“Marriage, Divorce, And Remarriage”

Thursday, January 26, 2017

I committed adultery and divorced twenty years ago.  I was married to an alcoholic; I know that is no excuse for what I did, but I was in a fifteen-year marriage with a man that would not get help for mental abuse and alcohol abuse.  I had three children he was beginning to treat like me.  I am not laying the blame all on him; I have forgiven him for what he did, and I asked for his forgiveness for anything I did to him.  I have been married for nineteen years to a wonderful man; I have asked God to forgive me, but the guilt is killing me… am I not forgiven?

Sincerely,
A Wife

Dear A Wife,

Your question is an important one and is one that many christians wrestle with because of the high divorce rate in American society.  As you stated, adultery is wrong, and every divorce is caused because of sin.  God hates divorce (Mal 2:16), and His desire has always been for men and women to remain married for a lifetime (Matt 19:4-6).

As of late, we have received a numerous amount of questions regarding this issue and normally try and answer these questions privately due to the sensitive nature of this topic.  However, as this particular question was asked anonymously, we have no choice but to publicly answer it to provide the Bible answer to you.  Our hope is that this post will serve as a final AYP post on the topic of marriage, divorce, and remarriage (MDR) for quite some time.

There are many views on MDR, and everyone must be careful to not stand too dogmatically upon any position because good brethren have disagreed over this issue for years.  Within our own congregation, we have had multiple viewpoints on how to appropriately address this doctrinal issue.  In areas of truth, we must stand firm; in matters of opinion, we should bend with the wind, and in all things we should show love.

Because of the complexities of this issue and because every circumstance is unique, we are recommending that people with questions on this subject listen to the sermon series “Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage”, compare the sermons to Scripture, and then faithfully examine themselves to see whether they are living as God intended (Php 2:12).

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