SECOND CHANCE Other books by Ray Sutton Who Owns The Family? God or the State?, 1986 That ~u May Prosper: Dominion By Covenant, 1987 SECOND CHANCE Biblical Blueprints for Divorce and Remarriage Ray R. Sutton Dominion Press Ft. Worth, Texas Copyright c 1988 by Ray Sutton All rights reserved. Written permission must be secured from the publisher to use or reproduce any part of this book, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles. Published by Dominion Press 7112 Burns Street, Ft. Worth, Texas 76118 Typesetting by Thobum Press, Tyler, Texas Printed in the United States ofAmerica Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version of the Bible, copyrighted 1984 by Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 87-073502 ISBN 0-930462-49-1 Dedicated To My Father-In-Law and Mother-In-Law John and Evelyn Schaerdel Whose Unselfishness Has Made My Ministry Possible TABLE OF CONTENTS Editor's Introduction .....•......................... ix Part I: BLUEPRINTS Author's Introduction 3 Principles ofDivorce: Covenant Lawsuit 1. Marriages Are Made in Heaven 17 2. Burying the Living Dead..................•...33 3. Playing with Fire Burns Out a Marriage 46 4. Covenantal Execution Protects the Innocent 64 5. Living Happily Ever After .............•......85 Principles ofRemarriage: Covenant Adoption 6. New Covenant, New Spouse 102 7. The Period ofCovenantal Transition 115 8. Binding Two or Strangling One 128 9. Fools Rush in without Counsel 142 10. Everyone Needs to Be Adopted 155 Conclusion 167 Part II: RECONSTRUCTION 11. What the Family Should Do 173 12. What the Church Should Do 191 13. What the State Should Do 208 Bibliography 225 Scripture Index 227 Subject Index 233 What Are Biblical Blueprints? .........•............ 239 vii EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION by Gary North Whoever lies with a beast shall surely be put to death (Exodus 22:19). There is a school ofBiblical interpretation that says that unless an Old Testament law is repeated in the New Testament as legally binding, it is no longer legally binding. Such a doctrine is not ex- plicitly taught in the New Testament; it is a generally unstated presupposition that commentators bring with them when they begin to study the Bible. They assume what they ought first to prove. 1 There is no mention in the New Testament of bestiality. This raises a significant problem of interpretation for those who argue that the Old Testament law system was annulled by Christ. On what basis is the civil government to prosecute bestiality? Natural law? But nature is hardly a guide in sexual matters, for it is under God's curse (Genesis 3:17-18). Animals do all sorts of things sex- ually that the Old Testament regards as an abomination. The Marquis de Sade, from whom we get the term sadism, was a great defender of natural law theory that is based self-consciously on nature, for nature is filled with murder and destruction. But if natural law theory is an unreliable foundation, then the question remains: What is the civil government to do about bestiality (or any other crime)? On what moral or legal basis? Is bestiality legal ground for divorce in the New Testament 1. Gary North, 75 Bible Questions ~ur Instructors Pray ~u WOn't Ask (Ft. Worth, Texas: Dominion Press, [1984] 1987), Part II. ix x Second Chance era, even though it is not mentioned in the New Testament? How can we be sure, if we do not operate under the assumption that God's Old Testament standards are still binding in the New Testa- ment, unless specifically annulled through historical fulfillment? Does the innocent victim of a marriage partner who practices bestiality have the legal right before God to separate permanently from the sexually deviant spouse? Can the victim lawfully sue for divorce in the civil courts? Should a civil government declare as already divorced any couple when either partner has committed bestiality? Homosexuality? If so, on what basis? Ifnot, how is the innocent party to be protected? If the innocent party can lawfully receive a formal declaration of divorce from Church and State, what about remarriage? Is an innocent victim of a perverse marriage partner forever con- demned to celibacy? If so, on what New Testament basis? If not, on what New Testament basis? Under the Rug These problems are indicative of a whole series of questions regarding divorce and remarriage. These problems cannot safely be swept under the institutional rug, either by Church or State. Yet this is exactly what is going on today. The rugs are visibly lumpy, so frequently have these questions been swept under them. People and congregations continue to trip over this lumpy ecclesiastical rug. The civil government's rug is just as lumpy. The State has adopted no-fault divorce, thereby threatening the very foundation of Western civilization. The catastrophic rise in the number of divorces today is a national scandal. The Church has not officially adopted this no-fault view, but in effect it has adopted it, for it defers to the judicial decisions of the civil government. There are exceptions, ofcourse. A church in the state ofOklahoma formally excommunicated an adulterous woman whose sin was well known in the community. She sued the church in civil court. This consti- tuted a direct threat on the integrity of the church. A homosexual Presbyterian pastor was arrested by a police Editor's Introduction xi officer for soliciting in a public lavatory. When cleared of this charge by a civil jury because of a legal technicality made during his arrest, the man's presbytery threatened to try him in the church's courts. He then threatened the presbytery with civil ac- tion, and the presbytery fearfully dropped the case.2 He remained an ordained pastor. Not full-time, however. He was a full-time public school teacher. A married Presbyterian pastor in the same denomination ad- mitted adultery with the wife ofanother church member. His pun- ishment? He was transferred to another presbytery. "Keep him away from our wives," was the first presbytery's guiding principle. The receiving presbytery had no guiding principle. He later vol- untarily resigned the ministry, showing far greater wisdom than either of the presbyteries. (I subsequently bought a part of his ex- cellent library through a used book catalogue.) Little or nothing is done by the churches to solve the divorce and adultery plagues, year after year, decade after decade. God will not be mocked. TheJim Bakker scandal rocked the American evangelical community in 1987, and it cost rival television minis- tries hundreds of millions of dollars in forfeited donations. Time bombs keep ticking. There is the AIDS time bomb, the herpes time bomb, and the Church-courts-without-any-sense-of-direction-or- perceived-authority time bomb. These time bombs are all begin- ning to explode at once. And as they go off, one by one, many innocent victims will see their lives devastated. Who will step in and offer them solace, guidance, and hope ifthe churches remain silent? Yet they do remain nearly silent. At best, they whisper. And what they whisper comforts very few. A Theocentric, Covenantal Universe When Christians face difficult social or theological problems, they should discipline themselves to look to the Bible for answers. 2. He should have been excommunicated for having threatened the Presby- tery with civil action- a case of obvious contumacy. xii Second Chance They must begin their search with these questions: What is the character of God? How does He relate to the creation? How does He deal with man? How is man supposed deal wit~ other men? We must start with God and God's legal relationships with man- kind. Only then can we safely begin to look for Biblical solutions to the social problems of any era. Man is made in God's image. God's covenantal relationships with men, both redeemed and fallen, provide us with models of how we are to deal with each other, both redeemed and fallen. Throughout the Bible, God's people are described collectively as God's bride. The marriage covenant becomes the model of the God-Church covenant. Ezekiel 16 is a classic passage in this re- gard; so is Ephesians 5:22-33. Ifmarriage is the model, then what about divorce? God divorced Israel when Israel revolted by crucifying Christ. This was the last straw. Israel had committed spiritual adultery repeatedly, from the golden calfforward. God soon remarried; He gained a new bride, the Church. Jesus Christ is the bridegroom of the Church, not of Israel. The legal basis of this marriage was a prior divorce. If God had not lawfully cast off Israel, the Church could not legitimately be called God's bride. God is not a bigamist. Divorce and remarriage: without both of these cove- nantal actions on God's part, there could be neither Church nor salvation in New Testament times. If this is how God has dealt with mankind, then how are we to deal with each other? If God established the Church on the basis ofcovenantal divorce and remarriage, are we to use this as our ex- ample? If not, why not? The Covenant To understand the basis of divorce and remarriage in both the Old and New Testaments, we must first understand the covenant. Pastor Ray Sutton, after many years of marriage counseling, Editor's Introduction xiii stumbled across the long-neglected Biblical covenant model. His book, That 10u May Prosper, is the classic formulation of this five- point model, the first developed expression of it.s It serves as the structure of this book, as well as most of the others in the Biblical Blueprints Series. The covenant model provides specific answers to five inescapable and crucial personal and institutional questions: Who's in charge here? To whom do I report? What are the rules? What do I get if I obey (disobey)? Does this outfit have a future? Marriage is governed by the Biblical answers to these five questions. It is one of God's three ordained covenantal monopo- lies: Church, State, and Family. Thus, to discuss the legal basis of divorce and remarriage without first understanding that the Bible's answers are governed by the five-point Biblical covenant model is to embark on a fog-shrouded journey without a flash- light. However complete the map (the Bible), it will not lead you to your desired destination. Without a flashlight, you can't read it at night, nor can you see the path in front of you. Covenantal Death and Adoption The Blueprints section of Second Chance is divided into two parts, each ofwhich is based on a fundamental Biblical principle. The first principle, covenantal death, governs covenantal divorce. The second principle, covenantal adoption, governs marriage and remarriage. Because Bible commentators have failed to see that these two Biblical principles-death and adoption-apply specifi- cally to divorce and remarriage, their commentaries have not pro- vided adequate guidance to Christian pastors and marriage coun- selors. Sutton's application of these two principles is nothing short of a theological breakthrough, a minor breakthrough com- 3. Ray R. Sutton, That l'Ou May Prosper: Dominion By Covenant (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1987). xiv Second Chance pared with That lVu May Prosper, but a major one in terms ofprac- tical Christianity. When besieged pastors recognize the magnitude of what Sut- ton has accomplished, they will feel as though an enormous bur- den has rolled from their shoulders. Their own doubts regarding practical advice to confused and desperate victims of evil mar- riage partners will begin to disappear. They will have a set of cri- teria for dealing with divorced people in their churches. Church members will at last find practical ways of coping with and over- coming legitimate guilt, or escaping from illegitimate guilt. The covenant is practical. The various crises of the late twentieth century are being borne disproportionately by the family. The family is incapable of dealing with these crises autonomously. No single institution is capable. Families have turned increasingly to the civil govern- ment as the primary source of relief, but this parasitic agency has been stretched too thin economically and too thick bureau- cratically to deliver the hoped-for relief. If the churches fail to offer Bible-based guidance to families in this era ofcrisis, then the ministry of the gospel will be set back, perhaps by several genera- tions. The Church does not operate to its full cultural capacity in concentration camps or in hospices for the terminally ill. The churches seem incapable ofrestoring broken marriages or replacing broken marriages with guilt-free working ones. Why not? Because churches have ignored the ethical and legal require- ments ofthe Biblical covenants: Church, State, and Family. Until they once again begin to pay attention to the terms and sanctions of each of these covenants, they will continue to suffer setback after setback. To the extent that the Church ignores the covenant model, covenant-breaking society thinks it can safely ignore the Church. Then comes God's temporal judgments. AIDS is not the beginning of these judgments, but it may end them simply by removing the potential rebels from this world, as well as large segments of God's remnant. If people had honored the terms of the marriage covenant, would AIDS now be a threat? More to the point, ifpeople will re- Editor's Introduction xv new their commitment to covenantal marriage, will AIDS cease to be a threat? How soon? Other Viewpoints Second Chance discusses other traditional Christian views of divorce and remarriage. No doubt there will be many Christian people who will send Sutton outraged letters telling him that he is terribly liberal or terribly rigorous in his covenantal view of mar- riage. What the letters will not contain, I predict, is a systematic, Bible-based refutation ofhis five-point covenant model and its ap- plication to the marriage covenant. Sutton may be told about this or that book on the topic, which he probably already has read and may have reviewed in print. It will be a book written before the publication of That lOu May Prosper, and which takes no note ofthe Biblical covenant model. Such books are really not to the point; it will be the books written in response to Second Chance that alone will be relevant to the covenantal issues that Sutton raises. To those who complain because Sutton's approach is too rigor- ous, or "heartless and uncaring," I ask: How does your view avoid destroying the institution of marriage? How does your view differ from humanism's no-fault divorce system? To those who complain that Sutton's approach abandons the "no divorce/no remarriage" view, I ask: Does your church place under public censure each and every member who seeks and receives a divorce from the civil authorities, no matter what the reasons for the divorce? Does your church automatically excommunicate each and every divorced member who remarries, as well as each and every member who remarries a divorced person? If not, then why waste time writing to Sutton? Write instead to your pastor, your presbytery or synod, and your church's general assembly, and complain formally that they have deviated from the Biblical position. Work hard to get your church's view of divorce and remarriage straightened out, since you have placed yourself under its authority. Your church is your primary problem in this regard, not Second Chance. If you are the pastor in a "lax" church, and you hold the "no divorce/no remarriage" position, then your immediate responsi-