I STAND CORRECTED

Hugo McCord

A Christian sister in Ephesus in 54 A.D., along with her husband, hearing a mistake in a preacher’s sermon, privately “explained God’s way to him more accurately” (Acts 18:26). A Christian sister in Alabama in 1996, reading a mistake in Hugo’s writing, in a letter has explained how I was wrong. I had spoken of “our adopted daughter,” a phrase, writes my Alabama friend, “that troubles me”:

Perhaps the fact that I, too, am an “adopted daughter” makes me more sensitive, but it would bother me to hear my father refer to me thus. That is a distinction never drawn in our family. I am, and always will be, simply “daughter.” I am grateful for that.

This dear sister, whom I have never met, is exactly right. I apologize and from now on I will speak of “our daughter.” I see that the phrase “our adopted daughter” does not reflect the closeness of love that has existed since, at 18 months of age, she became our daughter.

However, the principal reason why my Alabama friend wrote is because her heart is heavy: a deep love for a Christian sister who is living in adultery. Because my friend knows that “adulterers” cannot “inherit God’s kingdom” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10), she has done everything she can to enlighten her erring friend whose first marriage ended in a divorce because she had committed adultery. My friend writes,

A year following, she called me with the news of her engagement to another man. She could not believe my disapproval.

The erring sister gave “her reasoning for her right to remarry”:

Her repentance of her adultery justified her through grace. Justification means “just as if it never happened.” So her adultery now is as if it never happened. Being no longer guilty of adultery, Matthew 19 does not refer or apply to her. God no longer “sees” her adultery, so she is free to marry as a first-time bride. Matthew 19 applies only to those who have not repented of their sins.

The mistaught sister worships in a congregation that “condones and encourages this relationship, fully aware of her previous sins,” a congregation “that parades and masquerades as the church.” “I mourn,” says my friend, “the loss of a sister.”

Those who have mistaught the sister do not understand the biblical meaning of the beautiful word “grace.” Indeed, “by the grace of God” Jesus died “for everyone” (Hebrews 2:9). But that does not mean universal salvation, for Jesus is “the source of eternal salvation” only to those “who obey him” (Hebrews 5:9). The grace that brings “salvation to all men” saves only those who “deny ungodliness and worldly lusts,” saves only those who “live sensibly, righteously, and godly” (Titus 2:11-12).

If the Christian sister had divorced her husband because of his fornication, according to Jesus, she would have the right to remarry. But Jesus gave only one right reason for remarriage after a divorce (Matthew 19:9), which this erring sister does not claim. If Jesus is Lord, a remarriage for any other reason is adulterous. And not only is the erring sister now living in adultery, but she has caused her new husband to be living in adultery, for “whosoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (Matthew 5:32).

Someone has taught the sister that “her repentance of her adultery justified her through grace.” True, if she has repented, but biblical repentance is not simply sorrow for sin. Biblical repentance begins with “godly sorrow” (2 Corinthians 7:10), but it is not complete until one has quit his or her sin (Matthew 3:8). In her case she quit adultery with one man and then committed adultery again in her second marriage, for everyone divorcing and remarrying (without the one exception) “commits adultery” (Matthew 19:9).

When the sister’s repentance leads her to quit her second marriage, then “her repentance of her [double] adultery” will leave her “justified” through God’s grace. When she has quit her second marriage, then her adultery will be “as if it had never happened.” Then, but not till then, God will no longer see her adultery. But she will not be “free to marry as a first-time bride,” for any remarriage by her is adultery.

“Marriage is honorable in all” who are eligible to marry (Hebrews 13:4), but no married person (except with the one exception) is eligible (Matthew 19:9). Even under the wide cover of God’s grace, “fornicators and adulterers God will judge” (Hebrews 13:4).

For any who might be interested in a more detailed study of biblical repentance the following is added:

[M]etanoia, ... a change of mind: ... especially the change of mind of those who have begun to abhor their errors and misdeeds, and have determined to enter upon a better course of life, so that it embraces both a recognition of sin and sorrow for it and hearty amendment, the tokens and effects of which are good deeds (... Mt 3:8 ... Acts 26:21), Thayer, 406.

[W]hen the Scripture speaks of that kind of repentance which is only sorrow for something done, and wishing it were undone, it constantly useth the word metameleia, to which forgiveness of sins is nowhere promised. So it is written of Judas the son of perdition (Matthew 27:3), ... he repented and went and hanged himself. ... But that repentance to which remission of sins and salvation is promised, is perpetually expressed by the word metanoia, which signifieth a thorough change of the heart and soul, of the life and actions (Chillingworth, quoted in SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, Trench, 256).

[T]he word “repent” is eliminated [from the Freed-Hardeman Version] because it does not accurately translate the Spirit’s word metanoeo. The word “repent” simply means “be sorry again” (repoenitere). Repoenitere (Latin), metamelomai (Greek), and “repent” (Englis), are synonyms, all pointing to regret and sorrow. But they are not synonyms of metanoeo (2 Corinthians 7:10). Regret and sorrow may lead to metanoeo (Matthew 21:29; Mark 14:72), but they may stop short (Matthew 27:3). Metanoeo has both a prequisite and a sonsequent (Matthew 3:8; Luke 19:8). The literal meaning of metanoeo is to think afterwards, to have an afterthought, to change the mind. In Hebrews 12:17 this translation uses the literal phrase “change of mind.” In other places, since biblically man’s mind is his heart (Genesis 6:5; Acts 8:22), and since deeper feeling is usually associated with the word “heart” than with the word “mind,” this translation uses the phrase “change the heart” (FHV, 3rd edition, Appendix, 493).