Hi FOC. Thanks for your detailed responses. Can you tell me what you believe the situation is for the *innocent* woman in this scenario? Can she remarry with God's blessing or does He consider remarriage adultery?
The woman has been faithful to her husband and he has also been sexually faithful to her however he wants someone else so divorces her and marries another woman.
Thanks
However Jesus says that, even though adultery has occurred, the innocent woman will also be committing adultery if she remarries.
It doesnt say 'committing' adultery...it says 'commits adultery'....present indicative form which is the only way in the present form of the Greek to absolutely contain the action to the present since the present form is inherently linear in nature.
“Committeth adultery” The Present Indicative deception
The writer could have used other ways to show an act with ongoing consequences...there are very easy ways to do that in the greek, yet for some reason they chose the one form of the present tense that is the ONLY form that would be used to show that the act was NOT 'ongoing'.
Why does adultery (and in this case abandonment as well) not terminate the marriage bond?
You have entirely misunderstood Jesus' intent there.
Because Moses had not actually assigned any crime or sin to this putting away for no just cause, the Jews in Jesus day believed that they were guiltless in putting away over anything they wanted to (whether they remarried or not).
He isnt defining marriage as UNconditional as you seem to believe but IS defining these hardhearted divorces as being sinful.
Jesus point is not to show that marriage lingers after divorce in any way at all, but is to show them that even tho they do put her away as Moses permitted, that this horrible practice of putting out a spouse for no just cause that had been with them since at least their time in the desert after escaping Egypt DID incur guilt and WAS indeed a sin...and their sin was affecting everyone in its path.
That is what Jesus is doing....showing men who believed themselves guiltless (as seemed to be a epidemic with this people) that they WERE guilty when they cast out a spouse unjustly and especially when they do it to take someone else.
Just as He also showed them just before His exception in Matt 5 that even if they looked on a woman lustfully they had already committed adultery in their heart...the point is exposing guilt where they believed there was none.
You seemed to have missed that if a man just wanted a new, younger wife, all he had to do was be a polygamist and just add this new woman to his harem. Even in the NT there is no outright prohibition or condemnation of taking multiple wives.
The real issue here isnt about taking a new bride because polygamy was practiced by some at that time and still is in this world today in some cultures.
It is the hardhearted throwing out of a wife who has done no wrong that is the core of this matter.
God hates putting away, remember ? That is a very key element to this entire topic...understanding that it is the putting away that He 'hateth'.
In that, this putting away a wife who has done no wrong, whether we remarry or not, is the very heart of this whole issue of divorce and remarriage.
The problem here is with not understanding the WHOLE council of Gods word in this matter and simply picking at a verse here and a passage there.
As I said somewhere here, the Hypercalvinist is quite adept at using a few very CLEAR passages to show that God is so sovereign that He literally foreordains EVERY sin man commits, then condemns that man for the sin that GOD basically forced him to do.
And even tho there are VERY clear passages that seem to back these claims (Romans 9 for instance..not to mention so many passages about things decided from the foundation of the world) few of us actually believe that God has foreordained that man sin AGAINST God Himself.
The same with this MDR matter.
Some take a few CLEAR scriptures to force a view from ONE side of the data to create an UNconditional marriage covenant.
But just like with the Hypercalvinist viewpoint, we must harmonize ALL of scripture to understand that Romans isnt about individual predestination..even tho it CLEARLY seems to show that it is in a couple places....but is directly about what has happened to the nation of Israel.
Doctrines that focus on part of the evidence without truly understanding the WHOLE so that ALL of the evidence is harmonized correctly will always be skewed and distorted because they will end up missing the point of many passages.
It happens with Romans 9 with the hypercalvinist....and it happens with things like 'committeth adultery' with anti-remarriagers.
