The following are six reasons why a person should not remarry while a divorced spouse remains alive.

1. God makes the one flesh marriage union between a man and a woman.

No separation of man can unjoin what God has joined together, or make two what God has made one, because God is the maker of their union.

Genesis 1:27
²⁷ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Genesis 2:23–24
²³ Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” ²⁴ Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Malachi 2:14-15
¹⁴ … the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth… ¹⁵ Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union?

Matthew 19:4-6
He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, ⁵ and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? ⁶ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Mark 10:6-9
⁶ But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ⁷ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, ⁸ and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. ⁹ What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

I do not believe that it is possible for man to ultimately separate what God has joined together in marriage. But I do believe that man can act like it is possible, by either divorcing a spouse officially with the courts and/or by remarrying another after divorce, when a spouse remains alive. And I believe that this is what Jesus is referring to when he says “let not man separate”. What I believe he means is that “what God has joined together in the court of heaven, do not separate in the courts of earth”.

2. God’s purpose in making the one flesh marriage union is to display the relationship between Christ and his church.

The life long oneness of the one flesh marriage union is consistent with what it was created to point to: the permanent oneness with Christ and his church. Remarriage while a spouse is living, aborts and perverts what marriage was intended to display from its inception in the garden: the relationship of Christ to his church. A remarriage while a divorced spouse is alive lies about how Christ relates to his church.

Ephesians 5:22–33
²² Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. ²⁴ Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. ²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, ²⁶ that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ²⁷ so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. ²⁸ In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹ For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, ³⁰ because we are members of his body. ³¹ “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” ³² This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. ³³ However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

3. A husband or wife’s one flesh marriage union exists as long as the other spouse lives.

1 Corinthians 7:39
³⁹ A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives.

Romans 7:1–2
¹ Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? ² For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives…

4. There are only two options after divorce: remain unmarried or be reconciled to your spouse.

Paul gives these two options as a quotation from Jesus. Neither of the two options given is remarriage to another. Even when God divorced Israel, he did not remarry another, but welcomed her back.

1 Corinthians 7:10–11
¹⁰ To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband ¹¹ (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife.

Jeremiah 3:8, 12-14
⁸ She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce…¹² Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, “ ‘Return, faithless Israel, declares the Lord. I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful, declares the Lord; I will not be angry forever. ¹³ Only acknowledge your guilt, that you rebelled against the Lord your God and scattered your favors among foreigners under every green tree, and that you have not obeyed my voice, declares the Lord. ¹⁴ Return, O faithless children, declares the Lord; for I am your master; I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion.

5. If a divorced spouse lives, remarriage after divorce is adultery.

Adultery by definition, can only occur if one of the parties involved is presently in a one flesh marriage union with a living spouse. The fact that Jesus calls remarriage after divorce adultery, confirms the inability of earthly courts to separate what God has joined together. By specifically calling a divorced person’s remarriage to another adultery, Jesus is introducing the possibility of a divorced person still being joined in God’s eyes.

Mark 10:10–12
¹⁰ And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. ¹¹ And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, ¹² and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

Luke 16:18
¹⁸ “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.

Matthew 5:32
³² …whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Matthew 19:9
⁹ And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

Although remarriage after divorce while a divorced spouse is still alive is initially adultery, I do not believe it is ongoing adultery. I believe that in the case where a divorced spouse is still alive, sex with another person, without a covenant, is ongoing adultery. I believe that in the case where a divorced spouse is still alive, sex with another person, with a covenant, is initially adultery, but then creates another one flesh marriage union, where ongoing sex is no longer adultery. Sex alone does not create a marriage. Sex and a covenant create a one flesh marriage union (Mal 2:14, Prov 2:17). I believe that the initial act of sex is adultery in a new marriage, because the divorced spouse is still alive, and you are not yet officially married to the new spouse before sex has occurred. After the initial sex has occurred, combined with a covenant, a new marriage now exists and subsequent acts of sex are no longer adultery.

6. The death of a spouse is the only grounds for remarriage.

Death of a spouse is the only explicitly mentioned reason to legitimately remarry.

Romans 7:2–3
² … if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. ³ … if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.

1 Corinthians 7:39–40
³⁹ … if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. ⁴⁰ Yet in my judgment she is happier if she remains as she is. And I think that I too have the Spirit of God.

Objections

To address any objections to these points, I point you to the best article I’ve read on this topic: “Until death do us part Is remarriage biblically sanctioned after divorce?” by Finny Kuruvilla. Apart from my obvious disagreement with his pastoral applications in the last few pages, I think he does an excellent job addressing the objections to the views I have just expressed, with consistency, clarity, and scholarship.

Local Church Application

In the local church where I am an elder, the elders do not all agree how remarriage should be handled. So when a person within our church comes to us for counsel regarding this matter we encourage them to meet with all the elders to hear what they each have to say on the matter, while also pointing them to what other godly men have written or spoken on the topic.

Conclusion

To be sure, this is a very difficult topic that many godly men have disagreed about throughout the centuries. It is an important topic to wrestle with. One side runs the risk of encouraging or endorsing adultery, while the other side runs the risk of prohibiting marriage where it should not be prohibited.

Personally, I am not willing to risk encouraging or endorsing adultery due to the Bible’s teaching on the seriousness of adultery. Additionally, I am not concerned about prohibiting remarriage, because Paul did it when referencing Jesus’ teaching:

1 Corinthians 7:10–11
¹⁰ To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband ¹¹ (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband),

Lastly, I believe that those warned against in 1 Timothy 4:1-3 “who forbid marriage” were forbidding marriage altogether, which I am certainly not doing.

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