You can see by the Foreword how I came to write this book, and I
intended the title to be, "Marriage, Divorce, Remarriage and Membership in
the Church of the Living God." But
as I wrote, the image of Christ began to emerge as the hub around which all
else revolved.
My purpose then took a different direction: not so much to
"prove" something, but rather to remind the people of God that His
militant church (those congregations dwelling on this earth at any point in
time, no matter the names, who stubbornly refuse to follow any other Shepherd,
who aggressively search out the old paths) is to show forth to the world the image of God in the
person of His Son Jesus Christ in all her constituted rules of order. It is the only image for which God will have
respect and the only image at which the world will wonder, although with hatred
and persecution. This persecuting
hatred will turn to mocking and contempt once the Bride of Christ seeks to
adopt the world's own customs. Indeed
it has already done so; the image of her Husband is marred, and the world turns
back to its own concerns finding no threat of judgment in this foolish wife.
The scriptures that most emphatically uphold this truth are found
in the message sent to the last age of the church on earth -- the only message
sent to a church of a people. All the other messages are sent to churches in or of a place. But this last church has become the church of the Laodiceans (Rev. 3:14-22), a
church who needs fresh, white raiment, eyesalve for spiritual discernment, and
a refining fire to burn away the dross collected in lukewarm worship which the
Lord says He will spew out of His mouth -- not eternally, but until her
refinement is accomplished in the tribulations preceding the appearance of her
Lord--
--(If the writing of divorcement could have broken the first
marriage bond, there would have been no defilement attached to the second
marriage.)
Why, then, does this law exist?
Because when laws were written, Mercy was there. Mercy, legally
protecting the hated wife and legitimizing her children. Mercy, preventing the
men from committing worse crimes in order to satisfy their lusts. Mercy,
allowing them both to live in a state of adultery upon which the death sentence could not fall.
Since no death was allowed under the law of divorce, the true,
God- joined marriage bond remained unbroken, and the defilement of remarriage
prevented the wife from ever returning to her former husband. The law says also that the wife's defilement
remains even though the second marriage comes to an end (Deut. 24:3,4). This is a hard saying, but the price of a
legal privilege to remarry at the expense of God's holy law is high. Paul explains further that since she has
broken God's law, her defilement remains as long as that law binds her which is
until the death of her first husband (Rom. 7:1-3); therefore, she shall be
called an adulteress as long as her first husband lives (even though she might
be put away by her second husband or even if he dies). If her first husband is dead, she is no more
an adulteress (even though she still lives with her second husband).
Paul's words to the New Testament church are in perfect agreement
with the law in Deuteronomy: the law of
the first husband binds the wife as long as he lives. If she marries another, she shall be called an adulteress (only
because of that law under which she is still bound). Since she is to be called an adulteress as long as her first
husband lives, she cannot return to him to clear her name. Again, Jesus makes it plain that this is
true for both men and women (Mark 10: 11,12).