Marriage and Divorce: The New Testament Teaching

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE -

THE NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING

Also by B. Ward Powers

A Brief Outline of the Books of the Bible

The Christian and his Church

The Christian and his Salvation

Divorce and Remarriage: The Bible’s Law and Grace Approach

First Corinthians: An Exegetical and Explanatory Commentary

Learn To Read the Greek New Testament

Marriage and Divorce: The New Testament Teaching

Preparing to Go: The Road to Missionary Service

The Principles and Practice of Religious Accounting and Taxation

The Progressive Publication of Matthew

Remarriage After Divorce — A Christian Perspective

The Sin We Treat As a Virtue: The Major Issue in Christ’s Teaching

To Take It Upon Himself

Contributor to

Faith Active in Love (edited by J. Diesendorf)

New Dictionary of Biblical Theology (Edited by T. Alexander)

To my wife Val —

my friend, companion and partner

these past thirty years,

with whom I have been able

to share my progress in the challenging task

of examining and assessing the work of others in this field

and of seeking to come to grips myself

with the teaching of the Scriptures —

whose loving encouragement, practical help,

fresh insight, and patient endurance

during the many years over which it was being written

has considerably enriched its pages:

this book is gratefully dedicated

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE —

THE NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING

B. WARD POWERS

B.A., B.D., B.Comm.. Th.L., Dip.R.E., M.A. Ph.D. Th.D.

Lecturer in Ethics and New Testament,

Sydney Missionary and Bible College

Family Life Movement of Australia

P.O. Box 143, CONCORD NSW AUSTRALIA 2137

and

Jordan Books Ltd

259A Trafalgar Street, Petersham NSW AUSTRALIA 2049

Smashwords Edition

2016

First Published in 1987;

Smashwords edition 2016

This book incorporates material from the author's doctoral thesis The Ethical Teaching of the New Testament and Its Bases in Relation to the Spheres of Sex and Marriage and Family Relationships (University of London, 1972) and from the publications Remarriage After Divorce - A Christian Perspective (Jordan Books Ltd, 1974) and Divorce - The Bible and the Law (AFES Graduates Fellowship, 1978).

Copyright © 1987, 2016 by I.M.P.A.C.T. Inc.,

259A Trafalgar Street, PETERSHAM NSW AUSTRALIA.

All rights reserved. Apart from fair dealing (such as reviews and quotations in books and articles), reproduction of any part of this publication in any form by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the copyright holder, is a breach of copyright, and is both unethical and illegal.

Translations used in this book are primarily the NIV and RSV, with occasional reference when appropriate to the Jerusalem Bible, NEB, Phillips, TEV, and sometimes others. The cover photograph and numerous quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, c 1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society and used by permission.

Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Powers, Beaumont Ward

Marriage and Divorce - the New Testament Teaching

Bibliography

Includes index.

1. Marriage - Biblical teaching. 2. Divorce -Biblical teaching. 3. Sexual ethics. 4. Marriage - Religious aspects - Christianity. I. Family Life Movement of Australia. II. Title.

241'.63

National Library of Australia Card No. and ISBN

Family Life Movement of Australia Jordan Books Ltd

0 909922 29 2 (Cloth boards) 0 9588420 0 0 (Cloth boards)

0 909922 27 6 (Paperback) 0 9588420 1 9 (Paperback)

Typeset in Plantin 11/12 and printed in Australia by Southwood Press Pty Ltd, Marrickville NSW AUSTRALIA. Published by Family Life Movement of Australia,P.O. Box 143, Concord NSW AUSTRALIA and Jordan Books Ltd, 259A Trafalgar Street, Petersham NSW AUSTRALIA.

CONTENTS

Outline 7

Introduction 12

1. Marriage in the Purposes of God 15

2. Christ's Detailed Teaching About Marriage (Mt 19:1-12) 21

3. What Marriage Is All About 43

4. How To Be A Sexual Christian 51

5. The Rights And Wrongs Of Sex 63

6. The Real Role Of Sex In Marriage (1 Corinthians 7:1-5) 83

7. Varieties Of Sexual Behaviour - The Moral Question 96

8. Sex And Love 111

9. Being Single and Getting Married 117

10. Family Life 132

11. Birth Control Issues 138

12. When A Marriage Turns Sour 152

13. Divorce And Marriage Break-up 159

14. Remarriage After Divorce 185

15. In Conclusion 217

APPENDICES (Print Edition)

A. Animal Sex 233

B. Birth Control and World Population 265

C. Christian Attitudes To Sex Throughout History 279

D. Differences In The Interpretation of Biblical Material 308

E. Evaluation of Customary Marriage and Polygamy 357

Bibliography 381

Index 383

OUTLINE

There are a very large number of other books on the market which set out Christian views on marriage, sex, and divorce. What is the contribution of this particular book?

It is written to draw out from the Bible what is taught about these matters. Its purpose is to set out all relevant biblical passages, to discuss them, to sketch in the details of the background circumstances in which they were written so that we can understand the meaning which they had for the first people to whom these things were said or for whom they were written, and then to consider the significance of these passages for Christian doctrine and practice today.

The teaching of the Bible on these issues may be summarized in this way:

MARRIAGE

In all biblical teaching, marriage is seen as being a relationship between a man and a woman. Anything else which may be true of the nature of marriage flows out of what it is first of all as a relationship.

Marriage has three purposes, or, more accurately, a single purpose which has three aspects: companionship, mutual help, and the fulfilment of the sexual natures of man and woman. It is based upon mutual commitment, and rests upon the consent of the man and the woman to its continuance.

Marriage is an ordinance of creation, and is God's gift to all mankind: he made marriage for men and women, and he made men and women for marriage.

But marriage is not for everyone. To some people God gives the gift of being able to be a marriage partner, and needing marriage; to other people God gives the gift of being able to live a single, celibate life, without marriage. These gifts are not necessarily lifelong. Thus a person who has had, and has been called upon to exercise, the gift of celibacy may marry later in life; and a person who has been married may remain unmarried after the marriage ends (through divorce, or the death of the partner).

Marriage involves the total, exclusive, and lifelong commitment of the partners to each other. Whenever a marriage partner breaches one of these requirements, he has broken God's intention for marriage, and the commandments which he has given concerning it.

SEX

God specifically made mankind as male and female, and gave them sexual characteristics and sexual needs. Sex is God's gift to mankind, for the enrichment of the marriage relationship, and this role is as important as the function of sex in procreation.

It is therefore completely in accordance with God's purposes for a married couple to plan to fulfil the relational purposes of sex in their marriage while restricting its function in procreation, by the use of contraception.

God has given sexual natures and needs to both the man and the woman, and in marriage both husband and wife have equal responsibilities for the fulfilling of the sexual needs and natures of their partner.

Because the sexual relationship is given by God to have a role and function within marriage, and because marriage is the sphere in which man and woman are to find the satisfaction of their sexual needs, it is completely contrary to God's express will fora person to engage in sexual relations outside of marriage.

DIVORCE

Because God's purpose for marriage is that it be a lifelong commitment, it is always wrong for a marriage to end in divorce.

There are absolutely no exceptions of any kind to this. That is to say, there cannot be a situation in which it is God's will for a couple to have a temporary marriage; there cannot be any circumstances in which it is what God wants for a couple to have their marriage end in divorce.

The real problem however is not divorce itself. When he was asked about divorce, Christ answered by pointing to the true problem: the breakdown of the marriage relationship. He commanded that the marriage relationship, which has been fashioned by God himself, must not be severed or sundered by any person at all. If a couple were to ensure that they so strengthened and worked at their marriage relationship that it was never severed, they would never have any need to be concerned about a divorce. Too often the church has occupied itself with the issue of divorce instead of where Christ focussed his attention, on the problem of marriage breakdown.

Divorce is always a failure of God's perfect will being done, always an evil. There can in the nature of the case never therefore be acceptable grounds for a divorce, for this way of thinking suggests that in certain circumstances, which we can spell out, divorce can be a good thing instead of an evil. We have no authority here to depart from the strictness of Jesus about this.

But sometimes divorce may be the lesser of two evils. If because of the sin of one or both of the partners in the marriage, a marriage has ceased to be the relationship that God intends, divorce may be a lesser evil than continuing to live in that situation. But the failure of that marriage must be recognized for what it is: a sin before God, and moreover, an unnecessary sin, because God's grace was always available to both partners so that together they could make their marriage work as it should. The breakdown of the relationship is a failure before God, which should be repented of by those involved in it. Divorce is the public acknowledgement of the fact that that failure has occurred. The failure of a marriage is not a matter to be lightly regarded.

The failure of a marriage relationship is a sin, and the consequence of other sin, and the Church is not being true to the teaching of the Bible or to its Lord if it teaches or implies that such a breakdown is not sin, or is a sin which does not much matter.

However, the message of the gospel is that Christ came to open the way for the forgiveness of human sin, and that through him all sin - including the sin of a marriage breakdown - can be fully and totally forgiven.

As is true of all sin, a broken marriage has consequences in terms of pain and suffering and problems of many kinds which are not removed by forgiveness. The divorced partners will still have to come to terms with, and live with, these consequences. However, the assurance of God's forgiveness is available to them if they repent of whatever has been their sin in relation to the broken marriage; and the Church can have a ministry to such people by bringing them the knowledge of God's forgiveness.

At times in its teaching and in its attitudes to those who have suffered a marriage breakdown, the Church has given the impression that this is the unforgivable sin with God, or at any rate that even if he forgives the sin, his Church on earth will not do so.

REMARRIAGE

If a person turns from his wife to some other woman, this is the sin of adultery, and Christ teaches that it is still adultery even if what is happening is camouflaged under the legal veneer of a divorce and a subsequent remarriage.

However, remarriage in itself is never wrong or sinful: the sin is in the breakup of the first marriage. Christ's teaching condemns totally the breakup of a marriage relationship, but never condemns remarriage as such where such a breakup had occurred.

Under Old Testament law, a divorce always carried with it eligibility to remarry. Nothing in Christ's teaching suggests any intention on his part to change this situation. Marriage breakdown and divorce is contrary to God's will and should not occur - but if it occurs, the sin against God's will has been committed, and nothing in the New Testament or the Old suggests that there is any additional sin in a remarriage of the divorced person.

Paul repeats Christ's prohibition upon the breaking of the marriage relationship, and then considers the situation where (contrary to Christ's word) such a breakdown has occurred and reconciliation is impossible. What happens then is based upon his understanding that God gives to some people the gift of being able to live without marriage and to others the gift of being a marriage partner. He instructs those whose marriage has terminated to test whether God now gives them the gift of living as a single person, and if not, he instructs them to remarry.

Christ distinguishes between marriage, remarriage, and de facto relations. He shows that, while a marriage should continue as long as the partners both shall live, nonetheless it is possible for it to be terminated by the actions of the partners - it cannot be said that marriage continues in the eyes of God irrespective of what the partners actually do in their relationship. The Church is bound to follow Christ's understanding of the nature of marriage, and to accept the reality of the termination of a marriage, when it occurs.

Paul teaches that if a couple are not continuing to live in the relationship which marriage involves, then they are no longer married. The continuation of a marriage is dependent upon the continuation of the consent to that marriage by both partners - if one of them withdraws consent, then the marriage has been terminated, and the other partner is no longer bound in marriage. That is, marriage is a dynamic relationship and marriage exists only so long as that relationship is being continued by the intention of the partners.

Christ, Paul, and the whole Bible, insist that the partners must honour and continue the commitment that they have each made to the other: but they acknowledge realistically that through human sin that commitment can be ended, and they do not then pretend that a marriage exists when it does not.

NEXT

The rest of this book shows how, and where, these things are taught in the Bible.

INTRODUCTION

This book aims to concern itself (though not in equal detail) with every issue in the area of marriage and sexual behaviour covered in the Bible.

Therefore it addresses itself to the unmarried who are seeking to think their way through a relationship of friendship and are asking how one can choose a partner, and to the person who is in an unsatisfactory marriage and is thinking of ending it,

to the Christian pondering the correct Christian attitude towards polygamy or the status of two people in a de facto relationship,

to the one who is delving into the question of what marriage is and the one whose marriage has ended and is wanting to know about the legitimacy of remarriage,

to the person who has indulged freely in sexual experimentation, and the person who questions the legitimacy of sexual activity for the Christian apart perhaps from a specific intention to procreate the next generation,

and to the person who wants some input about the morality of each of the various approaches to birth control, and the relevance of these issues to the world population explosion.

I do not deal with in vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood, or artificial insemination -these are not covered (it need hardly be said) by any specific teaching of the Bible, are outside the scope of this present study, and are the subject of monographs specifically investigating these issues in depth, prepared by others better qualified than I to write them.

The fundamental question from which all else flows in a book of this kind is the attitude taken towards the two basic issues of marriage and divorce. The position held on these issues has been summarized in the Outline.

Footnotes and references to other authors have been kept to a minimum in the main text; they occur more frequently in the Appendices. Occasionally, bibliographical information is given at the point of mention of a book; for the most part a reference cites only the author's name and the page number (and also a key word from the book's title, if more than one work by the same author is cited). Other relevant information will be found in the Bibliography at the end of this volume.

Amongst the many recent books on divorce and remarriage, I would like here to mention five in particular:

David Atkinson's 1969 To Have and To Hold commends itself to me as a very helpful treatment, with which I am in very broad agreement: differences are for the most part in matters of detail, and up to a point I would regard my presentation as complementing that of Atkinson in many ways. There are a number of places where I have referred with approval to his handling of an issue, and many other places where I could well have done so also. His final chapter on Divorce and Remarriage: The Pastoral Problems I consider to be particularly helpful.

A smaller volume, with an orientation towards practical issues of pastoral counselling, is Jay Adams's 1980 Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible. Though we cover very similar territory for the most part, I have only occasionally made direct reference to this slim volume. I would like to draw attention to it, however, and mention here that (as with Atkinson's book) I find myself in very close accord with a great deal of what Adams has written (allowing for differences on some matters of detail), and in particular his main conclusions are very similar to the ones to which my own study has led.

Dwight Hervey Small's 1975 Right To Remarry I find an enigma. We reach a somewhat similar conclusion about many of the crucial issues, but we arrive at this point by very different routes. Small shows a sympathy and concern for those who are caught up in the trauma of a broken marriage to which my heart responds very warmly, and yet I find myself completely opposed to his treatment of Scripture, and to his basic approach to a theological understanding of marital breakdown. I am compelled to seek to rebut his understanding of these matters in Appendix D.

J Carl Laney's 1981 The Divorce Myth is a quite detailed treatment written at a popular level. He gives a strong call for evangelicals to adhere to the marital standards set out in the Scripture, which he explains as the principle of no divorce ...In the case of divorce, there are only two options available for the divorced person: (1) to remain permanently in an unmarried state, or (2) be reconciled to one's partner. (147.) His position is very close to that of:

William Heth and Gordon Wenham's 1984 Jesus and Divorce (which for simplicity I cite as Heth in my references to it) is a detailed and scholarly work and one which, I am sure, will be very influential. A major thrust of their book is their consideration of what they call the evangelical consensus about divorce and remarriage -that Jesus allowed a specific exception for adultery to an otherwise blanket prohibition of remarriage. They criticize this in detail, and reject it completely and decisively. With their rejection of this view I totally agree, though not always for the reasons which they adduce. However, their main aim is to advocate the view that Scripture teaches that, while divorce can be accepted, all remarriage after divorce is totally prohibited during the lifetime of the former marriage partner. With this interpretation of Scripture I most strongly disagree.

Notwithstanding the considerable scholarship and obvious godly concern of these authors, I must state that I consider their view to be a complete misreading of the teaching of Scripture, and a promoting of a selective obedience to the commandments of Scripture, and an isolating of the question of marital breakup from the general teaching of Scripture which must apply to it, and a very dangerous teaching which places those who pay heed to it in a position against which the Scripture explicitly warns, a position of great strain and temptation. Though almost all of my work was written before the publication of Heth and Wenham's book, I have sought whenever relevant to show how their teaching is not a valid exegesis of the passages upon which they rely, and leaves quite out of account other biblical material which is highly relevant to a total understanding of all the Scriptural evidence. Many parts of my book which do not directly mention their work will be found nonetheless to be answering their position.

These are matters affecting the intimate life and overall happiness of many thousands of Christians in today's world; it is not some question of theological hairsplitting of relevance only to academics. Therefore the question of the right interpretation of the teaching of Scripture about these issues matters very much to a great many people.

I submit this book for the consideration of scholars, pastors, and Christians generally who are concerned to come to terms for themselves with the nature of biblical teaching. I would like to hope that it will prove to be a helpful contribution to the present debate.

*

# indicates a cross-reference: # followed by a number refers to the chapter in this book with that number; and # followed by a letter refers to that Appendix to the book. E after a reference to a biblical passage (e.g., Ephesians 5:21-33E) indicates that the passage runs to the end of that chapter.

CHAPTER ONE

MARRIAGE IN THE PURPOSES OF GOD

1.1 HUMAN NATURE, HUMAN NEEDS, AND MARRIAGE

Human beings come in two shapes, male and female. And they are different in many more ways than just shape. Shape is simply perhaps the most immediately obvious of the differences.

These differences are important. And they are deliberate. Men and women are created different so that they can share life together. As they unite these differences, and pool them, the two people become together a unity which is much greater, and better, and richer, and more exciting, and more wonderful, than would ever be possible for either of them alone. It's called complementarity.

Icecream is very different from peaches, and most people like eating each of them. On their own, both are enjoyable, but when you put them together you get something extra because of their differences. Peaches and icecream is much more than two helpings of peaches or two helpings of icecream would be. Or think of musical instruments: two instruments which are different can complement each other and lift the music to a completely different level from two that are exactly the same being played together.

Marriage is like this, only much, much more. The joining into one unity of two beings who are different enriches each, and extends and enlarges their capacity to experience and enjoy life. This is so special, and so unique, that there are no analogies or illustrations that can be given which fully reflect all of it.

Not that mere difference in itself is what matters: you won't get much music from a violin and a jackhammer in operation together. The similarities have to be such that the two blend together, and the differences have to be such that each one supplies what the other lacks and needs. And this is exactly how God has made man and woman: similar enough so that they can truly blend together, and yet different in such a way that each needs the other. In a sense, each is incomplete alone, and only finds completion in unity with the other.

This is what is meant by complementarity.

No person can live a worthwhile and enjoyable life by himself, on his own. We are made in such a way that we need other people. For most of us, we find that we need in particular one other person to share our lives on the deepest level.

This is the way God intended it to be. When we are born, it is into a family where we can be loved and cared for, taught and trained, and guided to maturity. And after we reach maturity we in turn (like our parents before us) can join our life with that of another person who can meet our needs as an adult person.

What are these needs that we have as adults? They are of three kinds.

First, we have EMOTIONAL NEEDS - we need friendship, acceptance, and recognition. We need to be helped to find ourselves as an individual, and to grow and develop as a person.

It is a desolate and crushing thing to be lonely -to be alone, in the most basic sense. This is easily possible even though there may be hundreds or thousands of other people all around you. To be alone means that there is nobody who cares about you as you -as a person, an individual. To some you are a neighbour, a relative, a tenant, a member of their workforce. But none of them care very deeply about you, even whether you live or die, and if you did die they might feel a touch of sadness at most, and even that would not last for very long.

Within us there is a deep need for something more than these casual, passing relationships (important though they may be in their own way at the time). We need to belong, to be wanted, and needed, and cherished and loved, by another person in a very special way. We want to be very important to someone else, another human being, a person whom we in turn can care about, and want, and need, and cherish and love, and who will be very important to us. When two people are able to give to each other this kind of friendship, and acceptance, and recognition, it gives a new, richer dimension to life, and loneliness is banished.

And we have ECONOMIC AND MATERIAL AND PRACTICAL NEEDS. The person who is in the position of being forced to live alone is well aware of these: the constant everyday problems of the business of living,