Letter to a Fellow Blogger About Divorce

This letter is an e-mail written in response to a fellow blogger who has posted quite a few constructive comments of disagreement towards my view of divorce and remarriage for adultery and desertion.


Dear Fellow Blogger,

Your thought process is sound and clearly spoken from someone who has a passion for preserving the permanence of marriage, but I (realizing my own pride and stubbornness) think that you are missing the forest of the issue, for the trees of debate and rhetoric.

It seems that I won't be able to convince you to divorce or remarry (jk), but let me clarify a couple of thoughts about my perspective on this: (1) The debate does not rise or fall with the God divorced Israel analogy. Like most analogies, it can be overdone, and I think the thing I want to point out is the fact that God did in fact divorce Israel for her adultery. I don't think that having sex during the betrothal constituted adultery, because I, again, do not see any proof for the betrothal being the same as marriage. Furthermore, although I concede that a bill of divorce was written up for the severance of a Jewish betrothal, just like it was for a Jewish marriage, I do not concede that they were ever the same. To respond to what you said about this issue in your comments, sex was not the only issue (get your mind out of the gutter, please), but there was also the issue of living separately and the man not supporting the woman financially, as well as the lack of a physical union. I think another thing to consider is the fact that the words "husband" and "wife" are from generic Greek words which also mean "man" and "woman." Therefore, when the Scripture calls Joseph "husband" and Mary "wife," it could have equally been translated "man" or "wife." Don't want to "beat a dead horse" with this point, but I only say that to demonstrate that there is no Scriptural evidence for Jewish betrothal and Jewish marriages both being considered "married," as you claim.

I also don't think my view of divorce for adultery and desertion is synonymous with the Pharisees' view "that leads to an epidemic of adultery." Sin is the ultimate cause of any divorce (although the divorce itself may not be sinful); not one's view of divorce or remarriage.

I must admit that this debate is a classic example of how people see things completely differently, because Mark nor Luke's omission is a problem for me. I believe that they state the general principle, and Matthew states the exception. Exceptions do not negate the general rule in any event. Furthermore, I think it is proper hermeneutics to interpret parallel accounts with the more detailed instance. Interpreters routinely follow this approach throughout the Gospels with respect to Jesus; why should it be any different with this?

My point with the "interruption" was to say that it really doesn't matter if the Pharisees interrupted, or if they "tricked" him, but that Jesus' words continued, and the subject matter did not all of a sudden change from marriage to betrothal. Once again, the Matthew 5 passage is very important in seeing this, because of Jesus' blanket statement in the middle of his Sermon on the Mount, which I do not believe is confined to a dispensational, Scofield-like, Davidic Kingdom Jew during a literal, thousand-year reign, but is in reference to all believers living in the kingdom now.

I have already addressed the Mark 10 situation, but let me just say that I do agree with the general rule that if a person divorces his spouse (of course for a biblically unwarranted reason) then they are committing adultery if they remarry.

In closing, the remarriage thing to me is consistent with the idea of a biblically warranted divorce. I see in both exception passages that the general rule of no divorce and no remarriage is still intact, but the exception applies to both parts of the sentence. Grammatically it seems to be logically inconsistent to confine that to only one part of a cause and effect sentence. In fact, without the exception, the sentence in Matthew 19:9 reads, "I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife...and marries another woman commits adultery." The effect of the adultery is caused because the first marriage is still considered to be valid. If, however, marital unfaithfulness occurs (as in the exception), then the passage logically indicates that the first marriage would, in fact, be nullified by divorce, and therefore remarriage would not be committing adultery.

Finally, I know that this is a sensitive issue for a lot of people, and I am thankful that we can open up this debate in a friendly way on this blog. If any of my comments have been condescending, I apologize for them. My humor, though aimless at times, is often used to blunt the sharpness of my words. I appreciate your candor and thoughtful responses, and look forward to continuing discussion in other blogs (I think this one may have had it). For now, though, we may have to do as the great Will Farrel has said, "Agree to disagree."

For Holy Matrimony,
Jason Grizzard