Some Preliminary Thoughts on Divorce and Remarriage
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Editor’s note: Baptist Bulletin ran a three article set on the topic of divorce and remarriage in the November/December 2020 issue. Below is the first, an introduction by the magazine’s then managing editor.
By David Gunn
In some ways, marriage and other family relationships is where the rubber meets the road for Christian ministry and living. Here, in the daily hustle and bustle of human lives lived in close proximity to one another, theory and doctrine are put to the test. Sometimes we rise to the challenge and glorify God in and through those relationships. Sometimes we don’t.
Marriages present Christian ministers with some of the thorniest issues they’ll ever deal with. Probably chief among them is the issue of divorce and remarriage. Does Scripture permit Christians to pursue that course? And if so, under what circumstances and according to what guiding rules and principles? Gallons of ink have been spilled exploring these questions, and no decisive consensus seems to be forthcoming.
Among Regular Baptists, two views on the subject appear to be dominant: some hold that the Bible does permit (although it does not command) divorce and remarriage under a limited set of circumstances. Others hold that divorce and remarriage are never Scripturally authorized. Sometimes these views are referred to as the “exception clause” and “no exception clause” views (although that verbiage is probably too narrow, as it doesn’t reflect the full range of passages and issues the discussion entails).
To shed light on these two viewpoints, we have asked two pastors to present the two respective views in this issue of the Baptist Bulletin. David Huffstutler’s article explains the former view, while Don Shirk’s explains the latter. This is not intended as a heated debate, but rather as a temperate explanation of the reasoning underlying each view. As Huffstutler puts it, the goal is more to present than to persuade. Both writers have tackled this project with a spirit of graciousness and pastoral sensitivity and a firm commitment to Biblical authority. It is our hope that these articles will assist you in thinking through this issue.
As I read the two articles in preparing this issue of the magazine, I was struck by the numerous points of agreement between the two writers. Of course there are major areas of disagreement as well, but it was heartening to notice how much common ground they shared. To set the stage for the discussion, it will perhaps be helpful to highlight those points of agreement and comment briefly on them.
This topic is difficult
Both writers note that the issue of divorce and remarriage is exceedingly difficult. This is true in at least two senses. First, it is exegetically and theologically difficult. We do not possess a silver-bullet prooftext that can easily and decisively settle the issue, as we do in other, more fundamental areas of theological inquiry. Numerous Biblical passages touch on the issue, of course, but understanding them and synthesizing them is no easy task. Thus there is room here for disagreement among informed, sincere believers.
Second, it is pastorally difficult. Even if one is solidly convinced of one view or the other, it can be incredibly tricky to implement that view in real life. For that reason, a great deal of humility and graciousness is called for in discussions such as these. Both writers, I noticed, emphasized the role of the individual’s conscience in navigating these tricky waters. I think that emphasis is wise.
Permanent marriage is the ideal
Reflecting on both God’s original creative design (Gen. 2) and on the analogy between human marriage and the union of Christ and the church (Eph. 5:21–33), both writers recognize that the ideal marital arrangement is one man and one woman permanently united in marriage. Any disruption of that arrangement—whether it is understood to be authorized by Scripture or not—is by definition a departure from that ideal. The basic understanding from which both writers are operating, then, is a high view of the sanctity and (ideally) the inviolability of marriage. Presumably, both writers would agree that our broader culture’s cavalier approach to divorce is incompatible with the Bible’s teaching on the subject. I would further suggest that this is so because our culture’s view of marriage is fundamentally incompatible with Scripture: it tends to view marriage (and virtually everything else, for that matter) as nothing more than a means of personal fulfillment and self-enrichment. In a word, it is self-centered, whereas a Biblical view of marriage will be God and others centered.
Our world is broken
Both writers also recognize that in a broken world such as ours, ideals will not always be achieved (or even achievable). “We all stumble in many things” (James 3:2). That is true for those who have been married only once. It is also true for those who have been divorced and remarried. And it is true for those who are single. No one is exempt from human fallenness. Wise counselors will recognize that we must deal with the world as it actually exists, not as we wish it to be. There may be times, then, when ideal solutions are not just difficult, but impossible.
No one is beyond the reach of God’s grace
Discussions of divorce and remarriage will probably take different shapes depending on the contexts in which they are raised. It is one thing to discuss the issue in a purely academic setting. It is quite another when counseling a couple whose marriage is on the brink of collapse and one or both parties are looking for a way out. Yet a third (and again, quite different) context is discipling a believer who has already been divorced and remarried. Particularly in the third case, I think it is important to emphasize—as both our writers have done—that no one is beyond the reach of God’s grace. Christianity is a message not of condemnation, but of redemption (John 3:18). This doesn’t necessarily mean that Jesus will prevent or negate all temporal consequences that might flow from our suboptimal decisions, but it does mean that all people can have peace and fellowship with God right now, no matter what their past looks like. We didn’t ask our writers to comment specifically on this, but I think it is important, whichever view on divorce and remarriage one accepts, that we say unequivocally to those who are already divorced and remarried, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). Whatever your marital history might be, you need never think of yourself as tarnished in God’s sight. Jesus’ forgiveness is absolute. And while the failure of previous marriages is unfortunate and a departure from God’s ideal, you can nevertheless please God and glorify Him in your current marriage. We serve a God Who delights to lavish grace upon His children.
Posting soon: Part 2 – Divorce and Remarriage: Yes in Some Circumstances, as a Last Resort
Reposted with permission from Baptist Bulletin © Regular Baptist Press, all rights reserved.
David Gunn is former director of Regular Baptist Press and former managing editor of the Baptist Bulletin. He now serves as assistant director of Media Ministries for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry.
...is that divorce happens because of human sin, and hence we need to address these sins, perhaps, in the context of church discipline. At a certain level, when a person's sin--one spouse's abuse, adultery, drunkenness, whatever--impairs the marriage, the church optimally should be involved, and then you've got an interesting reality; whether a spouse is allowed to marry again in the church is going to have a lot to do with whether the church found that spouse to be repentant or not.
And so we would find in "cases not involving adultery", that one spouse would give historic justification by walking away from the church discipline/repentance process, and that would constitute abandonment. That's a key part of how we might infer that it's absolutely critical for churches to up their game in church discipline and counseling--there are a lot of horror stories out there.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
I hope these essays adequately separate the two. It isn't "divorce and remarriage," it's "divorce," and "remarriage." Combining the two into a single conversation leads to many misunderstandings.
Ashamed of Jesus! of that Friend On whom for heaven my hopes depend! It must not be! be this my shame, That I no more revere His name. -Joseph Grigg (1720-1768)
JNoël:
Agreed. A while back I spent most of a year surveying the biblical teaching on marriage, divorce, and remarriage. Many of the sources I consulted seemed to gloss over some of the finer details, leaving me with the impression that they were trying to fit the Scriptures to their predetermined conclusion rather than let God have his say.
Seems to me there are two main questions at root:
A. Can the marriage actually be dissolved?
B. If it can, under what conditions is it actually dissolved?
There is a third question that maybe stands alone or maybe is a sub-feature of question B: What are the outcomes of behaving as though it has been dissolved when it in fact has not?
The remarriage question is, in my view, mostly appropriately lumped in. The reason is that the dissolvability of the covenant is a more fundamental question and answering it solves the remarriage question as well.
For example, if the covenant actually cannot be dissolved, as some contend, then any remarriage is adulterous, because the covenant still stands.
If it can be dissolved, but the conditions have not been met, then the result of a remarriage is the same for the same reason.
But if it can be dissolved and the conditions have been met, then a remarriage is not adulterous, because the first marriage has indeed ended.
There is no way for a “marriage” to equal adultery unless it is not a valid marriage because a prior valid one still exists.
That analysis satisfies Matthew 19.
So then there is the possibility of another ethical layer. Looking back at the root questions, if someone takes the view that ‘B’ answers best to the biblical evidence, and the conditions that must be met are established, another pair of questions follows:
1. If the covenant is dissolvable and the conditions for dissolving are met, can there be other reasons that doing so would be wrong?
2. If there can be other reasons, what are they?
So we don’t really land at B. 2. without landing at B first, which requires settling A. Without settling that, debates over those B.2 questions aren’t ultimately coherent.
But I’m not sure there is anything at B. 2. that has any relevance for the remarriage question. But there is no harm in asking:
(I guess we’re at B, 2, a now)
a. Is remarriage ever right or wrong based on the rightness or wrongness of dissolving the covenant (assuming it is actually dissolved)?
My View for What It’s Worth
(I realize that at B1 and B2 I’ve flipped the question: instead of asking what would make it right, I’m asking what would make it wrong. There are reasons for that, but maybe it creates confusion. Hopefully not.)
| Question | Answer | Confidence Level |
| A: Dissolvable? | Yes | High |
| B: Conditions? | Sexual immorality Other conditions? |
High Low |
| B1: Dissolved but still not right? | Yes | High |
| B2: Conditions making it wrong? | Attitudes, motives, outcomes | High |
| B2a: Remarriage wrong? | No | Low |
I haven’t supplied the biblical evidence for any of this, I realize, but I’ve studied all of it many times. And this post would get a lot longer. But a lynchpin for me is Matthew 19. It’s clear to me that Jesus says divorce + remarriage sometimes = adultery and sometimes does not. Any adequate explanation of that has to deal with the question of dissolvability of marriages (as a separate question from whether the dissolvement is right or wrong—when does it occur or not occur?).
Once that question is settled, you’re either done (both divorce and remarriage are always invalid because a marriage cannot really be ended), or you’re launching into a journey of increasing nuance and decreasing certainty on a case by case basis.
I don’t think we can avoid that journey, though the practical theology would be much simpler if marriage covenants were undissolvable.
So, long route, but the gist: the remarriage question is almost entirely solved by answering more basic questions that are upstream of it.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
There are well thought out/argued ideas surrounding Matthew's exemption clause. Yes, the probability is still high that God allows for divorce in cases of porneia, but it is still not a guarantee. Therefore, we’re still basing this all on assumptions, not on a clearly laid out principle (one that is ignored by Mark and Luke (that is, God) because it isn’t included in Mark and Luke’s gospels). We can’t be dogmatic in areas where God isn’t absolutely clear, and considering the special-ness of marriage and its picture of Christ and the church, the best Risk Management decision (for those of you who have studied risk management) is to treat divorce, especially when the saved partner is the one doing the divorce initiation, is a very high risk decision carrying potentially very bad consequences, if carried out. Separately, remarriage adds even more to the complication.
Abandonment is more related to remarriage than it is to divorce. Certainly no Christian can ever be considered justified to abandon their spouse (whether that spouse is saved or unsaved) on their own, so abandonment is talking about what the innocent party is allowed to do after s/he has been abandoned by the other partner.
I take issue with Huffstutler’s assertion that “. . . there may be other sins as well that break the covenant and allow for divorce” where he then goes on to offer examples. That is beyond scripture, and all such examples should be totally discarded. He says, “If the sin is significant enough, though the unbeliever has not initiated a divorce, the marriage covenant has been broken, and a believer may initiate the divorce and end the marriage.” Who gets to be the judge of whether or not the sin crosses some man made "significant enough" threshold? I'm sorry, but I cannot agree with his line of argumentation in this section of his essay at all. There are only two explicit possibilities in scripture to allow for divorce: porneia and abandonment. And each of those has questions regarding their legitimacy/application, as well as follow-up questions regarding the legitimacy of remarriage in cases involving porneia or abandonment.
Last is the question of the porneia clause itself. It is not at all a stretch to assume that 100% of all marriages have had at least one partner who can legitimately be accused of porneia at some point in the marriage. Are we then to assume that all marriages can then be rightly dissolved, and God would be okay with that? If we compare Christ and the church, surely he should have broken off that marriage long ago – has any church ever been 100% faithful to Christ? And yet Christ does not divorce his church. We have become far too quick to say it’s okay to pursue divorce.
Several years ago I made a list to try to think through the remarriage question. I am confident that this does not cover every possibility, but it does at least show just how complex a question it is. These are not easy issues to deal with, as Huffstetler rightly asserts, and, as with all things, everything we say and do when it comes to our interactions with other people should always be motivated by love of God, love of others, and with the goal of being vessels through which the gospel can be displayed.
When is remarriage allowed / not sin?
Matthew 5:32, 19:9, 1 Cor 7:12-15
Unsaved 1 is married to Unsaved 2
They divorce
Either marries someone else - ?
Unsaved 1 is married to Unsaved 2
They divorce
Unsaved 1 becomes a Christian
Saved 1 marries someone else - ?
Unsaved 2 marries someone else - ?
Saved is married to Saved
Saved innocent initiates and secures a divorce from Saved partner guilty of infidelity
Saved innocent marries someone else – ?
Saved guilty marries someone else - ?
Saved 1 is married to Saved 2
Saved 1 initiates and secures a divorce from Saved 2 (no infidelity)
Saved 1 marries someone else - ?
Saved 2 marries someone else - ?
Saved 1 is married to Saved 2
Saved 1 and Saved 2 mutually divorce (no infidelity)
Either marries someone else - ?
Saved is married to Unsaved
Saved initiates and secures a divorce from Unsaved partner guilty of infidelity
Saved marries someone else - ?
Unsaved marries someone else - ?
Unsaved becomes a Christian and marries someone else - ?
Saved is married to Unsaved
Unsaved initiates and secures a divorce from Saved (no infidelity)
Saved marries someone else - ?
Unsaved marries someone else - ?
Saved is married to Unsaved
They mutually divorce (no infidelity)
Saved marries someone else - ?
Unsaved marries someone else - ?
Unsaved becomes a Christian and marries someone else - ?
Ashamed of Jesus! of that Friend On whom for heaven my hopes depend! It must not be! be this my shame, That I no more revere His name. -Joseph Grigg (1720-1768)
The article and the comments show that this is a complicated issue. I share the following not because I have a high probability conviction that it is correct, but because I have been contemplating it along with so many other issues on this subject. In the gospels, Jesus only gives one exception clause of infidelity, but then Paul adds an additional exception of abandonment. Is it possible that the exception clauses were stated as reasons to allow divorce, but not necessarily meant to be exhaustive? In other words, the exception given by Jesus was not exclusive if we also add the exception given by Paul. Perhaps that is why Huffstutler is leaving room for other situations. I would be curious to read other's thoughts on this as well.
....except that I think that what Scripture actually supports is "If there is adultery, you are free to divorce, and if your spouse abandons you despite the church reaching out for discipline, then you are to consider the leaving spouse an unbeliever who is not eligible to rejoin the church until repentance is achieved, per 1 Cor. 7."
For things leading to church discipline, I guess it would be any sin that church leadership would say "this is serious enough that we cannot in good conscience let it slide." I can think of a pattern of physical abuse of spouse or children, or emotional abuse carefully defined, or even a pattern of abyssmal financial mismanagement as some issues that would merit church discipline.
What we'd want to avoid is what we see too often; people divorce for no clear pattern of sin, and both partners are welcomed back into fellowship without evidence of repentance--which would of course lead to the question "why don't you just remarry if you've resolved that?".
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
I appreciate the thoughtful engagement.
On the absence of the ‘exception clause’ in Mark and Luke. This does complicate the debate, but more than it should. Since we know all of the Gospels are selective in what they include, the absence of anything from one or more of them doesn’t reduce the reliability of what’s included in another.
In short, omission in one of the Gospels never erases anything from whatever Gospel(s) it appears in.
As for the article’s assertion (Part 2) that there could be other things that break the covenant, similar reasoning lends some strength to Huffstutler’s point. We sometimes read an exhaustiveness into a passage that isn’t clearly there, especially where conditional logic is happening: “if A, then B doesn’t necessarily mean “B if and only if A.” As far as logic goes, it never means that, but in context and plain language it might. When we put it in the form of “If A, then B, except for C” it’s a lot stronger implication that C is exclusive of any other conditions, but we still haven’t said “except for, and only except for, C.”
Then you have the apostolic teaching in Paul’s epistles that seems to allow for some other situations.
The human factor: we all come at questions like these with some biases. But it’s not a strong argument to dismiss a view on the grounds that we assume the view is motivated by something the interpreter wants to conclude. I mean, sure, that’s possible. But it’s best to deal with the evidence at hand rather than assuming things, and there are certainly things in Paul that make you go “hmmm…” So, agree with additional exceptions or not, there is evidence for that idea. We could argue it’s not conclusive evidence or even strong evidence, but it’s still evidence.
But I want to go back to what we do with silences in Scripture. Just as we know the authors of the Gospels omitted things for their unique emphases, Jesus also often omitted things for the sake of emphasis. (One quick example: Like when He told that guy to go sell all his stuff and he would get into the Kingdom of Heaven. Or like when He said just ask the Father for it and you will get it. There are often additional factors He omits at the moment. This is not imperfection on His part. It’s inherent in communication. You can’t emphasize if you highlight everything—and saying something with all the possible nuances every time you say it has the same effect.)
So, all that to say the silences are not super weighty in this debate, in my view. The things that are said have a lot more heft.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Discussion