Divorce And Remarriage

after divorce. He could marry anyone except a wife he had already divorced,

assuming she had entered into another marriage. If she remained single,

there would be no problem in the remarriage. The point we want to establish

firmly is that remarriage after divorce was acceptable regardless of the

reason for the divorce, and this was valid for both the husband and the wife.

It was all so simple that it is amazing that Israel survived. There was no

lawyer or court involved. It was all a do-it-yourself divorce. There was no

red tape, and no complex paper work. The husband just handed her a bill of

divorce, and the marriage was over when she walked out the door.

What a contrast to the words of Jesus in Matt. 19:6, "What God has joined

together let not man put asunder." Many women criticize Paul's view of

women in marriage, but just contrast his words, "Husbands love your wife as

Christ loved the church," to what we see here in the Old Testament.

Marriage was primarily based on sexual attraction and satisfaction. It ended

when the husband was no longer pleased. A wife was primarily a sex object,

even though her rights as a person were given protection. What we see in

history is the constant tendency of man not to press on to the higher and

nobler laws of the New Testament, but to slip back to the sub-Christian laws

of the Old Testament.

My concern is to find a principle that runs through both the Old

Testament and New Testament that is a perpetual guide on the issue of

remarriage. The principle I wish to defend is this: Any person who is truly

divorced has the right to remarry. There is no such thing as a legitimate

divorce where there is no freedom to remarry. Remarriage is the logical and

biblical right of anyone who is truly divorced. A true divorce makes the

marriage dead, and leaves both partners free to remarry.

John R. Rice in his famous book The Home Courtship Marriage And

Children defends this principle strongly. Dr. Rice was not a liberal, but a

fighting fundamentalist. Listen to his conviction that has influenced tens of

thousands of pastors. "Scriptural divorce gives a right to remarry; one who

has a right to divorce has a right to remarry. The modern idea of some

Christians that one has a right to a divorce, but should remain single

thereafter and never remarry, has no warrant in the Scriptures. In the Bible

it is everywhere taken for granted that a right to a divorce means a right to

remarry. A divorce, on Bible grounds, means that the former marriage is no

longer binding. The former husband is no longer a husband. The former

wife is no longer a wife. Those who are divorced on Bible grounds are really

divorced, are single, unmarried, unbound."

On the basis of this Deut. 24 passage Rice says it is clear that even if a man

divorces his wife for a poor reason, once she has remarried there is no going

back to her first husband, for the second marriage which is adultery kills the

first marriage, and makes it of no account. He rejects the whole idea of any