A Critique of John Murray's Argument for Divorce and Remarriage, Part I

I wanted to entitle this post, "God's Ulimate Moral Will and It's Many Accommodations to What Evangelicals Would Rather Do," but since it begins my critique of Murray's book, Divorce, I'll simply entitle it as above.

Reading John Murray's book on divorce and remarriage has reminded me of a common theme that has been repeated throughout the evangelical era.

In the book, Murray asserts time and again that God's ultimate design for marriage is one man and one woman for one lifetime. This is God's ultimate will and ideal for marriage. However, in some circumstances (adultery or abandonment) it is morally acceptable to do otherwise.

Now, I hear this argument used about quite a many things. It's essentially saying that God's will is the ideal, but because of circumstances in the fallen world, that ideal can be set aside, and God is fine with that. It may not be the best but He'll settle for the rest.

Here is the problem. Any moral practice that is not in accordance with the revealed will of God is corrupt, as God's ultimate will is the standard to which He calls His people. He does this because His will is not just works He wants them to perform, but people He wants them to become. If it is the will of God to do A and one does B, even if B is tolerated, it is not the will of God, and therefore, it is of a different ultimate will and nature than God's.

The idea that God has an ideal that He reveals and can then be dismissed because He may allow for lesser practices assumes that morality is not connected to His nature and will but by what He tolerates. The problem is that He tolerates a lot of things that are lesser than His nature and will, but He calls His people to be holy as He is holy. They are called to become as He is, not something other than what He is.

That means He calls them to His ultimate will and the best, most upright, most in accordance with His will, thing they can do. Anything lesser than this is a corrupted practice rooted in a corrupted character, not God's character. In essence, to practice anything else is being conformed to what is corrupted, not to God; and anything of this nature is unholy. Any knowledge that one is doing this, and yet still does it, is sin.

Hence, Murray lost the debate at the get go by admitting that God's ultimate will did not include divorce and remarriage. The debate is over. That's it. Everytihng else is the wrangling about of words in looking for an exception as he twists the ambiguous statements to muddy the clear in an effort to argue for what might be tolerable to God, rather than what is in accordance with His best, ultimate good will.

This argument is continually employed for numerous ethical issues, and has been for some time. It is how contraception was introduced into the church at the Lambeth Conference. It is how people argue for homosexual unions today in the church. You can essentially use it for anything. It's not God's ultimate will that elders punch you in the face, but sometimes, in some circunstances, because we're fallen, God understands in His grace and mercy that elders just need to punch you in the face, and that's OK.

This is the reasoning of the heretics in 2 Peter 1. People are fallen and can't do God's will because it's set too high. Peter responds by arguing that we have everyting we need for life and godliness, and that we are not merely fallen beings anymore, but those who now partake of the very divine nature.

This is all a separate issue than whether or not God tolerates other practices that are of a more corrupt nature. It has to do with what the people of God should be obeying, the revealed ultimate will or the toleration of corruption.

It seems the toleration of corruption is what many argue for. I hear things like, "God always hates divorce" and "it's always a tragedy, but . . . " If God always hates it, why would you ever do it? Are you arguing that sometimes it's acceptable to do what God hates? Sometimes it's OK to cause a tragedy that injects more chaos into the world that doesn't have to be? Abortion is always a tragedy and God hates it, but He understands that sometimes we just can't work it out and we have to murder babies. Don't worry though folks. Ulimately, I believe that God wants us to have our children. It's just that in some specific cases, even though it's not God's ultimate moral will, He tolerates us doing it. Ergo, anything He tolerates can't be sin.

Now, I've argued before that God does NOT tolerate divorce and remarriage anymore (Jesus now declares it once and for all as adultery), but my point is that I don't even need to prove that to someone arguing this way simply because they've already admitted that their position is contrary to the revealed, ultimate moral will of God, and therefore, that it is sin. So I simply have to say to Murray, "Thanks for conceding. Enjoy the rest of the show where I rip your view apart piece by piece." Stay tuned for it.