Permanence of Marriage

Posted at RPCNA Covenanter:

A question was asked on the Puritanboard.com that I know a lot of people struggle with. Especially since divorce is so prevalent in all of our lives. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t been affected by divorce or remarriage. I know there are some who believe that a person is bound to a marriage covenant as long as death has not entered into the equation. That seems extreme to some people but it is based upon Romans 7.

(Rom 7:1) Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? 

(Rom 7:2) For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. 

(Rom 7:3) So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.

As I make reference to the passage in Romans 7 let me say something important. Allow me to quote my old Pastor Kimber Kauffman, “If we desired we could make Ronald Reagan look like a Communist if we didn’t read him in context and if we lifted portions of things he said or wrote without knowing the whole thought or context. The same is true for Scripture. We have to take in the whole counsel of God and understand things in their context.

The question asked was in the Original post was about the Permanence of Marriage Movement. I know that some people understand that the scriptures do not allow remarriage in any situation. They have been around for a long time. There is also the teaching that the Roman Church has concerning this situation and why they believe in annulments.

One of the best men I know responded splendidly to questions asked on the Puritanboard and I want to let him speak alone as I believe he is Biblical and spot on. His title and name is Dr. Alan Strange. He is an ordained Teaching Elder in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and a Professor at Mid America Reformed Seminary in Dyer, Indiana.

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