Dealing with divorce.

[rsc2a]

The illegitimate and legitimate reasons for divorce will have hardness of heart.  It is not just for an illegitimate reason that there is hardness of heart.

If your main point is that it is the business of the church to make sure forgiveness, reconciliation and repentance has occurred then you will have to look at the flip side and see if the adultery that occurred from an illegitimate divorce has forgiveness, reconciliation and repentance also in the home when the pastors interview folks for membership.

If a person commits fornication, then there is Biblical allowance for the offended party to divorce...

Not according to Piper...  8)

 

[ALAYMAN]

Not according to Piper...  8)

As is often the case, your bad case of Attention Deficit Disorder has you comparing apples to orange.  My citation of Piper was in the context of refutation of any charge that remarriage constitutes perpetual adultery.  Here is the actual quote, in context...

Clearly according to the OT law, which Jesus was making reference to in the "adultery" passages (Deuteronomy was Jesus' favorite OT book to reference) the woman's second marriage is considered "marriage" and not perpetual adultery....


I'm as serious as John Piper and John Macarthur, who make the same argument, amongst many other "legalists". 

And lest you want to quibble with that claim, here is Piper's own words on the matter of church discipline for remarriage...

Neither divorce nor remarriage is in itself the unforgivable sin any more than murder, stealing, lying or coveting. "All sins will be forgiven the sons of men." God is faithful and just to forgive—he will honor the worth of his Son's sacrifice for all who confess their sin and bank their hope on the saving work of Christ.

Forgiveness is NOT unconditional. It is conditional. This does not mean it can be earned. It means forgiveness is given to those who truly trust Christ. Trust is not an act by which anything can be earned. It calls attention to the worth of God's grace, not the worth of our action. But trust is not mere intellectual assent to Biblical facts. It involves hearty affirmation of the will of Christ. Therefore trusting Christ involves confessing sin as sin and taking up arms against it.
Therefore the ultimate form of church discipline (excommunication) is never a simple response to past sin. It is always a response to sin that a person continues to affirm or practice. No past sin that is renounced, confessed and forsaken is a ground of church discipline.

Therefore marital sin is in the same category as lying and killing and stealing when it comes to church discipline and church membership. If someone has lied, killed, stolen, or illegitimately divorced, the issue is not, can they be forgiven? The issue is do they admit that what they did was sin? Do they renounce it? And do they do what they can to make it right?

If a person in the church was known to affirm lying, killing or stealing as appropriate behavior for a Christian, that person would be liable to the discipline of the church. Not because they have lied, killed or stolen in the past and cannot be forgiven, but because they go on affirming NOW that sin is not sin.

Or if a person was openly planning to lie, kill or steal with a view to receiving (cheap!) forgiveness afterward, that person too would be liable to church discipline.

In all these ways illegitimate divorce and remarriage are NOT in a class by themselves. They are not the unforgivable sin. When it comes to church discipline and church membership they should be treated the same way other public sins are treated.

 

[ALAYMAN]

This is a different point than Mat is making. But do you practice church discipline on the woman whose husband is the one who chooses to divorce for non-biblical grounds? If she were an innocent party, would she be subject to discipline?

No, why would she incur discipline for not being at fault in the divorce?

 

[rsc2a]

Not according to Piper...  8)

As is often the case, your bad case of Attention Deficit Disorder has you comparing apples to orange.  My citation of Piper was in the context of refutation of any charge that remarriage constitutes perpetual adultery.  Here is the actual quote, in context...

Oh...so Piper is some kind of authority when he's talking about divorce...except in those cases when he's talking about divorce...and disagrees with you? Then, he clearly doesn't know what he's talking about,even though he's talking about divorce.

 

[ALAYMAN]

Oh...so Piper is some kind of authority when he's talking about divorce...except in those cases when he's talking about divorce...and disagrees with you? Then, he clearly doesn't know what he's talking about,even though he's talking about divorce.

lol, you're being intentionally obtuse again.  What I wrote was so simple even a caveman, or you, as it were, could understand.  I cited Piper on the matter of church discipline in cases of divorce.  Piper doesn't believe there is any legit reason for divorce except the spouse dies (which he admits is an odd and unpopular evangelical position).  However, he knows that in a fallen world that few Christian people are not going to hold to his views on the matter and are going to get remarried.  His position in those cases for membership is that those people need to repent of their sinful divorce, but stay married to their second spouse, and that they're not in a state of perpetual adultery.  All of this is in line with what I have argued, and if you disagree with that you are either being 1) intellectually dishonest 2) obtuse 3) a dithering twit D) all the above.

 

[rsc2a]

Oh...so Piper is some kind of authority when he's talking about divorce...except in those cases when he's talking about divorce...and disagrees with you? Then, he clearly doesn't know what he's talking about,even though he's talking about divorce.

lol, you're being intentionally obtuse again.  What I wrote was so simple even a caveman, or you, as it were, could understand.  I cited Piper on the matter of church discipline in cases of divorce.  Piper doesn't believe there is any legit reason for divorce except the spouse dies (which he admits is an odd and unpopular evangelical position).  However, he knows that in a fallen world that few Christian people are not going to hold to his views on the matter and are going to get remarried.  His position in those cases for membership is that those people need to repent of their sinful divorce, but stay married to their second spouse, and that they're not in a state of perpetual adultery.  All of this is in line with what I have argued, and if you disagree with that you are either being 1) intellectually dishonest 2) obtuse 3) a dithering twit D) all the above.

All of which is completely irrelevant. You cited Piper as an authoritative voice on marriage/divorce/re-marriage, yet reject that authoritative voice when an issue regarding marriage/divorce/re-marriage comes up that you disagree with him on (even though he's apparently authoritative so long as you agree with him). In other words, you selectively pick which parts of an authoritative voice you are going to recognize as authoritative and which parts you are going to ignore...

...but then, color me surprised. It's not like you haven't done it before.

 

[ALAYMAN]

All of which is completely irrelevant. You cited Piper as an authoritative voice on marriage/divorce/re-marriage, yet reject that authoritative voice when an issue regarding marriage/divorce/re-marriage comes up that you disagree with him on (even though he's apparently authoritative so long as you agree with him). In other words, you selectively pick which parts of an authoritative voice you are going to recognize as authoritative and which parts you are going to ignore...

...but then, color me surprised. It's not like you haven't done it before.

Okay, "D" it is.

 

[Mathew Ward]

I don't follow your reasoning, nor see your point here.  Could you say it differently?

Mr & Mrs Jones come to your church.  Mr Jones is on his second marriage.  His first ended without a Biblical means for divorce.  Mrs Jones is also on her second marriage with the first ending without a Biblical means for divorce.

They want to join the Alayman Baptist Church.  When the pastors/elders interview them about their previous divorces to ensure that repentance, forgiveness and restoration have taken place they find that it has.  There is no hardness of heart towards their former spouses.

Would they also inquire as to whether repentance, forgiveness and restoration for their 1 time adultery that happened because they were not divorced for the 2 prescribed Biblical reasons has also taken place when they got remarried?

 

[Smellin Coffee]

This is a different point than Mat is making. But do you practice church discipline on the woman whose husband is the one who chooses to divorce for non-biblical grounds? If she were an innocent party, would she be subject to discipline?

No, why would she incur discipline for not being at fault in the divorce?

According to what Jesus said, she has committed adultery.

 

[Castor Muscular]

According to what Jesus said, she has committed adultery.

Yeah, but it was only once, so no biggie. 

 

[rsc2a]

According to what Jesus said, she has committed adultery.

Yeah, but it was only once, so no biggie.

Also: We don't like that verse so we ignore it.

 

[ALAYMAN]

According to what Jesus said, she has committed adultery.

The rhetoric of Jesus' words was in the context of the Jews who had made no-fault divorce a common-place thing.  The force of the exception clause was to heighten the blame on the one who was demanding a divorce for illegitimate reasons.  Do you think that passage claims that the innocent party in the divorce is guilty of perpetual adultery, and that the first marriage is the only true marriage recognized in God's eyes?

 

[ALAYMAN]

Yeah, but it was only once, so no biggie.

So, you do believe that remarriage constitutes perpetual adultery?

 

[Castor Muscular]

So, you do believe that remarriage constitutes perpetual adultery?

We're not discussing what I believe.  We're discussing what Moses established and what Jesus taught. 

Moses established a very liberal means of divorcing one's wife.  If a man finds any uncleanness in his wife, he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts her away. 

Jesus explained how God sees it, and God sees it differently.  If a man divorces his wife for any reason other than adultery, then God does not recognize the divorce.  (Some people add abandonment of an unbeliever to the list of permissible divorces, but that's not what Jesus said about how God sees it.)

The consequence of God not recognizing the divorce is that future re-marriage constitutes adultery.  Again, this is what Jesus said about how God views the situation. 

What you have done is cherry picked what you like and what you don't like about all of the above, and you have done so in an inconsistent manner.  If you're going to enforce the first part of what Jesus said, then in order to be consistent, you must enforce the second part. 

And there's no room for Moses there, because Jesus is explicitly CONTRASTING how God sees it vs. how Moses did it.  So either Jesus' way is the superior way of handling divorce and remarriage, thus replacing Moses with the purer way, or else Jesus gave us this information for some other purpose, and neither part of what Jesus said is meant to be enforced as a law. 

 

[Smellin Coffee]

According to what Jesus said, she has committed adultery.

The rhetoric of Jesus' words was in the context of the Jews who had made no-fault divorce a common-place thing.  The force of the exception clause was to heighten the blame on the one who was demanding a divorce for illegitimate reasons.  Do you think that passage claims that the innocent party in the divorce is guilty of perpetual adultery, and that the first marriage is the only true marriage recognized in God's eyes?

It's rhetoric? So Jesus was simply putting the husband on a guilt trip by telling him that his wanting a divorce would cause his wife to commit adultery?

 

[ALAYMAN]

It's rhetoric? So Jesus was simply putting the husband on a guilt trip by telling him that his wanting a divorce would cause his wife to commit adultery?

Yes.

The self-righteous Jew had claimed to be in good shape with God by keeping the law, and they had fashioned the law by contorting and adding to it to suit their lifestyle in many ways, divorce included.  Jesus said "you have heard it said.....but I say" in order to show them that they were committing adultery by merely looking on woman, or murdering by merely their heart condition of hating.  That rhetorical point is all the more pressed when he effectively says that not only were they in reality sinning by divorcing for illegitimate reasons (calling the woman "unclean", etc) but they were sinning in their heart by lusting, and in addition they were causing effectual sin on the part of the woman by forcing her to remarry somebody else (in OT Palestine a woman didn't stand much of a chance of survival by being divorced).

He had just said "lest your righteousness exceed that of the pharisees", only to turn around and show the pharisees that they weren't righteous at all in theirself, and in doing so was obviously pointing all to their need of perfect righteousness found in Him alone.

 

[ALAYMAN]

We're not discussing what I believe.  We're discussing what Moses established and what Jesus taught. 

Moses established a very liberal means of divorcing one's wife.  If a man finds any uncleanness in his wife, he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts her away. 

Jesus explained how God sees it, and God sees it differently....

Yes, God would have no divorce at all, in the ideal, but God obviously knows that people will sin, and people will divorce.  Inevitably when they do (as in the case of a woman who is illegitimately divorced, only to see her husband take another wife and thereby keep reconciliation from ever happening) God is not saying that they are actively sinning (ie, perpetual adultery) by merely their state of existence in a remarriage.

 

[Smellin Coffee]

It's rhetoric? So Jesus was simply putting the husband on a guilt trip by telling him that his wanting a divorce would cause his wife to commit adultery?

Yes.

The self-righteous Jew had claimed to be in good shape with God by keeping the law, and they had fashioned the law by contorting and adding to it to suit their lifestyle in many ways, divorce included.  Jesus said "you have heard it said.....but I say" in order to show them that they were committing adultery by merely looking on woman, or murdering by merely their heart condition of hating.  That rhetorical point is all the more pressed when he effectively says that not only were they in reality sinning by divorcing for illegitimate reasons (calling the woman "unclean", etc) but they were sinning in their heart by lusting, and in addition they were causing effectual sin on the part of the woman by forcing her to remarry somebody else (in OT Palestine a woman didn't stand much of a chance of survival by being divorced).

So by divorcing, a husband is "forcing" his ex to remarriage?

 

[ALAYMAN]

So by divorcing, a husband is "forcing" his ex to remarriage?

Well, again, in that culture, it was either marry, prostitution, or probably die.  Rosie the Riveter's time had not quite come yet.

Of course she could have stayed unmarried of choice, and eeked out some sort of bare existence, maybe.  But Jesus' point was to propound the guilt of the Jew who was divorcing for no good reason, essentially saying that by such frivolous putting away he was causing not only the guilt of his own deed, but the eventual complication and culpability for the woman he unfairly put away when she inevitably would remarry, as most would in the course of a natural fallen world.

 

[Smellin Coffee]

So by divorcing, a husband is "forcing" his ex to remarriage?

Well, again, in that culture, it was either marry, prostitution, or probably die.  Rosie the Riveter's time had not quite come yet.

Of course she could have stayed unmarried of choice, and eeked out some sort of bare existence, maybe.  But Jesus' point was to propound the guilt of the Jew who was divorcing for no good reason, essentially saying that by such frivolous putting away he was causing not only the guilt of his own deed, but the eventual complication and culpability for the woman he unfairly put away when she inevitably would remarry, as most would in the course of a natural fallen world.

Or perhaps that verse is not to be a doctrine all its own but rather a portion of revelation where the Pharisees failed. Jesus said to introduce this segment, "Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." One of the areas where the Pharisees failed was in their allowance of divorce. So perhaps Jesus is explaining how one could be more righteous than the Pharisees for entrance into the kingdom. Perhaps.