Judge and Jury?

I'm coming in to this thread late to ask a couple of questions.

Are divorce and remarriage the unpardonable sins?

Are they the only sins which are not covered by the blood?

 

Let me ask you this if you continue to live in sin without repentance is it covered by the blood?

 

Rabbinnical tradition robbed the law of its force. Christ's commentary on the law in Matt. 5 put the law in its proper perspective. The commandment that says "Thou shalt not commit adultery," also says thou shalt not divorce your wife and marry another, and thou shalt not marry her that is divorced, and thou shalt not lust after another woman in your heart. The Pharisees said that a man could do all those and not be guilty of adultery.

The two schools of thought on Moses allowance of a bill of divorcement are irrelevant. Christ's annullment of Moses' provision in Matt. 19 renders their thoughts on divorce moot. Shammai and Hillel aren't even in the picture. Not even close. Far from being somewhere in the middle of those two schools, Christ goes back to Creation to make His point. From the Beginning this was not so . . .

 

How is that relevant?

 

The point of my rhetorical questions is that while divorce and remarriage have consequences, many of us treat them as sins which are unforgiveable.

We have more than one instance in this thread where people were divorced before they were saved. Sin is always involved in some way when a marriage fails. In no way do I want to diminish the seriousness of the sin or sins which led to the divorce. But rarely can it be undone, no matter how much one or both parties regret it or may repent of it.

I'm mainly talking about attitudes which have seen toward divorced people in our church. They are seen as tainted goods. But we are all tainted goods, are we not? Are their sins less forgiveable than ours?

That's the point of my questions. We preach that a sinner can come to God in repentance and receive forgiveness of sins. Except for divorce, it seems, for some.

 

I have no problem with people who were divorced before they became christian and are regenerated. Divorce is not the unpardonable sin. Yet I am concerned over the cavalier attitude when it comes to Christians divorcing and remarrying. (apart from the exceptions mind you). To me that is unrepentant sin. I was a member of one church body where a man was voted in as a deacon who was living with his girlfriend. That they would latter be married is of no consequence. I consider that a sin as well. And unrepentant sin. This is troubeling for our churches and our societies. We've come to accept this as the norm and I won't countenance it.

 

Gospel Fact: He that divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery.*

How does one repent of adultery?

There is the premise and the question. Justification is not the issue. The problem with some is not that mercy is being withheld, the problem is that some do not believe they need to repent, for, in their minds, they're NOT doing anything adulterous.

 

With this I agree.

 

The law of Moses may have involved Rabbinical tradition, no doubt, but that: #1 does not negate the fact that the law allowed for divorce (which assigns a status of being unmarried) and regulated that within the new status they were indeed not to go back and rejoin to the ex, #2 Jesus did not come to change (“annul”) the law but to fulfill it, and #3 the question remains did God regulate something He forbids?

It isn’t as simple as you would have us believe off of your interpretation and forming a doctrine from one verse. It doesn’t mean one is condoning divorce if he doesn’t prescribe to your standards, which are a great example of what Jesus was addressing when answering the question of the Pharisees. From the beginning all will sin, all will commit adultery, to do so means death, repentance is a change of heart toward God not an act of undoing your sin, grace in this picture is not moot in the least, it is key!

The Pharisees thought to be, and to proclaim perfect innocence by following their standards of putting away a wife because of their uncleanliness, but guess what, Jesus is pointing out that it’s tougher than the Pharisees and their false standards projected in that everyone commits fornication in the heart and is (remains) unclean. For one to believe the act of undoing sin by undoing a second marriage and going back to the first wife is to believe the blood of bulls and goats can remove the sin.

You can’t change a thing so make your oaths onto the Lord, obey and serve the Lord today, let your yea be yea and your nay be nay in the spirit of forgiveness and grace, any other communication that swears that they can do right or undo evil is thinking falsely because you can not make one hair white or black.

You really think divorcing a second wife in which you are currently living within a commitment in which you made in front of God and going back to the first wife can help you today, can it make things right, can it cleanse you, can it keep you or her from adultery? Just what will YOU change when you do such a thing?

 

Going back to wife #1 after being married to #2 is like closing the barn door after the horses have escaped.

You can't put it back to rights.

Apparently divorce in some quarters is the unpardonable sin.

 

You still haven't answered Ezra. There is the context. To repent is to do it no more.

 

No it didn't. I'm speaking of the oral traditions, a vast body of commentary on the law by "them of old time."

Christ annulled Moses, not the law. Go back and read Matt. 19. Moses' provision was antithetical to the Seventh Commandment.

Yes, He did. For a time, He winked at the ignorance and weaknesses of men, but now commands all men to repent.

First of all, it's very simple, and you can't negate one verse with allusions to irrelevant Jewish fables.

You talk as if you've never read the Scriptures. Christ said that to put away your wife for ANY reason (other than sexual sin) and "marry" another is adultery.

A man who leaves an adulterous situation is not "undoing" anything. Neither have I (nor anyone else) suggested such a thing. You would do well to quit reading things into what is being said.

Here's your problem. You see a second marriage as a marriage. God see's it as adultery*. You just disagree with Him.

*Scriptural exceptions are, of course, excepted . . .

 

Then you are fooling yourself in believing the traditions of men did not work there way into the law. Just what do you think the Pharisees were doing when they were accusing Jesus and His disciples of sinning, were they correct? No, the Pharisees were working along the same lines as you.

You continue to miss the key point that the law being fulfilled being the means to grace does not put us back under the law if the form of the work of repentance.

Grace is seen in the OT in that none were perfected by keeping of the law, but by faith; today this still holds true, repent all that you can but it will never perfect you, only forgiveness in His grace will. This example is seen dimly in God’s regulations over divorce and in that he did not outright forbid it in old times and today in concessions such as seen in 1cor 7. It is as if you believe the act of repentance will save you or make you righteous and that my friend is a works salvation no different than the OT people that thought the blood of bulls and goats would make them righteous and save them. God does not, never did, wink at sin and weaknesses still exists and ignorance is apparent today when one does not acknowledge God’s grace in those weaknesses.

I don’t negate the verse, I understand the meaning and teaching behind it to mean more than how the Pharisees would interpret it and in which you seem to have the same problem as them. It seems to me you are living by the same Jewish fables as those Jesus was challenging to the Pharisees who thought their righteousness was through upholding the law according to their declarations.

You’re one to point fingers! You talk as if you missed the point that all are guilty of adultery and which by your reasoning it should be okay to conclude it is justified to get a divorce 100% of the time; that is if you believe what Jesus said concerning adultery.

It is the logical conclusion to your belief that one should leave their second wife. You would do well to understand you can’t cherry-pick out pet peeve sins to put others under the law with disregard of grace in the forgiveness of sins.

If that’s a problem for you then remember that God sees your even looking upon another woman in lust as adulterous and maybe your wife should feel obligated to put you away. Or does your legalism allow you to disagree with what Jesus said while providing a loop-hole for you and denying her to marry someone else afterward.

*Start accepting them then in the light of the Gospel message Christ was delivering!

 

If you insist on staying married to your 2nd wife (who isn't really) and either reconcile with #1 or stay single you aren't really repentent are you? READ EZRA!!!! He had the men put away their pagan wives and Children.

 

I have been married once (for 32 years now) and never gave the subject much thought. So Aaron, one question I have for you, and it is not to make a point but to learn your views, if a person is married a second time, and is in a state of continuous adultry, are you saying it is impossible for either partner to be saved? How would you handle as a pastor a woman who came to you married one time, and told you the husband was beating her and the kids daily? If she got a divorce, would she be committing adultry if she married again? How can you reconcile with someone like that? If you were a pastor, is there any circumstance in which you would perform a second marriage?

I understand the Scripture, in Matthew, but have not quite figured out about how I feel about Paul's comments. It is always Gods will that we be married for life to one person (except for death). Even when one person fails to be faithful, it is much better to heal the marriage if possible.

 

Of course not. Justification is another thing entirely.

I would perform second marriages where the Scriptural exceptions to divorce and remarriage clearly—not questionably—apply.

I can't allow what the Scriptures do not allow, regardless of what I may feel about a certain situation. A typical divorce is not for things as you described. A marriage like the one you described is typically the harvest of many seasons of sowing rebellion against God, most likely in the years prior to the marriage, maybe even before the parties knew one another, and one who ministered to such a couple would have to understand that, and would have to possess the wisdom to discover the root causes and lead each one to confess and forsake those sins. Divorce is not the remedy, but for the welfare of everyone involved the wife would have to leave the abusive situation until God changed the heart of the husband.

My point in this thread is not to answer each hypothetical and atypical situation of which one can think, though it would be good exercise. My point is to underscore what Christ said about marriage and divorce, and to counter the false claim that one who divorced his wife and "married" another woman can presume upon God's grace and mercy to sanction his cohabitation with the second woman. We need to call it what it is. Adultery.

 

:thumbsup:

 

Thank you for your response, and the purpose of my post was not to make a point or to make you answer unrealistic questions, as I stated at the start of the last post.

 

I know. I said what I did about hypotheticals to preempt the flood of "but what if" replies that inevitably result from other readers.

Hypotheticals really are good exercise, though.

 

Yes, they expose the judgemental Pharisees among us.