by Edward Ridenour
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Biblically, marriage of a male or female either exists or it doesn’t. Man, religion, or culture does not prescribe or dictate the law that governs the origin and validity of its existence, when it has been violated, or its elimination. When marriage exists, it is either Biblical (legitimate, holy, God approved) or unbiblical (illegitimate, defiled, worthy of judgment). And most importantly, it is a lifelong unending attachment or defilement.
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I want to emphasize the marital premise of marriage being a “lifelong unending attachment or defilement.” This is important for one to recognize in order to accurately describe what the Lord meant, when He declared in Matthew 19:6, “Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”
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As it is in so many other instances when defining Scripture, it is essential to have an accurate understanding. This critical fact is equally important when it comes to defining Biblical marriage. This includes those things referenced in Scripture that are involved with marriage, i.e., “putting away (divorce),” “fornication,” or “putting asunder (separation).”
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Without accurately defining marriage, these particular associated references will be misconstrued and wrongly conveyed, which will distort, confuse, or contradict. There are no two ways about it. Because of the obvious severity found in Scripture in violating marriage (fornication), having an accurate understanding is imperative for the professing Christian.
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As I have so vehemently proclaimed and pointedly declared and shown, Biblical marriage is not something Christendom teaches. They believe in and teach an intermixed form of marriage. They inject or assign secular marital concepts within Scripture, which frequently distorts the true meaning of Scripture creating non-cohesiveness and/or contradiction.
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Now, practically all (at least those I am aware of) Biblical translations, revisions, and commentators translate the last part of verse six as “let not man separate” or “let no man separate” or “let no man split apart,” along with “let not man put asunder.” The understanding of this declaration is that no man is to separate a marriage that has been joined together by God.
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However, where the problem exists with each of these renderings (including the KJV), compared to the original text, is the insertion of the word “let.” This inserted word does not represent the original text and distorts the true meaning of the intent and statement given by Christ. The original text just reads “man not separate” (ἄνθρωπος μὴ χωριζέτω), which means “man cannot separate” and not that he shouldn’t.
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To insert the word “let” infers the meaning that men or any man possesses the power to separate a marriage God has joined to where it no longer exists. It insinuates that a man or men have the wherewithal to disjoin or undo what God has combined, which Christendom has embraced, because of this word “let.” It causes Christendom to believe that it’s not something that should be done, but if you do and repent afterward, then a separation has occurred and everything is fine. It’s just like committing other sins. This insinuation is absolutely inaccurate, and I know is based on an ignorance of the Scriptural theology and principles of Biblical marriage (sexual intimacy). Where failure on their part occurs is to think that any man has the power to undo what God has joined.
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Scholars regard this the statement as being an “imperative” (a command) declaration not to separate. Therefore, to translate it in that mood, they insert the word “let.” However, the statement is instead “indicative” (a matter of fact). Therefore, the word “let” should not precede the statement, but it should properly be rendered in English “man [can]not separate. To make a command to not do something that is impossible to be done is senseless and foolish.
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Now, I want to clarify, putting away a spouse except for fornication is not pleasing to the Lord and should not be done. However, when executed, it does not separate the union that is between them. It is no different than what is depicted in 1Corinthians 7:10&11, where Paul instructs the Christian wife, who “departs” from her husband, to remain “unmarried” (no sexual intimacy with another man) or be reconciled back to her husband. Any departure, NO MATTER HOW IT COMES ABOUT, does not separate a marriage made. What is missed is understanding that the real detrimental sin occurs from marrying another, after departing, which produces adulterous fornication. Departure or divorce can be rectified or reconciled. However, marrying (sexual intimacy with) another, if not for the reason of fornication, after departure or divorce is the sin, because adultery will be the result, which defiles the departed and makes reconciliation impossible. Just putting a spouse away does not do that.
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The evidence of the fact that marriage cannot be separated is completely borne out in Scripture itself. To infer otherwise is to contradict Scripture and its teaching on marriage law, whether by Jesus, Paul, or Moses.
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Regardless of any other person or entity, neither the woman nor the man married to each other has the power to separate their self from the other. Man has the capability to join his self to another, which also involves God, but that is all. Even when the putting away is for fornication, the marriage still exists. However, because of the fornicating spouse having defiled their body, making it dead to a legitimate marriage, it is as if they are dead to the other, making their spouse free. Yet, the innocent spouse is not dead to them.
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So, nowhere in Scripture is it ever alluded to that God disjoins any marriage, whether legitimate or not. There is only one natural disjoining that can occur – death. Just as marriage (joining) only happens naturally, its separation only happens naturally, and ONLY within a “legitimate” marriage – not a fornicated illegitimate one. One does not become undefiled because of the one they fornicated or defiled themselves with dies. Nor, after they have defiled themselves and their legitimate spouse dies is their defilement removed. Once defiled, always defiled. They have “sinned against their body.”
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Consider this: Under the Mosaic Law, fornicators were immediately killed, which halted any opportunity to be sexually intimate with another thereafter. In Christ, however, there is forgiveness and the opportunity to still live life, yet a life of celibacy becomes a necessity. It is their body sexually that becomes dead. To continue being sexually intimate is to live in fornication and to die spiritually, and all who are sexually intimate with them will be fornicating their self with them.
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I wholeheartedly agree with this comment found in the Pulpit Commentary concerning this verse of Scripture (Matt. 19:6) saying, ”Man does thus infringe the primitive rule when he divorces his with. Herein he opposes God and acts against nature. He and his wife are one; they can no more separate from one another than they can from themselves. If we regard our Lord’s language in this passage without prejudice, and not reading into it modern notions, we must consider that he here decrees the indissolubility of the marriage tie. His hearers plainly understood him so to speak, as we see from the objection, which they urged.” AMEN!
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Therefore, inserting the word “let” violates and contradicts other Scripture, as well as the context of what Jesus was declaring in his rebuke to the Pharisees in Matthew 19.
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As I described in “BIBLICAL MARRIAGE: A Sacred Law,” Biblical marriage creates a holy complete man and that holy complete man is not to make it unholy, whether it be the husband or the wife, by defiling their self with someone or something else, which will defile the marriage (the holy man). Although neither can disjoin the marriage, one of the two that make up that one man has the power to defile it.
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Let’s examine some Scripture and see why what I am proclaiming is a correct analysis:
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1. Matthew 19:1-10 – The very context of this text to which Christ declared this statement regarding “separation” gives full proof as to the validity of my claim. The Pharisee’s were trying to imply that the “Bill of Divorcement” given by Moses procured a separation of a marriage for marrying another.
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Jesus made it very clear, however, that this bill was granted to protect the woman from her husband’s evil dealings (“hard hearts”) with her, when casting her away destitute, where she lacked the provision and protection of a man, so she could go marry another man to meet her needs. However, it did not eliminate their joining, as God designed it at the beginning of creation and, therefore, did not dismiss committing adultery, when marrying another. The law of God’s marital design had not changed. And note: The BoD was never designed for or used when fornication was committed by the wife. She was stoned to death.
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Therefore, because of this lifelong joining, “Whosoever shall put away his wife, except for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery; and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.”
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In any divorce action, the marriage is still intact and any marriage to another would culminate in adulterous fornication by both parties involved, except where the putting away was for the reason of the other spouse engaging in a sexually fornicated act, which then would nullify the instruction on adultery by the divorcer marrying another. The innocent spouse would not be guilty, nor the one they married, of committing adultery. The violator was already defiled and guilty.
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2. Deuteronomy 24:1-4 – Though Moses granted the “Bill of Divorcement,” he knew very well that the marriage was never separated. This is so clearly revealed by the fact that even though the woman was put away she became “defiled” (v.4) by the new joining, which verse four indicates, as to why she could not, afterward, reconcile to her first husband. This confirms what Jesus declared. Here in Matthew 9, Jesus is now declaring that even the man who married her after she being divorced with the B.O.D. was committing adultery with her as well.
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3. Romans 7:2&3 – Even though the context of these verses wasn’t in the vein of teaching all the principles of marriage, one principle is unmistakably presented. That principle was the lasting union of a legitimate marriage. A lasting law is pointedly proclaimed, where nothing dissolves that marital law other than death, alone, for the marriage to another to be valid. Paul correlates the law of marriage to our connection to the law of Christ. We must first die to the old law to be married to the new law in Christ. We can’t legitimately and justifiably be married to both.
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To infer that man is capable of and has the power to separate a marriage and is warned not to contradicts this law and teaching of the Apostle Paul regarding its unchangeable authority.
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This inference also contradicts the unchangeable authority of the natural effect of adultery, changing a woman from no longer having the distinction of being identified as a “wife” to the distinction of being identified as an “adulteress.” If man can separate marriage to where it no longer exists, no one would ever have to bear the distinction of adulterer or adulteress in divorcing for any reason. Hence, the Pharisees position. This Biblical distinction of adulterer defines any person who marries (sexually intimate) another of the opposite sex, while already legitimately married to another of the opposite sex, or marries one who is married to another, whether legitimately or as an adulterer.
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So, what Jesus is declaring to the Pharisees in Matthew 19:6 and Mark 10:9 is that no matter what man might devise, “what God has joined together, man cannot separate.” This is the true rendering of this Scriptural passage. No man can separate a God joined male and female, whether legitimate or not. As I declared, it is built into nature (creation).