The next chart contains language used by brother Haile in one of his articles that he had prior to the debate. Brother Haile argued that Matthew 19:9 emphasizes the putting-away cause, not the putting-away procedure. He emphasized that Jesus specified no method of putting-away. Matthew 19:9 uses the Greek word apoluo to describe what one does to his mate. Apoluo is a verb of action. As we have before observed, J.H. Thayer's lexicon says that when the word is used of divorce, in means to "repudiate." "Repudiate" means to reject. Jesus gave no procedure stating how this is done. He did not have to. This is not a complex issue. In "putting-away" a mate, one merely rejects that mate. In cases where one is sexually innocent, and his mate has committed the sin of sexual immorality, the innocent spouse has the God-given right to reject his mate. Jesus gave no other reason allowing one the right to reject his mate and marry another.

   1. On a previous chart (see Part II, chart # 5) brother Gwin denies that the issue is about, among other things, “that we are binding some specific procedure in order to ‘put away’ a spouse and scripturally remarry.” But in this chart our brother argues that Jesus himself said that “Biblical ‘putting away’ involves method.” Instead of “procedure,” he uses the word, “method.”

   We have argued that Jesus focuses on the cause for putting away and remarrying. That sole cause is fornication! By contrast our erring brethren have made fornication totally inconsequential when it is committed after the ungodly action of an ungodly spouse who puts away his mate for just any cause of many (except fornication). They have shifted the focus from cause to category (the put-away woman) and from putting away to a necessary procedure of putting away.

   To them, in our country at least, putting-away must involve civil procedure; i.e., courthouse action! (See our review, Part II, chart #5).

   Notice the shifting of terms on brother Gwin’s chart. In his title he has “method,” but at the bottom of the chart he has “action.” Method and action are not synonymous terms! He has Jesus using the words, “shall put away,” as illustrating method! No, as the chart rightly says, the phrase “shall put away” denotes action, not method. The issue is: what method shall that action employ? Action is not method. This is reminiscent of the liberal brethren of the 1800’s who argued that the Missionary Society is a method; no, it is an organization!

   Webster tells us that the English word, “method,” means a way, procedure or course of action. Putting away is an action. But if civil procedure is inherent in the Greek word of action, Apoluo, translated “putting away,” then one can’t put away without employing civil procedure. The procedure becomes an integral part of the action.

   No one is arguing about what Jesus said, in saying, “shall put away.” We all understand that. But the civil procedure brethren aren’t satisfied with what Jesus said; their position demands that what Jesus said can’t be done without the particular procedure of doing it, and, in the U.S.A., that is courthouse action!

   Jesus gives us the right motivation (that which moves one) for putting away and remarrying; that is the cause of fornication. The right motivation, then, is all that should be important to us. The civil procedure brethren aren’t satisfied with the proper motivation; there must be the proper procedure: doing whatever society or law dictates, and in our country, civil procedure dictates. The action must be by means of that method or procedure! As one of brother Gwin’s associates writes: “There is no way you can ‘put a person away’ as Jesus used the term without obtaining a ‘legal divorce’.”

   This completes part twenty-one of our study. Please check the next article in the series.

Introduction | Part Twenty of the Series | Part Twenty-Two of the Series

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