1.6 The Nature of Marriage Permanence: Does God condone Consensual Non-Monogamy or is it a sin even if the first wife consents?

Some cultures which struggle with corrupt or developing social systems to protect and provide for single women, the poor, orphaned children, widows, or single mothers embrace polygamy as a solution for these social ills. Other couples may fail to embrace holiness in their sex life and agree to open their marriage to a variety of consensual non-monogamous relationship structures. A first wife may consent to her husband taking an official second wife or an unofficial “spiritual” second/sister wife for a variety of reasons. Does her consent elevate polygamous relationships to an acceptable relationship status to God?

No. Christian Husband, even if you received your wife’s permission to add a second wife to your relationship, polygamy still cannot be characterized as God’s idea for Christian marriage or His plan for your life, her life, your children’s lives, or the lives of the other woman and children who are consenting to this. This rejection of the legitimacy of polygamy is not based on opinion, and it even goes beyond all the valid and legitimate ‘soft’ objections discussed in previous sections addressing this main question. The real reason polygamy is incompatible with Christianity is that Jesus identifies it as sin.

JESUS, not Moses, gets to qualify what is sin and when it comes to adultery, He has raised the bar

Polygamists often want to hold to the Mosaic definition of adultery (unlawful sexual relations only and specifically involving another man’s wife) in order to justify adding additional wives (as long as they are single women) to their current relationship. What about now? Are we still living under the same gender divided covenant or did Jesus bring things back to their true state? Let’s examine the implications of Jesus’s teachings on marriage, adultery, divorce, and remarriage for polygamy.

Some Pharisees came and tried to trap him with this question: “Should a man be allowed to divorce his wife?”

Jesus answered them with a question: “What did Moses say in the law about divorce?”

“Well, he permitted it,” they replied. “He said a man can give his wife a written notice of divorce and send her away.”

But Jesus responded, “He wrote this commandment only as a concession to your hard hearts. But ‘God made them male and female’ from the beginning of creation. ‘This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.’ Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together.”

Later, when he was alone with his disciples in the house, they brought up the subject again. He told them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband and marries someone else, she commits adultery.” (Mark‬ ‭10)

Dialoguing about adultery...

Imagine with me, if you will, that there was a man, Jack, who was dating a woman, Jill...

They slept together, what do people call this?

- Most today would call that no big deal? But some people would call it sexual immorality.

Ok, what does God call that?

- Fornication.

Does God consider that a sin?

- Yes.

Eventually, the two get married and after their wedding night they sleep together again. What does man call this?

- Nothing, being married.

What does God call this?

- Nothing. The marriage bed [which is pure and undefiled]”.

Is this a sin?

- No.

Ok, now let’s imagine this couple were the hypothetical people in Jesus’s answer to the Pharisees in Mark 10. How many women is that man married to when Jesus begins talking about this couple with the Pharisees?

- One?

Yes. So far so good. Okay, so later on Jack finds out that Jill isn’t the person he thought she was, so Jack goes and gets a piece of paper from his spiritual and legal authorities that says he’s divorced her. Jack moves on and finds another woman who’s never been married before, Sally. Jack sleeps with Sally while she’s his girlfriend. Would people and God call that sexual act a sin?

- God would, yes, and some people would too, but other people wouldn’t have a problem with it.

But even according to those people who say they sinned sexually, would they call what Jack did with Sally the sin called “adultery”?

- No, now that Jack’s divorced he isn’t considered joined to Jill, his first wife anymore, so if he sleeps with Sally it’s not adultery, but it would still be sexual immorality or “fornication” like when he slept with Jill before they were married.

Alright so Jack gets serious and marries Sally and then after the ceremony he has sex with her. To how many women has Jack now been married at some point in this scenario?

- Two, Jill and Sally.

What do people (whether during the time of Moses or our present time) call it when this divorced man, Jack, is sexually intimate with his second wife, Sally?

- Nothing, being married.

Correct; but remember that Jack, Jill, and Sally are part of Jesus’s example when He’s talking to the Pharisees. Go back and reed what He said in Mark 10 (or Matthew 19 or Luke 16). Now, what did Jesus, God in the flesh, revealer of the Father, just call what newlyweds Jack and Sally did in their legally married bed?

- Jesus said anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman is commiting Adultery?!

😳! And what is the relationship status of a person guilty of committing the sin of “adultery” according to the Mosaic Law? Those already married or the unmarried?

- The married.

Yes. So then what does that say about the piece of paper that Jack got from the human authorities which they all believe severed the covenant between Jack and Jill, effectively unmarrying those two people that God has joined together in holy matrimony?

- That paper doesn’t do what everyone thought it did! It‘s inadmissible in the court of Heaven even though the courts on Earth say something different.

And now this man, Jack, is living as though he’s married to a second wife, Sally, while his first wife, Jill, is still alive. Human authorities say this is fine because Jill is his ex-wife, but God, through Jesus Christ, has just revealed that Jack does not in actuality have an exwife at all because Jack is currently committing adultery the sexual sin that can ONLY be committed by someone who is already married! What does that mean?

- Jack’s STILL married to Jill, his first wife according to God, even though the world says Jill is his ex!

Who is the victim of Jack’s adultery with Sally?

- Jill.

This is different than the way the Old Testament defined the victim and people involved in the sin of adultery. What does this reveal about whether Jesus considers females full ‘people’ who can be victims of adultery?

- Married women are people too, and Jill can be a victim of adultery by her husband now, just like Jack would have been if she had been the one to divorce and remarry.

We’ve reached the place in the example that the majority of Christians who have realized and teach the doctrine of “marriage permanence” stop.

However, by doing this, they prove they haven’t fully understood the implications of Jesus’s revelation in His interactions with the Pharisees. Let’s take Jesus’s marriage scenarios to their logical conclusion. Recall that...

One, Jack first married Jill, left her and got a piece of paper that they thought meant they weren’t married anymore, and then married Sally.

Two, Jesus said that piece of paper was in actuality impotent to dissolve their marriage in His eyes and essentially “not worth the paper it was printed on” when it came to dissolving a one-flesh covenant union joined by God.

So, how many women is the man in Jesus’s example (we've called him Jack) trying to be married to at the same time?

- More than one. In this case, two. Jill, the first, God says Jack is still joined to even though he doesn’t realize it, and Sally, the second wife, Jack has joined himself to by choice and spiritual/legal consent. So Jack is living as and declaring himself to be joined to a second woman while he’s already joined to a first woman.

Yes. Now, what does the world and the law of Moses call “being joined to more than one wife at a time”?

- Polygamy.

Was polygamy (being joined to more than one wife at a time) called a sin by God before this revelation from Jesus?

- No. Even godly men in the Old Testament lived with more than one wife at a time and God never called it “adultery” if they were legally married.

Correct. But now in the written record God has preserved for us, what does Jesus (the Word Made Flesh, the Revealer of the Father) call "having two wives at the same time"?

- Adultery.

Is adultery a sin, according to God?

- Yes.

So when the human or spiritual authorities allow Jack, or any man, to divorce his wife which God has joined him with, does God say it’s okay for him to have more than one wife at a time and join that man with a second woman when the human or spiritual authorities let them marry? Or does Jesus say that man is guilty of adultery?

- Jesus says he’s guilty.

And when the human or spiritual authorities allow a man to take a second wife with the knowledge of his first wife in a polygamous situation what does this scenario now reveal God will say about that situation? Will God say it’s okay for him to have more than one wife at a time and join that man with this other woman in marriage or does Jesus say those who have more than one wife at the same time are guilty of "adultery"?

- Jesus says they’re guilty.

Jesus changed the law regarding adultery and polygamy under His new covenant and He can do that because He is the Law-Giver. One of the most outrageous claims coming from some polygamous marriage people is that Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant was restricted from mediating the transition from the old covenant to this new covenant! “One of the most destructive doctrines to afflict Christians is the misuse of Matthew 5:17-19. It is construed to mean that while Jesus was here in the flesh, He had to AGREE with all of what Moses wrote or He would have been sinning. It is one of the most convoluted messes to ever be dumped on believers by deceivers. In Matthew 5, six times Jesus says something like, "But I say unto you". In every case where He says this He is changing, to some extent, what Moses wrote. Paul plainly wrote that Jesus changed the Law (adapted & shared)

Why we can’t just get around the charge of “adultery” by not divorcing the first wife before adding a second one

This is a very common deception among ‘Christian’ polygamists, oddly. It is odd because of how ludicrous the “bait and switch” tactic is revealed to be when subjected to only the lightest of scrutinies. It must be firmly attached to fallacies addressed elsewhere on this site of a gendered definition of adultery and of women as property rather than people or it completely falls apart, but often it is stated as though it were a stand alone, logical conclusion of Christ’s teachings.

The idea is that since Jesus was talking about hypothetical Jack committing adultery when he marries his second wife, Sally, after he’s divorced his first wife, Jill, then the easy solution for Jack is just to not divorce Jill in the first place and simply add Sally to the marriage. Such a premise, presented as a stand alone argument, is trying to impose a brand new, paltry definition to the term “adultery” that doesn’t exist in either the Hebrew or the Greek.

What people who believe this are suggesting is that Jesus has created a brand new kind of category or technical definition for the sexual sin previously called “adultery”. This new kind of paltry adultery as defined by the polygamists, let’s call it “padultery” for fun, refers only to illicit sexual relations between a divorced person and their new romantic partner, married or unmarried. When pressed, polygamists will usually agree that a married person, at least a woman, having a secret affair without being divorced is also still adultery. Some polygamists will still claim that if a married man has an affair with an unmarried woman, he is guiltless, in which case the conversation should shift to the previous points made on this site.

‘Padultery’ fails the ‘Consistency of Scripture’ test

In this view, Jesus’s teachings on divorce, remarriage, and adultery are actually understood as a secret endorsement of polygamy! See, if Jack openly adds Sally to the marriage as a second wife without divorcing Jill he has avoided both divorce and deception and therefore, the polygamists reason, he has also avoided Jesus’s accusation of adultery in that scenario.

A useful question to ask the polygamist at this point is “So if Jill were to bring Brian home one day and wanted to add him to the marriage as her second husband without divorcing Jack, she would be innocent of your version of adultery?” This generally opens the door to discussing the double standard the polygamist is labouring under, having overlooked the work of Christ on behalf of women, but more importantly it reveals that the polygamist is trying to apply an unspoken gendered definition for padultery that cannot stand up to the other texts.

What's Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander?

Since there is no acceptable biblical precedent for “polyandry” (having more than one husband at a time) at all, most polygamists rightly reject relationship structures allowing a woman to take more than one husband at a time. However Jesus does not allow them the luxury of a gendered definition or of catering to male privilege in this arena any longer. So if padultery were a valid definition and Jack can be innocent of it simply by not getting divorced before he marries Sally with the full knowledge of Jill, then Mark 10:12 (which finds Jill equally guilty if she’s the one who divorces Jack and then marries Brian) would mean that Jill can likewise avoid the sin of padultery by openly adding Brian to the marriage without divorcing Jack. She has avoided divorce and she has avoided deception therefore according to biblical polygamists she should also be able to say to Jesus with a clear conscience that she has followed His rules and has avoided adultery. Problem solved, right? Right??

‘Padultery’ fails the ‘What Jesus says is the truth & not your own made up opinion’ test

Alas, Jesus does not share their very narrow, gendered, and technical definition. Padultery is not real, only Jesus’s definition of adultery stands. In His texts on adultery He addresses several things:

• A married person can be guilty of adultery both in secret (Matthew 5, John 8) and in public (Matthew 19, Mark 10, Luke 16). The remarried people were not hiding anything, they were not “cheating”, they were not having some kind of clandestine “affair”, they were openly engaged and joined in a civil and spiritual ceremony yet they were also still guilty of adultery just as the woman “caught” in it and the man lusting secretly in his mind are guilty.

• A married person can be guilty of adultery whether divorced or undivorced as supported by the definition of adultery implied in same texts given above.

Jesus’s Definition of Adultery

• What Jesus reveals in the adultery texts is revolutionary. The fact that a divorced person who remarries is guilty of adultery is BRAND NEW to the Jewish way of thinking. Under Mosaic Law, taking a single or widowed woman as a second wife after divorce was never considered adultery, just like taking that kind of woman as a second wife without divorce (aka polygamy) was likewise not adultery. By trying to focus on the term “divorce” in these texts and somehow twist that in support of polygamy, this argument actually draws attention to the fact that God the Son is closing the chapter on the shadow of divorce and remarriage and revealing the full light of covenant marriage.

• The Pharisees were asking Jesus to help them clarify the grounds for annulling a marriage the man was unhappy with so he could move on, but in His answer Jesus turned the whole thing around and annulled divorce as a power to sever covenant marriages! This is because ONLY the already married can be guilty of adultery.

• Jesus’s definition of adultery actually has nothing to do with being divorced at all because in His definition He reveals the absolute impotence of divorce to do what they all thought it was designed to do -- dissolve a one flesh union! If divorce dissolved their union then they could not be guilty of “adultery”, but since they ARE that means...? Their union is still intact! Adultery is a sexual crime not a crime of simply being mean to a wife by lying to her, neglecting to care for her, or forcing her to go live somewhere else with someone else to take care of her. Adultery is about having a wife/husband already and then having sex with another person who is not that wife/husband.

Jesus’s definition of adultery has nothing to do with whether the affair is being hidden and it has nothing to do with the impotent civil nonentity previously known as ‘divorce’ but it has everything to do with the number of women a husband is joined to at the same time.

Therefore it is irrelevant whether a first wife has at one time consented to the opening of her marriage for polygamy. Although as Part 4 addressed, since 1 Corinthians 7 declares that her husband’s body is actually under HER authority, the removal of such consent does have biblical significance such that the Bible would command a husband to immediately cease that previously condoned sinful behaviour. Even still, her consent or lack thereof has no bearing on whether her husband is or is not committing adultery in the eyes of the LORD.

So why are some men so convinced they've heard from God on this matter? Part 7, the final instalment, will address that.