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and it is INTERESTING that she is specifically calling out FH .... who is motivated in helping affair marriages survive .... speculate about that!
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I am speculating about HER motives ... I do not trust her.
Okay Pep (since you prefer that over Pepperband), I don't read this as "exclusively speculating about HER motives."
It seems CLEAR that that the statement also MEANS to say I am "motivated in helping affair marriages survive." The direct implication of that statement is that I am "unconcerned" about marriages born from adultery or, by additional implication, that I am "unconcerned" about the high value that God places on marriage.
You are, by reference, referring back to my attempt to converse with, and provide some help to, JJ on another thread that was hijacked by numerous other posters who were "outraged" that I would even consider helping someone in need. I could understand that "outrage" if I was trying to help someone who was unrepentant of their prior actions that led to an adulterous marriage, what you and every other objector want to categorize as a subset of a second, third, fourth, etc. marriage ("affair marriage"), as if it is not a marriage(2nd, 3rd, 4th) in which the parties have committed adultery, according to God's definition.
Now, extending your reasoning in the quotation, it IS possible that someone might think in their own mind that I might be "accepting" of the actions of someone who is engaged in an affair and who might think I might say "yes, it's okay for you to divorce your spouse and marry your affair partner." Anyone who KNOWS my positions would instantly know that is NOT the sort of advice that I would give, as it is a direct violation of God's commands.
However, the case with JJ was, and is, different. Furthermore, that was the only such case that I was directly involved with on MB (where I knew by way of her "radical honesty" that her current marriage began in adultery) and it concerns her PRESENT relationship with God, and God's response to ANYONE who turns to Him and accepts Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
God requires NOTHING more than true faith in, and acceptance of, Jesus Christ to imput Christ's righteousness to any such sinner. The sins are as "far as the East is from the West" in God's eyes, they are forgiven, and God sees them, because of what Jesus did, as being "sinless" and righteous. That is the very same thing that God did for me and that He does for EVERY believer, whether we might "like it or not."
God takes people as they are and when they are when they accept Christ and their "new creation" begins at that time.
"Behold, the old has gone, the new has come." They are given the Holy Spirit to indwell them, sealing them as one of God's children. Remember, their can BE no sin with God or in being in the presence of God. There is no way that any human can attain a "sinless" state on their own, thereby EARNING justification before God. It is SOLELY the action of Christ that is imputed to us by God that allows God to see us as justified before Him.
This notion that someone MUST divorce their marriage because it began in adultery is not how God sees "forgiveness of sin." God is quite clear, even when the actions of someone had been, or are, "offensive" to our human sensibilities. God says "it is BY grace you have been saved, NOT of works, LEST any man should boast."
This "divorce to prove" your repentance is a belief in WORKS to "earn" forgiveness and is diametrically opposed to God's revealed Word on the HOW we are forgiven our sins, no matter how heinous and/or disgusting they may have been.
Furthermore, SOME of the "objectors" to the mere thought of talking to JJ, and by extension to anyone who is guilty of any past sin against God, believe that someone who is a true believer CAN lose their salvation. That is a position that many hold in many different "denominations," but it is NOT supported by Scripture. In fact, Scripture clearly states that IF such a thing were possible, there would be NO HOPE of ever "regaining salvation," and by direct reference, of ever "regaining forgiveness of sins." SUCH a person would be eternally condemned and without hope. This is, for example, a position taken by the concept of "Mortal Sins" causing the loss of one's previous salvation.
But then "man" tries to "modify" God's clear statement and attaches "works" that someone can do in order to EARN BACK that salvation that was lost.
But, such an interpretation of Scripture logically leads to ideas such as someone who WAS a WS cannot "regain" their forgiveness of sin, and thereby their salvation and the wiping away of all sin, UNLESS they perform some sort of "WORK," in this case divorcing their current spouse.
Inherent in your statement quoted above is the "accusation" that I am somehow "missing" the gravity of divorce, adultery, etc. But I don't "parse" things that way. That's sort of like the Roman Catholic Church and their idea of "annullment," that a marriage NEVER existed before, so now it's "okay" for you marry again without committing adultery.
ALL marriage is a "marriage" in God's eyes. Some are adulterous by nature and some are "in Christ" and not, but the "defining" difference is the two people who ARE or ARE NOT born again believers. God Himself is a party to all "true Christians" and to their marriage. God is NOT a part of any other marriage nor are they saved and in "fellowship" with God. He ALLOWS those marriages, but he is NOT part of that covenant other than as the "establisher" of marriage and the original intent FOR marriage. God WILL, even in adulterous marriages or marriages between unbelievers, who are by definition living in "rebellion to" (adultery if you will) to God, WHENEVER they become convicted of their sin and accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, "come in and make His home with them."
God does NOT "parse." A person either IS or IS NOT a forgiven adopted child of God and the spiritual bride of His Son. There is no other distinction.
WE, that is, we humans, LIKE to make distinctions according to how we feel or how we would do it "if we were God." But God tells us to NOT let our human view of things, and our human emotional reactions to things, take precedence over God's will in the matter. "The voice spoke from heaven a second time, 'Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.'" (Acts 11:9)
Peter was suffering from the same sort of "internalization" problem and God had to teach him that Peter's belief was incorrect and a missapplication of God's commands. When God says something three times, as He did here, God is saying, in effect, THIS IS THE TRUTH AND THE WAY IT IS." Why? Because God, not Man, is Sovereign and we are to obey HIS will, not our own.
Pep, I UNDERSTAND how some people can identify with the pain others may be feeling. I have done that also many times. There is nothing wrong with that unless they let their "identification" lead to "wrong conclusions" that are in opposition to God's commands and teaching. Here is, again, where the concept of someone in what is called an "affair marriage" IS offensive to a lot people emotionally, and even intellectually. But ALL sin is offensive to God, not just "affair marriages."
Nowhere on MB will you find any example of me advising anyone to divorce their spouse and go marry their affair partner. But that is a distinctly different scenario than one where someone DID exactly that sometime in the past and has since come to know Christ and IS forgiven, just as anyone is, for ALL of their sins when they are in Christ.
Some will respond with, "well okay, but you need to talk to them somewhere else because this is not a "Marriage Building" site, this is a "Betrayed Spouse" site and help is reserved for only Betrayed Spouses. That is obviously a false position from the start, because they have also "advised" and "talked with" on MB, Wayward Spouses who are deep in the "fog" and not anywhere near "giving up" their adultery. Those discussion "feed the fears" of a BS too. But what is the most common advice to a BS faced with an unrepentant WS? "After you have tried Plan A for while, then go to Plan B and then go to Plan Divorce." Seldom is anyone counseled to "try Jesus and humble obedience to God's commands." Why? Because all those currently opposed to God and Jesus will clammor that "this is not a Christian site" and tell Christians to "keep their advice to themselves" and/or "take it off site." Yet even when there is a thread where two Christians are talking, those who do NOT believe in Christ feel no compunction about "giving their two cents worth" of advice, no matter how "offensive" their secular reasoning might be. They feel it is their right to say whatever they want to say to whomever they want to say it. But, that very same "right" that they appropriate for themselves, they are quick to deny to "Christian two cents" posts.
Pep, if it provides you with any comfort, KNOW that I would talk to anyone "for a while," but in the case of an "affair marriage," or ANY marriage where the participants WILL NOT surrender their lives to Christ, my participation would be very limited and would end quickly. I would NOT "support affair marriages" UNLESS, just like any other situation, they surrendered their lives to Christ, accepting Him as their Lord and Savior.
