MARRIAGE, DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE (2): “THE GUILTY PARTY”

Let us think about this fictional, man-made “guilty party” concept when it comes to marriage, divorce, and remarriage. You know it’s a classy version of “Christianity” when people go through their lives thinking of themselves as “the guilty party.” Seems I read somewhere that we are all “guilty” before God and He is willing to forgive us (Rom. 3:19, 21). God says He remembers our sins no more (Heb. 8:12), removes our sins as far as the east is from the west (Psa. 103:13), and drops our sins into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19). Yet He wants certain people to go through life constantly thinking of themselves as “the guilty party”? Nonsense.

Here is the kind of scenario to which this idea leads: If a woman commits adultery, and her husband divorces her for it, he is free to marry another woman. That is certainly true and sensible.

But here is where the “guilty party” doctrine goes insane: Once the man has divorced her (the wife who committed adultery) and has married a new wife, the woman (his former wife who committed adultery) cannot find and marry a new husband. Since she is the “guilty party” (the one who committed adultery), she cannot repent, ask for forgiveness and move on. She can never move past or forget that she committed adultery. She has the “scarlet letter” on her chest for the rest of her life.

Every time she gets lonely, gets close to a man or has a sexual desire, she must remind herself that she committed adultery in the past and, therefore, can never have a marriage of which God approves.

Can you imagine the perpetual guilt and shame that this would produce? That is all Phariseeism and man-made doctrines ever produce with their legalism.

Alright, now hear this: why can this woman, according to this legalistic concept of the guilty party, not get married again? What is the reason that she has to live the rest of her life in the shadow of this sin? It is not because she cannot be forgiven. Oh, the proponents of these unbiblical ideas admit that she has been forgiven if she repented and asked God for forgiveness.

I can hear someone with good sense saying, “What?! They believe that she can be forgiven?” Yes. “But . . . if she has been forgiven, why can’t she get married again?”

Because—and hold on to something for this—she is still married “in the eyes of God” to her first husband, and, therefore, she would be “committing adultery” if she married someone else. What?! Yes, that is what they believe.

Oh, but the person with good sense would ask, “How can she still be married in the eyes of God to someone who has divorced her and has married someone else?” You tell me and then we will both know.

“So they believe that he is still married to her, even though he has a new wife?” No. They don’t believe that HE is still married to HER in the “eyes of God.” What?! “Let me get this clear in my mind. You mean they believe that she is still married to him, but he is not married to her?” That is correct. What?!?! Yep. So, honestly, calling this doctrine insanity and nonsense is putting it mildly.

They believe that this woman who committed adultery, whose husband divorced her and married someone else, can never get married again. Because if she does, she will be. . .you guessed it! COMITTING ADULTERY! That’s right, folks. Since she is still married “in the eyes of God” to her first husband, if she gets married again, she will be committing adultery with her new husband, because he is not her husband in God’s eyes.

But AGAINST WHOM will she be committing adultery? Why, against her former husband, to whom she is still married, even though he is NOT still married to her. And this “sound doctrine” comes to us from groups that “follow only the Bible” and “speak where the Bible speaks and are silent where the Bible is silent” and “does Bible things in Bible ways and calls Bible things by Bible names.”

Can’t you imagine this conversation with someone with good sense: “You know what these people believe? That a man divorces a woman and finds a new wife, and his former wife then marries a new husband, and the two of them will be committing adultery against a mate who has already divorced them and is married to someone else!” What?!

“How can anyone believe something so stupid?” the person with good sense objects. No one seems to know. Trust me, it doesn’t make any more sense than it sounds.

Now, be on the watch for this: Some of these people have figured out how stupid and ridiculous that sounds, so they have modified the view to say that the woman who has been divorced for committing adultery, and whose former husband is now married to someone else, is not committing adultery against him (her former husband) when she marries/has sex with her new husband, but is committing adultery against God, or against the law of God.

Jesus, after all, used the term adultery in Matthew 19:9, so she has to be committing adultery against someone. So they say that she is committing adultery against God. Think about that. She is “committing adultery” against God by having sex with her husband. Now go find that in the Scriptures. You’ll find a purple vampire in the Bible before you will find that.

One more thing. Let us think more about this matter of their belief that a man can “commit adultery” by having sex with his wife. Again, if his first marriage did not end because his spouse “cheated on him” or died, he had no right to get married again and, therefore, he and his new wife are not married “in God’s eyes.” Therefore, even if they have been married for fifty years, every time they have sex, they are “committing adultery.” Both of them are sinning.

Most of those who teach this foolishness will actually admit they believe this one.

But press them on this: What if a couple does not have sex? These brethren do not believe that sex has anything to do with being married. So can this couple be “married” if they commit themselves to celibacy?

In the Bible, celibacy is the opposite of marriage. But not so with what these people teach. Marriage is not sex to them. Marriage is a “ceremony” and being legally married in the eyes of the state, whether they have sex or not. Sex is a “benefit” of marriage, but it is not the marriage itself. That’s what they believe.

So, if the couple doesn’t have sex, how would they be committing adultery? Is the marriage itself adultery or is it the sex in the marriage that is adultery? They really can’t “answer” this one and it is funny to watch them try. If they say that the couple is not “committing adultery” as long as they don’t have sex, then you have a marriage that, according to them, is “unscriptural,” but they cannot tell you why it is “unscriptural.”

Talk about being on the horns of a dilemma. If they say that the “marriage” itself is adultery, then they have changed the definition of adultery. So you could actually have a little fun by backing them into a corner where they would have to admit that a couple could get divorced because they don’t like each other, both marry other people, and just refrain from having sex, but enjoy all of the other benefits of marriage— companionship, tax benefits, etc.—and it would be perfectly ok. No violation of God’s will. Because with legalism, you can always find loopholes.

And even if this couple “slips up” out of weakness and has sex, they could just repent of that and decide not to do it again. They would not have to get divorced to be right, because the marriage itself is not adultery. But if the marriage itself IS adultery, then you have people committing adultery without having sex! They “commit adultery” by divorcing and getting married to others, which gives an extremely literal take on what Jesus said in Matthew 19:9: “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another...commits adultery.” They would have to interpret that to mean, literally, that a man commits adultery by divorcing and remarrying in a ceremony, not by having sex with his new wife after he has gotten married. In other words, saying “I do” and signing a paper is adultery.

So unless you believe the marriage itself is “adultery,” you have got a pretty big problem.

You see, they have no right to demand that people get divorced. What they should be doing—and see if you can keep a straight face on this one—is telling married people not to have sex. No divorce is needed, just don’t have sex.

And then they back themselves into an even more ridiculous corner. And it does not work out too well for them, because as long as the couple is TRYING not to have sex, but only have sex out of weakness sometimes, all they would have to do is ask for forgiveness. I mean, that’s all any Christian is doing—TRYING to live right and TRYING not to sin. Even false teachers on MDR admit that they sin sometimes out of weakness. Everyone does. And as long as we are trying, we can ask for forgiveness.

The control over marriages that the modern day Pharisees and legalists seek and have had would be gone. So what are they going to do? Avoid the real issues, like they always do, and keep preaching to themselves about how “unsound” people like you and I are for not bowing down to their ridiculous doctrines.

    Bryan Dewayne Dunaway