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Question #17: My husband committed adultery with another man's wife. He intended to leave me to be with her, so I divorced him. This was many years ago. Later I married a man who decided he didn't want me any more and divorced me. (I had cheated on him once but he didn't know it.) Then I married (and am still married to) a man who had been married and got a divorce from his wife because he didn't love her and he had had sex with lots of different women while he was married to her. He thought he was doing her a favor to set her free and let her marry someone who would love her.
Anyway, now I am married to this last husband I mentioned, and your site seems to be saying I had no right to divorce my first husband and the husband I have now had no right to divorce his first wife. So what do I do now to be right with God? If I went back to my first husband--he is single now, after marrying the woman he committed adultery with and then getting a divorce--but it would disrupt a whole lot of lives if I divorced the husband I now have and remarried my first husband. Plus, my first husband is unrighteous while the husband I have now is a God-fearing Christian. And I love my husband very much and would vomit if I had to be with my first husband. Is there any hope for me to be right with God? As I undestand it, you were once married to one man (let's call him "A") who ended up committing adultery with another man's wife. At this point, "A" and this other man's wife have both committed adultery, but you did not sin in this regard. Then, you separated yourself from your husband "A", at which point you were still Biblically married to "A" because the state-recognized divorce was not lawful (according to Scripture). Under the Mosaic Law, your husband would have been sentenced to death for his adultery and you would have been free to remarry afterwards. Even if "A" had been the one who filed for divorce, he did not have a case to lawfully divorce you under these circumstances, so you both would have remained married either way. Matthew 5:32: "But I say to you that whoever puts away his wife, except for the matter of whoring, makes her commit adultery. And whoever marries a woman who has been put away commits adultery." Sure enough, some time later you married another man (let's call him "B") at which time you took another husband unlawfully. Mark 10:11-12 clearly demonstrates that you committed adultery when you married "B". Mark 10:11-12: "And He said to them, "Whoever puts away his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. And if a woman puts away her husband and marries another, she commits adultery." You mentioned that sometime later, you again committed adultery with another man while married to "B", although your husband was unaware of this. Then "B" decides he wants a divorce and you married another man (let's call him "C"), who himself had been married and unlawfully divorced his first wife. You also said that "C" had been having sex with several other women during his first marriage. Now both you and "C" have committed or recommitted your lives to following God's will and want to know how to make things right with Him. I think we both can see the destructive nature of sexual sin which runs rampant in our society today. By my calculations, I'm counting at least six people engaged in several instances of adultery and an unknown number of fornication instances with various women. But the real issue is where to proceed from here. I'm going to assume that you both already know of God's redemption available through His Son and how all your sins are no longer remembered through faith in Messiah, so we'll just discuss this situation from the vantage point of new believers who have made such errors in the past. John 4:16-18: "Yahushua said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here." The woman answered and said, "I have no husband." Yahushua said to her, "You have well said, 'I have no husband,' for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true." The Samaritan woman at the well had five husbands in the past (one at a time, naturally) and the man she currently had was not her husband at all. At the time she spoke with Yahushua, she had NO husband. This passage speaks volumes regarding your current marital situation. You have had three husbands but the one you have now IS your husband. Neither "A" nor "B" are your husband any longer. So, your question was "Is there any hope for me to be right with God?" Absolutely! Pray for forgiveness for past mistakes, accept His forgiveness, and live each day determined to follow His will from now on. Obviously, leaving "C" at this point would only cause you to commit yet another instance of adultery and destroy even more lives in the process. You are in a covenant relationship with "C" now and you cannot destroy that covenant to attempt restoration to either "A" or "B". Even if either of them wanted you back, you would be committing adultery all over again, compounding the sin. It is not a perfect solution but sin always destroys lives and this is the situation with which we are faced. Remember, in Old Testament times, all those who committed adultery would have been stoned and the question of what to do now would not be applicable. Thank God that Messiah suffered and died for these sins so we can now live under His New Covenant with His grace and mercy! From this point forward, you would have to remain with the man you are presently married to, for the simple reason that any other option would cause you to commit further sin. You did not mention whether the woman that your current husband had divorced has herself been remarried or not. If she has not been remarried, then there is one other potential issue that you both need to be aware of. Let's look at Deut. 24 for a moment: Deuteronomy 24:1-4: "When a man takes a wife and shall marry her, then it shall be, if she finds no favour in his eyes because he has found a matter of uncoveredness in her, and he shall write her a certificate of divorce, and put it in her hand, and send her out of his house, and if she left his house and went and became another man's wife, and the latter husband shall hate her and write her a certificate of divorce, and put it in her hand, and send her out of his house, or when the latter husband died who took her to be his wife, then her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her back to be his wife after she has been defiled, for that would be an abomination befoe Yahweh. And do not bring sin on the land which Yahweh your Elohim is giving you as an inheritance." This verse is a double-edged sword in your situation. It prevents you from being restored back to "A" or "B", but it also allows for an unusual situation in the event that the first wife of your husband has not remarried. If she was a believer and wanted to be restored to "C", he would be obligated to take her back as his wife because he was not allowed to dismiss her in the first place. To refuse to be willing to do so would cause him to remain in adultery. 1 Corinthians 7:10-11: "And to the married I command, not I, but the Master: A wife should not separate from a husband. But if she is indeed separated, let her remain unmarried or be restored to favour with her husband, and let not a husband send away a wife." From what you described, it sounds as if he let her go so she could find another to marry, and if she has in fact remarried, then the point is moot. But I felt I should at least let you know what Scripture has to say on the matter. If she wanted to return to "C", he would be required to take care of both of his wives, provided she was a believer and remained unmarried in the interim. If she has been remarried, he would be forbidden from taking her back as his wife, for the same reason that you are forbidden to return to "A" or "B", even if "C" should die at some point in the future. "A" became off-limits to you when you married "B", just as "B" became off-limits to you when you married "C". I'll be praying for you and your husband to continue to strengthen your relationship with one another and with God. |
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