Jesus and Bible .com

WHAT JESUS SAID: 

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"For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." 2 Cor 11:2

 

In Matthew 5:32 and Matthew 19:9 Jesus used the inspired Greek word “porneia” (which in context without doubt means fornication) as the ONLY reason to divorce. By saying this Jesus is teaching that both men and women should STAY VIRGINS before marriage. This is called the “Matthean Clause” by theologists. I will soon show a list of people who CAN legitimately divorce because of this teaching of Jesus. It does NOT mean you can divorce for adultery! 

But by saying marriage is for life, this also means that under the Law of Jesus you are not allowed to pass yourself off as never having married, after a divorce,  when in the eyes of God your first marriage STILL STANDS. Therefore frivolously marrying someone without asking about their past is unbiblical, and can have consequences. In this teaching of Jesus marrying a divorcee is on the same level as an illegal bigamous marriage, in fact divorce and remarriage IS BIGAMY in God’s eyes in the new covenant.

 

WHAT MODERN FALSE PASTORS AND THEOLOGISTS SAY: 

 

Modern false teachers totally reverse the intentions of Jesus! They say the word “porneia” means either “unfaithfulness” or “sexual immorality” or “adultery” or “immorality” or “lewdness” or “whoredom”, but by saying this their teaching is the polar OPPOSITE of Jesus, as they teach that marriage is not for life, but that man can tear it asunder,  ending marriage by an act of post marital adultery,

and sometimes bizarrely they teach that any sexual reason no matter how comparatively trivial can end a marriage, that in the ancient marriage vows was declared as a life long union, which only death could end.

 

THE "GET OUT OF MARRIAGE FREE CARD"

According to many phoney modern pastors if a Christian man's wife commits adultery, he is in effect handed by her a "Get Out of Marriage Free Card". He is supposed to be able to keep having sex with her, and then keep his eye open for a nice new Christian wife, and if he sees a woman who attracts him, say to his wife "You committed adultery 3 years ago against me" and divorce her, having used her as a sex object (playing his" Get Out of Marriage Free Card). You never hear the bible say a principle of being allowed to remarry if you don't have sex with her after discovery of adultery, but you cannot remarry if you do have sex with her after discovery of her infidelity. This is because the principle taught in scripture is she commits adultery if she remarries, and if that applies to her it applies to you too!

 

 

WHAT CULTS AND SECTS TEACH:

 

Cults and sects are often so embroiled in “proving” they are right about a multiplicity of minor, or controversial issues of doctrine, and exalt these topics to such a status of importance, they often treat the subject of adultery by second marriage as if it was some unimportant side issue that bears no relevance to the purity of their beliefs. This is very welcome among apostate divorcees, who seek to reestablish some religious credibility in their lives by being warmed into the tribalism of a sect, that is willing to turn a blind eye to their divorces and sins, and will even let them marry virgins in their various sects, often to extract their donations and their tithe money from them. 

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ILLEGITIMATE

In the old testament the "seed of a bastard" was not allowed into the house of God for 10 generations! (If that was not an incentive to stay a virgin before marriage, what was?). It might be argued (by some) however that God modified this law when he said later 

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THEY HAVE CHANGED THE BIBLE:

AND ADDED SATANIC FOOTNOTES IN THE MODERN VERSIONS:

 

The Greatest scholars from all over Britain who wrote the King James Version of the Holy Bible translated the Greek word “porneia” as “fornication.” They were absolutely right to do this! It is in fact IMPOSSIBLE for the word porneia to include or mean “post marital adultery”. That is because with ALL the legal paperwork for a DIVORCE and a REMARRIAGE God still says the guilty party is continually committing adultery, as is further shown in Romans 7:1-4 and 1 Cor 7:10-11. And if the guilty party is committing ADULTERY, that proves 2 things:

• That adultery does NOT break the marriage bond.

• That the innocent party is as unable to marry as the guilty party, as they are BOTH still seen as married by God.

 

Here is what the bible should really say, as seen in the KJV Bible:

 

“But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.”                Matthew 5:32

 

“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.”     Matthew 19:9 

 

Therefore as the adultery is continuous for the guilty party, it proves that adultery never breaks the marriage bond in a first marriage, of which the bible says  “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” The ancient marriage vows do not say “till divorce us do part”. Only death parts two believers in a marriage (Romans 7). These ancient marriage vows are being effectively scrapped as heretical by these false modern teachers of laxity, and all the ancient boundary stones of morality are being moved, buried or broken apart.

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ANOTHER EXAMPLE of "porneia" in context

Another example where the word "porneia" is modified by the context in which it is used, is in Revelation 17, where the Whore of Babylon is said to be committing "fornication" or "porneia". It is the same word, however as the Whore of Babylon is not married to God, the context negates the word from meaning "adultery" and modifies it in context to refer to "fornication" as the KJV rightly translates it into the English language. Even so in Matthew 5:32 and Matthew 19:9 "porneia"simply cannot mean post marital adultery in context, the KJV writers saw this and translated it as "fornication". To try to deny this I have seen people try to say the  Ancient Greek ἀκολασία (akolasía) and say it would have been used instead of that is what Jesus meant, but this word means "debauchery". In the old testament when Israel worshipped idols under trees it was called "adultery" by God, as she was married to God at the time of committing this spiritual adultery. Not so with the Whore of Rome, who is not God;s bride. So in Matthew 5:32 and Matthew 19:9 it refers to something before the wedding ceremony, not after it, like a woman claiming to be a virgin but it becomes obvious on the marriage bed from her anatomy she has already had a baby.

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"CAUSES HER TO COMMIT ADULTERY"

 

Notice also that the clause “causeth her to commit adultery” shows that the marriage for life doctrine, stops the tactic of divorcing a doctrinally unwary spouse, who might marry out of human weakness and a need for companionship, and then declaring that “he or she committed adultery by doing that, I am therefore free to marry” but was in reality a satanic manipulation, where the person who divorced the spouse bears responsibility. So for a SECOND TIME Jesus declares it adultery, showing that adultery is therefore NOT breaking the marriage bond as it is continuous. 

This teaching of Jesus also shows that a Christian must NEVER divorce their Christian spouse, as even if they plan not to remarry, they "cause" the other person to commit adultery by remarrying.

 

LUKE AND MARK

In the other two synoptic gospels, Mark (Mark 10) and Luke (Luke 16), the clause concerning fornication does not exist. Jesus outright states in Luke and Mark divorce and remarriage is simply adultery in his NEW teaching, the law that will be sealed as new covenant law after the blood of Calvary is spilt and the resurrection completed. To say that porneia (in Matthew’s Gospel) means or includes post marital adultery is therefore making a mockery of the teachings of Jesus in Mark and Luke, rendering them utterly misleading if God was supposed to mean the opposite of what was stated. Jesus in other words in all places other than the clause in Matthew is PLAINLY and SOLIDLY teaching that only death breaks the marriage bond, and the clause “except it be for fornication” in fact CONSOLIDATES marriage for life, but teaches us the OPPOSITE of post marital sexual sin as allowing divorce, rather teaching us to keep virginity before marriage, and not to lie to your intended spouse about being a virgin.

 

IS PUTTING AWAY DIVORCE?

In the preceding verses of the gospels Jesus makes divorce and putting away synonymous, and even the Pharisees did not seek to be pedantic about this, also making the issue synonymous, quote: "And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away." and further the question of the Pharisees was also about specifically "divorce". By doing this Jesus ensures that anyone trying to be pedantic about the legal process is refuted. However just as the inclusion of the clause "except it be for fornication" in the Matthean clause, is used by heretics and compromisers to totally reverse the teachings of Jesus in Mark and Luke, when it is meant to strengthen it by directing people to stay virgins before marriage (a healthy as well as spiritual teaching) heretics love to imply Jesus said nothing about divorce at all by refusing the see that any kind of divorce and remarriage paperwork applies. This includes cults like the Hebrew Roots Cult, also known as "the doctrines of devils cult". Such heretical cults will also often say heresies like "only their clergy have the power to legally marry two people", and both partners must be of their cult or again it is a "pretense marriage" (as old calendarist Eastern Orthodox heretics would say). This would mean every child on Earth was born a bastard except those in their cult, and is a farce. They might even demonically use that bogus teaching to void as non existent former marriages of people in their sects or cults, in order to validate adulterous second marriages, by insisting the first marriage was simply fornication.  They are effctively trying to say Jesus taught nothing on divorce.

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THE VERY STRICT INTERPRETATION

WHAT DOES ESPOUSED MEAN?

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"To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary."

 

so..... was Jesus conceived in or out of wedlock?

 

There is a far stricter interpretation of Matthew 5:32 than mine is. My interpretation is the clause "except it be for fornication" applies now to modern marriage. But there is another much stricter interpretation that says The "except it be for fornication" clause is one that applied to Jewish law only. To cut a long story short they believe the Matthean Clause is in modern times all but dead, and if a spouse says they are a virgin, and you marry them, and the woman (for example) has VD sores all over her private parts, or clearly from her physical anatomy has already had a baby, or is actually pregnant with another mans child and is only now "showing", you are stuck with the marriage for life, and you can either have sex with her or not, its still marriage for life. Whereas my interpretation is the Matthean clause applies now, and if you find out your wife lied about her virginity you can divorce her if discovered before consummation.

 

If this stricter version is true, I am preaching adultery by allowing divorce and remarriage in this way, so it would be and is a mega serious theory to consider.

 

The two theories hang on the interpretation (as well) of what "one flesh" means. This strict interpretation says as soon as you mouth the words "I do" and complete the oath, you suddenly become mystically one flesh. My view is it is at consummation you become one flesh, and then this mystical union takes place.

 

The stricter interpretation is, I believe, empowering liars to lie their way into a marriage for life, and removes a safeguard God put in place. Various ways therefore must be found by the "strict school" to talk around 1 Cor 6, where it says intercourse with a harlot makes you "one flesh", which is talking about the physical event of sex, but is definitely not saying "sex = marriage".

 

If the word espoused is a direct equivalent only of modern engagement, then there is a direct equivalent of that today, and thus saying it died out is a contradiction. However it seems to me entirely stupid to say "if you are engaged to be married now, you can only call off the wedding for undisclosed fornication." It seems to me betrothal or espousal was therefore considered a form of marriage, and if it was it is once again equivalent to my teaching that you can (for instance) divorce your wife if she lied about virginity and you prove it between the wedding and marriage bed without consummation.

 

Please remember Joseph and Mary were under OT Law, not new covenant law, but we are nevertheless needing to discuss the possible definition of the words "put away" in Matthew 5:32. PLEASE notice "put away" does not necessarily apply only to espousal, as in Matthew 5:32 Jesus says "It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his WIFE, let him give her a writing of divorcement: But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his WIFE, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery." Please please please notice the word WIFE. So the word porneia applies her to "putting away a WIFE", so that is still marriage! I feel this point proves me right.

 

So....... any of you take the strict view that the only possible clause has now all but died out, and all marriages are for life, no matter how deceptive your spouse has been? And therefore I am a lax teacher of a rare form of adultery. The same group on FaceBook said that if you kiss your girlfriend you have "committed fornication". They took prudery almost to cretin level. On the one side you will see terrible lax teachers in modern churches, but there are also extremist prudes who go too far the other way. They are the kind of people who say after your wife passes childbearing all sex must stop, or it is a sin. For some reason some people just cannot find the God given middleground between extremist laxity and extremist prudery.  

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THE REACTION OF HIS DISCIPLES:

 

“His disciples say unto him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry.” 

It seems pretty clear that the disciples of Jesus recognise that Jesus is preaching indissoluble marriage, and that an unwise choice of partner, whom you can never leave, or must dwell alone if you do, is a surprise to them. It is difficult to interpret their reaction as one backing up lax divorce laws.

 

LET NOT MAN PUT ASUNDER:

 

Jesus clearly said: “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” Matt 19:6. This is clearly marriage for life.

 

 

TWO DISTINCT WORDS:

 

Also why does Jesus distinguish between premarital fornication and postmarital adultery by using two separate words in  Matthew 15:19 “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:”

 

The lie told by the Judaising cults, like Messianic Judaism, that Jesus never said rape is a sin, can be refuted many ways, but one is the fact that they are saying Jesus taught you can divorce for fornication, but not for rape fornication, which clearly is not so. If a man confesses to having raped someone to his virgin bride, before he has consummated his marriage, she is as empowered to divorce him as for non forcible fornication. So the word here "porneia" includes premarital rape. 

 

 

THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF MARRIAGE

“HOLY MATRIMONY” and “UNHOLY MATRIMONY”

 

Please notice that Jesus says in both of the scriptures (Mt 5:32 & Mt 19:9) that there are two types of marriage. The first marriage is a holy matrimony. The second marriage is still a marriage, but it is a sinful or adulterous second marriage. So Jesus does say there are two types of marriage. That is important to remember. The NEW COVENANT teaching in the Law of Jesus are different to the OLD COVENANT Law of Moses. Where a divorced couple cannot reunite after a divorce from a matrimony in Deuteronomy 24 (he was NEVER allowed to take her back) in the new covenant you can go back to your first holy matrimony, because your second marriage is in reality adulterous. And this is proven by the fact that, by declaring a second marriage adultery, God is confirming the first marriage still stands,  and so CAN be reconciled if it was an holy matrimony.

“But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife.” 1 Cor 7:11

 

FURTHER PROOF:

The conclusion is obvious. The Greek word “porneia” simply cannot mean an act or acts of post marital adultery, or “marital unfaithfulness” on the Matthean Clause. But the spiritual logic can be followed further. As Adultery is an act of sexual immorality, and as adultery has been disproven to break a Christian marriage, “porneia” therefore cannot mean “sexual immorality” either in context. There is therefore only one logical conclusion left - the word means “fornication” - a premarital sin. Far from weakening the marriage for life doctrine, by saying “except it be for fornication” Jesus is strengthening it, and is also positively teaching that people should KEEP THEIR VIRGINITY before they marry. 

 

A further proof of this, seldom recognised by modern bible teachers, is in the abstinence laws. The old laws of abstaining from certain foods, like pork, bacon, ham, catfish and sea foods like prawns, crab and lobster nevertheless have a bolstering of the need to abstain from sex before marriage, and so God is telling us - in his new covenant teachings - that it is FAR MORE IMPORTANT to STAY VIRGINS BEFORE MARRIAGE than it is to have huge numbers of draconian food laws to obey:

 

Proof:

 

“But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.” Acts 15:20

 

“As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written and concluded that they observe no such thing, save only that they keep themselves from things offered to idols, and from blood, and from strangled, and from fornication.” Acts 21:25

 

“Art thou bound unto a wife? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife.” I Cor 7:27

 

 

WHAT PORNEIA REALLY MEANS:

• fornication (KJV)

 

“Porneia” is translated in the KJV in Matt 5:32 & Matt 19:9 as “fornication”, or premarital sex. But can it include sexual acts that are not intercourse? Considering we are talking about a divorce criteria here, it s very important to consider, and get this right. 

Some might consider that in the situation of a divorce for “porneia” that occurs after the vows, but BEFORE consummation, it is reasonable to think a person can divorce under such circumstances, if they find out their newlywed has been “not going all the way” but doing other things before the marriage (but has previously lied), even frequently with more than one person. This might lead to a divorce because of a lack of trust, considering the person is discovered in a lie, not only in the sins - some would argue.

 

IN OTHER WORDS EVEN AMONG THOSE WHO CONSIDER “PORNEIA” (in the Matthean Clause) TO MEAN “PREMARITAL SEX”, THERE WILL BE DISAGREEMENTS ABOUT THE SEVERITY OF THE INTERPRETATION. 

 

BUT THE LOGIC THAT THE CONSEQUENCES OF DIVORCING BEFORE CONSUMMATION ARE LESS SERIOUS (BECAUSE THE VIRGIN HAS NOT BECOME ONE FLESH WITH THEIR SPOUSE YET) I THINK HOLDS A LOT OF CREDIBILITY. 

 

In effect Jesus is saying: “If you marry a woman who has been married before, you are marrying another man’s wife, so therefore it is UNDERSTOOD that you must divorce her. However there is a LESS OBVIOUS cause for divorce than marrying another man’s wife, and that is if the person you take the vows with has had premarital sex, such as a woman who claims she is a virgin when you discover she is not, and you have been deceived from your individual objective of marrying only a virgin. ” So both Matthew 19:9 and Matthew 5:32 give two reasons for divorce, it is just that bigamy is understood from the very outset to be unlawful.  

 

     Let us consider first some the various acts of intercourse the word    

            “porneia” (interpreted as “premarital sex) would include. 

 

• The person was still a virgin and committed fornication with another virgin. As some would argue that a law of obligation still exists in the new testament (as it certainly did in the old Deut 22:28-29) because of what they consider the criteria of true marriage to be in the new covenant. The seriousness of this can be seen, in that the person divorcing before consummation over this, may consider the person whom they have just hours earlier married, should in fact  be marrying someone else, that is the person they had virgin with virgin sex with.

 

• The person lost their virginity by having sex with someone married. It is interesting here that there is a contradiction between secular definitions and the bible. “Thou shalt not commit adultery” seems to mean in the bible that if you are married you commit adultery against your spouse, but the person who is a virgin is committing adultery by having sex with a married person.

 

THIS CAN HOWEVER BE MORE COMPLEX THAN IT SEEMS. It can be strongly argued for instance that Deuteronomy 22:28-29 applied to both unmarried AND MARRIED MEN!!! I triple exclamation mark here, because it would mean an enforced act of polygamy under the law, if a MAN had sex with a virgin woman when he was married. And therefore the virgin he had sex with was in fact committing fornication with a married man, and she should marry him. The complication is tripled in that the father can refuse the marriage and take money in the OLD law (now plainly gone) and that this scripture is commonly in modern versions falsely interpreted as only a rape scripture, not one covering a lot of other situations that might arise between a man and woman as well.

 

So yes it seems that “porneia” in the Matthean Clause context (Matt 5:32) can mean having sex with a married person before your marriage, not just an unmarried person. Some might say I am stating the obvious here, but some people can become confused over these issues.

 

THE BIG CONTROVERSY

Am I then going to answer the more complex question about sexual acts of a kind that are not intercourse, and are they “porneia”? It is difficult to be explicit here because I do not want to go beyond the bible, and the bible does not deal with such issues in a direct way, as far as I see, but rather it makes more oblique references to such sins.  At the moment I will simply inform you that this is considered by some one of the issues of premarital sex that constitutes porneia, not just various types of penetrative intercourse. 

 

WHAT LEVEL OF PROOF?

As premarital intercourse before consummation is a cause for divorce (the only cause for divorce and ALLOWING remarriage) how much proof is needed it occurred? 

 

PRACTICAL EXAMPLES

1) porneia is fornication (premarital sin)

 

So, if there is an exception, and people have one reason and one reason only to divorce and remarry, can we see some examples of this?

 

As we have seen, the Greek word “porneia”, in the context of Matthew 5:32 and Matthew 19:9,  means fornication, not post marital “unfaithfulness” or “sexual immorality”. Here are several examples of Christian marriages that can be ended for fornication. All the examples are from marriages that are NOT consummated. It is important to remember this.

 

EXAMPLE 1: FEMALE

A Christian woman claims she is a maiden (virgin) and a Christian man agrees to marry her. Never having fornicated himself, and being one flesh with no other, this Christian man wants to marry a virgin who has preserved her maidenhood. He has the right to make that decision. The couple marry and go to the honeymoon hotel to consummate the marriage, and the man discovers that his bride is not a virgin from her physical anatomy. She may variously have had an abortion, given birth to a baby, or has a broken hymen. On questioning, and before the marriage is consummated, she admits to having fornicated with another man. 

This man, having been lied to, is entitled to both divorce his new wife, and to marry someone else as well, on the grounds of “porneia”.

 

EXAMPLE 2: FEMALE

A Christian man marries a woman who says she is a maiden. As in the cases above, after the marriage vows she then confesses, before consummation of the marriage, that she had the bad luck to have been raped on 3 different occasions by 3 different men, and had a baby adopted because of that, but did not mention it as she believed God’s law was if a woman is raped it doesn’t count, and she could definitely marry under old testament style laws even if the rapist was not found, so surely she could marry now in a new covenant with a similar law. 

I agree that if a woman is actually raped there is an exceptionally strong case she should be able to marry a man if she tells him about this beforehand, but he should have the right to pray about wether he thinks she is telling the truth, as by accepting it was rape he is finding another man definitely guilty of something. Some men don’t want to marry a woman if they even suspect she would be prone to unfaithfulness. 

There is a good case to say that new covenant law is that a woman should usually report it if she is raped (Romans 13) if only for the protection of other women, and the law of the old testament was similar. However extreme pacifist Christians say they never go to the authorities for what they see as temporal vengeance. But if these rapes were not reported it might make a potential future husband suspicious the woman was actually fornicating. Of the two I would say the most spiritually sensible thing to do is report a rape, because otherwise it can affect a woman’s witness of morality, especially if she is made pregnant.

 

This man, having been lied to, is entitled to both divorce his new wife, and to marry someone else as well, on the grounds of “porneia”.

 

EXAMPLE 3: MALE 

A Christian woman has kept her maidenhood (virginity) saving herself for a godly man (just as Jesus taught her to by using the word  “porneia” in the first place - a law to preserve virginity). She agrees to marry another Christian who is also a virgin. The night before the marriage the groom decides to give in to worldly friends who take him to a “bachelor’s party” or variously called “stag night”. His friends get him drunk and he foolishly commits fornication with a woman at the party. Next day he takes the marriage vows. On the way to the hotel, where his newly wedded wife thinks he will have sex for the first time, he confesses what he did the night before.

This woman can immediately leave him, divorce, and legitimately remarry on the grounds of “porneia” - fornication.

 

EXAMPLE 4: MALE

A woman is swept off her feet by an amorous Christian man in a local church, who is so stunningly attractive she immediately accepts his proposal of marriage and she elopes with him in a whirlwind romance. He said he was a virgin, but after marrying her she hears local women laughing together in the after wedding celebration, saying he was in fact well known in the area as a multiple fornicator, who had sex with many many women, and never even knew if some of them were left pregnant. She decides therefore not to have sex with him on the wedding night and checks further into this, keeping her virginity. She has this investigated and discovers he had been having sex with dozens of women and had been in two “common law” relationships as well, living in sin with two women whom he did not officially marry. She can DIVORCE this man and REMARRY as she did not consummate the marriage.

 

EXAMPLE 5: MALE / FEMALE

SEXUAL DISEASE

It is easy to forget that it is only very recently, in world history, that many sexual disease have been able to be cured. For literally THOUSANDS of years they proved FATAL or caused utter misery. Even in World War 2 many soldiers contracted incurable venereal diseases, and some venereal diseases remain incurable to this day.

What if a Christian marries another Christian, but before they consummated the marriage their partner confesses to having venereal disease? Can the other Christian divorce for this? There are a LOT of different scenarios for WHY the disease was caught. I believe if a woman is RAPED and catches a venereal disease she can marry. If she committed deliberate fornication the disease is a secondary issue to that and so she CAN be divorced therefore (that is for "fornication" she can be divorced not being diseased). 

BUT if a person was to be so conscienceless to marry first and only mention this before the marriage bed, is your partner confessing to having venereal disease a reason to divorce in itself, especially if it is INCURABLE. Let us be specific, if the person has AIDS? Some would point to the fact that the marriage VOWS themselves had the AGREEMENT to “to HAVE and to hold”. That is a difficult subject. If the innocent party now decided their new spouse is a deceiver to do this, and doubts the stories about HOW this could have been innocently caught, is it a reason therefore to divorce? I find that question difficult to answer because of the huge variations on how or why the disease was contracted, the proof offered, and the reasons why on Earth one would wait so long to confess it! Must one have "good cause to suspect" she had consented to fornication, ot "total proof"???

 

EXAMPLE 6 MALE / FEMALE

“NOT ONE FLESH” is not necessarily “A VIRGIN”

A virgin is some one who has never had sex. A raped woman is not a virgin. But the following question I find VERY difficult to answer. What if a person is raped by an older person, and the older person dies, or if the person dies in a car crash, or of cancer? The raped person is NOT a virgin, but IS in a state of “not being one flesh” with anyone. If (say) a raped woman marries a man, and he understands her to be a virgin, but she understood this as “not being one flesh” and so making her able to marry even by the strictest critic (as she thought someone raping her and then dying, is VERY similar to Romans 7:1-4 where a widow can always remarry) if before consummation a man finds out she is NOT a virgin, but equally is “one flesh” with no one living, can he divorce her for lying about her virginity? As she is not “one flesh” with anyone I think it would be a harsh decision to say he can divorce her, but I’m not entirely sure. 

 

 

WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU FIND OUT ABOUT SUCH PREMARITAL SEX ONLY AFTER CONSUMMATION?

That is a more complex issue I will discuss in a later study, which deals with subjects like “cynical consummation” when a person suspects but consummates the marriage anyway, and the topic of not having been bothered to ask about premarital sin in the first place, or even positively stating beforehand you did not care. At this stage I am keeping the discussion simple to ground people in the basics of the bible study.

 

THERE ARE 2 ISSUES IN MATTHEW 5:32 and MATTHEW 9:19. Here is the second issue beside “porneia”.

 

ALSO JESUS SAID A SECOND MARRIAGE IS ADULTERY

 

• divorce and remarriage is bigamy

 

This subject begins to become complex because  of the number of types of sin people involve themselves in. The following examples (all bigamy) could ALL be “porneia” because the person lying to you about their past might have been in an UNHOLY MATRIMONY, or on the other hand they might have been in a HOLY MATRIMONY in which case you MUST divorce them because of the other principle Jesus clearly taught, that you simply cannot marry a divorcee as it is bigamy in God’s eyes. 

 

Consummating an illicit second marriage with them if you are a virgin yourself is ALWAYS fornication (on your part) or “porneia”, even though it might be variously adultery or fornication by them. So asking a few blase questions, marrying them, consummating the bigamous marriage, finding out about their former marriage, and then divorcing them, in my opinion constitutes an act of “porneia” on your part, fornication, you are not guiltless because of circumstances, especially if your are frivolous and shallow in your questions to them. In fact fornication is fornication whether you know you are committing it or not.  But I will deal with these more complex issues of actually consummating such a second marriage in another chapter.

 

FURTHERMORE

I think if you ONLY ask if they were married before (and are lied to), but did not ask about virginity, that is sinful in itself, and the following examples prove that, because if you had asked about their virginity as well as possible former marriages you might never have been deceived. It also shows that virginity should be the point of your questions, not if they ever had sex outside of marriage. 

 

In the book “CATHOLIC DIVORCE - The Deception of Annulments” edited by Pierre Hegy and Joseph Martos (pages 2 & 3)  a terrible problem for the Roman Catholics is described - in that tens of thousands of Catholics worldwide are very secular and want a divorce, despite the teachings of the Popes based on bible teachings. If the Catholics allow such divorce, when divorce and remarriage is so anathema to their beliefs, then they lose the person from their religion, and potentially all the future progeny too. So the Catholics have devised a very sinister solution - they are giving easy annulments of tens of thousands of marriages across the globe on spurious grounds, such as “duress”. As a so called annulment renders the marriage as invalid in the eyes of many receiving such annulments, the person involved may view this marriage as never having occurred. Leading to this shocking example: 

 

EXAMPLE 1: MALE OR FEMALE

A Christian man marries a convert who claims she has never been married before. After taking the vows and therefore marrying (Malachi 2 states marriage is a covenant, and therefore after the vows are taken you are certainly married) the new spouse mentions before they even leave the church that what she meant by “never married before” was that her first marriage was annulled by the Roman Catholics, and to her that means it was not a real marriage at all so not worth mentioning.

This man or woman can immediately leave their spouse, divorce, and legitimately remarry. This is an example of dishonesty about a former marriage rather than necessarily porneia. That is not a contradiction of porneia being the only reason for divorce and legitimate remarriage, as Jesus stated clearly that second marriages are adultery, and as forbidden as open bigamy. It is forbidden to keep past marriages secret.

 

EXAMPLE 2: MALE OR FEMALE

A man marries a woman who says she is a widow. She often speaks of her dead husband. Her fiancee marries her, but just after the vows are taken, in casual conversation, she mentions she was also married to another man before her late husband died, but she never mentioned him, because he was so cruel to her she wanted to just not mention him in conversation. Her new husband thought she was a widow, and of course she was, but she is actually married to her first husband, so he CAN divorce her, in fact he MUST. NOTE: this is not an example of porneia, it is another example of dishonesty about being married before. And of course the same applies if the guilty party is a widower.

 

This man or woman can immediately leave their spouse, divorce, and legitimately remarry, if the marriage is not consummated. It is quite common for this to occur on Christian dating sites. Someone claims on their Profile they are a “widow” or a “widower” but in fact they fail to mention they have been married twice and their first spouse is still alive.

 

EXAMPLE 3: MALE OR FEMALE

A man or woman marry another person, when they are not even divorced from their first wife or husband and do not mention this, committing an illegal act of Bigamy (even polygamy or polyandry). 

 

Some other teachers may say that all 3 are cases where divorce AND remarriage can occur in an unconsummated marriage, whether they said they are virgins or not, but I am NOT that bold. There is a possibility in my mind that without the subject of virginity being the question the deceived person here simply broke Gods law by not asking enough relevant questions, and so bears responsibility for what happened. 

 

THE MARRIAGE BANNS

are defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as:

 

banns |banz|

plural noun

a notice read out on three successive Sundays in a parish church, announcing an intended marriage and giving the opportunity for objections.

 

But is this in the bible? Is this just giving occasion for malicious backbiting and gossip? Or are there set subjects like “proven bigamy” that are only entertained? It is not very romantic for either party to seem like they are checking up on whether their intended spouse is really free from fornication. I cannot see many men or women meekly submitting to that without feeling offended - it could easily break up a couple who intended to marry. But how do you solve the other dilemma, that is of people whispering about claimed purity that was not really there? In the end a couple marrying will choose who to believe, their intended spouse or any detractors.

 

WHAT IS MARRIAGE?

According to the bible it is a covenant (Malachi 2:14).
Some people think “living in sin” with someone else, that is cohabiting, having sex with, and having children by, a partner, does not constitute a marriage. HOWEVER even secular law recognises a “common law marriage”. To quote the Oxford English Dictionary:

 

“common law• [as adj. ] denoting a partner in a marriage by common law (which recognized unions created by mutual agreement and public behavior), not by a civil or ecclesiastical ceremony : a common-law husband.”

 

Men are often forced to pay alimony because of this even under secular law. So if a person discovers that a newly married partner (before consummation) has hidden this fact, is the divorce because of the “porneia principle” or because of the second principal of not committing bigamy - as some Christians believe that living together in this way is a kind of covenant of marriage? Decide for yourself, but certainly if you have not consummated a marriage with such a person you can divorce them AND remarry.

 

it is important to remember that the FIRST marriage that the person who tells lies about their past was involved in, may be of TWO kinds: 

 

• Holy Matrimony, when the sin for marrying them after their divorce falls into the category a second marriage. A person who marries another who was in a holy matrimony “committeth adultery” and so does not have to be “porneia” to lead to a divorce, the divorce is rather because it was bigamy in God’s sight to marry the person from the very start (but they hid the first marriage from you).

• An Unholy Matrimony from their past is being hidden from their intended new spouse (just one example being the person was formerly married to a divorcee themselves) in which case that IS divorcing them for porneia.

 

IMPORTANT NOTE: I AM NOT repeat NOT SAYING THAT BECAUSE YOU CAN DIVORCE AND REMARRY IN THESE EXAMPLES, YOU CAN DO THE SAME IF YOU ACTUALLY CONSUMMATE SUCH A BIGAMOUS MARRIAGE. WHETHER KNOWINGLY OR UNKNOWINGLY YOU HAVE IN SUCH CIRCUMSTANCE COMMITTED “PORNEIA” OR FORNICATION YOURSELF, AND AS I SAY I WILL EXAMINE THAT MORE COMPLEX SUBJECT LATER IN ANOTHER CHAPTER.

 

HAVE I GIVEN AN EXTRA REASON TO DIVORCE A PERSON OTHER THAN “PORNEIA” BY SAYING THIS?

Some people may say I have over stepped bible values here, as only “porneia” is stated as a reason to divorce before consummation, and that is a SEXUAL SIN before marriage, whereas an unconfessed marriage was not initially a sin, the sin here is in not confessing it, and divorcing in the first place, and therefore I am adding an EXTRA reason (that of unconfessed divorce beforehand, or bigamy) as a legitimate reason for divorce in an unconsummated wedlock. HOWEVER Jesus did mention that anyone marrying a woman who is married before “committeth adultery”, and therefore he or she MUST divorce that person. As the marriage we speak of here is unconsummated I think it would be a harsh person to say that someone tricked into such a marriage cannot remarry, as the marriage is not even consummated, and constitutes the second example Jesus gave in both Matthew 5:32 and Matthew 19:9 of an unlawful wedlock and they are simply somebody else’s wife ALREADY, and the person thought they were a virgin and asked ALL THE PERTINENT QUESTIONS.

 

This is SO important I want to emphasise this again - I am not so much giving a second reason, as saying that within the very verses of Matt 5:32 and Matt 19:9 Jesus clearly states a woman is someone else’s wife even if she has divorce papers, and so marrying her is BANNED. You are merely following that second instruction of his not to consummate such a wedlock once you find out the REAL situation, by ENDING it. In effect what I am saying is that Jesus is teaching “There is only one reason to legitimately divorce and remarry and that is “fornication” (it being understood from the outset that anyone divorced is married ALREADY)”. I therefore deny I am adding a reason, merely showing it as an example of forbidden marriage within the verses themselves. Even if you deny the person can remarry having been deceived in this way, you must admit they should divorce the divorcee.

 

I realise my statements here are at an exceptionally deep level of doctrine, and I think it would hardly ever occur. I AM NOT WILLING TO ANSWER THE QUESTION AS TO WHAT HAPPENS IN THIS SITUATION IF THE PERSON IS NOT LIED TO ABOUT VIRGINITY, BUT ONLY FORMER MARRIAGES. It seems to me that if someone is not even bothered about if someone is a virgin or not something is amiss right from the start. It also seems to me possible that the people in the 3 examples given in this section may be vey tragic victims of the lies of others. But it does seem exceptionally tragic if they could not remarry if they have not even consummated such a wedlock. That may seem incredibly strict but at this time a doubt still lingers in my mind over this. However I would like to point out that all 3 marriages spoken of here were never at any point HOLY matrimony, but UNHOLY matrimony, and Jesus did distinguish between such in the Matthean Clause. The reason I appear so strict in my doubts is partly that I do not want to bear responsibility for people saying the 3 examples are cause for divorce and remarriage if the marriage IS CONSUMMATED, considering the cause for the divorce is NOT porneia,

 

It shows how important it is not to just rush into an impetuous whirlwind romance and a marriage, and that the “marriage banns”  had some real common sense to them. Some of these people who deceive others see their lives as split into two - “their life now” and “their former life”. The subject of 1 Corinthians 7 being used to argue such a case is discussed on another page about 1 Corinthians 7. However:

 

              IF YOU BELIEVE A CONVERT TO CHRISTIANITY CAN REMARRY:

 Then you believe that the Roman Catholic belief that marriage is for life is heresy, as   according to you they can be “born again” and then marry a second time.  IT IS VERY DIFFICULT NOT TO PERCEIVE THIS OBSERVATION AS A REFUTATION OF THE BELIEF THAT JESUS NEVER MEANT WHAT HE SAID, WHEN HE SAID “WHOSOEVER”

 

 

HYPOCRISY

The belief among some lax “pastors”, that Catholics (who are not born again) are heretics for believing that marriage is for life - as not being born again is supposed to negate Jesus teachings on marriage for life - supposedly allowing second marriage, goes into meltdown usually when the pastor is speaking about his own virgin daughter. 

YOUR DAUGHTER can marry an ex Catholic who has been married and divorced twice, BUT the pastor is less convinced that his own daughter can or should! And not only that, how strong is the argument that such a “former” sinner who marries your daughter is really born again, if he is willing to marry a third time, and not only that to a virgin, who would have been less ensnared in controversy if she had married a person likeminded with her, who had never slept around or been married before, or lived in sin. Just how “loving” is it to involve virgins in such contention?

 

Ironically many Roman Catholics can plainly see that divorce and remarriage is entirely unbiblical, and a VERY serious subject, as all adulterers will go into the Lake of Fire forever (Rev 21:8), so they stay in the sins of the Roman Catholic Religion, and remain just as damned as the false Protestant and born again Christians seduced into the heresy of divorce. Neither side seem to realise that there is a “little flock” of true believers who are simply true Christians that do not compromise the truth.

 

So other related subjects are here: 

• “Can Only Virgins Marry”?

• “I, not the Lord” 1 Cor 7:12

 

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