Essay 87 (8-25-05)

PROPOSITIONS ON DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE (2)

4. "Living in adultery" is wrongly applied to those who are legally married, however many times they were previously married.

A person may sin when he divorces and remarries -- "commits adultery" as Mark 10:11 has it -- but he is nonetheless married, and if he is married he is not "living in adultery." Whatever the circumstance, one can be forgiven of adultery, and he is guilty of adultery only as he further commits adultery. When one is married, he is by definition not committing adultery, so long as he is faithful to his spouse.

"Living in adultery" is one of those weasel terms that is both meaningless and (sometimes) intentionally misleading. It is used in a judgmental way, not of people who are sexually promiscuous, but of those who are divorced and remarried "without a scriptural cause." Such ones are often exemplary in their family life. They may have a cruel and tragic divorce in their past, but they have found faith in Christ and are resolved to get on with their lives, and not let that happen again. They are among our wounded that we sometimes callously shoot with brutal epithets.

One may commit adultery – even habitually -- but how does he live in adultery? Do we speak of an habitual liar as "living in lying" or a thief as "living in thievery"? It is not a biblical term.

We see a different attitude in our Lord in his encounter with a woman who had been married five times (John 4). The encounter leads Jesus to say to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here." She answers, "I have no husband." This is when Jesus says that she has answered well, "for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband."

It may be that the woman had been widowed all those five times, or there may have been some divorces. This does not appear to matter with Jesus. She had been married five times before. Jesus accepts this as a fact of life, and there is no implied censure. The problem was that she was now living with a man to whom she was not married. This may be seen as an implicit rebuke, but not that she had had multiple marriages. We may presume that if she had been married to the sixth man, and had called her husband, that the Lord would have proceeded with his conversation as is recorded. He would have been talking to a couple, one of which had been married six times. It is not likely that he would have said that they would have to quit "living in adultery" before they could drink of the water he had to offer!

5. The sins committed in divorce and remarriage are often irreparable, however penitent those involved may be.

Some of those who make merchandise of this tragic issue will resort to this kind of logic: If a man steals a horse, and then repents, he is to return the horse; if one steals another man’s wife – or a woman another woman’s husband – repentance demands that the wife or husband be returned. The ancient Greeks called this casuistry or sophistry, and some of them were very good at it, as are some of our sophists.

If this is logic, it is poor logic, even cruel and insensitive. Some wrongdoing is easily reparable. Stolen money can be returned, with interest. A stolen horse can be negotiated, and the wrong made right. It is not that easy for the slanderer who has destroyed a good name, and it is impossible for the rapist or the murderer to undo what he has done, however contrite he may be. It is not unlike poor Esau who sold his birthright for a single meal – "when he wanted to obtain the blessing afterwards, he was rejected, and, though he pleaded for it with tears, he could find no way of reversing the decision" (Heb. 12:17).

Many a man – and not a few women – have looked back on the sins of their youth with tears, thinking how "it might have been," only to realize like Esau that the decisions of yesteryear cannot be reversed. "If I had known then what I know now, I could have saved my first marriage," they sometimes say.

But that is the past. God forgives and forgets the sins of our youth. So must we. There is now another marriage, a family, and weighty responsibilities. We must move on. And we must believe that God will accept us where we are, and give us the strength and the wisdom to avoid the sins of the past. We cannot change the past, but we can learn from it.

6. Divorce is not the unpardonable sin.

This should be apparent enough, but the way the divorced are sometimes treated one might conclude that it is unpardonable. A swindling at the bank or an unscrupulous business man is often shown more grace. One might conclude from the way some people reason that a man can be forgiven for murdering his wife before he can be forgiven for divorcing her!

In his forgiving mercy God accepts people where they are, and his commands are not grievous. Pentecost is an example for so many things, including God’s immeasurable grace. Considering how common divorce and remarriage was in the ancient world, there must have been hundreds of people with multiple marriages on Pentecost. The apostle Peter preached the gospel of the grace of God, and thousands were baptized. God’s grace does not remember the past, it redeems it. And grace secures the future for those who accept it.

Notes

Along with millions of others with Microsoft Windows 2000 computers, I was invaded by a virus and was shut down for repairs for a week. I lost some Inbox emails, some still unread, so if you wrote to me in the past ten days you might try again.

I will be attending the New Wineskins Retreat – made up primarily of African American preachers in Churches of Christ -- at the Richland Hills Church of Christ in Fort Worth this weekend. The theme is "Undoing Racism in Churches of Christ and Beyond." The speakers are black and white from far and near, including four professors from ACU, again black and white. My old soul mate, Ivory James – one of the heroes in my autobiography (We have stories to tell!) – is flying in from Florida to be our house guest, and we’ll attend the Retreat together.

Each Wednesday evening in September I will do a series on "Churches of Christ Heritage in History and Scripture" at the Skillman Church of Christ in Dallas. If would be great to see you there in case you live close enough to attend.