Divorce and Remarriage

“It was said, ‘Whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce’; but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”  Matt 5:31-32.

“And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”  Mat 19:9

“In the house the disciples began questioning Him about this again.  And He said to them, ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her; and if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery.”  Mark 10:10-11

“Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries one who is divorced from a husband commits adultery.”  Luke 16:18

“For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband.  So then if, while her husband is living, she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress, but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress, though she is joined to another man.” Romans 7:2-3

Surprisingly, although the Constantinian Hybrid would not allow Jesus’ commands against violence and revenge and to love your enemies to become Civil law, but instead invented the Just War theory to explain away Jesus’ teachings; the Constantinian Hybrid actually adopted Jesus’ commands forbidding divorce and remarriage as the Civil Law.  In fact, the Roman Catholics, still, to this day, teach against the Protestant allowance for divorce and remarriage, although they have tempered that with very liberal usage of annulments.

This adoption of Jesus’ Kingdom commands forbidding divorce and remarriageas Civil Law led to some very strange occurrences throughout Europe.  It was common for men or women in terrible marriages to move hundreds of miles from their hometowns and adopt pseudonyms and a fictional life in order to remarry.  Of course, if the Roman Catholic priests ever became aware of such occurrences they did not hesitate to report the “adulterers” to the Civil Authorities and end these spurious marriages.  By Luther’s day, he was confronted with a German church where drunkenness and adultery abounded.  He looked upon women trapped in abusive marriages with pity.  So, it is no wonder that when Desiderius Erasmus suggested that God did allow freedom from the most abusive marriages that Luther was ultimately persuaded to reject the historical church view and adopt thisprogressive and enlightened understanding.

Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) was the first Reformer to question the historical understanding prohibiting remarriage while the original spouse remained alive.  Erasmus was a Catholic priest and theologian.  Although Catholic, many Protestant reformers were influenced by his writings.  Erasmus’ authority among the Protestant reformers was also enhanced because he was the first to translate and publish the Greek New Testament in 1516.

In 1519, Erasmus wrote a new interpretation on divorce and remarriage in his Annotations on 1 Corinthians 7.  It was a theological, homiletical interpretation, not exegetical.  In other words, Erasmus applied human reasoning to the text rather than allowing the text to be taken literally.  It had humanistic overtones (ie placing man’s needs for happiness in front of obedience to God).  Erasmus taught that love should come before any law on marriage and explained that it was unloving of the church to require married couples to continue in unhappy relationships.  In fact, Erasmus asserted that the church had a duty to deliver members from unhappy marriages.  The two new revolutionary understanding proposed were:  1)  certain marriages should be dissolved and 2)  the “innocent party” should be allowed to remarry:

I record my pity for people who are loosely held together by an unhappy marriage and yet would have no hope of abstaining from fornication if they were released from it.  I want to secure their salvation by some means, nor have I any wish for this to happen without the consent of the church.  I am no innovator.  But it is possible that the spirit of Christ may not have revealed the whole truth to the church all at once.  And while the church cannot make Christ’s decrees of no effect, she can none the less interpret them as may best tend to the salvation of men, relaxing here and drawing tighter there, as time and circumstance may require.  Christ wished that all his people might be perfect, no question of divorce arising among them, and the church has endeavoured to secure this full rigour from everyone.  I am no supporter of divorce.  But how can you be sure that the same church, in her zeal to find a way for the salvation even of weaker brethren, may not think that this is the place for some relaxation?  The Gospel is not superseded; it is adapted by those to whom its application is entrusted, so as to secure the salvation of all men.  My opinion is that we are misusing the interpretation of the gospel principles, with the result that the force of its teaching in our standards of behavior is fading away.  To give an example, Christ so wished his people to abstain from murder that he did not permit men to be angry.  We interpret this as meaning angry without cause.  Likewise Christ so wished his people to abstain from perjury that he forbade an oath of any kind.  This we interpret as meaning that we must not swear without just cause.  In the same way he so much wished them to abstain from divorce that he forbade it altogether. What interpretation the church can put upon this, I do not decide.  I wish she could interpret it so as to promote many men’s salvation.  I do not make any final proposals on this point.  I leave the right of decision to the church and content myself with drawing attention to the point.” (My Dear Erasmus, pp110-111)

Martin Luther was influenced by Erasmus.  Luther argued that since the Old Testament punishment for adultery was death, the “innocent” spouse could consider the “guilty” spouse as dead.  Since, their spouse was “dead”, the “innocent” spouse could remarry.

“The temporal sword and government should therefore still put adulterers to death, for whoever commits adultery has in fact himself already departed and is considered as one dead. Therefore the other (‘the innocent party’) may remarry just as though his spouse had died.” (Martin Luther, The Estate of Marriage in Works 45.32) circa 1515 AD.

John Calvin continued to advance Erasmus’ and Luther’s teachings on divorce and remarriage and further confirm it as a doctrine of the Reformation:

“For, if the adulteress deserve to be punished with death, what purpose does it serve to talk of divorces? But as it was the duty of the husband to prosecute his wife for adultery, in order to purge his house from infamy, whatever might be the result, the husband, who convicts his wife of uncleanness, is here freed by Christ from the bond. It is even possible that, among a corrupt and degenerate people, this crime remained to a great extent unpunished; as, in our own day, the wicked forbearance of magistrates makes it necessary for husbands to put away unchaste wives, because adulterers are not punished. It must also be observed, that the right belongs equally and mutually to both sides, as there is a mutual and equal obligation to fidelity. For, though in other matters the husband holds the superiority, as to the marriage bed, the wife has an equal right: for he is not the lord of his body; and therefore when, by committing adultery, he has dissolved the marriage, the wife is set at liberty.”  John Calvin, Harmony of the Evangelists, Commentary on Math 19:9.  circa 1530 AD.

So, the stage was set and all that was needed was practical application.In 1532, King Henry VIII wanted to divorce his older wife Catherine of Aragon and marry his young lover Ann Boleyn.  The Pope refused to allow him to annul his marriage to Catherine or allow him to remarry Ann Boleyn while Catherine was still alive.  As a result, King Henry VIII promoted Erasmus’ views on divorce and remarriage.  Eventually, Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church, established the Church of England (AKA the Episcopal Church), and remarried Ann Boleyn.  The newly created office of Archbishop of Canterbury was more than happy to overrule the Pope and grant Henry VIII the annulment necessary to marry Ann Boleyn while Catherine was sent into exile.

In 1545, the Catholic Church, at the Council of Trent, renounced the teachings of Erasmus, Luther and Calvin as heretical.  The Catholic Church maintained divorce was allowable where the wife was guilty of porneia (sexual immorality).  The Catholics allowed two types of divorce:  1) separation of bed and board (still one flesh till death) and 2) annulment:  the marriage had been unlawfully contracted to begin with and no marriage had in fact occurred.  Here is what the Catholics said about the Reformer’s divorce and remarriage changes:

“CANON VlI. – If any one saith, that the Church has erred, in that she hath taught, and doth teach, in accordance with the evangelical and apostolical doctrine, that the bond of matrimony cannot be dissolved on account of the adultery of one of the married parties; and that both, or even the innocent one who gave not occasion to the adultery, cannot contract another marriage, during the life-time of the other; and, that he is guilty of adultery, who, having put away the adulteress, shall take another wife, as also she, who, having put away the adulterer, shall take another husband; let him be anathema.”  Council of Trent  AD 1545.

In 1648, the Protestant Reformers responded with their official statement of new doctrines:  called the Westminster Confession.  The Reformers fully embraced Erasmus’ interpretation allowing remarriage while the original spouse remained alive.  Luther’s reasoning that since adulterers were stoned to death in the Old Testament, Christians could consider adulterers as “dead” which would then free the innocent party to remarry became doctrine.

The Westminster Confession defined the doctrines of the Church of England and to a large degree is the heritage of modern Evangelical churches in the United States.  In direct contradiction to the Council of Trent, the Westminster Confession states:

“V. Adultery or fornication committed after a contract, being detected before marriage, gives just occasion to the innocent party to dissolve that contract.  In the case of adultery after marriage, it is lawful for the innocent party to sue out a divorce and, after the divorce, to marry another, as if the offending party were dead.”

From this point on, the vast majority of Protestant denominations accepted the false doctrine that adultery (and more modernly even “desertion” and “irreconcilable differences”) can justify the dissolution of marriage and all parties are free to remarry.

In many ways, Luther could not imagine anything but a homogeneous society; it was the only thing he had ever known or read about in history.  The ANF writings were not available to Luther because most still had not been translated and he had no knowledge of the early church example.  Luther correctly saw the problem:  the many unhappy and abusive marriages within the German churches he oversaw.  He also correctly saw that it could not be God’s plan to force people to stay in these terrible marriages.  However, what he failed to see was the root of the problem.  The root of the problem was the homogeneous society that required all Germans to be Christian.  The alternative composite society, where only the Germans who decided to follow the Lord would be held accountable to His commands about divorce and remarriage was incomprehensible to him.  Although there are stories from early in the Reformation where Luther almost accepted the Anabaptist and Mennonite teachings requiring a composite society.  The Laws of the Lord, although true for all people, were never intended to be enforced on a homogeneous society devoid of choice, but only intended to be enforced on those who choose to obey.