Remarrying after a Divorce....is it forbidden?

[Smalcald]

Yes I agree.

[Smalcald]

I agree with the last part also, I hope I didn't give the impression I didn't. Butero has some wise thoughts on this issue and I think they are grounded in scripture. Someone who is in a marraige regardless of what number it is, should never leave it but should commit it to God and move forward, I totally agree.

I guess my question is, okay so now you are in this second marriage and repented etc, and meet someone again who catches your eye. Do I then just divorce repent and take up with this new woman? This is what I see happening. I know sometimes that legal divorce/separation may be unavoidable, but remarriage is not unavoidable.

I think it goes to the legitimacy and truth of the repentance. Repentance is not cheap, it is not some thing where you just mouth the words to God, and then don't change your behavior. Let us say you are married and you met another women and left your wife for her after cheating. If you really repented of this adultery, you would not, could not marry a women who you committed adultery with in your first second or third marriage whatever. That is indeed perpetual adultery and it shows that there really was no repentance.

Anything in your past is indeed forgiven by Christ, adultery, divorce, fornication, abortion, murder, stealing, and pride, whatever. But what about the future, remarriage is often a future event and decision. My question to you is do you believe there is ever a case where remarriage is not permitted and what would that case be?

[Guest kephasrock]

a valid marriage cannot be broken, ever.

you can seperate the two, even get a civil divorce for the worlds sake, but in Gods sight, it is never broken for He joined them and nothing can break what God has joined.

[Smalcald]

Is there ever a case where remarriage is completely forbidden?

Id have to say no because scripture says it is the doctrine of demons that forbids marriage.

Some folks cannot return to their first spouse for whatever reasons but cannot endure celebacy.

But if we can't endure celibacy, then how are we to be strong enough to die for our faith? It seems a small thing to me, but also a telling thing.

We have a huge problem in this area in the Evangelical Churches in the US. To divorce at will and remarry is not in accordance with scripture. I understand that indeed there are exceptions, and Christ put those out, as did Paul, but certainly you don't think that under ALL circumstances a Christian a believer can just take a new women and marry her when he is already married? To me that is indeed no repentance at all. It goes back to the example of theft or murder. If you steal and are sorry, you are forgiven, but you then must give back the money you stole and of course do not try to steal again. Do we say to the thief, well we understand you can't handle not stealing so go for it, and in fact the church will condone your future thefts. This is what happens when the church takes part in adulterous relationships. I have seen pastors who cheated on their wives, then take this new women they cheated with and go to a new church and have that adulterous affair blessed by the church through a marriage, which in reality according to Christ is no marriage at all.

I wonder if this attitude is one of the reason's that Evangelical Christians have higher divorce rates than atheist. If this is the case; that we can indeed divorce and marry at will, that adultery is acceptable, that we can in essence live in sexual impurity; then we have nothing at all to say to gay people or people who live together. Certainly a gay person who is having sex is no worse than a person who cheats on his wife and lives with his new lover, even if they want to have a fake marriage or not. Adultery is adultery. We tell a gay person to change their sexual orientation or remain celibate, which we know is very hard, just as we tell the non-biblically divorced person to remain celibate or be reconciled which is also very hard, but we must be consistent.

But the biblical exceptions I see to being able to remarry are actually quite generous. You can divorce and remarry if your first spouse cheated on you and adultery includes quite a variety of offenses. You are free to divorce and remarry if you are married to a non-believer who leaves. You can remarry if your spouse dies. You can remarry if you come to Christ divorced already. Also in cases of abuse which in reality can be seen as a form of abandonment by an non-believer(the abuser). So we have quite a few cases.

Butero I would be interested in your take on this. Let us say I am a believer who slips and has adultery, am I free to divorce my wife and marry this women that I cheated with?

[Guest kephasrock]

IV. OFFENSES AGAINST THE DIGNITY OF MARRIAGE

Adultery

2380 Adultery refers to marital infidelity. When two partners, of whom at least one is married to another party, have sexual relations - even transient ones - they commit adultery. Christ condemns even adultery of mere desire.171 The sixth commandment and the New Testament forbid adultery absolutely.172 The prophets denounce the gravity of adultery; they see it as an image of the sin of idolatry.173

2381 Adultery is an injustice. He who commits adultery fails in his commitment. He does injury to the sign of the covenant which the marriage bond is, transgresses the rights of the other spouse, and undermines the institution of marriage by breaking the contract on which it is based. He compromises the good of human generation and the welfare of children who need their parents' stable union.

Divorce

2382 The Lord Jesus insisted on the original intention of the Creator who willed that marriage be indissoluble.174 He abrogates the accommodations that had slipped into the old Law.175

Between the baptized, "a ratified and consummated marriage cannot be dissolved by any human power or for any reason other than death."176

2383 The separation of spouses while maintaining the marriage bond can be legitimate in certain cases provided for by canon law.177

If civil divorce remains the only possible way of ensuring certain legal rights, the care of the children, or the protection of inheritance, it can be tolerated and does not constitute a moral offense.

2384 Divorce is a grave offense against the natural law. It claims to break the contract, to which the spouses freely consented, to live with each other till death. Divorce does injury to the covenant of salvation, of which sacramental marriage is the sign. Contracting a new union, even if it is recognized by civil law, adds to the gravity of the rupture: the remarried spouse is then in a situation of public and permanent adultery:

If a husband, separated from his wife, approaches another woman, he is an adulterer because he makes that woman commit adultery, and the woman who lives with him is an adulteress, because she has drawn another's husband to herself.178

2385 Divorce is immoral also because it introduces disorder into the family and into society. This disorder brings grave harm to the deserted spouse, to children traumatized by the separation of their parents and often torn between them, and because of its contagious effect which makes it truly a plague on society.

2386 It can happen that one of the spouses is the innocent victim of a divorce decreed by civil law; this spouse therefore has not contravened the moral law. There is a considerable difference between a spouse who has sincerely tried to be faithful to the sacrament of marriage and is unjustly abandoned, and one who through his own grave fault destroys a canonically valid marriage.179

[Guest kephasrock]

[quote

hmmmm....where is there even a single word from scripture actually presented in this?

All I see is man made rules, not Gods word.

Moses in Deut 24 proves your assertions errant that marriage can never be ended.

[Floatingaxe]

Kephas...

Not a lot of scripture there. The majority of your references are extra-biblical.

[Naziyr]

On a side note... Widowed women were to marry the brother of their dead spouse as commanded by G-d. If the woman refused the brother, by Law she was allowed to choose a sutable husband once more.

Jesus spoke a bit about the "woman who was married to many men who died", stating that when someone physically dies, the Law no longer applies to them (also as stated by Paul), so that the Men being "let-go" from the Law by death, would void the marriage contract/covenant between the two because the Marriage Law no longer applied to them equally. So then, a woman is liberated from the Marriage Law in a righteous and G-dly fashion. This is also the concept Paul uses when speaking of the Spiritually Living beliver, and the unbelieving spiritually dead spouse, teaching that one who becomes "saved" is allowed to divorce their spouse if hardship forms between them because of their new spiritual state.

It's a deeprooted concept that some try to use wrongly in other areas of doctrine. So beware.

Shalom

[Naziyr]

I once outlined something a while back concerning women ministers, and 5th on the list was this.

"5.) She must not give council to a woman that is consistant with endorsing her leaving him for any other reason that what is scriptural. Which is:

a.) Marital unfaithfulness:

I. Adultery

1. Any sexual activity outside of the marriage covenant
   
2. Defiling the marriage bed with sinful worldy sexual practices
   
3. Willfully pursuing adulturous endeavors on a habitual basis such as:
   

• Viewing pornagraphic images
  
• Sexually defiling oneself with masturbational acts in which those outside of the marriage covenant are the focus of the sexual desire.
  
  1. The spouse's life is put at risk
     
  2. The spouse's natural physical state is altered such as:
     
  - Dismemberment, permament damage to internal process, permamanent damage to outer physical function or process such as
  1. Broken bones, scarred skin or muscle tissue which limits natural human function
     
  2. The spouse's mental state is altered in a negative manner which conflicts with their natural ability to function. This includes physical, mental, and spiritual functionality. Such examples are:
     

[*]Chronic fear of: their husband or wife, social interaction, worship or pursual of biblical study, performing natural physical function (using the restroom, having one's menstrual cycle, eating, regular breathing patterns, walking, etc. etc.)

[*]Inducing such psychological disorders as: Schizophrenia, Disassociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality disorder, which is linked to a form of Schizophrenia), Major Depression (which is the form in which suicidal tendacies are mostlikely to be seen), Sexual Identity Disorder (in which a person under extreme stress will break from reality, and believe they are of the opposite sex even when their natural genetalia are seen)

b.) Conversion of one of the two spouses to Christianity, in which one is allowed to divorce their spouse and maintain peace with them.

These two things aren't exhaustive, but gives example to that which one may appropriately divorce one's spouse."

I wrote this after learning about mental as well as physical abuse.

More later... Shalom

[firehill]

I once outlined something a while back concerning women ministers, and 5th on the list was this.

"5.) She must not give council to a woman that is consistant with endorsing her leaving him for any other reason that what is scriptural. Which is:

a.) Marital unfaithfulness:

I. Adultery

1. Any sexual activity outside of the marriage covenant
   
2. Defiling the marriage bed with sinful worldy sexual practices
   
3. Willfully pursuing adulturous endeavors on a habitual basis such as:
   

• Viewing pornagraphic images
  
• Sexually defiling oneself with masturbational acts in which those outside of the marriage covenant are the focus of the sexual desire.
  
  1. The spouse's life is put at risk
     
  2. The spouse's natural physical state is altered such as:
     
  - Dismemberment, permament damage to internal process, permamanent damage to outer physical function or process such as
  1. Broken bones, scarred skin or muscle tissue which limits natural human function
     
  2. The spouse's mental state is altered in a negative manner which conflicts with their natural ability to function. This includes physical, mental, and spiritual functionality. Such examples are:
     

[*]Chronic fear of: their husband or wife, social interaction, worship or pursual of biblical study, performing natural physical function (using the restroom, having one's menstrual cycle, eating, regular breathing patterns, walking, etc. etc.)

[*]Inducing such psychological disorders as: Schizophrenia, Disassociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality disorder, which is linked to a form of Schizophrenia), Major Depression (which is the form in which suicidal tendacies are mostlikely to be seen), Sexual Identity Disorder (in which a person under extreme stress will break from reality, and believe they are of the opposite sex even when their natural genetalia are seen)

b.) Conversion of one of the two spouses to Christianity, in which one is allowed to divorce their spouse and maintain peace with them.

These two things aren't exhaustive, but gives example to that which one may appropriately divorce one's spouse."

I wrote this after learning about mental as well as physical abuse.

More later... Shalom

In the words of floatingaxe, if I had three thumbs!

Thanx for this contribution.

Blessings