Marriage Restoration ~ Previously Married?

Are you called to stand for the restoration of your marriage, but are confused about which marriage to stand for? Does the Bible really teach that if you get saved you are required to return to your first husband even though you’re married to someone else now?

The question about past failed marriages has confused many women who suddenly feel the call to stand for their current marriage but have been counseled that they are scripturally required to seek restoration with their first husband. There are some factors we need to establish before we can help clarify this question.

We believe these questions are fairly easy to answer. But first, let us ask you a couple questions:

1) Were you saved when you got married to your first husband? Was he saved?

2) At what point in your life did you accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and begin to live for Him?

3) Is your current husband saved?

4) Were you and your current husband both serving the Lord when you married?

The answers we present to you are based on the assumption that you were NOT serving the Lord in previous marriages, but came to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior after previous divorces. This is also based on the assumption that you married a man who was also serving the Lord, or at least confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior even though he was struggling with personal issues.

First if your current husband has confessed Jesus as Lord, we have reason to believe that God wants to deal with HIS heart. We cannot stand in judgment of another's heart as only God sees the heart. If your husband has confessed Christ, he knows right from wrong. Whether he lives it or not is not the issue – the issue is based on whether or not he has tasted of the gift of salvation. You believed he had when you married, so you need to go forward on the basis of his declaration of faith. If your understanding of his spiritual condition is wrong, God will deal with him. But he confessed his faith publicly and he was most likely like one Jesus teaches about:

Luke 8:14
14 And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.

Is he saved yet? I believe that God will stop at nothing to bring a wayward heart back into relationship with Him. Your husband has tasted of the goodness of God. The Lord's mercy will prevail as He continues to draw him back. And, as his wife--a child of God—your husband is sanctified by you. That doesn't mean he can do what he wants and still go to heaven because you are serving the Lord. But it means that God will not just let him stay among the thorns. He will breathe life into him while you remain in covenant relationship with him.

Here’s the scripture many struggle with concerning previous marriages:

Deut 24:1-4
1 If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, 2 and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, 3 and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, 4 then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled. That would be detestable in the eyes of the LORD. Do not bring sin upon the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.

Moses is outlining certain rights and duties—domestic, social, and civil—and how they are to be treated. If you notice throughout Chapter 24 and 25, there are a lot of disjointed decrees—more like lessons on righteous living. They’re not really connected and as a whole seem to give us a better picture of the Law with respect to certain important circumstances and events.

The first four verses (1-4) are actually all one sentence. They aren’t to be separated and neither are the clauses to be isolated. They must be taken as a whole and complete thought.

The sum of these verses can be found in Matthew 19:8 when Jesus is speaking to the Jews … “Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives”. It is interesting because the institution of marriage implies an everlasting covenant. Genesis 2: 24 says, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” It’s like I spoke of before – the one flesh is exactly that—they cannot be separated once brought together in marriage.

But these verses in Deut 24 plainly indicate that divorce was tolerated at that time—but it doesn’t change the fact that it goes against the order of nature and of God.

God allowed Moses to grant decrees of divorcement because of the hard-heartedness of Israel. It wasn’t God’s will for divorce to become everyone’s easy way out of a tough situation. It grieved God that His people couldn’t understand what marriage meant in His eyes—a love union that reflected the love between Christ and His Bride, the Church. If we are to accept divorce as sanctioned by God, then we must question the everlasting covenant of Calvary and the power of the blood to save to the uttermost.

According to Deut 24, when a divorced woman remarries, she is “defiled” and is grouped with the adulteress. When Jesus spoke to the Jews in Matthew 19:9, He said “whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery”.

The problem Moses had was that he was confronted with pagan customs and traditions that had been brought into the camps by the men marrying outside their bloodline. In other words, he was forced to offer them some sort of compromise. Moses’ instruction regarding divorce is not to be taken as if it supersedes the Law of God—it was a social law which kept peace and helped to appease these rebellious people.

If you’ve done any study about the children of Israel, you know very well how rebellious they were. They would obey the Lord, rejoice in His provision, get used to His provision, then follow after other gods. God would chastise them, they would return to the Lord, rejoice in His provision, get used to His provision, then follow after other gods. It was a cycle they continued over and over for untold numbers of years.

God, in His mercy allowed divorce … just the way He allows us to do things wrong without withdrawing His loving care and tender mercies. He doesn’t always punish the minute we do something wrong. But it’s a little different with us and I’ll explain that in a minute.

Moses couldn’t stop a practice that had been brought into the community by the strange wives the men were marrying, by the pagan influences. Rather, he did his best to regulate and to keep sin from running rampant.

The problem is when we mix the world and the Word. The world almost encourages divorce and remarriage. Then if you get back in relationship with God or begin a relationship with God, you've got all this baggage—exhusbands and step children, and you name it.

What we need to remember is that this “baggage” is under the blood. If you weren’t a Christian in your first or second marriage, but you and your current husband WERE Christians when you married, your first two marriages are under the blood. Once you accepted the Lord, all your sin was washed away – you were forgiven and made a new creature in Christ. The past (although it still has strings because of children and step children, etc.) is gone. Because of the new life, the new creature, the new beginning, you have some choices. You can either go back and be reconciled to your first husband (because you no longer bear the stain of your defilment according to Deut 24), or you can move on and become equally yoked with a believer as you did with your current husband. In God’s eyes, the covenant never existed in the first two marriages because there was true covenant without God included in the vows.

The law of life through the shed blood of Jesus supersedes the law of Moses—but it might be more accurately said that the law of life through the shed blood of Jesus FULFILLS the law of Moses. Jesus Himself is the Living Torah – the Living Law, the Living Word. Now, as blood-bought children of the Most High God, we cannot take the law without viewing it through the blood.

It’s the blood covenant that makes a marriage a covenant—a marriage is only a marriage if it is a three-fold cord that cannot be broken. A covenant marriage consists of man, woman, and God. Any vow of marriage without God is no vow of marriage as it cannot fulfill its purpose of reflecting the relationship between Christ and His Church!

Read again Eph 5:21-33
21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church- 30 for we are members of his body. 31 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." 32 This is a profound mystery-but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Can you see that a marriage without Christ is not truly a marriage in the eyes of God? In fact, this is why Moses allowed divorce—when the Jewish man married a pagan wife, there was no true covenant of marriage. God would not cut covenant with an infidel or a pagan!

So, as for your question about returning to your first husband, my understanding of the scripture is that unless you and your first husband were Christians and you entered into a covenant of marriage with God, then no, there’s no compelling reason to do so. Furthermore, if you and your current husband were BOTH Christians when you married, cleansed by the blood, bought with a price, then your covenant of marriage includes God and it is the marriage covenant that God recognizes and the one for which He has called to stand.

God wouldn’t take you and plunge you back into relationship with an infidel on some hope that you could win him over. Not after your life with that man was washed away and the memory of it cast into the sea.

You are a new creature in Christ. It is this new creature that God is dealing with. He doesn’t go around resurrecting the old creature and try to make it new. He’s already brought you through the grave and resurrected you into new life in Him. And, when He did, He honored, acknowledged, and entered into the covenant of marriage you entered into with your current husband.

There should be no confusion … don’t listen to the voices of those who have chosen to go their own way. Don’t listen to ungodly counsel. Don’t listen to those who choose to live according to the flesh and not according to the Word.

Hear the Word of the Lord, my precious sister … “There is therefore now NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk NOT after the flesh BUT after the Spirit.” It’s the Spirit that gives life – the Spirit of God at work in your marriage. Whether you and your husband are apart or not has no bearing on the everlasting covenant of marriage you entered into with God.

God will do His part … He will give you the tools necessary to do your part. And, while you focus on doing YOUR part, God will take care of your husband.

Don’t allow the enemy to bring discouragement … there is no time in heaven. A day is as a thousand years—a thousand years as a day. Whether your restoration comes tomorrow or five years down the road, God is in control and He honors the covenant of marriage. God will not break covenant—that’s why He called YOU to stand and why He is dealing with your husband (whether he acknowledges it or not).

Please know that we are here for you if you have questions or if you need someone to pray with you. We have women available who are going through the same struggle to stand for their marriage after having been married before. Please contact us for more information. Let us pour into your life and stand with you for the total restoration of your marriage. To God be the glory! Amen!