Why are the laws for remarriage different between the Old Law and New Law?
Question:
If the marriage law is universal, why is the remarriage law in Deuteronomy 24 different from Romans 7:2 in that the guilty party who gets married to a second spouse can go back to his/her first husband?
Answer:
The two laws of God are different. "Behold, days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them," declares the LORD" (Jeremiah 31:31-32). The two laws come from the same God, so you would expect similarities, but they will not be exactly the same.
"When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house, and she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man's wife, and if the latter husband turns against her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her to be his wife, then her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the LORD, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance" (Deuteronomy 24:1-4).
This law is based on a series of events. It does not define when or how to divorce a woman. This law's only concern is that if a divorce happens and the woman remarries, she may not return to her first husband later.
"For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man" (Romans 7:2-3).
This law states that a marriage is for life. It does not take into consideration divorce for this particular argument. If a woman marries while her husband is alive, she is an adulteress until her first husband dies.
Thus, Romans 7 and Deuteronomy 24 cover different situations. A divorce triggers Deuteronomy 24, but divorce is not considered in Romans 7. Deuteronomy 24 forbids a woman from returning to her first husband if her second marriage ends. In Romans 7, her first husband has died, so returning to him is not an issue.
