One In Jesus

Q.       What about a couple who don’t violate the marriage covenant but who find they can’t stand each other? Sometimes couples grow apart. How does this answer their needs?

A.       I’m no marriage counselor, but I have run into people who clearly made a mistake in marrying each other. Sometimes they love each other but can’t stand to be around each other.

I think most couples who consider themselves incompatible are wrong. In fact, they’re usually too lazy to work through their problems — but they could. Or they may just not realize that it’s possible to mature and change to make things work. It really is true that many marriages fail purely from lack of motivation to make the sacrifice marriage requires. Continue reading →

Q.       Doesn’t your teaching encourage divorce? Wouldn’t we better off with the traditional view?

A.       The same question may be phrased this way: Isn’t it dangerous to teach grace? Wouldn’t we be better off telling our members they’ll go to hell if they sin? Doesn’t grace encourage sin?

In short, the wisdom of God is that grace, combined with the influence of the indwelling Spirit, will do more to prevent sin than all the condemnation we can possibly visit on our members. Grace frees but grace also strengthens and encourages and helps us obey. I don’t really understand it, but I’ve tried it both ways, and on the whole, the grace-filled Christians live far holier lives than their legalistic brothers.

Besides, as Christians have a divorce rate just as high as the world’s, I don’t see how we can do much worse. Continue reading →

Well, I decided I wasn’t digressing. It’s imperative that we give more thought to the relationship of grace to our teaching on divorce and remarriage. The two doctrines must fit together tightly.

Sometimes we unconsciously teach two different doctrines of grace. There’s the generous version of grace and the not-so-generous version of grace. Let’s call them big-grace and small-grace.

When we’re sensitized to the evil of a particular sin, we tend to impose certain small-grace doctrines. We say that the sin can’t be forgiven until it’s been repented of. And repentance requires that the sin no longer be committed. We have to have eliminated the sin from our life. In fact, we have to even undo all the harm our sin caused, if we can. Hence, we’re lost until repentance is utterly complete. Continue reading →

I’ve taught this material several times now, and one of the most frequent objections is what I call the repentance argument. It goes like this: to be forgiven, one must repent. To repent, one must give up the fruits of sin.

At this point, reference is made to several examples in scriptures of sinners who had been thieves and upon being converted, gave back what they had stolen. From these examples, it is concluded that forgiveness cannot be had without giving up the fruits of sin. Therefore, one cannot be saved when in a wrongful marriage: that marriage must first be given up. That is, the wife or husband wrongly gained must be divorced. Logical?[1]

Now here are the problems with that argument:

1.     Nowhere does scripture teach that one must give up the fruits of sin to be converted. We have several examples of those who gave up what they stole, but no such “law” is ever stated. And it’s a good thing. What about the indigent person who stole and wishes to find conversion. What if he doesn’t have any money to pay back? Does he have to earn back what he stole before being baptized?

2.     There is a much more fundamental point here. The argument equates people with things. I really can give back what I stole, provided I still have it. But I can’t give someone back his wife. I can divorce her, but I can’t make her love or remarry her former husband. She is a person with free will, not a thing to be “stolen” or “returned.” Most of us got over that kind of thinking during high school.

3.     This people/thing distinction is evident from other examples. Suppose that I commit fornication with a woman and she becomes pregnant. How do I get forgiveness? By undoing the pregnancy, that is, inducing her to get an abortion? Surely we can agree that two wrongs don’t make a right. I can’t hurt other people to gain my salvation. And why is it that divorce is wrong? Because it hurts other people! And second divorces are just as unloving as first divorces.

When you are willing to tell me to have an abortion to be forgiven of fornication, then you may tell me to be divorced to be forgiven of a wrongful earlier divorce.

Finally, recall the story of David and Bathsheba. God forgave David’s sin and even made their second son, Solomon, king, clearly acknowledging Solomon’s birth as legitimate. Clearly, God considered Solomon to be of legitimate birth. Indeed, Matthew emphasizes this point in giving Jesus’ genealogy:

David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife.[2]

Why didn’t David have to give up Bathsheba as his wife if forgiveness requires giving up what was gained by sin?

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1. This argument is nearly foundational for those who insist on denying baptism to those divorced and remarried. See, for example, Behold the Pattern by Goebel Music.

2. Matthew 1:6.