As many of you know, I'm a writer for gotquestions.com. One of the questions seemed somewhat relevant to many men here who might otherwise struggle with being in a second, third, etc. marriage, so I figured I'd share this one. This is, of course, open for discussion and not a hard-lined stance I take.


QUESTION

Married 2 times, I was unfaithful. I have always believed in Jesus. I'm not a new Christian. Now married a 3rd time from Christian mingle, wife know my past. I have seen sermons on divorce & remarriage & they say if someone divorces & remarries another and was the cheater then they stand under Gods wrath and must divorce the current spouse & remain single or they are not saved. I feel doomed and have seen my pastor at Calvary Chapel. They say I'm forgiven. Before I got remarried I spoke to 2 BSF (Bible study fellowship) leaders and 2 pastors and all 4 of them said I can remarry, so not wanting to fall into sexual sin, I married. I felt that I was never to remarry again from the beginning, even after seeking Godly council. I feel that if I do not divorce my now wife and remain single that I'm doomed to Hell. This have me in horrid fear all day long and I'm a heart patient. I have begged God for his word daily to help me but am confused as there is no answer or there is an answer and I'm not seeing it. I know the attributes of our Jesus and also know that Jesus is not a God of confusion. I need assurance of my salvation but don't have it. If divorce and remarriage is a sin or a continual state of sin...please help


MY ANSWER

"Must divorce the current spouse & remain single or they are not saved"

I want to address this up-front because it is the most important part of your question, if misunderstood. Salvation is only by grace through faith (GTF) in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our works are evidence of our faith, but the works by themselves do not have the ability to grant or disqualify anyone of salvation. Any model that adds to the Gospel is a wrong one. In the present case, these sermons you're listening to are suggesting that Salvation = GTF + not remarrying after divorce. I hardly find any Scriptural passages linking salvation with remarriage after divorce.

I suspect that what they're really getting at is the issue of unrepentant sin. There is a wide debate in Christian circles over whether or not a person can lose their salvation over unrepentant sin or if someone who sins unrepentantly was never saved in the first place. Either way, Hebrews 10:26 stands - If someone continues in willful, deliberate, continual sin without repentance they will be condemned. The question, then, is whether or not remarriage after divorce constitutes willful, deliberate, continual sin without repentance - and if so, whether their sin is justified by God on some other ground.

Divorce and Remarriage

Fault v. No-Fault Divorce

There is a wide debate on the issue of whether or not remarriage after divorce is sinful. In today's culture, divorce is a no-fault, mutual thing. If one person wants a divorce, the other is considered to be engaged actively in the divorce as well. By standard legal practice (I'm a divorce attorney), every divorce complaint that's filed is answered with a counterclaim also seeking a divorce, so even if the first person dropped the divorce, the case would still go on per the other party's filing. It's mutual.

Hebrew culture was different in Jesus's day. There was a difference between divorcing someone and being divorced by someone. Some Jewish scholars at the time believed that a man could divorce his wife over anything and everything, such as burning dinner even one time, or wearing a dress that he didn't like. The other camp believed there had to be some actual fundamental grounds for the divorce. The latter was the dominant one, and Jesus seems to assume this to be the correct/default position in the way he talks about divorce, although his view may be even more restrictive than any of them. Consider the following passages.

Matthew 5:32 and 1 Cor. 7:10-11

In Matthew 5:32 Jesus says, "Everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery."

Interestingly, this passage says nothing about the sinfulness of the one doing the divorcing - only on the status of the woman who has been divorced. It presumes that the divorced woman will eventually find another husband, as Jesus comments immediately on such a man in the same verse, and as also would have been customary in that society where a divorced woman would otherwise have virtually no other means of survival. At first glance, then, one might assume that the "except for marital unfaithfulness" clause would authorize the woman to engage in the second relationship, as if she were not an adulterer in such a scenario. The more textually appropriate reading in the Greek (and even in the English) is that Jesus is referencing whether or not the husband divorcing his wife makes her an adulterer, and not the woman marrying a new man. To that end, the husband who divorces his sexually unfaithful wife does not make her an adultress because she has already made herself one in the first place. Presumably the same would apply if the gender roles were reversed.

That is, because you committed adultery, if you divorced your wife (or she you), then she has not made you an adulterer because (1) you are under no societal imperative to remarry and, (2) more importantly, you made yourself an adulterer and she did not have to do this for you. I say this not to judge you, but as a matter of fact. Similarly, per the end of that same verse, your subsequent wives were made adulterers by marrying you.

That all pertains to the status of the person who has been divorced. To understand the sinfulness of the man who does the divorcing in the first place, we look to 1 Corinthians 7:10-11 - "To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife. When Paul says "should not separate" here, he is clearly referencing a divorce and not what we know today as a "legal separation" - first, because the modern concept of legal separation did not exist in that day, but also because he says immediately after, "she should remain unmarried," making clear that he understands the marriage to be broken, i.e. divorced. The implication, then, is that even in the case of divorce one is meant to remain unmarried and the only person a divorced person can then marry is their former spouse, reconciling their broken relationship.

Matthew 19:8-9

Matthew 19:8-9 also says, "Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery." In other words, "That wasn't God's intent, but Moses allowed it anyway." This was not to imply that divorce was somehow acceptable to God; rather, it was a concession made to men by men in order to prevent a greater harm that would have occurred if Moses had not otherwise permitted this. For example, if a man could not divorce his wife to escape a bad marriage, he might have killed her instead. Between the two options, both are sinful, but divorce is the preferable course of action all the same.

As to verse 9, Jesus' comment on "except for sexual immorality" is not a reference to married couples in the way we know them today. When we see the phrase "sexual immorality" today in the context of marriage, we often think of adultery, which is when a married person sleeps with someone who is not his/her spouse. The Greek word for this is moicheia. However, in verse 9 Jesus does not say moicheia; he says porneia, which is the Greek word to reference a variety of sexual behaviors, usually outside of a marriage context, at least as we know marriage today.

Now, it would seem apparent that Jesus is talking about someone who is legally married because he says, "divorces his wife." But that word for "wife" is gunaika, which is the same word used to describe Mary while she was betrothed to Joseph. That is, in Jesus' day, people were called "married" and "husband/wife" upon engagement, which was a much more serious affair than the types of engagements we enter into today that can be broken at the drop of a hat. Similarly, in John 8:41 we see the word porneia used to describe the Jewish leaders' accusations of Mary and Joseph having sex without being legally married in order to conceive Jesus. Although we know biblically that this is not true, this insight does further evidence that the type of relationship Jesus was referencing in Matthew 19:9 is not that of a husband/wife as we know them today, but that of two people who were betrothed, where one person calls off the marriage because of the sexual impropriety of the other.

In today's engagements we do not see people as having entered into a covenant or vow, which we only see happening at the time of the ceremony; we see the engagement itself as nothing more than a statement of intention. Engagements in Jewish culture at the time Jesus was alive did involve a clear covenant between two people that simply was not consummated until after the ceremony. Jesus is suggesting in verse 8 that divorce between legally married persons is always wrong. He then follows it up in verse 9, changing gears with the phrase, "And I say to you," and then communicating, "Not only is divorce between married persons wrong, but it's even adultery to break the engagement covenant unless one party has already engaged in a one-flesh relationship with someone else." To be clear, this "engagement period" in Jewish culture would have been virtually identical to the period of time in modern culture between the wedding ceremony where the couple exchanges vows and the wedding night, when the couple first has sex.

Spiritual Marriage v. Legal Marriage

Biblical marriage is defined by two things, and two things only: (1) a covenant, and (2) sex. A covenant is a mutual agreement between two people, much like a modern-day contract. It is a "meeting of the minds," so to say. Biblically, covenants are never to be broken for any reason. Breaking the covenant of the law made one a law breaker. Breaking the covenant of marriage would make one a marriage-breaker, or adulterer.

However, every covenant is consummated by some symbolic act. In modern day, this symbolic act is almost always putting your signature on the contract. In the covenant God had with Abraham, circumcision was the symbolic act that sealed the covenant. In the covenant of marriage, sex is the act that sealed the deal. So, Jesus' exception in Matthew 19:9 for allowing people to break a marriage covenant was only in the case of annulment - when the two had not slept together. This is no different than a modern court nullifying a contract because neither party had signed it.

It's also important to recognize the importance of Matthew 19:6 as the context in which Jesus speaks verses 8-9, which says, "So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate." That is, God places great weight and value on covenants, but it is when two people become one flesh by having sex that God actually joins them together. This is affirmed in Malachi 2:15, which says, "Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union?" That is, the Holy Spirit binds people together through the act of having sex. This is why 1 Cor. 6 and 2 Cor. 6 both talk about the "oneness" that is created through sexuality and that when we become one with a prostitute, for example, we are not only uniting ourselves to her, but everything else that we are one with as well - and also anything that she is one with, as evidenced by 2 Cor. 6:15's comment that it would be like trying to unite "Belial" (the demon/idol with whom she has a oneness bond) with Christ, with whom we share a oneness bond.

In this sense, a person, once married, is never divorced from his spouse if there was a covenant sealed by sex. Although they may divorce each other in a legal sense, they remain spiritually united and nothing can change this. That is why Paul says in 1 Cor. 7 that if a woman separates from her husband she must remain single or otherwise reconcile with her husband - because in God's eyes they are still married.

Conclusion

In short, it is sin both to divorce your spouse and to remarry anyone after divorce. There is no exception where any of these things are "not sin."

Breaking a Covenant

It is no secret that polygamy was practiced by numerous biblical characters in a capacity acknowledged by God as legitimate marriages. This is not to say that God endorses or approves of polygamous relationships, for which there is a substantial case also for demonstrating that polygamy is sinful. Instead, the purpose in acknowledging this is merely to say that covenants to a second wife are legitimate and valid, including through consecration of the marriage vows by having sex.

In Numbers 30:2 we see, "If a man vows a vow to the Lord, or swears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth." This is such an intense reality in God's eyes that when Jephthah, in Judges 11, vowed to sacrifice the first thing that came out of his home in exchange for God's help, he ended up sacrificing his own daughter. This is why Jesus gives strong cautions against making oaths or vows in the first place (Matthew 5:33-37), which James echoes in James 5:12.

In short, if you have remarried someone into a covenant relationship and have sealed that relationship with sex, then you have sinned by committing adultery, but the covenant is still binding and you should not break your oath before God to your subsequent wife.

Justifiable Conduct

Although something may be sinful, a particular action may be justifiable in God's eyes. It does not make it "right" or a model that others should follow, as it is still sin, but it is a preferred course of conduct nonetheless. This concept exists because God acknowledges that we ware in a fallen state and cannot help ourselves from sinning.

I have already mentioned one example of this. In Matthew 19:8 Jesus says that Moses permitted divorce not because it was "not sin" under certain circumstances, but because of the hardness of a person's heart. Similarly, as has already been alluded to, although polygamy is almost certainly sin (on grounds that would be too off-topic to address here), God allowed it to continue in many Old Testament marriages and even utilized Jacob's polygamous relationships with Leah, Rachel, and their servants to birth the heads of the 12 tribes of Israel.

Even in the New Testament, we see Paul vehemently condemning those who imposed Jewish laws and customs over the non-Jews as being wrong (even wishing they would be emasculated, per Galatians 5:12), but he also concedes in Acts 15 to impose some laws over the Gentiles anyway - not because this is the "right" or best thing to do, but because there was no other way to bring peace between the Jews and the Gentiles. That is, because their hearts were hardened, there had to be a "lesser of two evils" that was chosen.

In your case, remarriage after divorce is sin, but it is justifiable as the "lesser of two evils." Have you done wrong? Yes. But would you have done even greater harm to God's Kingdom and His purposes if you had remained single and been tempted into sexual relations outside of marriage? Most likely. I say this not to condemn you as having a hard heart, but in acknowledging the practical reality that most men, yourself included, once having tasted sex with a woman, cannot return to a life without it in the absence of unique gifting from God that enables them to do so. Rather than letting you commit a great sin in your weakness, permitting you to remarry is the lesser sin that is more appropriate, which is the course of action you have chosen.

Conclusion

Yes, divorce is sin. Yes, remarriage is sin. Yes, it is a continual state of sin. But you are always in a continual state of sin. As long as we are in this flesh, we will always be less than God intended. That is why God gives us a new flesh in heaven. That is why even after being saved and while godly enough to write inspired Scripture, Paul wrote Romans 7:25, saying, "In my flesh I am a slave to sin, but in my mind I am a slave to righteousness." That is not to justify our sinful conduct, as we must always seek to be sanctified, but it is an acknowledgment that we cannot escape sin while in this "body of death," as Paul calls it in the immediate previous verse. Even if you had never remarried at all, your flesh would still be in a continual rebellion against God. Praise God that he looks at the heart and not at our flesh, and that he has renewed our hearts in Christ! Let this be your motivation for living rightly.

As a practical matter, for you to break your covenant with your current wife would be sin, and a far greater grievance against God and His people than remaining in a marriage that was sinful at its inception. This is the reality of living in a broken world: that sometimes we will be caught in a catch-22 where no matter what options appear before us, it is sinful.

But regardless of the technicality of our behaviors and choices, God is more concerned with the orientation of our hearts. Your heart is now oriented toward obedience. The fear of being disobedient to God has caused you great turmoil. This is not a sign that you are not saved; rather, if you were not saved you would have no care about the effects of your sinfulness in the first place. Take comfort in this fact that your heart is not callous and hardened against God and your status before him.

Go have sex with your wife. Whether it was sin for you to marry her or not, God has joined you two together when you became one flesh. Just don't let anyone separate you from your wife ever again - especially not yourself.