The Rationale between Old Testament and New Testament Differences in Marital Ethics

According to Jesus, Genesis presents God's ultimate will in creation concerning marriage. There is to be one woman and one man and the two are to become one flesh. That's it. He then goes on to argue that this is why if a man and woman are divorced and remarried they are committing adultery. But, as the Pharisees objected, wasn't this permitted in the Law?

And whatever happened to good ol' polygamy? Wasn't that permitted as well?

And there is no law against prostitution, so why is it condemned in the New Testament?

Some would argue that it just reflects the changing ethics of marriage in culture. When in an ancient Near Eastern society that accepted polygamy, the Bible was OK with it. When in a monogamous culture like that of the Graeco-Roman empires, the Bible changed its mind. This, of course, is not the reason for the Bible's stance on these things.

For one, this doesn't explain why the New Testament takes a stricter stance against prostitution and divorce and remarriage than the Law does, since both are perfectly acceptable in Graeco-Roman culture.

Secondly, what is used and permitted by God is not necessarily pleasing to God and in accordance with His ultimate will. In other words, it may be the case that God merely tolerated these things, creating through a slow process of weaning His people off of bad ideas and practices until the fulness of Christ and the Spirit would come to restore the vision presented at creation.

But how would we know this? We would have to have some indications in the Old Testament that God was only tolerating these things, even though they were not in accordance with His ideal. Do we have such indications? Yes, we do.

Let's start with prostitution. There is no law against it. Men used prostitutes (e.g., Judah, the spies who end up at Rahab's brothel, etc.) in the same way that men use them in many third world countries around the world. But even though they are not outlawed, God does not view the sleeping with a prostitute favorably.

For one, He prohibits men from making their daughters prostitutes (Lev 19:29).  Leviticus 21:7 prohibits his priests from marrying prostitutes, who are said to be defiled. If God had no problem with prostitution, then why are they viewed as defiled and priests forbidden to marry them? God frequently uses prostitution as a way of talking about the disgusting acts of other nations and even of rebellious Israel. A girl who whores herself and then attempts to marry a man without telling him first is to be put to death. Why all of this fuss if God has no problem with prostitution?  In fact, God does make a law that no ethnic Israelite woman or man is to be a cult prostitute, even though a non-ethnic Israelite member of the community could be (Deut 29:17), and no money gained from prostitution was to be given to the Lord to fulfill a vow (29:18).

So was prostitution permitted? Yes. Was it in complete accordance with the will of God for male and female? No. Hence, when the New Testament comes along, Christ has died and ascended as High Priest, unification with God through Christ via the Holy Spirit has occurred, the ultimate will of God in creation is to be sought and all else abandoned as evil.

But what about polygamy? Any indication that the Old Testament sees it as a bad thing, even though it is never prohibited explicitly and even used by God to communicate ideas? Yes, lots.

First of all, polygamy is almost always viewed as a hostile environment for everyone involved. Jealousy between the wives (e.g., Sarah and Hagar, Leah and Rachel, Hannah and Peninnah), as well as rivalry between the sons (e.g., the rilvaries between Abraham's sons, Isaac's sons, Jacob's sons, David's sons, Solomon's sons, etc.). This also created an exhausting environment for the husband. In Deuteronomy 17:17, the law forbids the king to take numerous wives because there is a threat that it will turn his heart away (i.e., cause him to focus on them and not the Lord or the people he is to rule in righteousness). Instead, the godly instruction of Proverbs speaks only of devotion to one's wife (singular), and the Greatest Song, the Song of Songs, that allegorizes the relationship between God and His people does so by presenting only one man and one woman in that relationship, displaying that God's idealic picture is for one man and one woman to join together in a pleasure and joy not shared with anyone else.

Finally, we come to divorce. It is permitted in the Law, as the others are as well, but along with the others, it is not in accordance with God's will as it is manifested in creation. Hence, God hates divorce (Mal 2:16). His priests are not to marry a divorced woman (Lev 21:7). Even for a former husband to marry a woman now divorced from a second husband is a defilement and an abomination to the Lord (Deut 24:1-4). Why would these things be said if God had no problem with it? If He was not just tolerating it, but really did not see it as outside the boundaries of His created will?

Now, here is why I believe God did tolerate it in the Old Testament, but does so no more. These are all in line with the main aspect of the creation ethic, which is the creation of a covenant human being, but not in line with the preservational aspect, as it created a hostile environment for the children and their possible upbringing. The sexual act between a prostitute, a concubine, a divorced woman is ordered in terms of it having the possibility of creating human life among the covenant people. These are, therefore, tolerated, even though they are not completely in accordance with the preservational and fully ordered ideal of the creation ethic (i.e., that which is in accordance with the creation mandate in Gen 1:28-30).

Because they are not fully ordered and in accordance with His ultimate will, God does not like them. There is something disordered about them, something defiled and corrupt, but tolerable enough to be used for His purposes until the time of Christ.

When Christ comes, however, He is unifying His people to God, whereby they partake of the very divine nature, and demands now that they be fully ordered in all of their marital and sexual practices. Hence, we get the conversation between Christ and the Pharisees, where Christ tells them that anything less that the ideal of the one male and one female becoming one flesh is of the sin of adultery. This would include prostitution and polygamy.

This is also why things that are completely disordered and a complete rejection of the creation ethic are not tolerated at all. Homosexuality, bestiality, incest, strictly defined adultery, etc. are all in this group.

An analogy of this might be the fact that God does not prohibit the belief in many gods in the original giving of the law, but instead only that the Israelites are to worship Him as their God alone. It is only later, as God teaches them slowly, that there actually are no other gods beside Him. God creates with patience over time. He is not an instructor that pulls the rug out from underneath His people before the time when they can handle it. When the Holy Spirit is given to them in Christ, then, and only then, are they able to receive all things fully.

What this means, therefore, is that those who believe that divorce is acceptable today are arguing against the rationale of the Bible. If divorce is acceptable, why not polygamy? In fact, the same type of disorderliness that is in divorce (i.e., a threat to children due to there being a non-biological parent, often with his or her own children, creating a hostile environment for them, and the unfaithfulness to a one flesh union between one man and one woman while they live) is also in polygamy. It is not that such hostile environments could not be created by more ordered situations, but that these disordered situations have been created by the people involved and not just by circumstance (as would be in the case of one marrying a widow with children for instance).

The fact that all of these are presented in a negative light throughout the Old Testament and rejected by the New, tells us that God has called the people of the kingdom to His original ideal and will concerning the one flesh union in marriage between one man and one woman until death do they part, to its restoration in becoming what marriage was meant to become as a means of God's work in completing creation.