



               The Husband of One Wife - Qualification for Elder
                             by Dr. Robert L. Saucy
                             B.A. Westmont College
                   Th.M., Th.D., Dallas Theological Seminary



1A.  The basic meaning of "husband of one wife."

 It is impossible to decide the exact meaning of this phrase in all its 
 ramifications from the simple words involved.  Literally the Greek 
 words are simply "one woman man" or "one wife man".  Lenski translates 
 them as "one wife's husband."  Whether this means one at a time or one 
 during a lifetime depends completely on other considerations.  Even the 
 question on the meaning of "one at a time" depends on one's view of 
 divorce as to whether a divorced man who has remarried is considered to 
 be "one wife's husband."

2A.  Is a man the husband of one wife if he marries after the death of his
 wife?  Several facts militate against this view:

1b.  The prominence of this qualification.  

 In both lists of qualifications for elders this qualification stands 
 second occurring immediately after the demand for blamelessness or 
 irreproachability.  This suggests that the first thing that detracted from
 this general character of blamelessness and the first thing that one was 
 to take note of was whether the individual stood in relation of marriage 
 to more than one person.  Fairbairn comments on the position of prominence
 given to this qualification, "Now, supposing this latter alternative had 
 respect merely to the contracting of a second marriage after the death of 
 a first wife, is the qualification one that, in the circumstances, we 
 could imagine to have been so prominently exhibited, and so stringently 
 imposed."   The Pastoral Epistles, p. 417.

 There is no hindrance placed upon remarriage either in the OT or the NT. 
 So also among the Greeks and Romans there was never any stigma attached to
 remarriage after the death of the first spouse.

 It is entirely improbable that such a restriction is here placed in such a
 brief statement without a note of explanation and in such a prominent 
 place and even extended to deacons whose work did not concern the highest 
 type of spiritual leadership.

2b.  The Teaching of the Bible on the Permissibility of Remarriage After
 Death 

 "Nowhere in Scripture (including Paul's epistles) is remarriage after the 
 death of the wife depicted as forbidden or even morally questionable.  
 Paul advises widows to remarry (1 Tim 5:14).  If 3:2 prohibits widowers 
 from second marriages if they wish to be overseers, then 5:9 prohibits 
 widows from remarrying if they wish to be enrolled.  Would Paul then 
 advise young widows to marry again if such was questionable, or would 
 remove them from the possibility of special aid in their later years 
 (5:14)?  It seems most unlikely.  Paul's clear teaching was that death of 
 the partner dissolved the marriage bond, and the remaining partner was 
 free to marry in the Lord (Rom 7:1-3).  To cast suspicion upon the 
 holiness of a second marriage is to impugn what Scripture nowhere denies, 
 and reflects the spirit of asceticism which arose early in the church and 
 has plagued her for twenty centuries.  The argument of Plummer that a 
 second marriage is a sign of weakness on the part of the minister is 
 unfortunate.  The same thing could be said of the first marriage."  Homer 
 Kent, Jr.  The Pastoral Epistles, p. 128.

Conclusion - A man could qualify for eldership if his first wife had died 
 and he was living with his second wife.

3A.  Is a man the husband of one wife if he remarries after divorce?  This 
 involves one's concept of divorce and remarriage.

1b.  The Permission of Divorce for Adultery - Matthew 5:32; 19:9.

 It is the generally accepted opinion of the commentators that 
 "fornication" here includes and probably specifies the sin of adultery. 

 W. E. Vine - "In Mt. 5:32; 19:9, it stands for, or includes adultery."
 Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, II, 125.

 Arndt & Gingrich - "Fornication. 'Prostitution, unchastity, (Demos. Philo.
 12 Patr.), of every kind of unlawful sexual intercourse . . .adultery 
 appears as fornication (cf. Sir. 23:23).  Hm, 4, 1.5.  Of the sexual 
 unfaithfulness of a married woman.  Mt. 5:32; 19:9. ' " A Greek-English 
 Lexicon of the New Testament, p. 600.

 Hauck and Schulz in  Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, VI, 
 592- "In both verses (Mt. 5:32, 19:9) Porneia refers to extra-marital 
 intercourse on the part of the wife, which in practice is adultery, cf. 
 Sir. 23:23: en porneia emoicheu.  The same definition is given by Alford, 
 (The New Testament for English Readers, p. 33) and Thayer (Thayer's Greek
 -English Lexicon, p. 532).

 That porneia can be used for adultery is obvious in 1 Thess. 4:3-4 which 
 appears to refer to a married person.  There are several other New 
 Testament uses where the word is all inclusive (1 Cor 6:18;  Col 3:5;  Gal
 5:19 where better mss. omit "adulteries").

 Moulton and Milligan state, "porneia originally meant 'prostitution,' 
 'fornication,' but came to be applied to unlawful sexual intercourse 
 generally.  It was a wider term than maicheia, embracing the idea of 
 'barter,' 'traffic' in sexual vice, though in the OT there was a tendency 
 to assimilate in some respects the two terms. . ." p. 529, The Vocabulary 
 of the Greek New Testament, (cf. Guy Duty, Divorce and Remarriage, pp. 52 
 ff. for more detail).

 The teaching of Mark and Luke is harmonized with Matthew when one sees 
 that the main thrust of Christ's teaching is the abolishing of the 
 provision of Deut. 24:1-4 which provided for divorce on grounds other than
 adultery.  Mark and Luke present the main teaching of Christ while Matthew
 in a much longer treatment gives more detail.

2b.  The Right to Remarry,  Having said that divorce is permitted on the 
 basis of adultery, the next question is whether divorce allows the parties
 to remarry.  This involves the question of whether divorce dissolves 
 marriage?

1c.  The OT Teaching,   There was no question of divorce for adultery
 in the OT.  Adultery was punishable by death, so that the innocent 
 party could be remarried.  But there is evidence that the divorce 
 which was granted in the OT on lesser ground also permitted 
 remarriage.  In other words, divorce was considered to be the 
 dissolution of the marriage.  Deut. 24:2 instructs, "and when she is
 departed out of her house, she may go and be another man's wife,"  In
 verse 3 and 4, when the woman remarried, she is not considered to 
 have two husbands because specific reference is made of "her former 
 husband."  The case of the woman in John 4 agrees with this teaching.
 John 4:16-18, she had had esches (aorist) five husbands.  The one she
 had then was not her husband.  Assuming that all of the previous five
 had not died, if divorce does not dissolve marriage, she would 
 presently have had five husbands and if "having" a man signifies 
 marriage, she would then have had six husbands.

          
2c.  The Teaching of Christ.  The teaching of Christ in Matthew 5 and
 19 must be seen against this Jewish concept of divorce.  The question
 was a dispute between the school of Hillel which allowed divorce for 
 every cause and that of Shammai which allowed divorce for only one 
 cause, i.e. fornication.  Both accepted the Jewish concept of divorce
 as dissolution.

 William Lillie says, "Jewish divorce made remarriage of the wife 
 possible; the essential formula of the bill of divorce was: "Lo, thou
 art free to marry any man.'" Studies in New Testament Ethics, p. 119 
 (See Guy Duty, op cit. p. 34 for complete bill of divorce).  It is 
 interesting that in both Matthew 5:31 and 19:7 reference is made to 
 "a certificate of divorce, the same as stipulated in Deut. 24:3.

 The very words used for divorce in the Old and New Testaments 
 signifies the thought of dissolution.  The OT word is kerithuth 
 meaning a cutting off so that a bill of divorce was a bill of cutting
 off.  In the NT the word is apoluo whose primary meaning is to set 
 free, to release.

 It would appear then that the bill of divorce separated so as to 
 grant remarriage, otherwise God's permission for remarriage granted 
 the right to take up an adulterous relationship.

3c.  The Teaching of Paul in Romans 7:1-4.  The teaching of Paul is 
 often taken that only death dissolves the marriage.  This, however, 
 does not seem to be the case when all the Biblical teaching is 
 considered.

 In the first place, Paul speaks to them that know the law.  No one 
 could call a person who was legally divorced according to the law an 
 adulteress as Paul refers to the one who marries another while her 
 husband still lives.  Thus it is clear that Paul is stating the 
 general rule of marriage and not considering divorce for adultery.  
 In the same sense that Mark and Luke must be qualified by Matthew, so
 also Paul's teaching must be modified by the teaching of Christ.

 Paul's purpose is not to teach on marriage and divorce but rather he 
 is using the general principle of the marriage relationship as an 
 illustration of the believer's release from the law.  In the same 
 sense that death releases the wife from the law of the husband, so 
 death with Christ releases the believer from the law of the 
 commandments.

 From verse 3-4 it is seen that release from the law of the husband 
 allows one to remarry.  If divorce also releases from the husband, 
 this principle would suggest that the one legally divorced is also 
 permitted to remarry and they would not be called an adulteress.  
 Murray explains Paul's teaching in the light of his purpose.

 "The question will be asked: why did not Paul make allowance for 
 this abnormal situation since it involves so notable an exception to 
 the rule, 'so then if while her husband lives she be married to 
 another man she shall be called an adulteress'?  The answer is that 
 we can rather readily detect how extraneous it would be to the 
 purpose Paul had in mind and how contrary it would be to the very 
 principle he is asserting to take into account the wholly abnormal 
 and extreme contingency of adultery.  The fact is that the right of 
 dissolution on the ground of adultery is not really an exception to 
 the principle Paul is stating.

 The effect of divorce in the case of adultery is not to suspend the 
 operation of the principle and of the obligation.  The case is rather
 that adultery introduces a new set of conditions under which the 
 principle and obligation concerned may be regarded as no longer 
 applicable in respect of the innocent spouse.  In other words, the 
 contingency of perverse and wanton violation of marital sanctity need
 not be taken into consideration when appeal is made to the law that 
 governs marriage.

 For when stress is laid on the law that binds and upon the grievous 
 wrong entailed in the violation of that law the thought is focused on
 the fulfillment of all the conditions and proprieties inherent in  
 the marital relation and obligation.  It would detract from this 
 emphasis to suggest what provisions may obtain for the person 
 concerned when a new complex of factors radically alters the 
 conditions presupposed in the assertion of the obligation.  To 
 intimate the provisions for such an exceptional circumstance would 
 defeat, or at any rate perplex, the precise emphasis of the apostle.
 This consideration should explain why there is no allusion in this 
 text or context to the right of divorce and remarriage in the event 
 of adultery on the part of the other spouse and should show how this 
 passage is compatible with the view that divorce on that ground is 
 legitimate."  Divorce by John Murray, pp. 91-92.

            
3b.  Is this Applicable to 1 Timothy 3:2?  If divorces on the basis of 
 adultery is legal and dissolves the marriage so that the one divorced can 
 marry another, is the one remarried considered to be now "the husband of 
 one wife?"

 I think that it is clear that legally such a remarried person is the 
 husband of only one wife.  He is not considered to have two wives.  If 
 this is true then technically, he meets the requirements of the language 
 of 1 Tim 3;2.

 The next question is whether the Bible ever indicates that even though he 
 is the husband of one wife without any breaking of God's law, he is yet 
 somehow disqualified as an elder.  I can find no such distinction and it 
 would seem that if this was so, it would have been indicated in far 
 clearer terms.

 Our conclusion would have to be that technically the man divorced on 
 Biblical grounds meets this qualification.  As will be noted later, 
 however, this qualification is not to be interpreted as a simple legal 
 statement but rather as a quality of a man's life.  It may be therefore
 that a man may legally be the husband of one wife and yet not be a 
 faithful loving husband.  This is sometimes true concerning parties that 
 are divorced.  While there may be technically an innocent party it is 
 possible that he or she was not the faithful spouse that they should have 
 been.  Each case deserves investigation with regard to this qualification 
 for eldership.

4A.  The Question of the Guilty Party Ever Meeting This Qualification.

1b.  The question of the right of the guilty party to remarry.  In the 
 teaching of the Lord there is no mention of the remarriage of the guilty 
 party.  However, there does not seem to be anything that precludes it.  If
 a man puts away his wife except for fornication, he causes her to commit  
 adultery by entering a second marriage.  But this is only because she is 
 still the wife of the first man; the divorce was apart from adultery.  On 
 the other hand, if she has already committed adultery and is divorced on 
 that ground, she could not be said to commit adultery by marrying again, 
 for she has already broken the first marriage by adultery.  Thus in 
 marrying the second man, since the first marriage has been dissolved, she 
 is not becoming married to two husbands.

 There is nothing in the Bible which would say that the guilty party must 
 stay single or that the remarriage after the sin of adultery is an 
 additional sin.

2b.  The Question of the State of the Guilty Party.  The consideration of 
 the guilty party involved the question of the state of that person.  Is 
 the one who commits adultery and remarries considered to be living in 
 adultery and thus in a state of sin from that point on, or is adultery an 
 act of sin which can be forgiven, even though the conditions cannot be 
 restored to their former state.

1c.  The Tenses Used.  Some have argued from the present tenses used 
 in Mt. 5:32 and 19:2 that the adulterer enters a state of continual 
 adultery

 In both passages the one who marries the illegally divorced woman is 
 said to commit adultery in the present tense.  However, in Mt. 5:32a 
 and also in an alternate reading of Mt. 19:9 the woman illegally 
 divorced is said to be made to commit adultery in the aorist passive 
 infinitive.  A study of the tenses used with adultery shows that both
 present and aorist tenses are used (cf. Lu. 16:18 pres.; Mk. 10:19 
 aor.; Lu. 18:20 aor.; Rom. 2:22 pres.; James 2:11 present and 
 aorist).

 In view of the use of both tenses, it appears that the usual 
 characteristic of the present tense as continuous action cannot be 
 pressed.  Grammarians note several uses of the present tense other 
 than durative action.  Particularly significant is the statement of 
 Dana and Mantey: "Since there is no aorist tense for present time, 
 the present tense, as used in the indicative, must do service for 
 both linear and punctilliar action." (A Manual Grammar of the Greek 
 New Testament, p. 181).  Among the uses of the present is the "aorist
 present" which is very possibly the significance of the present tense
 used with adultery.  (for further non-durative uses see Dana and 
 Mantey, pp. 185-86 and Burton, New Testament Moods and tenses).

 If the tenses do not finally prove the condition of the one who has 
 committed adultery, is there any further evidence?  We believe that 
 there is.

2c.  One Can be a Former Adulterer. 1 Cor. 6:9-11.  In this passage 
 Paul lists a number of sins including adultery.  "Do not be deceived;
 neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, 
 nor homosexuals, etc . . . shall inherit the kingdom of God.  And 
 such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, 
 but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in 
 the Spirit of God."

 In the historical situation there were probably those who had been 
 involved in all kinds of unbiblical fornications and divorces, for 
 such was the character of the times as we will see later.  Certainly 
 some would be married to someone other than their first wife.  There 
 is no indication that they were to divorce their second wife and 
 go back to the first.  Yet Paul can see them as former adulterers, as
 ones who were now cleansed.

3c.  Continual Adulterers Cannot be Saved.  It would further seem 
 that adultery can be forgiven and that the remarried person is not 
 continually in the sin, for the Bible indicates that no adulterer 
 will be saved.

 1 Cor. 6:9-10 ". . . adulterers . . . shall not inherit the kingdom 
 of God."  cf. Rev. 21:8; 22:14-15.  Heb. 13:4 "fornicators and 
 adulterers God will judge."

 The question of the condition of the adulterer perhaps should be 
 compared with some of the other sins listed e.g. the murderer.  When 
 does one cease to be a murderer?

 J. C. Wenger suggests that "the question of whether adultery is a 
 state or an act compares somewhat with the matter of being married to
 an unbeliever.  Surely that is a state, not just an initial situation
 when the marriage began.  And for the Christian to marry an 
 unbeliever is clearly a sin by New Testament standards.  Yet we 
 recall at once the New Testament permission, yea even counsel, to 
 continue such unions with non-Christians where the unbeliever is 
 willing.  Does this imply the right of divorced people to continue 
 their unions even when sinfully contracted in the first place?"  
 Dealing Redemptively, p. 23.

 This evidence suggests that adultery is not a continual state of sin,
 but that it is an act which can be forgiven.

3b.  The Evidence from the Background of the Church.  The historical 
 evidence suggests that the church of this time was made up of those that 
 had formally been involved in all kinds of immorality.  Lenski explains 
 this condition in relation to the qualification of the elder to be the 
 husband of one wife.  "Paul had a reason for beginning with 'one wife's 
 husband.'  In those days mature men were chosen for the eldership, who, as
 a rule, were married and had families; there were no seminary graduates 
 who were awaiting calls.  The bulk of the membership from which the 
 elders had to be chosen had come from paganism.  What this means as to 
 sexual vices is written large in the New Testament and in the moral 
 records of the day.  Even the early apostolic conference in Jerusalem 
 warns against 'fornication' and uses this wide term to cover all the 
 prevalent pagan sexual excesses (Acts 15:29).  The epistles fairly din the
 word into their readers' ears.  There was the regular institution of the 
 hierodouloi, pagan temple prostitutes; the common custom of having 
 hetaerae ('companions,' see Liddell and Scott hetairos), girls from non-
 citizen families who were used by unmarried and by married men; and thus, 
 besides these standard practices, all the rest of the vileness that formed
 the soil from which these grew.  Converts to the gospel did not at once 
 step into perfect sexual purity.  Hence this proviso regarding the 
 'overseers': to begin with, a man who is not strictly faithful to his one 
 wife is debarred."  R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Paul's 
 Epistles to the Colossians, to the Thessalonians, to Timothy, to Titus and
 to Philemon, pp. 580-81

 This picture of the background from which the church members would have 
 come is substantiated by all sources.  cf. Barclay, The Letters to 
 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon; Theological Dictionary of the New Testament,  
 IV, 734.  The various practices of immorality included a frequency of 
 divorce from all kinds of reasons.  cf. C. K. Barrett, The New Testament 
 Background:  Selected Documents, p. 8; Walter Lock, The Pastoral Epistles,
 p. 129; Patrick Fairbairn, Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles, p. 428.

 Conclusion - This evidence from the background of immorality among the 
 converts would seem to say that the qualification of "husband of one wife"
 would not mean that the person had never sinned in this area, but that as 
 Lenski suggests they had been purified in these areas so that now they 
 were faithful to their one wife.

4b.  The Evidence from the Other Qualifications Listed.  This conclusion 
 is supported by a consideration of the interpretation of the other 
 qualifications.  Do these other requirements mean that the prospective 
 elder must never have sinned prior to the present in a way which 
 contradicts these requirements.

 In 1 Tim. 3:3, Paul states that the elder is not to be addicted to wine.  
 Does this mean that at no time in his previous life the prospective elder 
 was ever drunk?  The elder further more is to be no pugnacious or 
 contentious.  Does this mean that he has never in his life been 
 characterized by these two words?  Are these characteristics to be 
 interpreted in the sense that they were never a part of the man's life or 
 are they to be interpreted that by God's grace they have been worked out 
 of his life so that they are not now as he is being examined for eldership
 a part of his life?  The answer appears obvious.

 in view of these considerations it seems difficult to make this one 
 qualification refer to the entire life as one interpreter who write, 
 ". . . when men were to be considered for this high office, there must be 
 no record of divorce or other marital infidelity in the candidate, even 
 before his conversion" (Kent, op. cit., p. 129).  Why not apply this same 
 principle to all the qualifications, if we are going to apply it to this 
 one?

 If this interpretation is correct, in view of what we have argued;
     
 (1) That adultery is probably not a continual state of sin, but can be 
 forgiven even as murder.

 (2) That divorce does dissolve marriage so that one married again is not 
 considered to be the husband of two wives, it would seem reasonable to 
 interpret this qualification of being the husband of one wife as a present
 quality of a man's life.

 This does not mean that any person is qualified just because he is the 
 husband of one wife any more than it means that any person is qualified 
 just because he is no longer murdering people, or no longer getting drunk.
 The sinful characteristics of his life which led to sin in these areas 
 must have changed by God's grace.  This would take time and would require 
 in some cases long periods of observation and the living of the changed 
 life before his fellow believers.  It must be noticed that this is not 
 simply a negative, technical quality dealing with the legality of ones 
 marital state.

 The writer in Kittle's Dictionary correctly points out, "the OT 
 prohibition of adultery is not confined to the negative avoidance of the 
 sinful act.  It finds its true fulfillment only in the love of spouses who 
 are joined together by God (R. 13:9)."  Hauck, Theological Dictionary of 
 the New Testament, IV, 734.

 Kent likewise explains the intent of the qualification when he says, "The 
 phrase by Paul is stated positively.  The overseer must be a one-woman 
 man.  He must be devoted to her and give her all the love and 
 consideration that a wife deserves."  Homer Kent, Jr., The Pastoral 
 Epistles, p. 130.

5A.  The question of lowering the standard.

 It may be questioned as to whether such a qualitative view of this 
 requirement is not lowering the standard.  As one man said to me just the 
 other day, "At least my interpretation (speaking of his) maintains a high 
 standard," implying that this view lets down the bars.  In answer to this 
 we would suggest two thoughts:

1b.  This Argument Assumes that the Bars Should Be Up in the First 
 Place.

 If bars have not been erected by the Word, we have no right to erect 
 them.  Removing previously erected bars, if this is the case in this 
 position and if they are not demanded by the Scripture, would not be 
 wrong.

 The abuse of correct laws does not allow us to change those laws.  
 The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution has been much abused by 
 gangsters and enemies of our country, but there is not a court of 
 legislature in America that would abolish it.  (cf. Duty, p. 127).

 In reality we are suggesting that this argument should not bear on 
 ones interpretation of what this qualification is.  The only concern 
 should be that our interpretation is that intended by the writer of 
 the Word.

2b.  Secondly,I Do Not Think That This Is In Reality a Lowering of 
 the Position.  In one of our classes last year Dr. Earl Radmacher of 
 Western Baptist Theological Seminary was questioned as to his 
 interpretation that we have presented and then added words to this 
 effect:  "This is not a lowering but a raising of this qualification.
 I know some men who have been barred from eldership who on the basis 
 of this interpretation should be permitted to be elders, but I also 
 know some church leaders who are pastors who under this understanding
 of being truly a one woman man should be disqualified.  Legally as 
 far as their married state they are husbands of one wife, but their 
 actions and attitudes show that they are not truly one-woman men."

 Conclusion:  The Evils of immorality and divorce must be taught as they 
 are in the Word--as sin.  Churches need to exercise more discipline in 
 these areas.  But it must be remembered that these sins too can be 
 forgiven and the person cleansed and changed by the saving power of God's 
 grace in Christ.  The "husband of one wife" qualification therefore, it 
 seems to us, does not demand the absence of life-long sin in the area of 
 marriage relationships, but the evidence that the grace of God's 
 transforming power is presently operative in the life of the candidate to 
 the effect that there has been sin in these areas, it has been forgiven 
 through genuine repentance and the sinful tendencies, if any, which led to 
 the breakdown have been overcome by the power of the indwelling Spirit of 
 Holiness.     


