Sorry David, but I do not know squat about torah. Most of what I know,
I know from studying the Bible. A little of what I think I know comes
from the studies others have done.
It is my understanding that up until just a few years prior to Jesus
beginning His ministry, that an adulterous spouse was stoned to death.
Since the dead spouse no longer existed, the remaining marriage partner
was free to remarry. This did not sit well with their Roman conquerers,
who considered sexual sin to be a lightweight thing, and took away the
right of the Jews to stone one to death for this minor crime.
We know that God hates divorce. His intention was that all marriages
last until the death of at least one partner. Now we got a situation
where the death penalty cannot be carried out, freeing the innocent
spouse. The innocent spouse is trapped in a marriage when according to
Jewish law, that innocent spouse should be a widow or widower, free to
start anew. How does Jesus solve this problem? He has no desire to
punish the innocent party by trapping the innocent in a loveless
marriage, and He has no desire to question Roman authority. He does the
only thing that is fair. He allows divorce for one reason only. That
reason is sexual sin. No other reason can break that bond. One spouse
is bound to the other spouse until one divorces the other for committing
sexual sin. Since the divorce of my imaginary couple was not for sexual
sin, God does not recognize the divorce and the woman is still bound to
her first, her real, husband. She sins every time she has sex with one
who is not her husband, just as surely as a thief sins every time he steals.
Terry
David Miller wrote:
Terry wrote:
David, I don't understand what you are trying to say. To me, Matthew
5:32 requires no interpretation. What's to interpret?
:-) Well then, how about if I just give you an alternative
consideration. Ok?
Terry wrote:
The fact is clear. Remarriage after a divorce for any reason other
than adultery is sin.
Here is another consideration for you.
Matthew 5:32
(32) But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife,
saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery:
and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
Let's break down these statements into two:
1) Whoever divorces his wife, except for the cause of fornication, is
causing her to commit adultery. [Interpretation / Commentary: The
husband does not cause her to commit adultery by the divorce if she
has already fallen into fornication. Therefore, he has some
justification for divorcing her in this case... BUT... he might want
to reconsider even that because the one who ends up marrying her after
he divorces her would be committing adultery!]
2) Whoever marries a divorced woman is committing adultery
[Interpretation: whether or not she was divorced because of adultery.
This reading is one whereby the clause "except for fornication"
applies only to the first consideration of the problem of divorce
causing the wife to commit adultery through remarriage.].
The hardness of our hearts makes hearing this second statement hard to
hear, but it is a possible way to interpret what Jesus is saying
here. Notice how in Mat. 19, the disciples recognize that the man
should not marry, and Jesus then teaches on being a eunuch.
Terry wrote:
God does not see the second marriage as a marriage. He sees one who
is bound to another living in continual sin with someone besides
his/her spouse.
This is your interpretation. Look at the text and consider another
interpretation. Consider that perhaps God does not see continual sin,
but that the adultery is a one time act that violated the covenant.
He calls that violation adultery. Trying to argue for continual
adultery is kind of like saying that after a murderer has killed
someone, he commits murder again if he shoots the body again. It all
depends upon how one looks upon the marriage covenant and what causes
the marriage covenant to be violated. Is the marriage covenant being
violated again and again and again or was it violated at that first sin?
I put this forward primarily to try and help you see how you project
interpretation into the text. The really important point here is to
understand the end of the conversation that Jesus has in this
passage. What Jesus is trying to communicate (IMO) is that divorce
itself causes adultery, by the one who divorces the wife who has been
found unclean according to Torah and therefore might rightfully
divorce her according to Torah, and also by the one who ends up
marrying the woman rightly put away. The thrust of what Jesus is
after is stopping the divorce in the first place. He is encouraging
purity in marriage, and forgiveness for adultery in marriage, even
though the Torah might supposedly give you a right to divorce her.
His point is kind of like, "yeah, Torah allows you to divorce the
adulterous wife, but what God has joined together, let no man put
asunder... therefore, let's live by a higher standard of Torah, which
was simply accommodating your hard heartedness when it gave you the
right to divorce for the cause of adultery."
Terry wrote:
Being born again does not change that. Being born again makes you
want to do right. It does not make doing wrong right. You cannot
have one who is still bound to another.
You are viewing the continued relationship as divorce, but this is
based upon a particular interpretation you have of the text, which is
based upon assumptions you make from your particular culture and
biases. Look at it from this point of view. If adultery has
happened, and this was followed with divorce, then the parties are no
longer bound to each other. The marriage covenant has been canceled.
Torah allowed for this.
Please consider carefully why Torah did not allow going back to the
first spouse after the divorce. If we only considered your
perspective here of Mat. 5:32, which is based upon the idea that the
divorced woman is still bound by marriage to the first husband despite
the divorce, then the woman should be allowed to go back to her
husband. However, she is not allowed to do that. This is because
Torah recognizes that her marriage covenant has been violated. She no
longer has any rights to her first husband and he no longer has any
rights to her, BECAUSE... THEY ARE NO LONGER BOUND TO EACH OTHER.
So how do we understand Jesus's teaching? He was speaking to those
men whose wives were found in adultery and were considering their
right under Torah to divorce them. He is encouraging them not to
divorce them, because the one who would marry them would be committing
adultery. And... if he divorces her when she is innocent of adultery,
he would be causing her to commit adultery as she turned to another
man for the very things that she should be receiving from him in her
marriage covenant with him.
Terry wrote:
The only valid reason for divorce and remarriage is adultery.
According to Torah, this is true, but the New Covenant has higher
standards.
Terry wrote:
That is not to say that there is no valid reason to flee from an
abusive spouse, but remarriage is not an option in those cases.
Is there any room for grace in your theology of marriage covenants?
What other unforgiveable sins are there besides making a mistake in
choosing a spouse? According to your perspective, is the person who
engaged in an act of sexual intercourse before marriage barred from
ever marrying anyone if that person then went and married someone
else? How does grace and forgiveness find expression in your theology
of marriage?
Peace be with you.
David Miller.
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"Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you
may know how you ought to answer every man." (Colossians 4:6)
http://www.InnGlory.org
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