Can I Remarry If My Spouse Dies? Should I?
00:00:00.000 | Another big week ahead of us on the podcast.
00:00:06.680 | Our inbox is rather full of questions from listeners who are asking about remarriage
00:00:12.720 | after the death of a spouse.
00:00:14.800 | Here are two of those emails.
00:00:15.960 | "Pastor John, my name is Preeti, P-R-E-E-T-Y, Preeti from Indonesia.
00:00:21.540 | In July of last year, I lost my loving husband.
00:00:23.800 | He went in for surgery that was not supposed to be life-threatening, but he never woke
00:00:27.000 | up from the anesthesia.
00:00:28.800 | I was and remain in shock.
00:00:31.520 | We have been married for 8 years, blessed with two beautiful daughters.
00:00:34.760 | My husband has been actively serving the Lord since the age of 18, while most of his friends
00:00:38.840 | are Hindu.
00:00:40.080 | His life was all about the gospel.
00:00:42.960 | We started a church and a few gatherings.
00:00:45.280 | He loved people dearly, compassionate and generous.
00:00:48.740 | My question to you is this, are there verses in the Bible that encourage widows to remarry?
00:00:53.760 | That sounds disturbing to me right now.
00:00:55.600 | My question is, what's left for me to hold on to in my relationship between my husband
00:01:00.360 | and me?
00:01:01.360 | I long to be always called his wife, but is that wrong?
00:01:05.640 | Each day I wait to be reunited with my husband again.
00:01:09.080 | Thank you, Pastor John."
00:01:11.600 | And then the second email comes in from Patricia, who asks more directly, "Pastor John, does
00:01:16.640 | the Bible allow remarriage after the death of a spouse?"
00:01:20.880 | What would you say to these ladies, Pastor John?
00:01:23.480 | Well, this is really fresh, it sounds like, and very present in the heart of Preeti.
00:01:29.960 | I don't know Patricia's situation, but let me start with principles and then get to the
00:01:41.320 | point of Preeti's heart and the decision she's facing.
00:01:49.520 | Marrying after the death of a spouse is pretty clearly addressed by Paul at least twice,
00:01:59.280 | and by Jesus as well.
00:02:01.540 | In Romans 7, verses 2 and 3, Paul says this, "A married woman is bound by law to her husband
00:02:10.280 | while he lives, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage."
00:02:19.960 | So there's the first statement.
00:02:21.960 | "Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband
00:02:26.880 | is alive, but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, and if she marries another
00:02:35.360 | man, she's not an adulteress."
00:02:37.880 | So twice, verse 2, "If her husband dies, she's released."
00:02:41.640 | Verse 3, "If her husband dies, she's free."
00:02:46.680 | Then Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7.39, "A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives,
00:02:54.440 | but if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes only in the Lord."
00:03:03.640 | So Paul simply adds to what he taught in Romans that any marriage of a believer should be
00:03:11.360 | in the Lord, that is, to another believer.
00:03:14.880 | Now Jesus addressed the issue because the Sadducees, who didn't believe in the resurrection,
00:03:22.600 | tried to make remarriage look foolish.
00:03:27.040 | It looked like it produced polygamy in heaven.
00:03:30.280 | That was their shtick on why heaven can't really exist, because we'd be polygamous there
00:03:37.160 | because of all the people that have married again after the death of a spouse.
00:03:42.160 | So they pointed to the Old Testament provision that a brother is to marry the widow of his
00:03:47.260 | brother, raise up offspring, and they say that happened, and it happened seven times,
00:03:55.000 | so now she's had seven husbands.
00:03:56.400 | So with a sneer, whose wife is she going to be in the resurrection?
00:04:03.400 | So what did Jesus say?
00:04:04.760 | Did he say, "Oh, well, I guess she shouldn't remarry because we certainly can't have polygamy
00:04:10.200 | in the heaven."
00:04:11.200 | No, that's not what he said.
00:04:13.560 | He said, "The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are counted
00:04:19.640 | worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry or are given in
00:04:25.160 | marriage, for they cannot die anymore because they are equal to angels and are sons of God
00:04:34.040 | being sons of the resurrection."
00:04:35.640 | That's Luke 20, 33-36.
00:04:39.520 | In other words, a widow does not need to worry about polygamy in heaven when she remarries
00:04:48.160 | because relationships are going to be so different in the resurrection, no one will think of
00:04:55.140 | marriage in a way that makes polygamy a problem.
00:04:58.000 | It's just not going to be there.
00:05:00.080 | There won't be marriage and giving in marriage like there are here and now.
00:05:05.320 | So at the principal level, widows and widowers are free to marry in the Lord.
00:05:15.000 | Now just a word about Preeti's situation.
00:05:19.160 | She says, "My question is, are there verses in the Bible that encourage widows to remarry?"
00:05:28.420 | And the answer is, yes, there are.
00:05:30.200 | Like 1 Timothy 5, 11-15, where Paul wants younger widows to remarry instead of being
00:05:37.680 | on the special widow care ministry that existed evidently so that they wouldn't be a burden
00:05:44.940 | on the church and so that they wouldn't be a victim of Satan's temptation.
00:05:49.660 | But I would caution to say that what Paul means there is command to marry because of
00:05:56.620 | 1 Corinthians 7-39 where it says they are free to remarry whom they please only in the
00:06:04.460 | Lord.
00:06:05.460 | It's not as though Paul is, I think, providing an absolute here that every widow must remarry
00:06:13.180 | any more than every person must marry in the first place.
00:06:17.780 | Now she adds, "Okay, that encouragement or positive view of remarriage sounds disturbing
00:06:24.180 | to me right now.
00:06:26.060 | My question," she says, "is what's left for me to hold on to in my relationship with
00:06:33.300 | my husband and me?
00:06:35.060 | I long to always be called his wife.
00:06:39.580 | But is that wrong?"
00:06:41.720 | Now my response, Preeti, is even if you remarry someday, which you feel right now is remote,
00:06:51.620 | if you do remarry someday, you may respectfully be known as the former wife of your previous
00:07:00.540 | husband.
00:07:01.680 | He had no other.
00:07:03.420 | You were his.
00:07:05.060 | That fact never changes.
00:07:07.980 | And that would only be a problem to be known that way if your emotional bond with your
00:07:14.060 | deceased husband was stronger than your emotional bond with your second husband.
00:07:20.580 | But I would encourage you not to make any commitment not to remarry, and I would encourage
00:07:28.960 | you not to feel any pressure to rush into any remarriage or to exclude the possibility
00:07:36.460 | of remarriage.
00:07:39.300 | Time heals the deepest wounds, especially for believers like you who have had such sweet
00:07:47.340 | and good experiences that have been lost.
00:07:50.500 | Time heals the deepest wounds.
00:07:53.340 | Let time pass, and let God show you over time what the future holds.
00:07:59.940 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for the questions as well.
00:08:05.060 | As you can hear, we're working through some audio issues on Pastor John's side of things,
00:08:08.860 | and we hope to get those resolved soon.
00:08:10.020 | So thank you for your patience.
00:08:11.540 | You can, of course, subscribe to our audio feeds and search our episode archive and even
00:08:15.340 | reach us by email with a difficult question that you may be facing in your life.
00:08:18.540 | You can do all of that through our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:08:25.620 | Well how much sleep is laziness and how little sleep is arrogance?
00:08:30.700 | And when should we deprive ourselves of sleep and how do we find the balance in our sleep
00:08:35.580 | patterns?
00:08:36.580 | We all face this question every day really and it's a question on the table and we return
00:08:39.420 | on Wednesday.
00:08:40.420 | And for those listeners in the United States, have a wonderful Independence Day celebration.
00:08:45.140 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.
00:08:46.300 | We'll see you back here on Wednesday.
00:08:48.620 | [End of Audio]
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