Does infidelity to an unscriptural marriage transform the unscriptural marriage into a scriptural (God recognized) marriage? That would seem to be the conclusion embedded in the following question about which someone else asked me to reflect.
Brother Louis, I need your insight on the following: (1) A man marries, with normal vows to remain faithful, into a non-scriptural adulterous relationship. May he repent, leave that adulterous relationship, and then scripturally remarry another who is free to marry? That question leads into the following questioned position taken by an unnamed elder. While not scripturally married to the first woman, the above man had a second sexual relationship during his first adulterous relationship! The elder holds that had the man not had a second sexual relationship during his adulterous marriage, he could have repented, left that adulterous marriage and scripturally could have been remarried to another. However, his position also taken is that since the man had additional sexual activity outside that first unscriptural, but civil, marriage, he then must remain celibate on the basis on Matthew 19:9? His position seems to hinge on the fact that though God did not approve of the first marriage, He did recognize the relationship as a marriage and the first woman as his wife as He recognized the foreign women of Ezra 10 as wives! Your thinking would be quite helpful, if you have time! I have never heard that position taken by any in the last 70 years. How would you answer?
I have neither heard of nor imagined this scenario. It occurs to me that many times with the best of intentions we over think things and end up making rules that God did not put in Scripture. It may be that sometimes we imitate the Pharisees of old when they made rules with the best of intentions to try to prevent people from coming close to violating what God actually commanded. The effect was to displace the law of God with manmade laws.
What God does not authorize as marriage is really fornication or adultery. Like every other sin one commits, repentance (changing of one’s mind internally followed by changing one’s conduct outwardly) erases the guilt of sin. In the case of two people married in accordance with God’s authority in Scripture, the innocent part of a marriage irreparably disrupted by the adultery of a spouse may divorce and can subsequently remarry with God’s approval a biblically suitable candidate for marriage (Matthew 19:9).
In many instances, there is a distinction between what the world calls marriage and what God recognizes as biblically correct marriage. Therefore, Scripture addresses legally sanctioned marriage that is not biblically permissible accommodatingly as “marriage” for the purpose of communication in terms being used by the parties to describe their relationships. Matthew 19:9 is such an example. In that verse, the word “wife” presumes a marriage of which God approves, but the next two times the word “marries” (NKJV) appears in that verse, those marriages are not marriages as far as God is concerned, but rather, they are adulteries. They are only marriages as far as mankind is concerned. The same thing would be true elsewhere in the Bible, including Ezra 10.
I might add that Matthew 19:9 is sufficiently difficult, as the apostles noted, that we don’t need to borrow anything from the Old Testament, which has been replaced with the New Testament, to complicate our thinking, really in a way that is not useful or even explanatory of Matthew 19:9.
Hope this helps. I’m not infallible, of course, by any means. The subject of marriage, divorce and remarriage is a doctrine of wide speculation even among otherwise faithful members of the Lord’s church. Certainly, anyone entertaining doubt for himself or for herself would do well not to marry again (Romans 14:23).
