Re: Matt 19:9 & the Gnomic Present Tense

From: dixonps@juno.com
Date: Tue Oct 12 1999 - 11:26:11 EDT


On Tue, 12 Oct 1999 09:07:27 -0500 Steven Craig Miller
<scmiller@www.plantnet.com> writes:

> Furthermore, what is adultery? Adultery can only take place when a
> married person has sexual relations with someone other than their
spouse.
> Two unmarried people cannot commit adultery. Adultery is a violation of

> a marriage. Without a marriage, there cannot be adultery! The point of
> the Matthean Jesus' saying at Mt 19:9 (in the context of Mt 19:3-9) is
> that the first marriage (even after a divorce, although with exception)
is
> still binding, thus any sexual relationship with anyone else is
adultery!
> Implicit is that idea that it must continue to be adultery as long
> as the first spouse is alive. The notion that one ONLY commits adultery

> during the re-marriage ceremony, and that afterwards the second
marriage is
> free from adultery, has no merit from this text. The reasoning at Mt
19:3-9 is
> very clear, namely a divorced remarried person "lives in adultery"
> (because it violates the first marriage).

If, then, a man divorces his wife, not for fornication, and remarries,
then he is living in adultery as long as he is remarried (according
to your view). If so, then what should he do to correct this? Leave
the second marriage (it is that, according to Deut 24) and go back
to his true wife? As Charles pointed out, this is forbidden in the
same passage (v. 4).

Should he leave the second wife and remain single? The Deut 24
passage seems to recognize the second marriage (if the latter
husband detests her and writes her a certificate of divorce, v. 3).
If so, then the laws of divorce apply here as well. He is forbidden
from divorcing her.

Where does that leave us? Apparently trapped in an adulterous
relationship with no rightful course of action.

I don't think so.

Paul Dixon

I think we are agreed that the man who divorces his wife, not for
fornication, should not remarry. If he does, he commits adultery.

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