 5:1. Paul places pornoi at the head of the list, before idolaters and other sex offenders, because it is still the main subject of the discussion. In following pornoi with adulterers, malakoi, and arsenokoitai, Paul does not mean to distinguish the latter three from the rubric pornoi but rather to further specify who would be included under that rubric. The immediate context in ch. 5 (incest, called porneia in 5:1; cf. pornos in 5:8) and 6:12-20 (sex with prostitutes, called porneia in 6:13, 18; cf. porneuo in 6:18 and porne in 6:15-16) makes clear that pornoi would include at least participants in incest and men who have sex with prostitutes. The following three categories of sexual offenders simply fill out explicitly who else would be a pornos. This also explains why the vice lists in 5:10-11 employ pornoi as the sole term denoting sexual offenders; it is a general term that normally covers the sweep of sexual offenses. Similar to 1 Cor 6:9, 1 Tim 1:10 singles out immediately after pornoi “men who lie with males” (arsenokoitai)—not because arsenokoitai are distinct from pornoi but because arsenokoitai are a particularly egregious instance of pornoi.”

SIFC respectfully acknowledges that much of the above may be perfectly correct, but notes that no lexicon published before 1900 translated porneia into any of the above separate sins. Additionally, there is a remarkable similarity in comparing Jesus’ list of vices (such as Mark 7:21) with Paul’s – not much difference is to be found in the pecking order. This is still not to say that sodomy is a lesser sin than adultery. They clearly are of the same foundational order, and the latter exacerbates the former!]

We, in the growing marriage permanence movement, are standing for the divine healing of our individual relationship with our one-flesh covenant mate. But more importantly, and of even higher priority, we stand for their healing of their own bruised relationship with the Father, following the idolatry and self-worship that always characterizes an immoral relationship which invariably usurps the place of their indissoluble marriage covenant with Him. This is consistent with the Lord’s commandment we are given by Paul in 1 Cor. 7:11 and 39, as also universally commended by the Church Fathers of the 1st through 4th centuries, most notably and dramatically by Hermes in the early writing, The Shepherd of Hermas. Pleading with God to snatch our backsliding loved ones from the fire, we are sensitized to the deep significance and symbolism of covenant. We spend much time bolstering our faith against the cultural censure of virtually everyone around us by studying God’s character in His entering into various biblical covenants, especially the exclusive one with us and the companion of our youth, as He did on our wedding day, when HE made us uniquely, irrevocably one-flesh and declared over us “they are no more two, but one flesh. What I have joined, let NO MAN separate.”

The supernatural element of that joining cannot be replicated in any adulterous “marriage” because it lacks God’s participation – He is still uniquely in covenant with the rightful union and will never exit that covenant until the physical death of one of us. Paul bluntly points out in 1 Cor. 6:15, that any man can join himself (and Christ along with him) to a prostitute or adultery partner. However this only makes him one body with him or her in a non-transcendant way, Greek “soma” σῶμά.

Yet this can be contrasted with quite a different Greek word “sarka” σάρκα found in Matthew 19:5; Mark 10:8 and Ephesians 5:31, accompanied by another Greek word synezeuxen συνέζευξεν for “joined together” (Matthew 19:6 and 9; Mark 10:9), something supernatural that only God accomplishes during the Kingdom-lawful wedding, where there is not a prior undissolved marriage covenant, (that is, an estranged living spouse) as Jesus Himself described. We see a third Greek word, proskollēthēsetai προσκολληθήσεται meaning “to cleave together” (Mark 10:7; Ephesians 5:31)
which may be more of a process beyond the ceremony in its future indicative passive usage. By way of further contrast with the illicit “joining” of 1 Cor. 6, the counterpart word for “join with” used there is κολλώμενος (kollōmenos) with a present participle tense, middle or passive voice. Lacking our holy God’s approval or participation, this joining is transitory and gratuitous, it is defiling of mind, body and soul even if a civil or ecclesiastical piece of paper comes to endorse it. Unlike holy matrimony where God’s hand makes them sarx σὰρξ mia μία (one flesh) and they are no longer two but one, and they cannot be unjoined except by death, the illicit joining or the unlawful marriage of serial adulterers characterized by κολλώμενος (kollōmenos) and hen ἓν sōma σῶμά , though these will create an evil soul-tie, they not only can be separated, they must be terminated to avoid falling away from the Lord due to idolatry and a hardened heart against God (Ezra, chapters 9 and 10; John 8:11; 1 Cor. 6:10-11; Gal. 4:30; Gal. 5:21; Gal. 6:7-8; Heb. 13:4) .

(Picture by Sharon Henry)

The truth is, it is impossible to interpret any of the many scriptures on marriage, divorce or (the presumption of) remarriage correctly without thoroughly understanding the covenants God made with mankind, as well as His character in interacting with those covenants, and what, if anything, actually breaks a covenant in which He participates. Get that foundation right, and all fallacy, though it is culturally unpopular to stand on the undiluted truth, is easily avoided. Ignorance of covenant, or a faulty and incomplete understanding of covenant, always leads to profound violation of God’s law from error in rightly dividing His word.

The Hebrew word for covenant is berith, which according to Drs. David W. Jones and John K. Tarwater, “Are Biblical Covenants Dissoluble? Toward a Theology of Marriage,” Reformed Perspectives Magazine, Vol. 7, No. 38, September 18 to September 24, 2005, the basic and original meaning was that of a legal union which was established by a simple act of the will on the part of the more powerful party. In a two-party dissoluble legal civil union without God’s participation, this is usually but not always the husband or dominant provider. In a covenant marriage, which is an irrevocable three-party union, this would be God making the unilateral covenant with the two spouses whom He has supernaturally and exclusively joined as one-flesh:

Yet you ask, Why does He reject [the husbands offering]? Because the Lord was witness [to the covenant made at your marriage] between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously and to whom you were faithless. Yet she IS your companion and the wife of your covenant [made by your marriage vows]. And did not God make [you and your wife] one [flesh]? Did not One make you and preserve your spirit alive? And why [did God make you two] one? Because He sought a godly offspring [from your union]. Therefore take heed to yourselves, and let no one deal treacherously and be faithless to the wife of his youth.

– Malachi 2:14-15

GOD’S CHARACTER IN COVENANT:

“God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? “ – Numbers 23:19

“When you make a vow to God, do not be late in paying it; for He takes no delight in fools. Pay what you vow! It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. Do not let your speech cause you to sin and do not say in the presence of the messenger of God that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry on account of your voice and destroy the work of your hands? For in many dreams and in many words there is emptiness. Rather, fear God.” – Ecclesiastes 5:4-7

Perhaps we “standers” are prone to assume (wrongly) that learned theologians are as keenly aware of these momentous aspects of being in covenant with God as we are; that they’d be as aware as we are of the implications that only death breaks the marriage covenant, and that God stands with us forever after a wayward spouse attempts to prolong their flight from Him by contracting a civil-only remarriage which purports to legalize their adultery through the transgressing Church’s fraudulent blessing.

We recently re-published in book series the excellent 1957 work by Rev. Milton T. Wells, “Does Divorce Dissolve Marriage?” That faithful book of detailed hermeneutic support for the indissolubility of covenant marriage also did not address a detailed discussion of God’s character in covenant, and this is SIFC’s only complaint about that work, if one can be stated. In general, the more an expositor understands about God’s covenant nature, the less prone they are to making the sorts of erroneous comparisons mentioned above, or of condoning a continuing state of remarriage adultery at the expense of the participants’ souls, as if God is a disinterested bystander. Even a casual reading of Ezekiel 34 should make it clear that He is far from disinterested!

If Dr. Wells had been writing his book in 2007 instead of 1957, he might very well have made a different decision about not putting on paper what was implicitly understood in his heart as he took his lonely and courageous stand against what was deemed “the right side of history” in his day. But then again, such a scathing, authoritative and comprehensive biblical rebuke of the then-emerging spirit that has, in the years since the enactment of unilateral divorce, evolved into the entrenched system he never lived to see, of serial polygamy impacting some 60% of any evangelical congregation, denominational membership and pulpit. Such a book would never have achieved, in 2007, a Foreword written by the General Superintendent of his denomination! Indeed, in the early 2000’s, that denomination made it compulsory for their shepherds to mock God by performing adulterous weddings, where only 30 years earlier AOG by-laws removed from fellowship any of their shepherds who performed a wedding over anyone who had an estranged living spouse.

We should know that a holy, righteous God always keeps His unconditional promises, and more often than not, still patiently keeps His conditional promises for a long season when the other party fails to hold up their end (Numbers 23:19; Deuteronomy 7:9; Malachi 3:6; 2 Peter 3:8-9) .

Jones and Tarwater characterize God’s covenants (in which He unconditionally participates) by three distinctives:

(1) the language used to establish the covenant – “I will”, “I will not forget”, “remember…” , “cannot be annulled”.

(2) the manner in which established – oaths and tokens or symbols, blessings and curses, elaborate ceremonies.

(3) His handling of covenant violations – consequences and restoration rather than dissolution or nullification.

This latter point is probably the most distinctive of any covenant in which God is a participant. Spiritual adultery, in incident after incident, marked the entire 40-year Exodus journey, and in fact, prolonged it. Even Moses, God’s anointed leader wasn’t immune. There would have been no nation of Israel established if God’s covenant with Abraham or Moses had been wholly conditional. Solomon’s physical and spiritual adultery resulted in an evil line of progeny along with his godly descendants. Had God’s covenant with David been revocable, nullified by the generational sin of adultery running in his family, would we have been sent a Savior or ever know the comfort and counsel of the Holy Spirit?

No, instead of divorce being the penalty for breaking faith with God, He cries out “return to Me, for I am married to you“! (Jer. 3:14) He chastises us rather than divorce us. Hebrews 12:7-9 says:
“It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? “

British theologian David Pawson’s videos, “The Five Covenants of God“ (2009) give this kind of deep understanding of covenant. He is one of the most prominent contemporary teachers of the biblical permanence of marriage which extends to the exclusion of non-widowed remarriage, according to the explicit and unconditional prohibition of Jesus Christ.

Rev. Pawson explains that the word “Testament” actually means “Covenant”, and laments that the two major divisions of the Bible were not called “Old Covenant ” and “New Covenant”. He further echoes that scripture cannot be properly interpreted without thorough understanding of the five major covenants of the Bible, and carrying forward the context into understanding passages of scripture. He suggests that God’s covenants should in each case be studied by understanding these five crucial element of each:

The part(ies) with whom it is made
The specific promise that is made
Whether it is unconditional or conditional, and whether there is some expectation of God attached that is not a condition
The duration of the covenant
The purpose God gives for His making the covenant

1. Noahic Covenant (unconditional) Gen 9: 8-17

Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, “Now behold, I Myself do establish My covenant with you, and with your descendants after you; and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you; of all that comes out of the ark, even every beast of the earth. I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations; I set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth. It shall come about, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow will be seen in the cloud, and I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the cloud, then I will look upon it, to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.”.

Made with: all mankind
Unconditional
Promised: seasons, sun, rain, and food (plants and animals); never destroy all of mankind and creatures again
Duration: for as long as the earth remains
Purpose: that He would once again have a large human family

Expectation: HONOR LIFE (not a condition)

Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. ….Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you, as I gave the green plant. Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. Surely I will require your lifeblood; from every beast I will require it. And from every man, from every man’s brother I will require the life of man….Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God
He made man. “As for you, be fruitful and multiply;
Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it.”

God always “marries” us, and provides the symbol or token thereof. In this case, the sign or token of His covenant, His “wedding ring” was the rainbow, by which He said He’d remember His vow when men became wayward again and not destroy all of mankind with water ever again. As what Jesus described in Matthew 24 with the “days of Noah” re-manifesting, is it any coincidence or just a strange irony that He looks down today on His mockers who drape themselves in a so-desecrated U.S. flag? Therein is the reason why God only created marriage, why He did not create or ever condone dissolution of marriage (as opposed to a finite season of separation with reconciliation), and why He deems remarriage while a spouse lives to always be adultery.

Result: God has unconditionally kept this promise even though men have repeatedly failed to honor life in their national laws and individually.

2. Abrahamic Covenant (unconditional & partially conditional) Genesis 12:1-3; Genesis 15:6-11,18; Genesis 17:4-8

Go forth from your country,
And from your relatives
And from your father’s house,
To the land which I will show you;
And I will make you a great nation,
And I will bless you,
And make your name great;
And so you shall be a blessing;
And I will bless those who bless you,
And the one who curses you I will curse.
And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed….

Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness. And He said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it. ” He said, “O Lord God, how may I know that I will possess it?” So He said to him, “Bring Me a three year old heifer, and a three year old female goat, and a three year old ram, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, and laid each half opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds…. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying,

“To your descendants I have given this land,
From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates….”

As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you,
And you will be the father of a multitude of nations.
“No longer shall your name be called Abram,
But your name shall be Abraham;
For I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.

I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings will come forth from you. I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”

Made with: all Abraham & descendants; all other nations
Unconditional and conditional elements
Promised: land and descendents; bless those who bless his family; curse those who curse his family
Duration: Forever
Purpose: Establish the nation of Israel; establish ownership of the land

Expectation: faith in God’s future delivery of ownership (not in his life or next several generations); circumcision as a mark of family identity

God married into Abraham’s family by taking the name “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

Result: God has repeatedly and dramatically kept this covenant regardless of Israel’s seasons of idolatry and even her apostasy, restoring Israel twice as a nation after long seasons of exile, and dealing forcefully with her many enemies, even in contemporary times.

3. Mosaic Covenant Exodus 19:5-6; Exodus 20:1-17; 23:22-33

^“”Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; ⁶and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel.”

I am the Lord your God,who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house ofslavery.

“You shall have no other gods before Me.

“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, ⁶but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.

“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. ⁹Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you.

“You shall not murder.

“You shall not commit adultery.

“You shall not steal.

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

But if you truly obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. For My angel will go before you and bring you in to the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites; and I will completely destroy them. You shall not worship their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their deeds; but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their sacred pillars in pieces. But you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water; and I will remove sickness from your midst. There shall be no one miscarrying or barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days. I will send My terror ahead of you, and throw into confusion all the people among whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. ²⁸I will send hornets ahead of you so that they will drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites before you. I will not drive them out before you in a single year, that the land may not become desolate and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. I will drive them out before you little by little, until you become fruitful and take possession of the land. I will fix your boundary from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River Euphrates; for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you will drive them out before you. You shall make no covenant with them or with their gods. They shall not live in your land, because they will make you sin against Me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.”

Made with: Moses and the nation of Israel
Conditional – based on 613 laws & Ten Commandments
Promised: Prosperity and security if they obey God’s laws; exile and adversity if not
Duration: Until the Messiah and the New Covenant
Purpose: Occupy the land and build the nation; destroy pagan nations

Expectation: Atone for breach of the law by animal and other sacrifices in the temple.

The sign or token in this case was the stone tablets on which God wrote the law that would sanctify His people, and the Ark of the Covenant in which they travelled and rested.

Result: God delivered on the positive and negative promises according to Israel’s obedience or disobedience until He sent His son. After Jesus went to the cross, this Old Covenant was replaced (superceded) with the New (Messianic) Covenant.

4. Davidic Covenant 2 Sam. 7; 2 Chronicles 13:1-18

The Lord also declares to you that the Lord will make a house for you. ¹²When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. ¹³He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. ¹⁴I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me; when he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men, ¹⁵but My lovingkindness shall not depart from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. ¹⁶Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever.”

“Now there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam. ³Abijah began the battle with an army of valiant warriors, 400,000 chosen men, while Jeroboam drew up in battle formation against him with 800,000 chosen men who were valiant warriors. Then Abijah stood on Mount Zemaraim, which is in the hill country of Ephraim, and said, “Listen to me, Jeroboam and all Israel: ⁵Do you not know that the Lord God of Israel gave the rule over Israel forever to David and his sons by a covenant of salt?”

Made with: Israel and the lineage of David; all mankind with regard to Christ’s kingdom
Unconditional
Promised: The King of Kings will come from David’s lineage and reign forever
Duration: Forever
Purpose: Set up Christ’s ultimate rule and reign over the earth and all nature and mankind

We learn years after David’s death that the symbol for this covenant was salt (2 Chronicles 13:5), similar to the covenant of salt God made with the Levites (Numbers 18:19) to forever provide for them though they would not have an allotment of land. Salt is symbolic as a preservative, just as true, non-adulterous covenant marriage is a preservative in society at-large, and the line of David would one day bring forth Jesus who would perfect and secure for our ability to become that preservative by the Holy Spirit He sent after Him. Our covenant marriage does not need to remain civilly intact in order to have an even stronger preservative effect in an immoral and rebellious society, precisely because it remains intact and indissoluble in the kingdom of God. Sometimes a whisper is heard loudest among the shouts of evil, as salty disciples stand in covenant with God in transcendence of the immoral pronouncements of unrighteous magistrates and apostate shepherds. Many who have done so can testify that civil rightness can be restored overnight after decades of Satan having his evil way, because God is universally faithful to all of His covenants, even when we fallible humans are not.

Result: Jesus was born out of the lineage of David, as promised, despite much of that lineage being corrupt and unfaithful. Many subsequent prophecies of His birth, life and ministries came to pass, while we see signs almost daily that the remainder are coming to pass.

5. Messianic Covenant Jeremiah 31:31-33; Isaiah 9:6-7, 53:4-12; Ezekiel 36:22-36; Hebrews 8:13

“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” …..

Jeremiah’s prophecy reflects the promise portion of the New Covenant, which replaces the Mosaic Covenant’s 613 regulations. In their place, God’s law will be internal rather than external; written on our hearts so that we want to honor Him and keep His law. He also promised intimacy with Him, and direct access to us as individuals into His presence. This portion of the covenant is also said to represent the action of the FATHER in the holy trinity. The unconditional nature of this covenant also emerges in Jeremiah 3, where Israel’s rebellion and spiritual adultery causes Him to separate from her for a while, but in Jeremiah 3:14, He says “return to Me, for I am married to you.” Indeed, the gist of the Messianic Covenant is the re-establishment and restoration of Israel after she rejected His Son.

For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us;
And the government will rest on His shoulders;
And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace,
On the throne of David and over his kingdom,
To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness….

For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,
And like a root out of parched ground;
He has no stately form or majesty
That we should look upon Him,
Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.
³He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.
But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed.
All of us like sheep have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way;
But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all
To fall on Him.

He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He did not open His mouth;
Like a lamb that is led to slaughter,
And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers,
So He did not open His mouth.
By oppression and judgment He was taken away;
And as for His generation, who considered
That He was cut off out of the land of the living
For the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due?
⁹His grave was assigned with wicked men,
Yet He was with a rich man in His death,
Because He had done no violence,
Nor was there any deceit in His mouth.

¹⁰But the Lord was pleased
To crush Him, putting Him to grief;
If He would render Himself as a guilt offering,
He will see His offspring,
He will prolong His days,
And the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand.
¹¹As a result of the anguish of His soul,
He will see it and be satisfied;
By His knowledge the Righteous One,
My Servant, will justify the many,
As He will bear their iniquities.
Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great,
And He will divide the booty with the strong;
Because He poured out Himself to death,
And was numbered with the transgressors;
Yet He Himself bore the sin of many,
And interceded for the transgressors.

Isaiah’s prophecy also forms a part of the Messianic Covenant, focusing on the SON in the holy trinity, promising us both a suffering servant and a reigning, eternal King.

Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went. ²³I will vindicate the holiness of My great name which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord,” declares the Lord God, “when I prove Myself holy among you in their sight. ²⁴For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land. ²⁵Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. ²⁶Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. ²⁸You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will be your God. ²⁹Moreover, I will save you from all your uncleanness; and I will call for the grain and multiply it, and I will not bring a famine on you. ³⁰I will multiply the fruit of the tree and the produce of the field, so that you will not receive again the disgrace of famine among the nations. ³¹Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and your abominations. ³²I am not doing this for your sake,” declares the Lord God, “let it be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel!”

³³‘Thus says the Lord God, “On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the waste places will be rebuilt. ³⁴The desolate land will be cultivated instead of being a desolation in the sight of everyone who passes by. ³⁵They will say, ‘This desolate land has become like the garden of Eden; and the waste, desolate and ruined cities are fortified and inhabited.’ ³⁶Then the nations that are left round about you will know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt the ruined places and planted that which was desolate; I, the Lord, have spoken and will do it.”

Ezekiel’s prophecies reveal the means the Lord intended to use to bring about His Kingdom in regenerated hearts by sending the HOLY SPIRIT and sealing individuals with Him. This completes the symbolic trinity embedded within this last of the major covenants.

Made with: all mankind and the nation of Israel
Unconditional toward mankind and Israel, and conditional upon appropriation by the individual
Promised: Replacement of the Mosaic Covenant; the sacrifice of His Son for the sins of all; God’s law written on our hearts; the comfort of the Holy Spirit to guide individuals
Duration: Forever
Purpose: Redeem mankind to Himself and reverse the curse of Adam

The Messianic Covenant supercedes the Mosaic Covenant for all those who individually appropriate it, and the conditional Mosaic Covenant now fails for all those who do not. This mostly conditional covenant is the only example to be found of a covenant of God that is no longer in full force:

“When God speaks of a new [covenant or agreement], He makes the first one obsolete (out of use). And what is obsolete (out of use and annulled because of age) is ripe for disappearance and to be dispensed with altogether.” Hebrews 8:13 (AMP)

Many who deeply misunderstand God’s character in covenant would brazenly misapply this last passage to serial adulterous re-“marriages” in our evil day of unilateral divorce, but we must ask ourselves, did God not already speak (Matt. 19:5-6; Mark 10:8-9)? Who, then, is actually speaking in this case? Is not the clergyman who vainly pronounces holy matrimony over an adulterous union actually violating the third commandment and taking the Lord’s name in vain?

The symbol of the Messianic covenant is, of course, the cross, but also the empty tomb. However, a very important covenant symbol must not be overlooked: Jesus ceremoniously and symbolically stepped through the entire traditional kiddushin during the last supper in the upper room just before his betrayal and arrest, the culturally-distinctive Hebrew betrothal ceremony by which brides were deemed to be legally married to their Hebrew husbands, typically a year before consummation of the marriage. This became the basis of the sacrament of communion, and it set up for the marriage supper of the Lamb to come in heaven – yet another symbolic covenant.

God’s covenants are always highly symbolic. An important facet of God’s character is that He jealously guards His symbols. Defilement of His symbols, according to several biblical accounts, always yields seemingly disproportionate consequences. Here are just three randomly-selected instances where God showed extreme jealousy for what men might see as “minor” compromises of His covenant symbols:

(1) Moses struck the rock (Numbers 20:8-12) instead of speaking to it to bring forth water as instructed. This disobedience cost Moses his opportunity to enter the promised land. It turns out the rock was symbolic of Jesus Himself.

(2) Priests touched the Ark of the Covenant, containing the very symbol of the Mosaic covenant, when it started to fall from the cart it was being carried on, dying instantly. Priests had been warned to only carry it by the poles that fit the rings in its side. (1 Chronicles 13:9-10).

(3) Two rulers (Saul and Uzziah) were rebuked for offering sacrifices or burning incense in place of the priests, violating the inner temple which was of symbolic construction, and also violating the covenant of salt God had made with the Levites to whom He appointed this task. The penalty for this in Saul’s case was loss of his kingdom to his entire line (perhaps symbolic for not inheriting the kingdom of God), and instant leprosy in Uzziah’s case, which effectively ended his kingship in several actual and symbolic ways. (1 Samuel 13; 2 Chronicles 26)

Jesus is not only the suffering Servant, reigning King, and the Messiah. He is, from Matthew to Revelation, the faithful and true Bridegroom!

In all, Jones and Tarwater catalogue a total 267 Old Testament covenants (“I will”) and 34 New Testament covenants, finding none that were of an unconditional nature that ever failed to be kept by God unconditionally. Their work also explores, and convincingly refutes, the work of other scholars who have sought to argue otherwise, such as Andreas Kostenberger, William Heth, and Gordon Hugenberger.

(Picture by Sharon Henry)

With the immoral civil laws of men that presumed to eviscerate the permanence element of Christ’s law of covenant marriage (Matt. 19:6), now poised to adjudicate away the other non-negotiable element, complementarity (Matt. 19:4), we find ourselves arriving where Jesus foretold we would be as a result of our societal covenant violations:

“Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved....For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Then there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left.” – Matthew 24: 12-13,37-41

Indeed, none of this is taking the Omniscient One by surprise, and neither has He failed to make divine, advance preparation for it in the very design of the supernatural joining in marriage. One-flesh is unique and has no counterfeit because it has a divine purpose “for such a time as this”.

Solomon wrote: “Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up”. – Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

Paul reassured and inspired with his timely words: “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy. ” – 1 Cor. 7:14

And with these: “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ….” – 2 Cor. 10:3-5

To be sure, there were earlier lawless days, such as in the Eastern Roman Empire, where God’s design for marriage was nearly expunged through enactment of unilateral civil divorce, but God’s rescue came through historical events that brought down those wicked principalities before homosexual desecration of marriage could gain a foothold. Arguably, these days are more evil than those because now homosexualism has gained the upper hand, with the solid bedrock of marital permanence once again civilly expunged, and more families fragmented than not, as a result. Could God have foreseen the massive need for a spiritual weapon that is unique to divinely-joined couples, when He said “they are no longer two but one flesh?”

Since He looks on two whom He has divinely and irrevocably joined supernaturally with His own hands, and only sees one person–with whom He remains in covenant, may a wife supernaturally continue in her role as helpmate without her husband’s actual presence, and fill a role that his adultery partner, even with a replacement civil marriage license can never fulfill for him? Can a husband take communion for his born-again, but apostate, covenant wife due to this act fulfilling, to the best of his circumstances, his continuing role before God to be spiritually accountable for his family? Is the bread not also emblematic of the one-flesh entity He joined, partaking together? Is the cup not the symbol of the same marriage covenant? Is not such an implement of spiritual warfare especially fitted to this evil day?

According to Dr. Tony Evans, covenant is important to prayer used in spiritual warfare as well. As he states in the book Kingdom Woman (page 120),

“See there is more that can get God’s attention than His relationship with you, His compassion toward you, or even the sake of His name. As a child of the King, you have fallen heir to “legal rights.” These “rights” exist because of the new covenant that you came into when you trusted Jesus Christ for your salvation. The issue that you may be facing or struggling with today may be an issue of the covenant. If it is, you are free to appeal to God”….[speaking of the widow and the unrighteous judge]…”The judge’s reputation was at stake, since he was not upholding the law, and ultimately was obligated to the law. God is a God of covenant. He is also a God of His word. He has obligated Himself to His own Word. He has tied His name and reputation to what He has said…”

This sums up well God’s character in covenant, and the power of this truth as a weapon of spiritual warfare against a serpent who will never cease the vain attempts to make one-flesh two again.

SIFC began this blog by pointing out that some in kingdom of God may love the Lord, but lack a Spirit-breathed full grasp of His character in covenant. When that happens, the world seeps in, a world that hates the idea of marriage permanence, and a church that misconstrues repentance from adulterous unions ( when dressed up in a marriage license) as “repeat sin”, while it hypocritically will not desist from solemnizing unions that Jesus unambiguously called adulterous. Those who rightly divide God’s word on a technical basis, and agree (in principle) that these remarriages are adultery as Jesus said they are, still need the prayers of standers that the Holy Spirit will write “covenant” on their hearts.

“But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.”

– 1 Cor. 2:14-16

BIOGRAPHIES OF CONTRIBUTORS:

John K. Tarwater is the Director of Student Life and a Professor of Ethics and Church History. He received a Ph.D. in Theology from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his works are featured in Reformed Perspectives, Southwestern Journal of Theology, and World Mission Journal. Dr. Tarwater is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society, Society of Biblical Literature, and the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity.

David W. Jones is a professor and author working in the field of Christian ethics. Dr. Jones is currently serving as Professor of Christian Ethics, Associate Dean for Graduate Program Administration, and Director of the Th.M. program at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (Wake Forest, NC) where he has been teaching since 2001. Dr. Jones holds a B.S. in pastoral ministries, an M.Div. in pastoral ministry, and a Ph.D. in theological studies with an emphasis in Christian ethics. Dr. Jones’ scholarly interests include biblical ethics, material stewardship (including financial ethics, environmental ethics, and related issues), and topics related to marriage and family life. Dr. Jones serves as a Fellow at the L. Russ Bush Center for Faith & Culture, and is a Research Fellow at the SBC Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

Rev. J. David Pawson is a British theologian and apologist. B.Sc. in Agriculture, Durham University, M.A. Theology, Wesley House, Cambridge University. Served in the Royal Air Force as a chaplain. Author several books on various Christian living topics.

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

citizenship, Discipleship, Divorce, marriage, morality

Before We Start Our Book Series: WHO Owns / Defines / Dissolves Marriage?

April 24, 2015 standerinfamilycourt 2 Comments

by Standerinfamilycourt

On Tuesday, April 28, 2015 the U.S. Supreme Court will enter their chamber for perhaps the most pivotal day in the nation’s modern history. It will be a day when we will either decide nationally to yield to God’s law or continue to rebel against it, and quite possibly find ourselves running out of opportunities to repent and restore our nation. “Standerinfamilycourt” is so grateful to have had the opportunity to kneel and pray with 10,000 other believers in front of the Supreme Court building on March 26, 2013, the last time marriage redefinition / defense-of-marriage arguments were heard. The Lord could have delivered us in 2013 and spared us of the national catastrophe of having the very separation-of-powers so basic to upholding our Constitution totally break down due to our national thirst for ever-increasing immorality and universal sexual license.

Putting it bluntly, marriage redefinition was established in the U.S. with the stroke of Ronald Reagan’s pen on September 5, 1969. Instead of speaking out, marching, fasting and praying as we’ve done against the sodomization of marriage, the Church got comfortable with the resulting system of consecutive polygamy. That tragically, through the removal of God’s hand of divine favor and protection, put an end to the days wherein state, local and Federal governments could balance their budgets, protect national borders, elect national leadership that was both competent and virtuous at the same time, win wars, assimilate its immigrants or accomplish much of anything else that used to mark us as a nation under God. We totally forgot that an offended God was watching (and was being overly patient with us).

The enactment of unilateral divorce and legalized adultery also contributed to the destruction of another great empire, the Roman Empire, and it occurred within two generations of enactment. Why should we expect that God would be more patient with us than He was with the Byzantine-Rome co-emperors?

In the 16th century, Martin Luther and several other key figures of the Reformation set in motion the circumstances we find ourselves in today. We love to say in the evangelical church, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and render unto God what is God’s”. We love to assert that God defines and owns marriage. In 2009, the Manhattan Declaration was offered up for the signatures of well over half a million signers, also boldly saying this. SIFC was among the first 100,000 signers, and proudly so. Yet, many evangelicals celebrate that Martin Luther and his cohort deliberately yielded the legal ownership of “that which belongs to God” over to civil government. Ironically, today’s leading voices in the evangelical church are highly reluctant to take it back, even though civil government has proven to be such a poor steward of the sacred trust called holy matrimony. It seems the Church, which has grown so corrupt in the last 45 years since enactment of unilateral divorce, is also nowhere near ready in its unrepentant state to resume stewardship or accountability, because doing so will demand that they deal with the immoral dissolution of what Jesus said was indissoluble, and also with the righteous dissolution of that which Jesus unequivocally said was ongoing adultery (Luke 16:18).

Taking marriage back from the state, for example, by clergy refusing to sign off on state marriage certificates, will ultimately mean they will have to also accept accountability for dealing with the God-forbidden dissolution of original marriage, which in reality is the only authentic form of holy matrimony, according to the teaching of Jesus. There’s no question that any legalization of homosexual “marriage” is only going to hasten the decline in heterosexual demand for civil marriage already designed by civil libertarians as part and parcel of the enactment of unilateral divorce. The civil “piece of paper” is substantially-devalued versus 1969, save for tax benefits, and is further losing value with each iteration of social engineering.

As we all know, Martin Luther and his cohort took unscriptural issue with those highly unpalatable teachings of Jesus Christ, thanks to some very poor application of hermeneutics (the disciplined, scholarly rules of biblical interpretation that accompanies the assistance of the Holy Spirit). As a result, the Protestant church, with the exception of the Anabaptist tradition, was founded on a doctrine of marital heresy. As Jesus states in Rev. 2: 20, they “tolerate that woman, Jezebel“!

Martin Luther, and most other Protestant church leaders, are or were adherents of what author Milton T. Wells, a former president of the Eastern Bible Institute in the 1950’s, called the “Five Word School” of liberal divorce theology, which arbitrarily chooses to center their divorce and remarriage rationalizing doctrine around a misinterpretation of Matthew 19:9, instead of the much clearer passage, Luke 16:18 which already is consistent with the vast body of additional scripture on the matter. Today, this heresy is broadly considered “orthodox” across the Protestant Church despite its open contradiction of the vast body of scripture that speaks to the contrary, including the accounts of two probable eyewitnesses of Christ’s actual teaching, Luke (who traveled and ministered with Paul), and Mark (who became Peter’s right-hand man).

In 1957, when Dr. Wells first authored this book, “Does Divorce Dissolve Marriage?” he complained of a civil divorce rate that was approaching 25% some 12 years ahead of the enactment of unilateral divorce in the first of the fifty states. He lamented that the divorce rate in the church was approaching the divorce rate outside of the church. He made some eerily prophetic additional statements that page fans are going to have to read the installments to discover. Dr. Wells finished his race and was promoted to heaven in 1975, never conceiving that even the front end of God’s definition of marriage (Matt. 19:4) would be hanging in the balance 40 years after his death, as he grieved over the relentless attacks on the back end (Matt. 19:6) that inspired his disciplined, scholarly examination of the hermeneutics of Protestant doctrine on the indissolubility of original marriage, and the utter illegitimacy in God’s eyes of remarriage while an estranged covenant spouse is still living.

Anyone can find an out-of-print book that has passed into the public domain that agrees with their particular stance on a topic. Why choose this one? It happens that this blogger’s pastor is big on hermeneutics, and getting the flock to dig deeply into scripture; to emulate the “Bereans” of Acts 17. His sermon series on this is called “Killing the Sacred Cows (of scripture)”, but his student would dub this particular application of what she’s learned, “Sacrificing the Prize Bull” (pun fully intended). Indeed, today the average disciple without a theology degree, who craves the truth, has access to amazing online bible study tools such as interlinear language translation guides and cultural references. The silver lining of our challenging age is that the day is drawing to a rapid close when scriptural heresies can continue to propagate because the layperson can’t know any better! This blogger had just discovered those tools when another pastor friend pointed her to this book. By the time the reader is two chapters in, it becomes obvious that this book is a scholarly, disciplined hermeneutic treasure. Even if it were not, it would be well worth reading just for the rich church history within.

This book is excellent but not perfect. Dr. Wells is visionary in recognizing the irrevocability of the biblical one-flesh relationship, that it is exclusively and supernaturally formed by God in joining husband and wife of youth or widowhood, and that it is entirely absent from unscriptural remarriage because it accompanies sexual union (rather than arising from it). He is every bit as clear and unequivocal as Jesus was that physical death alone dissolves “that which GOD has joined”, not civil divorce, not adultery, not abandonment, and not subsequent civil marriage, nor children born into an adulterous union. He rigorously proves it in a way that would equip a lay person to go confidently toe-to-toe with an errant theologian. He expertly dispatches the other two of the trio of abused scriptures, Deut. 24:1-4 and 1 Cor. 7:15, that make up the evangelical Asherah Pole of “sanctified” serial polygamy.

In my view, his book has a couple of serious flaws that nevertheless don’t take anything away from the importance of his work. I believe these flaws are largely in context with the time in which Dr. Wells lived and worked, but not entirely. Dr. Wells has counterparts today who reach substantially the same scriptural conclusions, such as Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon of the Pittsburg Theological Seminary, and Dr. John Piper, recently retired senior pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, MN, and founder of the ministry DesiringGod. Like Drs. Gagnon and Piper, who freely assert in their writings the scriptural truth that remarriage while an estranged covenant spouse is still living creates a state of ongoing adultery in the eyes of God, Dr. Wells stops short of advocating that such unions be civilly dissolved in order for repentance to be completed by full reconciliation with the wronged covenant spouse, and restoration of the covenant marriage for the sake of the generations of that family, and for the sake of witness to everyone around them. Unlike Drs. Gagnon and Piper, Dr. Wells is quite forceful in stating with sound scriptural evidence that adulterous civil remarriages imperil real souls and that repentance from that state demands more than heart-felt sorrow and fidelity to the biblically-adulterous relationship. Even so, Dr. Wells comes off as such a lover of eternal souls that had he lived long enough to see the obvious double-standard that would arise with the adoption of sodomous civil “marriage” that sometimes claims spouses and children from covenant marriages, or had he lived long enough to witness the spectacle of heterosexual spouses being enabled to cheaply and unilaterally dissolve a succession of marriages without just cause and without economic consequence, one gets the sense that he would have taken a much stronger position. (There is subtle evidence in the text that there was some measure of disagreement between himself and the Assemblies of God General Superintendant who wrote the Foreword to his book.)

Dr. Wells also didn’t live long enough to see the birth and explosive growth of the covenant marriage standers’ movement in response to the ravages of unilateral divorce, which increasingly can hit after decades of successful Christian marriage. There is a very high marriage restoration rate with this group, which necessitates, by the hand of God, exactly what these reticent pastors are so loath to see, the dissolution of adulterous unions as a first step of true repentance, and divine arrangements that generally are not toxic to the children involved within the family of God. This development is very similar to the ex-gay move of God (and is treated by the current wayward church in similar fashion as the LGBT community treats the latter). They are arguing with God Himself.

Dr. Wells’ scholarly work is vitally, important, as is Dr. Gagnon’s more recent rebuttal of Dr. David Instone-Brewer (a classic contemporary member of the disingenuous “Five-Word School”). Until the Church is able to broadly grasp the hard truth that remarriage adultery is defiance of Jesus Christ that dooms real souls to the risk of hearing (along with the legion of pastors who perform such ceremonies): “you are a goat, not a sheep: depart from me, I never knew you”, we have little chance of the church getting politically behind the repeal of unilateral divorce, as it should do. As it stands now, the Assemblies of God has archived this book of truth, while heinously revising their official position paper to reflect the unscriptural teaching of the “Five-Word School”, and requiring their pastors to perform adulterous remarriages where the denomination policy used to disfellowship pastors just 42 years ago who did so.

Introduction: “DOES DIVORCE DISSOLVE MARRIAGE” by Rev. / Dr. Milton T. Wells.

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal Unilateral Divorce!

Discipleship, Divorce, marriage, morality

Book Series – DOES DIVORCE DISSOLVE MARRIAGE? – Summary and Appendix

April 24, 2015 standerinfamilycourt 1 Comment

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. It might seem tempting to skip the Appendix which follows this SUMMARY, however doing so will cause the reader to miss some very “meaty” materials not presented earlier by the author, Rev. Wells. Links to the earliers chapters are found at the end of this post, and where specifically referenced within. “Standerinfamilycourt” does not, however, agree with the denominationally-correct conclusion that Rev. Wells offers up, which ignores the meticulous case he has just made, and suggests that there is no eternal penalty (“go ahead and be deceived”) for staying in an adulterous remarriage if it occurred before one considered themselves born-again.

XII – THE SUMMARY

A. The Cumulative Evidence in Review Establishes the Indissolubility of Marriage.

1. Matt. 5:32 provides no evidence for the right of a chaste mate to marry another when putting away an unchaste mate, neither does it affirm that an innocent party has the right to divorce an adulterous mate.
2. Christ abrogated the divorce permission of Moses by His statements of Matt. 5:32; 19:9 (A. V.), and Luke 16:18. Moses’ law permitted a man to put away his wife for ·causes other than adultery and released the innocent wife to marry another man, whether or not her first husband had married again .Christ’s statements said that he who married such an innocent woman committed adultery in doing so. Amazingly enough notwithstanding Christ’s clear abrogation of Moses’ divorce permission, the FIVE WORD School persists in saying that Christ has released all innocent parties from spouses who, after divorcing them, marry again, because in marrying again they commit adultery.
3. The harmony of Christ’s great parallel divorce accounts shows unequivocally Mark 10:11, 12 to be His last clarifying commentary on His divorce discourse with the Pharisees (Matt. 19:3-9 and Mark 10:2-9). Mark 10: 11,12 specifically forbids either a chaste mate or an unchaste mate to marry another after divorcing a spouse for whatever cause.
4. The twelve principle points of the harmony of Matt. 19:1-12 and Mark 10:1-12 prove conclusively that Christ taught the complete indissolubility of marriage for any cause, including adultery.
5. The divorce texts of the Epistles (Rom.7;2, 3 and 1 Cor.7:10, 11, 39), which are as equally inspired as Christ’s divorce statements in the Gospels, are in agreement with the word of the Lord Jesus respecting divorce in the inspired Gospels. They confirm the statements both of the Genesis and Gospel divorce accounts, namely, that the dissolution of the marriage union has been disallowed for any man for any cause other than death from the beginning, as reaffirmed by Christ.
6. Of all the divorce texts of the New Testament. only one (Matt. 19:9 A. V.), seems on its surface to authorize an innocent party to divorce an unchaste mate and marry another. Six of the divorce texts specifically forbid remarriage for divorce for any cause while a former mate is living. One shows that a spouse who puts away a chaste mate causes her to commit adultery. The followers of the FIVE WORD School persist in building their doctrine of divorce on this isolated text, despite the fact that the context of Matt.19:9 does not support the interpretation of that text and despite the fact that Matt. 19:9 was not quoted by the early Church in the first five centuries of the Christian era in support of the liberal school’s view of divorce.
7. No court would support a case which was based on the testimony of witness when contradicted by the testimony of six or more witnesses; nor would the side which had only one witness be helped if that one witness’ testimony was questionable, as is true of Matt. 19:9 (A.V.) because of its variant reading which virtually nullifies its support of the FIVE WORD view. The fact that the early Church did not see in this verse the right to divorce a chaste mate with the inherent right to marry another further weakens the testimony of this text for the FIVE WORD School. It ls probable that Matt. 19:9 was, in its original text, virtually like Matt.5:32, which would account for Matt. 19:9’s not being quoted in the early centuries in support of divorce and remarriage for adultery or any other cause. In any case, there is no law of Greek grammar demanding that an exceptive clause modify both the clause before and after it. and no competent Greek grammarian can say that it is proper to determine the meaning of the grammar of an isolated text without reference to its context if there is room for uncertainty in the matter. Further, no outstanding textual scholar would presume to say that the Greek text supporting Matt. 19:9 (A. V.) has been or presently could be proven to be the original text of Matt. 19:9. and thus the only approved text.
8. The strange and unorthodox principles of interpretation of the follower of the FIVE WORD School confirm the fact that their conclusions and their doctrine of divorce are unsound. The first example of this is revealed by their insistence that Matt.5:32 and Luke16:18, not to mention Mark 10:11,12; Rom.7:2, 3, and I Cor. 7: 10, 11 and 39, must be modified and qualified by their interpretation of one isolated text, Matt. 19:9 (A. V.). Both Matt. 5:31, 32 and Luke16:18 have within their text an innocent woman in the major thrust who may not marry another, even though her husband makes himself an adulterous husband by divorcing his innocent mate and marrying another. Surely it is presumption to set at nought two clear contexts and texts prohibiting innocent mates to remarry because another isolated text appears superficially to permit an innocent spouse to divorce an unchaste spouse to marry another. This method of the FIVE WORD School’s interpretation becomes more reprehensible when one observes the facts of the harmony of the two divorce accounts (Matt. 19:1-12 and Mark 10: 1-12), for they reveal that the context of Matt. 19:9 (A.V.) with the text itself provides twelve points which prove that the context of Matt. 19:9 does not support the FIVE WORD view of Matt.19:9.
9. The FIVE WORD School’s erroneous view of the alleged right of the innocent wife of the major thrust of Matt.5:32 (19:9 or Luke16:18) to marry another after her husband had remarried explodes its doctrine! On the one hand, the adherents of this school say that a man who puts away a chaste wife and marries another is living in adultery because he has not dissolved his union with his first (chaste) wife by marrying another. On the other hand, these adherents say that the same innocent (chaste) wife has a right to marry another because her husband commits adultery in marrying again, and by that adultery brings (the FIVE WORD 19:9 view of) the exceptive clause of Matt. into action. How amazingly contradictory is this school’s reasoning! In one breath its followers say that the remarried husband of the major thrust of the above texts 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 first 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!! How can the husband in question be living in adultery if it is not because he is still before God married to his first wife? Indeed to accept the FIVE WORD doctrine of divorce is to return presumptuously to the divorce permission of Moses (Deut. 24:1-4) which Christ so clearly and forever abrogated! In Matt. 5:32b;19:9b and Luke16: 18b, He said that such wives who marry another are caused to commit adultery and that those who marry them commit adultery!Indeed Moses permitted such wives (Deut. 24: 1-4) to be married to another when put away by their husbands, BUT Christ DID NOT! The truth of this paragraph is virtually sufficient of itself to dissolve FIVE WORD theology: for if the innocent wife of the major thrust of the three divorce texts (above) cannot dissolve her marriage so that she may marry another, it is inconsistent to believe that the innocent husband of the secondary thrust can do so.
10. The frightening, evil fruits of the FIVE WORD School’s divorce doctrine and its many strange and false assumptions given in the Appendix confirm the fact that the FIVE WORD School’s interpretation of Matt. 19:9 is false.

B. A Brief Summary of the Whole Argument of the Conservative School Follows:

The following texts on their face agree completely in teaching the absolute indissolubility of marriage:

Genesis 2:21-2 2.
Malachi 2:16 5.
Mark 10: 1 -12
Matthew 5:32
Matthew 19:3-8
Luke 16:18
Romans 7:1-4
I Corinthians 7: 10, 11, 39.

2. The only problematical text is Matt. 19:9. Any difficulty arising from that text may be resolved as follows: a . A careful integration of Matthew’s account with Mark’s account of Christ’s answers to the question the Pharisees and His Disciples shows conclusively that Christ there taught the complete indissolubility of marriage. b. If the reading of the Authorized Version (i.e., “except it be for fornication”) be preferred, it is clear that Christ there sanctioned only the right of a spouse to a legal separation or limited divorce (a mensa et thoro) on the grounds of fornication. c. If the variant reading of Westcott and Hort is preferred, Matt.19:9 is simply a restatement of Christ’s teaching in Matt. 5:32, i.e., that the divorcing husband sins by thrusting his innocent spouse into an adulterous relationship. 3. The many false assumptions of the FIVE WORD School are based on an appeal to human reason rather than on Divine Revelation.

C. A Summarizing Admonition is Presented.

A criminal is not sent to prison on evidence that he is guilty unless such guilt can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Certainly the FIVE WORD School’s doctrine has not been proven to that extent. To the contrary, their position has been proven incredible by a multitude of facts and evidences. “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin”’ (Rom. 14:23).

Certainly a devout Christian cannot accept a rule of divorce and remarriage which has been proven in many positive ways to contradict the clear teaching of Christ and His Apostles, who taught the complete indissolubility of marriage. Clearly a consecrated believer cannot be long in doubt about which of the two views of divorce would bring the greater peace of God to his heart. Reader, which of the two, if followed by a born again believer, would bring him the assurance of following implicitly in the law of Christ, that is, to love his spouse as Christ loved the Church (Eph.5:25), not only when she was worthy, but unworthy, and thus thereby go the second mile, turn the other cheek, and forgive the one who has deeply wronged him until seventy times seven? Which of the two views, if accepted by God ‘s people everywhere, would bring the greater good to little children born and yet unborn (think of the millions of innocent children of broken homes)? Which of the two, if followed universally, would bring the greater good to society and to the Church of God? Which of the two would bring the greater glory to God, both in time and for eternity?

Reader, would you determine the right or wrong of a given action in other moral matters affecting your eternal destiny, or that of others, on the controversial meaning of ONE isolated text having a strong variant reading, when the variant reading, the context of the isolated text, and all other texts bearing on the same subject contradicted the presumed meaning of that ONE text?’ The first portion of this book was written to give a thorough exegesis of the divorce texts of the Bible; the latter portion was written to expose the fallacious assumptions of the FIVE WORD School. The latter portion is in the Appendix.

One erroneous assumption is that a proper understanding of the word divorce automatically resolves the divorce problem of Matt. 19:9. Most of the false assumptions are an effort to persuade men that Matt. 19:9 MUST be interpreted to suit the distressing circumstances of innocent mates and of spouses of unscriptural unions who profess Christ as their Saviour. The followers of the FIVE WORD School have been largely won through an appeal for sympathy for innocent mates and converted divorcee spouses and their mates and the consequent amazing accommodation of Scripture to implement that sympathy. The principle of sympathy has been followed by some religious sects to justify ungodly men in their sinful practices and falsely to alleviate heaven-born fears of the judgment to come. Such reasoning is tantamount to saying that one should, for sympathy for sinning men, find an accommodation of Scripture to alter the strict teaching of Christ concerning the eternal punishment of lost souls. Is not the doctrine of the eternal state of unregenerate heathen settled by many nominal Christians by an appeal or sympathy for such men rather than by the fiat of the “thus saith the Lord” of Scripture? Surely innocent mates and spouses of unscriptural unions need the earnest sympathy of Christians and Christian churches, but that sympathy must first flow out of a proper understanding of Scripture as based on an objective exegesis of all texts relating to such individuals. A true Christian must never let his heart-felt sympathy nor his regard for alleged Christian experience of any man, cause him to wrest the Scriptures to suit what appears to be Christ’s treatment of erring mankind. The proper method of establishing a doctrine is not to bring one’s exegesis of Scripture in line with his sympathy and human reason but to bring his sympathy and human reason in line with divine revelation.

An example of the accommodation of Scripture to natural sympathy and human reason is seen in the erroneous doctrine of the annihilation of the wicked dead. “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Prov. 14:12). Because it is so important to his argument, the author of this book preferred to include within the body of his work the material presented in the Appendix, but he realized that it would have encumbered the flow and movement of his exegesis of the divorce texts. One cannot get the full force of the author’s argu-ment, however, unless he studies the content of the Appendix. Since it specifically answers the major objections of the FIVE WORD School to the Conservative School’s position. It provides a rebuttal to the superficial foundations of human sympathy and human reason, upon which the doctrine of the FIVE WORD School so largely rests.

Mere emotional thinking in the matter of the doctrine of divorce can be avoided if one will follow the advice in the quotation below: The next time you get into an argument, stop the discussion a moment and, for an experiment, institute this rule: Each person can speak for himself only after he has first re-stated the ideas and feelings of the previous speaker accurately and to that speaker’s satisfaction. Sounds simple, but it is one of the most difficult things to do. Once you have been able to see the other’s point of view, your own comments will have to be drastically revised. You will find the emotion going out of the discussion, the differences being reduced, and those remaining being of rational and understandable sort.

(Rogers and Roethlisberger: Quote, Vol. 32, No. 8, Col. No.37, p. 11, (July 15, 1956), Indianapolis.

THE APPENDIX

[Page 121 of original text]

A. Charge to Jury of Readers

ACCEPT EVIDENCE ONLY ON THE SOUND RULES OF INTERPRETATION AND GRAMMAR. See pages 9 through 12, and 41 through 42

2. CONSIDER WELL THE SOURCE OF THE CONTROVERSY: MATT. 19:1-12 and MARK 10: 1-12.

You must know the harmony of these two accounts before you accept evidence on either side of this controversial subject. See pages 79 through 91 which present this feature for your study.

3. GIVE A JUDGMENT THAT IS BASED UPON DIVINE REVELATION RATHERTHAN UPON·THE PRIOR BELIEFS AND TRADITIONS OF THE JEWS AND THEIR CONCEPT OF THE MEANING OF DIVORCE.

That the Pharisees understood the word apoluo to mean the dissolution of a marriage so that one might be married to another is beside the point. The Pharisees of Christ’s day knew nothing of the right to pluck kernels of corn (wheat) on the Sabbath day (Matt.12:1-8) or the right to minister healing on the Sabbath day (Matt.12:9-14) but Christ did. They could not grasp Christ’s statement, “There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile him” (Mark 7:15). Christ did not water down his concepts of ethics and doctrine to accommodate the views of the Pharisees. The FIVE WORD School not only presumes to settle the “right” of an innocent party to divorce and marry another on the “exceptive clause” of ONE isolated verse of Matt. 19:9 (A.V.), but erroneously assumes that the meaning of one word apoluo (divorce) in one text establishes the former beyond question. The word apoluo is understood by the Seventh Day Adventists to mean “annihilate” and they proceed to build a doctrine of the annihilation of the wicked dead in part on that definition. The word apoluo is translated “mar” in the Authorized Version when Christ speaks of the danger of putting new wine into old skins lest they be “marred” and the wine be lost (Mark2:22). Obviously the wineskins were not annihilated when they burst; they were no longer useful for their in tended purpose. The same Greek word apoluo is translated “lose” in Luke 15: 24, 32 and 19:10.The father of the prodigal upon the prodigal’s return said, “he was lost (apoluo) and is found.” Certainly he was not “annihilated.” A divorce mars a marriage; it does not today, so far as Christ is concerned, annihilate a marriage bond. The guilty wife and the innocent wife may not remarry (Matt. 5:32) because the original union is still intact.

[Page 122 of original text]

The FIVE WORD School insists that because the Jews knew of no divorce that did not carry with it the right to remarry, that Christ was not considering the matter of divorce as separate from remarriage when He discussed the matter with the Pharisees (Matt. 19:1- 12; Mark 10: 11- 12). If this be so. why then did He on every occasion but one when speaking on the subject of divorce say that he who “puts away” (divorced) his wife “and marries” another “committeth adultery”? See Matt. 19:9 (A. V.): Mark 10: 11, 12, and Luke 16: 18. Note the emphasis on “and marrieth” another. The Greek word for “and” in these passages is KAI which speaks of the connection of different things. Thayer’s Greek lexicon says, “KAI ” introduces something new under the same aspect yet as an external addition, whereas “TE ” marks it as having an inner connection with what precedes.

(Joseph Henry Thayer: Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. Edinburgh, T. and T. Clark, 1887. p.616)

Christ rejected divorce as a dissolution of marriage in toto in His reply to the Pharisees’ question, “Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?” He replied, “Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away [divorce] your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.” Thus He cut away all support for divorce (dissolution of marriage) of a general character, as taught by the school of Hillel, or for adultery, as taught by the school of Shammai; the latter obviously based their right to divorce for unchastity on Deut.24:1-4, the very portion to which the Pharisees alluded in their question above (Matt.19:7).

Indeed, if Christ spoke the very words of the Greek text which supports the Authorized Version of Matt. 19:9 (over which there is great uncertainty among the Church’s great scholars), He taught that there was a divorce which did not permit remarriage. The twelve points of the Harmony of Matt. 19: 1- 12 and Mark 10: 1-12 given on pages 92 through 107 verify that fact.

The Pharisees could have known of a divorce in the Old Testament which did not DISSOLVE the marriage bond had they studied its pages more than their traditions which were superimposed upon it. A specific giving of a bill of divorcement is mentioned twice in Deut. 24: 1-4, to which Christ said, “FROM THE BEGINNING IT WAS NOT SO” (Matt. 19:8)! Christ knew of a bill of divorcement in the Old Testament that did not in God’s sight constitute dissolution of marriage. The passage is Jer. 3: 8-14.

Of the LORD’S divorcing Israel, it is written in Jer. 3:8:

And I saw, when for the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorcement; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.

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The phrase, bill of divorcement, above is the same wording in the Hebrew in Deut. 24: 1-14. His bill of divorcement must have therefore been valid in Jer. 3:8. Did it dissolve the marriage bond between Him and Israel? No! Here is the proof. In the very same chapter of Jeremiah where it is stated, “I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorcement” (Jer. 3: 8), the LORD, the Changeless One, says:

Return thou backsliding Israel, . . . and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful saith the LORD, and I will not keep anger forever. . . . Turn, O backsliding children saith the LORD; for I am married unto you!!” (Jer.3:12,14).

The American Revised Version of 1901 says,

Return, O backsliding children, saith Jehovah; for I am a husband unto you ..(Jer. 3:14). The LORD did not close the door to Israel. He did not cast her off forever by dissolving His marriage union with her so that she might be free to go and be another ‘s wife. He said: They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man’s, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the LORD (Jer. 3,l).

[Page 124 of original text]

The following from a sermon by William I. Evans, late dean of Central Bible Institute, was presented in the Pentecostal Evangel of May 6, 1956:

If you will turn to Ephesians 5, you will see that God intended to teach through husband and wife a lesson on spiritual relationship. The apostle tells us that a husband and wife living together on earth typify a heavenly relationship that shall go on eternally. “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it.” The love of husbands and wives is a picture displayed to the world, of God’s love for man. God is love, but He is invisible. He has no way of disclosing or revealing Himself; therefore He created the marriage relationship as a portrayal of His unchanging and eternal love for human beings. But when divorce takes place the picture is distorted; it is reversed it testifies that God’s established order is not that beautiful steadfast love that is kind, considerate, and unselfish, but it is vacillating. selfish, unkind, and inconsiderate. When divorce takes place, the husband and wife separate in defiance of God’s established order. They are saying to the world that God isn’t the kind of God that he represents Himself to be.

(William I. Evans: “Christ’s Teaching on Family Life.”, The Pentecostal Evangel, (May 6, 1956), Springfield,· Missouri. )

Christ’s love for His Church did not end at Calvary. ”For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life” (Rom.5:10). Has He, the changeless. LORD, rejected every Christian who has been guilty of spiritual adultery? Certainly James 4:4 has been true of many born-again Christians:

Ye adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore would be a friend of the world maketh himself an enemy of God (James 4:4 R.V.).

The FIVE WORD School is quick to say that Jer. 3: 8 and James 4:4 are an analogy. This is true, but is the sin of adultery less evil than the sin of idolatry, which is spiritual adultery? Idolatry is exchanging the truth of God for a lie and worshipping and serving “the creature more than the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen” (Rom. 1 :25). With the exception of the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, can one think of a sin more dreadful? Is it not strange that, whereas the followers of the FIVE WORD School reject the force of Jer. 3:14, “I am married unto you,” by asserting that the passage is purely an analogy, yet they turn to the context of Jer, 3, where the words for unchastity are used strictly in an analogous sense, and allegedly find support for their view that “fornication” and “adultery”..are always synonymous? They cite not only Jer.3:8,9 allegedly to prove this point, but they cite Hosea 2:4,6,7, which is also an analogy. to strengthen this concept.

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The fact of the LORD’S love, and the commandment that we love as He loved, ought to reveal that some basic error persists in the teaching of the FIVE WORD School. Since the Greek text of Matt. 19:9 (A. V.) cannot be proven beyond doubt to be Christ’s original statement, inasmuch as a strong variant reading is accepted by many Greek scholars as preferable, one should re-examine its strength and force in connection with the topic immediately under discussion. The study of the variant reading is given on pages 65 through 76.

The passage of Eph. 5:28 quoted above states that husbands “ought to love their wives as their own bodies.” Men of sanity do not rend asunder their own bodies. The Lord Jesus in Matt.19:8 is obviously referring to His reiteration of what the Scripture said in Genesis: “Wherefore they are no more twain, but ONE FLESH. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder”(Matt. 19:6). The LORD was joined as ONE FLESH to Israel. Such a union could not be dissolved, even though a bill of divorcement was given. True, Moses permitted, but did not command, the Israelites to secure and give bills of divorcement. However, the LORD did not, “from the beginning” approve of the dissolution of any marriage union, because spouses of such a union are ONE FLESH until death parts them. Neither adultery nor fornication COMPEL divorce, nor do they automatically render a marriage null and void. The better way is the way of forgiveness, with which God for Christ’s sake has forgiven believers; then the marriage relation is fully restored and perpetuated. Divorce is a Mosaic concession to hardness of heart. Indeed, special grace will be needed, but God has promised, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” The heart of the true Christian will find rest only as he retains the high and unsullied standards of the New Covenant, and lives by them. Even when the unfaithfulness of a spouse has provided grounds for separation (I Cor. 7: 10, 11) [a mensa et thoro], this kind of divorce (as it may be called under state law) does not provide for remarriage for either party. This is made plain by I Cor. 7, 10, 11; Matt. 5:32b: 19:9b, and Luke 16,18b.

The LORD, the changeless One, has loved us with an everlasting love (Jer.31:3). The LORD receives back the erring, unchaste spouse. The Christian’s love is to be like His love: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved that also love one another” (John13:34).

Indeed, the LORD of the Old Testament put away (divorced) Israel, but He did not thereby dissolve the marriage union as we have seen above. The Scriptures say, “I AM THE LORD, I change not” ( Mal. 3:6). Would we expect the LORD of the New Covenant, who was likewise the LORD of the Old Covenant, to command what was contrary to His own nature in the New Testament? Christ did certainly restrict the innocent wife of Matt. 5:32; 19:9, and Luke 16:18 from marrying another after her husband had married another. The remarriage of the husband was in each case the sin of adultery because each man was before God still married to his former wife. If innocent wife could not remarry because the earlier marriage was still binding, it is certain that the innocent husband of the minor thrust of Matt.19:9 could not remarry after divorce. How could Christ, the changeless LORD, advise His children of the New Testament to do what He would not do to His wife? The teachings of the New Testament sustain the spirit of Jer. 3: 14. Christ bids the husband to love his wife as Christ loved the Church. Husbands, love your wife, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it…. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself (Eph. 5:25, 28).

4. GIVE A JUDGMENT THAT RECOGNIZES THE FACT THAT THE SCRIPTURES DO NOT TEACH THAT MARRIAGE IS AUTOMATICALLY DISSOLVED BY THE SIN OF ADULTERY.

It is important to observe that Matt. 5:32b; 19:9b, and Luke 16:18b prohibit an innocent wife from marrying again, even though the husband has committed adultery by marrying another. This is certain, as the previous study of these several texts has demonstrated. See also pages 24 through 29 for a detailed study of this problem.

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5. GIVE A JUDGMENT THAT WILL AVOID THE FRIGHTENING, EVIL EFFECTS OF THE DIVORCE DOCTRINE OF THE FIVE WORD SCHOOL.

The evil effects of divorce should not settle the doctrinal issue in question, but they should cause one to pause to re-evaluate the teachings of Christ and the Apostles respecting same. It would seem most unlikely that Christ would have presented a view of divorce and remarriage that would have multiplied divorces and brought such tragic consequences to future generations. Some awful results of the FIVE WORD view of divorce follow:

The forced and ungrammatical modification of the two clauses of Matt.19:9b by the earlier exceptive clause, as taught by the FIVE WORD School, of necessity releases the unchaste mate of the secondary thrust of the verse as well as the chaste wife of the main thrust of the verse to marry another. This kind of exegesis breeds moral corruption for it provides encouragement for the collusion of some couples in arranging by mutual agreement that one or the other or both shall commit adultery, or give the appearance of committing same, so that a FIVE WORD divorce may be legitimate, thus allowing both of them to marry other lovers. This kind of theology fits well the divorce spirit of Hollywood.

The teaching of the FIVE WORD School encourages many Christian spouses to accede to a divorce requested by their mates even when FORNICATION has not been involved on either side. Such so-called innocent spouses may be the cause of their mates desiring to be divorced because of their exhibitions of indiscretion with those of the opposite sex, even though open adultery may have been avoided. The divorce desired may be acceded to by such innocent spouses so that they may marry the one of their preference when the other is married; for according to FIVE WORD theology.a spouse may marry another when the other spouse remarries, because by that remarriage the sin of adultery has been committed, and thus the “exceptive clause” of Matt.19:9(A.V.) allegedly brings release to that party whether or not the so-called innocent spouse is free of scheming and planning for the ultimate release described.

The FIVE WORD School believes that I Cor. 7: 15 provides for remarriage of a spouse whose mate deserts him. This is a natural conclusion for any who hold that Matt. 19:9 provides for the dissolution of a marriage for adultery. However, the evil of such a doctrine becomes apparent upon brief consideration of same. According to this teaching. an unhappy spouse: whether regenerate or unregenerate, needs only to desert his mate sufficiently long to provoke him to divorce him and, presto, the unhappy spouse is free to marry another when his mate has done the same. The text of I Cor. 7: 15 is discussed detailedly on pages 183 through 186. Most conservatives of the divorce question do not believe that this text provides for divorce and remarriage. For many years “desertion” has been one of the principal grounds for securing a divorce. This is surely significant.

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FIVE WORD divorce theology weakens and annuls any incentive to forgive marital infidelity, and thus negates in the mind and heart of a Christian the true spirit of Christ. This in itself should show that any encouragement that may be given to a so-called innocent party to divorce an unchaste mate and marry another is sin, for the Scriptures say:

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it (Eph.5:25). Return, thou backsliding [adulterous] Israel, saith the LORD . . . . for I am married unto you (Jer. 3:12,14). Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye (Col.3:13). Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God (I Pet. 3:18).

Surely, almost without exception, the adulterous mate who is put away will remarry when the so-called innocent remarries, and thus will such an one add sin to sin, and in the bitterness of his soul will cry out against the alleged Christian spirit of his spouse who claims, perhaps, to be Christlike and zealous for the salvation of souls. The Scriptures bid the true Christian not to go to the courts of the world for redress against those in the Church.

Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? Why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded? (I Cor.6:7).

God ‘s Word says that there is no forgiveness for one who himself does not forgive another (Mark 11:25, 26). Can a true Christian seriously regard these verses and proceed to divorce an unchaste mate and marry another, even though he has waited long for the erring spouse to repent and entreat his forgiveness? Has Christ not borne long with the innocent one or ones who for long seasons have been adulterous in loving the world more than they love their Redeemer? Can such a Christian presume to close the door to the return of the spouse for reconciliation at some future time when such an one awakens to his evil and turns from sin to God? Is not God longsuffering with a sinning world? Is the forgiveness of an unchaste mate by a chaste spouse to be without suffering? Is it a thing of the lip in church, or a thing of the heart in life’s bitter trials and tests? ls it a human forgiveness, or a forgiveness like their Lord’s by the power of the Holy Ghost? Is the Christian told in the Scriptures to refuse to forgive some sins? God is reconciled to a wicked world already (II Cor.5: 18-21) through Jesus Christ. The sinner’s repentance does not reconcile God to him; that was accomplished at Calvary. God waits and bids men to be reconciled to Himself. If there is a breach between them, it is on man’s side, not on God’s side. The Lord is…longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance (II Pet. 3:9)

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Can the Christian innocent one determine how long it will take for the guilty one to come to his senses, or will he hastily proceed with the divorce and remarry, thus slamming the door to reconciliation in the face of the one for whom Christ died? Christ had great compassion for the adulterous people of His day. Is Christ’s new commandment to be rejected by believers? Will they refuse to suffer wrongfully? Will such Christians accept the Cross of Christ as the way of atonement but refuse to accept it as the way of life (Matt. 16:24)?

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another (John13:34). For this is thank worthy if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. ..For even here unto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps (I Pet.2: 19, 21). The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost (Rom.5:5).

Would a pastor of the FIVE WORD School who has acquiesced to the divorce and remarriage of an “innocent party,” a husband of his church, be able to have sincere compassion for the “guilty mate,” the wife, who, still unmarried, might come months later to his church to find Christ as her Saviour? Could he sincerely assure her that she could receive grace to be a matrimonial exile the rest of her life? Would he conscientiously believe that such a woman could come to him at such a time for counsel and help? Would he believe she could not receive grace to be an overcomer? The “innocent spouse” who contemplates divorce and remarriage ought soberly to realize that such a course of action may push the erring mate further into sin and immorality. Will not his or her burning be greater than that of the “chaste mate” who may have always been pure and temperate? Does the innocent husband who puts away his unchaste wife and marries another to some degree commit adultery against her (Mark 10: 11,12)? Does he by marrying another ”cause her” (the first wife) to commit ADULTERY again? If the argument to the effect that it is “better to marry than to burn” is valid for “innocent parties,” as the FIVE WORD School asserts, is it not more needful for “adulterous spouses” who may be tempted to add sin to sin?

The blight of divorce upon children is appalling. The facts which are given below should make every supposed innocent party pause before he divorces his spouse and marries another. The following are some of the facts which were presented in This Week Magazine of The Sunday Star of Washington, D. C., of July15, 1956, by Edward A. Strecker, M. D.:

We Americans are terribly concerned over the 30,000 children struck down by polio each year and the 30,000 who annually become semi-invalids with rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease. Yet each year the delicate emotional structures of over 150,000 American children are injured by divorce. There are now five million such children under the age of 18 in this country. • •

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I have known children to get along happily with one parent where they had formerly been miserable with two. I have seen second marriages in which the children were obviously living in a healthier mental environment than before. But in most cases I have long observed that in terms of their future emotional life the children whose parents stick it out and make the best of it have by far the greater edge. The result: figures from a number of sources show that children from broken homes (rich or poor, respectable or otherwise) commit a disproportionately large number of delinquent acts. And finally, the children of divorced parents are three times as likely to resort to divorce themselves! And case histories which I have compiled during the last 25 years indicate that men and women whose parents were divorced are more subject than average to creeping alcoholism, chronic functional disorders and a dangerous tendency to ally themselves with extremist organizations.90

(Edward A. Strecker: “Does Divorce Really Hurt the Children?” This Week Magazine, The Sunday Star, July 15, 1956, Washington, D. C. pg. 8)

Are you an innocent party contemplating divorce? Which is more important, your personal happiness or the happiness and welfare of your innocent children; but more momentous, which is more important, your personal happiness or the happiness and welfare of the countless innocent children of the present and future generations who will be directly or indirectly affected by your action and example? The Apostle Paul in the following words warned the Roman Christians to be very careful of their example:

For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. . . . Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one..:may edify another. . . It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, for anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak (Rom.14:7,19,21).

The Lord Jesus said:

But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea (Matt.18:6).

The Literary Digest of May 2, 1931 presented the following under the heading, “The Chief Victims of Divorce“: (Reprinted from THIS WEEK Magazine. Copyright 1956 by the United Newspapers Magazine Corporation)

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Another sad result of divorce is that the children of divorced parents are apt to fail at school, and grow up without education.

Indeed, the fact is so well known, according to Dean Christian Gauss of Princeton University that many headmasters of preparatory schools exclude children who are “orphaned” through divorce.

“They refuse to accept such children,” he said in a recent address, “because they feel that the careers of the children are doomed to failure.”

Dean Gauss said further: “The child living in such a home tends to become a “lone wolf” at school. He has no loyalty to either parent, and is acutely unhappy.

“This unhappiness, of course, is a sign of maladjustment. When the school accepts the boy, it cannot in two or three years undo the evil effects of his entire life in such a household. . , .

“The situation of children made unhappy by divorce of their parents is becoming aggravated through the increasing popularity of divorce. . . .

(“The Chief Victims of Divorce,” The Literary Digest, (May2, 1931).

The FIVE WORD view of divorce for one cause, namely adultery, has led and will lead ultimately to divorce for other causes. If the divorce dike breaks at the point of adultery, it will certainly break at many other points with an increasing disregard of Christ’s marriage law, which prohibits anyone to marry another while having a living partner. The divorce dike may be closed only by the teaching of the indissolubility of marriage presented by Christ and the divinely inspired Apostle Paul.

The influence of the divorce laws of England spurred our divorce increase in America. Until 1857 there were no general divorce courts in England. At the time when divorce courts were set up in that land, divorce was granted only for adultery, and judicial separation (a mensa et thoro) was allowed for cruelty or two years’ desertion. In 1890 in the United States, the ratio of divorce to marriage had grown from one to ten, and in some states to a more alarming proportion. Within the twenty years prior to 1890, within one state the ratio rose from one to fifty-one to more than one to twenty-nine. Here are the figures for the sharp increase in divorces in England:

In 1871 there were 190,112 marriages and 171 divorces.

In 1910 there were 267,721 marriages and 596 divorces.

In 1920 there were 379,982 marriages and 3,000 divorces.

In 1933 there were 318,191 marriages and 4, 042 divorces.

In 1953 there were 344,488 marriages and 30,326 divorces.

(Geoffrey Francis Fisher, op. cit.. p. 13.)

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In 1937, England passed the so-called “Herbert Act,” which provided for additional causes for divorce, allowing such for three years’ desertion, five years’ insanity, and cruelty, as well as for adultery. As a result, many considered divorce action who, in the days when divorce was frowned upon, would not have thought of doing so. It is difficult to believe that there was only an average of one divorce per year in England in the three hundred years prior to 1857.

(Canon Hugh C. Warner: Divorce and Remarriage, London, George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1954. p. 11.)

Today there is one divorce for every four marriages in the United States. In Chicago and other large cities of the country it is one in three. It is no wonder when one knows that most of the larger denominational churches condone divorce and remarriage for adultery, desertion, and not infrequently for other causes. Christ ordained that the Church should be the “salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men” ( Matt. 5: 13).

William E. Gladstone, the eminent prime minister of England, strongly opposed the change of the English divorce laws in 1857. He said that he had read everything he could discover on the subject of divorce, and nothing had shaken him from the conclusion to which he had come, namely, the absolute perpetuity of the marriage tie. Would that England had listened to its God-fearing prime minister. History is full of lessons of warning and instruction. Most people believe these lessons of experience to be true but few regard them.

One may readily see the rapid and frightening increase of divorce in America through the first half of the twentieth century by observing the graph given below, which was taken from the Christian Life magazine of November, 1955:

YEAR1900	PER CENT OF MARRIAGES ENDING IN DIVORCE0000000000 7.9%
1910	00000000000 8.8%
1920	0000000000000000 13.4%
1930	00000000000000000000 17.4%
1940	0000000000000000000 16.5%
1950	00000000000000000000000000 23.1%
1953	00000000000000000000000000000 25.2%

(“Divorce: Dilemma of the Church.” Christian Life, (November 1955), Chicago. p.19).

Divorce increased 800% in the United States from 1860 to 1955. When the divorce dike is broken for one cause, it is broken for many causes as has been shown above. A church which accepts the doctrine of the right of an innocent party to remarry after divorcing an adulterous mate starts a chain reaction which will multiply divorces both within her congregations and within the society within which she dwells. The reason for this chain reaction is described fully on pages 32 through 33. Such a church cannot honorably ask its youth who come to its marriage altars to take the vow, “until death do us part”..

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The evils which flow from divorce are given as follows by Canon Hugh C. Warner:

a. It distorts ideals. Easy divorce creates an atmosphere in which young people grow up with totally distorted ideas of marriage, and with a complete lack of realization of the idea of lifelong dutifulness.

b. It fosters lawlessness. Easy divorce fosters the innate lawlessness of human affections, by adding power to temptation to infidelity.

c. It encourages self-will: Easy divorce creates opportunities for selfish people who have quarreled with a partner or transferred their affections elsewhere to refuse the spiritual discipline of meeting and overcoming difficulties in their personal relations. . . Divorce may have enabled them to indulge their own weakness, instead of conquering it, and making a success of their first union. So divorce may breed divorce.

d. It weakens the sense of obligation: Easy divorce weakens any incentive to forgive infidelity, and prompts rather the grasping of any opportunity offered for release from obligations felt to be irksome.

e. It offers a cloak of respectability to sin: Easy divorce holds out the possibility of combining gratification of immoral desire with respectability. The moment any real strain arises in domestic relations, the partners feel themselves at liberty to look around for more amiable or attractive mates, secure in the conviction that, if they dissolve their union and seek a second (or even a third or fourth) marriage elsewhere, society will not hold them greatly to blame. A potent social preventive of divorce is thus removed.

f. It encourages extra-marital affairs: Easy divorce paves the way for the engaging qualities of a chance-met third party at once to arouse a desire to win his or her affections, with a view to entering into a new and more delightful union than the existing one.

g. It encourages evasion of parenthood: Easy divorce encourages an exchange of partners, and the more this becomes a practical possibility, the more an evasion of parenthood will be fostered, for children cannot but create a bond which renders the dissolution of the partnership more difficult. So absence of children leads to a weakening of an important line in the marriage relationship.

h. It contributes to family instability: Easy divorce creates a public opinion which offers no social condemnation upon the easy exchange of one partner for another. .. Where the marriage bond is recognized as permanent, self-discipline is more easily imposed, tolerance more easily granted, and harmony and companionship more patiently sought…

i. It offers children a precedent for divorce: Children who, when they get married, are able to look back to the example of their own parents who were divorced, find it hard to do other than follow the example of thosetowhom they have been emotionally so closely tied when difficulties in their married life occur, unless there is a strong public opinion to support them in their determination to overcome them.

(Canon Hugh C. Warner, op. cit. , pp. 69-71)

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6. GIVE A JUDGMENT BASED ON DIVINE REVELATION RATHER THAN UPON AN ACCOMMODATION OF SCRIPTURE TO THE APPARENT NECESSITIES OF INNOCENT MATES OF STRONG SEX NATURE.

God forbid that the divorce issue will be settled doctrinally by an accommodation of Scripture to the seeming necessities of modern innocent spouses. How amazing it is to observe that at the turn of the century, and for more than a decade thereafter, divorce was frowned upon in almost every community of America. During those days a divorcee was a social outcast in thousands of localities. Today, it is far otherwise as all know. C. M. Ward quotes Time Magazine as follows: “Kinsey’s work expresses and strengthens an attitude that can be dangerous: The idea that there is morality in numbers. “

In referring to the above, C. M. Ward said that such a statement is tantamount to saying, “That because a lot of people do a thing, that thing must be right.”

(C. M. Ward: Marriage Insurance, Springfield, Missouri, Assemblies of God, 1956, pp. 5,6).

Does that view or standard express the reason why the Church in the last two decades, and especially since World War II, seems determined to lean over backwards to accommodate the Scriptures, right or wrong, to the trying and unfortunate circumstances of divorcees? The Bible should be examined objectively and independently of the involved divorcee problems facing the Church today. Then, and only then, upon the basis of the true, objective teachings of Christ and the Scriptures should the issues of such difficult cases be decided. It is true that in recent years a Christian’s views, chameleon-like, may change because of his personal marital problems or those of his relatives or friends? May God help us all to be honest in this matter and desire the truth for truth’s sake and for His sake who is THE TRUTH! “Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth” (John 17:17).

The FIVE WORD School alleges that the flame of nature in innocent mates who have put away adulterous mates necessitates a doctrine providing for their remarriage lest they “burn.” This School presumes to apply I Cor. 7:9, “it is better to marry than to burn,” to innocent mates, whereas the context of this text shows it to apply to single people who as yet have not married. If one thinks that there is an area of life in which victory over sin is impossible, he will meet defeat in that very thing. Let a young man nineteen years of age be inducted into military service believe that because he is of a strong sex nature he cannot remain pure until God brings the girl of His choice into hislife, and he will commit unchastity before many months.

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Or let a man who is a divorced “innocent party, ” who may not scripturally remarr y, allow himself to be agitated and distressed because he cannot now enjoy the gratification of his person as he did while he was married, and he will breed his own pollution and moral breakdown. Many a single young man of strong physical constitution has “purposed in his heart” that he would not be defiled while dwelling for many months or a longer period away from home and has maintained his moral integrity, even though he was unregenerate.

God through His Spirit kept Joseph and Daniel from moral defilement in the courts of licentious kings. Surely He can keep any of His children by His indwelling Spirit. FIVE WORD theology puts more emphasis upon the strength of the flesh than upon the indwelling Spirit.

There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. (I Cor. 10:13).

If continence is possible only to special individuals, then the Christian sex ethics of Scripture are wrong. Apart from divorce, there are some cases where it is necessary, while two spouses are living together as husband and wife in the same house or in the same room, for each to maintain continence over a considerable period. There are many instances where youths of strong physical constitution are prevented for very long periods from marrying; yet many of these individuals preserve their chastity without a personal knowledge of Christ. How much more should Christians keep their moral integrity!

The FIVE WORD School alleges that the phrase .. “causeth her to commit adultery” in Matt.5:32 indicates that Christ’s sympathy for the innocent party of the text was so great that He said in effect, ..HER HUSBAND FORCED HER TO COMMIT ADULTERY, ” because she was driven by her flame of nature to marry again. This, the FIVE WORD School insists, shows that Christ has the same sympathy for any innocent party today whose spouse commits adultery, and that He agrees thereby that such an innocent party of necessity has the right to marry another to satisfy the sex drive of his nature. This reasoning seems utterly sound and conclusive until a careful examination is made of the whole text in question. Upon examining Matt. 5:32, one will observe that although the heart of Christ was indeed full of compassion for the innocent wife of the major thrust of the verse, He did not free her to marry another when her husband divorced her; for although Moses said that such a woman upon receiving the bill of divorcement “MAY GO AND BE ANOTHER MAN’S WIFE”..(Deut.24:2), Christ declared:

It was said also whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: but I say unto you, that everyone 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 (Matt.5:31,32 R.V.).

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In this statement, Christ abrogated the Mosaic right of this innocent wife to marry another. Further, Christ specifically said that the kind of innocent wife in question could not marry another when her husband committed adultery by marrying another. This is clearly stated in Luke 16: 18 (R. V.) below:

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.

The text of Matt.5:32 has been treated in detail earlier in this book. See pages18 through 29. [hyperlink:https://www.standerinfamilycourt.com/?p=1898] To say that “innocent parties” who have divorced their adulterous mates cannot maintain their purity because of their flame of nature is a fearful indictment of ALL married people, whether they be regenerate or unregenerate, an indictment that a great company of them would reject. It is also a fearful indictment of the power of the Spirit of God who inhabits every child of God and who is eager to inhabit every unregenerate who will turn to Christ.

Many mates of the kind described under a, b, c, and d below must maintain their lonely lives in purity, despite the fact that their mates have not committed adultery. They may not remarry while their long absent spouses live. Are the so-called innocent mates of Matt.19:9(A.V.) to be given special preference by God? If those of the FIVE WORD School would follow their reasoning respecting this problem to its logical conclusion, they would have to search the Word of God and provide an unscriptural doctrine of divorce and remarriage for the following:

a. A wife whose husband has been in an insane institution for many years, and who. according to the best medical advice, will be there for many more years.

b. A wife whose husband has been imprisoned for life.

c. A robust young husband whose wife has been incapacitated for marital union by a terrible accident or sickness. Must the flame of nature burn away his vow, “until death us do part”? To such a young husband, the eunuch necessity of Matt.19:11,12 will be pertinent.

d. A young husband stationed in an army of occupation for two years, thousands of miles from home, or in a similar situation during open warfare.

e. The innocent wife of the character described in Matt.5:32. The Scriptures state that she may not remarry, asserting that whoso marrieth her committeth adultery. See also Luke 16: 18 for this type of innocent spouse.

f. Even the FIVE WORD School allows that there are some innocent spouses who have been divorced who may not marry while their former mates remain unmarried. Will not their flame of nature require the FIVE WORD School to accommodate the Scriptures to their need by providing a doctrine of desertion, like the alleged doctrine of desertion of I Cor. 7: 15, to meet the requirement of these innocents?

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The teachers of this divorce doctrine begin with divorce only “for fornication” and spread it out for “desertion” also. Once the dike is broken for the flame of nature, there can be no stopping point in practice, despite a church’s doctrine, permission to divorce a mate for desertion will extend to the permission to do so for cruelty, drunkenness, etc. The FIVE WORD School suggests that the Conservative School imposes upon an INNOCENT MATE a life of temptation, and should such an one fail, he is allegedly forced into the flames of hell. If this kind of theology were consistent, it would have to allow that there are many other innocents, so-called, who by their flame of nature will be coerced into the flames of hell, the LAKE OF FIRE! Indeed. if the teaching of this school is disseminated widely, it will encourage some of the “unfortunate mates” listed above to remarry and thus commit adultery and meet the doom of hell. Further, it will provide an excuse for many unmarried ones to commit unchastity, since it will focus their attention on their weak flesh rather than upon the grace of God, gumption, and grit.

But the fearful and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the LAKE which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death. (Rev. 21:8)

Fornicators and adulterers are also listed in the roll call of the damned in I Cor. 6:9.

The following is an excerpt from the article entitled “Divorce: Dilemma of the Church” which appeared in the November 1955 issue of Christian Life magazine: Not long ago Dr. Edman [President of Wheaton College] counselled a Christian who learned through the birth of an imbecilic son (who providentially died very quickly) that his wife was syphilitic. Her condition was hereditary. Was he entitled to divorce? “By Christian standards you are not entitled to divorce,” Dr. Edman answered.” Your wife’s illness is unfortunate, even tragic – but no more than that of a wife who becomes mentally deranged.”

(“Divorce: Dilemma of the Church, ” loc. cit.)

7. GIVE A JUDGMENT THAT IS BASED ON THE STANDARDS OF GRACE RATHER THAN UPON THE LAW OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

The FIVE WORD School insists that necessarily grace should be more considerate of “innocent parties” than the law, because the law would have released an innocent spouse from an adulterous mate by stoning.

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To the contrary, men should view what Christ would have us do under grace. First, it is important to notice that grace is always more longsuffering with the wicked than the law. The emphasis of grace is on going the “second mile,” “turning the other cheek,” and “loving one’s enemies.” Observe particularly the context of Christ’s reference to His standards of marriage (Matt.5:31,32) in the Sermon on the Mount. This is dealt with on pages 18 through19.

The fornicator and adulteress were indeed stoned under Moses’ law of the Old Testament, but how different reads the grace of the New Testament:

Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: and by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses (Acts 13:38,39). The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ (John 1:17).

In John 8, it is written that the Scribes and Pharisees brought unto Jesus “a woman taken in adultery.” When they had set her in the midst of the group to worn Jesus was ministering, they said:

Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou (John 8:5) ?

Those familiar with the Scriptures will remember that Christ challenged each of her accusers to be the first to cast a stone at her; yet not one presumed to act upon His word, but each went out convicted by his own conscience. Thank God, Christ’s word to the Woman was: “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.”

The spirit which the Lord Jesus manifested to the adulterous woman of John 8 He manifested also to the woman who had had five husbands in John 4, and to the harlot of Luke 7, who washed his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head. He said to the harlot, “Thy sins are forgiven.. . . Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace” (Luke7:48,50). Christ’s grace provided that an adulterous one might live out: his or her normal life if perchance he or she might repent and be reconciled to Him. The FIVE WORD School appeals urgently for grace to be shown to the “innocent”. Christ of the New Covenant appeals urgently for men and women to show His grace to sinning men. His grace abounded to sinful men. His whole life bore testimony to ·that fact. His death at Calvary was the painful breaking of His alabaster – box of love upon sinful mankind who were unworthy of His love. Many want the Cross of Christ as a way of atonement; few want it as a way of life. We are so ready to accept freely the grace of Christ but unwilling to share it richly and daily when it means suffering.

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….Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God . . . Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin. neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again: when he suffered, he threatened not: but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously (I Pet 3:18; 2:21-23).

The Cross-way of life is contrary to the thinking of the natural man, be he an unregenerate or a carnal regenerate. The natural man cries out for the administration of strict justice against his enemies. Christ calls for the extension of mercy and grace by believers to those who are unfaithful and who despise and injure them. Christians would all be hopeless and eternally doomed for their unfaithfulness and enmity toward the Lord were it not for His abounding grace and patience toward them. A true “innocent mate” may at some time be forced, because of circumstances, to put away (a mensa et thoro) an “unchaste mate,” but may he by the grace of God ever keep the door ajar for the return of the unfaithful one. May he be gracious to the erring one as was the LORD ofthe Old Testament and the LORD Jesus of the New Testament. May the Cross marks of Calvary love be upon all of our hearts! God did not close the door to His adulterous wife ISRAEL!

8. GIVE A JUDGMENT THAT WILL BE BASED ON DIVINE REVELATION RATHER THAN UPON MAN’S RATIONALIZED CONCEPT OF MORAL LAW.

Some of the FIVE WORD School teach that moral law does not conflict with the law of man’s inherent nature. They hold I Cor.7:9 to be such a law.

The author has shown earlier that the biological drive of man must be curbed, whether before or after marriage. Certainly, the unfortunate mates mentioned above would have to curb this driving impulse of nature within.

Would not the reasoning of the FIVE WORD School, if followed to its logical conclusion, make God chargeable for the unchastity of young unmarried men who under government orders have to serve for two years or more overseas without the privilege of marriage? This situation was a real one during World War II. However, were there not multitudes of these young men of strong sex drive who came home unsullied, even though they did not know Christ as Saviour?

What of the millions of young men of every decade from fourteen years of age to their early or middle twenties, and some later, who because of their educational preparation delay marriage until they are ready to begin their professional career? Are not these young men required by God to keep themselves pure during those years? Or does God make some special dispensation for them, giving them license to commit unchastity until they are married, since conditions did not warrant their marrying earlier? Is the flame of nature to decide the divorce issue, or will a sound exegesis of what “SAITH THE LORD” provide the answer?

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Some of the FIVE WORD School believe that moral law is never unreasonable, that it is always reasonable to man. Consequently, they fervently believe that it would be an unreasonable law to restrict an “innocent mate” from the right to remarry. How can anyone trust man’s idea of reason when his very reason is vitiated by sin? Mankind must depend upon the revelation of God in order to know what “ideas of reason” are valid. Let us see where an evangelical would arrive if he followed man’s idea of reason:

a. Is vicarious suffering reasonable? Of course not!! Therefore Christ’s atonement is of no use and is diabolical.

b. Is imputation of guilt and righteousness reasonable? Of course not!! Therefore men have neither the sin of Adam nor the righteousness of Christ.

c. Is eternal punishment for temporal sin reasonable? Of course not! Then neither is eternal bliss for simple faith in Christ reasonable. Therefore an eternal heaven and hell are myths!

Human reasoning without God and the Holy Scriptures leads only to moral chaos and spiritual disaster. Witness the effect of the teachings of Nietzsche upon Germany and the world, and the teachings of Kant upon: the Christian Church. Both of these philosophies were built on pure HUMAN REASON of brilliant intellects without the light of divine TRUTH.

Mankind is obligated to the moral law, not on the basis of logic or human reason but on the basis of the source of moral law; it comes from God who shall judge us by it. Man does not by human reason find God. God discloses Himself to man through the Scriptures and Jesus Christ, or man could not find Him; neither could man know His divine requirements without a divine revelation from heaven.

Strangely enough, some of the FIVE WORD School conclude that moral law can never cause unhappiness. They believe that the teaching that marriage is indissoluble, as presented by Christ, would cause unhappiness to “innocent spouses” and therefore is contrary to moral law. They believe that every moral law of God will bring happiness to all who obey it. They do not believe that an “innocent mate” can find God-given happiness by obeying the indissoluble marriage law of Christ (Matt. 19:8). Often a faithful Christian is subjected to abuse in factory, office, or home because of his steadfast regard for all the commandments of God. In many countries, devotion and obedience to Christ mean loss of job and ostracism from society and home. Note the following Scriptures:

Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution (II Timothy 3:12).

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….Cain, who was of that wicked one . . . slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous (IJohn 3:12)

The slave of the Apostle Peter’s day could not cancel the slave-bondbecausea master was cruel tohim.

Servants [Greek-slaves], be subject to your masters with all fear; not onlytothe good and gentle, but also to the froward (I Pet.2:18).

The Christian’s attitude toward such suffering is described by the Apostle Peter:

For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently, but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God (I Pet.2:19-20)

There are many innocent victims today who suffer because of the wicked deeds of evil men. Think of faithful wives who sorrow because of the deeds of drunken husbands, and faithful mothers who grieve because of the misdeeds of wayward children. Think of the tens of thousands of innocent children who endure hardship because of the sins of their parents or of their foster parents, or because of the bestial cruelty they exercise over them. The last situation is frequently caused by broken homes resulting from divorce. Neither can we forget the unfortunate mates described on pages 135 through 136. Most of the suffering inthe world today is brought on mankind by the sin of former generations or of other men about them. Think of the awful suffering of the many millions during World Wars I and II. In such, the godly suffered with the wicked.

Once we breach the sanctity and indissolubility of marriage our thinking becomes blurred, our moral sense loses clarity, and mere emotionalism and sentimentality run away with us. Nearly all believers are confronted at sometime with the type of argument that brings to them cases of real suffering, suchasgenuine incompatability, drunkenness, cruelty, insanity, desertion, non-support, etc. These sad circumstances should awaken in every child of God a deep sympathy and compassion. But cases of real suffering, even of “innocent mates” is not a sound argument for departing from a divine principle and altering a fundamental law of God.

The wisest of laws many times inflicts suffering upon innocent individuals.Insome areas, the compulsory clearance of slum sections adversely affects property owners; others suffer when compelled to move because of the location of anewhighway; still others experience the loss of a business without adequatecompensation. Whole families are brought to grief because of compulsory military service regulations. Because of these facts. some would clamor for the prevention of laws providing for the clearance of slum areas, for the building of new highways, and for the government’s right to draft their sons for military service.

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The great majority, however, would acquiesce, knowing that they exist for the general welfare of all. Certainly all thoughtful men regard the extreme suffering and sacrifice of their country’s soldiers in the time of national peril as of utmost importance for the preservation of life and liberty.

It is a dangerous position to argue that divorce should be provided on the basis of cases of individual suffering. God has ordained that marriage should be indissoluble for the sake of the greatest good for the greatest number, even though some individual innocent mates must suffer as a result. Actually, it is an awful fallacy to view marriage as concerned only with the happiness of the spouses who enter wedlock. Herein lies the shallow thinking of our time.

The Christian world sorely needs to return to Calvary and there in its light properly estimate the essential need of individual suffering to maintain the high standards of Christian righteousness for the sake of the general welfare of society and the glory of God.

For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:20). Ye are the salt of the earth (Matt. 5:13).

The Christian world is the saving salt of society. It is amazing how little salt, comparatively speaking, is needed to preserve meats. It would be astounding to know the tremendous, restraining influence against wickedness which is exerted by the godly few in any community. God grant that the evangelical church of today shall return to the high standards of Christian marriage bequeathed to it by the early Church and the Apostles and thus save society from the awful moral degeneration brought about by the dissolution of a large percentage of its marriages.

9. GIVE A JUDGMENT THAT CONSIDERS FIRST THE GLORY OF GOD, THE WELFARE OF SOCIETY, AND THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, RATHER THAN THE INDIVIDUAL HAPPINESS OF INNOCENT MATES.

See Charge number 5 on [Appendix] pages 126 through 132 for a full coverage of this problem.

10. GIVE A JUDGMENT THAT IS BASED UPON DIVINE REVELATION RATHERTHAN UPON THE RESPONSES OF PERSONAL EMOTIONS TO THE PLEAS FOR THE ALLEGED INNOCENT MATES.

See Charge number 8 on [Appendix] pages 140 through141 for discussion of this problem.

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11. GIVE A JUDGMENT THAT WILL NOT OVERLOOK THE COMPASSION OF THE TRIUNE GOD FOR THE UNCHASTE MATE.

See pages 25 through 26 and [Appendix] pages 122 through 124 for discussion on this.

12. GIVE A JUDGMENT THAT IS BASED ON PRINCIPLE AND CHARACTER RATHER THAN UPON THE SUCCESSES OF A PERSON OR GROUP OFA RELIGIOUS PERSUASION OR UPON ALLEGED CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE.

The FIVE WORD School believes that because “an innocent spouse” who has married again is successful in establishing churches and winning souls to Christ this is strong evidence that Matt. 19:9 provides for the dissolution of marriage for innocent spouses whose mates have committed adultery.

The whole evangelical movement has always refused to build a doctrine on Christian experience or experiences or upon the successes of men who labor for the kingdom of God. Too often followers of the FIVE WORD School assume that because a divorcee who has a living former partner, or his mate, has been born again, or has been remarkably filled with the Spirit of God, or has won souls to Christ, or has had some unusual Christian experience, he should have equal status in the church with every other believer. The richest and most scriptural Christian experiences are not given to endorse present practices or states of the recipient, but rather to impart further light and provide for a greater receptivity for more light for greater obedience to God. Any reader can think of a number of evil habits or practices or states in which men and women are found when God meets them in a new and rich experience. It is obvious that evil practices cannot persist if the recipient of the rich experience is to continue in the will of God and in the full light and blessing of God. The cleansing of the soul is conditioned upon walking in all the light of divine Truth when it is revealed to the heart.

If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin (I John 1:6,7).

The fallacy of establishing a doctrine of divorce upon Christian experience is readily illustrated by a typical example. Two divorced spouses enter a church and shortly thereafter find Christ as Saviour; one has been divorced as a chaste wife, the other as a chaste husband. Later the two fall in love and the man tells his pastor that he will not be able to live a pure and devoted life before God unless he marries again. The pastor entreats him not to do so, since all would agree that Christ has positively forbidden such people who have living mates to marry again (in this case neither former mate had remarried) and Christ has warned that such people will be living in adultery if they do so (Matt. 5:32b; 19:9b; Luke16:18b).

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However, despite the entreaty, the couple marry. A few months later, both testify to having been wonderfully filled with the Spirit of God. Soon board members of the church discuss the matter and press the pastor to take these people into membership of the church and make them eligible for teaching in the Sunday school and holding other offices, despite their having brazenly sinned as believers against the clear light of God. The board and church approve, because they believe that the richer experience in God of each spouse testifies that the marriage is approved of God.

Is it not amazing that such boards and churches do not question the experience or the possible purpose of God in blessing such individuals but rather question the validity and truth of the clear teaching of Christ, which unequivocally declares that such spouses are partners in an illicit, pretended marriage before God, and therefore are continuing examples of spouses whose marriage is disapproved by God? Such a couple as described above would doubtless find other churches in the same denomination or other denominations which would accept them into good standing if the local church where they were converted refused to receive them. Many of these churches would of course welcome them into good standing because they regard more highly the testimony of Christian experience than the testimony of the immutable and eternal Word of God. When other distressing sins and practices are discovered in the lives of believers who have subsequently had remarkable Christian experiences, the evangelical church of which they are members demands thorough repentance. It requests and insists that such believers shall desist from their former wicked associations and practices. Is the fact that the adultery of divorce and remarriage, of the kind mentioned, is a “respectable sin” in our society the reason why many evangelical churches wink at this glaring and continuing immorality? A church’s accommodation of her divorce doctrine to the modern standards of our time may be “churchianity”; it is not Biblical Christianity.

Presumptive divorcees of the kind described above, when accepted into membership of the church, will conclude that believers of the congregation look upon the state’s license to remarry as virtually a document of the church, providing a sort of medieval indulgence to presumptive Christian divorcees to commit and continue in adultery with impunity from heaven. Other Christian divorcees within the church or denomination who are not yet remarried can then conclude that any hesitancy of conscience about remarrying may be personally dismissed and erased by remarriage. They are assured by the practice of their church and denomination that, although the contemplated remarriage of divorcees is sinful when held in the imagination as an intention before marriage, it is not sinful when the remarriage is consummated. Unconverted married youth who have been brought up within the same church will not hesitate to divorce and remarry in view of such beliefs and practices of the church. They will be persuaded that upon their confession of faith after remarriage they will also be given full status within the church.

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A fait accompli (an accomplished fact) is the important thing!! Once the marriage is completed, the remarried divorcees described above will have no doubt about their acceptance in the local church and in many other churches which magnify Christian experience above the “THUS SAITH THE LORD” of Jesus Christ. How awful it would be for believers to have the same eagerness for a fait accompli respecting other comparable grievous sins! May the compromising church speedily realize that the accepted and “respectable sin” of adultery, continuing unchastity, in divorce and remarriage of presumptive divorcees is as heinous in the sight of God as continuing prostitution or repeated murder. If one is shocked by that statement, it is because the Church of Christ is rapidly conditioning her conscience for the toleration of many sins committed by her people which she would not have tolerated a decade ago. According to the New Testament, what is adultery before God in one generation is adultery before God in all generations to the end of time. “Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven” (Ps. 119:89).

The fallacy of building a doctrine of divorce on Christian experience is the greatest single cause for so many evangelical churches of this generation altering or flouting Christ’s doctrine of marriage and divorce to fit the circumstances of converted divorcees. May God help churches which accept into good standing such couples as described above to realize that if their practice is persistently followed, it will as effectively destroy all barriers to divorce as the teaching and practice of Hollywood! Oh that the Church of Christ would heed the Scripture which follows:

What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth? Seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee. When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentest with him, and hast been partaker with adulterers. . . . These things hast thou done, and I kept silence: Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: But I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes (Ps. 50: 16-18.21).

In many instances, those having seemingly great success as clergymen or other leaders in the Christian Church are lacking in moral integrity. The Lord Jesus said:

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit: but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit (Matt. 7:15-17).

The Apostle Paul did not equate faithful preaching of the Gospel with good fruit. He said:

Some indeed preach Christ of envy and strife; and some also of goodwill: The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds: But the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defense of the gospel. What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretense, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yes, and will rejoice ( Phil. 1:15-18).

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Men of questionable character have frequently been successful in God’s work. In fact, some of these men have been known to win souls to Christ while living dishonest, immoral, and dishonorable lives. Souls have even been won through the preaching of a drunkard. God indeed honors His Word, despite the character of the speaker. The Truth sets men free irrespective of the unworthy vessel who handles it. Such a person will be required to give an account before God’s judgment bar in the world to come.

Does God anywhere in the Scripture allow a man’s outward ministry and religious experience, however remarkable and splendid, to double for his character? Certainly Baalam’s outward ministry and remarkable prophecy (Num. 22 through 24) before Balak appeared to certify that he was a true and faithful prophet of the LORD. Yet II Pet. 2: 15 and Rev. 2:14 establish the fact that Baalam was inwardly a “lover of the wages of unrighteousness, ” and that he “taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.” Are there not Christian teachers, today, who teach others to commit unchastity by condoning divorce and remarriage by Christians within the Church?

“The gifts and callings of God are without repentance” (Rom. 11:29). Saul of the Old Testament prophesied under the Spirit of the LORD while seeking to kill David (I Sam. 19:23. 24). His prophesying did not gloss over the fact that he was disapproved by God and rejected as king (I Sam. 15:26), nor did it gloss over the murderous spirit he was manifesting toward David (I Sam. 20:30-33). The grievous condition of Saul when he tried to kill David is revealed in the following texts:

The Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him(I Sam.16:14). And Saul said unto Michal, Why hast thou deceived me so, and sent away mine enemy, that he is escaped?. . . And it was told Saul saying, Behold, David is at Naioth in Ramah. And Saul sent messengers to take David . . .And he [Saul] went thither to Naioth in Ramah: and the Spirit of God was upon him also, and he went on, and prophesied until he came to Naioth in Ramah. . . And he. . prophesied before Samuel (I Sam.19:17,19, 2 0a, 23,24a) . . . .And Jonathan answered Saul his father, and said unto him, Wherefore shall he be slain? what hath he done? And Saul cast a javelin at him to smite him: whereby Jonathan knew that it was determined of his father to slay David (I Sam.20:32,33).

Observe carefully that Saul was on his way to kill David when the Spirit of God fell on him and prophesied through him. Note also that he proceeded immediately thereafter to express his desire to kill David. The prophesying of Saul did not in the slightest indicate that he was right with God at the time.

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It certainly was not an evidence that his effort to kill David was approved of God. Murder was in the heart of Saul. although God providentially prevented him from the overt act. His bitter hatred toward David reveals that be was a murderer in the sight of God despite his failure to kill David. The statement of I John3:14,15 leaves no doubt that this is true:

We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever HATETH his brother is a MURDERER: and ye know that no murderer bath eternal life abiding in him.

An individual’s supernatural utterance or prophecy does not of itself indicate that such a one is right before God. Caiaphas, the high priest prophesied that “. . . it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not” (John 11:50). The Scripture continues, “And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; and not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad” (John 11: 51,52). Caiaphas gave this prophecy despite the fact that he despised the Lord Jesus Christ. When Christ stood before him in the judgment hall, Caiaphas said, “He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy” (Matt.26,65). On another occasion Christ said to the Jews, “. . . if ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins” (John 8:24).

Certainly the Apostle Paul taught that it was possible for a Corinthian church member to speak supernaturally in tongues, prophesy by the Spirit, understand profound mysteries of the kingdom of God, work miracles through unusual faith, be the most generous man in the Church and yet be rejected by God. When will branches of the evangelical church recognize that the Holy Scriptures do not equate Christian experience with Christian character? When will they see that Christian experience does not prove that a man is presently right before God? In I Corinthians 13 Paul shows that LOVE is requisite to approvedness before God.

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity [1ove], I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity [love], I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity love, it profiteth me nothing” (I Cor.13:1-3).

The love of God described in I Cor. 13 in reality is character. “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God ls love” (I John 4:8).

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The quality of love required by God is described by the Apostle in Rom. 13:8-10.

. . . He that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY [the continuing sin of unchastity in divorcees and their mates who marry while one or the other has a living mate], Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness. Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. LOVE WORKETH NO ILL TO HIS NEIGHBOUR: therefore LOVE IS THE FULFILLING OF THE LAW.

Love does not break the commandments of God. Love does not commit or continue in adultery! “Husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it” (Eph.5:25).

He who despises the commandments of God and breaks them is not right before God. Our generation and many of its ministers call drunkenness, alcoholism; fornication, an unfortunate slip of average folk; and divorce and remarriage (adultery) an acceptable and necessary social practice, a respectable sin both within and without the church. Paul called this sin adultery (Rom. 7:2,3). John, the beloved disciple said:

Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law. . . . Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He that cormmitteth sin is of the devil. . . . In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. . . . he that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him, and He in him (I John 3:4, 7, 8a, 24).

The Apostle Paul revealed who the unrighteous are who will not enter the kingdom ofGod:

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers . . . nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, . . . shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you . . . (I Cor.6:9-11).

Notice that fornicators and adulterers are classed with idolators, thieves and drunkards. Indeed some Christians used to be such kind of sinners, but Paul is emphatic in saying, “And such were some of you . . , ” They could not continue in these sins and expect to enter the kingdom of God! Note the Apostle’s warning in Eph. 5:5,6.

Christ insisted that a man might prophesy and perform miracles and yet not be right before Him. He said:

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shalI enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me. Ye that work iniquity. (Matt.7:21-23).

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The Lord Jesus equated the fruit of a man with his character. Note that He said,

“Depart from me, ye that work iniquity…”

Outward exhibitions of supernatural ministries and successes are never accepted by the Lord in the Scriptures as a substitute for character or obedience. Even the fact that Moses brought forth water miraculously from the rock the second time by smiting it, did not gloss over his serious disobedience in the manner in which he brought it forth (Num.20:9). If results and amazing Christian experiences alone are the divine criteria of success and approbation in Christian living and ministry, if these only count, regardless of character and conformity to the will of God, then God should not have forbidden Moses to lead Israel across Jordan into the promised land because of his transgression (Num. 20:12; Deut.3:23-27), neither should He have described the prophet Baalam, who gave a true prophecy of Israel, as a grievous sinner (Rev.2:14). The evil of Moses’ disobedience was that he did not sanctify the Lord before the eyes of Israel in the manner in which he obtained water out of the rock (Num. 20: 12). A divorcee with a former living partner, or one who is married to a divorcee, may be successful in the work of the Lord, but He does not thereby sanctify the Lord in the sight of men. On the one hand he presumes to exalt the Word of God, but in actuality he reflects against God by presuming to be an elder in the church when God forbids it (Tit. l :5,6). God Is more concerned with the honor of His Name than with the apparent successes of those who presume to take places of leadership in the church when He forbids it.

Indeed, there are ministers of the Gospel who have been married the second time while having a living former partner, whose ministry is successful by ordinary Christian standards. These men may be men of deep sincerity and otherwise good character. This does not, however, change the fact that they are disobeying God in presuming to be elders in the church when His Word decries it. Uzziah was sincere when he put forth his hand to stay the ark of the LORD (II Sam.6:3), but He was disobedient to God, and God smote him because of it.

Let no man judge the worth of another by the outward fruit of his ministerial labors or by his apparent Christian experiences to the exclusion of his true character in the everyday relationships of life. Above all, let him be true to the standards of the Scriptures even when they contradict what seems to be right in the sight of the church. Let him not fail to call the sin of divorce and remarriage adultery for the same reasons Christ did. Surely neither the Church nor any individual ever has the right to do evil that good may come.

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13. GIVE A JUDGMENT THAT WILL GIVE THE TRUE STATUS OF A RE·MARRIED DIVORCEE (OR HIS MATE) WITHIN THE CHURCH, AS BASED ON SCRIPTURE AND NOT ON HUMAN LOGIC

One must remember that a presentation of doctrine may appear to the majority of a group to be logically powerful while actually it is scripturally wrong. Indeed, logic based on wrong foundations may be “an organized procedure forgoing wrong with confidence and certainty…”

(Charles Kettering, loc. cit.)

Men of God who have much light in many areas of truth may be blinded to the plain truth of Scripture in other areas because of their personal sympathies, prejudices, traditions, practices of many churches or principles of expediency. A denomination’s doctrines are ultimately more affected by its tolerated practices than by the doctrinal statement of its creed. Doctrine follows persistent practice more readily than practice follows doctrine. A denomination which tolerates loose, unscriptural divorce practices in its churches will ultimately alter its divorce doctrines to conform to its permitted practices. If a church’s doctrines bear the stamp of “thus saith the Lord” it will be imperative that it bring its ecclesiastical practices into conformity with its Scriptural doctrines; otherwise, the church will drift rapidly into error and apostasy. A church is spiritually doomed if its practices deny its Scriptural doctrines. The voice of an unscriptural practice of the many in the Church is never the, voice of God.

a. Churches and Christian Leaders View Differently the Status of Converted Divorcees Within the Church.

Among evangelicals who permit an innocent mate to divorce an adulterous spouse and remarry, there is a great difference of opinion respecting the status within the Church of a divorcee of an unscriptural union. The FIVE WORD School teaches that such a person has just as much right to be an elder (bishop) in the Church as a converted thief. This is a superficial conclusion based on human reasoning and supposed logic to the exclusion of the conclusions which are obtained by a thorough study of all the divorce texts of Scripture.

Even among conservatives who believe that Christ taught the complete indissolubility of marriage for any cause, including adultery, and that the Scriptures teach that spouses of unscriptural unions may not be elders in the Church (I Tim.3:2), there is a wide divergence of judgment respecting the general status of remarried divorcees within the Church.

The questions which follow will reflect the difference of view respecting the Scriptural right of a spouse of an unscriptural union to remain with his second (or later) mate while his true spouse is living. The first section of questions will reveal the view of those who look upon converted divorcees within the Church with great tolerance.

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If God forgives the sins of others, which were committed in their ignorance when they were unconverted (I Tim. 1 :13), does He not forgive converted spouses of unscriptural unions for their adultery? Have they committed unpardonable sins? Does not God count the new birth of a sinner as a new beginning, regardless of the complications of his life which overtook him before he knew Christ as his Saviour? Does not sin tangle the lives of some to such an extent that though pardon can be obtained, some things can never be fully straightened out? David was responsible for the killing of Uriah (II Sam. 12:9), yet be could not bring back Uriah’s wife, although God forgave him for his sin (II Sam. 12: 13) when he confessed it. Does not God tell us to forget those things which are behind and press toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ (Phil. 3: 13. 14)? Did Christ condemn the woman at the well who had her sixth alleged husband? Did he tell her to leave her present husband, who in reality was not her husband? Did not Christ say to the woman taken in adultery, “Neither do I condemn thee: go. And sin no more” (John 8: 11)? If God has forgiven and accepted spouses of unscriptural unions of divorcees, as evidenced by their changed lives and by their mighty infillings of the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:47), what right has any church to reject such people from full status within the Church; is any church wiser than God?

Should not a church, if consistent, be just as ready to accept into full status converted divorced and remarried spouses, guilty of adultery by virtue of their disallowed marriages, as it would accept adulterers who have never left their true spouses, or as it would accept converted fornicators who have never married? Does not the fact that the Apostle Paul restricted the office of an elder (bishop) to those who had but one wife, indicate that converted divorcees and their mates had full privileges within the Church apart from that high office?

Are there not tangles of diverse character in the past lives of many converts, which cannot now be resolved, no matter how eagerly they would desire such a resolution? Would not the leaving of an unconverted spouse (of an unscriptural divorcee union) by his converted mate make for more complication than it would resolve, and might it not jeopardize his (or her) salvation? Does not God see that? Would not the break-up of such unscriptural marriages by the converted spouse of such unions do more harm than good by hindering the unsaved spouse and by marring the lives of the children of the union? Would not the break-up of such a union by both converted parents do more harm than good by robbing the children of the tender love, care, and Christian nurture of both parents? Would not the spiritual, moral, and social advantages resulting from the continuation of the union far outweigh the possible good to the personal conscience of voluntary separation? Would there not be legal difficulties in such a separation that would make the separation virtually impossible before the laws of many states? Would not a legal divorce be difficult for a converted spouse of an unscriptural union to obtain who wanted to return to his first mate, if his unconverted spouse contested it? Would not a legal remarriage of a spouse to his first mate (if he or she had not remarried) be difficult in some instances, in some states? If a tender hearted wife should want to leave her unregenerate husband under these circumstances when he refused, what would happen to the children?

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Would they be likely to receive under court order any financial help should they go with the mother, if the court did not forbid the children to join their mother? Might not a slavish obedience to what is apparently the letter of the law of marriage plunge either or both mates into equal sin with their present state, and might it not press them into temptation too great to be borne? Would not a double divorce frequently break up two homes and cause heartache and distress beyond that already created by the twisted polluted second (or later) unscriptural marriage? Is not God more ready to forgive and forget the past than some ecclesiastical leaders?

Does not God’s pardoning graces far outweigh His strict justice? Did not God in His grace frequently tolerate conditions among His people Israel that He did not approve, and did He not bless them despite their sinful practices? Did He not permit Israel to have a king, although earlier He forbade it (I Sam. 8:5-20)? Did not God tolerate divorce and remarriage under Moses against His higher will because of the hardness of the hearts of Israel? Are not all unconverted divorcees in a hardness of heart state before they are converted? Is not God more realistic and compassionate respecting the difficult problems of divorcees than some over-conscientious believers? Do not verses 20 and 27 of I Cor.7 teach that such divorcees and their spouses are to remain in the disapproved marriages wherein God found them when He called them to salvation?

The questions frequently asked by another group of equally conscientious conservatives follow. This group looks upon the continued union of spouses of an unscriptural marriage of a divorcee or divorcees with considerably more gravity, and it poses the following questions:

Must not the above questions be answered by the “thus saith the LORD” of the Scriptures rather than by human judgment and human logic motivated by human sympathy and expediency? Did not Christ unequivocally abrogate the divorce permission of Moses’ law, which was given to Israel because of the hardness of their hearts? Did He not do this by saying that divorce for hardness of heart was “from the beginning not so” (Matt. 19:8), and by His earlier statement, “It hath been said, That whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery” (Matt. 5:31,32), and by His subsequent statement in Luke 16: 18? Do not these and other verses indicate clearly that Christ no longer tolerates divorce for hardness of heart? Further, do they not indicate that such marriages as described are invalid and merely pretended marriages before God?

Is any church’s statement of expediency respecting divorcees more authoritative and final than the statements of Christ in Matt. 5:31,32; 19:1-12;Mark 10:1-12, and Luke 16:18, which emphatically declare that marriage is indissoluble for any cause? Billy Graham and others have courageously said that the re-married divorcees (and their mates) of Hollywood are living in adultery.

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John the Baptist said to Herod, respecting his unscriptural wife, “It is not lawful for thee to have her” (Matt.14:4). Josephus tells us that the wife in question, Herodias, had divorced her husband Philip, the brother of Herod, and that Herod had divorced his first wife that they (Herod and Herodias) might be joined together. May a church of today or its pastor change the standards of God Almighty? Would any church leader of today have the temerity to say to a Hollywood star in the same marital status as Herod, “It is not lawful for thee to have her,” and then turn, in the man’s presence, and say to a converted remarried divorcee in the identical marital status, “It is lawful and right for you to have your wife and to maintain your union with her?”

Does God have a double standard which permits Him to tolerate continuing adultery in His children which He could not and would not tolerate in unbelievers? Could the LORD have said to idolatrous Israel, “You have committed adultery by your initial worship of idols, but your subsequent and continued devotion to idols is not a continuing state of adultery and is not sinful in my sight because you have asked me to forgive your first act of spiritual adultery? “Does one, by his first act of adultery in consummating an unscriptural union, absolve himself of guilt in succeeding acts of adultery in the continuation of an invalid, pretended marriage before God? May a thief find forgiveness for his first robbery and then continue his career as a thief because the first forgiveness of theft absolves him before God of any further guilt for the repeated thefts which follow? Could Christ have said to the woman taken in adultery, “Neither do I condemn thee go, and sin no more” (John 8:11), and yet contradictorily have permitted her (if she was a remarried converted divorcee having a former living mate) to commit adultery repeatedly thereafter in a pretended marriage He disallowed, and seven times said was a state of continuing adultery? May a church say that a pretended marriage (the remarriage of a divorcee while having a former mate) is an approved marriage before heaven because the spouses are forgiven for their first adultery (the act of consummation of their unscriptural union) and because they were wonderfully filled with the Holy Spirit while in that marriage union?

May any Christian or Christian minister scripturally say that because a convert to Christ has entered the LlFE of a NEW BEGINNING that he has, therefore, no tie or relationship to his past? May any believer assume that because the Scripture says that “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away: behold, all things are become new,” that he need not make restitution of his wicked past or break any evil ties that were and are obviously disapproved by God? May he maintain the status quo, of former associations that now are recognized as forbidden by God? If that which was forbidden before he was converted now made holy by his conversion? Were Zaccheus (Luke19:8) and Onesimus (Philemon 18,19), under Paul’s direction, wrong in making· restitution? If restitution is not necessary would not Onesimus have recognized that his NEW LIFE was a NEW BEGINNING, so that as a run-away slave he need not have felt compelled to return to his bonds under Philemon?

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Should not the experience of Israel in putting away strange wives to recover the blessing of God in the time of Ezra (Ezra 10:3, 4, 10, 11, 18, 19, 44) be pondered by spouses of scripturally disallowed marriages? How far does the cleansing blood of Christ dissolve the past? Did not the Lord Jesus say, “. . . And they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh.. ” (Matt. 19:5,6) ? Can a decision of a church or pastor sever the one-flesh union made by God? Does the fact that the remarriage of a divorcee is a respectable marriage in modern society make such a marriage automatically valid within the church?

Does an unusual experience of a soul before God indicate that God is pleased with all the life patterns and practices of that believer at that time? Would a church say that the fact that one was soundly converted and filled with the Spirit while possessing stolen goods shows that God approves of theft? Does not further light compel a Christian to put away his now recognized evil, if God and he are to walk together (Amos 3:3), and if he is rightfully to claim I John 1:7? If a spouse, of the kind in question, enters into an adulterous state before conversion by contracting a marriage disallowed by Christ, does the fact of his later conversion validate that adulterous union? If the adultery of an unscriptural union is but the isolated past act of the consummation of that marriage, will not even Christians be emboldened to remarry while having living mates, and will not the world by their example, teaching, and practice be encouraged to divorce their mates and remarry despite Christ’s warning against this sinful practice?

Is not a church’s error in giving full status to converted spouses of unscriptural unions of divorcees caused by its failure to recognize the real reason why Christ said that a spouse who either marries a divorcee who has a living mate or who divorces his true spouse and marries another committeth adultery. Can one deny that Christ’s reason for so speaking was the fact that the spouse who remarried (Matt. 5: 32) was yet before God united to his first mate? If the first act of adultery in such an illicit union did not dissolve the marriage, would the second, third, or any subsequent act of adultery of such an illicit union dissolve his first marriage? Surely Christ made this matter very clear in the above texts, in Matt.19:1-12, and in Mark 10: 1-12; the Apostle Paul by the Holy Spirit did likewise in Rom.7:2, 3 and I Cor.7: 10, 11, 39. Why does a man who marries another after putting away a chaste wife commit adultery and continue in adultery by that remarriage? Does not the FIVE WORD School agree that it is because he is still married to his innocent wife because his divorce is not valid? If he is still married to his first wife, is not the first wife still married to him? Does the Bible anywhere state that marriage is a one-way union? Did not Christ say that such a husband was the cause of his innocent wife’s committing adultery, and that he who marries such a wife commits adultery in doing so? Could it be adultery (Luke16: 18) to marry this woman if she was not still joined to her first husband despite his adulterous second (or subsequent) marriage? Did not Christ strictly forbid such a wife to marry again (Matt.5:31,32; 19:9; Luke 16:18)?

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Should one not heed the weight of three texts (not to say five if Rom. 7:2,3 and I Cor.7:39 are included) rather than one obscure text whose context contradicts FIVE WORD theology? Since an innocent wife is forbidden by Christ to marry another when her husband commits adultery by remarrying, must not an innocent husband abide by the same rule when his wife commits adultery by marrying another or by another manner? Does God have one rule for innocent husbands and another for innocent wives? If the alleged marriage (declared invalid by Christ) has not or cannot dissolve the first union of one or both spouses (of a later unscriprural union) as long as one or the other has a former, living mate (Rom. 7:2, 3; I Cor. 7: 10, 11,39), then how can a church assume the prerogative to declare that disallowed unions of divorcees are valid unions before God, or that the continued marriages are not continuing adulterous unions?

Is it therefore right for a church to say that it is just to allow a converted adulterer of an unscriptural union to have a full status within a church as to allow a converted fornicator, or a converted adulterer who never left his true spouse, to have full status in the house of God? Obviously, the two sins are not identical. Since the first is the continuing sin of adultery by repeated acts of adultery in an unscriptural, illicit union, while either the second or last is a single act of past unchastity which has been forgiven; and further, the two individuals mentioned last did not repeat the same sin! Are not the Scriptures clear in asserting that the divorcee (or his mate) of an unscriptural union is an adulterer while he maintains his illicit union in repeated acts of adultery, while the first union of himself or his wife (or both) is still undissolved, as it will be until death separates them (Rom. 7:2,3)? Would not a spouse who had been remarried unlawfully, according to the law of a state, while having a former living mate, be considered before the courts of the land to be in a state of an illicit, invalid union? Would churches take spouses of such unions who were later converted into their membership while the state refused to recognize such spouses as husband and wife? Should a Christian leader or church refuse to approve unions disallowed by the state and then presume to take spouses of marriages disallowed by Christ (under the laws of the kingdom of God) into membership? Has a church the right to nullify by its legislation and decrees the marriage laws of Christ as the Pharisees nullified the commandments of God by their tradition of “corban” (Mark7:10-12)? Will any church presume to disapprove the marriage laws of Christ while approving the unscriptural laws of states?

American society accepts the sin of divorce and remarriage while one or the other spouse has a living mate as a “respectable sin” because it occurs so frequently and because so many churches and Christians approve of it. Is this, however, sufficient reason for the Church of Christ tacitly to approve these unscriptural unions of divorcees by accepting spouses of such into membership and official positions, even though such spouses are continuing examples of mates of adulterous unions? Can the Church of Christ excuse herself by saying that the sin of divorce and remarriage is now so universal it would be impractical to frown on such unions within the Church?

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Has the extent to which a moral code instituted by God has broken down in a given society anything to do with the approval of that degenerated standard by the Church? Are not many guilt ridden persons (including divorcees) relieved by the thought that “everybody is now doing it within and without the Church; therefore, it must be all right for me to do it or continue in it”? Are the laws of Christ variable and changing in a changing world, or eternal and immutable? Was the sin of adultery a grave transgression before God in the apostolic period, but is not so today? Must the Church in order to please God pipe to the tune of the moral standards of its particular generation?

Must any church consider a strict exegesis of texts of Scripture to be important and final in establishing its doctrines of salvation and unimportant in the matter of divorce and marriage? Will the laws of expediency, human sympathy, human judgment, and Christian experience supersede the laws of God and of His Christ? Will a church presume to build a doctrine on the Christian experiences of converted divorcees or the alleged Christian experience of any other person or group within the Christian Church? Do not evangelical churches insist that its members desist from former wicked associations and practices even though they may subsequently have amazing Christian experiences? Do these churches allow any Christian experience to cover and condone continuing sin in a believer? Would they allow remarkable Christian experiences to give license to a believer to continue a life of stealing, lying. fornication, bigamy or adultery in a first marriage? Every Christian shrinks at the thought of a church allowing a bigamist who finds Christ to continue living with the woman who is not his real wife? Is not the remarriage of a divorcee of Hollywood virtually the same sin before God as the sin of the continuing adultery of an unconverted bigamist? Each of them is living with a spouse who is not his true spouse, (husband or wife). Is a Christian’s bigamy less evil than the bigamy of the divorce and remarriage of a sinner who has a former living mate? True the divorce and remarriage of an unfaithful spouse is not legally identical with the sin of a bigamist but is it not the equivalent before God? Although no one denies that God saves fornicators and adulterers, does God, or may any church scripturally allow these to continue their unchaste relations in the face of the clear divorce teachings of Jesus Christ? Is the adultery of a scripturally disallowed marriage of the kind in question less heinous in God’s sight than the adultery of a man who although yet not remarried is still unfaithful to his first wife? Where is there the slightest scriptural support for an alleged difference between the two? Do states’ marriage laws wipe out God’s marriage laws? Where did Christ declare that adulterous spouses when converted could continue a union which, before they found divine forgiveness, was declared by Him to be an adulterous union? Had Christ done so, would He not have stultified Himself and thereby encouraged many to flout his doctrine of the complete in dissolubility of marriage for any cause? However, may there not be reason to believe that Christ might approve such spouses maintaining their home for the good of the children if they would live together as brother and sister since in such a relationship they would not be repeating the sin of adultery which consummated their sinful and adulterous union?

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May liberals in theology justify their rejection of Christ’s doctrine of the eternal punishment of the wicked because He was so exceedingly compassionate in His dealings with the wicked? May anyone of the FIVE WORD School conclude that Christ would approve of the marriage and continued union of a divorcee with a second spouse while his first spouse was still living BECAUSE He manifested a remarkable love to immoral men and women who came to Him? May Christians reject Christ’s severe and scorching ethic because of Christ’s amazing compassion? May they reject the holy Christ for a tolerant Christ of their imaginations? Is there not a grave danger that many believers will make a JESUSoftheirowncarnalmusingsiftheydonotkeeptheirBiblesopentolearn accurately what Christ really taught? Will anyone presume to deny the truth of the assertions which follow? A JESUS WHO WILL ALLOW YOU TO DO THINGS FORBIDDEN BY THE BOOK IS A JESUS OF YOUR IMAGINATION. A JESUS WHO PERMITS YOU TO LIVE BY A LOWER STANDARD THAN BY HIS ACTUAL TEACHINGS IS A FALSE CHRIST PRESENTED TO YOU BY SATAN.

When Christ by His seven-fold use of the present tense of moichaomai (committethadultery)declares that spouses of adulterous unions continue to practice adultery if they maintain their illicit union in repeated acts of adultery, how may any part of the Christian Church presume to say that such continued unions are not continuing states of adultery? Can any rite, or majority decision of a church body or ruling of its leaders, or any Christian experience destroy Christ’s Word respecting the complete indissolubility of marriage? If God tolerates the continuation of an adulterous marriage within the Church, why should He not logically tolerate divorce and remarriage for every cause without the Church? Does it not appear that toleration for the continuance of adulterous unions for some must consistently mean toleration of adulterous unions for all, especially in an age in which men’s hearts appear to be as wicked and hard as in the days of Moses? Does not any thoughtful person see that laxity in the Church respecting its standards for converted spouses, of a disallowed marriage of a divorcee or divorcees, of necessity leads to the utter break-down of the standards of marriage taught by the Lord Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul? How may any unconverted spouse of a remarriage forbidden by Christ be considered an adulterous mate if converted spouses of like unions within the Church are not considered to be unchaste if they maintain a marital union with the spouses of identical unscriptural marriages? ShallChristians continue in the marital sin of adultery that grace may abound (Rom. 6:1)?

b, The Probably More Generally Accepted View of Most Conservative Evangelicals Respecting the Status of a Converted Divorcee of anUnscripturalUnion within the Church is Here Presented.

One of the most outstanding leaders of the evangelical Church of Great Britain, Donald Gee, has written the following respecting divorce and remarriage tangles:

Many believers today are faced with the acute practical problem of what to do about divorce and marriage tangles which they have carried over with them from the old life into the new when they have become born again.

My fellow ministers will know only too well the type of problem with which we are often faced when believers have become anxious, through a spirit of revival in the Church, to put their outward life right before God and men. Where the Holy Spirit is working in grace and power He will quickly begin to stir men and women up concerning improper marriage relationships. But the actual problems are often intensely intricate. In some cases both parties sometimes have been guilty of fornication, adultery and divorce before, and even after, professing conversion. Perhaps children have resulted from almost every union. Legal marriage may be difficult, especially in the light of Scriptures. Legal divorce seems equally difficult. Former partners have either become married again themselves, or are completely lost sight of. Separation will only add to the problem.

It is a safe principle that every case must be determined according to its own particular circumstances. It would be very dangerous folly to attempt to embody in writing any code by which hasty and stereotyped decisions could be made. Much patience is required, and humble prayer for that wisdom which has been promised to us when we feel our lack.

Paul is a splendid guide as to the right spirit in which to approach all these intensely practical outworkings of deeply spiritual principles. He has a magnificently balanced and large-minded way of bringing the practical problems and issues of the Christian life into relationship with what are, after all, the comparatively few and simple principles that govern that life. An illuminating hint upon this practical approach to the present type of problem is contained in his reference to THE CHILDREN (I Cor.7:14). Anybody who has anything at all to do with divorce will appreciate the force of this. It is usually the children that suffer most of all through twisted and defiled marriage relationships. This is the kind of consideration which we may safely follow in trying to help folk through their personal problems of hopelessly tangled marriage relationships. Here are just a few general principles to help, but not to govern.

(1) We must loyally accept the words of the Lord Jesus concerning divorce and remarriage, and must be prepared to obey them even at the cost of personal suffering, and apparent loss of immediate personal happiness. The Holy Spirit will strengthen with grace to bear, and with a joy in doing the will of God that can be greater than afforded by the gratification of any human affection. There must be no compromise with truth in the heart. Any apparently necessary compromise must on account be regarded as raising a ‘permission’ to the level of a ‘commandment’.

(2) There are undoubted cases where a too slavish obedience to what is apparently the letter of the word may only plunge either or both of the parties into equal sin with their present condition. It will certainly subject them to a temptation that may be too great to be borne. It will also certainly react with great hardship upon the innocent children, and will do no good.

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Frequently a former partner has married again, and even if it were legally permissible, a resumption of the original union would involve a further double divorce, the breaking up of more than one home, and confusion and hardship for the resultant families.

Where a father and mother have been soundly converted from a life of sin, and are now likely to be able to bring up their family, or families in all the advantages of a Christian home; it would appear as though the spiritual, moral and social advantages of their continued united lives would far outweigh the possible benefits to the private conscience of a voluntary separation. It seems a safe Pauline principle to be willing to make a practical compromise in such cases.

(3) Underlying all we may safely assume the pardoning grace of God in Christ where there has been a genuine repentance, and where there is now a sincere desire to please God in everything. We have often felt sure that the Lord was more ready to forgive than some of His children appear to be.

We judge it rash to infer too hastily that the new birth exonerates the child of God from any responsibility where his former life is concerned; and we must be careful how we quote that “If any man is in Christ he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.” Scripture proves very conclusively that this does not apply where deeds of restitution are concerned, evidenced by Zaccheus (Luke 18:19), and Paul on behalf of Onesimus (Philemon 18,19); and neither does it apply to any other fruit of repentance in the putting right, as far as lies in our power, of the results of former misdoing.

But there are times when it is beyond our power and God knows it. In such cases, we believe, it is no presumption upon divine grace to make a new start at the place where we were saved, and where we first saw the light of truth of God’s word on His perfect will for our life and walk. God is merciful; and on that sure ground we may anchor our souls when the storms of grief and trouble through sin threaten to overwhelm us.

One final word seems to be needed. An especially high standard is required in both the Old and New Testaments for those who minister in holy things. In the essential qualifications for both ‘bishops’ and ‘deacons’ it is repeated that they must be ‘the husband of one wife’ (I Tim. 3:2-12); and it seems quite clear from the context-that this not only means literal freedom from polygamy, but a positively high standard of morality in all married and domestic relationships.

This is only logical in those who are to be regarded as examples for other believers, and leaders before the world. The present condition of things in the world where divorce is concerned justifies the Church in demanding in all her

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officers an irreproachable testimony in their personal lives where this matter is concerned, and all who aspire to any outstanding position in local assemblies cannot complain if this is insisted upon.

Loyalty to the very highest principle is the greatest love in the end; and genuine Christian discipleship in the way of the cross, though it may mean the surrender of much undoubted happiness on the natural line, will most certainly bring a deep eternal joy greater than that conveyed by any earthly love. Is it too much to say that Calvary throws light even on the murky problems of divorce?

(Donald Gee: “Divorce. ” The Pentecostal Testimony. (September 1937) Toronto.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Francis Fisher, writing in his booklet, Problems of Marriage and Divorce, indicates the attitude of the Church of England toward converted spouses of unscriptural unions:

If the Church were to marry divorced persons in church, it would be concealing and contradicting those truths about God and his will, and would obscure the true relation of Christ and his Church [Eph. 5:31, 32], which ought to be revealed in the relation of husband and wife.

Our Lord came to seek and to save the lost, and to bring them into a living relationship with himself. It was to that end that he talked so long with the Samaritan woman of whom he said: “Thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband” (John 4:18). The Church must give the utmost pastoral care to those who marry again civilly after a divorce on one side or the other, or often enough on both. This pastoral obligation to them and to all men in their sins is a theological requirement, derived from the character of God, but how far does it take us?

Can it be right to admit such persons to the Holy Communion, when they are denying the real truth of marriage by living in a union which must be described as “adulterous”?

Let us be clear on this. Our Lord told us what marriage was, and the Church before the world, as an official act, celebrate a marriage where there is a divorce. Our Lord left to the Church the pastoral care of individuals and the duty of binding or loosing: it is not the Lord, but the Church which decides on matters of discipline as near to the mind of Christ as it can. Pastorally, the question is: where spiritually, does this person now stand? Theword adultery can be applied to several moral conditions . . .In pastoral ministry what matters most is to discover the moral condition of the sinner. There may be striking evidence that the Holy Spirit has brought and is bringing such people to a real discovery of Christ. There may indeed be evidence that the Holy Spirit is doing this through the marriage of two persons, one or both of whom may have been divorced. Are they to be told that they must disregard all their now accepted, and perhaps longstanding, obligations to one another and to children, break up their home, and commit themselves to a lifelong celibacy? That would generally be not to help them, but to “quench the spirit,” and might even appear to frustrate the work of the Holy Spirit in and through their union.

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In such cases there must be a place for discretion, and our own Church provides one. I have never seen any harm come from use of this discretion; I have seen much good. Church people should feel enough trust in their parochial clergy and bishops to know that this discretion is always prayerfully and faithfully used.

. . . Only if the Church is bearing uncompromisingly its witness to the truth of marriage by refusing to marry divorced persons, can it without damage and without causing confusion use discretion in its pastoral work, whereby it seeks to build up those, who can never again bear a full witness to Christ’s conception of marriage, into a lowly, penitent, and really blessed life in the grace of God and the strength of the sacraments of the Church.101

The Following is the More Conservative View of Many Conservative Churchmen Respecting the Status of a Converted Divorcee of an Unscriptural Union within the Pale of the Church:

Some clergymen of the Church of England and the Episcopal Church of America take a more serious view of the status of divorcees within the pale of the Church than do many evangelical ministers. Some of them will not give communion to divorcees who persist in maintaining in their unscriptural union the full privileges of a marriage approved by God.

Some of the above clergymen and many other ministers of the Gospel of Christ hold to the following:

1. There is as much need for thorough-going repentance on the part of a divorcee and his alleged mate who have commited and are committing adultery by and in their pretended marriage, as for a whoremonger genuinely to repent by desisting from his impurity. The alleged marriage of those whom Christ forbids to marry is only a pretended marriage because it is completely disallowed by God and, if persisted in, is as much a continuing practice of adultery as that of the socially unacceptable kind. In either case, there needs to be a complete break with the sin. The Church would be inconsistent and illogical (not to say unscriptural) if she taught that remarriage after divorce is adultery (as taught by Jesus Christ) and the meanwhile allowed spouses who persisted in such an adulterous union to be in good standing within the Church. To do this would indicate that the Church implied that remarriage after divorce is not a continuing adultery, that adultery is not a vile sin, and that one is worthy to partake of communion without showing repentance by desisting from such an unholy and impure relationship, or earnestly purposing to do so.

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1. To persist in a marriage of this character is not only to expect to sin occasionally through weakness, but to continue deliberately in an adulterous life. No true Christian minister would authorize a wife of a former union to commit adultery with her pretended new husband if she had not been legally divorced from her first husband, nor would he allow her to do this if the first husband refused to support her true children. To allow one to commit adultery to avoid some physical evil (alleged starvation of her children) is to believe that a good purpose can justify basely immoral means.
2. Atrue minister of Christ and of His Church cannot condone or tolerate adultery of divorcees within the Church simply because the adultery of such people is more “respectable” in the eyes of most Protestants in his country than other kinds of adultery.
3. When one finds it difficult to remain continent, Christ does not advocate (Matt. 19: 10-12) that he should entreat God for an ability to be continent if and when marriage is scripturally open to him. However, when a person finds himself in a situation where he must remain continent to be acceptable before God, and yet may not be remarried, he can and should seek God for His abundant grace to live purely before Him, for God is eager to give him this grace. Many fail at this point because they do not resolutely seek God in faith for such grace.
4. Because of the foregoing points, many of the clergymen of the churches named above and many other ministers do not find it conceivable that Christ would permit spouses of pretended marriages of divorcees to continue in such a relationship for the sake of the physical or spiritual needs of the children in question, for in doing so they would acknowledge or declare that a supposed good end can justify immoral means and deny that unscriptural marriages of divorcees are adulterous marriages.

If the pretended husband of such an alleged marriage should be put in prison or an insane institution for some years, or even permanently, the pretended wife would find some way to care for her children both financially and spiritually. Would not God bless far more the spiritual training of a mother who kept herself pure in the sight of God than if she continued in the “respectable sin” of adulterous union; and would He not fulfill His promise to her, “seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you”?

If a husband of an unscriptural union was converted after such a marriage and after the birth of a child by that union, would he not owe more to his first converted wife (who desired his return) and to the several children of that first union than to the one child of the unscriptural union? Obviously, he would still be financially responsible for the wife and child of the illicit union, as likely the court might have earlier held him responsible for the support of the first wife and family. The wages of sin are unspeakably dreadful even in this life!!

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The More Conservative View of I Tim. 3:2 and Tit. 1 :5,6 Respecting the Alleged Acceptance of Converted Divorcees and their Mates into the Membership of the Apostolic Church Is Herewith Presented.

It does not follow that because the Apostle Paul specifically declared that one (a divorcee) who had more than one wife might not hold the office of a bishop (elder) (I Tim.3:2;Tit.1:5,6) that all other men in the church might as divorcees have more than one wife and yet be in good standing in that local congregation. To accept that position is to reason from silence. A careful examination of the two divorce texts given above will reveal that it is difficult to establish such a doctrinal position. The Apostle Paul in Tit.1I:5-7, not only taught that an elder (bishop) should be the “husband of one wife,” he also taught that such a man should rule well his own house, be “not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker [not a violent man, not given to filthy lucre.” Did the Apostle Paul suggest that it is of no consequence whether a professing Christian man in the Church rules well his own house, or is soon angry, or is given to wine, or is a violent, quarrelsome man, or is covetous of filthy lucre, providing that he is not an officer in the Church? The Apostle Paul plainly taught that a covetous man (a lover of filthy lucre) is an idolater (Eph.5:5) and has no inheritance in the kingdom of God. Christ taught that whoever is angry with his brother (Matt.5:22 R. V.) is in danger of the judgment. The Apostle John revealed that whoever hates his brother is a murderer and therefore does not have eternal life abiding in him (I John 3: 15). Indeed, neither did Paul condone the sin of continuing adultery in unscriptural unions (Rom. 7:2,3).

The More Conservative View of I Cor. 7: 10,11,20,27 Is Carefully Examined.

Were it true that the words, “Let not the wife depart from her husband” and “let not the husband put away his wife” (I Cor. 7: 10, 11) were given by the Apostle Paul for direction to converted divorcees and their converted mates (of unscriptural unions) as much as to those who were not divorced and remarried, the Apostle, by the same token, would have allowed polygamous unions to stand within the Church. Had he allowed either simultaneous polygamy, of the kind practiced by the few rich of his day, or the successive polygamy, of more than one wife at the same time by virtue of divorce and remarriage, he would have contradicted the teaching of Christ within the same verses. All interpreters recognize that verses 10 and 11 specifically refer to Christ’s teaching in Matt.5:31,32, as well as to His other divorce statements. Each of His statements declares that a marriage after divorce is not a valid marriage if one spouse or the other has a living mate.

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In addition, it should be noted that the immediate context of verses 1 through 9 is directly related to verses 1 and 2. In verses I and 2 the Apostle suggests that it would be better not to “touch a woman” but adds that “to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.” He does not say, “let every man have a (his) spouse whether or not the mate is of an unscriptural union.” Verses 10 and 11 correct any such idea by showing that the Lord taught that marriage was indissoluble. Observe these verses below with their underscoring for emphasis:

And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband [referring to Matt.5:31,32] ; But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife (I Cor,7:10,11).

The Apostle in these verses, like his divine Lord, bids both the husband and wife of an acceptable union (it is such who are in view in the context of 7:1-11) to remain with their spouses. It is not sinful to “touch a woman” if one is a husband in a scriptural union. Christ said it was adultery otherwise (Matt. 5:31,32;19:9; Mark 10: 11,12; Luke 16: 18). The Apostle Paul said the same in Rom7:2,3. The Corinthian converts who were married were in some instances alarmed that it might be sinful for them to maintain their marriages when they turned to Christ, should their mates be unconverted. Had Paul taught that spouses of unscriptural unions were spouses of valid unions, he would have contradicted himself within the same chapter, because verse 39 states that a marriage approved by Christ is not dissoluble until one mate or the other dies.

Many conservatives do not believe that I Cor.7:20 relates to converted divorcees and their converted mates because its context, which begins at verse 17, does not relate to marriage at all. This immediate context begins at verse 18, “‘But as God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk. And so ordain I in all churches.” Verse 18 declares that a new convert should not be disturbed if he was converted in the state of circumcision or uncircumcision, and verses 21 through 23 declare that a new convert should not be disturbed because he was saved in a state of slavery (servant is slave Greek, v. 21). Whether he was called by the Lord in one state or the other is of no moment to the Lord. One may not take verse 27, “Art thou bound unto a wife? Seek not to be loosed. Artthou loosed from a wife? Seek not a wife; and say that it is applicable to verse 20, “Let every man abide in the same calling where he was called.” He may not say that “the same calling” of verse 20 relates to the statement of verse 27 just quoted above. This is clarified and established by the fact that the section of the chapter in which verse 27 occurs is related specifically to verses 25 and 26. Observe that verse 25 begins an entirely new thought. The matter of virginity is in question. The matter of remaining with an unscriptural spouse or leaving an unscriptural spouse is clearly not in question.

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(25) Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord: yet I give my judgment, as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful, (26) I suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress. I say, that it is good for a man so to be. (27) Art thou bound unto a wife? Seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? Seek not a wife. (28) But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you.

All the verses of the chapter that follow these verses (7:25-28) are related to the question of the propriety or wisdom of a virgin (a single person) to marry, except verses 39 and 40 at the very end of the chapter. The Apostle in the previous verses, and particularly in the underscored verse (v. 28), is saying in effect, “I am speaking strongly that it is better that a Christian remain unmarried, but I add, lest you mistake my meaning, you need not and should not be loosed from your wife if married in order to conform to a state of virginity which l recommend; nor should you in this time of present distress (v.26) marry if you are yet unmarried, and yet I must add (as in v. 28), it is no sin for a virgin to marry.” The Apostle Paul has the thought of verse 25 constantly in mind when he utters the words of verse 27. This immediate portion (verses 25 through 27) is part of a new paragraph of chapter 7, as indicated in the American Edition of the Revised Version of 1901. The paragraph in question extends from verse 25 through verse 40. Verse 39 states, “The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but If her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.” Could the Apostle Paul have contradicted himself within the same paragraph? Does he not say in verse 39 that a spouse is bound to her (or his) mate until death separates them? A husband or wife cannot belong to two spouses at the same time; this is at the heart of the teaching of Christ in Matt. 5:31,32 and Luke 16:18.

Now that the reader has seen a division of contexts within chapter 7, and has specifically noted the context of verses 25 through 40, it is fitting that we re-examine verse 20, which is unrelated to verses 25 through 40, as we have observed. Is the Apostle Paul stating by verse 20, “Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called”, when God saved him, no matter what that calling may have been? Could he have said, “If you were saved as a prostitute, remain in your calling as a prostitute? Could he have said, “If you were saved as a thief abide in the calling of a thief?” Could he have said, “If you were found by Christ in the calling and partnership of a wicked business, you should abide in that calling?” Certainly he could not! Neither could he have said, “If you were found in the calling of an illicit marriage before the law of the land, abide in that calling,” nor “if you were found by Christ in the calling of a marriage disallowed by the law of Christ, you may continue in your practice of adultery in that unscriptural, invalid, and pretended marriage.”

Many of the Conservatives who hold to the above exegesis of I Cor. 7: 10, 11,20, 27 and to the more serious view of the sin of an unscriptural union would say in effect that the following is, in brief, their view:

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We recognize the numerous complications which arise among unfortunate remarried divorcees and their mates who have found Christ since they were united in an unscriptural marriage. We realize that there are problems respecting the children and property of such unions. We know that it seems unfair before men that these people should sever their unscriptural unions, but we know that the Scripture says, “there is a way that seemeth right to a man, but the end there of are the ways of death” (Prov. 14: 12). We know that men will answer that overly strict teaching respecting divorce and remarriage breaks up homes; but should not all believers remember that loose teaching and practice respecting divorce within the Church breaks up many more homes by breeding more divorces and subsequent unscriptural marriages? We realize that the churches which permit divorcees and their mates to continue their adulterous unions seem to provide a truer justice for them, but we ask, “Shall we regard the verdict of human reason and the opinions of men more than we regard the teachings of Christ and His Apostle Paul?” Christ seven times in Matt.5:32;19:9; Luke 16:18 and Mark 10: 11 , 12 clearly and unequivocally declared that the marriage of a divorcee to another, while having a living mate, or the marriage of one to such a divorcee is the continuing sin of adultery as shown by His seven-fold use of moichaomai (comrnitteth adultery) which in each instance is in the present tense. The Apostle Paul specifically forbade anyone to marry another while having a living mate (I Cor.7:39), and said that such a person was an adulterer (Rom. 7:2,3).

We cannot, by an accommodation of Scripture to the standards of this decadent generation, make the clear divorce utterances of Christ and of His inspired Apostle of none effect. We dare not presume to be wiser than the Head of the Church, Jesus Christ. We dare not base our conviction of truth upon human sympathy, human judgment, the false principle of expediency, Christian experience, or the majority vote of fallible mortals instead of upon the”THUS SAITH THE LORD” of the HOLY SCRIPTURES. We cannot exchange the clearly spoken Word of the Lord concerning divorce forthe halting and doubtful words of honest but fallible Christian leaders who say, “it would appear,” “it seems,” “it appears probable,” “we may assume” that because of his matchless and abounding grace, Christ would approve converted divorcees continuing their illicit unions. Shall we or others declare that “the Bible is the absolute rule of faith and practice” in all things and refuse to accept it when the status of divorcees is in question? Should anyone presume to teach that adulterous unions may be maintained when the entire New Testament is utterly silent about the matter because of its emphasis on the adulterous nature of such unions? Shall we rest our case upon the word of man whose breath is held in the hand of God rather than upon the WORD of the ALMIGHTY? Upon whose words shall we rest our case at the BAR of GOD? We believe that rewards in this life for full devotion to the whole will of God will be far richer than the apparent (or seeming) rewards of compromise which spring from the deceitfulness of our own carnal hearts and a greater regard for the judgments of finite men than for the plain Word of God. Furthermore, we believe the rewards of full devotion and uncompromising obedience will be far better in eternity than the loss incurred for treating lightly any of the commandments of Christ (Matt.5:19,32). We greatly fear the WORD of our LORD JESUS CHRIST:

He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him : the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day (John12:48).

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We believe that in that day one will rejoice that he followed unreservedly the clear Word of the Lord rather than the varying, uncertain and fallible judgments of men. The great leader of the early Church, Tertullian, said, “The less quarter you give yourself the more will the Lord give you.”

The Apostle’s warning should be heeded:

For the time is coming when men will not tolerate wholesome teaching. They will want something to tickle their own fancies, and they will collect teachers who will pander to their own desires. They will no longer listen to the Truth but will wander off after man-made fictions (II Tim.4:3,4-Phillips translation).

The writer has endeavored to set forth clearly the two conflicting views of conservatives respecting the status of converted spouses of unscriptural marriages of divorcees within the Church. He does not presume to decide the question for any believer. This is indeed a difficult problem. Great Christian charity must be shown between those who differ in these matters. The writer believes that the tangled problems of spouses of disallowed unions are too intricate and too serious for either a church or its pastor to adopt an unyielding policy of advising such spouses to break up their homes. The recommendation of the constitution of the Assemblies of God Is appropriate: “We recommend that these cases be left in the hands of the Lord, and that they walk in the light as God lets it shine on their souls”. How dangerous it will be for any minister to do otherwise! He may not trifle with another man’s conscience. Every individual will be responsible for walking in the light which God has allowed to illuminate his heart and mind. The author of this book believes that such persons, with the full light of Scripture before them, should be left to make their own eternal decisions under God’s immediate direction. The unfortunate mates in question will need the tender concern of every Christian minister and every believer. They should be encouraged to enjoy the ministry of the Word and the edification of the Church. In matters of conscience, the Apostle Paul by the Holy Ghost said:

Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind (Rom.14:5). Hast thou faith [in matters of conduct]? have it to thyself before God. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth. And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin (Rom.14:22,23).

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King Solomon, the wisest man that ever lived, by the Holy Ghost said: Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness ( Prov. 30:20). Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil (Prov.3:5-7).

A terrible responsibility rests upon the writer and upon every teacher and minister who handles the Word of Life. How each of us needs to heed the warnings of Christ and His Apostle James which follow:

Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven (Matt.5:19)[observe that the divorce commandment of Christ is in the same chapter. verses 31, 32]. Why call ye me, Lord,. Lord, and do not the things which I say (Luke 4: 1b)? Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven, (Matt.7:21).

Be not many of you teachers, my brethren, knowing that we shall receive heavier judgment (James 3: 1 R.V.).

The writer has presented this section in the conscious sense of the fear of God, knowing that he will be held accountable for it at the judgment seat of Christ.

14. GIVE A JUDGMENT THAT WILL RECOGNIZE THAT CHRIST PRESENTED MARRIAGE AS A FIXED ORDINANCE OF GOD AND NOT AS AN IDEAL.

Some teachers of the FIVE WORD School and others have reasoned that Christ presented his doctrine of marriage as an IDEAL and not as a FIXED STANDARD or fixed law of God. It is the view of some of the liberal school that Christ did not expect men to live up to His teachings respecting marriage, and therefore presented it merely as an IDEAL for the few Christians who could attain this standard. A close examination of the Scriptures will prove that this assumption is utterly fallacious and therefore unscriptural.

a. Christ did not speak of marriage as a mere IDEAL, but rather as a divine law of God. Hear Him:

From the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife : and they shall be ONE FLESH: so they are no more twain – but one flesh: what therefore [not whom, but what] God hath joined together, let not man put asunder (Mark 10:6-9).

This is a declaration by Christ of what marriage IS as ordained by God from beginning, NOT what it is IDEALLY!

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b. Christ’s declarations concerning divorce and remarriage are not variable rules of idealism. Unconsciously, some Christians accept the modern view of ethics, which assumes that all rules of “right and wrong” are relative and changing in the light of altering needs, concepts, and customs of a given society of a given period. They believe that the Church of today should adopt rules of divorce and remarriage that, they hope, will be more realistic and more in keeping with the stresses and strains of modern life. All of the reasons pressed today in favor of divorce with the right to marry another for many causes, including adultery, were known to the Jews when Christ re-announced the eternal marriage standards of Almighty God. The moral conditions of that generation were virtually the same as those of today. Sex is a basic instinct in man which has not altered during his long history, despite the fact that social, economic, and educational standards have changed and are changing. When the omniscient and eternal God instituted the Edenic laws of marriage which were reaffirmed by Christ, HE knew the quality of the sex impulses with which He had endowed man and the grace which He would give that would keep a God-fearing Joseph in Potiphar’s house or a praying Daniel in the licentious palace of Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar. He, who knew the end from the beginning, knew what marriage laws would be best suited for all future generations of man. The SEVENTH commandment of the decalogue and the Edenic marriage laws of the eternal SON of GOD were given for the highest good of society and every individual to the end of time. They were given within man’s capacity, by the grace of God, to obey. His grace is available to ALL who will seek Him!

c. Observe that in Luke16:18, Christ said that he who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries her that is put away (even though she is an innocent spouse) commits adultery. Christ says virtually the same thing in Matt. 5:32; 19:9. and Mark 10:11,12. The last reference does not discuss the sin of the one who marries the divorced one. To abstain from adultery is not an IDEAL but a moral obligation placed upon all men by God. He who presumes to treat such a sin with indifference should remember that God says:

Marriage is honorable in all and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers [fornicators,R.V] and adulterers God will judge (Heb.13:4).

Obviously, he who presumes to enjoy the privileges and intimacies of marriage, while having another living spouse with whom he has first been joined by God, is now an example of one living in adultery. Further, note God’s warning of I Cor. 6:9:

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers .. .nor thieves … shall inherit the kingdom of God.

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d. The sin of divorce and remarriage is a breach of the seventh commandment! Christ does not say that the avoiding of adultery is an IDEAL that may be attained only by a select and saintly few! God does not advise one to refrain from adultery. He does not say that He is more pleased if His children refrain from fornication. He says that those who commit fornication and adultery shall not enter the kingdom of God (Gal. 5: 19-21), but that they shall be cast into the eternal LAKE OF FIRE. “But for the fearful . . . and murderers, and fornicators,. . . their part shall be in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death” (Rev.21:8 R. V.). Christ treats the sin of adultery as seriously as He treats the sin of murder. He cites the commandment of the deca logue (Ex. 20: 13) in Matt.5:21 which says, “Thou shalt not kill, ” and then proceeds to show what is its essence. He reveals that it is first the sin of bitterness and hate in the heart, and warns all men who approach His altar to leave their gift at the altar and first be reconciled to an enemy before offering the gift to God. To bring home the seriousness of hate toward a fellow He adds, “whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire” ( Matt. 5:22). Here He talks of no mere IDEAL which a man may refuse to incorporate into his life with impunity. Indeed, both murder and adultery are grievous sins. Those who com mit them despise the commandments of the LORD (II Sam.12:9) and deservingly are listed in the catalogue of the eternally damned (Rev. 2 I :8) !!

Christ revealed that adultery begins in the heart and is expressed in the look of lust (Matt. 5:28), and to the consternation of the Pharisees who lusted after other women than their own wives, He said (Matt.5:31,32):

It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement (DeuT. 24: 1-4), But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery; and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.

Observe that Christ uttered these words, as it were, in the shadow of Mt. Sinai. In the same context, on the same occasion, HE said, “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY: But I say UNTO YOU.. . .” (Matt.5:27,28), and then relates the look of LUST and the sin of DIVORCE and REMARRIAGE to this commandment of the DECALOGUE. Christ unequivocally declared that to “put away a wife and marry another” or to marry a divorced wife is to commit ADULTERY within the enactment of the SEVENTH commandment!! Surely, no man would venture to say that the TEN COMMANDMENTS (the MORAL LAW of GOD) are mere IDEALS.

Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also THE LAW: for sin is the transgression of the LAW (I Jn.3:4).

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The purpose of redemption is revealed in Rom. 8:3,4:

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 in the flesh: THAT the RIGHTEOUSNESS of THE LAW might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Unmistakably, the sin of adultery in divorce and remarriage (a respectable sin in modern society) is revealed by Christ to be the breaking of the seventh commandment, “THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY” (Matt. 5:27; Ex.20:14). It is plain, therefore, that JESUS CHRIST is not talking of a mere IDEAL when He speaks of divorce and remarriage as the sin of ADULTERY.

In the fall of 1956, the world was shocked by the attack of Great Britain and France upon Egypt and by the enslavement of Hungary by Russia. Immediately representatives of the United Nations, leaders of the western powers, and many clergymen called for a return of the nations to a respect for moral law. Such declarations suggest that there is a fixed moral law to which all nations and peoples should conform. Where is there such a moral law outside of the Bible? All Christians recognize. As do most civilized peoples, that basically it consists of the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20: 1-20), which are further clarified and amplified in the teaching of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5·7). The Christian Church should cease rebuking governments for exchanging the fixed principles of moral law for the loose principles of expediency until she, herself, stops doing the same thing. A nation’s moral standards can rise no higher than the moral principles and practices of her churches and temples. Many churches are slowly yielding to the popular sentiment and standards of the unregenerate society which surrounds them. If the Church of Christ subscribed whole heartedly to the immutable moral law of God, she would not compromise, nor tolerate, the divorce and remarriage standards of the ungodly which contradict Christ’s clear teaching of the indissolubility of marriage for any cause.

15. GIVE A JUDGMENT WHICH WILL RECOGNIZE THE LAWS OF DIVINE REVELATION AS SUPERSEDING ALL LAWS OF STATES FOR CHRISTIAN STANDARDS WHEN THEY ARE IN CONTRADICTION TO THEM.

Some of the teachers of the FIVE WORD School declare that God affixes His approval to all legislative acts or pronouncements of the governments of earth because of the statement of Rom.13:1-7, and so all marriages of divorcees approved by the state are valid before God.

What specious reasoning is this! Indeed the Apostles did not subscribe to such a conclusion.

Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29).

Should men cease to preach Christ in the countries that forbid Christians to do so?

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“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church” was not said of men who feared their governments more than they feared God, nor of men who believed the laws and decrees of government to be more infallible and binding than the laws and decrees of God ALMIGHTY. Should the deplorable divorce laws of Russia supersede the marriage law of Christ?

Do the laws of states licensing gambling and prostitution make these non-sinful in the sight of God? May a converted gambler revert to his former practices when he realizes that the laws of his state permit him to follow his particular type of gambling? May a converted prostitute revert to her former unchaste practices when she realizes that the laws of her country permit prostitution if she has a license for the same from the said state? Do the above laws make the sinful practices virtues so that all men may practice them and be immune from the judgment of God? A bigamist is one who marries another while having a legal, living spouse. All men revile such an individual. May Christians sincerely approve the marriage of one who marries another, whose marriage is licensed before the state but is not licensed before God because the individual has a living, former spouse who alone is his or her only wife or husband? Do the laws of states which flout and nullify God’s laws supersede them? Is the sin of a bigamist (one who marries another while having a legal, living spouse), less evil than the sin of one who, illegally before heaven (although legally before the state), marries another while having a living spouse who is recognized before heaven as being this person’s only legal spouse? Is the sin of bigamy (having two wives or husbands) before heaven less evil than the sin of bigamy before men? Clearly every one of these questions are scripturally answered in the negative. True, a Christian minister will not be at liberty to defy the state and declare that men who are married contrary to Christ’s teachings are not married in the eyes of the law. He can say, however, that such marriages are not approved in the sight of God. He can entreat men to honor the standards of marriage fixed by the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he can refuse to unite in marriage anyone who has a former living partner, or anyone who plans to marry such a person. Should a minister do otherwise, he would be guilty of approving of bigamy before heaven. Oh, that the Church of Christ would realize how potent would be her influence if she had the courage to practice fully the teachings of Christ respecting marriage, or any other laws of Almighty God! A little salt is a tremendously preserving force! “Ye are the salt of the earth”.

GIVE A JUDGMENT WHICH WILL REGARD THE LAWS OF DIVINE REVELATION AS BINDING, EVEN THOUGH THEIR OBEDIENCE MAY AFFECT THE FINANCIAL STATUS OF AN INNOCENT MATE OR SOME ONE ELSE.

Some of the FIVE WORD School state that the economic distress of “innocent mates” necessitates their having the right to remarry after divorcing their “unchaste spouses.”

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If this reasoning were carried to its logical conclusion, it would, in fact it does, defy the clear teachings of Jesus Christ. The chaste wife who is put away,as described in Matt.5:32b; Luke16:18b, and Matt.19:9b, is strictly forbidden to remarry when divorced by her husband, even though her husband marries again and her economic status may be in jeopardy.

Is the wife of a criminal, who has served and is still serving a very long term in prison, at liberty scripturally to remarry because her husband does not provide for her and the children? Surely, the FIVE WORD School will acknowledge that there are many “unfortunate mates” whose husbands have not committed adultery and yet who are not supporting their families while they continue to live either in their own home or in an institution. May these wives scripturally divorce their husbands so that they may remarry and thus improve their financial status? May the wife whose husband became an invalid when they were first married, after a substantial number of years, divorce such a mate that she may marry again and so better herself financially?

God’s laws of marriage sometimes bring financial suffering to a few spouses, and yet this is necessary to uphold and preserve the indissolubility of marriage for the honor of God and the welfare of the homes of society. It is important to remember that God does not settle all His accounts with His children in this life, neither are they compensated in heaven merely for a period corresponding to the time they graciously or willingly suffered for the glory of God on earth. Their compensation is for eternity. A Christian can readily endure affliction if he keeps before himself the brevity of life’s afflictions for Christ in comparison to the eternal weight of glory awaiting him in heaven. “For I reckon the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom. 8: 19). Note also II Cor. 4: 17, 18.

17. GIVE A JUDGMENT WHICH WILL NOT TREAT LIGHTLY STRONG VARIANT READINGS OF THE EARLY MANUSCRIPTS OF THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT.

Scholarly men of both the FIVE WORD School and the Conservative School are aware that there are many variant readings of early New Testament manuscripts which have been adopted by the American Standard Revision of 1901which were not in the Authorized Version. They also know that many if not all of these have been all but universally accepted by scholars of evangelical churches. A few of many examples which have been universally accepted are the following, which will be indicated by setting in contrast the Authorized Version with the text of the Revised Version.

1. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit (Rom. 8:1 A.V.).

THERE IS THEREFORE NOW NO CONDEMNATION TO THEM THAT ARE IN CHRIST JESUS (Rom. 8: 1 R. V.).

[page 173 of original text]

1. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one (I John. 5:6b-8 A.V.).

AND IT IS THE SPIRIT THAT BEARETH WITNESS, BECAUSE THE SPIRIT IS THE TRUTH. FOR THERE. ARE THREE WHO BEAR WITNESS, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WATER, AND THE BLOOD: AND THE THREE AGREE IN ONE (1 John 5:7,8 R.V.).

The translators of the American Standard Version had more ancient manuscripts of the New Testament than did those of the Authorized Version. Because of this fact, many of their corrected translations of the Revised Version are much more accurate than those of the Authorized Version.

The underscored sections above indicate, for the most part the portions of the Greek text of some manuscripts which were not believed by the translators of the Revised Version to be as accurate as other Greek manuscripts, and so these portions were deleted.

Though some of the changes of the Revised Version have been by deletions only, or largely so, this is not always so. An example follows:

1. To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen (Jude 25 A. V.)

TO THE ONLY GOD OUR SAVIOUR, THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD, BE GLORY, MAJESTY, DOMINION AND POWER, BEFORE ALL TIME, AND NOW, AND FOR EVERMORE. Amen (Jude 25 R.V.).

The weight of evidence for acceptance of the variant reading of Matt. 19:9 is considerable, as has been shown on pages 65 through 73. True scholars cannot afford to treat it lightly when it is observed that the context supports it one hundred per cent, and when one observes that some outstanding Greek scholars believe it to be the preferred reading.

However, the strength of the variant reading of Matt. 19:9 does not lie in the fact that it may be the preferred text, but in the fact that it shows the glaring presumption of the FIVE WORD School in building a doctrine of divorce in ONE text, Matt. 19:9 (A. V. ). the reading of which is so much in doubt. Happily, the Conservative doctrine of divorce will stand, whichever reading is ultimately found to be the actual statement of the Lord Jesus Christ.

[page 174 of original text]

Its strength does not lie in basing its doctrine on ONE text but on the general tenor of the divorce texts of the New Testament and on the strength of the context of Matt. 19:9 which is overwhelmingly in support of the Conservative views as has been shown on pages 92 through 95. [hyperlink https://www.standerinfamilycourt.com/?p=2209]

Occasionally, believers have felt a keen loss ln the difference between the Revised Version and the Authorized Version in specific texts which have been especially choice to them. If the favored text is clearly a doctrine of the Holy Scriptures, it will be preserved and restated elsewhere in the Bible, and very probably it will be restated· many times. No variant reading accepted in the Revised Version can rob the true believer of any essential element of truth of Holy Writ, for the treasure does not lie alone in one text; and happily, as a rule, the variant readings of the Revised Version enrich the meaning of the words: of the original writers of the New Testament, which words were inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Greek authorities state that of the hundreds of variant readings of the New Testament, not one of them affects any doctrine essential to the Christian’s salvation and in all but a few cases deal with minutiae of words and elements that are of no great consequence, save to sharpen the present meaning of the Authorized Version text.

18. GIVE A JUDGMENT THAT WILL REVEAL THAT SO-CALLED SOFT HEARTED DIVORCE IS NOT SUPPORTED BY THE SCRIPTURES.

Some of the FIVE WORD School have assumed that there is a difference between hardness-of-heart divorce for every cause and so-called soft-hearted divorce for the cause of adultery. This school believes that an innocent mate is a soft-hearted mate, since he has been sinned against by an adulterous mate. It has arbitrarily and presumptuously differentiated between two kinds of divorce of its own making to avoid the strength of Christ’s answer (Matt. 19:8) to the question of the Pharisees in Matt. 19:7 which follows:

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

The fallacy of the FIVE WORD School’s assumption that there are two kinds of divorce (putting away) is apparent in the light of the following:

The hard-hearted Pharisees addressed by Christ in Matt. 19:7, above, included the schools of both Hillel and Shammai. The latter rested on Deut.24:1-4 (Moses’ divorce permission, which Christ abrogated in Matt.5:32) for their right to divorce an adulterous mate and to marry another. Therefore Christ speaks of those who believe as Shammai as men desiring or believing in a hard-hearted divorce.

[page 175 of original text]

The Pharisees, as we have seen, included both the schools named above. Observe that Matt. 19:3 states:

The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, IS IT LAWFUL FOR A MAN TO PUT AWAY HIS WIFE FOR EVERY CAUSE?

A frank answer to this ensnaring question was indeed fraught with danger for Christ. The Pulpit Commentary gives the following on this passage:

This was a delicate question to raise in the domains of Herod Antipas (see 14:3-4), and one greatly debated in the rabinnical schools…Two opposite opinions were held by the followers of Hillel and Schammai, the heads of antagonistic schools. The school of Hillel contended that a man might divorce his wife for various causes quite unconnected with the infringement of the marriage vow, e.g. because he had ceased to love her, or had seen someone whom he liked better, or even because she cooked his dinner badly. The school of Schammai was more strict, and permitted divorce only in case of fornication, adultery or some offense against chastity. Between these contending parties the Pharisees desired to make our Lord give a decision, thinking that they had fixed him in a dilemma. If he took the popular lax view, they could deride his claims as a Teacher of superior morality; if he upheld the stricter side, he would rouse the enmity of the majority, and possibly, like John the Baptist, involve himself in trouble with the licentious tetrarch. There was a chance also that the high tone which he had already taken might prove to be at variance with the Mosaic enactments (Matt.19:7)

(D. M. Spence and Joseph S. Exell. Editors, op. cit. , Vol. XV, pp. 242, 243)

The second question of the Pharisees seemed clearly calculated to ensnare Him with the religious leaders of the day. He surprised them, however, when He answered the question, “WHY DID MOSES THEN COMMAND TO GIVE A WRITING OF DIVORCEMENT, AND TO PUT HER AWAY?” by running to Genesis 2:18-24 for His reply. It is quoted and discussed on pages 5 through 8. [hyperlink: https://www.standerinfamilycourt.com/?p=1804] By taking the Pharisees to Genesis. He gave them a marriage law that antedated that of Moses in Deut. 24: 1-4. The latter was that upon which both the schools of Hillel and Shammai rested for their view and doctrine of divorce. To Christ there was no soft-hearted divorce. All divorce which had for its end the dissolution of marriage was hard-hearted. This is proven by the sweeping statement which He made when He abrogated forever the divorce permission of Moses. 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).

The twelve points of the context of Matt. 19:9, given on pages 92 through104 [hyperlink https://www.standerinfamilycourt.com/?p=2209], confirm the fact that Christ taught the complete indissolubility of marriage. However, Christ did provide for legal (judicial) separation (a mensa et thoro). See I Cor. 7: 10,11, which permits a spouse to leave the mate but does not permit such a spouse to marry another while the former mate is still living (I Cor.7:39).

[page 176 of original text]

GOD DID NOT INSTITUTE DIVORCE UNDER MOSES. Divorce had been instituted by the heathen. Christ said truly that from the beginning divorce was not permitted. God did no more approve of divorce than the right of Israel to have a King (I Sam. 8:6, 7; 10: 17-19; Hosea 13:9-11), although He tolerated the latter as He tolerated divorce in the Old Testament period because of the hardness of the hearts of the people. The word suffered in the text quoted above, is epetrepsen in the Greek New Testament. It is translated four times in the Authorized Version by permit; once give liberty; once give license; once, to let; twice, to give leave and ten times, to suffer with the meaning it had in old English, namely to allow. It never had the meaning of to command. Indeed, MOSES PERMITTED (tolerated) divorce; He did not command it. This has been further clarified in a detailed discussion of Deut. 24:1 on pages 88 through 89.
The FIVE WORD School should observe that alleged divorce for so-called soft-hearted innocents who have had adulterous mates does not provide for the dissolution of the marriages of many other soft-hearted innocents who, according to FIVE WORD concepts, as sorely need a severance of their marriage bond. See pages 135 through 136 for a list of such unfortunate innocents. Many of these and others are suffering distress under the flame of nature, cruelty of spouses, economic pressure, and other hardships, yet cannot be married to another since the mates in question have not committed adultery, nor have they been technically deserted by their spouses. Where is a soft-hearted divorce permission tobe found in the Scripture, apart from the abrogated divorce permission ofMoses,for these unfortunates? God give us grace to stand by the Scripture ratherthan accommodate the Scripture to fit the seeming necessities of men, and may Hedirect the vision of unfortunates to the Scriptures which show that His peoplearecalled· upon to suffer for His sake, as men of all nations are called upon to suffer for the good of theirsociety.

The hard-hearted Pharisee of the school of Shammai believed that God should at least permit a spouse to put away (dissolve his marriage with) his adulterous mate, since such a spouse was put to death under the law of Moses. This position becomes untenable upon careful investigation. The putting away of a spouse is the act of an individual; the stoning or putting to death of anyone by the state is a civil matter. God permitted Israel as a nation to put to death fornicators and adulterers (Deut.22:21-25). God did not approve those of Israel or anyone else putting away (divorcing) any spouse for any cause from the beginning, except they might put away a betrothed wife who had, previous to consummated marriage, committed fornication during her betrothal. A government ls an instrument of God for the welfare of society. It ls authorized by God to put to death (Rom.13:1-4). However, because God permitted Israel as a civil power, to put to death murderers (Num. 35: 16), Sabbath breakers (Num.15:32-36), moral perverts (Ex.22:19), kidnappers (Ex.21:16), and rebellious sons (Deut. 21: 18-21), it does not follow that God approves of spouses putting away (divorcing) such spouses because the state of today does not put them to death as did Israel of old.

[page 177 of original text]

Christ closed the door to the dissolution of marriage, except by death, in His statement:

Wherefore they are no more twain but ONE FLESH. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder (Matt.19:6).

Laws of states which flatly contradict the plain teaching of Christ are not to be accepted as proper standards for Christians.

e. Soft-hearted mates become hard-hearted mates when they refuse to keep the door open for the return of their unchaste mates, because by acting thus, they refuse to accept the teaching and example of our LORD. He left the door open for Israel’s return, although He had separated from her (Jer. 3: 1-14). The so-called soft-hearted innocent mate needs to beware of becoming hard-hearted in refusing to follow the law of Christ: “Husbands love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it” (Eph.5:25).

Christ completely closed the door to all divorce, if by that is meant the dissolution of marriage. He is, wittingly or unwittingly, hard-hearted who sets at nought Christ’s teaching respecting marriage and divorce; he is hard-hearted because he denies the commands of Christ and because he considers his own happiness or the happiness of the so- called soft-hearted innocent mates as more important than the happiness of the many more millions of innocent children, born and unborn, of present and future broken homes. He is hard-hearted because he does not have the compassion of Christ for adulterous mates (Hosea 2: 16; 3:1-5;14:1-8).

19. GIVE A JUDGMENT THAT WILL DECLARE WHO IS TRULY THE MORE INNOCENT SPOUSE

All thoughtful men know that the chaste mate is not always the more innocent spouse. Every ecclesiastical body which accedes to divorce and remarriage for adultery must sometime face the question, WHO IS THE TRULY INNOCENT PARTY’? In recent years, two denominations have taken a firmer stand against divorce because of their seeing the difficulty of determining who were the more innocent mates.

Many spouses are virtually pushed into adultery by the prudish and contemptible behaviour of their mates. From a human standpoint, should one hear all the provocative words and behold all the ultra-puritanical attitudes of some spouses toward their mates, would he not many times have to conclude that the so-called innocent one was the guilty one? What church judge or pastor who had not heard or beheld all the intimacies of words and actions of the “unfortunate pair” could fairly and honestly declare who was the “innocent party” of a marriage union?

[page 178 of original text]

Is it not probable that the problem of who is the truly INNOCENT was one cause why Christ gave the strong, clarifying statement on divorce in Mark 10: 11, 12? Let us with Christ resist every fracture of the divine law of the complete indissolubility of the marriage bond!

If the churches which grant the right of divorce and remarriage for the cause of adultery or any other cause are consistent, they will no longer use the cherished and revered wedding ceremony which, in one form or another. usually includes the following:

I, [Name], take thee [Name], to be my wedded husband (wife): to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. to love, cherish, and obey till death us do part according to God’s holy ordinance, and thereto I give thee my troth.

Do we want our children to enter into holy wedlock as a mere matter of convenience rather than as a divine obligation before God to be true to the other, regardless of the circumstances? Do we want to follow the “innocent party” rule of the FIVE WORD School and bring upon our children and their children’s children a lessened regard for the sacredness of marriage? A youth who takes the marriage vows with possible exception for the dissolution of his divine union (joined by God) will likely not give his mate the devotion which he should and which God does require. May the Church keep the spirit of Hollywood out of her pews and homes!

20. GIVE A JUDGMENT THAT IS BASED ON A “LOVE OF THE TRUTH,” COST WHAT IT MAY TO YOU OR YOUR CLOSEST FRIENDS OR ANYONE ELSE.

“A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”

Will you, reader, after making a careful study of the subject of divorce and remarriage, believe what you prefer to believe? Will you believe that which best suits the proclivities, prejudices, and sympathies of your nature, and that which most conforms to human reason; or will you stand by all the facts and evidence of the Scripture bearing on the subject? Will you settle the matter on a scriptural basis or on the basis of the above, and the Christian experiences and religious successes of divorcees)? Will you, while conceding that the FIVE WORD view of divorce is scripturally untenable, say that the “exceptive clause” is sufficient for you, and to it you will cling, even though all other Scriptures declare plainly that Christ taught the complete indissolubility of marriage, as does Matt.19:9 when properly understood?

Is it not true that the natural man (I Cor. 2: 14) almost always favors the side of a question that appeals to his mind rather than to his conscience, that appeals to his rationalized view of a principle of conduct which is in keeping with the times rather than to his more sober conviction of God ‘s commandment respecting his behavior?

[page 179 of original text]

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it” (Jer.17:9)?

A lawyer once asked for books that would prove that Christianity is true. These books were supplied and read. When he returned them, he said, “I now see that the trouble was not in my mind but in my heart because I am now convinced that Christianity is true, but still I will not be a Christian.”

Often a strong defense lawyer will not only appeal to such facts as he may have to support his client’s position, but he will appeal most vehemently and strongly to the emotions and sympathies of a jury to win his case. Not a few famous cases have been won on the latter appeal rather than on an appeal to facts.

To what does the average politician appeal prior to the time of an election? It is to the emotions of his audiences, for he knows that the great mass of the public prefer to have their emotions stirred in favor of their native inclinations and desires rather than to have the minds directed to the facts which support the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

The average voter, as a rule, seems to be more concerned about an immediate prosperity than for the continued welfare of his country. Too often Christians are much more concerned about finding seeming loopholes in Scriptures which they believe will condone their covetous and evil hearts, regardless of absolute right, rather than bringing their lives up to the highest standards of God’s truth.

They prefer that which will cost them little. There are many things which God’s people have to suffer and forego for the greater good of the kingdom of God and for the greater glory of God on earth. As little as we like to confess it, the nearly two thousand years of Christianity have not made men love truth more, is still blighted with what Bacon called “a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself.” The spirit of our time is to get something for nothing with as little suffering as possible, and preferably with none.

The mass of nominal and evangelical Christians shun the Cross in Christian experience. May the God of Truth help all of us to bring our Christian experience up to THE BOOK rather than to bring THE BOOK down to our experience and that of our fellow men; and may He help us to walk in all the light of His TRUTH regardless of the cost!

Dr. A.W.Tozer, editor of the Alliance Weekly, has stated the following in an editorial of Oct. 10, 1956:

To live our lives reverently in the fear of God and in view – of eternal consequences is right and good, but to live our moral lives in fear of temporal consequences is an evil, a great and injurious evil for which not one shred of justification can be found. Yet the shadow of the fear of consequences lies dark across the church today and its blight is seen almost everywhere.

[page 180 of original text]

Moral decisions should be made in view of moral consequences, never in fear of the effect such decisions may have upon our economic or social future. The wisest of the Greeks said, “A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong. “It is more than a little embarrassing that an uninspired Stoic should see what so few of us Christians, with all our claims to superior religious experience, seem unable to understand.

It is doubtful whether we can be Christian in anything unless we are Christians in everything. To obey Christ in one or two or ten instances and then in fear of consequences to back away and refuse to obey in another is to cloud our life with the suspicion that we are only fair weather followers and not true believers at all. To obey when it costs us nothing and refuse when the results are costly is to convict ourselves of moral trifling and gross insincerity.

The temptation to gear our lives to social consequences is frightfully strong in a world like ours, but it must be overcome all the way down the line. The Christian businessman when faced with a moral choice must never ask, “How much will this cost me?” The moment he regards consequences he dethrones Christ as Lord of his life. His only concern should be with the will of God and the moral quality of the proposed act. To consult anything else is to sin against his own soul.

(A. W, Tozer: Editorial, The Alliance Weekly, October 10, 1956, New York
21. GIVE A JUDGMENT THAT IS BASED ON WHAT DIVINE REVELATION TEACHES RATHER THAN UPON THE PRINCIPLE OF EXPEDIENCY, WHICH SEEKS TO ACCOMMODATE THE SCRIPTURES TO SO-CALLED INNOCENT

In this day when the Church of Christ is making its decisions more and more upon the expediency of the moment rather than upon divine principle and the divine laws and eternal standards of God as revealed in His Holy Word, it is important that we examine this practice lest it intrude into the settlement of the divorce problem as well.

The term “expediency” will be used in this section in its secondary meaning, namely, in its strictly ethical sense: “It is the principle of practical utility or interest of self as distinguished from the right.”

Thirty years ago, there were very few remarried divorcees in evangelical churches. Today, however, remarried divorcees are attending the house of God in increasing numbers and are frequently given an equal status in the Christian Church, contrary to the reaching of the Apostle Paul. Why is this? The answer is obvious. There are more divorcees in America today because of sharply lowered ethical standards which the Church of Christ has condoned.

Because of the hardness of the hearts of men and women today, even the evangelical churches are more and more making their judgments of conduct and standards of right strictly on the basis of expediency, regardless of clear-cut doctrines and criteria set forth in the Word of God. The cry, “everybody is doing it“, or “practically every Christian of today believes it is all right,” is more readily accepted than, “THUS SAITH THE LORD. ”

[page 181 of original text]

Expediency is studiously avoided by our great judges who sit in the courts of our land. The writer, with a group of theological students, heard a defense lawyer plead with the judge for a lenient penalty for one who had been an active participant in the numbers’ racket. He said his client deserved a lenient judgment because he was a first offender, was an esteemed man in his community, and held a position as a steward in a factory. The judge replied that he could not deal leniently with this man lest he cause disrespect for the law on the part of other men in the numbers racket and consequently increase this evil in the land.

Will our pastors and evangelical church leaders continue to treat divorce lightly and handle each situation purely on the basis of expediency out of natural sympathy, or will they be men of God and, while compassionate, think and work for the tens of thousands of living and unborn innocent children of broken homes, for the good of the nation, and for the welfare of the KINGDOM OF GOD? Will they be preachers who cater to the spirit and debased standards of our time, or will they raise their voices, as SEERS of old, and call men back to the old paths of holiness and righteousness so clearly marked out in the WORD OF GOD? Will God find none who will stand in the gap and close up the hedges of righteousness? Will God-called men let the church sink with the compromising age into the awful abyss of God ‘s wrath? Thomas Mann said, “A man lives not only his personal life, as an individual, but also consciously or unconsciously, the life of his epoch and his contemporaries. May God arouse the Church and her leaders to give heed to the admonition of the Apostle Paul in Rom. 12:2:

And do not follow the customs of the present age, but be ye transformed by the entire renewal of your minds, so that you may learn by experience what God’s will is-that will which is good and beautiful and perfect (Weymouth third edition.)*

Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the Plan of God for you is good, meets all His demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity (Phillips).

*From Weymouth’ s New Testament in Modern Speech, Harper & Brothers. Used by permission.

Take warning Christian Church! It was not TNT which destroyed the dam in the time of the Johnstown flood. Its disintegration began with tiny crevices and cracks. Experts warned the city over and over again of the impending danger.

[page 182 of original text]

The city fathers delayed until it was too late. The dike of any denomination of Protestantism does not crumble primarily because of a great crisis. It crumbles because of its small defections and compromises in holiness and righteousness to accommodate the spirit of the day, and because its moral and doctrinal decisions are made by the law of expediency rather than by the “THUS SAITH THE LORD” of DIVINE REVELATION.

A PRAYER FOR TRUTH

O Thou who art the Way, the Truth and the Life, save us from error, and guide us into all Truth. Grant that when we discern Thy Truth that we may love Thy Truth and walk daily in its light. Give us grace to speak Thy Truth in love that both we and those who hear it may be sanctified by it to Thy praise and glory. AMEN!

A Study of I Cor. 7:15 Is Important

The text of ICor.7:15 does not provide for the dissolution of the marriage bond. A careful study of the text itself in the light of I Cor.7:10,11,39 will make that apparent.

And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband: But and if she depart let her remain unmarried; or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife (I Cor.7:10,11).

Observe that the Apostle Paul in verses 10 and 11 appeals to the fact that Christ commanded what he, the Apostle, stated in these verses. Obviously, he is here asserting what Christ taught in Matt. 5:31,32, Luke 16:18, Matt. 19:1-12, namely, that marriage is indissoluble without any exception. If the Conservative interpretation of Matt.5:31,32 and 19:9 is accepted, there is no question of contradiction between the Apostle Paul and the Lord Jesus Christ as touching the question of divorce and remarriage.

The Apostle Paul adds in I Cor.7:12-14: But to the rest speak I. not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased dwell with her, let her not leave him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by his believing wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now they are holy.

Inasmuch as the Apostle Paul had taught that a believer should not be unequally yoked with an unbeliever, and inasmuch as a converted Corinthian spouse knew himself to be clean and holy through the blood of Christ, the Christian believer had some misgivings whether or not he could remain holy and whether his future offspring would be holy if he continued the marriage union with such a spouse.

[page 183 of original text]

Some of the FIVE WORD School and others presume to believe that the word bondage of I Cor. 7: 15 of itself indicates that one who is deserted by his or her spouse is free to marry another. “ETYMOLOGY WILL KILLYOU, BUT CONTEXT WILL·SAVE YOU.” Certainly the context described under the study of I Cor.7:10,11, which is virtually identical here, does not allow such an interpretation.

It is obvious that a Christian married person of Corinth would have been much concerned, about the propriety of leaving an unbelieving mate and releasing an unbelieving mate to depart from him or her after hearing the teaching of the Apostle Paul in I Cor.7 10-14. A spouse would naturally be driven to a bondage of fear in such a case. The wife, however, the Apostle says, is not to be upset and alarmed if the husband insists on leaving her; she is not to be under a bondage of fear. She may let him separate from her if she forget not I Cor. 7: 10,11, which reaffirms the teaching of Christ concerning the indissolubility of marriage for any cause. The statement of verse 15b clarifies the matter, for it says, literally translated, “In but peace has God called us.” In the third edition of Weymouth’s translation of the New Testament, his footnote on verse 15 reads as follows:

The sense seems to be, do not live in an atmosphere of strife, being free to escape from it; for God eternally dwells in an atmosphere of peace and He calls us to participate and rejoice in it.

(From Weymouth’s New Testament in Modern Speech, Harper & Brothers. Used by permission. Richard Francis Weymouth, loc. cit.)

The verse which follows I Cor. 7: 15, verse 16, stresses not the freedom of the wife to· remarry but rather the continuity of the thought of verse 11-15, namely, that the wife should do all in her power to maintain a spirit of peace and reconciliation with her husband that he might be saved. The verse states:

For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? Or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?

Would not the wife by remarrying make it more difficult for the husband to be saved later? It might encourage him to marry again and thus commit adultery. Should she marry another, it would close the door to their reconciliation. Certainly it would not make for peace or for the hastening of his salvation.

Now let us consider specifically I Cor. 7:15:

But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not bound.

[page 184 of original text]

The statement of 7: 12-14 could have left no doubt in the mind of a believing spouse concerning whether or not he should remain in union with an unbeliever. The statement of 7: 15 is introduced to relieve his mind of a bondage of fear that might overtake him if he found that the unbelieving spouse desired to depart from him. Had not Christ and the Apostle Paul taught (I Cor. 7: 10, 11) that a Christian should remain unmarried if separated from his spouse? Had a wife or husband, contrary to theLord’s expressed desire (I Cor.7:10,11), left his or her spouse in the Apostle Paul’s day, in all probability, the mate in the city of Corinth would, under such circumstances, have soon married another. Was the Apostle in I Cor.7: I5 then instructing such a forsaken spouse to recognize that she was free from the bondage of marriage? To the contrary, verse 11 states, “let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband.” Neither partner in this case was free before God to marry another.

In the light of the above, by what exegesis can a spouse be free to marry anoth er when the believing mate of such an one has departed from him? Is there one rule under God authorizing an unbeliever to marry another when he has deserted his mate, and another for the Christian (1 Cor. 7:10, 11), forbidding him to leave and marry another?

Is there any intimation in the teaching of Christ in Matt.5:31,32; Luke16:18; Matt. 19:9, and Mark 10: 11,12 that a desertion of an unbelieving mate authorized the other spouse to marry again? Christ did not even imply that the departure and remarriage of such an one was valid! To the contrary, Christ forbade an innocent wife in Matt. 5:32; Luke 16:18, and Matt. 19:9 to marry another when divorced by her husband, for Christ said that he who married such an innocent wife who had been put away (the equivalent of being deserted by the spouse) would commit adultery. The reason is obvious: the first union was still intact, despite the husband’s divorcing her and marrying another. Were this not true, a man would have but to marry another to invalidate his first union and validate his second union. Indeed, a deserting husband of the Apostle’s day would, in most instances, divorce the woman whom he had deserted that he might marry another. Would he have more right to marry another than an innocent wife (Matt.5:32; Luke 16: 18) whose husband had committed adultery in marrying another? Indeed, not! The seeming magic wand of the exceptive clause of Matt. 19:9 cannot and does not arbitrarily undo the three emphatic statements respecting the innocent, divorced wife’s inability, scripturally, to remarry in said texts.

It is reasoned that the phrase, “is not under bondage in such cases,”specifically indicates the release of such a spouse from his mate, so that spouse may marry another. Those who reason thus base their conclusion upon the alleged fact that the word “bondage”(Greek doulo) is identical to the word “bound” in Rom.7:2 and I Cor.7:27 and 7:39. William Evans, a teacher for many years in the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, insists that this is not the case, for it is rather the Greek word deo which is used in Rom.7:2 and I Cor.7:27 and 7:39, whereas it is doulo which is used in I Cor. 7: 15.

(William Evans: The Right and Wrong in Divorce and Remarriage. Grand Rapids, Zondervan Publishing House, 1946, pp. 97, 98.)

[page 185 of original text]

The later word means “slavehood”. Certainly, a Christian married person of Corinth who knew I Cor.7:10,11, would have been much concerned about the propriety either of leaving an unbelieving mate or of releasing an unbelieving mate to go from her when he insisted that he could not endure her because of her becoming a Christian. A spouse would, under those circumstances, naturally be driven to a bondage (slavehood) of fear lest she or he depart from the teachings of the Apostle and of Christ. The Apostle says, however, that the wife is not to be conscience-stricken if the husband insists on leaving her. She is not to be in slavehood to her conscientious fears, since such an unbelieving one need not be required by the believing spouse to remain with her. If he persists in wanting to leave her, she should not continue to argue with him and add strife to strife in endeavoring to keep him from departing. If he leaves her, her course is clear (I Cor. 7:10,11), let her remain unmarried. ” The statement of verse 15b clarifies the matter, for it adds, literally translated, as we have noted, “In but peace God has called us.”

Both Adam Clarke and the Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary take the view that the wife may not remarry, according to 1 Cor. 7:15. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia supports the same position. If further points out the astounding fact that there is no record of the early Church’s using 1 Cor. 7:15 for a cause of divorce and remarriage for 400 years after the death of the Apostle Paul, and that such a case is not reported in history again for another 400 years.

(James Orr, General Editor, op. cit. Vol. II, p. 866)

Surely the early Church did not understand the Apostle Paul to teach the FIVE WORD School’s view of 1 Cor. 7:15. Indeed, he did not modify the teaching of Christ in this passage or any other.

A.S. Worrell, the translator of the New Testament, comments on 1 Cor. 7:12, 13 as follows:

Unbelief on the part of either husband or wife is not, in itself, a ground for severing the conjugal relation; but, if the unbelieving one will not remain in that relation because the other is a Christian, there is no remedy but to let the mal-content go: but neither has a liberty, under the Gospel, to marry again until the other is dead.

(A.S. Worrell: Worrell’s Translation of the New Testament. Springfield, Missouri, Gospel Publishing House, 1894. p.240.)

The word divorce, which is common to Matt.5:31,32; Luke 16:18; Matt.19:1-12, and Mark 10:1-12, namely, apoluo, meaning “put away” in these contexts, and bibion apostasion, meaning “bill of divorcement”, are not mentioned in 1 Cor. 7:15. Those who build a doctrine of divorce on 1 Cor. 7:15 differ over the meaning of two words, namely, chorizo, translated in the Authorized Version in verses 10 and 15 by “depart”, and aphiemi, translated in the Authorized Version, in verses 11, 12 and 13 by “put away,” and in verse 13 by “leave.”

[page 186 of original text]

The English Revised Version (1881) renders it “leave” in each instance. The American Revised (1901) does likewise.

It is striking that scholars of the liberal view of Matt. 19:9 differ in their opinions regarding the 1 Cor. 7:10-15 passage. Some of them hold that the wife who leaves (departs from) her husband literally divorces him, but others disallow that fact. Some appear to hold that an unsaved spouse who leaves his mate automatically dissolves the marriage union because of his desertion, regardless of the reason why he leaves, except it be for fornication, while others hold that a Christian is free from his spouse only if the desertion is due to the unsaved spouse’s sense of religious incompatibility. The Scripture obviously says nothing about how many months of desertion by one mate are necessary to free the other mate to dissolve the marriage by divorce. Would a time element not be necessary if the alleged freedom to marry another for desertion (I Cor.7:15) were valid? Certainly, it would be necessary! Human legislation which rejects Christ’s doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage requires a fixed period of desertion before a divorce will be granted for that cause for reasons that are obvious. Cannot one see that once the divorce dike is broken here (I Cor.7:15) because of desertion for religious incompatibility, that ultimately ecclesiastical bodies of such persuasion must make provision for the dissolution of marriages for other kinds of incompatibility? Indeed where will one draw the line if remarriage is permitted for desertion of any kind? Have not husbands who are in prison or in an insane institution or who are drunken sots, to all practicable purposes, deserted their mates? Surely they are not supporting their families. They are cut off from their conjugal duties in most instances, and rarely do they have any fervent love and care for their children. “Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth” (James 3:5)! For many years the greatest single cause for divorce in the United States has been desertion. Insofar as the writer knows, this is still true. What a warning this should be to the Church of Christ!

Not only are verses 10 and 11 in contradiction to a liberal view of I Cor. 7:15, but the words of our Lord Jesus Christ on the subject are in contradiction also. In addition, the further word of the Apostle Paul in 1 Cor.7:39 is diametrically opposed. It follows:

The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.

Materials Moved to Appendix by “standerinfamilycourt” from Chapter VII :

Comments by various figures were inserted by the author into Chapter VII, Comments on Matthew 19:9, that are contrary to the author’s premises, and which contradict the findings and evidence he had so diligently established. Revered Wells makes a very strong case throughout “Does Divorce Dissolve Marriage?” that failure to terminate an adulterous remarriage for any reason has serious eternal consequences, (which is a well-supported scriptural position). It is entirely possible that this was, nevertheless, an unacceptable position to the Assemblies of God leadership–then as now. The political tension in the excerpt which follows is unmistakeable between Rev. Wells and his boss Rev. Riggs, General Superintendent, who wrote the Foreword to this book. These apparently-inconsistent materials are included here, out of faithfulness to the full text of Reverend Wells’ work:

From pages 48 through 51 (Chapter VII) of the original text….

Many a spouse of an unscriptural union is in deep distress when he (or she) learns through the reading of the Scripture that he (or she) is party to an unscriptural union. A letter written to C. Morse Ward, speaker on Revivaltime, a gospel broadcast of the Assemblies of God, is typical. It follows, in part, as it appeared in The Gospel Gleaners:

Dear Brother Ward,

I have lived in sin and rebellion against God, but now I want to live wholly for Christ no matter what the cost. I have three living husbands, and a voice keeps telling me I should leave the husband to whom I am now married. He says that he does not know what he would do were I to leave him. Am I responsible for this man’s soul? I am restless and constantly haunted that I am living in adultery. I have four married children and I want to be a better testimony to them. My present husband has given me a beautiful home, and we have all the money we need, but how can I enjoy it?

Mrs.____.

A portion of C. Morse Ward’s answer follows: At the well of Samaria Jesus met a woman who had a similar problem. It is interesting to read that story in the Gospel of John, chapter 4. She had had five husbands and Jesus said of her present companion, ”He whom thou now hast is not thy husband.” There is no direct statement that Jesus sent her back to any one of the five.

Sin tangles our lives to such an extent that although forgiveness can be obtained, certain things can never be straightened out. Paul could never bring back to life the Christians he had slain as Saul, the persecutor. Much of the havoc he wrought in his rage against Christ (Acts 8:3) he could never undo. He simply lived by this rule: “This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13,14.

It seems to me that there are certain things that you are powerless to undo. It is true that you have your present husband to consider. Do you want to leave him a divorced man? Would he then be clear to marry again? You won’t solve one question by creating a dozen new ones. Entering a sort of Protestant cloister is not the answer to your problem. The answer to your problem is in the words of Jesus to another woman, ”Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” 27

(C. M. Ward: “Letter Column,” Gospel Gleaners, September 2, 1956, Springfield, Missouri, Gospel Publishing House.)

Some conservative teachers of the doctrine of divorce find in I Cor.7:10,11,17 and 20 permission by the Apostle Paul for converted spouses of adulterous unions, contracted before they were regenerated, to remain together. They base their conviction on the Scriptures and reasons which follow. The Apostle said. “And unto the married I command . . . Let not the wife depart from her husband” (I Cor. 7: 10). These teachers reason that this statement has reference to both valid and adulterous marriages, since it is assumed that there must have been many converts in the Corinthian Church who had been married the second time before they were both born of the Spirit, and whose first mates were still living when they entered the Church. Was not Corinth a city notorious for its licentiousness? It is believed by these teachers that the Apostle was referring to Christian spouses of adulterous unions in I Cor. 7: 17, and 20. “Only, let each member go on living in the same condition which the Lord originally allotted to him, and in which he was when he heard God’s call” (I Cor. 7: 17, A. S. Way’s translation). “In whatever condition of life each one heard God’s call, in that let him remain” (I Cor.7:20, A. S. Way). Ralph M. Riggs, the General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God (1956) presents the status of those described thus: When the Passover blood was applied to the door posts and lintels of the Jewish home in Egypt. Jehovah said, “This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you” (Exodus 12:2). A new life begins at Calvary. Jesus’ cleanses the past and accepts us as we are when we come to Him. “Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called. Art thou bound unto a wife? Seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? Seek not a wife” (I Corinthians7, 20, 27), “This is good for the present distress,” Paul said concerning their problems then. The same can be said of our similar problem now. Art thou bound to a wife? Seek not to be loosed. Let the status quo prevail. The past is under the Blood. Start life anew as a new creature in Christ Jesus. To this agree the experiences of many forgiven Blood-bought souls and the witness of the blessed Holy Spirit.

What about the ministry? And what about elected officers in the local church? The Bible makes a distinction. “‘A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife….moreover he must have a good report of them which are without. Likewise let the deacons be the husbands of one wife – blameless” (I Timothy 3:2,7,10,I2). In order to protect His church from reproach and just criticism, He has ordained that they who are mixed in their married relations shall not be conspicuous in church work and church relationships. Let these dear people rejoice in their good fortune of being redeemed and listed among the redeemed, and let them help protect the name and reputation of the church that has accepted them and now constitutes their church home. After all, salvation is the biggest thing in the world. Let us rejoice in God’s mercy and walk humbly with Him.

(Ralph M. Riggs: “Keep Thyself Pure.” The Pentecostal Evangel, (August 5,1956), Springfield,. Missouri. p.4.

In both I Tim. 3 :2 and Tit. 1 :5, 6, the qualification for an elder who is an overseer (bishop) of the church is that he must be “the husband of one wife….Such a statement is believed by some conservatives to provide strong indication that in the early Church there were those who previously had been married to a wife whom they later divorced, and who were now married to another while the first mate was still alive. Such teachers believe that the Apostle Paul had to give the specific exhortation mentioned above lest these converts of adulterous unions be given office in the church. He obviously believed that the marital relationship of these men and women should be recognized as a continuing example of a union not approved by Christ, and thus not to be followed by other believers.

Strange as it may seem, some evangelical church leaders will grant the privilege of holding office in the church to those who marry another, while having a living mate providing the second marriage was consummated before the new birth of the spouses. Others go further and permit spouses of unscriptural unions to have official position in the church even though the marriage was consummated after the regeneration of one or the other or both. They reason that because as in of impurity after conversion is not unforgivable (which is true), therefore the church should be free to accept such into every prerogative and office of the congregation. Had such ministers of the Church of Christ realized the force of the present tense of moichaomai (committeth adultery) in Christ’s divorce texts and had they understood clearly that Christ taught the complete indissolubility of marriage for any cause, they would not have adopted such standards in either would such men have carelessly said that converted remarried divorcees or their converted mates have as much right to elective and appointive public office in the church as a regenerated fornicator or a converted spouse who previous to conversion had committed an isolated act of adultery. Such leaders show they have complete disregard or ignorance of the fact that the unscriptural marriages described above are continuing examples within the church of marriages which are disapproved by Christ. They reveal that they yet do not appreciate the words of Christ:

Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder . . . Moses because of the hardness of your hearts “suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so (Matt.19:6,8).

They do not consider carefully the welfare of the unmarried youth of their church and community who will certainly follow the practice of their church more quickly than its precepts. Such young people will thus be encouraged to look upon marriage as a mete matter of convenience for their personal happiness and will be ready, therefore, to dissolve their marriage without fear of God or man whenever they believe that it will be to their advantage to do so. Indeed, they may believe that their church teaches the doctrine of indissolubility, but if the practice of the church contradicts it, they will take the matter lightly, believing that their church implies that the forgiveness of Christ is cheap and that God’s laws may be broken with impunity. Thus, such professing Christians, wittingly or unwittingly, turn the grace of God into lasciviousness (Jude 4).

God indeed genuinely saves the souls of men and women of unions disapproved by Christ who sin in ignorance during their unregenerate state, but when Christian professors continue deliberately to walk in darkness, they cannot claim I John 1:7. “But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. ” The passages discussed above (I Cor.7:10, 17, 20, and I Tim.3:2) may give evidence that God tolerates the continuation of an unscriptural marital relationship entered into before conversion, but they do not indicate that, by them, God validates such a union as acceptable and approved by Himself any more than He approved of Israel’s having a king, although He tolerated it. See a fuller treatment of I Cor.7:10,17,20 in the Appendix on pages 108 through 112 and I Tim 3:2 on page162. The texts will there be viewed in the light of their context.

Back to Introduction

Chapters I and II – What is Marriage? / Basic Rules of [Scriptural] Interpretation

Chapters III and IV – Position of the FIVE WORD School / Survey of the Seven Principal Divorce Texts of the New Testament

Chapter V – Comments on Matthew 5:31-32

Chapter VI – Comments on Luke 16:18

Chapter VII – Comments on Matthew 19:9

Chapters VIII and IX – A Study of the Variant Reading of Matt. 19:9 / Comments on Mark 10:11-12

Chapters X and XI – Analysis of Context of Matthew 19:9 / Teaching of the Pauline Divorce Texts

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