Marriage, Divorce And Remarriage
Scarcely a week passes in which I do not receive a letter containing questions on the subject of marriage and divorce. The teaching of the Bible on this subject is as clear, it seems to me, as on other relationships, duties, contracts and obligations.
The following letter is from a good brother, in Memphis, Tennessee.
Dear Brother Douthitt:
I am sending you a self addressed envelope. I would like to have an answer to my question at your earliest convenience.
The question is: A woman quit her husband and lived with another man as man and wife for a period of time, and then they were married. Now they are separated, and he is about to become a member of the Church of Christ, and he wants to know if he can get a divorce and marry another woman. Would he be living in adultery?
I am not a minister of the gospel, but I have made a life study of the Bible, and I say he would be living in adultery, but I would like to have your answer. I could be wrong.
Answer
When God joins a man and woman in marriage, only one cause for divorce with permission to marry again, is revealed in the Bible. That cause is fornication. (Matt. 19:3-9).
God does not recognize some of the divorces issued by civil law; neither does he recognize some of the marriages nor join together some of the couples that comply with the civil laws of marriage.
Did God join Herod to his brother Philip's wife, when it was not right for him to have her? (Matt. 14: 1-4). God does not do that which is not right.
If God "joined together" this man and this woman who quit her husband and came to live with this man, then this man is married to her and cannot be joined to another while she lives, "except for fornication" again. But who would claim that the Lord had any part at all in forming such a union?
If God did not join this man to this woman with whom he lived for a while and then left, the union with her clearly was a case of prolonged adultery, and was not a marriage at all in the eyes of the Lord. Under such circumstances, this man could repent of that and all his other sins, become a Christian and marry another woman, if he wants to do so, as I see it.