1. Free to Change
2. Freedom and Responsibility
3. My Kind of People
4. "Come Out And Be Separate"
5. Private Intepretation
6. A "Monkey-Wrench" Scripture
7. The Truth That Frees
8. Literary Devices
9. Fear of God
10. A Love Story
11. The Three Trees In Eden
12. Imputed Righteousness
13. Different Essentials For Different People
14. God's Sons In All Ages
15. Looking To Lust
16. Divorce Her!
17. "While Her Husband Is Alive"
18. "They Won't Let Me Preach!"
19. God's Perplexing Prophets
20. Religous Titles
21. Who Sinned?
22. "I'll Join Your Church"
23. The Church As The Route To Heaven
24. One Hundred Years Old
25. Can Our Churches Unite?
26. Can The Cause Of Sickness Be The Cure?
27. When Life Begins
28. Abortion: Law Or Principle?
29. Human Chattel
30. The Hope of Israel
31. The Great Temptation of Jesus
32. The Rich Man And Lazarus
33. My Hermeneutic
34. Is Immersion Proved By Example?
35. Who Gets The Credit?
36. Hook's Points
37. Heresy
38. I Am A Debtor

Other Books at Freedom's Ring

In discussions concerning marriage, divorce, and remarriage, Paul's explanation in Romans 7:1-3 has been both misunderstood and misused. From it some students conclude that there is no condition which makes divorce and remarriage acceptable. Other persons allow for divorce under certain conditions but they contend that a subsequent marriage would be sinful.

Let me direct your attention to a few points about this passage which often are overlooked. Sometimes we become so confused by our boggling explanations that we fail to see some of the plainest teachings.

In the Revised Standard Version the passage reads: "Do you not know, brethren___for I am speaking to those who know the law___that the law is binding on a person only during his life? Thus a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies she is discharged from the law concerning the husband. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress."

Paul has much to say about the Law of Moses in the Roman epistle. In this setting he is using a point about marriage as an illustration. He is not stating all of the regulations that may pertain to marriage, but he is teaching that a Jew could accept Christ without disrespecting or violating the Law of Moses. That is simple enough until we get hung up on quibbles.

Under the law a woman could not divorce her husband; so, she was bound to him generally. Does that mean that she could never be divorced with permission to remarry? It does not!

Paul was addressing "those who know the law." What did the law say? In Deuteronomy 24:1-4 it clearly states that a man could give his wife a bill of divorce and send her out of his house. Thus she was freed from the man so that she could become the wife of another man. God put that provision in the Law because of "your hardness of heart" (Matt. 19:3-9). In those times when a woman could hardly make her own way alone in their society, it would have been hard-hearted to drive her out with no permission to find another man to provide for her.

Did the law demand that she continue to consider herself to be that man's wife after he divorced her? No. Was she branded as an adulteress when she married another man? No. Was her second union an unlawful situation rather than really being a marriage? No, for she became "another man's wife," not a live-in. Marriage partners do not commit adultery with one another.

Was this remarried woman living with, or married to, "another man while her husband is alive"? She was not! She had no husband at the time she became another man's wife. After her husband gave her a bill of divorce, he was no longer her husband. He is then referred to as her "former husband." He became an ex-husband from whom she was free with the privilege of becoming another man's wife.

If a husband found an "indecency," or an "unseemly thing," in his wife, he could divorce her, according to the Law of Moses (Deut. 24:1-4). Whether this was something genetic (kinship), bad manners, or immoral conduct, the cause for the divorce lay in her. (Evidently, the problem was not a sexual sin against her husband; adultery was a cause for stoning rather than divorce.) Did this flaw in her make her the "guilty party"? Even though the grounds for the divorce were in her (and it was not "for fornication"!), upon being given a certificate of divorce by her husband, she became loosed from him and was free to become the wife of another man___the "guilty party" remarrying! "Knowing the law," Jesus was recognizing, explaining, and reinforcing this Mosaic passage in Matthew 19:3-9. "Knowing the law," Paul was not contradicting it.

Paul's illustration in Romans 7 deals with bigamy or living with two men at one time. She already has one husband when she takes a second man to live with also. Under the law a man could practice bigamy without commiting adultery against his wife, but a woman did not enjoy a comparable privilege. Paul states that "she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive," but if her husband dies, "and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress."

Divorce is not a factor discussed in this passage. The general concept of marriage is being used as an illustration to teach the Jews that one could accept Christ without violating another relationship with God through law.

Paul's explanation in Romans 7:4-6 takes a surprising twist. We expect him to declare that the law was dead, but he does not! It is not the husband (law) that died to free the wife from the law of her husband. The wife died! "The law is binding on a person only during his life" (v. 1). Under the law she could not put her husband away; so, she freed herself from him by dying while he yet lived! (Later, the law/husband "is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away" Heb. 8:13.) Paul had explained already in Chapter 6 that the believers had died with Christ and, in so doing, the disciples had died to law. They looked to law no more for justification for "The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ."

So, rather than giving a discourse on marriage here, Paul is assuring disciples that when they died with Christ for their justification they freed themselves from law as another source of it.

We should uphold all of God's law with fervor, but our zeal must not lead us to bind restrictions where God has not. The road to heaven has enough discouragements without having an extra yoke laid on us by well-meaning men.