BrianBowman
Posting Priviledges Revoked
Thank you Joesph. The first sentence is very edifying. The second is clearly based in an understaning that divorce never allows remarriage. J Carl Laney and many others hold this view based in principle on making the Synoptic references to D&R the Greatest Common Factor in their deliberation. The Westminster Confession certainly does not agree with the rigidity of their viewpoint.
The great moral delima here is how a young divorcee can Biblically avoid fornication (i.e. 1 Cor 7:2) for the rest of their life (which could include as many as 50+ years of "divorcee-hood" with no Church-sanctioned remarriage). How does this viewpoint see the divorce - as some formality that simply recognizes two people who no longer reside at the same address? If the divorce is not the "death certificate" of the marriage, what is it? I understand that most of these folks will make the "manners&customs" appeal that in the Hebrew culture "divorce" was only allowed in the betrothal period upon discovery of unchasity. This is a very common appeal amoung conservative Baptists and along with what is mentioned below concerning Greek verb morphology in Matt 19:9 is what led Bahnsen to say (in section 8 of the document linked in ChristianTraders's above post):
8. Therefore, in order to understand properly the teaching of Scripture on the grounds for divorce, we will of necessity need to engage in more than lexical studies. What will be needed is a broader, theological understanding of the nature of marriage and the rationale which lies behind whatever grounds for divorce are set forth. We need to approach the question in such a way that we can account for (a) the narrowness of grounds for divorce, (b) the harmony of Paul and Jesus in giving grounds for divorce, (c) the full Biblical evidence on the subject of divorce, and (d) the reason why certain offenses are legitimate grounds for divorce, while others are not. A simple appeal to the word "fornication" cannot accomplish these ends.
I'll add that while Bahnsen makes no specific reference to remarriage in his treatise, he was a duly ordained minister of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church - which holds to the Westminster Standard on these matters and allows remarriage between believers when a case for Biblical divorce (... and even in some cases when true repentence after a failed marriaged has occurred) can be demonstrated.
LadyFlint. Thank you for your kind words and for pointing these extremes out. I'm aware of the extremist-to-radical Fundamentalist views on this topic - it's usually centered on a very rigid exegesis of the Present Passive Indicative "moichatai" in Matthew 19:9). To the extent that I understand applications of Greek Grammar in exegesis, it is not clear this rigid view would pass muster with experts in Biblical Greek. For what it's worth, when I first encounted this view, I was such a "weak brother" (i.e. Romans 14:1) that it sent me into "soul shock" for about 3 months (no kidding) - and at the time I had not yet remarried, or even met my wife.
[Edited on 7-5-2005 by BrianBowman]
