At the time of adultery being committed, by one spouse marrying another, both spouses are bound by God to their vows to each other, and so by the marriage bond. God will free the innocent one from that bond and give him the right to repudiate, or reject the adulterer, and to remarry (Mat. 19:9a), if that one so chooses.

It matters not WHEN the adultery takes place (whether before or after a civil divorce)! Both spouses are bound to each other until God releases the innocent one from the bond of marriage. (God does that, not some pagan judge at a courthouse). He releases only the innocent one, if that one chooses to repudiate the fornicator-mate and to remarry.

Our brother argues on the assumption that what an ungodly spouse does to his mate, in divorcing him not for fornication, translates into a nullification of the God-given right for the innocent spouse to repudiate his fornicator-mate and to remarry. Such a concept allows ungodly action to supercede divine power to permit. Since when can an ungodly act display more power than God can?

The Greek word (APOLUO) that Jesus used for the English, "put away," or "repudiate," is not something merely mental; it represents an action! Note the various passages where APOLUO is used, and see that it represents action, although not with specific, minute, exclusive procedure, neither implied nor indicated!

For example, is forgiving (Lk. 6:37) merely "mental action", or is it an act of "releasing a debtor"? What particular procedure was employed when Timothy was set at liberty (Heb. 13:23), or was it merely a thought process? Did Timothy simply receive some "vibes" from the jailer’s mental Apoluo, and then walked out of the jail? When the disciples told Jesus to send the multitude away (Mt. 14:15), did they tell Jesus to merely have a thought in his mind? Had Jesus sent them away (Apoluo), what exact procedure would he have had to follow? Any specific one? Of course not!

Note the headings of the three columns: "Divorcement". What he means is "civil divorcement". That is why he didn’t use the heading of "putting away", which phrase he quotes Jesus as saying in his second column! Jesus did not mean "civil divorce". (Jesus said, Apoluo, and there is no civil procedure in Apoluo).

Note also that in the last column to the right our brother has "another" and "against her" in caps and bold. A little later in his article he will try to make a point on that, but suffice it here to say that he is misrepresenting Jesus. He needs to put "wife" in caps and bold if he wants to correctly represent Jesus. For confirmation of this, just look at Mk. 10:3. Jesus is asked about the man’s wife and Jesus is answering about the man’s wife; not about another woman!

I do not put the "prerequisite" of "opposition" in the equation. But, if the innocent party does not oppose the putting away action of his spouse, it could be interpreted as consensual action. If both consent to the putting-away, both are guilty of sin, violating Jesus’ command (Mt. 19:6; see 5:32), and neither would be permitted to remarry.

Where in this passage cited is there anything about "the consequences imposed upon the ‘put away’?" The passage imposes a consequence upon the man who puts away his wife and remarries, and upon the woman (wife) who puts away her husband and remarries. The brethren of Bro. Belknap’s persuasion cannot see anything in any of the pertinent passages except their "put-away-woman" and what she is not permitted to do (in a scenario different from the one that Jesus treats)!

Bro. Belknap’s reference to "such man-originated rules" does not apply to me; I add nothing to what Jesus said. The only reason some refer to said "opposition" is to make clear that the innocent party did not consent to the repudiation nor to the civil divorce. If one is not in agreement with a divorce, he naturally is going to state his opposition to it! He is not going to lay himself open to the false charge of ‘the waiting game".

It is everything but human wisdom to understand that by implication Jesus teaches in Mt. 19:9a that the innocent spouse may repudiate the fornicator-mate and remarry. Jesus puts no time-restraints nor provisos to his permission; just some brethren do that!

Bro. Belknap is not too convinced of his argument, using such phrases as "most likely" and "in all probability". Yet he claims that the parallel passages make his assertion true! He would like to have Jesus talking about the second woman under consideration, and not the original wife of the man. He is trying to take from her the cause of adultery that she has when her husband, who put her away unjustly, now has married another woman.

He’s wrong about the "last antecedent" being the word "another". We’ll examine his "sentence structure", and "several scholars," later, below. (Incidentally, one can find "several scholars" saying anything that one wants said! But, what would that prove?)

His parallel passages don’t use the word "against". It appears only in Mk. 10:11.

There’s no "even if" to it; Jesus said that the adultery committed was against the man’s wife. Jesus didn’t address the scenario that Bro. Belknap presents, so naturally he doesn’t say anything specifically about it! What he addresses is the question put to him by the Pharisees: Is it lawful for a man (husband) to put away HIS WIFE for any cause (Mt. 19:3).

Bro. Belknap is not too convinced ("even if," he says) of his arguments that the original wife is not the one against whom adultery is committed. He is trying to take away the force of Mk. 10:11 that states that adultery is committed against the original wife, which adultery would then be her reason for putting away the fornicating ex-husband. This is what the Lord authorized! He first tries to show something by "sentence structure" and "parallel passages," and by what some scholars say, and then he argues that the matter doesn’t matter, because after all the Lord doesn’t authorize such and such. Well, why then did he bring up all those other "proofs"? Our brother feels the power of that passage against his false doctrine!

Note that our brother, as do all who agree with him, ignores the fact that Jesus directs his remarks to the WHOSO marries the put-away woman, while they make Jesus direct his remarks to the put-away woman and what she may not do! Jesus says, The MAN who …; they say, The put-away woman who …! This they invariably do, and that repeatedly. They just have to refer to their "put-away woman" and her being told what she may not do!

What conditions, Bro. Belknap, are your "such conditions?" The condition that Jesus was asked about (Mt. 19:3; Mk. 10:2), and to which he directed his answer, was: A man putting away his wife for every cause, no fornication having been committed! And Jesus adds: Any man who marries such a put-away wife, where no fornication is involved in her being put away, commits adultery, he, and by implication, the wife he marries. The reason for this is NOT that the wife is of a certain category, called "put-away women," but that she is still bound by the marriage bond to her estranged husband. Stay with the context, my brother!

Let’s be sure and define "unscriptural divorce". It is the kind that Jesus was asked about, and to which he replied: a putting-away for any and every cause (except fornication). In every case, where no fornication is being committed, if a spouse puts away his mate he must remain unmarried, and so must the mate, or else be reconciled to his mate (1 Cor. 7:11). If no reconciliation is effected, the two must remain celibate.

If a fornicating spouse puts away his mate for any cause, the innocent mate, although now unmarried but still bound by God to the mate in the marriage covenant, has the divine prerogative to repudiate, or put away, the guilty spouse. God, who binds, is the only one who can loose, and he looses only the innocent spouse who chooses to repudiate the fornicating spouse and to remarry. This is the principle that Jesus plainly teaches in Mt. 19:9a.

Whether the spouse fornicates while living with the mate, or after rejecting (repudiating) his mate, is not an issue mandated by Jesus. What He permits is the repudiation and remarriage of the innocent spouse who has the cause of fornication to do so (Mt. 19:9a).

Of course the passage (Mk. 10:11) says nothing about such (nor about thousands of other things), because Jesus was not asked about such a scenario as described by Bro. Belknap. Jesus dealt with the issue put to him in ver. 2, an issue in which no fornication is committed! The verse also says nothing about a court house, lawyers, judges, filings, gavels, putting "for fornication" on the divorce papers, etc., all of which some brethren find in this and other such verses! Our brother and his associates always confuse two different scenarios, taking elements from an entirely different scenario, and injecting them into Jesus’ scenario, then ask: Where did Jesus (in the scenario that he treats) ever say such and such! How tricky! This is pure sophistry.

Note his repetition of the famous phrase: "Mental Divorce advocates." The constant repetition of this prejudicial and misrepresenting phrase is designed to manipulate minds, causing them to not heed what the opponent really believes and teaches.

He also can jump, cry, and cut, but the text treats of Jesus’ scenario and not some other one that Bro. Belknap wants to treat by applying to it a phrase (his famous "put-away woman") taken from a sentence that Jesus uses (Mt. 19:9) in his scenario.

Our brother gives up his entire argument against "against". He admits that any case of adultery by the spouse is adultery committed against one’s mate. He says: "I would accept the implication that subsequent adultery after the divorce would also be a sin ‘against’ one’s bound mate, just as the unlawful divorcement was a sin against her." My brother, you "would," provided what? You (and all the rest of us) need to say, "I accept that the adultery committed by the ungodly husband is against his first and only lawful wife." Saying, "I would" is not very definitive. What holds you back from readily and fully accepting the truth of Mk. 10:11, concerning "against her?"

What, my brother, is "that which is not revealed"? Obviously the particular scenario that divides US was not presented to Jesus, and therefore does not appear in the Scriptures (is not "revealed")! Why do you continue to toggle between two different scenarios? Surely you are not knowingly and purposely confusing the two!

What IS revealed in the Scriptures (Mt. 19:9a) is that Jesus gives to the innocent mate the prerogative of repudiation of a fornicating spouse and of subsequent remarriage. And that principle is what we apply to the scenario of our controversy! A particular scenario doesn’t have to appear in the Scriptures for principles, set forth in the Scriptures, to apply to it.

Bro. Rader is not dogmatic here (as Bro. Belknap is not): "It is very possible", he says, yet he is negative toward what he calls an "assumption". Neither our brother, nor other brethren, nor the several sectarians whom Bro. Belknap is going to quote, say, nor dare say, that the pronoun "her" (against her) cannot refer to the original wife of the man. The husband commits adultery. Now was it against his wife, or against the second woman whom he subsequently marries? Obviously he commits adultery AGAINST his wife, and WITH the second woman (he doesn’t commit adultery WITH HIS WIFE!). It is for this obvious reason that later our brother is going to promote the idea that the Greek preposition, epi, here means with, and not against.

This passage clearly shows that the put-away wife of Jesus’ scenario now has the divine cause for repudiation and remarriage! More on this later.

The claim is made that the word "another" is the nearest antecedent of "her". If such is true, then why say that "It is very possible that it refers to the second wife." Forget the "very possible," and simply affirm that "her" must mean the second wife! A pronoun (her) stands for a noun, and the nearest NOUN ("another" is an indefinite pronoun) to "her" is "wife"!

Thayer, the authority recognized by all of us, concerning the meaning of Greek words, tells us that EPI means "against". He does not give "with" as a translation. He says, "against", and cites Mk. 10:11 as an example! See p. 235.

"Cf." means, "compare". The first reference above is to Marshall’s Greek-English Interlinear, using the Nestle text. The Nestle text says EPI; and Marshall, in his personal translation between the lines of Greek text, says "with".

Well, I, too, can cite a Greek Interlinear, that of Berry, using the Textus Receptus. The Greek text says, EPI, of course, and Berry translates it, "against".

So, Bro. Rader simply chooses to cite one man, Marshall, instead of another, Berry, for Marshall agrees with him. But, whether Berry or Marshall, it is a one-man translation! Thayer, the accepted Greek authority, says, "against"! (Check your major English versions and see if any say, "with." You won’t be surprised!)

Bro. Rader’s reference to The Expositor’s Greek Testament says only that the word EPI "may mean either against, to the prejudice of, her (the first wife), or with her (the second wife)." A. B. Bruce, in his commentary on Mark in this above-mentioned work, here tells us what EPI "may" mean, but the context of Mark 10:2-11 tells us what EPI does mean: i.e., against the "her" under consideration, the wife of the ungodly husband. The Pharisees had asked: "Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife." Jesus answers, saying that if he does that, for just any cause except fornication, he commits adultery against her! Nothing could be plainer. There are no "ifs" and "ands" about it!

But some brethren are reluctant to accept the obvious, because it would sound too much like the innocent spouse’s having the cause of fornication that permits her to repudiate her guilty mate and to remarry. That we just cannot have!

Here our brother says, "the woman". Which woman? The first wife or the "another"? In order to make a point, he must mean the original wife.

The man of Mt. 5:32 is not said to have married again. In 19:9 and Mk. 10:11, parallel passages, the man is said to marry again, and that in so doing he commits adultery.

In all three passages there is no fornication involved in the putting away. That is what makes subsequent marriages adultery, whether on the part of the man or of the woman. Remarriage is permitted only to the innocent spouse who puts away for fornication (this is a necessary inference). Why can’t brethren stay with the context, and with the scenario that Jesus is treating? The woman of Mk. 10:ll is the same wife as the one in Mt. 5:32 and 19:9, in that she is put away not for fornication. In this condition she may not remarry (as the husband may not either!). But if he does, he commits adultery against her, and she may now exercise her divine right to repudiate him and to remarry. How do we know that? Just as we know that an innocent wife may put away a fornicator-husband and remarry, even though Jesus does not directly treat that scenario. We know it by necessary inference, based on the divine implication of what Jesus does say in Mt. 19:9a. Both conclusions are implied, just as is implied the conclusion that a husband may put away his wife for fornication and remarry without committing adultery!

Bro. Belknap again pads his case here. He simply gives the quote from the reference (in The Expositor’s Greek Testament, Vol. one, p. 409, authored by A. B. Bruce) that Bro. Rader had just mentioned. Bro. Belknap makes it appear like something additional to Bro. Rader’s reference.

I don’t make a "big play" on the statement of Mk. 10:11. (Do the civil-procedure-theorists "play down" the statement?) Jesus was asked about a man putting away his wife (v. 2), and Jesus says that if the man does it, and marries again, that he commits adultery against her! I just leave it there as Jesus put it. Why can’t certain of my brethren do the same?

True: when a man puts away his wife for just any reason except fornication, they are not still married, just still bound by the marriage bond. I have never said otherwise.

Bro. Belknap’s use of Bro. Frost’s quote is a reiteration of the reference already made in the quote that he gave from Bro. Rader’s writings. Bro. Belknap’s citing of two men’s references to the same author (in, The Expositor’s Greek New Testament) is not presenting two authorities as proof.

Incidentally, it might be a slip of the pen, but "Expositors say" means that there are a number of expositors that say something. But the quote is from just one expositor, Mr. Bruce, in The Expositor’s (single, not plural) Greek New Testament.

Correct; he is not "still married to the first", but he is still bound to her because God has not loosed him from his marriage covenant, from the marriage bond! She is still his wife (as in Mk. 6:17)!

Wuest simply cites The Expositor’s Greek Testament. So, this is not another "authority", but rather another writer citing the same "authority".

But note that Wuest goes on to cite Robertson, who says, "Mere formal divorce does not annul actual marriage consummated by the physical union. Breaking that bond does annul it". Now, do the civil procedure brethren accept that from Wuest, who quotes Robertson as saying, "actual marriage?"

Our brother (now deceased) was not very assured of his conclusion: "by no means certain, all evidence does not agree, some commentaries say". Now isn’t that strong language! What did he do with the evidence that does agree and with the commentaries that do agree? If he can brush these aside, what should we do with his?

Yes, as a rule the antecedent of a pronoun is the closest noun to it, but the noun, "woman", is not in the text.

The word "another" is in this case an indefinite pronoun used as an adjective (i.e., not the same woman, but a different woman). It is not a noun!

The nearest noun in the text is "wife", the one that the husband repudiated! She is the one against whom adultery is committed. She is the wife concerning which the Pharisees interrogated Jesus.

If our brother has a point (and he doesn’t), then everyone who claims that "her" here refers to the original wife IS WRONG! It can’t be both ways, if the grammar is such as he claims it is here. But, grammatically speaking, Bro. Phillips is mistaken.

The "her" of Mt. 5:32, the wife who is unlawfully put away by her husband, is the same "her" in the parallel situation depicted in Mk. 10:11.  In both passages Jesus is talking about the husband and his wife, and what is affected by the husband's actions in relation to his wife.  The one made her, his wife, to commit adultery, the other one committed adultery against her, his wife!

Who says that "there is a single syllable in Mk. 10:11 about the put-away person remarrying"? It is not there because Jesus was not asked about such! (For the same reason there is not a single syllable there about baptism!)

What is there is that the husband who repudiates his wife and marries again commits adultery against her. The principle found in Jesus’ words in Mat. 19:9a is that the innocent may repudiate the fornicating spouse and remarry. So, this applies to her!

The civil procedure brethren bring up a different scenario and then try to inject that scenario into the scenario that Jesus addressed, and then ask: Where did Jesus say so and so?

The argument is not over the rules of English grammar, but over the application of the rules to Mk. 10:11.

If Bro. Phillips insists that he is correct on the point of grammar, why does he say that his case is "stronger" than Bro. Patton’s? He needs to say that he is right and that Bro. Patton is wrong!

If Bro. Patton "by no means proved" his point, but "simply asserted it," what more has Bro. Phillips done?

Does "my case is stronger than yours" mean "I am right and you are wrong"? Does it mean that one proved and did not assert, but that the other one did not prove and did assert?

As I have shown above, Bro. Phillips, in spite of his insistence, in this case is not correct about his application of the rules of English grammar. The noun "woman" is not in the text and the word "Another" is not a noun!

We have already dealt with these points: Nestle’s text and Nigel Turner.

Incidentally, it is not "Nestle’s Interlinear", but Marshall’s Interlinear, using the Nestle text. Marshall gives his personal translation, "with". Berry, in his Interlinear, gives "against", not "with." And Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon does not agree with Nigel Turner, nor with Marshall, but with Berry. See p. 235, right hand column.

Bro. Phillips question is based on the "ipse dixit" that "a put-away person can’t put-away".

The marriage is put asunder (Mt. 19:6, CHORIZO) because one of the two spouses departed (1 Cor. 10:11, CHORIZO). Both are now unmarried (1 Cor. 10:11).

There is no "even if he committed adultery". Jesus (in his suppositional case) said that the husband would be doing it, and he said that he would be doing it against his wife!

To answer Bro. Phillips’ question: She may now exercise the prerogative or permission that Jesus gave her. As he repudiated her, she repudiates him! God did not release him on his repudiation, but he does on her’s.

The verb, put away (APOLUO), involves more than mere physical separation. It also means, "repudiate". The marriage bond involves vows and commitment as well as physical union. So, when the faithful wife has fornication committed against her, she may repudiate, or reject, the fornicating husband, and thus exercise her right to be loosed by God from that commitment and to marry again.

The "divorced person" of Mt. 5:32 and of 19:9 certainly has no right to remarry, because no fornication has been committed! When will the civil procedure brethren learn to stay with the context? Once fornication is involved, the context changes! The issue that divides us is NOT the case of Mt. 5:32 and 19:9, etc., where no fornication is involved, but is the case of an innocent spouse whose mate has committed fornication!

The civil procedure brethren constantly change scenarios, from the one that Jesus treated, to an entirely different one.

Bro. Whiteside may agree with Bro. Belknap in the first part of his paragraph, but I doubt seriously if Bro. Belknap agrees with Bro. Whiteside in the second part of the same paragraph. If I am mistaken on this, I stand corrected.

There is no inconsistency at all!

Mk. 10:11 does not address the matter of remarriage of an innocent spouse; Mt. 19:9a (by implication) does.

The man in MK. 10:11, who (in the hypothetical case) "perpetrated the unscriptural divorce" that Jesus is talking about, married again! He had no adultery committed against him, but his wife did! That explodes the "same door of potential" that Bro. Belknap claims is also opened to the man in Mk. 10:11.

What that man did certainly did not loose him from being bound to the put-away wife. When he remarried, he committed adultery against her, and so she now could exercise her God-given right to repudiate him and remarry, because God would loose her from being bound to him.

Mk. 10:11 supposes the case of a husband that puts away his innocent wife and remarries! The so-called "waiting game" involves a different scenario, one in which a husband and wife consensually divorce (separate), defraud one another, and wait until one of the two fornicates. Both are still bound to each other, must remain unmarried or be reconciled, and no adultery has yet been committed. Both are guilty of divorcing without cause. Bro. Belknap confuses the scenarios!

As for the "waiting game", no godly spouse engages in such. But once adultery is committed against him, he may repudiate and remarry by God’s permission.

As for a carnally-minded spouse, he is not concerned about needing any Scriptural reason for remarriage! He disobeyed Christ when he put away his mate for any cause (Mt. 19:6), and with that heart he’ll disobey again--why wait?

It impugns the motives of the innocent one, in the scenario of Mk. 10:11, to charge her with merely waiting until her mate commits adultery. Who sets up anyone to so judge another (Jn. 7:24)?

If two spouses agree to a separation, they both sin (Mt. 5:32; 19:6; 1 Cor. 7:10,11) and the option of remarriage is not open to either one of them, no matter how long each might wait for the other to commit adultery. Willful sinners don’t try to do things scripturally!

What is the phrase, "intact bond is truly the factor", suppose to mean? That which permits one to put away is not an "intact bond" but the cause of fornication (Mt. 19:9a). The Pharisees did not ask Jesus about the "bond" but about the "cause." The marriage bond being still intact, or untouched, obtains when a spouse unjustly puts away his mate, but it is intact because God has not loosed either spouse from his marriage covenant. What is "truly the factor," or better stated, the "cause," is fornication!

Two spouses are bound by God to their commitment to marriage (Mt. 19:6), and only God can loose them from it. He looses only the innocent one who chooses to repudiate the fornicating mate and to remarry.

It is only Mk. 10:11 that speaks of "adultery against" a mate. Mt. 5:32 says nothing about the repudiator remarrying and thus committing adultery "against" a mate. Mt. 19:9 speaks of a spouse, who puts away his mate for any cause and who then remarries, committing adultery.

This statement by our brother is based upon his flawed premise of "inconsistency," which is exploded just above.

How astutely Bro. Belknap confuses two different scenarios, as he talks about "different remarriage ramifications"! Jesus treats of putting away for any cause (and so no fornication is committed in this scenario, and neither spouse may remarry), but the issue that divides Bro. Belknap and others is a scenario in which fornication, or adultery, is committed after a "civil divorce" (of which Jesus says nothing!), and that adultery is committed against the innocent one.

Who "perpetrates an unlawful divorce," and who "is the recipient of that action," has nothing to do with the issue. That which gives the innocent spouse the right to put away and remarry is the presence of a particular CAUSE: that of fornication! Jesus talks about the "cause;" our civil procedure brother is all exercised over legal procedures and the action of "one who perpetrates an unlawful divorce."

Bro. Belknap is desperately trying to establish a prerequisite for his case, his so-called "marital status", so that he can claim that after a "civil-divorce," there is no marriage status in evidence. Then he passes on to conclude that the innocent spouse, against whom adultery has been committed, may not repudiate and remarry since he is not now married.

Monotonously Bro. Belknap confuses two different scenarios. He finds a so-called "marital status" in the scenario that Jesus treated, where no fornication is committed by a spouse, but not in the other one, where adultery has been committed. His conclusions are drawn from a faulty premise.

Of course there was a marriage, in the primary sense of "joined" (physically), in evidence in the scenario about which Jesus was questioned (Mt. 19:3), and, after a spouse has put away a mate and remarried, the put-away mate is of course no longer joined physically to him. But, in BOTH scenarios, the MARRIAGE BOND is still intact. In the first scenario neither spouse could remarry, because no fornication had been committed, and so the bond was still intact. In the second one, God alone grants to the innocent spouse the right to repudiate and remarry for the cause of fornication that has been committed, and will loose him from the bond.

He says: "whether scriptural or not". If the putting-away is scriptural, it is because the innocent spouse repudiates the fornicating mate. If it is unscriptural, it is because no fornication has been committed. There is a difference.

But If he means the adultery committed against his innocent wife that results from a husband putting her away, and marrying another woman (Mk. 10:11), then there is something "consequential". The innocent wife in this scenario has the "cause" for which Jesus gives the right to put away and to remarry.

Bro. Belknap continues his confusing of two different scenarios. He is talking about the one, but is injecting into it the other one.

The issue is not about "re-marriage ability" but rather about divine permission to remarry! (A man can do a lot of things, but, the issue is: is he permitted by God to do it?)

Fornication is never inconsequential! Its terribleness is the same whether committed before or after some civil procedure in the courts of men. It is THE cause whereby God permits the innocent spouse to repudiate the guilty mate and to remarry, and what some ungodly spouse does in unlawfully putting away his mate does not magically make fornication now irrelevant and inconsequential. Those of Bro. Belknap’s persuasion at times have to make fornication totally irrelevant and of no consequence, instead of leaving it, as Jesus does, as the cause for the innocent to exercise a divine permission What a doctrine! Fornication is fornication, and we must flee it (1 Cor. 6:18). It is not sometimes bad, and sometimes not bad! It is always bad, and is the sole cause that God gives for repudiation and remarriage!

Bro. Belknap continues to take out of context language of the first scenario and to force it into an entirely different scenario.

Look who is talking about "silence of the scriptures"! Where does our brother, in the scriptures that he cites, find anything said about "AFTER an unscriptural divorce"? Where? I may not apply the principle of what Jesus said in Mt. 19:9a to a particular innocent spouse who has had adultery committed against him, but he may apply to remarriage what Rom. 7:3 and 1 Cor. 7:10 say, "AFTER an unscriptural divorce". Indeed the legs of the lame are not equal!

Will all who are of his general persuasion agree with him about his conclusion? If a "put-away woman" may not remarry because she is a "put-away woman", and so they claim, she may never remarry, because she will always be a "put-away woman". She was put away, and that is history! The death of her ex-spouse cannot change that history, or fact.

Now -- watch him -- he is ready to switch scenarios! From the putting-away that the husband does, per Mt. 5:32 and 19:9, Bro. Belknap switches to an entirely different scenario: to that of an innocent wife who now does her own putting-away! He didn’t have the "cause;" she does. When he says, "prior to the putting away," he has in mind the putting-away of the ungodly spouse, but the scenario of today’s controversy treats the putting-away on the part of the spouse against whom adultery has been committed. Bro. Belknap’s wording here leaves the matter clouded, not clarified.

Incidentally, by his phrase, "these men," surely he means his beloved brethren.

Jesus said absolutely nothing about "civil divorce", post or otherwise! Man-made laws do not alter, or affect changes in, a God-given right, or permission.

Does an innocent spouse become any less an innocent spouse just because his mate got a civil divorce in the courts of men. He is innocent before and after anything that the fornicating mate might do. The innocent spouse, put away for any cause by his mate, in Jesus’ scenario, is still innocent, but since no fornication was committed, that spouse may not repudiate and remarry. But the innocent spouse of another scenario, of that in which there is fornication committed against him, may repudiate and remarry because he has the cause required by Jesus for one to be released from the marriage bond. Simple, isn’t it?

I’ll speak for myself: I have never claimed that "the remaining bond" is that which "enables (authorizes)" one to put away. (Bro. Belknap may know of some brethren who make that claim, but I don’t). The cause, not the bond, is the basis on which God permits (Mat. 19:9a, by divine implication and our necessary inference) the innocent spouse to repudiate a fornicating mate and to remarry. Bro. Belknap would do well to tell this to those brethren who tell him that the "remaining bond" is that which enables one to put away.

Yes, we (Bro. Belknap and I) are told, and that by Jesus, that only one of the two equally bound spouses may have a right to repudiate and remarry, and that one is the one innocent of fornication.