by Edward Ridenour
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When debating the “fornication exception” found in the gospel of Matthew chapter 5:31 & 19:9, there is this ignorant and detrimental conclusion by some in Christendom that this exception by Christ is only applicable and valid in regard to Jewish betrothals, and not actual one-flesh marriages.
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Their reasoning for arguing this false conclusion is two-fold: 1- Because they believe once a one-flesh union is made and exists, it is a lifelong union and can never be separated, no matter what, other than death. Therefore, Jesus would never advocate “putting away” for an act of fornication by a spouse of a one-flesh union and be allowed to remarry afterward. Doing so would incur the consequences Jesus identified – adultery. 2- It is believed that Matthew’s letter was written to Jews who practiced betrothals, which is why this exception condition is not declared in Mark and Luke’s record. Therefore, since they don’t believe it applies to one-flesh marriages, the only other reasonable application would be betrothed marriages.
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They are completely accurate when they conclude that Scripture teaches us that a one-flesh union can never be separated, except for death. This is declared by Paul in Romans 7:3. Death will always separate any union, which has been made sexually by a male and female. However, if you have read my articles on Biblical marriage, you should have noticed that even though this is true, other factors play into marriage when fornication is involved and introduced into that marriage.
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Since I have delineated in other articles the effects of fornication to the body, and to a marriage and the marriage bed, I will focus here on presenting other valid arguments as to why this concept fails the test of truth and Biblical alignment:
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1- Romans 7:2&3 is not a thorough teaching on Biblical marriage. It is a comparison of how death separates us from certain laws we were bound to. Paul spoke of two laws. One was O.T. law and the other was the law of marriage. He illustrated how death causes the power of each law to be negated and no longer having any hold and effect. Those who are in Christ, the O.T. law is dead to them through His fulfillment of it, death, and resurrection, as a wife is no longer under the law of marriage to her husband, who has died. Romans 7:2&3 exclusively speaks of a legitimate marriage and the resulting consequence and status of a wife joining herself to another man sexually, while either her husband is alive or dead. If her husband is dead, she is free to be sexually bound under the law of marriage to another man. However, what is also seen is how a wife defiles herself within the marriage, by placing herself under the law of another husband while still under the law of marriage to her first husband – adultery. Paul identifies and labels the woman no longer a wife, but an adulteress. She has violated marital law. This is it. It doesn’t address what the husband can or cannot do regarding her fornicating herself and their marriage. It wasn’t Paul’s intention.
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2- They define fornication as “sex before marriage.” This supposedly means the betrothed woman being sexually intimate with another man before actually marrying the one she is betrothed to. Well, this is wrong first off, because, as I have already shown, sex before marriage is not a Biblical concept, and never was. What she would have done was to have married another man, through her sexually intimate encounter, violating the covenant her betrothed husband had with her guardian for marrying her. He would not only not now be able to physically marry her, because she is one-flesh with the other guy, but he would also commit adultery with her by taking her. Along with this, he suffered loss for payment he made for her. Once the betrothal was made, he owned her. She was his possession. Paul shows this in 1Corinthians 7:36-38 of a man “toward his virgin.” This is instruction to a man who possesses an espoused wife and his authority over whether she becomes his married wife. This instruction is strictly correlating with their “present distress” (v.26). Under Hebrew law, she is his, once the transaction had concluded.
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Firstly, they don’t even address the law that already governed such a situation. That law is found in Deuteronomy 22:22-27. If she is guilty of this infraction, then she died. There was no “putting away” for this occurrence. Death was the outcome.
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Secondly, they try to use Joseph and Mary as an example. They claim this because Joseph was going to put Mary away, because of her being pregnant, which supposedly is what Matt 5&19 demonstrates. Well, a betrothed husband could put his betrothed wife away for any reason. It didn’t have to be for fornication on her part. He held all the cards. However, he would have forfeited all he paid in acquiring her. She was his possession and to think that Christ in Matthew 5&19 was instructing on this Hebrew law and not the law of God regarding a one-flesh union is preposterous. Especially since Christ’s instruction in Matthew is so similar to His instruction in Mark and Luke, without the fornication exception. Take that away and they are all the same.
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Matthew 19:9 supposedly addressing betrothals is a fabricated concept and just because someone says that Joseph’s action toward Mary is applicable to Matthew 19:9 is ridiculous. One major reason is because nothing in the Matthew 19 text alludes to a betrothal situation. Just the opposite, e.g., reference to the Bill of Divorcement, which involved one-flesh unions exclusively, and men putting away their wives for any reason, which they were doing to their married wives, not betrothed wives; Jesus referred to the beginning of creation, which didn’t involve betrothals; Jesus mentions “making them one-flesh,” which betrothals are not; how could putting away a betrothed wife for taking another man sexually be considered a “hard heart?; and lastly, how could it be, as Jesus said, that “all men cannot receive this saying” to His disciples, if it only involved a betrothal? Putting away a betrothed wife, who is still an unmarried virgin is different than putting away a married wife, who is not a virgin.
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The reason Joseph was doing it privately was because he knew he couldn’t now take her sexually and being a just man, he did not want her to fall under the consequences of the law, which meant death. In fact, he doing as he did and willing to forfeit loss was a depiction of Christ setting us free and suffering loss for our sin. In other words, they are trying to use unrelated Scripture to justify their “can’t ever put away a one-flesh married spouse for any reason” theology. So, in the process, they distort Scripture and use it out of context. They have nothing else, because there is nothing which they can find Biblically to back up their failed theology, other than an unrelated example.
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3- The discussion between Christ and the Pharisees centered around the putting away by the Bill of Divorcement, which did not pertain to betrothals. It pertained to men who had consummated one-flesh marriages and were casting out their wives, because of whatever they didn’t approve of from her (“for any reason”). So, As I stated, why would Christ consider them “hard hearted” for putting away a betrothed wife who violated the covenant and caused loss to him? What is hard hearted about that? Not only this, how would Christ think it hard hearted to put her away for something other than her committing sexual fornication, while she is still a virgin and still able to marry. Otherwise, if she were a married woman, she would not be a virgin and could not remarry. Just these facts alone within the whole context of the conversation rules out any reference to a betrothal, as to the purpose of the instruction Jesus was giving to all present. Yes, to the Jews.
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4- The instruction given by Jesus would be nonsensical anyway for this reason: How could the betrothed man, who has not yet been sexually intimate with her by consummation, commit adultery if he were to put her away for any reason other than fornication, which is part of Christ’s instruction? There is no one-flesh union involved for either of them to commit adultery. He would just be taking a loss through his own volition. She is still a virgin, so she couldn’t commit adultery by marrying another. Betrothals were only made for virgins, who were under the authority of a guardian, usually a father, brother, or uncle. So, she can still be married off to another and never commit adultery, nor the one who marries her. This is contrary to what Jesus was alluding to and instructed. Remember what I quoted Paul saying in 1Corinthians 7:34 about there being a difference between a wife and a virgin. One is married and the other isn’t. It is all about their sexual condition and not by any agreements of covenants made.
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5- They say, “because the exception wasn’t declared by Jesus in Mark 10:10 or Luke 16:18. Well, there is a good reason for this. First, Mark’s account is referencing the same event that Matthew records in chapter 19 with the Pharisees. However, Mark is giving the account of the disciples, later in the house, asking him a question, which appears to involve marriage. Howbeit, no one knows the content of the question prompting Jesus to exclude the fornication exception in His answer. And without the fornication exception, what He said is true. As I said, we don’t know what the question consisted of. Not only this, but Christ’s answer now included wives who put away their husbands. How does this square with the B.O.D., which applied only to men and their hard hearts? So, it can’t be used to compare with Matthew 19:9.
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Although, without fornication being part of the equation, what he said to the disciples was the same as was said to the Pharisees. Without fornication of the spouse, the consequences of putting away and committing adultery would be the result. But if the putting away was for fornication the consequences would not apply. That is the point of the exception when putting your married spouse away. Putting away for fornication, excludes the consequences presented by remarrying for both. The wife is already defiled sexually because of her sexual fornication, but the husband is not. This is why, in order for him to stay undefiled, he must put her away.
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Also, if marriage betrothals are different from actual marriage, then why is the outcome the same in both situations if a man put her away without her committing fornication, causing her to commit adultery? Married couples are physically joined, betrothed couples are not until the betrothal is consummated. Otherwise, if the marriage betrothal constituted actual marriage before God, why was it, or needed to be consummated? The betrothed female is still a virgin. One cannot commit adultery against an agreement.
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In Luke, which records a different encounter with the Pharisees, nothing is alluded to, as to why Jesus didn’t include the exception in that conversation. What is an actual marriage for the Jews? Is it the betrothal or after the consummation, because, according to their theology, the consequences for putting away without fornication is the same. One important consideration, separates the two is the answer to this question: can a marriage be made without a betrothal? Scripture shows clearly that it can be.
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6- As well as in a marriage, under the betrothal, the man had all the power. If Jesus was speaking and advocating secular Hebrew law, then there was no mention of or recourse for the female, if the betrothed man had sex before marriage. Why? Because under Hebrew law, he could have more than one wife, as long as they were virgins or widows. Those that espouse this false theology never seem to consider this. Everything Jesus was teaching in Matthew was about doing away with this being married to more than one wife acceptance, showing under Him, for a man to do so is adulterous.
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7- If fornication is sex before marriage and can only happen in a betrothal, then why did Paul, in 1Corinthians 5:1 say the man being sexually intimate with his “father’s wife” was committing fornication? Do they consider this sex before marriage? This is purely incestuous adultery.
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8- Jude said in verse 7 that the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah were committing fornication. Is this what God destroyed them for, having sex before marriage in a betrothed state? And the women were totally responsible for this? Here again, it appears as in #7, fornication does not mean sex before marriage, but rather any and all sexually defiling encounters.
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9- Throughout Scripture a male and a female in a betrothal were never identified as “married.” Even describing the account of Joseph and Mary, Scripture describes them as being “espoused,” twice, and never married. That is because betrothals are not marriages and Jesus was addressing those that are married before Him in Matthew 5&19.
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10- Now, the technical reasons for refuting this theology. There is the debate on what the original Greek text stated in manuscripts of Matthew. One says that the Greek text reads ει (if) μὴ (not) ἐπὶ (for, upon, or over) πορνείᾳ (fornication). Others say that the “ει” was wrongly added. They say that the Greek text should only read μὴ ἐπὶ πορνείᾳ. Hence, the word “if” is not present, which changes the meaning from an exception to an exclusion. They declare it speaks of exclusion, because those who committed fornication were stoned to death under the law. Therefore, Jesus was noting that this was excluded in His instruction on putting away for that reason -their death. If this were true, it is really silly, because the Jews already new this and most likely took advantage of it to be set free from the fornicator. There would have been zero relevance in Christ declaring this. It would have had no meaning in His instruction whatsoever.
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What is also ridiculous about this conclusion is Jesus never advocated death for sins, as were the consequences in the Mosaic Law, but rather forgiveness and redemption from sin. Therefore, to say that “exclusion” was referencing the Mosaic Law of death is an antithesis to the work of Christ. The sinner has hope of forgiveness. The Pharisees, however, were hearing something totally different than what they had always known. Yet not regarding betrothals, because the punishment of death was also the same for one-flesh marriages and a fornicating spouse.
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What is more in alignment to His work of making men holy, the exclusion should be seen as the same as exception. Meaning, if the putting away was for fornication, then the exclusion like exception wasn’t pertaining to the fornication, but rather it pertained to an exclusion to the outcome of committing adultery if marrying another afterward. In the textual context, it is the same meaning as an exception. If fornication was the reason, the latter part of the verse is moot and not valid. Fornication nullified the end consequence for the innocent spouse when marrying another. Why, because as I stated, the woman was already defiled, so the one putting her away would not make her defile herself any more than she already is. And since she is defiled, he had to put her away for the sake of his purity. She defiled their marriage and their marriage bed.
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Lastly, there is a powerful argument I discovered against the modern theologians, who subscribe to the Greek text not having the ει (if) included in the statement, because it was supposedly wrongly added in the Textus Receptus, and therefore the word “exception” is not valid. This argument states, “John Chrysostom, a 4th century Byzantine Greek Church leader, called “the golden mouth preacher,” quotes this verse in his 62nd Homily on Matthew: “Whosoever shall put away his wife except it be for fornication, and marry another, committeth adultery.” This would have been over a millennium prior to the Textus Receptus.”