Is Remarriage allowed by the Bible

[Catsmeow]

I tell ya Cats, I really believe in some ways we are blessed for what we went through cause it makes you love more and work harder (even though it's less effort ) to support our christian husbands. I appreciate my Hubby in a way I don't think some people could ever understand and this type of love can't come from sin.

We sound alot alike from what I've read from you.

For the record, I too state what I believe ...and KNOW to be true. I am not living in sin and am NOT an adulterer. I am married for the first time to my real husband.

The other men in my life were simply, IMO...men I lived in sin with. We had a piece of paper that made it look legitimate but it never felt real to begin with.

We never consulted God about marrying...we did it. That's all. It wasn't the divine gathering that God had appointed. It was flesh and done in the flesh.

I hardly believe that what we do BEFORE we get saved can be used against us...

Let's face it...how many of you all were virgins when you got married? Hm? Then you're all adulterers if not? Better yet, how many of you had "thoughts" or "fantasies" about sex with someone other than your spouse?

No difference. None. It's all in the heart.

Once I asked Christ to come into my heart .....it doesn't matter one whit if I was divorced. It doesn't matter one whit if I had sexual relations prior to marriage. It's no different than having been a prostitute (Mary Magdeline) and being forgiven and washed clean.

She's no longer an "adulterer" regardless. An adulterer is living in active sin against God.

There's no one out there who's going to convince me that my husband and I are living in sin.

I know without any doubt that God himself put our marriage together and have peace about that. It's troubling when we a so quick to say someone is an adulterer - that's labeling a person and there's no nice way to put it.

I am definitely NOT an adulterer. I am NOT living in active sin against God and I am positive God gave me my wonderful husband.

I sure wouldn't wake up each day and praise God for such a wonderful man if I was living with a man who wasn't my husband. Bill is most DEFINITELY my husband...and neither of us are living in a state of sin.

Our marriage is not tainted or sinful .....it's a union fashioned by the Hand of God himself and I have no doubt about that.

It would smack to anyone to have some say you're an adulterer just because before you got saved, you'd been "legally" married.

All that was was legalized fornication. That wasn't the real marriage ...that was fornication.

The real marriage is what I have right now, today. Thisi s the first time that I know that I know that I know that I am genuinely married. Bill and I both know that we have a marriage made by God himself. He's the designer and the One who put it all together.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who came before him were all people I sinned with (*fornication) and God has already forgiven me from that. I am now sinless and free because those sins (of fornication) are washed clean).

We need to focus more on that. It's hard enough to be human in this world but to be told that the sins of our past prior to coming to Christ are going to be held against us doesn't sound right to me.

[Russell]

There is an excellent book out there called "We became the wives of happy husbands". It has about 9 chapters and each chapter is written by a different (Godly) woman. Each is the story of the woman being married to a drunk, a bum, an unbeliever, and a myriad of other very bad things. (physical abuse was not one of the men's problems and it is said up front that a woman needs to get away from that). Anyway, the women each tell of how they tried to "fix" their husbands their way - manipulating, anger, enabling, you name it. Only when they laid their spouses down at the feet of Jesus,  and turned all their energy on what God wanted for themselves did things begin to change. Miracles they never thought they could even dream of.

I gave the book to one friend who is married to an unbelieving alchoholic. She read a bit of the chapter of the woman who was married to an alcholic and had a fit. She yelled at me - "WHAT?!?! You expect me to do what this doormat did and make his dinner and sit it down on the table for him when he comes home from drinking?!?!?!" She refused. She wanted to continue with her anger and he darn well did not "deserve" for her to spend time making him a dinner. That was 12 years ago. Today she is still married to the same unbelieving alcoholic.

Another friend who read the book, changed her attitude, repented of trying to change her husband, and started asking God to change her, and help her not to respond to her husband with anger and blame, but to pray for him and change only her reactions. Today she is married to a sober believer.

That's only two examples.

What a great book WIP. Truly these women would be blessed in their endurance & forbearance.

I have looked into this topic more carefully and studied the Scripture mentioned at the beginning of the topic. I can see what WIP is driving at. But can I ask this question to WIP or another scholar of the Bible. If your marriage partner leaves you and files for divorce and remarries isn't the remaining partner allowed to remarry.

I am trying to look at it from a Scriptural command here. Say for instance I was a pastor and one of the flock came to me for advice. What advice should I give them. Is the above highlighted sentence correct... scripturally speaking I mean.

I am interested to get this position correct Scriptually.

Blessings WIP

[Work in Progress]

Hi Russell. I wish you had asked your question of someone else. LOL

You will find your answer in the Scriptures. The pharisees kept harping at Jesus on the whole divorce/remarriage issue, and Jesus told them that yes, Moses permitted it, but now He (Jesus) is telling them it's wrong and forbidden- that marriage is forever and let no man separate the two. In Matthew 5, He says if a man divorces his wife (for any reason other than her being unfaithful), he is causing her to commit adultery, and whoever marries her is committing adultery. You can look also @ Matt 19, Mark 10 and Luke 16.

[Guest LadyC]

-but just as sin is sin, forgiveness is forgiveness. forgive me if i misquote a scripture here, but i thank God for this grace in which i now stand!

-MY -oh-MY--LadyC you are gonna get plumb weighed down with alla these flowers yuse erra

-accumulating aint-cha??right on maam

no worries, i love flowers LOL... i am getting an awful lot of roses though, would you happen to have a lily to give me?

[Catsmeow]

I like the way the "Message" version of the Bible puts it...in modern day terms we can understand....

1 Corinthians 7:12-15

12 For the rest of you who are in mixed marriages - Christian married to nonChristian - we have no explicit command from the Master. So this is what you must do. If you are a man with a wife who is not a believer but who still wants to live with you, hold on to her. 13 If you are a woman with a husband who is not a believer but he wants to live with you, hold on to him. 14 The unbelieving husband shares to an extent in the holiness of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is likewise touched by the holiness of her husband. Otherwise, your children would be left out; as it is, they also are included in the spiritual purposes of God. 15 On the other hand, if the unbelieving spouse walks out, you've got to let him or her go. You don't have to hold on desperately. God has called us to make the best of it, as peacefully as we can.

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I find it utterly amazing that people seem to cling to various scriptures in the bible but when they get to this one, they stutter and stumble all over the place.

Why is this verse less desirable? Why is it ignored? Why is it shoved under the bed and forgotten?

Is there some reason some people out there seem to thrive on labeling others as doomed adulterers?

I'm having a hard time with this because I'll bet no one out there can say they've never, ever lusted *(which is adultery, according to Jesus).

I don't hear anyone holding their hand up and saying, "Yup, I'm guilty of that. I'm therefore an adulterer."

Uh..nope. I hear nobody fessing up to that. But they will say that those of us who were abandoned by our unbelieving spouses are tainted goods and unfit to ever remarry.

Somehow I'm just not buying that...because I know I'm not tainted, I'm not an adulterer, I'm cleaned and washed by the blood of Jesus and my exspouse leaving me doesn't condemn me to a life of utter abandonment and loss.

I feel like we're right back to the Laws of the Sabbath. If your camel fell in a ditch, would you pull him out or leave him because it's the Sabbath?

What was the Sabbath made for? Well, Jesus didn't stick to the Letter of the Law so he was ridiculed by the Pharisees because He focused on the true motive of the Law...which is mercy.

Same here....the purpose for telling people not to divorce is to keep people from doing just what they're doing now...making marriage into a weekend pass to sleep together, then get an annulment on Monday, like Britney Spears did.

Well, God's intention was not to have women treated like disposable vessels that husbands could dump as they aged and lost their beauty.

On the other hand, God didn't intend marriage to be a license to beat innocent women and children to a pulp either.

We're right back to missing the real reason for the Law to begin with...to set parameters for the lawless.

For those who walk with God and seek His ways, we are governed by a Law of Love in Christ Jesus.

Eight years ago God, in his mercy, hardened the heart of a man I was married to who made a point of beating me and breaking bones and destroying my body and self esteem. This didn't help establish a home of emotionally stable children either.

I absolutely do not believe women should stay in an environment where she is beaten and her life is threatened.

Nor do I believe that if the unbelieving spouse has chosen to divorce her, she is bound to him any longer because according to the above scripture, Paul has told us we are free and no longer BOUND.

I don't believe a piece here and a piece there...but all of the scriptures...and Paul came to spread the good news and release the captives and set us free...free from a "works" doctrine and free from being under the Law.

I'm very glad the abusive man I was brutalized by chose to divorce me. He also decided he wanted to sleep with other women.

So be it. I am not bound to remain single for the rest of my life when my "spouse" (who was given many chances to reconcile) refuses to reconcile and continues to practice the occult and sleep with other women.

No, sorry...I am NOT a practicing adulteress. I do not believe the Holy Spirit would be living in me and walking with me on a daily basis if I were living in deliberate sin.

No...I believe God, in His mercy, saw that my "ex" had clearly defiled the wedding vows and was living in open sin, unashamed and this gave me the legal ground to choose a new mate.

The verse above spells it out very clearly, IMO.

[Guest LadyC]

i have spent some time during the course of this thread studying what God says about divorce and remarriage. i've read some articles, because there are those who have studied the issue far more thorougly than i have taken the time to do, and which examine scriptures on the subject that i didn't even realize existed... and most of us probably are unaware of many of the passages discussing divorce.

as i've read the articles, i've compared them to the bible so as to make sure they weren't being taken out of context, and when necessary, consulted a greek/hebrew dictionary-concordance to understand the origional language.

i am pasting here portions of an article which i found enlightening, and which are aligned with scripture to the extent that i have studied them.

Perhaps the most important thing to understand is that Moses, Jesus and Paul were not creating "exception clauses." They were rendering judgments. Jesus was addressing essentially the same people Moses addressed. Paul was not. Had Jesus addressed the Corinthian church directly there is no reason to think He would have said anything different from Paul.

[Guest Jane]

thanks so much for all the information now I feel free to remarry with God's blessings this time.

[Guest LadyC]

welcome to WB jane! glad this topic of discussion helped ease your concerns

[seekandyouwillfind]

definately making me think :bright:

[papasangel]

Hmm I seem to remember the marriage pronnouncement of "What God has joined together let no man pull asunder" To me its pretty clear that divorce is a no no and there are verses (I have to look up where exactly) that speak on this issue too. It concerns someone who is divorced marrying another and causing that person to commit adultry.

I don't think God has a problem if the mate of one dies and that one remarries because the vows are till "death do you part" but that would be the only exception that I can think of at this time.

Of course there is always the old standby. Murder maybe, Divorce , never LOL