NJK hit the nail on the head. God divorced because of the sexual immorality on the part of His "wife" - which is the only valid reason for divorce, according to Jesus.

According to the law of Moses the punishment for adultery is death, not divorcement. Your statement is a little vague and you need to specify what you are implying by "sexual immorality". I didn't agree with your other statement earlier in regard to Mat 5:31,32. I don't believe the Law of Moses describes specifically the reasons for divorcement and only states if a man finds "some uncleanliness" Deut 24:1 which can be quite broad. So your statement is an attempt to narrow it down which is not scripturally based, nor your interpretation of Jesus statement in Mat 5:31,32 which I have elaborate in detail in post#1341611 .

However,
1. do you believe that someone should divorce their wife if they commit adultery?

2. Do you believe that God should divorce his wife in case of adultery or should He put her to death according to the law?

3. Do you believe that God should abide to HIs own laws?

Elle, although the KJV's translation of Deut. 24:1-3 is possible, it does not fit the context at all. The NKJV's (and the RSV's) translation is the correct one:

"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 uncleanness in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house,
2 "when she has departed from his house, and goes and becomes another man’s wife,
3 "if the latter husband detests her and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her as his wife,
4 "then her former husband who divorced her must not take her back to be his wife after 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 is giving you as an inheritance."

So God is not at all commanding men to give a certificate of divorce, much less specifying the circumstances in which they should do so. God is just giving a law to regulate a custom which was already in existence, that is, the custom to put away a wife giving her a certificate of divorce. If the situation specified in that law happened to occur, the woman couldn't come back to her former husband.

That's why the gospel narrative says:

"They said to Him, 'Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?' He said to them, 'Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so'" (Matt. 19:7,8).


It's based on Jesus' words. I don't agree with your interpretation of Jesus' words. He was not at all emphasizing that a mere certificate of divorce solved the problem. He was making the point that "what God has joined together, let not man separate" (v. 6). The only valid reason for separation is then specified: in the case of sexual immorality.
Jesus is not saying, "Whoever divorces his wife without giving her a certificate of divorce, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery;" but: "Whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery."


This is the translation of the word porneia used by Jesus in v. 9, which includes adultery but is broader than it:

1) illicit sexual intercourse
1a) adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, intercourse with animals etc.
1b) sexual intercourse with close relatives; Lev. 18
1c) sexual intercourse with a divorced man or woman; #Mr 10:11,12


This depends on the details in each particular case. If the guilty party does not want to repent, I think there is no alternative left.


He does abide by His laws. The death penalty is no longer applied immediately for the transgression of God's law, but the penalty was by no means abolished - it was just postponed till the day of the final judgment. The wages of sin is death. In case the person repents and accepts Christ, the sinner's penalty is remitted just because it was already paid by Him.

I would say in regards to this point, according to my understanding, is that God’s Israel has not been able to return to a state where it had the legal/civil authority to effectuate Capital Punishment. The Romans took that right away from them and God’s Israel was replaced in 34 A.D., (ironically enough with the unlawful Capital “Murder” of Stephen.)

As seen in the case of Annanias and Sapphira, God could immediately visit such blatant and knowledgeable sins in His New Israel, however these Church members could not themselves enforce those still standing aspects of God’s law. (Even Jesus did not do away with it in the episode of the woman caught in adultery).

There was an attempt to revive this, or a form of this, in the New Israel era, however this was Spiritually spurious as by then, God was no longer leading that (Roman Catholic) group and they certainly, in most cases, were either not punishing the sins that were legislated to be so punished or were effectuating capital punishment for things that were not truth and/or sins.

Did God "stone" the immoral one? Wouldn't that have been "adultery?"

If polygamy constitutes "adultery," wouldn't the wives have had the "right" to marry another without adultery?

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

I don’t get your questions here Green Cochoa. That is in relation to the actual (Spiritual) context of those quoted discussion statements.

Maybe you're right. Maybe the Bible is wrong.

I wasn't addressing the question to you. Perhaps you have a different understanding from that of Rosangela, but I was asking questions that might evoke a bit of thought on her part.

However, let's look at the same thing from another angle.

Jacob and his wives...never so much as a hint in the Bible that they should be stoned. Ditto for each and every case of polygamy in the Bible. Not even Jesus hinted at stoning of polygamists.

Yet, as Rosangela has aptly pointed out, the punishment for adultery was stoning. Was polygamy "adultery?"



The definition of adultery is quite clear in the text above. Polygamy is NOT adultery. Adultery was the stealing of another's spouse (in the case above, another man's wife).

Rosangela has yet to build a supportable case for polygamy constituting adultery according to the Bible. The fact is, as has been pointed out before, so long as the wives are not stolen from other men, and so long as the man has married them, marriage makes their relations licit. It cannot be adultery.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Green Cochoa,

I had understood what you were trying to do in your questioning, however I just didn’t see a relation with the initial statement that I had made, nor the ensuing responses.

As you may already understand, I agree in essence with your view here. Polygamy is not “adultery”, nor do I see that, when done for genuine reasons of having children when one’s first wife could not, it is another kind of “sin”. However my understanding was that in such cases God only permitted “bigamy” (i.e., not more than 2 wives, as David and Solomon did. That constitutes a ‘baseless multiplication’). And one would really have to be unlucky to marry two wives who both cannot have, and if such was the case, I see/understand that one would be lawfully permitted to marry another wife.

I don’t see that this is the exegetical, nor sequitur, takeaway here. The view that justified bigamy/polygamy is adultery is wrong, as however, manifestly is EGW’s overgeneralized understanding.

In regards to Jer 3:6, a harlot does not marry her lovers, nor is seeking to have children/a family with them. So that conduct is adultery and does not compare to the lawful marriage and commitment in bigamy/polygamy.