One area of disagreement with John Piper that I discovered in What Jesus Demands from the World is in the area of divorce and remarriage. This is an important issue in our day, particularly as we see the utter confusion regarding very public divorces among Christians. We really do need to better understand and apply what Jesus says about divorce and remarriage (both directly and through His apostles and prophets- see 2 Timothy 3 to remember that ALL Scripture is useful in this regard).
Piper proposes a view that I have not heard before. In seminary I wrote a paper on the subject, using Carl Laney as the representative of the view that there is to be no remarriage after divorce. This is a view I held as a young Christian, and argued harshly for much to my shame. I believe, based on Matthew 5:31 & 19:8-9, as well as 1 Corinthians 7, that there are biblical grounds for divorce, and that when those grounds are met, the “innocent” party is free to marry again.
Piper points to the fact that the other gospel accounts do not include an exception. Matthew is the only one that includes the exception. He points for the reason for this exception in the first chapter of Matthew’s Gospel. He argues that this explains how Joseph could be a righteous/just man while considering to put a pregnant Mary away for what he thought was sexual immorality. As a result, Piper thinks that the use of porneia here is limited to sexual sin during the period of betrothment or engagement. Your marriage has not been consummated, no vows have been taken, and you are free to marry (not again, since you were only engaged, not married).
This view would mean that all divorce would be sin, and all remarriage after divorce would be sin. If you had remarried, he would advocate remaining in that marriage instead of compounding your sin with another divorce.
I don’t think his argument holds up exegetically. It would assume too many leaps and assumptions on the part of the listeners/readers. In both instances, the issue is trying to understand the use of porneia (in the Greek translation of the Hebrew text) of Deuteronomy 24. Porneia is a general term for sexual sin which includes, but is not limited to, adultery. Adultery is not the only sexual sin that may be grounds for divorce.
There were a number of sexual sins in the Old Testament that were punishable by death (these included rape, premarital sex in some cases, and bestiality). In the days of Jesus, the Jews were not able to execute the death penalty. So, what was a person to do if their spouse was guilty of adultery or any of these other sins? Normally the marriage would be over due to death and the person free to marry. I agree with Sinclair Ferguson, and others, who argues that these sexual sins are grounds for divorce, and the ‘innocent’ party is free to remarry. Justin Taylor lays out Andreas Kostenberger’s similar argument, with help from Tim Challies in this chart (I can’t get rid of the big space).
| Differences of Views | Shammai | Hillel | Jesus |
| OT background texts for marriage | Deut. 24:1-4 | Deut. 24:1-4 | Gen. 1:27; 2:24 |
| Meaning of porneia | Immodest behavior or sexual immorality | Any instance where a wife did something displeasing to her husband | Immoral behavior on the part of the spouse, including, but not restricted to, adultery (majority view; see Matt. 5:31-32; 19:3, 6, 8, 9) |
| Divorce for porneia | Required | Required | Permitted |
| The application of the standard for divorce and remarriage | Men only | Men only | Both men and women |
I would argue that such sexual sin before marriage, hidden from your spouse could possibly be a grounds for divorce. For instance, you discover your spouse was a prostitute, stripper, child abuser, etc. prior to your marriage this may be grounds for divorce as we see in Deuteronomy 22:13-21. This is something I am not adamant about, and I could be off base, extending Deuteronomy 22 too far.
But let us not forget the words of Jesus, the real reason for divorce is the hardness of hearts! In some cases it is the hardness of heart on the part of the person who refuses to repent of their sexual sin (adultery, pornography, exhibitionism etc.). The divorce may occur because this person refuses to repent and put away their sinful behavior and restore fidelity.
In some cases it is the hardness of heart on the part of the person who refuses to forgive the other of their sexual sin. They are unable to move ahead, extending grace to another repentant sinner.
What Jesus wants from us in marriage is a commitment to repent of our sin and to forgive our spouses of their sin. When we don’t do this, our hearts become hard. Then, whether we have biblical grounds or not, we entertain the notion of divorce. When we do this we tell a lie about the gospel and the relationship between Jesus and His Bride, the Church. We are saying that the gospel is not sufficient to change our hearts. We are saying that God is not gracious and merciful. We are saying that God does not keep His covenant promises. So, our sin is greater than merely a divorce but speaking lies about God.
This is not the unforgivable sin. But in this case, and others, it is not better to ask forgiveness than permission.
Other great resources on this issue would include:
Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible by Jay Adams
When Sinners Say “I Do” by Dave Harvey
The Sermon on the Mount by Sinclair Ferguson
God, Marriage and Family by Andreas Kostenberger
Two comments. First, Instone-Brewer (in the CT article) suggests that the Rabbis gave women permission for divorce in the case of abandonment. Second, are you saying that divorce really shouldn’t be an option and always is evidence of hardness of heart of either the offender or the victim? Is it possible that the victim is forgiving and accepts the repentance of the offender but believes that the covenant has been so marred, that restoration is impossible, and so uses their permission to divorce without it being a hardness of heart?
What do you think?
Phil,
I think it is evidence of some hardness of heart. But divorce is a legitimate option. There are certainly cases in which the consequences of one spouse’s actions are so profound that they make restoration nearly impossible or quite unreasonable.
For instance, if there is a child by another caused by adultery, or the straying partner has contracted a disease by their actions. Another instance would be by placing a child at risk, or to have been abused, by their actions (prostituting a child for drugs for instance).
I painted the ideal- but this is far from an ideal world (thanks to us). I guess I’m providing a balance point for those who tend to take it too lightly (which is what more people that I run in to do). But I also think Piper and Laney are more strict than Scripture in this matter.
Does that makes sense? I re-read the post and it comes across as very restrictive at points. I guess I’m just not sure how to express the balance between responsibility and compassion adequetely.
I’ll give it a shot Cav!
In marriage we are such sinners that we would rather do anything than
a. repent of actual sin against our spouse
b. forgive our sinful spouse who has sinned against us
The commands are to love our spouse enough that we
a. repent of our sin against our spouse
b. forgive our sinful spouse who has sinned against us
The church should never encourage divorce but rather confront, rebuke, challenge toward genuine repentance.
The church should then also encourage, challenge the victim toward genuine forgiveness and love, reconcilation.
But we take the easy way out:
we’d rather run or die than
a. repent
b. forgive
sounds harsh I know, but in my own experience both outside of marriage and even in my own that is what I find to be true. And frankly I think even in Reformed circles we have made for the people in our pews their marriage off limits because of the hardness of their and our hearts.
Fair enough?
I guess I was thinking that sometimes hardness of heart creates situations that are grievous enough that even when there is repentance and forgiveness on both sides that the consequences of that prior hardness of heart means the relationship cannot be restored and divorce takes place. Seems your examples would fit some of them. I guess this possibility then removes the implicit blame of the victim that if they were more forgiving, the relationship wouldn’t have to end. That mindset would say that while there is a technical out, anyone who uses it is unforgiving.
Phil,
My copy of Christianity Today finally caught up to me today, so I read the article you mentioned. The passage in Exodus, which I’ve looked at in trying to understand 1 Cor. 7 does allow the woman, in this case it seems to be a slave woman taken as a spouse, to leave if the husband takes another wife and refuses to provide for the first wife. This lays the groundwork for desertion by asserting a woman’s right to food, clothing and sex from her husband.
I’m surprised he kept saying “adultery” since the text doesn’t use that word but the more general one.
Yeah, we have to avoid the self-righteous mindset that “if you were just more godly, you wouldn’t get divorced.” Sin does great damage to marriage at times, and some marriage become utterly broken by sexual sin.
“If you were just more godly, you wouldn’t get divorced”.
Boy, that is powerful. Powerfully hypocritical.
Yea, the people saying that are people who are still married and have never divorced. But sometimes we must be honest, we are together with our spouses but not because we are so committed to faithfulness and love of our spouse.
Phil and Cav, I once had one inform me that their spouse had not spoken an ill word to him/ her in their 40 years of marriage.
Your response?
Key word may have been “spoken”- just letting it build up inside.
I felt compelled to comment on the ongoing discussion. I am a Christian woman who has a lot to say on this matter. I married someone who I presumed to be a Christian as well. We met on a short-term trip 7 years ago. He for 2 years stole my heart by serving me, supporting me, striving to worship the Lord in deed and word..we shared our lives, we worshipped in spirit and truth…
Problems came for us a month after our wedding in 2002. In essence, i have a husband who refuses to take any sort of responsibility in our marriage.
1.All physical provision (violation of 1tim5:8), including paying for our wedding is on my shoulders. Because he struggles in his career, he feels this is justification enough that he would not have to do so. He is not a ‘head’, in that there also exists no emotional or spiritual leadership.
2. He treats me contemptuously and treacherously, verbally abusive and emotionally abusive by neglecting this marriage and this wife. Hardly ever home, he stays away from the home, often times overnight in his office and places of which I know not.
I have shared for years now how lonely I am, how tired I am of the stress of having to do it all. He would never agree that a husband is to lay down his life, sacrifice his own needs for her. Nor would he agree that he has the primary responsibility of steering the marriage in a God-glorifying direction
3. He never learned to leave and cleave. His parents wrote me off for ‘dead’ (their words) 3 years back, and pressure hiim (not believers, clearly) to divorce and abandon me. His father is more his wife than ever I could imagine. he receives counsel, support from him, and he shares all his deepest feelings with this person.
4. He has physically abused me one time, which i define as beating and kicking, punching until bruised and swollen
5. He has placed me in financial harm. Already insecure from having to be the sole breadwinner for the family (not the wife’s role in Christian marriage), I fought off bitterness daily. He furtively was getting into debt with a pursuit of his own business to the point whereby to date, he is in 6 figures of credit card debt.
6. He has abandoned me twice now, the first time for 5 weeks in which he filed for divorce against me, and then unfiled it 2 weeks later… the 2nd time has occurred recently, and I have filed legally against him.
I have received copious christian counseling, christian pastoral counseling, lay counseling from mature, deeply-rooted Christians. They encouraged me to file, which i have done.
Do i love my husband? Yes. With a clear conscience, i have lived loyally to the vow to make him the priority of my life after Christ himself. But with that same clear conscience, i will intend to be divorced.
Love Must be Tough, by Dobson
There are multiple grounds, as I see it. God’s perfect will has been transgressed: that we, through servanthood, love each other until death takes us. Sealed in covenant relationship and commitment. I never had the privilege of experiencing this in my own marriage.
I ultimately becamse an enabler in a co-dependency that I could not easily tease out from being godly and grace-filled… Please pray for my brokenness, my grief, my insecurity, all the lies that I now have to speak and claim God’s truth over, my shame of being in such an abusive marriage.
I’m sorry your church leadership did not stand by you and get involved in this guy’s life.
Perhaps you “enabled” him by not holding him accountable for his actions- but ultimately he is to blame for his sins. You are only to blame for yours- and you have the sure knowledge that Christ’s death is sufficient to remove your guilt and shame should you confess them as you seem to be doing. May he deal tenderly with you.
There is another case, not brought up yet. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul talks about a believing spouse sanctifying an unbelieving spouse for the sake of the children. He says that the believing spouse should not leave the unbeliever because by staying, that unbeliever may come to know Christ. However, should that unbelieving spouse depart, then the believer is permitted to let him/her go and that believer is no longer under bondage.
We are not to be unequally yoked to another. It is not always the case that both people attend church or would even permit themselves to come under the authority of church leadership, let alone, G*d.
Sometimes we get ourselves into situations out of our own desires and not out of G*d’s leading. Sometimes, painful or not, G*d takes people out of our lives. The more we fight that, the more we may be in danger of being out of the will of G*d.
G*d corrects those He loves. That may not always be the way we want. We may point at another and say, “Get him, Lord! Do you see what he has done to me?” Remember that Jesus told us to not be so quick to take the splinter out of someone else’s eye without seeing the log in our own.
Perhaps our choice of spouse is out of line with His will. If He wants us to be married at all, He will provide the right one, at the right time.
What a wonderful, thoughtful post there. I just wanted JCS to know I am praying for her as I am sure others are. May God restore the joy in your heart and help you get through this.
My former spouse repented of two affairs and refused with the third. She initiated a divorce during the third. We were together 22 years with 4 children ranging in age from 20 to 5. I have a great deal of personal experience with reconciliation and the process of divorce as well. If any in this post would like to ask or draw from my personal experience, I would willingly share.
God has been very gracious to me and carried me through the worst of times. What everyone fails to understand is the magnitude of Adultery and the destruction caused by it. I understand it completely. The only way to know this is to experience it first hand. Forget the physical sin, and focus on what can’t be seen, the destruction of another inwardly. God knows the damage that can be inflicted by such a selfish act and the long term effects. Forgiveness does not wipe away the deep soul pain and the eternal effects produced by such evil exposure and that through the one you became one flesh with. Jesus said if your right hand offends then cut it off, it is better that one member perish than your whole body in hell. How much more painful is it when half your being has to.
Imagine a troubled couple in your counseling office and one in a wheel chair with a body cast just coming out of ICU recovering from being sustained on life support. Any exposed portion of the body is swollen and purple with visible lacerations. The nature of the counseling was physical abuse that was inflicted. What do you say to the violent spouse? What advice do you give to the injured one? This is a picture of the inside of one who has suffered from adultery that you do not see. Jesus can see this. Adultery is self destruction, and affairs or a strong indication of someone emotionally immature; the sad part is the one sharing the one flesh who has no way of protecting himself. Understand the magnitude of adultery and you can more clearly understand our Lord’s direction.
I’ve not experienced the kinds of pain that many perhaps have through divorce. I see pain, sorrow, trials of many kinds around me and I pray and hope that I will stand/walk by faith and rejoice no matter what (which is a hard thing to say, since even the little trials in my life are quick to distract and thwart my pursuit of joyful thanksgiving.
I’m just sort of hearing that our flesh has somehow merited some favor…some degree of deserving something other than the wrath of God. How quick are we to abandon the Gospel and start living as though any of us deserve anything less than eternal hell.
Contrast…not severity; I’m simply throwing up a caution flag and a reminder of basic truth that we need to remember when we start explaining why we should do one thing or another because we somehow deserve mercy or have somehow earned grace.
If we opt to discern God’s word from the perspective of what we deserve to enjoy in this life’s experience rather than waiting on a sovereign Shepherd to lead us where He chooses, then we do confess that we believe God is somehow limited in perfection.
I’m finding myself in need of constantly preaching the Gospel to myself…I am dumbfounded by how quickly ‘my wisdom’ puts a spin on the truth to make it untrue….unprofitable (2Tim3:16)
Les McFall has an interested way to deal with the exception clause in Matthew 19:9. He has written a 43 page paper that reviews the changes in the Greek made by Erasmus that effect the way Matthew 19:9 has been translated. I reviewed McFall’s paper at Except For Fornication Clause of Matthew 19:9. I would love to hear some feedback on this position.