The Word Abused . . .

“LIVING IN ADULTERY”

This is an expression that I have heard all my life, and due to the exposure I have had in “Church of Christ” colleges, it is a term I have used myself, especially in my younger days when I was not as conscious of how prone we are to abuse the scriptures. We warp and twist the Bible by imposing upon it concepts that it does not teach.

Needless to say that we do not read of “living in adultery” in the Bible, and, if one stops to think about it, it is one of those expressions that is sheer nonsense. How can one possibly live in adultery? We can read of adultery in the scriptures, and of committing adultery, but never of living in adultery. One may as well talk about “living in stealing” or “living in lying” or “living in murder” as living in adultery. Such terms are nonsense and you can be assured that such talk as “living in adultery” was invented by the clergy so as to impose some anathema on somebody.

Interestingly enough, this is not used on some carnal brother who gives his life to chasing after women. If he sleeps illicitly with a woman, he may gain the epithet of fornicator or adulterer, but he will not be “living in adultery.” This is a unique epithet for a unique situation, and I think I have never heard it so used except in our own circles. No one really “lives in adultery” except that poor soul who is “unscripturally divorced” and remarries. If he or she didn’t remarry, but simply “had an affair” or several of them, he or she might be guilty of adultery in the eyes of our folk, but not “living in adultery.” You have to get divorced unscripturally and then remarry. That will do it. You are then “living in adultery” —whatever that means!

It is of course possible for people to commit adultery again and again, just as they can steal again and again. If that makes the first living in adultery, then the second would be living in stealing. The whole thing is so silly that I rebuke myself for ever succumbing to such doctrinal folly.

I fear that we have allowed some of our preachers of yesteryear to lead us too far afield by way of their interpretation of what Jesus says about divorce and remarriage, and we have those among us who continue to keep this risky teaching current. Many families among us with divorces in their past have learned to brace themselves when the subject comes up, for almost certainly they’ll hear still again that they are “living in adultery,” even after 15 or 20 or 30 years of marriage. Others of course have long since been driven from us by those who champion such strait-laced views. Some have been turned away who would otherwise come to Jesus, for, being divorced people, they were told they were “living in adultery,” a sin they must repent of before they can come into the church, which means that they must break up their home in order to come to the Lord.

I’ve known divorced believers, who did not separate for “a scriptural cause” to wait around for years for their estranged spouse to marry (which would mean the ex-spouse was then guilty of adultery) so that they would then have “a scriptural reason” to remarry. We’ve had families torn asunder over this doctrine because some preacher convinced a couple that they had no right to marry following a divorce that dates back to their teenage years. Children or no children, they have to break it all up and separate, for they are “living in adultery.” They are told that this is what Jesus teaches!

The girl that makes a mistake by marrying some “Church of Christ” brute is told that she can’t divorce him so long as he is not unfaithful to her, which means to be guilty of adultery. No matter how severe the hell is that he creates for her, she must hang in there the rest of her life. If she does leave him, she has to live alone the rest of her life —unless, after leaving him, the brute takes off after women or marries. In that case she can marry again, for he is then the guilty party. But if he’s the kind that gets more kick out of beating women than making love to them and therefore never gets sexually involved, then our young sister, still in her teens and with a baby to raise, has to cut it all alone the rest of her life, regardless of how much some decent guy, even if a Baptist, loves her and the baby and wants to make a home for them. They would both be “living in adultery” and so that would be against the law. That is what these bruisers say that Jesus, the Prince of Peace, teaches!

Something is badly wrong when serving Jesus is made to be unbearable, mean, unjust, and oppressive. God is for man, not against him. His religion uplifts man and makes him happy. Jesus insisted that “My burden is easy and my yoke is light” and one of his apostles assures us that his commandments are not grievous. To make Jesus’ into a legalist by assuming that through manipulation of circumstances we can twist his words so that they fit our practice is to abuse the scriptures.

Jesus is hardly a lawmaker in reference to marriage, divorce, and remarriage. He rather lays down principles and ideals, which, due to life’s misfortunes, we may fall far short of approximating. There is no question but that he taught against divorce, just as God had enjoined restrictions for the sabbath. But conditions may alter principles, for principles are always given to serve and free man, not to oppress or enslave him. We must believe that Jesus will accept a person wherever he is, that he will raise him up and give him hope and make him part of the new humanity.

Jesus didn’t talk to troubled souls the way these preachers do that we’ve referred to. The woman at Jacob’s well was such a one, and it is likely that she frequented that inconvenient source of water so as to escape the austerity of the “righteous” women at the city well. “Go, and call your husband,” Jesus said to her. When she replied that she had no husband, the Lord said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband.” That would have been the time to have talked about “living in adultery,” for she was no doubt committing adultery every time she slept with that sixth man, out of wedlock. But suppose she had been married to him, would there have been any rebuke on the part of Jesus? “You have had five husbands,” he says to her, and he seems to recognize the marriages. We may presume that she had these one at a time! His rebuke, was that she now lived with a man outside marriage. She wasn’t “living in adultery” but committing adultery. But I cannot see that Jesus would have raised the matter at all if that sixth man had been her husband.

Now if our preachers want to be like Jesus and rebuke people for living with mates out of wedlock, I for one will applaud their concern. But to tell divorced people, who are now legally married, that they are “living in adultery,” well. . . if they’ll just show me Jesus doing that.

It makes an interesting question as to what the sequel to the story of the woman at the well might have been. I can see Jesus saying to her, “If you want to be my disciple, first marry that man you’re living with, and then spend the rest of your life seeking the kingdom of God and his righteousness.” But the editor of the Heretic Detector could be expected to say, once he had examined her marital history, “Now, marriage number 1 is the only scriptural marriage. You are to go back and see if you can’t find him, or else. . .” The liberties that men take with precious souls of God is frightening. No wonder the scriptures warn us about being teachers, for we will indeed receive the heavier judgment. I am well aware of those passages in Mt. 5:32 and 19:9, along with Mk. 10:11-12 and Ro. 7:2-3, that men use to deduce their legalistic theories, and I am persuaded that they draw from them unwarranted conclusions. To say the least, there are problems that should discourage dogmatism. We err in making passages mean more than is really in them, and we have a way of being all too sure when the evidence at hand suggests a more moderate view.

Take Mt. 5:32: “But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.”

Is Jesus here teaching that it is wrong to marry a divorced woman, that the man who does so is guilty of adultery? Don’t be too sure!

This passage has its problems. It says that a woman “commits adultery” when her husband divorces her. Do you really believe that a woman is guilty of adultery just by being divorced? That is what it says, “Whoever puts away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery.” This is explained by adding to what Jesus says, “ . . . causeth her to commit adultery if she marries again.” But he doesn’t say that, does he?

Mark, who was writing to Greeks, does not mention that point at all, but simply says, “Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her.” And he adds something Matthew left out: “And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery.” Since the Jews did not allow women to divorce their husbands, Matthew, writing to Jews, does not bother with that point. And Mark says not a word about “except for the cause of fornication,” which should cause one to wonder who makes such a big deal of that point. Mt. 19:9 does mention that exception, but it is only a repetition of what he had already recorded in chapter 5.

Rom. 7:2-3 only shows what we all already recognize, which is why Paul is using it as an illustration, which is that a woman is bound to a man as long as he lives. If she joins herself to another while her husband still lives, she is an adulteress. It reminds us that bigamy is wrong.

That is about it when it comes to Jesus’ “laws” on divorce and remarriage. Isn’t that a bit on the sketchy side for us to be so dogmatic as to break up marriages and pronounce anathemas upon devoted couples who have been serving God for many years only because there is a divorce back in the closet?

But we are told that God only needs to say something once, and he has made Himself clear enough in Mt. 5 and 19. Jesus plainly says that if a man divorces his wife, except for fornication, causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries her also commits adultery.

But is it really all that plain? Taking just what Matthew records, we still have the problem as to how a woman can be guilty of adultery simply by being divorced by her husband. And we have no information about the man who divorces her. Can he marry again? If he does, is he an adulterer if the cause of the divorce is not fornication, but innocent if it is? Jesus says nothing about what the man can do or not do. His concern is rather about what happens to the woman, and, oddly enough, to the man who might marry her.

Mark’s record of what Jesus says takes a different direction. He simply says that if a man divorces his wife and marries another woman he commits adultery against her, saying nothing at all about exceptions. By the way, who is the her in “commits adultery against her,” the wife that is divorced or the second wife? Almost certainly the one being divorced, which shows that both accounts show special concern for the woman being put away, which may be a clue as to what Jesus is really getting at in all this.

With Mk. 10:11 in hand, one could conclude that when a man divorces his wife and marries again, he is sinning against the first wife (he commits adultery against her) but is not guilty of adultery with the second wife.

Well, I suppose I have succeeded in confusing you, which is partly my purpose. It is confusing; it is very difficult, and it is sketchy. We don’t have enough information to draw up a lawbook on marriage and divorce. I am persuaded that Jesus intended no such detailed information. He wasn’t even talking about conditions and causes for remarriage, but was rather rebuking the Pharisees for their flippant attitude toward women and marriage and was showing the inviolability of the marriage bond, emphasizing “what therefore God has joined together let no man put asunder.” That is the ideal.

I’ll share with you how one highly respected biblical scholar, R. C. H. Lenski, approaches these problems, including the one of how a woman can be an adulteress simply by being divorced.

The divorcing man is the culprit that Jesus is after, according to Lenski. The Pharisees had permitted him to put away the little woman simply by handing her a piece of paper —“for any cause.” Jesus is showing what that does to her, and in doing so he uses passive voice, which almost all commentators treat as if it were active voice. The phrase “causes her to commit adultery” is passive, not active. Active voice is like “I kill” while passive is “I am killed,” which means it expresses action done to you. So it is with “commits adultery” on the part of the man who marries the divorced woman. That is, he has the action of adultery done to him; he doesn’t do the adultery himself.

The active voice of this same verb appears in verses 27-28: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’ (that is active), but I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery (again it is active, the subject is doing the acting) with her in his heart.”

But in verse 32 he changes to passive voice, which means that the divorced woman does not herself commit adultery, but she “has adultery done to her” or the like, or as Lenski puts it, she is “stigmatized as an adulteress” by being put away, the community supposing she must be an unchaste woman or her husband would not take such action against her. So with the man who marries her. Jesus is not saying he is, guilty of adultery in marrying her, but, joining himself to a stigmatized woman, he has to share in the disrepute that her first husband brought upon her. The man who wants to divorce his wife, and the Pharisees were giving a lot of them their wishes, is the great offender to Jesus. He is bringing reproach both upon the woman he divorces and the man who would chance to marry her. So, Jesus isn’t at all condemning a man for marrying a divorced woman.

As for “except for fornication” in Mt. 5:32, this stands as the only exception to what he is saying. If the woman is unchaste (which is a better translation; there’s another word for adultery or fornication), then in being put away she has brought her own bad name upon herself, and so the husband cannot be blamed for the ill repute either she or her next husband may suffer.

Lenski insists that Jesus is not concerned here with who can or cannot remarry, but that he is attacking the dishonor shown to marriage by the Pharisees when they toss divorces around like pancakes —except that Lenski does not use that metaphor!

Well, I am not saying that Lenski is right, but he is being honest with the text, and he is making a sincere and responsible effort to face up to the problems in the light of the original Greek. Surely he deserves to be heard.

We can be sure of some things in these scriptures. Divorce is a sin! Even though Moses in Dt. 24:1 allowed it, Jesus told the Pharisees that God never really intended it —it was allowed only because of “your hardness of heart.” A man becomes one with his wife, and only with her, and not with his parents. He is to leave his parents and become one with his wife. God makes them one, and so the union is inviolable. “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder,” the Lord warns them.

There is no assurance in these verses that Jesus recognizes any reason at all for divorce. A man is not to put away his wife (period). The reason is because God made them one from the beginning. If he does divorce his wife, he has sinned against God, whether he marries again or not. But he also sins against the woman, for in divorcing her he makes it appear that she is an adulteress, for otherwise he would not be putting her away. Moreover, he injures the man who marries her, for it also hurts his reputation, making it appear that he has married an unchaste woman when he really hasn’t.

The only exception to this is unchastity on the part of the wife. If she is unchaste, he is doing her no personal injury in divorcing her; that is, his sins are not compounded by hurting the woman (and her new husband) as well as offending God. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the man is justified in divorcing her. He still may be sinning against God in divorcing, even if she is unchaste. Man is not to divorce his wife —not for any reason at all! —that is what I understand Jesus to be saying in M t. 19:1-9. Otherwise he would not be contradicting what Moses said in Dt. 24:1. Moses said they could divorce; Jesus says they can’t.

But, as we have said, these are ideals and principles more than rules. Divorces will come, that is life, and we must accept them as necessary evils, oftentimes as the lesser evil. But still someone has sinned. Divorce is contrary to what God intended even from the beginning. As with all sin, God gives us the opportunity to make a new start. The sin of divorce can be forgiven and the separated people can make a new life, each going his separate ways. When a divorced person remarries, he of she is married, and we have to conclude that God recognizes that marriage like all the rest. With the past forgotten, they can start afresh and honor God in their lives —and not divorce again! And it has to be wrong to say they are “living in adultery” or that they were “unscripturally divorced.” There is no such thing as a scriptural divorce —except under Moses and the Pharisees!

I can only conclude that Jesus takes people as he finds them, and makes them into a New Creation. That is what it is all about. However fouled up one’s life is, however many times he has been married, however full the closet is of all sorts of skeletons, still Jesus is there saying, “Come unto me and I will give you rest.” And he adds, thank God, he adds, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” —the Editor