Are we still committing adultery?
Question:
I was married for over ten years and left my spouse to be with my current spouse. My current spouse was married and left his spouse to be with me. That was over fifteen years ago. We have no children. I was a Christian in a verbally abusive marriage with my ex and I knew better not to leave that marriage.
My ex-husband told me if I didn't stop going to church he would divorce me. So, I did and within five years I had several emotional and physical affairs with several men, then met and fell in love with my current husband. He said he was a Christian, but he is thinking now maybe he really wasn't. He is a Seventh Day Adventist, walked down the aisle at 12 years of age, hated church, but was forced to go. Five years ago, he went to the Lord with a truly repentant heart and asked for forgiveness for his adultery.
In the last ten years, I have been tormented about whether we should stay together or dissolve this marriage and remain single. My current husband is irate about this thought. All I know is I want the truth and do what is right in God's eyes! Three years ago my ex-husband died. Am I still an adulterer in God's eyes since the covenant marriage has been broken due to his death? My current husband's ex-wife is still alive and remarried one month after we got married, with NO possibility of them getting back together. (She can't stand him.) I believe he is still bound to her since she is living.
We have both gone to the Lord and asked forgiveness for the adultery and have rededicated our lives to him and got baptized together. We have been attending church together for the past five years and trying to live for God the best we can. We have not talked to our pastor, but plan on it very soon. Not sure about his view on this.
Please give us some scriptural advice. I feel that maybe we should separate and remain single since his wife is still living, but he doesn't. We were already married when my spouse died if that makes a difference. So much of a mess! Sin is horrible!
Answer:
As I was reading your note, I kept thinking about how our society avoids saying things plainly and directly.
- "Verbally abusive" really means you argued a lot.
- "Emotional affairs" you were looking for other men.
- "Physical affairs" you committed adultery.
Sometimes the mess we get ourselves into is due to our refusing to call our trash "trash."
When you left your husband, you did not have a right to marry another man. You were the one guilty of adultery. "And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery" (Mark 10:12). That sin ended when your former husband died. "For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man" (Romans 7:2-3).
You did not say why your current husband divorced his original wife. If she divorced him because he was committing adultery with you, then he is in the same position you were in. He has no right to remarry. Jesus gave only one reason for divorce that allows the person to marry another and that is sexual immorality on the other spouse's part. "And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery" (Matthew 19:9). Assuming his divorce wasn't because his former wife was having an affair, that means your current marriage is adulterous because he has no right to you. Given that situation, if wish to please God and obey His commands, you need to stop the adultery by ending the marriage.
Response:
Thank you for your response.
