on divorce and remarriage

#snapshotsfromTheFarm

At the "position interview" with Mayhill this past Sunday, they asked me if I would marry a couple if there's a divorce in either of their pasts. This is a pretty touchy topic, and a lot of pastors refuse to even consider marrying divorcees. I replied that I would do so under one condition: that the past divorce was a justified divorce. 

A minority of Christians believe there is no justified divorce. Marriage is a lifelong covenant, after all; and isn't Jesus pretty clear? In both Luke 16 and Mark 10, Jesus says that to divorce and remarry is to become an adulterer. The conviction that (a) there is no such thing as a justifiable divorce and that (b) remarriage after divorce is tantamount to idolatry by virtue of the indissolubility of marriage, doesn't do justice to the biblical texts and reflects an early church asceticism which Paul fought against in 1 Corinthians 7 and elsewhere. A much longer post is in the works for explaining why I think this is the case. For now, I'll content myself to establish what I believe (in a proverbial nutshell).

The Old Testament Law dealt with two types of divorce: the divorce that was justifiable and the divorce that was unjustifiable (Deut 24.1, and Deut 24.3; Mal 2.16, respectively). Divorce was justifiable in the Old Testament due to "some uncleanness" on the part of the spouse who was being divorced. By Jesus' day, Jewish teachers had gone so far as to say that a divorce was justifiable if the wife burnt the husband's dinner or over-salted his soup. In Luke and Mark, Jesus says that anyone who marries a divorcee is guilty of adultery; in Matthew 5 and 19, Jesus says the same thing with an exception: and that exception is sexual immorality (Greek porneia). Jesus says that if a man divorces his wife, except in the case of sexual immorality, he is committing adultery (verse 9). Those who say that divorce is never justifiable base their claims off Mark and Luke; however, Jesus' absolutism in those texts shouldn't be taken literally if, elsewhere, we take his absolutisms figuratively. Furthermore, to uphold Jesus' absolutism in Mark and Luke is to brush aside his words in Matthew 19. Scripture must interpret scripture, and it is most plausible that Jesus did see divorce in the context of sexual immorality as justifiable on the part of the one sinned against. Interestingly, the way he phrases his words in Matthew 19 strike a sharp contrast against even the strictest of Jewish religious leaders: divorce in the context of adultery was mandatory in Jewish law, but Jesus says that it is merely permissible: in the case of adultery, the spouses should offer forgiveness and seek reconciliation. But if reconciliation is impossible, divorce is justified.

You can believe divorce is justified while believing remarriage is adultery (even though this goes against what Jesus says in Matthew 19). Those who argue thus will do so from the assumption that the marriage covenant is indissoluble; however, a covenant in the biblical sense is not indissoluble. This assumption is built on a belief that the marriage bond isn't covenantal but metaphysical, and this takes place because of a misreading of the "one flesh" text in Genesis 2.23-24 and Jesus' own echo of that passage in Matthew 19. Covenants were ratified by oaths (they could be verbal, but most of the time they were symbolic); when it comes to marriage, we see Adam's verbal ratifying oath in his declaration that Eve has become his flesh; and we see the symbolic ratifying oath in the actual sexual consummation. What we find in Matthew 19 is that sexual promiscuity attacks the very substance of the marriage covenant. Because sexual union is the means of consummating marriage in both the Old Testament and ancient Near East, sexual infidelity is a particularly heinous violation of the marriage covenant, a sin against the covenant partner and against God. Jesus seems to be saying in Matthew 19 that sexual infidelity strikes at the heart of the marriage covenant, and divorce in that case is justified, and the divorcee who was sinned against is free to remarry. Thus I believe that it is biblically justifiable to divorce an adulterous spouse and to remarry without becoming an adulterer yourself.

In 1 Corinthians 7.15, Paul addresses the issue of a Christian spouse being divorced by a non-Christian spouse. In this case, is the spouse allowed to remarry? It's important to note that Paul is adamant that the believing spouse is not to seek divorce from the unbelieving spouse; but if the unbelieving spouse abandons the believing spouse, then the believing spouse is free to marry. The essential formula in a Jewish bill of divorce were the words "you are free to any man"; Paul employs a reworking of this formula here: his negative formulation (in such cases the brother or the siste is not enslaved) makes the same point as the positive formulation in the Jewish bill of divorce (you are free to marry any man). The language Paul uses was used in ancient divorce contracts, and his ancient readers would've understood him to be giving a Green Light to remarry for those whose unbelieving spouses had abandoned them. Those who believe that Paul is not saying this have a lot of exegetical hurdles to leap, because, in the words of one theologian, "If Paul meant that remarriage wasn't permitted, he said precisely the opposite of what he meant." Thus I see remarriage as A-OK for both (a) those who have gone through a biblical divorce, and (b) those whose unbelieving spouses have abandoned them.

Both sexual infidelity and abandonment strike at two of the main components of the marriage covenant seen in Genesis 2: becoming "one flesh" and "leaving and cleaving." Biblical covenants can be broken. When they are broken, the guilty party stands condemned and under judgment (Mal 2.16). The innocent party, however, isn't constrained by the hardheartedness of the other spouse: the innocent party is allowed to remarry. I would go so far as to say that ministers who have experienced a failed marriage in the context of a justifiable divorce, and who may or may not have remarried, shouldn't be barred from ministerial offices. The "husband of one wife" requirements found in the pastoral letters echo a common ancient phrase that simply means "faithful to his marriage." A divorcee may have been faithful in his or her marriage, regardless of its dissolution, and would thus not be disqualified.

Those who believe that divorce is never justified or that remarriage is always adultery should take another look at the biblical texts: to be more conservative than Jesus is to cease being conservative and to be Pharisaical. Those ministers who refuse to even consider marrying someone who has been divorced aren't acting in wisdom but outside the bounds of love. Jesus approves remarriage after a divorce contextualized by sexual infidelity, and Saint Paul approves remarriage after abandonment by an unbelieving spouse. We simply can't shuffle these facts away, and we certainly shouldn't be unloving towards our brothers and sisters who have experienced failed marriages due to their ex-spouse's hardness of heart. With all of that said, I believe divorce is a last resort that is simultaneously an admission of defeat. Divorce should be avoided at all costs; reconciliation should persistently be pursued; but when reconciliation is impossible, divorce in the context of sexual immorality or abandonment is permitted. We who haven't experienced such things shouldn't be so quick to judge.