Posted in Books, Christian Living

Nothing But Good

Posted on by Weylan Deaver

In his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Edmund Morris describes Roosevelt’s 1898 campaign for Governor of New York. Earlier that year, he had left his job as Assistant Secretary of the Navy to organize a volunteer regiment for the Army—what became known as the Rough Riders—in view of coming hostilities with Spain over the island of Cuba. Roosevelt was 39 years old and longed to experience battle. He got his wish and led the Rough Riders in taking Kettle Hill, followed by San Juan Hill, overlooking the city of Santiago. All told, the Rough Riders were organized, trained, sent off to war, won, came home, and were disbanded in less than five months’ time. Colonel Roosevelt was now a national hero, and next sought the governorship of his home state.

Barnstorming the Empire State by train, he gave speeches at dozens of whistle stops. For added effect, he took along a small cadre of former Rough Riders who would talk about the Colonel, providing more color for his campaign. At one depot, a Rough Rider named Buck Taylor attempted a speech about his fearless leader’s courage in Cuba, praising him in these words:

“I want to talk to you about mah Colonel. He kept ev’y promise he made to us and he will to you….He told us we might meet wounds and death and we done it, but he was thar in the midst of us, and when it came to the great day he led us up San Juan Hill like sheep to the slaughter and so will he lead you” (Morris, p. 720).

Roosevelt was not much bothered by the misguided comparison. Afterward, he remarked on Taylor’s well-intentioned effort, “This hardly seemed a tribute to my military skill, but it delighted the crowd, and as far as I could tell did me nothing but good” (ibid.).

We try, as Christians, to do good for the Lord. Unlike Jesus, we don’t always have the perfect word at precisely the right moment. We don’t always know exactly what to do, or the wisest way to go about it. With our own glaring imperfections, we seek to praise the One who is perfection personified. But, that is the way Jesus wants it. He is content to take us along the journey. He doesn’t mind our company. He wants us with him. And, though Jesus could always say it best, he asks us just to do what we can—even if we stumble over our words or mix up a metaphor. He who became for us “like a lamb that is led to the slaughter” (Isa. 53:7, ESV), now leads us on to highest reward as we try to spread the news about the victory he won us. Or, as Paul put it, “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere” (2 Cor. 2:14). May the Lord help us to do him “nothing but good.”

Posted in Christianity and Culture, Church and State, LGBTQ, Marriage

I Am Ashamed

Posted on by Mac Deaver

With the absolutely absurd recent decision rendered by the United States Supreme Court with regard to marriage, I am ashamed.

I am ashamed because the nature of marriage entails heterosexuality as any right thinking person should know. One does not have to be a Bible student in order to determine that in nature itself human sexuality is to be expressed between males and females. Such knowledge does not require the Bible nor a preacher nor a course in a Bible College. It requires only the knowledge of anatomy and a reflection upon it. High I.Q. is not prerequisite to this knowledge. The Bible, of course, reinforces this truth obtainable through nature itself. Perhaps if more Americans still lived on farms and ranches, more children growing up would not venture to disgrace themselves in adult life by attaching their intellects to such pathetic conclusions as that recently reached by the highest court in our land. Evaluating animal behavior perhaps could bolster the right concept of human sexual behavior if, for some reason, the concept had grown vague or fuzzy in little minds.

Furthermore, since child conception is in humans restricted to heterosexuality, that in and of itself should inform confused people of the fact that sexual expression is natural only among heterosexuals. The continuation of the human species is tied in nature to heterosexuality. The species can continue with no homosexuality whatever. However, the reverse is not true. If all contemporary adults practiced homosexuality from the initiation of their adulthood, the species would die out. Does that not say something to us about the proper direction of human sexual expression? This by itself shows that homosexual activity is not natural.

But what if a homosexual’s response to the foregoing paragraph went something like this? “I admit that the species would die out if all men and all women exclusively practiced homosexuality, but who is to say whether human sexuality is simply for the purpose of child conception? Practicing homosexuals are not practicing such for the purpose of child conception anyway.” In response to such thoughts I would offer the following: I am not saying that child conception is the only purpose for sexual intercourse, but I am saying that by the fact that child conception comes via heterosexual human intercourse, such provides us with the knowledge that since conception can only take place within the confines of heterosexual expression, then whatever other purposes there can be for sexual intercourse are purposes that are ontologically correspondent to or related to a heterosexual relationship, as child conception shows. Since child conception is natural only in heterosexual intercourse, nature is saying that any other legitimate purpose or purposes of human sexual activity are restricted by nature to expressions of heterosexuality.

I am ashamed because that since my first point is true, the nature of marriage should never have become a political issue in the first place. It is only to the fundamentally and radically confused that such an idea that two women could actually “marry” each other or that two men could actually “marry” each other would appear as a legitimate possibility. It is the depth of depravity and the extreme of irrationality for anyone to attempt to uphold the concept that marriage is for those of the same sex! What are citizens (who practice normal sexual behavior and who have not caved in to “political correctness” regarding homosexuality) to think when the highest court in the land decides (albeit by a close vote) that marriage cannot, after all, be restricted to husband and wife?

It is enough almost to make one ashamed to be an American. How can our culture have reached such moral depravity to produce justices who would attempt to attack nature in the name of law? But it is no more possible for two women to “marry” one another or for two men to “marry” one another than it is for a man to marry his dog or that two dogs can “marry” one another. Will animal rights activists at some point call for the legalization of “marriage” among animals? Calling the relationship “marriage” in no way secures it as real. A merely legal redefinition of what marriage is or can be in American society does not attack its actual standing in reality at all. Such simply cannot be accomplished by any set of judges. American law currently stipulates that if a person is missing for so many years, that person can then be legally declared “dead.” Such a declaration, however, with all of its legal ramifications, still has absolutely no bearing whatever on whether or not the person is actually dead! A man declared “dead” by such procedure can be on the one hand legally dead, and on the other hand actually very much alive. This much ought to be clear to all of us. Legal definition and actual condition are not always the same!

Why not let the high court go on and redefine “sisters” and “brothers”? If a real marriage can exist between two men or between two women, why can’t the high court redefine “brothers” (plural) and redefine “sisters” (plural)? In other words, why can’t the court simply say that “brothers” can minimally mean not only two males born to the same parents, but that it also can legally entail one male and one female born to the same parents? And why can’t the high court redefine “sisters” so that it at least minimally applies not only to two females born to the same parents, but also to one female and one male born to the same parents?

If it is simply a matter of legal definition, what is the limit? Where does it stop? Language becomes meaningless as concepts entrenched in nature become distorted.

It has taken us well over two hundred years to reach this absurd historical moment, but it is pitiful beyond proper description that the moment arrived at all. The nature of marriage cannot be altered by mere human vote, even if the vote is unanimous! A horse cannot become a cow and a cow cannot become a dog by vote! And humans cannot become non-humans and non-humans cannot become humans by redefinition, by constant declaration, or by a vote! And being human entails certain characteristics, which characteristics do not disappear or subside by what a society says. Legal declaration is no substitute for natural existence and cannot affect it at all!

As technological advancements have characterized our country for years, our morals have lagged far, far behind. The Supreme Court decision sanctions sexual abomination and degrades the concept of marriage. The New Testament tells us to honor marriage. The Supreme Court now stands in outright violation of that biblical obligation and in the unenviable position of having attacked marriage, which God himself arranged for man’s welfare on the earth. Many have been in our time dishonoring marriage by the immoral practice of licentiousness, fornication, and adultery for years. The high court, however, has now attacked the institution of marriage at the point of concept. And that constitutes a more fundamental attack since it is an attack on the nature of the institution itself.

I am ashamed of a court, supposedly comprised of relevantly informed people, that voted five to four in favor of attempting to change the nature of marriage in the country. In one sense, one might think that at least four people voted with reason and nature. But to think that five did not is mind-boggling! Why in the name of common sense, did anyone vote in favor of attempting to legally give sanction and dignity to that for which God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah? Homosexuality is and always has been a distortion of human sexual expression! It is not a natural condition.

If one were to argue that we cannot depend on the Bible for truth regarding Sodom and Gomorrah, much less the nature of marriage, I would respond by saying that if God is removed as the originator of marriage, then, morally speaking, we need not concern ourselves with marriage as a morally binding relationship at all anyway ever. If there is no God and if God has not defined what marriage is, then “marriage” can be what men want it to be, but in their determinations, they cannot ever make of it anything that is morally superior to fornication and adultery. “Adultery” ceases to be a morally meaningful concept when marriage is reduced conceptually to a merely human construct! If God is not the divine arranger of marriage, then there is no dignity to it that raises it above the moral level of fornication, adultery, and sexual relations among animals. And if that is the case, there is no “dignity” in the marriage arrangement worth the perverted pursuit of it that homosexuals have been giving to it for years.

If one had been living in Sodom during the days of Abraham, he would have found that homosexuality was indeed normal behavior in that it was widely practiced and socially accepted. But it was never natural behavior! That is, the practice of homosexuality was the norm to and among many, but it never redefined what was natural. The God who created nature does not make homosexuals and then condemn them for what at birth they could not help, any more than he would by nature’s laws arrange for a genetically identifiable Anglo-Saxon baby born to Anglo-Saxon parents and then condemn the child for his Anglo-Saxon heritage! Such is absurd, but such absurdity evidently escaped the notice of our high court.

Perversity of human sexual desire may well begin very early in human experience, but no one should ever blame such an unnatural desire upon God or the nature that God has made. God is the father of our human spirits and the original creator of the earth from which the human body was taken. We surely should realize that temptation to sin, including the temptation to practice

sexual deviation, does not arise ontologically (that is, in the nature of being itself) from our human spirit or from the body in which it is encased. Something must happen in order to redirect the proper channel of human sexual expression. And when humans are redirected in a perverse way, they stand in need of help. They do not need their deviate desire to be dignified and protected as though it were something natural. Such people should be pitied and helped. And when society attempts to “help” them by sanctioning their deviation, it is providing no help at all, but rather encouraging them to feel “natural” when they are “unnatural.”

Voting cannot turn nature into non-nature; it cannot change non-nature into nature. When two non-natural persons (homosexuals) are told that they can “marry” and they attempt such, they and the society that encourages them, face the impossible situation of trying to take two non-natural persons (persons with non-natural sexual desire) and form one legitimate natural relationship. It simply does not and cannot happen! If a man develops a sexual desire for his pet dog, no court in the land by changing the definition of “marriage” can provide legal cover that actually dignifies such a relationship so that the man can attempt to “marry” his dog. If a person cannot grasp this concept, then he is unreachable on rational grounds with regard to the comprehension of what marriage is.

If a trial had been held in Sodom over the legitimacy of homosexuality as a proper and natural route to human sexual expression, the vote perhaps would have been unanimous. It gives me little comfort to think that our court was divided. That the vote was close gives me little encouragement. Over something so basic to human existence and to society, it is appalling that anyone on the court could have voted in support of an effort to reconstruct the nature of marriage at all. It requires much ignorance and no little arrogance to attempt such. As Jesus once told Pilate, Pilate would have no power against Jesus unless God had given power to him. His sin, therefore, was indeed “greater.”

Our Supreme Court has sinned against God and this country in rendering their five to four decision which attacks the home and seeks to legally sanction abominable immoral practice. The confusion of the high court should be evident to most Americans. That it is not evident to all Americans, and given the fact that the decision is now celebrated by quite a few Americans, it is clear that America is, as a country, losing its moral and intellectual direction. Our national law is becoming hostile to God and family, and by such hostility, it is becoming its own destroyer. The Bible still declares that it is righteousness that exalts a nation and that sin is a reproach to any people. And while Christians are under obligation to pray for our government, I shudder to think what it has already become. Yet, we will continue to pray for it and for the welfare of our heretofore divinely blessed country.

But I am ashamed of the repulsiveness characteristic of the Supreme Court in its ridiculous decision regarding the nature of marriage. Those of us who respect the Bible as the inspired, infallible, and all-sufficient word of the living God, will continue to live our lives before God with the proper concept of marriage in mind, which concept corresponds to our divinely provided human nature. Our high court has attempted to redefine what marriage is, but it can no more change the nature of marriage than it can reconstruct by redefinition human nature itself.

Posted in Announcements, Books

Kindle version now available for new Acts commentary

Posted on by Weylan Deaver

Mac Deaver’s new commentary on Acts, I Will Pour Forth of My Spirit, is now available in paperback and Kindle editions. Order your copy if you haven’t already.

Though they do not generate email notices to your inbox, we are constantly adding sermons to the “Audio” section (Mac Deaver’s sermons are added weekly). There are also a couple of debates you can listen to.

We encourage readers to know about two great resources. For online Christian education, check out Tennessee Bible College. An excellent resource in the ongoing war between Christianity and our increasingly secular culture is the new Warren Christian Apologetics Center. Take a look at what they have to offer.

If you find a Biblical Notes article helpful, please do hit the “like” button and/or share it on your social media sites. Encourage your friends to subscribe. This month has already set a new record for visitors, page views, and shares. Also, remember that there are articles in the archives going back over five years. You can search the archives by category, by month, or by keyword.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Eph. 3:20-31, ESV)

Posted in Christianity and Culture

Unreal Reality

Posted on by Weylan Deaver

By Weylan Deaver

The fact of God is the ground of all truth. Reality is what it is because God made it. Truth is what corresponds to reality. Take away God and you take away the anchor for truth, morality, purpose, value, beauty and obligation. God’s book—the Bible—explains where we came from, why we are here, where we are all headed, and how to prepare for judgment. Reject the Bible, and you are left a life without substance. Early on, people “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25, ESV). That old bargain never gets better with time or technology. But it does explain where our culture is today, when anything goes and each person (or group) determines his own “truth,” as though human thought is the deciding factor for what is real. It explains why so many believe that humanity descended from lower life forms. It explains why so many think it is right to take the life of an unborn baby. It explains why so many now see nothing wrong in men sleeping with men, or two women who want to “marry” each other. It explains why so many applaud a man who decides he wants to be a woman. It explains why so many think all religions are equally valid (or, equally invalid). But, to embrace the unreal as real is to labor under a “strong delusion” and “believe what is false” (2 Thessalonians 2:11). Feeling good about a belief does not make it true, just as drinking grape-flavored poison does not make it safe. Fantasy is not made fact by wanting it badly enough, or thinking about it long enough, or getting enough people to agree with it. Lies cannot save. Jesus still says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Visit us at the church of Christ, “which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15).

Posted in Announcements, Books

Announcing: A New Commentary on Acts by Mac Deaver

Posted on by Weylan Deaver

I Will Pour Forth of My Spirit is a new commentary on Acts by Mac Deaver, published in May 2015. Its 246 pages cover each of the 28 chapters in Acts, with an outline, commentary, and study questions for each chapter. Two appendices offer discussion of the fulfilling of the Great Commission, and a helpful, explanatory outline of what was happening in Acts 2. The author’s preface states:

“I hope the reader finds his excursion through this little book both enjoyable and profitable and that he is encouraged in truth and comes to a better understanding of the New Testament book of Acts, which Luke so long ago by inspiration of the Holy Spirit wrote. And I sincerely hope that he comes to comprehend that all men who have ever entered the kingdom (the church) of our Lord in the first century as described by Luke in Acts have, with regard to the essentials mentioned by Jesus to Nicodemus in John 3, entered in the same way. Furthermore, it is very important that we all see that if anyone enters the kingdom today in the twenty-first century, then, if the words of Jesus to Nicodemus hold true regarding all men of our time as well, we enter just as did those whose entries are recorded for us by Luke in Acts, when they entered during the first century by birth of water and Spirit.”

Paperback copies can be ordered from CreateSpace or Amazon. A Kindle version will soon be available, as well.

Posted in Church History

Ignatius and the Bishop

Posted on by Weylan Deaver

By Weylan Deaver

Among other books, I’m currently reading The Apostolic Fathers, translated from the Greek by Michael W. Holmes. The so-called “apostolic fathers” are ancient authors who have left us the earliest uninspired Christian writings (from late first to mid-second century). One of them, Ignatius, may have been martyred early in the second century. His letter to the church in Ephesus (as well, his letters to other congregations) is disturbing for its seeming portrayal of congregational structure foreign to the New Testament pattern. For example, Ignatius wants the Ephesians to be “subject to the bishop and the council of presbyters” (To the Ephesians, 2:2). He writes that “it is proper for you to run together in harmony with the mind of the bishop, as you are in fact doing. For your council of presbyters, which is worthy of its name and worthy of God, is attuned to the bishop as strings to a lyre” (ibid., 4:1). Though the gospel knows nothing of a church bishop who is distinct from and superior to a “council of presbyters,” Ignatius goes so far as to say, “For everyone whom the Master of the house sends to manage his own house we must welcome as we would the one who sent him. It is obvious, therefore, that we must regard the bishop as the Lord himself” (ibid., 6:1). That is quite a claim! Ignatius writes, “I dedicate myself to you Ephesians, a church that is famous forever” (ibid., 8:1).

Whether or not “famous forever,” the Ephesian church figures prominently in the New Testament. The apostle Paul wrote a letter to them in the mid first century. Paul also wrote to Timothy, telling him to “remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine” (1 Tim. 1:3, ESV). Evidently, “different doctrine” was a genuine threat to the church at Ephesus. Toward the late first century, Jesus himself sent to the church at Ephesus, “I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent” (Rev. 2:4-5). Earlier, Paul, in a face to face meeting with the Ephesian church’s elders, told them that “after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:29-30).

It is possible that, within a hundred years of the church’s beginning in Jerusalem, there were already departures in the leadership structure God put in place for congregational rule. But an error is not made right just because it is old. And, if “the bishop” in Ephesus is a scary thing to contemplate at such an early time in the church, we can take encouragement from the fact God had—through Paul—already warned the Ephesian elders years earlier that trouble would rise from themselves. Such warning is testimony to God’s omniscience, Paul’s inspiration, and the truth that Christians are never, whether back then or now, to veer from the gospel’s original design.

Posted in Doctrine, Marriage

Remarriage Right and the Law of the Husband

Posted on by Mac Deaver

By Mac Deaver

Recently, Weylan posted the oral exchange between my father, Roy Deaver, and Gus Nichols (listen at: biblicalnotes.com/audio/roy-deaver-gus-nichols-debate). The exchange took place on the campus of the then Harding Graduate School of Religion in Memphis, Tennessee in 1973. At issue between the two parties was whether or not the “guilty party” of Matthew 19:9 could by scriptural authority remarry. Deaver said that the “guilty party” could not remarry. Nichols said that he could.

Deaver spoke first and gave an argument based on the alleged unfairness of allowing the guilty party to remarry since God disallowed the “innocent party unjustly put away” the option of a remarriage. That is, according to Matthew 19:9, if A put his wife B away, not for fornication, then A and B were still joined in marriage, and so if someone married B after the legal divorce, the second marriage was only legal but not scriptural. The case is such that A’s condition at the time of the putting away is simply that of a non-guilty party who legally divorces his wife but not for fornication. The wife in the now legally divorced condition commits adultery with whoever legally marries her. So, she is stuck in a scripturally necessitated celibacy as long as she remains the “innocent party” unjustly put away by a person not guilty of fornication. She is still scripturally married to her husband regardless of his attempt to get rid of her.

Now, Deaver’s argument that he presented was based on this point. That is, if God necessitated the perpetual celibacy of the “innocent party unjustly put away,” that it would be unfair for God to allow the remarriage of a “guilty party” put away because of his fornication. How could God reward the “guilty” with a new marriage and “punish” the “innocent” by withholding one? Dear reader, it doesn’t seem to make sense, does it? Deaver’s syllogism was:

(1) If it is the case that Matthew 5:32 and Matthew 19:9 do not allow the remarriage of an innocent party unjustly put away, then it is the case that Matthew 5:32 and Matthew 19:9 do not allow the remarriage of the guilty party justly put away.

(2) It is the case that Matthew 5:32 and Matthew 19:9 do not allow the remarriage of an innocent party unjustly put away.

(3) Then, it is the case that Matthew 5:32 and Matthew 19:9 do not allow the remarriage of the guilty party justly put away.

This syllogism was based on the principle that punishment is justly related to sin committed. He cited Matthew 12:41-45, Matthew 11:20-24, Luke 12:47-48, and 2 Peter 2:20-21 to identify the principle that the syllogism incorporates.

In response, Nichols declared that we, as a people, have always taken the position that someone who kills his wife has a scriptural right to a new marriage, but that if we say that (1) a murderer can remarry, but that (2) a guilty fornicator cannot, we are allowing, in effect, the more guilty more right and the less guilty less right. Nichols did not use these exact words, but these words represent precisely his point. He was saying, in effect, that Deaver’s position is not fair. That is, if a man can kill his wife in order to marry another woman, but that the “guilty party” cannot remarry, then we are imposing on people a position that is completely unfair. So, he was hitting at Deaver’s argument based on the concept of fairness. I must confess that I had always taken Nichols’ position on the murderer’s right to a remarriage as the correct position, but in this reinvestigation, I think that my father was, after all, correct in his analysis of the situation. And I am very glad to now see what he and Warren affirmed in 1973. As usual I come to the truth as a latecomer.

Now, let me say that Deaver’s position (that the guilty party has no right of remarriage) did not depend upon any argument on “fairness,” though I now agree that the argument is sound. And in all fairness to my father, in his discussion with Nichols, he rightly observed that the contention that the guilty party can remarry is in outright contradiction to the “except for fornication” clause! It was not clear to Nichols at the time, however, that Deaver’s own position regarding the guilty party was fair at all.

When my father later faced James D. Bales (from whom Nichols said that he had learned his position on the “guilty party”) at Searcy, Arkansas he had a syllogism based on Matthew 19:9 that was not based on the concept of fairness. The syllogism was written:

Maj. Prem. If it is the case that Mt. 19:9 teaches that the only scriptural ground for divorce and remarriage is the ground of one’s having put away his companion because of that companion’s fornication, then it is the case that any interpretation of any passage which contradicts that teaching is an erroneous interpretation.

Min. Prem. It is the case that Mt. 19:9 teaches that the only scriptural ground for divorce and remarriage is the ground of one’s having put away his companion because of that companion’s fornication.

Con. It is the case that any interpretation of any passage which contradicts that teaching is an erroneous interpretation (“Marriage, Divorce, And Remarriage—Harding Lecture, April 19, 1977, p. 15).

Now, this more wide-sweeping argument covers the “guilty party” issue as well as other matters. But in Deaver’s 1973 confrontation with Nichols, he used an argument that was more narrow in scope or focus and which he thought would do the job in exposing the idea that the “guilty party” did have a right to a remarriage. God is, after all, always fair. That is certainly correct, but it needs to be noted that “divine fairness” is not always easy to comprehend due to human failure to grasp features of a situation that only God can know. What was fair to Deaver didn’t seem fair to Nichols at all.

“Fairness” is not always easy to discover. Some issues become so involved that it is hard to determine where fairness lies. And I would repeat that, though we know God is always fair since he is infinite in justice, we are not always able to determine how it is that he is fair when he gives definite positive legislation. At times the “fairness” is somewhat hidden from our view. God kept Cain, the brother-murderer, alive and allowed him to remarry and yet later decreed that all such murderers should be put to death (Gen. 4:9-15, 17; 9:6). And following his humanly undetected adultery, David was allowed to marry the widow of the soldier that David had killed under the camouflage of war (2 Sam. 11, 12). Because we are not privy to all knowledge to which God is, we are not always aware of how something is fair or “fair enough” in the eyes of God at a given time. So, from this angle of examination, “fairness”—though always rightly ascribed to God and to God’s applicable law—can be fair without our being able to explain in what way it is fair or why it is fair at all. The “fairness” of some laws is not on obvious display.

The issue of “divine fairness” has come up many times in marriage discussion. Some have wondered how it is fair for God to allow fornicators (before marriage) to commit fornication for hundreds of times and then be given scriptural right to marriage, while at the same time disallowing a “guilty party” the right of one more marriage. No preacher that I know has ever taken the position that the Scriptures teach that unmarried fornicators cannot enter a scriptural marriage. What about a person who—knowing Bible teaching—purposefully refuses to marry for years, during which time he fornicates over and over again? Let us say that in his 60’s he decides finally to marry. Where is the passage that disallows the marriage? Is the New Testament law on marriage and divorce unfair if it allows an habitual fornicator to get married?

Note carefully that we are not discussing whether practicing fornicators can go to heaven. They cannot (Gal. 5:19). But entry into heaven is not to be confused with marriage rights on earth. Nichols made this point in his part of the discussion. And he was correct. To say that a man has a right, given his circumstances, to another marriage is not at all the same thing as saying that the man stands before God approved and heaven bound. Plenty of people have a right to marriage who at the time of the application of the right are not in fellowship with God. But since God allows all persons guilty off pre-marriage fornication the right of entering a scriptural marriage and yet disallows, per Matthew 19:9, some parties to remarry, it is evident that God looks at the marriage covenant as something to be protected and maintained. After all, God does the actual joining in marriage (Matt. 19:6); he is no party to fornication!

Now, at the 1973 confrontation between Deaver and Nichols, Nichols took the position that if a man killed his wife in order to marry some other woman, that even though the murder was certainly sinful, marriage right still characterized the murderer since his wife was now dead. Evidently Nichols was thinking of Romans 7:1-6, though I do not remember his actually referring to the passage. But when he said that a man could kill his wife and marry again, both Deaver and Thomas B. Warren (who was in the audience and who in the question/answer session asked Nichols some questions) objected and declared that the murderer had no such right. When Nichols called for the passage that prohibited the murderer from remarrying, Deaver cited Matthew 19:9.

Earlier in his own presentation, Deaver had gone over Matthew 19:9 very carefully, presenting the words in Greek and giving a detailed analysis of the passage. Clearly, per Matthew 19:9, someone may and someone may not remarry. If all can remarry, according to God’s approval, then, Deaver asked, why did the Lord address the topic at all? The passage affirms that someone may remarry without being guilty of adultery and that someone may remarry but only by becoming guilty of adultery. “And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and he that marrieth her when she is put away committeth adultery.” According to Deaver, the Lord said that only persons who put away their mates for fornication are persons who may marry again without committing adultery. And guilty fornicators are not in that class of persons.

I agree with my father and Warren that the guilty party cannot with divine sanction remarry. And it is my view that Deaver’s 1977 syllogism that he gave to James Bales presents the truth on the topic. Furthermore, in the past (although I have taken the position that Nichols took at Memphis with regard to a wife-murderer having the right to another marriage since his wife was now dead), I now confess that such is absolutely wrong. I now see that Deaver and Warren were both correct in their claim that no wife-murderer has the right of remarriage even though his wife is dead. I had taken the position that even though a wife-killer was hell bound, his eternal destiny and his marriage rights were not to be confused. And they should not be. However, as we will see as our examination continues, though a wife-murderer is no longer bound to a wife, he is still bound to God who in the New Testament gives him no more marriage rights.

When Nichols called for the passage that prohibits a wife-killer from remarrying, Deaver, as already stated, cited Matthew 19:9. Now, Matthew 19:9 deals with putting away and marrying again and with someone’s marrying the party put away. Murder either is a form of putting away or is not a form of putting away. If Deaver cites Matthew 19:9 as conclusive that a murderer (who kills his own wife in order to marry some other woman) has no right to a remarriage, then he is saying either that murder is a form of putting away or he is saying that murder is not a form of putting away. But, he cannot be saying that it is a form of putting away, because the last part of the verse contemplates a marriage on the part of the put away party. The “put away party” is not a dead person but a living one. Since we are told that “he that marrieth her when she is put away committeth adultery,” we know that the “put away” party is a living party. If we say that murder is a form of putting away, we are then implying that someone can marry the dead which is, of course, absurd.

So, Deaver must be saying that murder is not a form of “putting away.” So, why would he think that Matthew 19:9 applied to the murderer’s case? How does the passage apply at all to the case of a murderer? Evidently, he thought it did because the only cases of remarriage allowed by Matthew 19:9 were cases involving “putting away” by parties whose spouses or ex-spouses were still living. No one else (no murderer) was being contemplated in the cases that involved “putting away.” Since all that we are to do is to be authorized by the New Testament (Col. 3:17), and since Deaver knew or at least assumed that there was no other passage that gave the scriptural right of remarriage to anyone else, then he cited the passage as conclusive that no man could kill his wife and then marry again. And this would mean that Deaver (and Warren, who agreed with Deaver that no man could kill his wife and remarry) considered Romans 7:1-6 to be inapplicable to the murderer’s case.

And this would mean, then, that Warren and Deaver considered Matthew 19:9 as applicable to the case of murder in the sense that it authorized only cases of remarriage on the part of non-murderers (just as the passages that authorize singing authorize singing only, and because of the complete absence of any other passage authorizing mechanical instruments in worship in addition to singing, then only singing is authorized). Deaver and Warren evidently thought that Romans 7:1-6 was inapplicable to the case of the murderer since, though the passage teaches that when the husband dies, the wife is free from the law of the husband so that death ends the application of the law of the husband generally speaking, it does not terminate the application of that law in cases of murder.

Now, if Romans 7:1-6 does not apply to a wife-killer (thus giving him a right to another marriage), how can we prove it? How was it that Deaver and Warren were both convinced that the wife-killer had no marriage rights? This exact point was not a part of the formal discussion at Memphis. And I do not remember ever discussing this point with my father or with Warren. But if they were right, how could we prove it now? From the discussion it is clear that Nichols thought that Romans 7:1-6 released the wife-killer so that he could remarry; it was Deaver’s and Warren’s contention that Romans 7:1-6 did no such thing. But there was no recording of any elaborate support of the Deaver-Warren position. I want to supply that information right here.

In Romans 7:1-6, Paul draws an analogy between the relationship that obtained between (1) a man and his wife and between (2) a Jewish Christian and his relationship to Christ. First, he gives the fundamental principle that the law was binding on a person only so long as that person was still alive. The law ceased in application to anyone who had been under it at the point of that person’s death (7:1). Second, after stating the fundamental feature of any law regarding its application, he then applies the binding nature of applicable law to marriage. He states that a married woman is bound by the law to her husband as long as he is living. When he dies, she is free from “the law of the husband” (7:2). If she is joined to another man while he still lives, she is an adulteress, according to marriage law, but if the husband is dead she is not an adulteress though joined to another man (7:3). Third, Paul then draws an analogy between the two cases: that of a woman bound to a husband under the law and to Christian Jews who were once married to Moses but who are now married to Christ (7:4). Paul affirms that Christian Jews are not now in “spiritual adultery” because the first husband was dead (7:4). Moses, (the binding law of Moses) was now dead. And even though they were now joined to Christ, the joining was not “spiritual adultery” because the first husband had passed away.

Now to the very point of contention: how do we know that this passage does not free a wife-murderer to remarry? We know it because Romans 7:1-6 is a discussion of the relationship of the law of Moses to Jews who were now Christians. And these Jewish Christians who were now joined to Christ had been formerly married to the first husband (the law of Moses, or Moses) to whom they were “made dead” by the body of Christ (7:4). And notice: that law (the first husband) to which these Jewish Christians had formerly been married was a law that demanded the death of any murderer! Murderers did not have remarriage rights in Israel. Murderers were to be put to death (Exod. 21:12; Lev. 24:17). The analogy that Paul draws is between (1) the law of Moses and its binding nature on Jews (a law that gave no marriage rights to murderers) and (2) the law of Christ which, unless it be Romans 7:1-6, gives no marriage rights to murderers either). This proves that “the law of the husband” does not give marriage rights to murderers of their wives even though their wives are now dead! Wife-murderers are still bound to God’s marriage law which disallows them a new marriage.

And this serves as proof that in Deaver’s confrontation with Nichols, he and Warren were correct to think that according to Bible teaching, no wife-killer had scriptural right to another marriage. Notice further that if “the law of the husband” (now completely incorporated within the law of Christ) still binds the “put away fornicator” (the “guilty party”) to God so that any marriage attempt on his part in the future will be simply a case of “adultery,” then it follows that “the law of the husband” binds a wife-murderer to God so that any marriage attempt on his part in the future will be simply a case of “adultery” as well. Both cases entail “adultery” by parties no longer bound to their spouses but still bound to God’s marriage law. Nichols had contended that when the handcuffs that bound a husband and wife together were taken off due to fornication or death, both parties were free to remarry since they were now free from each other. Deaver had correctly observed that there were three sets of handcuffs in any scriptural marriage. One set of handcuffs bound the married persons to each other, and one set bound the husband to God’s law, and the final set bound the wife to God’s law.

It amazes me that my father and brother Warren were so clear and correct in 1973 in their contention that not even Romans 7:1-6 gave a wife-murderer the right to remarry. They were far ahead of most of us then and, perhaps, many of us now.

Let me make one final comment concerning the relationship of Matthew 19:9 to Romans 7:1-6. Please note that the precision in language used by Paul together with the precision of language used by the Lord presents to us a striking instance of internal testimony to the profound inspiration of Scripture! Not only does Romans 7:1-6 not condone “murdering one’s way” out of a marriage so as to give the remarriage right to the murderer, but the language is so precise as not to contradict the allowance of polygamy under Gentile-ism and Judaism! Notice carefully that while Jesus restricted divorce right, compared to the most generous divorce allowance by the law of Moses (Deut. 24) in his remarks in Matthew 19:9, that Paul is careful in his use of marriage in his analogy as to protect divine sanction of polygamy under the previous regimes. He says that if a woman is joined to another man while she retains a living husband, she shall be an adulteress, but he does not say that a man joined to another woman while having an already living wife shall be called one under the governance of “the law of the husband.” The “law of the husband” allowed, in principle, both polygyny (one husband with more than one wife) and monogamy (one husband with one wife). The kind of polygamy (many marriages) allowed by God in the previous regimes was only polygyny. It was never polyandry (many husbands with one wife). Thus, Paul’s precision is for the purpose of harmonizing his illustration not only with the permanent New Testament requirement of monogamy but with divine approval of polygyny under Gentile-ism (i.e. Patriarchy) and Christianity. Incredible!

Posted in Christianity and Culture, Gender, LGBTQ

“Transgenderism” and the Bible

Posted on by Weylan Deaver

“For all intents and purposes, I’m a woman.” That’s what former Olympian, Bruce Jenner, told Diane Sawyer in a much-hyped two-hour interview aired April 24 on ABC’s “20/20”. Jenner is 65, has been married to three women, has six biological children and four stepchildren. He thinks he has crossed from manhood to womanhood. “Transgender” is identifying with a gender other than the one a person was born with. The first known use of the word dates to 1979. It seems American culture is eager to embrace the most outlandish claims, as long as biblical morality is eroded in the process. Instead of new categories of gender expression, what we need is divine instruction (cf. Mark 6:34). What Bible truths can be brought to bear on this subject?

First, gender cannot be changed verbally. A man’s claim to be a woman does not make it so. The idea that men have a feminine side (or, that women have a masculine side) is without foundation in the Bible. Likewise, the idea that a man could have a body with one gender, but a mind with the opposite gender. God is the Father of spirits (Hebrews 12:9), but not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33). Jesus highlighted human inability to do such a small thing as “make one hair white or black” (Matthew 5:36). If we cannot even alter hair color (without temporary, artificial means), surely we cannot change as fundamental a thing as the gender with which we were born.

Second, gender cannot be changed behaviorally. David “changed his behavior” on one occasion and pretended to be insane (1 Samuel 21:13). Acting insane did not make him insane. Nebuchadnezzar, for a while, lived outdoors “and ate grass like an ox” until his reason came back to him (Daniel 4:33-34; cf. Jude 10). He was not pretending. But, his behaving like an animal did not make him an animal. Behavior is not identity. A man who wears a dress does not become woman thereby. Moreover, he sins in so doing. “A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 22:5, ESV). The New Testament, as well, is plain on the distinction between men and women, and clear about their God-given roles.

Third, gender cannot be changed medically. No person is just a surgery away from becoming the opposite gender. “Sex reassignment surgery” (as it is called) is simply the severest form of playing make-believe. It is the drastic resort of desperation to be what one can never become, and thrives on the money of the mentally ill. Whatever surgeons may cut off or stitch on will never change a person’s DNA. Nor is genetic makeup changed by taking hormones. God asked, rhetorically, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?” (Jeremiah 13:23). Some things are not subject to surgery. Jesus did say, “there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:12). On being taken captive, Daniel may well have been made a eunuch (cf. Daniel 1:7), but, if so, he was still a man. The Ethiopian officer baptized by Philip in Acts 8 was a eunuch, but he was still a man. Gender is more than anatomy and hormones, and surgically altering anatomy does not change gender.

As Jesus stated about the sexes, “he who created them from the beginning made them male and female” (Matthew 19:4). He did not say that God made them male, female, transgendered, confused, or undecided. Veering from Scripture is never the path to spiritual prosperity. “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done” (Romans 1:28). “Transgenderism” is a manmade concept, and those who respect the Bible ought lend it no endorsement.

Posted in Debates, Doctrine, Marriage

Roy Deaver-Gus Nichols Debate: Can the Guilty Party Remarry?

Posted on by Weylan Deaver

By Weylan Deaver

A preacher’s forum took place in November 1973 at the Harding Graduate School of Religion in Memphis, Tennessee between Roy C. Deaver and Gus Nichols. Each man respected the other. In fact, in the November 1972 issue of his paper, Biblical Notes (p. 73), Deaver wrote: “When brother Nichols preaches, it is obvious to the hearer that here is a man who is not just keeping an appointment. It is apparent that he knows the difference between having to say something and in having something to say.” But love for the gospel compelled Deaver to defend it, even if doing so meant opposing a friend. At the time, Deaver was in his prime (around age 51). The question at issue that day at Harding Graduate School was: “Can the guilty party, put away for fornication, scripturally remarry?” Gus Nichols said “yes” and Roy Deaver said “no.” Thomas B. Warren was in the audience and, when it came time for the Q&A session, he also held Nichols’ feet to the fire on this crucial doctrinal point. Listen to the two speeches and the Q&A session at the three links below.

1 Roy Deaver. Can the Guilty Party Remarry? (November 7, 1973 / Harding University Graduate School of Religion)

2 Gus Nichols. Can the Guilty Party Remarry? (November 7, 1973 / Harding University Graduate School of Religion)

3 Questions and Answers. Can the Guilty Party Remarry? Deaver vs Nichols (November 7, 1973 / HUGSR)

Posted in Christianity and Culture, Church History

“Hatred of the Human Race” (A Lesson from Nero Caesar)

Posted on by Weylan Deaver

By Weylan Deaver

An age that worships sin does not relate well to people who teach moral purity. The gospel of Christ demands godliness, as defined in the pages of his New Testament. The less the gospel is known and respected, the bolder sin becomes. That is how an ethically challenged culture can pit itself against God, who loved enough to send Jesus to die in our place: the supreme expression of divine love for humanity that, somehow, evokes derision, opposition, rejection. It explains how Christians who proclaim heaven’s ultimate message of love can be condemned as unloving, bigoted, intolerant, hateful just because they refuse to endorse homosexuality, Islam, skepticism, evolution, or other things contrary to the gospel. It explains how the Bible, whose principles once wove our national fabric, can now be considered “hate speech.” America is in a moral fog, wandering to the wrong side of reality. When Rome burned in July of the year 64 A.D., emperor Nero looked for someone to blame, pointing an accusing finger at the city’s Christians. In his Annals, Tacitus, the ancient historian, tells what happened. Christians “were arrested; next, on their disclosures, vast numbers were convicted, not so much on the count of arson as for hatred of the human race.” Two millennia ago, a godless culture decided Christians were too “hateful” to put up with. In the interest of power, sometimes a government has to do hard things. So, those “hateful” Christians were slaughtered by the enlightened who, we assume, had only love for the human race. Tacitus notes that “derision accompanied their end: they were covered with wild beasts’ skins and torn to death by dogs; or they were fastened on crosses, and, when daylight failed, were burned as lamps by night.” Many see today’s society as more open-minded than people used to be. Loud are the voices calling us to tolerate diversity of every stripe, assaulting the walls of long held prejudice. But, the gospel is not about diversity, and therein lies the insuperable difficulty, as today’s confused masses seem unable to respond peaceably to the fact. That is why Christians now can be so vilified by the spiritually myopic, not unlike in the days of the progressive minds of ancient Rome. And so, let Nero teach us this: the more things change, the more they really stay the same.