Bro. Rushmore: I have a question concerning marriage and divorce. I have taken the confession of a lady just divorced from her second husband without scriptural cause. She now wants to go back and marry her first husband, who, according to reports I have heard ran around with all sorts of women while they were married and hauled her home and left her with her parents. Since the time of the first divorce he has been married twice with children with at least one of the women. They both now are divorced. I offered prayer for her sins at her request, but I could not in good conscience give her any positive statement about her remarriage, but I did tell her to be sure of being right before God to remain celibate. Have I done this right in the sight of God. [name withheld upon request]
Lacking omniscience, you and I cannot know all the details of the wretched disasters some people make of their married lives. Under those circumstances, we, at best, may only be able to acquaint them with precisely what the Scriptures teach respecting marriage-divorce and remarriage (e.g., Matthew 19:9). They will have to evaluate their lives carefully in view of God’s Word and accept personal responsibility for their subsequent actions, including remarriage. Under doubtful circumstances, such as you describe, neither you nor anyone else could confidently encourage the woman to contract another marriage. It is always wise to suggest the way that cannot be wrong to make one’s calling and election sure (2 Peter 1:10).
If the woman to whom you refer divorced her first husband for adultery (as a truly innocent party) and married a biblically eligible second husband, from whom she is now divorced without biblical grounds for divorce and remarriage, then she cannot with God’s approval marry anyone, including her first husband. If she, though, was not a completely innocent party for which cause she divorced an adulterous first husband, then she did not have God’s approval to marry her second husband in the first place, from whom she now is divorced also. Perhaps if neither this woman nor her first husband divorced for the cause of adultery or that there were no innocent parties before the divorce, God may still consider this woman and her first husband married and everything subsequently as adultery. If that were the case, a civil ceremony to signify to the world that they are married (and to make their cohabitation legal) would be in order. However, the variables are so obscure and unknowable by third parties as to make the latter advice impossible to render. In any case, the likelihood of a successful remarriage with her first husband even from purely pragmatic considerations appears highly doubtful.
