MARRIAGE, DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE (2): Grace Speaks Louder Than Guilt (Or, “What About This ‘Guilty Party’ Doctrine”)
There is a quiet tragedy hidden inside the way some believers speak about marriage, divorce, and remarriage. They use a phrase the Bible never uses—“the guilty party.” It sounds religious, but it carries a weight God never placed upon the shoulders of His children. It imagines that some sins must be carried forever, even after God has forgiven them. And if anything contradicts the beauty of the gospel, it is the belief that forgiven people should still walk through life as if condemned.
The Scriptures tell another story. They tell us that “every mouth is stopped and all the world becomes guilty before God”—but also that God justifies the ungodly by grace (Romans 3:19–21). They tell us that He remembers our sins no more (Hebrews 8:12). That He removes them as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12). That He casts them into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19). If He buries our sins in the ocean, why should we resurrect them in our laws and doctrines?
Yet according to a certain harsh teaching, a woman who once fell into adultery, whose husband divorced her and has now married someone else, can never again marry. Even if she repents. Even if she is forgiven. Even if grace has lifted her. She must walk through life with a scarlet memory of her mistake. She must remember continually that she is “the guilty party.” And if loneliness comes, or longing, or the desire for companionship, she must silence her own heart because a doctrine has told her she is forever bound to a man who no longer wants her and has long since married another.
What sorrow such teaching creates. What shame. What a burden to lay upon a soul that Christ died to set free. This kind of theology may sound strict, but it reveals more of the Pharisee than the Shepherd.
And the reasoning behind it is even more tangled: she is told she cannot marry again because she is “still married in the eyes of God” to her former husband—though her former husband is not still married to her. He is free to marry and move forward. She is not. The chain binds one ankle only. But Scripture never paints such an uneven portrait of marriage. In the Bible, covenant always binds two persons equally or not at all.
Some, realizing this contradiction, try to soften it. They say she is not committing adultery against her former husband—she is committing adultery “against God.” Yet the Scriptures know nothing of such language—nothing of “committing adultery” with one’s own husband. Grace invites the repentant to rise, not to live forever in spiritual exile.
Still others argue that a remarried couple—married for decades—“commits adultery” every time they touch. But if they abstain entirely, if they choose celibacy, then the marriage is somehow acceptable. Yet in the Bible, marriage and covenantal intimacy are woven together; celibacy is voluntary singleness, not married life. These arguments become knots tied by hands that fear grace. And knots tied by fear always end up tightening around people’s throats.
The deeper issue is this: when legalism governs the heart, it always produces loopholes, shadows, fear, contradiction, and spiritual exhaustion. But when Christ governs the heart, He produces light, truth, mercy, and peace.
Grace does not ignore sin. Grace heals it. Grace does not rewrite the past. Grace redeems it. Grace does not minimize God’s commands. Grace gives us the strength to live them.
The woman who repents is forgiven. The man who repents is forgiven. And forgiven people are not called to live in a lifelong prison of their former failures. Christ does not build prisons—He opens them. Christ does not chain sinners—He liberates them. Christ does not label His children “the guilty party”—He calls them beloved, cleansed, renewed, and restored.
When Jesus spoke about marriage in Matthew 19, He spoke truth—but He also spoke with eyes full of compassion. And compassion sees the whole person, not only their past mistake. It sees the wounds as well as the failures. It sees the brokenness, the loneliness, the need for mercy, the longing for a new beginning. And Christ always moves toward broken hearts, never away from them.
Legalism may create systems that trap people, but the Lord of grace creates paths that lead them home.
BDD
