Divorce, like death, is an unpleasant reality that we have to deal with
because it won't ignore us. In one way or another it forces its way into our
lives. If we are fortunate enough to have no friends, neighbors, or loved ones
caught in its grasp, we must still face the issue because it is a biblical issue,
and one that is of growing relevance in our world. Divorce is affecting the
church as never before in history. The secular acceptance of easy divorce has
made in roads into the church, and more and more Christian people are
conforming to the trend to end a marriage that isn't working. Christians
divorce almost at the same rate as non-Christians.
The statistics are not all pessimistic, however, for most divorced people do
remarry, and so the American people are still sold on marriage. The problem
is that more people are marrying the wrong person first, and this indicates a
marriage that was entered into without adequate preparation. One of the key
areas of controversy among Christians today is the whole issue of remarriage.
Should the church permit it, and on what basis. Who has the right according
to Scripture to enter a second marriage if they have ended a first one in
divorce? This is an issue that is of special importance to pastors, for they are
constantly confronted with this decision. For the layman it is often just an
academic issue, and for them it makes no real difference. The pastor,
however, must deal with real people and their needs, and he must be honest
and faithful with the Word of God.
Some denominations have made radical policy changes to relieve the
pastor of pressure in this area. But more important is the question, what does
the Bible say about divorce and remarriage? The issue is not whether divorce
is good or bad, for everyone agrees it is a bad thing to happen. It is never the
best, and it always indicates failure on the part of two people. But once the
damage is done, what is God's will for the persons living in that state of
failure? Is it His will that they stay in a state of failure, or that they press on
to a state of success in some new relationship such as a second marriage. We
want to study this issue by first looking at the Old Testament message in
Deut. 24:1-4. We will look at it verse by verse.
24:1 The first thing to observe about the Old Testament law on divorce is
that it was only the husband who had the right of divorce. If he found some
indecency in his wife he could put her away. There was no provision for the
wife to put him away if she did not find him to her liking. Women should not
get upset, however, for as we shall see, the divorce law was for her protection.
First of all a man could not rob a woman of her virginity and then turn
around and divorce her. A man forfeited his right of divorce by premarital
sex. God holds a man responsible for the rest of his life to care for a woman
he forces into a sexual relationship. Deut. 22:28-29 says, "If a man happens
to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are
discovered, he shall pay the girls father 50 shekels of silver. He must marry
the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives."
You can just imagine how much this law cut down on pre-marital sex. A man
would only want to become intimate with a woman that he loved enough to
treasure for the rest of his life.
You notice that he can never put her away, not because he made her
pregnant, but because he violated her. The female was protected from
becoming an old maid that no man ever wanted by someone taking advantage
of her. This law was very sensitive to a woman's security, and made sure that
sexual abuse would never destroy her future. The principal we see here is
that in God's eyes intercourse with a woman commits you to be responsible to
that woman the rest of your life. Sex without a life commitment is not
acceptable to God. Men were not free to use women any way they wanted to,
and have no responsibility. Deut. 22:13-19 also makes a man never free to
divorce a woman that he has accused of not being a virgin, if in fact she is.
Getting back to Deut. 24 we want to see that even here where men have
the right to divorce a woman, they have an obligation to give her a bill of
divorce. If a man had the right to just kick her out of the house, she would be
forced to become a slave or a prostitute in order to survive. With her bill of
divorce, however, she was a free woman with the right to remarry.
24:2 This verse pictures her going to become another man's wife
immediately. She was free to do so because the divorce ended any obligation
she had to her former husband. He is no longer her husband in any sense. In
verse 4 he is called her former husband. We see here that remarriage was
acceptable, and even expected after a divorce. The only aspect of remarriage
that is condemned and forbidden in this passage is the remarriage of the wife
to her former husband after she has been married to another man. Even if
the other man dies this is forbidden.
The second marriage is not out of God's will, but is perfectly acceptable,
but the remarriage to her first husband was an abomination. This reveals
that God will not tolerate a light-hearted divorce. If a divorce takes place, it
is the death of that marriage for good, and God will not tolerate a renewal of
that marriage once another marriage has been consummated. Matthew
Henry says, "The divorce had dissolved the bond of marriage as effectively as
death could; so that she was as free to marry again as if her first husband had
been naturally dead."
You can see how the divorce bill was a protection to the woman, and gave her
the chance to find happiness in a new marriage. If she did not have this
certificate, any relationship with another man would be adultery, and she
would have been stoned to death. Her divorce bill was her life insurance.
The reason for the divorce here is because the husband found some
indecency in his wife. This does not mean he found out that she had
committed adultery. This would be punished by death, and not by divorce.
The indecency was something the husband did not like about her naked body.
Hillel, the Jewish scholar of New Testament days, said that it could be a mole
on her thigh for example. Others say a sore, or a disease, or even something
as trivial as bad breath. Divorce could be based on very minor problems in
the Old Testament. Jesus rejected this and said that a man could only justly
put his wife away if he found her guilty of adultery.
As easy as divorce was in the Old Testament, let us keep in mind that the
laws were merciful to women. She could not be treated as a mere thing. Her
sexual honor could not be taken from her freely. Even a foreign wife taken
captive in battle had to be treated fairly. In Deut. 21:1-14 we see that she
could not be sold as a slave, but had to be set free if her husband was not
pleased with her. In this text we see the relationship dissolved with no
divorce at all. It was much like today when couples live together, and then
decide to go their own way. Even this foreign captive woman had her rights,
and she could not be dishonored.
The men, of course, had superior rights. They married as many, and as
often, as they desired. There was never any question of his right to remarry
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
mate going back to their first mate once they have remarried. Once people
are divorced for any reason there marriage is dead when another marriage is
consummated. The idea of ending the second marriage to go back to the first
is foolishness and totally out of line with God's law. The only way it can be
right for divorced mates to get back together is if they have not entered into
anew marriage. Once they do there first marriage is dead for good.
Anytime a marriage is dead due to death, a divorce for adultery, or one of
the divorced mates remarries, the partners are free to remarry. If this view is
consistent with the New Testament teaching, and I am convinced it is, then it
means that most divorced people have a right to remarry. This is contrary to
many who feel strongly that the teachings of Jesus make it mandatory that
few remarry. We will look at the teachings of Jesus in detail, but for now let
me share with you again the views of John R. Rice.
Many say the innocent party can remarry, but the guilty party cannot.
Rice says this is nonsense, and it violates the teaching of Jesus. There is no
law that says a thief cannot marry, or a blasphemer, or a drunkard, or any
other kind of sinner. Why should men say and adulterer cannot marry. If
the guilty party in a divorce for adultery has killed the marriage bond, he is
just as single and free to remarry after the divorce as the innocent one. Once
a marriage is dead there is no biblical basis for expecting anyone to remain
bound to it. It is a grave sin to have killed it, nevertheless, when the deed is
done who could expect him to remain bound to his former mate any more
than he would be if he had killed her? Such a man would be a high risk for
anyone to marry, but there is no basis for thinking he has no right to remarry.
We want to look briefly at how Jesus did not in any way forbid the
remarriage of a truly divorced person. In Matt. 5:32 Jesus said, "But I say to
you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness,
causes her to commit adultery, and anyone who marries a woman so divorced
commits adultery." How can divorce of a faithful woman make her and
adulterer? It is because Jesus is taking for granted that she will remarry. It
is always assumed by Jesus that divorced people will remarry. Nowhere in
the Bible is it expected for divorced people to remain single. So Jesus says
that when she remarries she will be forced to commit adultery if her first
husband puts her away for no good reason. None of the reasons in the Old
Testament were legitimate for divorce except her being unfaithful. If he puts
her away because he hates the mole on her thigh, he forces her, and the man
she marries, into adultery.
Jesus did not forbid her to remarry, nor did He forbid another man to
marry her. He is saying that the folly lies in that first husband who divorced
her on inadequate grounds. His wickedness and light view of divorce is the
source of the problem, and he forces others into sin. He is the bad guy here,
and not the wife or the second husband. They do not live in adultery, for once
they have sex relations they destroy the bound she had with her first husband,
and now she is free from him for good. So free, in fact, that God forbids that
she ever go back to him. The first husband is guilty of forcing his wife to kill
their marriage by entering a second marriage. This does kill it by the
adultery that it leads to, and so the marriage is over. But it is the first
husband who is responsible for the adultery, and not his wife and the man she
marries. It is important to lay the guilt where it belongs.
In Matt. 19:9 Jesus deals with the man's own remarriage, and He says, "I
tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness,
and marries another woman commits adultery." This would mean that if he
does divorce her for unfaithfulness he would not commit adultery by
remarriage. These two texts make it clear that any sex with a non mate is
adultery, and so until a marriage is dead it is adultery to remarry. What
Jesus is saying is that they only thing that can end a marriage is sex with
another person other than a mate. All other reasons for divorce do not kill the
marriage. When two people divorce, they are still married until one of them
has sex with another person and commits adultery. Only then is the marriage
really dead.
The key difference between the Old Testament and the teaching of Jesus is
not on remarriage. That is expected in both, but the grounds for divorce are
radically different. In the Old Testament it was the man's pleasure, and he
could put away his wife for anything that he did not like about his wife. Jesus
narrowed things down from that broad basis to the single issue of
unfaithfulness. But there is no disagreement on the principle we are looking
at, and that is that any person who is legitimately divorced has a right to
remarry.
