This next chart proposes to show that only God can loose a husband or wife from the marriage covenant, while a married man or woman can put away. This is true and all this is no issue at all between brother Gwin and brother Reeves. Individual men and women choose to marry, and anyone of them can choose to put the marriage asunder. So, there will be as many vow-makings are there are persons making vows, and as many “puttings-away” as there are persons rejecting their vows (and thus their mates). Keep this in mind as you hear about the concocted phrase, “a second putting-away.” Each one, marrying or putting away, in any given case does but one! Don’t be mislead by the contrived lingo of the false teacher. Please consider the chart:

   We remind the reader of our comments on the first chart addressed in Part 17 of this series. Marriage vows do not bind people to God: God binds people to their marriage vows! Unlawful putting-away is wrong because it involves one's breaking his spousal covenant that was witnessed by God (Mal. 2:14).

   1. Since God binds a husband to his vows, and a wife to hers, thus establishing the covenant of marriage, or marriage bond, between the husband and the wife, the two arrows marked “bound” should have the arrow-head point away from God and not also to God. The binding is not mutual; i.e., between God and Man/Woman and between Man/Woman and God. It is not a two-way street. As the chart well says: “only God can loose." INSTEAD OF “BOUND” ON THE CHART, THE WORD “BINDS” SHOULD APPEAR. GOD BINDS THE MAN AND THE WOMAN TO THEIR COMMITMENTS.

   2. The bottom line, “man can ‘put away’,” is proper if “man” is understood to mean anyone, male or female. But, since the word is hard against the same word in the blue circle, where “man” there means male, or the husband, the bottom line would better read: “Man and woman can ‘put away’.” This is indicated by the two-way arrow. AS THE WORD “MARRIED” APPEARS ON THE HORIZONTAL LINE WITH ARROW-HEADS, SO THE WORD “BOUND” SHOULD APPEAR, AND IN BLUE FONT.

   This completes part eighteen of our study. Please check the next article in the series.

Introduction | Part Seventeen of the Series | Part Nineteen of the Series

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