Hello Wyatt, I continue to enjoy your deep dive into the divorce/remarriage situation. I am sure you will have disagreement no matter your final thoughts on the matter. Happy New Year. I pray God’s grace for you as you lead Davenant through 2025. I am committed to praying for you this year. Please do not hesitate to let me know how I can pray for you. I am a retired educator/administrator in Memphis who survived a double-lung transplant in 2019. I am free to pray regularly and enjoy it. Please keep up the thoughtful posts!
I’m reading this in light of a high profile situation (Doug Weiss and Joni Lamb’s remarriage) and also a close family member who, after cheating on her husband, blamed him for spiritual and emotional abuse that made her “have to cheat to get away” from her husband. Their family is shattered, 6 kids and some living in different homes. She is not yet divorced, but has “remarried” a man who apparently (?) has now become a Christian, though he divorced his wife and left his own family for my family member.
She is constantly sending Bible verses to us all in a huge effort to excuse her behaviour and cast it in a spiritually correct light. For example, because my husband and I do not accept her new fake marriage or new fake husband, we are “casting the first stone” and not being loving or kind or Christ-like.
Thank you for studying through these verses and sharing your thoughts.
In my opinion, Christians are experts at finding a verse to support whatever it is they want to do. If they divorced and then fell in love with someone, they will see the text telling them remarriage is fine. If they stay married and struggle on, people will be quick to say no one should be re-marrying.
Life experience has taught me that sin will always find a covering and an excuse for itself. Sadly, Christian marriages are falling apart everywhere.
Thank you for this in depth discussion, but I think one thing that might be good to discuss is the aspects of marriage for unbelieving couples vs believing couples.
I think it would be fair to say Jesus and Paul are addressing believers, but what about those marrying apart from belief or adherence to the scriptures. If two unbelievers marry then divorce and for example one becomes a believer after the divorce, do the restraints presented in the Bible still apply? Does coming to the knowledge and obedience of the scriptures change anything?
For me, I think a clarification of applying biblical commands and principles to unbelieving and believing couples would helpful to understand or think through. Do they apply to both unbelieving and believing couples or does chronology in coming to faith mean there is or should be a distinction. The local church doesn't exercise authority over unbelievers but believers.
Granted there could be myriad of situations which would best be addressed case by case by pastors/elders, but a discussion on application like believers vs unbelievers might be helpful or at least is something I wrestle with.
Good thoughts, Matt! One point "The local church doesn't exercise authority over unbelievers but believers." Well, fair enough, but do note that marriage is something universal and natural---part of God's general Providence, we might say. So I do think God's intent for marriage matters for all. And the chronology question IMO doesn't change things for this reason.
I would agree with your statement on God's intent, but the direction on how a church enforces what constitutes the validity/invalidity of re-marriage, due to its ambiguity in Scripture as you have thoroughly discussed, I think of as another category.
Again very interesting and thought provoking discussion I discovered from the Challies newsletter. I will be following you going forward. Thanks!
Very thoughtful article, Wyatt. Thanks. Many good men having different views on this issue confirms how complicated it can be. I will only add: because marriage is the norm for most people, in order to avoid sexual immorality (1 Cor. 7:2), I think it is the loving, pastoral, and wise thing to do to allow remarriage at least for the innocent party after a Biblically-legitimate divorce.
I have also studied this area and come to different conclusions than you. I have read most of the books you mention and some others. Do you wish to hopefully engage in constructive criticism?
Thank you, Wyatt, for your work on this - I found this extremely stimulating. Unfortunately, I fear I must have missed something important and wonder if you can help me find it. For background, I came in more or less endorsing the Westminster view, but the essay shifted me substantially towards the more restrictive view. What I am struggling to grasp is how you get to the premises of some of your closing section. You say towards the end that 'the Bible is more or less silent on remarriage after divorce', but that surely isn't what you have shown in the body of the essay. Isn't it more accurate to say that, while the Bible repeatedly forbids remarriage after a divorce, it is more or less silent on whether we may draw a distinction based on the guilt/innocence of the divorcing party? Can you not form the syllogism as:
1) The unambiguous texts all prohibit remarriage after divorce.
2) While two texts may countenance exceptions based on circumstance, neither is unambiguous.
3) The Fathers are more or less in consensus that they do not constitute exceptions.
Therefore
4) On the balance of probabilities (admitting room for disagreement) there are no exceptions to the rule that remarriage after divorce is permitted.
Clearly, I have read your essay at cross purposes. Could you help me?
P.S. I cannot speak for other protestant traditions, but while the Erasmian position has clearly had a large influence in many Reformed churches, the Church of England only started permitting remarriage in church after a divorce in 2002.
Can you clarify what you mean regarding, "I admit, however, that the Bible is more or less silent on remarriage after divorce (not after death, however)." Do you mean there aren't many verses about this, or besides the verses you mentioned like Luke 16:18? It seems like the Bible isn't silent, there are verses.
I simply mean that the Bible does not give time to discussing various situations for what happens after a person is divorced. The Bible is not the Mishnah.
Thank you for sharing your thorough research
My pleasure!
Hello Wyatt, I continue to enjoy your deep dive into the divorce/remarriage situation. I am sure you will have disagreement no matter your final thoughts on the matter. Happy New Year. I pray God’s grace for you as you lead Davenant through 2025. I am committed to praying for you this year. Please do not hesitate to let me know how I can pray for you. I am a retired educator/administrator in Memphis who survived a double-lung transplant in 2019. I am free to pray regularly and enjoy it. Please keep up the thoughtful posts!
Thanks, Richard! Very kind of you!
I’m reading this in light of a high profile situation (Doug Weiss and Joni Lamb’s remarriage) and also a close family member who, after cheating on her husband, blamed him for spiritual and emotional abuse that made her “have to cheat to get away” from her husband. Their family is shattered, 6 kids and some living in different homes. She is not yet divorced, but has “remarried” a man who apparently (?) has now become a Christian, though he divorced his wife and left his own family for my family member.
She is constantly sending Bible verses to us all in a huge effort to excuse her behaviour and cast it in a spiritually correct light. For example, because my husband and I do not accept her new fake marriage or new fake husband, we are “casting the first stone” and not being loving or kind or Christ-like.
Thank you for studying through these verses and sharing your thoughts.
In my opinion, Christians are experts at finding a verse to support whatever it is they want to do. If they divorced and then fell in love with someone, they will see the text telling them remarriage is fine. If they stay married and struggle on, people will be quick to say no one should be re-marrying.
Life experience has taught me that sin will always find a covering and an excuse for itself. Sadly, Christian marriages are falling apart everywhere.
"In my opinion, Christians are experts at finding a verse to support whatever it is they want to do."
Yes, that can often be the case. We must pray for God's help always!
Thank you for this in depth discussion, but I think one thing that might be good to discuss is the aspects of marriage for unbelieving couples vs believing couples.
I think it would be fair to say Jesus and Paul are addressing believers, but what about those marrying apart from belief or adherence to the scriptures. If two unbelievers marry then divorce and for example one becomes a believer after the divorce, do the restraints presented in the Bible still apply? Does coming to the knowledge and obedience of the scriptures change anything?
For me, I think a clarification of applying biblical commands and principles to unbelieving and believing couples would helpful to understand or think through. Do they apply to both unbelieving and believing couples or does chronology in coming to faith mean there is or should be a distinction. The local church doesn't exercise authority over unbelievers but believers.
Granted there could be myriad of situations which would best be addressed case by case by pastors/elders, but a discussion on application like believers vs unbelievers might be helpful or at least is something I wrestle with.
Good thoughts, Matt! One point "The local church doesn't exercise authority over unbelievers but believers." Well, fair enough, but do note that marriage is something universal and natural---part of God's general Providence, we might say. So I do think God's intent for marriage matters for all. And the chronology question IMO doesn't change things for this reason.
I would agree with your statement on God's intent, but the direction on how a church enforces what constitutes the validity/invalidity of re-marriage, due to its ambiguity in Scripture as you have thoroughly discussed, I think of as another category.
Again very interesting and thought provoking discussion I discovered from the Challies newsletter. I will be following you going forward. Thanks!
Very thoughtful article, Wyatt. Thanks. Many good men having different views on this issue confirms how complicated it can be. I will only add: because marriage is the norm for most people, in order to avoid sexual immorality (1 Cor. 7:2), I think it is the loving, pastoral, and wise thing to do to allow remarriage at least for the innocent party after a Biblically-legitimate divorce.
Excellent piece. Thanks for this.
Thanks, Ross!
I have also studied this area and come to different conclusions than you. I have read most of the books you mention and some others. Do you wish to hopefully engage in constructive criticism?
Perhaps. Why not write a response? I'll read it!
Thank you, Wyatt, for your work on this - I found this extremely stimulating. Unfortunately, I fear I must have missed something important and wonder if you can help me find it. For background, I came in more or less endorsing the Westminster view, but the essay shifted me substantially towards the more restrictive view. What I am struggling to grasp is how you get to the premises of some of your closing section. You say towards the end that 'the Bible is more or less silent on remarriage after divorce', but that surely isn't what you have shown in the body of the essay. Isn't it more accurate to say that, while the Bible repeatedly forbids remarriage after a divorce, it is more or less silent on whether we may draw a distinction based on the guilt/innocence of the divorcing party? Can you not form the syllogism as:
1) The unambiguous texts all prohibit remarriage after divorce.
2) While two texts may countenance exceptions based on circumstance, neither is unambiguous.
3) The Fathers are more or less in consensus that they do not constitute exceptions.
Therefore
4) On the balance of probabilities (admitting room for disagreement) there are no exceptions to the rule that remarriage after divorce is permitted.
Clearly, I have read your essay at cross purposes. Could you help me?
P.S. I cannot speak for other protestant traditions, but while the Erasmian position has clearly had a large influence in many Reformed churches, the Church of England only started permitting remarriage in church after a divorce in 2002.
Can you clarify what you mean regarding, "I admit, however, that the Bible is more or less silent on remarriage after divorce (not after death, however)." Do you mean there aren't many verses about this, or besides the verses you mentioned like Luke 16:18? It seems like the Bible isn't silent, there are verses.
I simply mean that the Bible does not give time to discussing various situations for what happens after a person is divorced. The Bible is not the Mishnah.