In the previous chapter, we noted that theologian John Murray, consistent with Covenant Theology, posits continuity of moral law between the Old and New Covenants, even while candidly acknowledging the difficulties this position creates. He recognizes an apparent antithesis between Israel’s canon of conduct and the church’s canon, especially in the area of easy divorce and polygamy, but he still asserts a uniform moral standard for both groups. For Murray, polygamy was as sinful for David as it would have been for Paul. This position (uniform morality) is essential for Covenant Theology’s view of law and grace. In this chapter, we will examine polygamy, divorce, and adultery, comparing Covenant Theology’s treatment of those subjects with key biblical texts that address those topics. Within a quotation, italics indicate the author’s emphasis; bolding indicates mine.
Murray frankly admits the obvious difficulty his position creates, namely, the fact that polygamy was clearly contrary to the revealed will of God and rested under his judgment. Murray then adds to the dilemma by asserting that in certain instances, God chose not to treat it as a sin.
These are questions which must be faced, remembering that in these instances of polygamy and divorce we are not dealing with deviations from the explicitly revealed provisions of Old Testament law as, for example, the adultery and murder committed by David for which he was so sharply reproved in terms of recognized law…
Our study is not empirical ethics but the biblical approved ethic. The polygamy and divorce with which we are now concerned would meet with the severest reproof and condemnation in the New Testament; but in the Old Testament there appears to be no overt pronouncement of condemnation and no infliction of disciplinary judgment. Are we not compelled to recognize that the New Testament not only marks a distinct development in the progress of revelation, but also, in some of the basic particulars of human behaviour, institutes a change from one set of canons to another, and that therefore there is not only development and addition, but reversal and abrogation?[1]
New Covenant Theology would say, “Yes, the biblical evidence forces us to conclude that there were different rules of conduct for Israel than for the church.” Covenant Theology would say, “No, Israel’s rule of life was the same as the church’s.” We would insist that Jesus changed the rules and raised the standards. We believe that grace can, and does, demand a higher standard than law can demand. Law simply cannot get the job done. Grace fulfills and replaces law. What is at stake here is Covenant Theology’s concept of continuity and their basic premise of moral law. Murray continues:
Is the case such that it was perfectly consonant with the law established and revealed by God in the Old Testament for a man to have more than one wife at the same time, and for a man to put away his wife for relatively light cause, whereas in the New Testament it is unequivocally wrong and severely censurable for a man to have more than one wife and to put away one’s wife except for the cause of adultery? Is there this open contrast in respect of conduct as elementary and far-reaching as the marital relations of man and wife? We are required to face squarely the question of the relation of the Old Testament to the New Testament in respect of the criteria of upright and holy living.[2]
It seems to me that Murray’s closing sentence in the quotation above succinctly sketches the issue of continuity/discontinuity. In the light of the biblical evidence, New Covenant Theology does not need to prove two canons of conduct. The burden of explanation lies with Covenant Theology, which must prove that what seem to be two canons (as Murray frankly admits) is actually one. Murray, to justify his position, must prove that in God’s sight, both David’s practice of polygamy and a modern Christian’s similar practice are both equivalent to adultery.
We must be sure that we clearly understand Murray’s answer to his own dilemma. Let me summarize it in three points.
(1) God, in the Old Testament, tolerated polygamy, even though he categorized it as sin.
(2) Not only did God call it sin, but also he had clearly revealed to human beings at the beginning of their existence, in what Murray would call a “creation ordinance,” that it was a sin. David had no excuse for living in multiple adulterous relationships most of his life, since God’s “perceptive will,” or the creation ordinance, made it clear that he was breaking the seventh commandment and was living in the sin of adultery by practicing polygamy.
(3) Even though God defined polygamy as sin, and he had clearly revealed it to be such and therefore resting under his judgment, God nevertheless chose to tolerate and regulate it instead of punishing it with either civil or ecclesiastical penalties.
In other words, Covenant Theology asserts that polygamy was a sin that broke the seventh commandment, and since God had clearly revealed it as such at creation, the people of God should have realized it was a sin despite the fact that the law of God given to Moses tolerated it. Polygamy rested under God’s just judgment, but he chose not to punish it. Instead, he chose to tolerate and regulate it. Apparently, in the Covenant Theology system, God, at the final judgment, will not use the law concerning divorce and polygamy that he gave through Moses to judge Israelites, but he will judge them according to the creation ordinance he gave to Adam before he fell. New Covenant Theology, however, believes that God will judge each individual by the revelation under which that individual lives, and that revelation is progressive. We also believe the revealed will of God is manifest in progressively higher laws that demonstrate more and more of his holiness.
Again, Murray is honest with the implications of his own position. He does not wait for his opponents to raise embarrassing questions; Murray clearly states the difficulties himself.
The insistent question immediately arises: How could this be? How could God allow his people, in some cases the most eminent of Old Testament saints, to practice what was a violation of his perceptive will?[3]
How indeed? The answer is that God’s “revealed will” given to Moses and God’s “perceptive will” given to Adam are not, as Murray insists, the same laws given to Israel as the “canons of behavior” which were recognized as regulative in the Old Testament period. They also are clearly different from the laws given by our Lord to the church.
It seems to me much simpler and far more consistent with Scripture to believe that (1) adultery has always been a sin, but (2) under the Old Covenant, polygamy was not considered adultery, and (3) under the New Covenant, polygamy is a sin. To believe this, however, is to deny the continuity necessary in Covenant Theology.
Let us look at what Scripture actually says about these topics. Do the Old and New Testament Scriptures contain a consistent message on divorce, remarriage, and polygamy, or is there an antithesis between the New and the Old? Is there continuity or discontinuity? Does the New Covenant define some things as sin that the Old Covenant did not? We will specifically examine the two topics Murray brings up, namely easy divorce and polygamy. We will begin with divorce and remarriage. Remember, to support his claim, Murray needs to prove that there are no examples of contrary laws between the two covenants. I need only to demonstrate one example of contrary laws to support mine.
One of the first hermeneutical rules in understanding the biblical position on a subject is to start your study with the key passage, or passages, of Scripture that deal with the specific subject you want to study. If you want to know what the Bible teaches about divorce and remarriage, you would begin with Matthew 19:3-9. Why start with that passage? Primarily because our Lord himself was asked the major question concerning the subject we want to study. The Pharisees ask, “Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?” (Matt. 19:3). If you want to know what Jesus taught about divorce and remarriage, here is the passage that lays it out. Here, Jesus answers that specific question.
It is vital that we understand exactly what is being assumed and what is being asked in this passage. This one verse addresses many questions. First, the question establishes the fact that the Pharisees believed that their Scripture (the Old Testament) clearly allowed divorce and remarriage. The Pharisees were not asking if divorce and remarriage was lawful; they could cite Deuteronomy 24:1-4 as evidence that divorce and remarriage was, indeed, permitted by the law of God given to Moses. There was a restriction forbidding the remarriage of partners who had already divorced each other. The Pharisees were not questioning the legitimacy of divorce and remarriage per se. They were asking if it was legitimate “for every cause.” They were asking what constituted the uncleanness/indecency mentioned as the reason for divorce in Deuteronomy 24:1-4. Some scholars believe that the Pharisees were asking Jesus to settle an argument between two schools of thought on the subject of divorce and remarriage. Donald A. Carson, in his commentary on Matthew, explains:
In mainstream Palestinian Judaism, opinion was divided roughly into two opposite camps; both the school of Hillel and the school of Shammai permitted divorce (of the woman by the man: the reverse was not considered) on the grounds of ‘erwat dabar’ (“something indecent,” Deut. 24:1), but they disagreed on what “indecent” might include.[4]
Jesus did not side with either school of thought. He insisted that in his kingdom (1) divorce and remarriage are allowed, but (2) only on the grounds of porneia (sexual immorality). Jesus changed the rules and raised the standard for divorce and remarriage. He narrowed “uncleanness” to mean only sexual immorality. Later, Paul, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, added willful desertion (1 Cor. 7:10-15) as another ground for divorce. Jesus also disallowed polygamy.
In answering the Pharisees, Jesus bypassed Moses and appealed to what theologians call a creation ordinance. He showed that God’s original intention in Eden was clearly one man for one woman in a covenanted, permanent marriage.
And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. (Matt. 19:4-6, KJV)
Jesus understood that God’s original purpose, revealed in the creation account of the Hebrew Scripture, was one man and one woman in a bonded marriage relationship. With this as a starting place, we can assume that if God had intended either divorce and remarriage or polygamy, he would have made one man and two or three women (male and females). God’s clear intention, expressed through creation, does not allow or anticipate either polygamy or divorce for any reason. There is no way to read any kind of divine approval, acceptance, or tolerance of either divorce or polygamy into the Genesis passage. The Pharisees responded to Jesus’ explanation by appealing to Deuteronomy 24:1-4. “Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?” This is a fair question; one that we ourselves would raise. Let us, then, look at the passage more closely.
When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife. And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife; Her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the LORD: and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.
When a man hath taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall he be charged with any business: but he shall be free at home one year, and shall cheer up his wife which he hath taken. (Deut. 24:1-5, KJV)
First, the Pharisees distorted what Moses actually “commanded.” Moses did indeed command that if a man divorced his wife, he must give her a bill of divorcement, but he never commanded a man to divorce his wife. If you were a married Jewish man living under the law of God given to Moses, you could end your marriage without a court trial or any official ritual. You merely said to your wife, “I divorce you! Get out!” Wives did not have that same right. It is not hard to imagine what some wives might have suffered at the hands of their hardhearted sinful husbands. Without a bill of divorcement, the woman could not remarry and would be doomed to the worst of hardships.
Second, the only excuse the man needed to divorce his wife was she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her. The idea of disfavor and/or uncleanness soon deteriorated to mean almost anything.
Third, under no circumstances could the man remarry a woman that he had divorced.
Fourth, upon marriage, the man was exempt, for a year, from working, so that he could “cheer up his wife.” I wonder if any man practiced yearly divorce and remarriage so that he never would have to work.
Before we look at the response of Jesus, read this passage (Deut. 24:1-5) again carefully, and ask yourself this question: Are these the rules that govern divorce and remarriage under the New Covenant? If not, when did those rules change and who changed them? Now consider Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees:
He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery. (Matt. 19:8-9, KJV)
These verses establish the New Covenant teaching on divorce and remarriage. When we read them together with the cited passages for Genesis and Deuteronomy, we discover some interesting points. First, God changed the rules that governed marriage. In the creation ordinance of Genesis, divorce was not a possibility. Under the Mosaic law, in Deuteronomy 24:1-4, divorce and remarriage were legal on the grounds of “uncleanness.” You can spin it any way you like, but God specifically allowed, in Deuteronomy 24:1-5, what he did not allow under the creation ordinance, and likewise, he allowed in Deuteronomy 24 what he did not allow under the New Covenant. The rules are specific.
No divorce under any condition and divorce for “uncleanness” are two radically different things. We have found two contrary rules for conduct. God allowed, under Moses, what he did not allow “from the beginning.” This first change is clear. The law of God given to Moses concerning divorce and remarriage changed the original intention of God in the garden of Eden. This change will not fit into Covenant Theology, but it fits Scripture.
The second clear change occurs when Jesus contrasts his teaching with that of Moses. Jesus rejected what the law of God given to Moses allowed. The law of Moses allowed for divorce and remarriage on grounds other than adultery, or sexual immorality, but Jesus said, “Not so in my kingdom. The new rules allow divorce and remarriage for one reason only—sexual immorality.”
As mentioned earlier, Jesus’ contemporaries were engaged in a discussion concerning what uncleanness meant, but there was no question about what it did not mean. It did not include adultery. Adultery earned the death penalty. A husband could not have given a bill of divorce to an adulterous wife. Such a woman was not permitted to live, much less to remarry.
This assertion of changes in the laws governing divorce and remarriage contradicts one of the foundation stones of Covenant Theology, but facts are facts. Moses allowed some things that both Jesus and a creation ordinance rejected. Jesus allowed some things a creation ordinance rejected. Jesus instituted a new and different law concerning divorce and remarriage. A comparison of Matthew 19:9 and Deuteronomy 24:1-4 makes the following abundantly clear:
Legitimate grounds for divorce and remarriage in the kingdom of Israel (under the law of Moses) excludes adultery.
The only legitimate grounds for divorce in the kingdom of Christ is adultery.
Jesus is surely teaching that a radical change has taken place, but he is in no sense saying the old was bad or wrong. The law of God given to Moses was just as essential and appropriate for that time and situation as it would have been inappropriate for Adam in the garden.
Now let us turn to polygamy to discover if the Bible demonstrates the continuity essential to Covenant Theology. Remember what Murray is seeking to prove. The position he must prove is that polygamy was just as sinful for David as it would be for a Christian today.
First, all will agree that it is impossible to get either polygamy or any kind of divorce to be acceptable in the garden of Eden.
Second, under the Old Covenant given to Israel at Sinai, God did not judge polygamy as sin. In actual fact, God gave Moses legislation that addressed the subject of polygamy. In Exodus 21:10, God commanded that when a man took a second wife, he must not stop sleeping with his first wife.
If he takes to himself another woman, he may not reduce her food, her clothing, or her conjugal rights. (Ex. 21:10 NASU)
If polygamy was indeed adultery in God’s sight, then God, in Exodus 21:10, was saying, “You must not commit adultery by practicing polygamy; it is a grievous sin. However, it will aggravate your sin if, when you take a second wife, you do not continue to sleep with the first wife.” That comes close to having God, under some circumstances, commanding adultery as a lesser of two evils. Would God really give a commandment like Exodus 21:10 if polygamy was a sin that broke the seventh commandment written on the tables of stone?
Third, let us look at David and Bathsheba and see if God considered David to be living in open disobedience to the seventh commandment when he legally married Bathsheba and his other wives. (There could be no such a thing as “legally married” in a polygamous situation if polygamy were adultery.)
One: All agree that David was guilty of both adultery and murder in his first relationship with Bathsheba. David clearly committed adultery with Bathsheba because Bathsheba and David were both married to other mates. Bathsheba became pregnant by David, and he deliberately engineered Uriah’s (Bathsheba’s husband) death as a means of covering up his sin.
Two: After Uriah’s death, David married Bathsheba. He already had some other wives. Bathsheba bore David a son from their adulterous relationship.
Three: God sent Nathan the prophet to inform David that he (God) was displeased with what David had done. Among other things, Nathan told David that the child of the adulterous relationship, a boy, would die. Despite David’s pleading with God, the child died on the seventh day. He would have been circumcised on the eighth day. We will leave the reader draw out the implications of the Holy Spirit noting the death was on the seventh day.
Four: After their marriage, Bathsheba became pregnant and bore David another son. This son was the offspring of a legitimate marriage, assuming God considered their marriage legitimate, and was named Solomon. Scripture says, “The Lord loved him” (2 Sam. 12:24).
Now follow this carefully. The first son who died on the seventh day was a child born of adultery. God took his life as punishment for David’s sin. David then legally added Bathsheba to his list of wives, and she bore him another son. God loved the second child. If polygamy involves its participants in the sin of adultery, then Solomon is just as much a child of an adulterous relationship as was the first child who died!
Five: If polygamy were sinful, then God promoted sin when he said to David, through Nathan the prophet, “I gave you your master’s wives” (2 Sam. 12:8).
Other implications of considering polygamy to entail the sin of adultery are these:
One: God’s holy nation was born from ongoing adulterous relationships. The twelve founding fathers of the nation of Israel were born of one husband and four different wives, two of whom had the legal status only of concubines.
Two: David and Abraham consciously lived in multiple adulterous relationships all of their lives. How could David be “a man after God’s own heart” and live most of his life in open violation of the seventh commandment?
Murray hangs his main argument on Matthew 19 and the statement “for hardness of heart.” Covenant Theology explains the permission of polygamy as God’s way of protecting wives from their “hardhearted” husbands. But that argument is not valid. It could be true of most of the rebellious generation to whom Moses addressed Deuteronomy 24, but it does not explain the polygamy of David and Abraham. Scripture does not describe these men in their role as husbands as “hardhearted sinners.” David meditated on the law of God day and night. In no sense can you describe David or Abraham as “hardhearted sinners.”
Murray also argues his case by appealing to Abimelech, who reproached Abraham for lying about his relationship to Sarah, which nearly caused Abimelech to commit adultery. Murray argues that this text proves that a pagan king had the “law written on his conscience.” Well and good, but then why did not godly Abraham know that polygamy was sin? Was the law not written on his conscience, too? And would not David feel conviction about his sinful polygamy while meditating on the law of God?
For any who are still not convinced that polygamy was not a sin under the Old Covenant, let me mention two more texts. The first is Deuteronomy 25:5-10. This passage describes levirate marriage—the duty of a brother to raise up seed for his brother who died without children. If the second brother was already married, then he would have to commit adultery (if polygamy were adultery) in order to obey God’s command to marry his brother’s wife.
Our final passage, Deuteronomy 17:14-17, is one to which continuity adherents sometimes appeal as evidence that polygamy was a sin under the Old Covenant.
When you come to the land which the Lord your God is giving you, and possess it and dwell in it, and say, “I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me,” you shall surely set a king over you whom the Lord your God chooses; one from among your brethren you shall set as king over you; you may not set a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. But he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, for the Lord has said to you, “You shall not return that way again.” Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself.
First, note that this law concerned the king. No such law was ever given to all Israelite men.
Second, the law does not forbid the king to have more than one wife. If you pay attention to what the text actually says, it is not at all saying the king can have only one wife. He is not to multiply wives. Multiply, in this context, does not mean to have more than one. There are three things in this text that the king is not allowed to multiply: horses, wives, and silver and gold. Does that mean that the king was legally allowed to have only one horse and one piece of gold? Not at all! David had least one hundred horses (2 Sam. 8:4). Was he sinning when he secured his second horse? First Kings 15:5 would seem to say no. According to that text, David always did what was right in the eyes of God except for the matter of Uriah the Hittite. The same applies to the gold he acquired and the wives he married. This text no more teaches that David sinned when he took his second wife than he did when he got his second horse and his second piece of gold. Multiplying, as Solomon did, is not the same as acquiring two or a few. Note also that when God condemned Solomon, he never mentioned polygamy. God condemned Solomon for marrying women from nations concerning which God had forbidden marriage and then for allowing himself to be tempted into idolatry through those foreign wives. In 1 Kings 11:1-10, in God’s word of reproof to Solomon, he mentions his idolatry, but never his polygamy.
It is interesting to compare what God said about Solomon and what he said about David. In 1 Kings 11:6, God said Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord, as did his father David. In 1 Kings 15:5, God said of David, Because David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.
In our discussions of polygamy under the Old Covenant, we too seldom look at what is actually said in Scripture, but instead shape our arguments by our theology. Theology dictates that we consider polygamy a sin under the Old Covenant for one reason—to retain the concept of a single Covenant of Grace with a uniform ethical system and moral code. If, however, we examine Scripture and allow it to shape our theology, then we must conclude that polygamy is not a sin under the Old Covenant, but is a sin under the New Covenant, and we do indeed have two different standards of conduct. Since we have two different codes, or standards, or moralities, then Covenant Theology’s system of morality and ethics is not biblical.
I believe that the plain texts of Scripture show that Jesus changed the law concerning divorce and remarriage and polygamy. He raised the law on these subjects to a higher standard under the New Covenant. If I understand Romans 6:14 and what it means to be not under the law but under grace, then at the end of the day, continuity/discontinuity is going to involve the power of grace versus the power of law to produce holiness. But that is another subject for another day.