Divorce and Remarriage: A Messy Business — My Thoughts

I got this email  question today from one of this blog’s readers about divorce and remarriage:

Natan, what about the provision in Torah for a woman to marry another man if she is divorced? I get confused when Yeshus said that if a man divorced his wife that he causes her to commit adultery. This has been a hot button issue for my wife and I for years. Insights?

Here is my answer:

Most churches allow for divorce, but some do not permit remarriage under any circumstances. This is an extreme position, although those who teach this can make a strong case that this is what the Bible teaches.

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Some churches teach that divorce and remarriage is acceptable in some instances, but not in other. This is where it gets sticky and depends on the interpretations of many clear as well as some difficult to understand biblical passages. Each marriage and divorce case is unique. Each situation needs to be evaluated case by case based on biblical guidelines. My thoughts below on divorce and remarriage are only general in nature, and are based on my best understanding of scriptural principles.

Some churches take the approach that all sins can be forgiven except the sin of divorce and remarriage (D and R). This would mean that D and R is the unpardonable sin for which the blood of Yeshua is ineffective. I do not hold to this position.

Scripture says that YHVH hates divorce. Why? Because he had to divorce his own (spiritual) wife, Israel, because of her adultery. But he’s going to remarry her, but this  time redeemed Israel, which is a new, spiritually regenerated bride. Furthermore, Yeshua died to pay the price for her capital sin of adultery. On our website (www.hoshanarabbah.org), I have a teaching about the prophetic implications of divorce where I discuss this issue.

The Torah allows for divorce and remarriage following certain protocols. Yeshua acknowledges this in the Gospels and accepts this fact because of the hardness of people’s hearts although this was not YHVH’s ideal from the beginning (Mark 10:4–5).

The issue of D and R becomes sticky since in Matthew 5:32 and 19:9 no one knows exactly what the term “fornication” means. Even the Jews of Yeshua’s time debated about its meaning and the two Pharisaical schools of Yeshua’s day defined pornea (Greek) or ervah (Hebrew; Deut 24:1) differently.

Luke 16:18 is an interesting one. In the Hebrew, the “and” in “and marrieth another” can mean in the Hebrew “in order to marry another” showing evil and lustful intent on the part of the one leaving the marriage. In that case, it would be adultery. But if their hearts were hard and they had irreconcilable differences that, then it would seem that a properly executed divorce would be permissible.

In our congregation, I marry very few people. I have turned down more marriages then I have performed because I didn’t feel right about marrying some people who had been previously married. I tell the  people they can obtain a legal marriage from a judge and we will accept it in the congregation, but I will only marry them if I’m pretty certain that every things is being done righteously and in accordance with the Torah. Even this is a very tough judgment call to make sometimes.

If a person is in a questionable marriage situation presently when they come to a knowledge of Torah, I would tell them to repent of their past sins, pray for the blood of Yeshua to cover them, and then go on and live righteously till death do us part.

When Yeshua met the woman at well in John 4 who had had five husbands and was living with a man who was not her husband at the time he didn’t jump on her back about it. He basically told her that he was the Messiah, that he could meet her deeper needs that had to that point had not been met. In so doing, the automatic result would be that her life would get straightened around from the inside out. That is my approach too. Whatever state a person is in, just live the Torah and follow Yeshua and go on from there in his grace.

Adultery in the marriage is a difficult situation. Paul is very clear that adulterers will not be in the kingdom of Elohim (1 Cor 6:9)—that is, they are not saved, unless, of course, they repent, as David did. When adultery occurs in a marriage, their needs to be repentance and reconciliation—especially if believers are involved. Reconciliation may require the need for both to receive marriage counseling from a biblically-based marriage counselor. The need for this is even more critical if there are children involved.

The problem arises if one of the parties refuses to repent and reconcile. At that point, separation or divorce may result. For the party who wants to reconcile, even if separation or divorce occurs, he will need to move slowly and never jump quickly into another marriage. He needs to pray for the unrepentant spouse (or ex-spouse) in hopes that YHVH will soften hearts, bring a spirit of repentance to all the parties resulting in reconciliation. If after a period of time (perhaps several years) reconciliation seems impossible (especially if the party who refuses to reconcile remarries), then I believe that one is free to remarry, but they must do so following biblical criteria.

Clearly, the Torah allows for divorce and remarriage (see Lev 21:7; Deut 24:1–5). Yeshua acknowledges the reality of divorce. Why? Because it is not a perfect world and people become hard of heart, there is fraud, there is adultery, there is abuse, there is abandonment, there is criminality, there are addictions and the list of issue goes on of valid reasons why marriages fail. Marriages and good people sometimes fall victim to bad people and bad situations. That’s just the reality of it whether we like it or not—whether it goes against YHVH’s ideal or not. As such, we have to deal with the realities.

For the record, I am not divorced and have been married to my first and only wife for 25 years, and we have four children together. My parents have been married for nearly 60 years.

If you have read my teachings, you’ll see that there is a possibility that Moses divorced Zipporah and remarried the Ethiopian woman. In ancient times, many men didn’t divorce their wives, they just married another wife and kept adding wives. Though polygamy was not YHVH’s ideal, he nevertheless permitted it, though it caused no end of problems and grief for families and marriages. I see modern divorce to be similar to polygamy. Instead of keeping the disfavored wife, moving her to the back burner and getting a new wife, one simply divorces one’s wife and gets a new one. In a real spiritual sense, one is still spiritually and emotionally attached to their former spouses after they’re remarried. It’s similar to polygamy except they’re not living with their ex-spouses.

 

4 thoughts on “Divorce and Remarriage: A Messy Business — My Thoughts

  1. I am interested in your take on remarriage to a former spouse. Here is my situation: After being married 4 times, I was born again. Before that, I practiced witchcraft for over 20 years. After my born again experience, I married and felt that I had finally ‘done it right’ by marrying a man I believed was also a Believer. After 11 years together, 7 married, he divorced me. It was sort of ‘out of the blue’ although 6 months after the divorce was final, he remarried a woman 10 years my junior, despite him making me wait 4 years to marry. I have been divorced for 4 years now, and my 2nd husband’s wife died recently. He also recently was born again. I wonder if since ‘all things are become new’ for both of us, and since my last ex remarried, if we are free to consider remarriage, especially since our first marriage to one another was not a ‘kadosh’ covenant due to our not being on The Path.
    Thanks in advance for your help and for all of your excellent messages!

    • I’m sure you’ve read Deut 24:1–4 about a man not remarrying his wife whom he has divorced. This instruction assumes that he had some knowledge of the Torah. If he had no knowledge of the Torah (as well as the broader “Torah” of the whole Bible), I’m inclined to think that there is grace to cover this past sin. If both were believers, then I think not. I could be wrong about this, so take this advice with caution. Much more could be said, but this isn’t the time or place.

  2. Deuteronomy 24

    “The deliberate contrast in Jeremiah 3:1 between the law that Moses laid down for the Israelites in Deuteronomy 24 and God’s own behavior towards His wife points out that the New Testament Church must not determine her marriage doctrine and practice from Deuteronomy 24.” –Professor David J. Engelsma

    The Bond Yet Unbroken:

    The first verse of Jeremiah 3 proves, in a striking, indeed, startling way, that God was still MARRIED to DIVORCED Israel. To Israel who had “played the harlot with many lovers” and whom God had already divorced, according to verse eight, God called, “Yet return again to me.” This was a call to His wife, as verse one makes plain: “They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man’s, shall he return unto her again? Shall not that land be greatly polluted? But thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the LORD.”

    Whereas it was not permitted in Israel for a wife divorced from her husband and remarried to another man to return to her first husband, God called His wife back to Himself, even though she had committed adultery with many companions and even though God had divorced her.

    Divorced Israel remained the wife of the LORD.

    What is striking, even startling, about this insistence on the maintenance of the marriage and on Israel’s return to her rightful husband is the contrast between God’s marriage to Israel and a law governing the earthly marriages of the Israelites.

    Verse one refers to the law concerning divorce and remarriage in Deuteronomy 24:1-4. Deuteronomy 24:1-4 forbade a husband who had divorced his wife, on some other ground than her adultery, to take her back, if a second husband divorced her, or died.

    God, however, will take His wife back, even though she gave herself to many lovers and despite the fact that He had given her a bill of divorce.

    The law of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 was merely Moses’ tolerance of deviation from God’s original ordinance of marriage on the part of hard-hearted Israelite men. It was a stop-gap measure, somewhat to protect vulnerable women, who otherwise would have been passed around like property.

    This was Christ’s analysis of Deuteronomy 24:1-4, and indictment of the kind of people for whom the law was necessary, in Matthew 19:8: “Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives.”

    Deuteronomy 24 does not reveal the truth about marriage, divorce, and remarriage. It reveals the wickedness in marriage of hard-hearted, that is, unbelieving, men. The truth about marriage, already in the Old Testament, is revealed in Jeremiah 3:1: Even though He must divorce an unfaithful wife, God maintained the marriage and called His wife back to Himself.

    Verse fourteen of Jeremiah 3 is decisive, and explicit, regarding the question, whether God divorced an original wife so as to annul the marriage and open the way for Himself to marry another. Addressing faithless, divorced Israel, Jehovah exclaimed, “Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion.”

    Although His wife was unfaithful, although she committed adultery with numerous lovers, although she was as yet impenitent, and although God had divorced her, God was STILL her husband, and she was STILL His wife. The bill of divorce did not touch, much less dissolve, the marriage bond:

    “I am married unto you.”

    Indeed, the fact of the marriage is the reason why God called Israel back, as it is the reason why she ought to come back, to live with Him: “for I am married unto you.”

    Professor David J. Engelsma

    • I agree and disagree with the author on several points. Deuteronomy 24 is Torah. Torah is truth. This truth applies both at the peshat (simple, plain or literal) level, as well as at the drash (allegorical) level as Jer 3 shows. This is the case with many biblical truths. The author misses this point.

      True, this law was made for the hard of heart, and divorce was never the Creators ideal as the author correctly points out, and as Yeshua indicates. In fact, all of Torah’s negative commandments or prohibitions (e.g., lying, stealing, adultery, idolatry, murder, etc., etc.) are for fallen man and had to be added because of sin. These laws weren’t necessary before the fall in the idyllic setting of the garden, and they’ll be irrelevant in the future garden of the New Jerusalem as well where there only will be perfected and glorified humans. If one can say that the divorce and remarriage law is only applicable allegorically and is irrelevant at the literal level, then how many other laws in the Torah can one say the same about? This is a dangerous slippery slope, but it hasn’t stopped Christians theologians from going down that path to allegorize and spiritualize away the Sabbath, the feasts, the dietary laws and so on. Therefore, I reject where this author is taking the Deut 24 passage. Such an interpretations could eventually lead to the abrogation of much the rest of the Torah. The mainstream church has done a great job of doing this!

      Finally, the biggest point the author misses is that YHVH never violated his own Torah by taking back his adulterous wife whom he divorced. The author appears to be oblivious to the obvious fact that (a) Yeshua is the God of the OT—the Word of Elohim that became flesh; (b) Yeshua (in his pre-incarnate state) married ancient Israel and then divorced her because of her sin of adultery; (c) the penalty for adultery is death, and therefore ancient adulterous Israel had to die, but how could she die and yet remarry Yeshua as Jeremiah and the other prophets indicate would happen in the future? In fact, this is the whole message of Hosea! (d) Yeshua the husband, therefore, took the death penalty upon himself at the cross for sinful Israel (that’s you and me and all of our forefathers and everyone else who has sinned). He then resurrected as the God-Man as a new spiritual being, and we as adulterous Israel also must die spiritually (this is what baptism is all about) and physically and then we too will be resurrected with glorified bodies as the new, spiritually regenerated bride of Yeshua. This is a great mystery that few understand, and is the deeper truth behind the gospel message. At the same time, none of this violates or abrogates the divorce and remarriage principles of Deut 24. Paul alludes to this whole thing in the opening verses of Romans 7. With all due respect, the good professor, he needs to go back to school and learn these fundamental truths!

      This has been a very brief overview of some very deep and complex biblical truths. Hopefully, I explained them in a simple and understandable way.

      Oh the unsearchable wisdom of Elohim, and the greatness of his plan of redemption!

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