This leads to a final post where I want to discuss what repentance may look like if one has already divorced and remarried another.
If one divorces, in defiance of the teaching of the New Testament that has been taught well by his or her church, then he or she should be rebuked and placed on church discipline.
Now, if one, in ignorance, due to poor teaching on the subject, has divorced recently, and he or she, or the other spouse, has not joined him or herself to another, then repentance looks like reconciliation and restoration of the marriage.
If one has divorced and remarried, or his or her spouse has remarried another, then the web cannot be untangled so easily. In this case, the remarried couple have two options: 1. Separate from one another and live unmarried (Augustine and his wife do this), or 2. remain married, but never justify that what you did as something permissible to you. Teach your children and grandchildren that you did not know better, or worse, you were in outright rebellion against God if you did know better, and should not have done what you did. Teach them to be faithful to one person while they are both living, and to never divorce. In other words, throw yourself under the bus, not God's Word.
Either way, justification of one's actions is not repentance from them. Upon repentance, however, the blood of Christ cleanses us from all unrighteousness, including the sins of the unforgiveness of divorce and the adultery of remarriage; but apart from true repentance, these sins will remain.
The reason why I do not say to divorce the current spouse and go back to the original one is because it is prohibited by God in the law to do so. It is seen as polluting the community, perhaps, because it throws everything into chaos. Instead, especially if children are involved, one of the two options above seems the best route for a repentant mind in such cases.
Hi Bryan - I've enjoyed (if that's the word for a heavy topic) these posts: they've helped to confirm the conclusions I've come to. It's a sad state things are in: here in the UK, there would be very few even Conservative churches that hold to the Biblical view. Certainly the pastor at a church I did an internship type year at seemed able to justify re-marrying almost anyone by playing very loose with terms and exploiting gaps (i.e. 'she is free...' - 'but to remarry?' - 'Yes.').
ReplyDeleteI was curious to see what practicalities you'd suggest. Jesus does seem to tighten things up by saying remarriage is adultery... but I suppose you'd have to have to say that it's only the initial act of marriage that is that sin, for if the whole marriage was constant adultery the only option would be separation, as far as I can see. But there are broader questions of how OT law is or isn't to be used there.
I'm more interested to know how you'd handle this pastorally. It's perhaps the issue I'd most dread having to speak into if I were an elder - e.g., two divorcees come along seeking your blessing for their remarriage and you have to dash their hopes. Or say all this to a couple already remarried. I'm not seeking at all to justify them at all, for I'm in full agreement with you, but it must be hard to tell a couple they need to always regret what is now one of the closest bonds in their lives.
Perhaps things are made more difficult when there are children from the second marriage. To tell the kids that the parents shouldn't have married (and this applies to if a Christian married a non-Christian too) seems almost tantamount to saying that, if things had been done right, the children wouldn't exist... perhaps shouldn't exist. That's quite a bitter pill to swallow for a number of people. I mean how, if a Christian is supposed to wish they'd done differently to please God, they'd effectively be wishing their kids didn't exist... and I think the children would pick that implication up, even subconsciously.
I'm probably over-thinking this, but I wonder how you would seek to comfort someone who felt these sorts of things after realising their sin.
What really makes it difficult is the current religious climate, where most churches just let Christians do pretty much whatever they want when it comes to marriage and divorce. We've had people leave because he or she plainly said that he or she wanted to divorce his or her spouse and marry someone else in the future. So they go looking for churches who will "tickle their ears" and give them what they want.
ReplyDeleteIt's a hard pill to swallow, which is why the Lord Jesus, I think, makes the statement he does when the disciples say that not everyone should marry if divorce and remarriage is likely. "Not everyone can receive this, but only to those to whom it has been given."
I don't think it necessarily follows that one is saying the children should not exist because they are a product of the Lord's blessing out of chaos, and a direct work of God using chaos to create. So they were wanted by God, and God used the sin of two people to bring about the children He wanted. The Bible is filled with such examples. Blessing from a sinful union is a display of God's mercy. So we know the children were wanted by God because He made them. It just would have been better for the couple to have remained faithful to Him, and we assume He would have brought about those children through their righteousness rather than their sinfulness.
Ah, yes. True about Jesus' statement: had forgotten about that. And the current climate is indeed so bad it feels like finding the least worst option even with relatively conservative church.
ReplyDeleteI thought you might say something of the sort in the last paragraph re: resulting children. Without wishing to get too scholastic here, do you mean that those children would have come about through the first marriage (despite having a different father or mother) if the original couple had stayed married? That seems unworkable, genetically speaking. But in terms of souls...?!
Of course, everyone is probably the product of more than a few sinful situations somewhere back through the millenia of our particular family trees.
Let me restate it. What I mean is that God brings about the children He wants to make, and decided to make before the foundation of the world, in light of sin and evil, not apart from it. So He uses it for His purposes, including the making of the children He wants to make. This does not negate the fact that people are to do what is right and not sin. God's work just includes the fact that they will also not do what is right and sin. If the people would have been righteous, and not sinned in this situation, we know that the children that God gave to them would be the children that He desired to make, although they would have a different genetic makeup and maybe even be different people. But the children they had either way are the children He wanted to make. So God's moral disfavor upon the means should not be confused with God's favor in creating the children as a result of that means.
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