Is Divorce And Remarriage Adultery Just Breaking The Covenant?

In my debate on “Must Adulteress Marriages Be Terminated?” in London, KY in March 2024, my opponent made the argument that the word “adultery” in Jesus’ divorce and remarriage passages is only referring to breaking the marriage covenant, and since it has nothing to do with sex, a person could just repent of breaking his original marriage covenant and stay in such a second marriage.

Here is how our brother Homer Hailey put that same argument (on pages 71-72 of his book “The Divorced and Remarried Who Would Come To God”) – “To demand that a remarried divorced couple break their marriage covenant on the basis of repentance rests on the assumption that their marriage is ‘an adulterous marriage’ or that ‘they are continuing to live in adultery.’ This has not been proved by scripture. The sin was in breaking the covenant by the wife (or husband) in order to marry another and not in a ‘continuous sexual adulterous condition.’ Therefore, repentance demands that they do not break such a covenant again.”

Similarly in my debate with Olan Hicks in Florence, AL in October 2009, he taught adultery in Matthew 19:9 is divorcing and having a wedding ceremony (breaking the covenant by formalizing a second marriage contract), and has nothing to do with the sexual relations that follow the wedding ceremony. So according to Mr. Hicks, there is no ongoing sin, therefore a person can repent of the divorce and remarriage, and just stay in the second marriage he is in.

I suppose every word can have a figurative use. For example, Colossians 3:5 says “covetousness … is idolatry.” So putting money (or anything) before God makes that thing an idol in a figurative sense. But that doesn’t mean I Cor 6:9-10 (“… the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.”) is not condemning people who literally worship statues, does it?

Likewise, just because the word “adultery” can have a figurative use (“breaking covenant” – like when the Israelites worshipped idols, for example in Ezekiel 23:37), that doesn’t mean Matthew 19:9 is using it figuratively. Notice how Thayer defines the word “adultery” in that verse – “to have unlawful intercourse with another’s wife.” And isn’t cheating on one’s spouse sexually breaking the original marriage agreement to “forsake all others, keeping thyself only unto her”? Was the woman “taken in adultery” in John 8:4 caught “in the very act” of a divorce proceeding? When Jesus condemned “adultery” in the “heart” in Matthew 5:28, was He just condemning fantasizing about a wedding ceremony? So I think we all know what the word “adultery” means in the Matthew 19:9 type verses.

And a detail many might not have thought of is that divorce without remarriage is a sin (Matthew 5:32, etc.), but it is not called adultery. Why not, since it is also breaking the marriage covenant (agreement)? On the other hand, once the divorcer remarries, Matthew 19:9 (“Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery”) does call his sin adultery. Obviously then the adultery in Matthew 19:9 doesn’t refer to just any breaking of the marriage covenant, but in this case refers to the sexual relations that are part of the unlawful second marriage. So since it takes remarriage to commit “adultery” in the sense our term is used in Matthew 19:9 and its parallels, that proves God isn’t talking about breaking the marital covenant in a non-sexual sense, but instead breaking the covenant in a sexual sense.

Why is this point so important to drive home? Because if the adultery in Matthew 19:9 refers to the sexual relations of the second unlawful marriage (as we always knew it did), then that means repenting of that adultery would necessitate ceasing those sexual relations, that is, terminating the adulterous marriage. Don’t ever compromise that truth.

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