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Is remarriage ever okay? Does God ever recognize divorce?

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If you haven't listened to my series on marriage that includes messages on divorce and

remarriage, that's where I'll point you for a fuller treatment of the topic: http://www.bible.org/viewseries/230

On the remarriage issue--if divorce has varying opinions within the church, remarriage has twice as many. Fundamentally, some believe that legal divorce does not equal spiritual divorce. They believe that one is still married “in God's eyes” even after the courts say the marriage is over. I disagree. When Jesus says, “What God has joined together, let no man separate” I think He implies that it is, in fact, possible for a marriage to be “separated.” [in the same way, I do not think that sexual relations equals marriage in God's eyes; instead, covenanting before God equals marriage; renouncing the covenant--often through legal divorce proceedings--equals divorce in God's eyes] Furthermore, a strange passage in Deuteronomy 24:1-4 speaks to the issue of remarriage--even if we're not inclined to apply all of the ceremonial law today. According to this passage, once someone is divorced and remarried, if they are divorced again they are not permitted to remarry their original spouse. Strange, but God must have some reason for this. In the least, the passage teaches that legal divorce is, in fact, divorce “in God's eyes.”

Related Topic: Marriage

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