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Bible Study · Marriage and Holiness
An honest study separates what Jesus and the apostles explicitly state from reasonable inferences, and from interpretations that remain genuinely disputed, including among Oneness Apostolic believers themselves. This study does not treat any one pastor's or organization's reading as the universal Apostolic position. It also does not treat disagreement as proof that every reading is equally convincing; where the text itself supports one reading more strongly than another, this study says so and shows its work. The framework throughout is Oneness Apostolic: one God revealed in Jesus Christ, the authority of His teaching and the apostles' teaching, the necessity of repentance and new birth, and a life of holiness and obedience. That framework does not, by itself, settle every question about marriage. Conclusions here are demonstrated from the marriage passages themselves.
"So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate."Matthew 19:6 (NKJV)
Part 1
Before looking at a single passage, it is worth being clear about method, because method determines whether a study is trustworthy.
Oneness Apostolic churches and ministers do not all agree on every application of divorce and remarriage. Some fellowships and individual pastors hold stricter positions than others, and that disagreement is real, not hidden here. This study does not present any single organization's policy as though it were the one settled Apostolic position, and it does not claim Oneness theology, one God revealed in Jesus Christ, by itself resolves these questions. What does not move is the authority of Jesus' own teaching, the authority of the apostles' inspired instruction, the necessity of repentance and the new birth, and a life of holiness and obedience to what Scripture actually establishes.
For every major conclusion below, this study distinguishes three things: what Scripture explicitly states, what is reasonably inferred from what it states, and what remains genuinely disputed and why. "No assumptions" is not a strong enough standard, since every reader brings some assumptions to a text. The standard here is no unsupported assumptions: every inference is named as an inference and the reasoning behind it is shown, so it can be examined rather than simply accepted.
Disagreement among sincere readers does not mean every reading carries equal textual weight. Where the grammar, context, or the rest of Scripture favors one reading more strongly, this study identifies that reading and explains why, while still naming the other readings fairly rather than ignoring them.
Part 2
When the Pharisees asked Jesus about divorce, He did not begin with Moses. He began with Genesis.
Genesis 2:18-24 describes God saying it is not good for man to be alone, forming the woman from the man, and the man's response: "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." Marriage, as Genesis presents it, appears before Israel existed, before the Mosaic law was given, and long before the New Testament church. A man and woman are joined together as one flesh.
"Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh."Genesis 2:24 (NKJV)
This establishes the starting point for everything that follows: marriage is a creation institution. It does not first become meaningful or binding when someone becomes a Christian. When Jesus later addresses divorce in Matthew 19, He appeals directly to this passage, making creation the foundation of His own teaching, not an afterthought.
Part 3
Before examining Jesus' words, it is worth reading the actual Mosaic text He was later asked to interpret.
"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, when she has departed from his house, and goes and becomes another man's wife, 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, 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."Deuteronomy 24:1-4 (NKJV)
Notice what the passage actually does. It does not command anyone to divorce. It regulates a situation that already involves a divorce and a second marriage. Its explicit prohibition is narrow and specific: the first husband must not take the woman back after she has been another man's wife. The passage also calls the second man her husband, not her partner in an illegitimate arrangement.
Neither observation, by itself, settles the moral status of every remarriage under Jesus' later teaching; that question is addressed from Jesus' own words starting in Part 5. But both observations belong in an honest reading of this text, and neither should be smoothed over. When the Pharisees later cite Moses to Jesus, He explains this concession in terms of "the hardness of your hearts," contrasted directly with God's intention "from the beginning" at creation (Matthew 19:8), a contrast covered fully in Part 5.
Part 4
The question the Pharisees brought to Jesus was not whether divorce existed. It was how broadly it could be used, a live dispute in first-century Jewish life.
"The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, 'Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?'"Matthew 19:3 (NKJV)
A relevant Jewish source for understanding this dispute is the Mishnah, a rabbinic legal collection, specifically Gittin 9:10. It preserves differing schools of interpretation of Deuteronomy 24:1's phrase "some uncleanness." The school of Shammai restricted the grounds for divorce to sexual misconduct. The school of Hillel allowed divorce for comparatively trivial faults, with the text attributing to Hillel the allowance "even if she burned his dish." Rabbi Akiva's recorded opinion went further still, allowing it when a man simply found another woman more attractive. These three positions show that first-century Jewish society held no single uniform view on this question; the dispute the Pharisees brought to Jesus was a real, live one among their own teachers.
The Mishnah was compiled roughly around AD 200, well after Jesus' earthly ministry. It preserves earlier oral traditions, but it is not a contemporary transcript of that conversation. This study does not claim that Jesus explicitly named these schools, that every detail of the later written compilation already existed in that exact form when the Pharisees spoke to Him, or that any single motive beyond the text's own words should be assigned to the Pharisees' question. It is background that helps explain the dispute, not direct evidence of what was said in that encounter.
The biblical discussion of this period is framed largely around husbands dismissing wives, reflecting the legal and cultural norms of the time. Even so, Jesus does not restrict His own teaching to male conduct; He also addresses a woman divorcing her husband directly in Mark 10:12, a case the Mosaic regulation in Deuteronomy 24 does not explicitly cover. His moral standard reaches further than the specific case that prompted the question.
Part 5
Jesus did not answer the Pharisees' question about grounds with a ruling on grounds. He answered by returning to what marriage actually is.
"Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate."Matthew 19:4-6 (NKJV)
When the Pharisees pointed back to Moses, Jesus explained that Moses' permission was given "because of the hardness of your hearts," not because it reflected God's original intention (Matthew 19:8). He then stated His own command:
"And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery."Matthew 19:9 (NKJV)
Jesus rejected the idea that a certificate of divorce, by itself, makes ending a marriage and entering another one morally acceptable. Mark records the same encounter with an additional detail: Jesus gave this teaching privately to His own disciples after the public exchange with the Pharisees, which shows this was instruction for His followers, not merely a debating answer to His opponents.
"Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."Mark 10:11-12 (NKJV)
Luke records the same warning without Matthew's exception clause:
"Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband commits adultery."Luke 16:18 (NKJV)
That warning must keep its full force when the accounts are read alongside one another. The content of Jesus' answer does three things plainly, without needing an invented hidden motive: it restates God's original intention for marriage from creation, it confronts hardness of heart as the real reason Moses' concession existed, and it warns against adultery disguised as a legal divorce.
Part 6
An accurate study has to give this its full weight, weigh the actual arguments for its scope, and say plainly which reading the text supports most strongly, rather than treating every option as equally likely.
"But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery."Matthew 5:32 (NKJV)
Matthew 5:32 and 19:9 both include an exception built on the Greek word porneia, translated "sexual immorality." Three real questions follow: What conduct does this word cover here? Does the exception permit the wronged spouse to remarry, or only to divorce without remarrying? And how should Matthew's wording be read alongside Mark and Luke, who record the same teaching with no exception mentioned at all?
What porneia means. Across the New Testament, porneia carries a broad range, general sexual immorality outside of marriage, not one narrow, technical act. Paul uses it for a man's relationship with his father's wife (1 Corinthians 5:1), for sexual sin generally (1 Corinthians 6:18), and the Jerusalem council lists it among the few requirements laid on Gentile believers (Acts 15:20). A word's range of meanings elsewhere does not automatically fix its meaning in one particular passage; context has to do that work. But the reverse is also true: a narrower, technical sense cannot simply be assumed either, without a contextual signal pointing to it. Matthew 19 itself contains no mention of betrothal, no mention of incest or unlawful degrees of marriage, and no other signal narrowing the word from its ordinary New Testament sense. The burden of proof sits with readings that claim a narrower meaning here, and Matthew 19's own wording does not supply what that burden requires.
What the exception permits. Many interpreters read Matthew 19:9 as permitting the wronged spouse to divorce and remarry after the other spouse's sexual immorality. The strongest argument for this reading is not only word order; it is the coherence of the sentence as a whole. If the exception only excused the act of divorcing for porneia while still calling the subsequent remarriage adultery regardless, the exception would not actually except anything a real person asking Jesus' question would care about; divorcing without remarrying was never the issue under dispute with the Pharisees, remarriage was. A clause that excepts nothing meaningful is an unlikely way to read a sentence Jesus framed as a direct answer to a question about remarriage.
A stricter reading holds that the exception permits divorce but still denies remarriage while the other spouse lives. A third reading restricts porneia here to unlawful unions or to unfaithfulness during betrothal, pointing to Joseph's situation with Mary in Matthew 1:19, or to the Gentile purity instructions behind Acts 15:20. These are not frivolous readings; they rest on real cross-references elsewhere in Scripture. Their weakness is that the cross-references come from outside Matthew 19, not from any signal within it, so they ask the reader to import a narrower sense the passage itself does not supply.
Weighing porneia's ordinary broad usage against the absence of any narrowing signal in Matthew 19, and weighing the coherence of an exception that must actually except something, this study holds that the stronger textual reading is that Jesus permits the wronged spouse to divorce and remarry after the other spouse's sexual immorality. This is the one point in this study where a clear position is stated rather than left fully open. Sincere, careful readers hold the narrower positions for real reasons, and this study does not pretend otherwise. What remains secure beyond this dispute either way is that Jesus condemns wrongful divorce and wrongful remarriage; the precise reach of the exception is the part that has been argued here, not assumed.
Part 7
First Corinthians 7 is practical apostolic instruction, written because the church asked real questions about real marriages.
Paul opens the chapter responding to matters the Corinthians had written to him about (1 Corinthians 7:1). The chapter goes on to address marriage, sexual relations within marriage, singleness, separation, mixed marriages between a believer and an unbeliever, and what happens when an unbelieving spouse chooses to leave. Paul is carrying Jesus' teaching into situations the Gospels do not directly address.
"Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband. But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife."1 Corinthians 7:10-11 (NKJV)
For marriages between two believers, Paul directly cites the Lord's own teaching: spouses should not separate, and a wife who does depart should remain unmarried or reconcile. Then he addresses a circumstance Jesus had not directly spoken to during His earthly ministry, a believer married to an unbeliever:
"But to the rest I, not the Lord, say: If any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her."1 Corinthians 7:12 (NKJV)
Paul's phrase "I, not the Lord" distinguishes this specific instruction from a direct quotation of Jesus' earthly teaching. It does not mean this instruction may simply be set aside as unspiritual advice; Paul writes as an apostle carrying genuine authority into a circumstance the earlier teaching had not explicitly covered.
Part 8
A few verses later in the same chapter, Paul says something that has to be weighed honestly alongside everything in this study, not set aside because it complicates things.
"Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be loosed. Are you loosed from a wife? Do not seek a wife. But even if you do marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. Nevertheless such will have trouble in the flesh, but I would spare you."1 Corinthians 7:27-28 (NKJV)
This falls within Paul's broader counsel about singleness given "because of the present distress" (1 Corinthians 7:25-26), responding to questions about "virgins." Who exactly is "loosed from a wife" is a real, open question. It could simply mean someone who was never married, used as a parallel term alongside "virgin." It could also include someone previously married who has since been released, by divorce or by a spouse's death. The word "loosed" here echoes the same bind-and-release language Paul uses later for a widow in verse 39, which gives real weight to the second reading.
This passage does not resolve every disputed case already covered; it does not specify whether "loosed" includes someone released by an unlawful divorce as well as a lawful one. It should not be read as blanket authorization for every divorced person to remarry regardless of how the prior marriage ended, and it should not be dismissed as irrelevant to this study either. At minimum, it stands alongside 1 Corinthians 7:39 below as a second place where Paul states plainly that marrying again is not, in itself, sin for someone no longer bound to a living spouse.
"A wife is bound by law as long as her husband lives; but if her husband dies, she is at liberty to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord."1 Corinthians 7:39 (NKJV)
Part 9
Paul's words in verse 15 are specific. An honest study has to see exactly how specific, rather than letting the verse quietly expand to cover every hard marriage.
"But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases."1 Corinthians 7:15 (NKJV)
What Paul explicitly addresses is a believer married to an unbeliever, where the unbeliever departs. That is the stated circumstance, and nothing more should be read into it by default. Several other real, painful situations are not what this verse explicitly describes: a believing spouse departing rather than an unbelieving one, abuse, a spouse who refuses to ever actually establish a shared household while remaining nominally married, or a spouse who lives elsewhere while still maintaining visits and contact rather than a clean departure. These situations may call for real pastoral wisdom, applied from the principles found throughout this study, but they are not the explicit subject of 1 Corinthians 7:15, and treating them as though Paul directly addressed them overstates what the verse says.
Paul's word choice in this verse adds a detail worth knowing. "Not under bondage" translates a form of the Greek word douloo, to enslave. In verse 39, when Paul discusses a widow's freedom to remarry, he uses a different word, deo, to bind, the same word used elsewhere in this chapter for the ongoing marriage bond itself. Some read this deliberate word change as evidence Paul meant something narrower in verse 15 than full release from the marriage bond, perhaps release only from the duty to pursue or prevent the unbeliever's departure. Others find that distinction too fine to carry the weight placed on it, and note that "not enslaved in such cases," inside a chapter devoted to the marriage bond, most naturally reads as freedom from that bond. On balance, the freedom-from-the-bond reading remains the more commonly held position and fits the passage's own stated goal, "God has called us to peace" (v. 15), but the word choice is a genuine textual feature, not a minor quibble. Scripture does not here contain the explicit words "you may remarry," and this study does not claim it does. Readers should weigh both arguments rather than treating either side's case as self-evident.
Physical safety, separation, divorce, and permission to remarry are four distinct questions, not one question asked four ways. Nothing in this study implies that someone must remain physically exposed to abuse while these questions are worked out. A believer can separate for safety immediately, with no need to first resolve the remarriage question, which can be, and often should be, addressed later and separately.
Part 10
The claim that marriage's rules apply after conversion but not before needs to be broken into separate questions, because the answer is not the same for each one.
Do marriages involving unbelievers count as real marriages? Yes. Paul calls the unbelieving partner a husband or a wife, not a partner in some lesser arrangement, and instructs the believer to preserve that marriage when the unbeliever is willing to remain (1 Corinthians 7:12-14). Conversion does not require a new wedding ceremony for an existing relationship to count as a marriage.
Can premarital or preconversion wrongdoing be forgiven? Yes, without qualification.
"Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers... will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God."1 Corinthians 6:9-11 (NKJV)
Paul names adultery among the sins that exclude someone from the kingdom, then tells the Corinthians plainly, "and such were some of you." Adultery is forgivable and can be genuinely left behind through repentance and new birth, the same as any other sin this list names. But forgiveness of a past act and the continuing status of a present relationship are related questions, not identical ones, covered further in Part 13.
Does forgiveness automatically settle every existing remarriage? No passage of Scripture explicitly states that baptism dissolves every prior marriage bond and validates every existing remarriage. No passage explicitly states, either, that every person converted while remarried must divorce their current spouse. Both positions are arguments built from inference, not direct commands, and both deserve to be evaluated as such rather than asserted as though Scripture states them outright.
John the Baptist's rebuke of Herod shows that unlawful marital conduct was confronted outside the New Testament church too (Mark 6:17-18). But that case specifically concerned marriage to a living brother's wife, a relationship the Law of Moses named directly (Leviticus 18:16; 20:21), so it should not be stretched into a general answer for every divorce and remarriage case this study is examining.
Part 11
Paul gives a general principle about conversion and social circumstance later in the same chapter. It is tempting to apply it directly to remarriage, but it does not settle the question by itself.
"But as God has distributed to each one, as the Lord has called each one, so let him walk... Let each one remain in the same calling in which he was called... Brethren, let each one remain with God in that state in which he was called."1 Corinthians 7:17, 20, 24 (NKJV)
Paul's examples here are circumcision and slavery, social circumstances someone did not choose and cannot instantly undo at conversion. The principle discourages treating conversion as a demand to immediately upend every circumstance a person finds themselves in. But it cannot be used as blanket permission to continue in conduct Scripture identifies as sinful simply because it began before conversion; that would directly conflict with Paul's own warning and description of real transformation one chapter earlier in 1 Corinthians 6.
Using "remain as you were called" to decide the status of a particular existing remarriage requires a separate argument about that specific marriage, drawn from the passages already covered in this study. The phrase alone does not prove either a universal permission to remain in it or a universal obligation to separate from it.
Part 12
Paul uses marriage as an illustration in Romans 7, and the illustration itself is worth reading carefully for what it does and does not claim.
"For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man."Romans 7:2-3 (NKJV)
This passage supports the seriousness and the enduring, legally binding character of marriage; it treats the marriage bond as real and lasting, not as something a person can simply walk away from without consequence. But the main subject of Romans 7:1-6 is the believer's relationship to the law through Christ's death, with marriage serving as the illustration, not as a complete treatment of divorce in its own right.
Conversion should not be treated as the literal death of a spouse, and this passage does not say that it is. It illustrates release from the law's claim through death; it does not state that coming to Christ automatically dissolves an actual, existing marriage. That conclusion would have to come from somewhere else in Scripture, and no passage states it directly. Romans 7 has to be read alongside Jesus' own teaching and 1 Corinthians 7, not pulled out and treated on its own.
Part 13
Much confusion in this subject comes from treating one question as though it were four. They need to be kept separate.
One clarification matters enough to state plainly: a divorced person who is currently single, not remarried and not presently in a relationship, should not be described as continuing in adultery simply because of a past remarriage that has since ended, whether by a later divorce or by widowhood. Whatever judgment applies to how that past marriage began or continued, there is no ongoing relationship left for an "ongoing adultery" question to even apply to. Past wrongdoing and present conduct are not the same thing.
For someone in an existing remarriage right now, two claims are often made with more confidence than the text supports. One says the wrongdoing concerned only entering the union, so nothing about the present relationship itself is sinful. The other says the relationship itself remains ongoing adultery for as long as it continues. Neither claim should be settled by an English verb tense or an unsupported appeal to Greek grammar. Matthew 19:9's "commits adultery" uses a Greek present-tense verb that grammarians recognize can function in more than one way, as a general, category-naming statement about the act being described, or as a description of an ongoing state. The grammar itself does not force one reading over the other; that has to be argued from the larger context, which is exactly what remains disputed. This study does not resolve that dispute here for anyone's unseen, specific marriage.
What stays true regardless of how that specific dispute is resolved: adultery, including adultery connected to how a marriage began, is forgivable the same way every other sin is forgivable (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). But forgiveness for how something began is never permission to knowingly continue what has actually been established, from Scripture, as sin. The word "knowingly" matters. A person genuinely uncertain which reading applies to their own situation is not in the same position as someone who has already concluded, from these passages, that continuing is sin and chooses to continue anyway.
Part 14
An accurate answer has to distinguish between circumstances rather than giving one answer for every situation.
Two common overstatements both fail to account for the full witness of Scripture. "Every remarriage is sin" overlooks the explicit permission Paul gives after the death of a spouse and the plain statement of 1 Corinthians 7:28. "No remarriage is sin once you repent" overlooks Jesus' own, repeated warnings about divorce and remarriage as adultery. A faithful study holds both truths at once rather than flattening the subject into a single slogan in either direction.
Part 15
Yes. Jesus grounds His teaching in creation itself, and Paul applies it directly to the church. Nothing in these passages suggests that marital faithfulness, or the prohibition of adultery, expired with the ancient culture that first asked these questions.
"Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge."Hebrews 13:4 (NKJV)
The first-century cultural debate between Shammai, Hillel, and others explains the kind of question the Pharisees brought to Jesus. It does not remove the moral teaching He gave in response to it.
Separation, divorce, and permission to remarry remain genuinely distinct questions, kept distinct throughout this study. Teaching the permanence of marriage must never be turned into an instruction for someone to remain physically exposed to violence or abuse. Safety is its own, urgent concern, and it does not, by itself, settle the separate question of remarriage either way.
Hide These in Your Heart
"Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh."
Genesis 2:24"So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate."
Matthew 19:6"But even if you do marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned."
1 Corinthians 7:28"Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge."
Hebrews 13:4Search Your Heart
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