“May I Have Two Wives?” Six Vetoes
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | A long time reader of Desiring God content
00:00:07.960 | and a podcast listener who lives in Africa
00:00:10.120 | writes in with an honest question.
00:00:11.960 | Pastor John, I am a married man with four children
00:00:15.080 | and recently I met another woman.
00:00:17.200 | I love her and have told my wife about her.
00:00:20.840 | What I would like to know from you
00:00:22.160 | is whether or not it is wrong
00:00:23.560 | to have two wives as a Christian.
00:00:27.080 | And before you answer this question, Pastor John,
00:00:29.560 | of course, we should keep in mind
00:00:31.000 | that a number of African countries
00:00:32.280 | do allow polygamous civil marriage,
00:00:34.560 | as of course is true in the Middle East
00:00:36.360 | and in certain countries,
00:00:37.920 | as was true in the Old Testament and the Bible.
00:00:39.820 | And so, and even closer to home,
00:00:42.840 | in the state of Utah, polygamy is technically illegal
00:00:45.920 | but not enforced as I understand it.
00:00:48.700 | More broadly, this was interesting to me,
00:00:50.960 | a Gallup survey has been tracking opinions
00:00:53.480 | on key moral issues in America since the early 2000s.
00:00:56.600 | And in 2001, they said 7% of Americans
00:00:59.440 | said polygamy was morally acceptable.
00:01:02.360 | And today that number is 16%
00:01:05.480 | say that polygamy is morally acceptable.
00:01:07.880 | Popular American TV shows are spotlighting polygamy
00:01:10.360 | and perhaps pushing this acceptance of the practice
00:01:13.840 | in America and of course, the SCOTUS decision
00:01:15.880 | opens the door for all types of so-called marriages now,
00:01:18.820 | as we talked about yesterday.
00:01:20.360 | So what are we to make a polygamy
00:01:21.700 | from a Christian perspective?
00:01:23.420 | Let's cut to the chase.
00:01:26.040 | I don't believe that the will of God today
00:01:29.800 | as revealed in the New Testament
00:01:32.080 | and rightly read the Old Testament
00:01:35.120 | is to give permission or promotion to polygamy.
00:01:38.640 | So that's the statement.
00:01:40.360 | Here are my six biblical reasons.
00:01:42.800 | Number one, in the beginning,
00:01:45.400 | God created man, male and female
00:01:47.360 | with the purpose that they would marry
00:01:49.400 | and the two would become one flesh.
00:01:53.360 | So the Lord made woman from the side of man
00:01:55.840 | and then it says in Genesis 2, 23,
00:01:58.760 | "This at last," Adam is responding,
00:02:01.200 | "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.
00:02:03.880 | She should be called woman
00:02:04.920 | because she was taken out of man."
00:02:06.760 | And then this absolutely key verse
00:02:08.760 | that Jesus and Paul quote,
00:02:10.920 | "Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother
00:02:14.880 | and hold fast to his wife
00:02:17.160 | and they shall become one flesh."
00:02:20.920 | That verse, 2, 24 of Genesis is cited by Jesus and Paul
00:02:25.680 | as decisive in the meaning of marriage today.
00:02:29.840 | And the meaning focuses especially on this leaving parents
00:02:34.840 | and cleaving to one wife and becoming one flesh with her.
00:02:39.280 | That one flesh reality
00:02:41.720 | is profoundly compromised by polygamy.
00:02:45.600 | Number two, when Jesus dealt with divorce
00:02:50.400 | and showed how the Pharisees were getting divorces
00:02:54.520 | when they shouldn't,
00:02:56.920 | even though it was permitted in the Old Testament,
00:03:01.640 | he showed us in his response,
00:03:04.280 | a way to understand why polygamy was also permitted
00:03:09.280 | and yet is now forbidden.
00:03:12.480 | Here's what he said,
00:03:13.320 | "Have you not read that he who created them
00:03:16.400 | from the beginning made them male and female and said,
00:03:18.920 | 'Therefore, a man shall leave his mother and father
00:03:21.600 | and cleave to his wife
00:03:23.080 | and the two shall be one flesh.'
00:03:24.800 | So they are no longer two, but one flesh.
00:03:29.800 | What therefore God has joined together,
00:03:34.880 | let no man separate.'
00:03:36.440 | And they said, 'Why then did Moses command one
00:03:40.520 | to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?'
00:03:43.920 | And we could imagine them also saying,
00:03:45.840 | 'Well, why then did he permit polygamy?'
00:03:48.320 | If that were the issue.
00:03:50.480 | Jesus said to them, 'Because of your hardness of heart,
00:03:53.720 | Moses allows you to divorce your wives.
00:03:57.000 | But from the beginning, it was not so.'"
00:04:01.360 | So the reason Jesus did not any longer permit
00:04:06.160 | what had been permitted is because he chalked it up
00:04:09.880 | in the Old Testament to tolerance of the expressions
00:04:13.180 | of the hardness of the heart,
00:04:14.120 | and he's raising the standard.
00:04:16.560 | The reason Jesus didn't address polygamy
00:04:19.920 | the same way he addressed divorce was that in his day,
00:04:23.800 | the Jewish culture had basically already given it up.
00:04:27.200 | It just wasn't an issue.
00:04:28.600 | People weren't coming to him with multiple wives
00:04:31.360 | and saying, 'Is this okay?'
00:04:33.560 | That would have been nice for us today
00:04:36.240 | or for certain cultures if he had, but he didn't.
00:04:39.680 | So the point there was there is a way to understand
00:04:43.720 | the tolerance of an act in the Old Testament,
00:04:46.640 | which now is forbidden.
00:04:48.320 | Number three, you can see already in Genesis 4
00:04:52.640 | that polygamy was indeed owing to the growing
00:04:58.960 | of the hardness of the heart
00:05:00.800 | after the fall of Adam and Eve.
00:05:02.880 | I think that's exactly what Moses wants us to see
00:05:06.000 | in the way he describes Lamech, the seventh from Adam,
00:05:10.680 | the seventh generation from Adam.
00:05:12.040 | So here's what it says in Genesis 4, 19.
00:05:15.040 | Lamech took two wives, first time it's ever happened.
00:05:18.520 | Lamech took two wives.
00:05:20.800 | Lamech said to his wives, 'Ada and Zillah, hear my voice,
00:05:25.160 | you wives of Lamech.
00:05:26.600 | Listen to what I say.
00:05:27.720 | I have killed a man for wounding me,
00:05:29.960 | a young man for striking me.
00:05:31.680 | If Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech's is 77-fold.'
00:05:36.080 | I mean, you can't imagine a more high-handed,
00:05:38.560 | ugly, mean-spirited, in-your-face,
00:05:40.920 | against God statement than that.
00:05:43.680 | And it comes right after saying,
00:05:46.160 | he took two wives, unlike the others.
00:05:49.280 | So things are getting so bad,
00:05:51.520 | people are now multiplying wives.
00:05:55.280 | Four, Paul's description of marriage
00:05:58.200 | as a picture of Christ and the church
00:06:00.960 | is seriously compromised by polygamy.
00:06:03.840 | When Paul opens this truth, namely Genesis 2, 24,
00:06:08.840 | he describes it as a mystery.
00:06:12.520 | Now, a mystery in Paul's language
00:06:14.200 | is something that was partly revealed in the Old Testament,
00:06:18.520 | but now has become clear.
00:06:20.120 | And he says, this is Ephesians 5, 31,
00:06:23.040 | "Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother
00:06:26.360 | and hold fast to his wife,
00:06:27.640 | and the two shall become one flesh."
00:06:29.360 | This mystery is profound.
00:06:32.920 | And I am saying it refers to Christ and the church.
00:06:38.600 | The most basic and significant meaning of marriage
00:06:42.920 | in the New Testament is that a husband and a wife
00:06:45.680 | represent one Lord and one church.
00:06:49.760 | Since this is now more clearly revealed than ever,
00:06:54.360 | it is more important than ever to renounce polygamy
00:06:59.260 | and hold fast to the original intention of marriage
00:07:02.240 | as one man, one woman, one Lord, one church,
00:07:06.600 | as long as we, as long as they both shall live.
00:07:10.840 | Five, "It is required of elders
00:07:13.200 | that they be the husband of one wife," 1 Timothy 3, 2.
00:07:17.200 | Now, probably that doesn't refer to polygamy
00:07:21.520 | because in 1 Timothy 5, 9,
00:07:26.440 | the same phrase is used to describe the widows
00:07:30.240 | who need to qualify for the care of the church.
00:07:34.160 | And they are supposed to be wives of one husband,
00:07:36.680 | and there's no evidence that polyandry,
00:07:40.760 | multiple husbands, was a problem.
00:07:42.760 | And therefore, wife of one husband, husband of one wife
00:07:45.800 | is probably not directly addressed to the issue of polygamy,
00:07:50.280 | but rather probably was addressed
00:07:53.020 | to be faithful to your spouse
00:07:55.080 | and don't be divorced from your spouse.
00:07:58.880 | But here's the point.
00:08:00.280 | Regarding polygamy, Paul never would have used those words
00:08:05.280 | without qualification if polygamy
00:08:08.940 | were being permitted in the church
00:08:11.120 | and among the leaders of the church.
00:08:12.600 | He just never would have been able to use that language
00:08:14.960 | without some qualification.
00:08:18.200 | Six, finally, "The Bible does seem to show the likelihood
00:08:23.200 | that with more than one wife,
00:08:26.720 | there is almost inevitable favoritism
00:08:29.840 | of the one over the other,
00:08:31.800 | as in the case of Jacob's preference for Rachel over Leah."
00:08:36.800 | In a sense, this is the flip side warning
00:08:40.880 | of saying that the husband and the wife are one flesh.
00:08:44.320 | A husband cannot be all that he should be
00:08:48.760 | in one flesh union with his wife
00:08:51.080 | if he must divide his affections among several women.
00:08:56.220 | That's certainly not the way Christ treats the church.
00:09:00.960 | He does not divide his affections
00:09:04.200 | among several different wives.
00:09:07.720 | So for these six reasons and more, I am sure,
00:09:11.940 | I would say that polygamy was permitted
00:09:15.200 | because of the hardness of our hearts
00:09:17.760 | until the coming of Jesus,
00:09:20.160 | and that with Jesus, the standards are raised
00:09:24.120 | and the mystery of the meaning of marriage is clarified,
00:09:28.040 | and we should be committed to making plain
00:09:32.240 | the beauties of Christ and his church
00:09:35.460 | through our covenant faithfulness
00:09:37.820 | between one husband, one wife.
00:09:41.320 | - Thank you for those points of clarity, Pastor John,
00:09:44.920 | and thanks for listening to the podcast.
00:09:46.680 | You can search our archive of hundreds of episodes,
00:09:48.640 | download our podcast app, subscribe to the podcast,
00:09:51.200 | or even send us a question of your own.
00:09:52.480 | Go to desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:09:56.800 | Well, why do we need to be forgiven?
00:09:59.640 | It's one of the most foundational questions in the world,
00:10:02.820 | and the question gets dozens of various answers,
00:10:04.880 | some good answers, some poor answers,
00:10:06.480 | and some false answers,
00:10:08.040 | and John Piper will parse them out tomorrow
00:10:10.000 | and point us at the ultimate reason
00:10:11.960 | why we are offered forgiveness in Jesus Christ.
00:10:15.720 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:10:16.560 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast
00:10:18.600 | with John Piper.
00:10:19.660 | (upbeat music)
00:10:22.240 | (upbeat music)
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