Hardshells & The Adultery Question VIII

"And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery." (Matt. 19: 9 KJV)

Previous Postings

I (here)
II (here)
III (here)
IV (here)
V (here)
VI (here)
VII (here)

Wrote Professor Luck in "The Teaching of Jesus on Divorce — (Matthew 19:3-12, Mark 10:2-12)," installment #7 (see here):

"Actually, the statements in Mark and Luke, when abstracted and considered out of their context, do seem to prohibit all divorce and remarriage, but, when seen in their contexts and in the context of Matthew’s exception clauses, they prohibit only divorces that are ill grounded, i.e., not grounded in porneia."

This is indeed true. The verses in Mark and Luke do "seem" to prohibit all divorce and remarriage. There is no mention of any "exceptions" to the rule in those passages. There is no clause saying "except it be for fornication." Some insist that the absence of any exception clause in the Mark and Luke passages should take precedence over the passages in Matthew five and nineteen (which have the exception clause). These would say that the the exception clause must be interpreted so as to agree with Mark and Luke; And so there ends up really being no exception. Others, like Luck and I, and like most Protestant bible commentators, believe that the Mark and Luke statements are to be viewed by the context of the Matthew passages.

I also agree with Luck that the teachings of Jesus "prohibit only divorces that are ill grounded."

Wrote Luck:

"Unlike Luke 16, and like Matthew 5:32a, Matthew 19:9 specifies the treachery involved by employing the exception clause, namely, the divorcing male does not have Biblical justification (porneia), but only the desire to take another woman which motivates him to put his wife away."

I think that it is the general rule, or common practice. Unlawful divorces are generally the result of not only having coveted freedom from a present spouse but also from coveting another spouse. This treacherous coveting for another marital companion may be directed towards a specific person or it may be directed towards an ideal or imaginary person (that the divorcee expects to find after his or her unjust divorce). Those who unjustly divorce so they can remain single and celibate are few in number. But, even in these cases, the divorcee sees himself or herself as "free to play the field," and so the adulterous divorce in this case is shown to be the result of an imagined and desired sexual union, being the thing which motivates the divorce seeker.

Wrote Luck:

"If a man divorces his wife, without the proper grounds of porneia, he is guilty of adultery. Whether or not a remarriage takes place is incidental."

I don't think that the word "incidental" is the right word here. It is true that unjust divorce is an act of adultery, and that this is so by itself, not requiring an unjust remarriage to make the divorce adulterous. Remarriages that result from plans formulated by treacherous spouses are identified by Christ as being adulterous; And, as we have seen, such remarriages are single acts of adultery, and not a continuing state of sin. The act of marrying that is particularly condemned is that marriage which occurs between the adulterous divorcer and the proverbial "homewrecker." The words of Jesus do not condemn all remarriages by those who have unjustly divorced their spouses, but as Luck says, it does condemn those of the third party "homewrecker."

Wrote Luck:

"We cannot jump to the hasty conclusion that Jesus is completely condemning the second marriage."

Exactly. And yet, this is exactly what so many do. My father did so. Many Hardshells and others also. The amount of grief that such a position has given to men and women in second marriages is great indeed.

Wrote Luck:

"I prefer to see the presence of the second conditional as an identification of the reason for the unjust divorce. It is the person who is divorcing and remarrying as a united action who is committing adultery. We might even say that the divorce has not been properly grounded upon occurrence of fornication in the marriage; this man has put away his valid wife “for the purpose of marrying another woman.” This conjecture is supported by two considerations. First, this places it clearly in the category of the divorce situation that most recent, previous Scriptural teaching, Malachi 2, addressed, namely men divorcing their proper wives to marry others (“women of the land”). The only difference is that the specific objects of remarriage in Malachi’s day were illicit per se according to Exodus and Deuteronomy. As we noted in chapter 4, the reference to Abraham in the Malachi 2 passage affirms that these Hebrews could have taken these women as concubines (as Hagar had been), thus sort of half-wives, without moral stigma. The point of the Malachi passage is that the abiding sin is the rejection of the valid partner. This is to say, the problem is the divorce itself. So too here, it is not the remarriage itself that is the problem. The immorality only occurs because the first wife has been unjustly divorced (a point that Matthew notes and the other Gospel writers choose to omit)."

Again, I find these comments "spot on" and in need of little comment from me.

The Meaning of "And" ('kai')

Wrote Luck:

"Second, it is not improper to find in the meaning of the connector “and” (kai) the idea of “for the purpose of.” And the idea of immediate connection (ignoring the parenthetical exception clause, which could not be put elsewhere) seems clear in the combining of the conditions in the protasis that precedes any moral condemnation in the apodosis. The condemned action is again like that of Herod. He divorced his valid partner to marry Herodias. And so it often happens, especially where men do the divorcing. They often wish to devote themselves to only one woman (or more commonly the woman wishes the man to so devote himself), and so they treacherously put away the rightful partner to achieve the desired monogamous relationship. It is the case that, since the man promised to continuously provide for his valid partner, this putting away is itself adulterous. This is doubtless Paul’s point in 1 Corinthians 7 when he instructs the treacherous partner to remain unmarried or be reconciled."

I do agree with Luck on the meaning of "kai" in the adulterous remarriage passages.

Wrote Luck:

"...the “Kai” clause, “and marries another” intends to identify, by means of an ongoing narrative, the direction of the male’s actions." 

Again, I think that is right.

Wrote Luck:

"By telling us that the divorcing man is a man who is remarrying another woman, the text means for us to understand that he put away his wife for the purpose of marrying a second woman."

Again, I feel certain that this is correct, though missed by many.

Wrote Luck:

"Please note that it is not so much that the lexical meaning of kai denotes “for the purpose of as much as its presence in the flow of the discussion presents us with a narrative explanation of why the first, unjustified divorce occurred. It would be like my saying, “Any man who bears witness against his neighbor without cause and enjoys the effects of the perjury breaks the commandment” (Proverbs 24:28). Or, “Whoever steals his neighbor’s property and makes use of it is guilty of theft.” In both cases the enjoyment of the neighbor’s loss is only incidental information to the real moral point: the real sin is in the initial act, not the subsequent gratification the sin affords."

Agreed.

Wrote Luck:

"Indeed, these illustrations do not really tell the whole story, for if it is/were morally permissible for the man in question to take a second wife anyway, then the sin only (illicitly) enhanced a moral option, whereas in the illustrations, the enjoyment was only possible via an act of sin. Be this as it may, we cautiously conclude that remarriages that are not the goal of the divorce, that is, a part of the combined action of divorcing and remarrying, may be permissible—all other things (e.g., the belief of the potential partner) being equal."

Again, I think this is correct.

Wrote Luck:

"Finally, it is worth noting that the present indicative form of the offense term ("is committing adultery"), is not to be over-read to imply that the sin of adultery is endless. As with all sins, it continues until repentance occurs. Paul will later (1 Cor. 6:9-11) identify certain sins which the Corinthians had committed, but quickly add that such sinners they used to be, but now are not, insofar as they have been cleansed by Christ’s blood. The sin of adultery committed by a treacherous husband is not unpardonable nor indefinitely ongoing simply because the present indicative form is used. That form merely conveys the idea that the sin is ongoing. And it is ongoing until it stops. It stops with repentance. It is just as wrong to insist that the present indicative in this saying implies endless action regarding adultery as it would be to say that Jesus’ very speaking of the saying (the present active indicative, lego, which begins verse 19:9) is endless. Jesus didn’t keep on speaking the saying, He was saying it once."

This has been my leading contention against the notion that an adulterous marriage is endless or ongoing as long as the marriage remains.

Wrote Luck:

"When the covenant is broken by an action such as “fornication,” the divorce does not “sunder” the bond, the action itself has. If there is not such sundering prior to it, then the legal divorce is itself the sundering—is a treachery, is adultery."

I argued the same to my father many years ago.

Under the caption "THE REVERSAL CLAUSE," Luck wrote in commentary upon the words of the remaining text that says: “and if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery.”

Wrote Luck:

"This addition might seem especially applicable for disciples who would soon be “discipling” the nations, teaching them whatsoever I taught you.” However, the Herodias case, in which she divorced Philip using Roman law, certainly made this saying relevant to Jewish ears even at that point. Nonetheless, women divorcing men was rare in Israel, and for Jesus to have brought this point up in front of the Pharisees would only have put the subject off on a sidetrack. The point would have been clear to such teachers, but they would likely have been scrambling for “debater’s points” after being so thoroughly silenced by Jesus."

The teaching of Jesus spoke of the sin of adultery for both men and women.

Wrote Luck:

"The question arises, however, as with the man, when exactly does her sin of adultery happen. Does it happen as a result of her remarriage? This is the common assumption. Again I must disagree. Adultery only exists if there is a covenant. If the woman divorces her husband in order to marry another man, she ends the covenant. For her, as for him, an unjust divorce is the sundering of the marriage covenant. God has been a witness to their marriage, and neither party has the right to unilaterally end it. If either party does, that party sunders the marriage by the divorce action. And that goes for the woman as well."

Again, this is what I believe is the proper interpretation of the words of our Lord.

Wrote Luck:

"It is to be remembered that though Jesus does not discuss it, Exodus 21 teaches that there are valid reasons for a wife becoming free from her husband. Whether she divorced him or he was forced to end the legalities (as in Exodus) in such instances, the covenant was ended in the eyes of God when he abused her. Thus, Jesus could have said, “If a woman divorces her husband, except on the grounds of abuse, and marries another, she commits adultery.” But the issue of a woman’s grounds never came up and the Old Testament position rules. This means that, as with the man who had no grounds, her adultery happens when she separates from her husband—at the divorce. It is not her remarriage which constitutes the adultery, because she is no longer bound by covenant to him."

Again, that has been the my position for over thirty years.