How Does a Person Repent of an Adulterous Marriage?

Considering a reader's question.

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One of our readers asked this question a couple of months ago, and I’ve taken longer than I intended to answer the question.

But today - we will do our best to answer the question from God’s word.

What is Jesus’ plan for marriage?

Jesus taught that marriage was created by God (Matthew 19:4-6). Therefore, mankind must follow God’s design for marriage rather than changing it to suit our desires or the demands of culture.

A marriage between a man and a woman will never be all that it could or should be unless the example for marriage - Christ and His bride (the church) - is followed (Ephesians 5:22-33).

Within the marriage relationship is where sexual intimacy is to take place (1 Corinthians 7:1-5). While sexual relations outside of marriage are referred to as “sin against your own body” (1 Corinthians 6:15-18), sexual intimacy within marriage is “honorable” and “undefiled” (Hebrews 13:4).

What is an “adulterous marriage?”

Jesus said it was possible for a person to get married - and continue to commit adultery in that marriage with the person they’ve married.

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)

If you want to know more about what’s going on in Matthew 19:1-9, I wrote an article examining that passage and its context a while back.

What Jesus teaches here is that:

• If a man divorces his wife for any reason other than “sexual immorality” (better translated as “fornication”) - meaning she was sexually intimate with someone else…

• …and the man gets married again…

• …then that man continues to commit adultery in that second marriage.

• Also, the man who marries a woman who is divorced (for a reason other than the unfaithfulness of their spouse) commits adultery as well.

The same can also be applied to women.

So, how can adultery occur between two people who are married?

Let’s say Man A gets married to Woman A. They get divorced for reasons other than marital unfaithfulness. Man A then marries Woman B. Jesus teaches in Matthew 19:9 that Man A and Woman B keep committing adultery in their marriage.

Why?

In Jesus’ own words, who does God see as Man A’s current spouse? Not Woman B, but Woman A - Man A’s first wife.

Man A’s second marriage is adulterous because God still views Man A’s first marriage as binding - because he had no right to end that marriage and remarry.

And those who continue to practice adultery jeopardize their inheritance in God’s kingdom.

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)

What does it mean to “repent?”

Now, let’s shift gears and focus on what it means to repent.

The Greek word for “repent” means:

To undergo a change in frame of mind and feeling, to repent, (Luke 17:3-4); to make a change of principle and practice, to reform, (Matthew 3:2). (Mounce)

To change one’s mind for better, heartily to amend with abhorrence of one’s past sins. (Thayer)

John commanded the Pharisees and Sadducees to “bear fruits worthy of repentance” (Matthew 3:8). If a person repents of the sin of being a liar (Revelation 21:8), then “fruit that demonstrates” their repentance ought to be seen in their life. They ought to have a change of mind and a change of action when it comes to being a liar.

Repentance is the idea of turning away from sin and turning back to God so that He may “blot out” or “forgive” our sins (Acts 2:38; Acts 3:19).

What does it look like to repent of an adulterous marriage?

So, what would it look like to repent of being in an adulterous marriage? Returning to our previous example - could Man A remain in that adulterous marriage to Woman B and be pleasing to God?

Do you remember Paul’s words to the Christians in Rome?

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? (Romans 6:1-2)

Christians have died to sin - not to keep on living in sin, but to live to God in Christ Jesus (Romans 6:11).

Could the Christians in Corinth who once were “fornicators, idolaters, thieves, etc.” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11) continue in that same lifestyle now that they had been “washed,” “sanctified,” and “justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God?”

No - in fact, the very next section (1 Corinthians 6:12-20) is about avoiding sexual immorality because to practice those things would be a sin and would be to act in a way that was inconsistent with the price Jesus paid for them and with the fact that their body was the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:18-20).

For Man A to repent of his adulterous marriage with Woman B, he must stop living with Woman B like she is his wife - because she truly is not his wife. This is what it means to repent.

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I know this is an emotionally charged topic that’s hard to hear sometimes, especially in our culture where marriage has been treated casually for multiple generations.

This is a message that must be presented gently and yet uncompromisingly (2 Timothy 2:24-26).