But the man who commits adultery is an utter fool, for he destroys himself.
Proverbs 6:32, NLT
When I first discovered the Other Man, my righteous anger burned hot against him!
I really wanted to mess him up in that moment of discovery. He had defiled my marriage with my wife. Raped my soul!
Then I engaged my brain with the help of my divorce attorney reminding me to not do anything stupid. My anger towards the Other Man started to subside as I realized how he was just a foolish pawn in my (now ex) wife’s wicked game.
It is easier to focus all our fury upon the third party than to accept the truth that our spouse is really the responsible one here for allowing this person into the marriage bed.
That is not to absolve the third party of sin. They are absolutely guilt of adultery just as the cheating spouse is.
However, I think we focus upon the third party because we do not want to confront the reality of who are (soon to be ex) spouse is. We rather think someone else coerced them into this dastardly behavior than accept that they chose it and maybe even played a leading role in it.
That is a harsh reality.
Add to that the idea of distrusting ourselves for choosing to marry a person capable of such treachery, and it makes sense we sometimes prefer demonizing the third party over accepting the dark realities regarding our own spouse.
But I encourage you to face reality. The third party is absolutely wrong and in sin by having sex with your spouse.
However, you are not married to this third party!
You are married to your cheater partner. He (or she) is the one who promise fidelity to you and broke it.
Your anger is better spent focused there on your treacherous spouse as a means to constructively insist on repentance and/or to leave this abusive relationship via divorce.
Greetings David.
I was wondering if you could help explain the use of the word “logos” in Matt 5:32.
Mat 5:32 …saving for the causeG3056 of fornication,G4202 (for a word or report of prostitution).
The same word is found 3 times in Deut 22, the betrothal chapter.
Deu_22:13-21 And if anyone should take a wife, and dwell [συνοικήσῃ] with her, and hate her, 14 and attach [ἐπιθῇ] to her reproachful [προφασιστικοὺς] words [λόγους (logous)], and bring against [κατενέγκῃ] her an evil name [ὄνομα πονηρὸν], and say [λέγῃ (legē)], I took this woman, and when I came to her I found not her tokens of virginity [παρθένια]; 15 then the father and the mother of the young woman [παιδὸς] shall take and bring out [ἐξοίσουσιν] the young woman’s tokens of virginity to the elders of the city to the gate. 16 And the father of the young woman [παιδὸς] shall say [ἐρεῖ] to the elders, I gave this my daughter to this man for a wife; 17 and now he has hated her, and attaches [ἐπιτίθησιν] reproachful [προφασιστικοὺς] words [λόγους (logous)] to her, saying [λέγων (legōn)], I have not found tokens of virginity with your daughter; and these are the tokens of my daughter’s virginity. And they shall unfold [ἀναπτύξουσιν] the garment [ἱμάτιον] before the elders of the city. 18 And the elders of that city shall take that man, and shall chastise [παιδεύσουσιν] him, 19 and shall fine him a hundred shekels, and shall give them to the father of the young woman [νεάνιδος], because he has brought forth [ἐξήνεγκεν] an evil name [ὄνομα πονηρὸν] against a virgin of Israel; and she shall be his wife: he shall never be able to put her away [ἐξαποστεῖλαι]. 20 But if this report [ὁ λόγος (ho logos)] be [γένηται] true, and the tokens of virginity are not found for the young woman [νεάνιδι]; 21 then shall they bring out [ἐξάξουσιν] the young woman [νεᾶνιν] to the doors of her father’s house, and* shall stone [λιθοβολήσουσιν] her with stones [ἐν λίθοις], and she shall die [ἀποθανεῖται]; because [ὅτι] she has wrought [ἐποίησεν] folly [ἀφροσύνην] among the children of Israel, to defile** the house of her father by harlotry [ἐκπορνεῦσαι (ekporneusai)]: so you shall remove [ἐξαρεῖς] the evil one [τὸν πονηρὸν] from [ἐξ] among you.
The story we have of Joseph having the option to divorce Mary during their betrothal period brings the Matthew 5 and 19, and the Deut 22 scripture, into light. I realize this doesn’t apply to any of us any longer since we don’t follow Jewish betrothal traditions anyway, but this clearly doesn’t seem to apply to adultery after a covenant marriage has been established.
I do know that God divorces Israel for her idolatry (adultery is the marriage language term used) with Baal.
Jer 3:8 And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce;
Yet, in v1, God does away with Deut 24…makes it moot…invalidates it.
Jer 3:1 They say (in Deut 24:1-4), If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man’s, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the LORD.
In v1, God says she is not defiled for Him and He seeks her return.
…followed by the kicker in v.14
Jer 3:14 Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you:
Just 6 verses prior, God divorces her, yet here He says that He is still married to her. He makes clear that a divorce doesn’t end His covenant promises to her, even for her adultery.
John Baptist was beheaded for referring to Herodias as Philip’s wife, even though she and Herod Antipas had divorced their spouses and “married” each other.
How are we to reconcile that? God says He is still married after a divorce for adultery, and John was beheaded for saying the same thing.
Jesus didn’t agree with the school of Shammai, that adultery was cause for adultery. Nor did he agree with Hillel that we could divorce for any reason (my wife would be of the Hillel school of thought). He shook off both schools and returned marriage to its origins, that marriage results in a one flesh relationship that is only separated at death (as are all covenants). Jesus (and Paul) refers to those who have remarried after a divorce as an adulterer, if the covenant spouse is still living. They also make it clear that anyone who marries someone who is divorced, is considered an adulterer. That is not how I want Jesus to view me.
I suppose I’m in a grace quagmire, of some sort. The promise of the new covenant says..
Eze 36:27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
God promises to Cause us to walk in his (marriage) statutes (one flesh for life) and we shall keep and do his judgments (even if it goes against our fleshly desires). How can God NOT see it as rebellion by my seeking a new partner while my covenant spouse is still living?
Your advice is appreciated.
Two points:
1) I would say that the Mt 1:19 passage is VERY applicable to situations where adultery has occurred. It wasn’t just a report of promiscuity. Mary was pregnant! Plus, the fact that they required a divorce to end the betrothal suggests the relationship is more analogous to modern marriage than modern engagement periods.
2) I would disagree that Jesus was rejecting the school of Shammai’s position. The Matthew passages use the word “Porneia,” which includes adultery and all other sorts of sexual immorality as cause for a divorce. Jesus did not come to abolish the Law, and the Law is clear that the marriage is over when adultery has occurred (see Deut. 22:22 and Lev. 20:10).
It makes more sense to me that Jesus does not identify adultery specifically as exceptions in the other Gospels (than Matthew) as divorce over adultery was not really even up for debate as both factions–Hillel and Shammai–were in agreement on that.
As a general rule, I would question anyone’s interpretation of Scripture that replaces mercy for victims with cruelty. That is how I see a hard-nosed refusal to allow adultery victims to divorce. It keeps them in a situation of abuse. And, IMO, it exchanges the Old Testament Law for an even more extreme and harsh law for the victims of the sin. That seems out of character for the God I serve.
-DM
David, Thanks for the reply. I appreciate it. It is romantic to believe God allows us out of a covenant marriage if we are the victims. The perpetrators who cheated on us would say the same thing, in that they believe the same, loving God wouldn’t want them to stay in a marriage they deem as unhappy. By grace, they say, their sins are forgiven and divorce isn’t the unforgivable sin. By grace, we say, they broke covenant and God wouldn’t want us to be punished if they’re going to get away with it and be happy with their new mate. We surely have the right to a new mate, too. I think Peter said the cloak of grace doesn’t give us license to sin. Jer 3:14 shows us the character of the God we serve. He says He is still married to her, even after He divorces her.
I think we should use the easy-to-understand words of Jesus first, then work our way to make the more difficult consistent. The Matthean “exception” is simply a parenthetical phrase. If we removed it, as Mark 10 and Luke 16 both do, the teaching is the same.
Mar 10:11 And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, commits (present tense, continuous) adultery against her.
Mar 10:12 And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she commits (present tense, continuous) adultery.
Luk 16:18 Whosoever puts away his wife, (no parenthetical exception here) and marries another, commits adultery: and whosoever marries her that is put away from her husband commits adultery.
Luke’s account of Jesus’ words affect me. Luke says that whoever marries ME is an adulterer, as I am the one who was put away. Here, Luke affirms that marrying me causes the new wife to be an adulterer, intimating that my yoke to my covenant wife is still in tact, just as Jeremiah 3:14 described it with God.
From the Greek of Matt 19:9, it reads almost exactly the same…But I say to you, that one may divorce his wife only upon prostitution [or fornication – sex by an unmarried person]. And the one who marries another is committing adultery. And anyone who marries her who is divorced is committing adultery.
Matt 19 shows that once the yoke is made by God, divorce and remarriage are both off the table as options. Even if we don’t believe Jesus’ words to be truthful, even a little literary integrity can see that a conclusion based on Mat 19:9 that contradicts Mat 5:32 is flawed. Are you willing to submissively quote the marriage teaching along with Mark and Luke, and believe that it is still perfectly true, with no critical need to “clarify” or embellish something to give people a way to escape the charge of adultery for remarriage?
I wonder, sometimes, if this was Paul’s thorn in the flesh…that he had been married in his past and she either abandoned him for his faith, or divorced him for it. He seems to speak of it (marriage) with affection and even longing.
Thanks for the forum to question. Praying over you,
B
B,
I think we may simply disagree over the interpretation of these texts.
Personally, I have a hard time accepting a more legalistic view of the marriage covenant in the New Testament than in the Old Testament where adultery was always grounds for ending it. Furthermore, “porneia” denotes far more than just fornication.
All that said, I have no problem with people following their own convictions on these matters. Ours do not seem to align. That is okay.
-DM