HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, March 30, 2025 – Let me ask you a question. It’s not going to be an easy one for some of you to answer, any more than it would have been easy for some of Jesus’ followers to answer 2000 years ago when Jesus first taught on marriage and divorce. The teaching hasn’t changed over the years and is just as relevant and valid today as it was back then.

Here’s the question: If you’re living in an adulterous marriage, which by Jesus’ definition is a marriage where one or both of the spouses is/are divorced from someone who is still alive and the grounds for ending the marriage was something other than fornication – if you’re living in an adulterous union that is in violation of the Commandment not to commit adultery, would you end it because Jesus says it’s sinful?

The teaching is very clear and unequivocal. Even more convincing (or in some cases, even more damning) is that Jesus based this teaching on the book of Genesis, which describes marriage as a lifelong union of a man and a woman that God sanctions by making them “one flesh” and therefore inseparable until death parts them. In other words, Jesus based his teaching on God’s teaching, giving it an authority that cannot be denied.

Many Christians are extremely uncomfortable with God’s and Jesus’ teaching on adultery, and in some cases are even hostile to it. Perhaps they’re uncomfortable because the teaching convicts them, which in turn creates an inner conflict between knowing what’s right and yet choosing what’s wrong, with most people continuing to choose to live in an adulterous union rather than ending it.

What about you? If you’re genuinely born-again, you know about Jesus’ teaching on marriage and divorce, and you also know that Jesus based his teaching on God’s teaching in Genesis, making it the ultimate and final authority. If you’re genuinely born-again, the question I posed at the outset of this article wouldn’t apply to you because you wouldn’t be living in an adulterous union – you wouldn’t be able to. God’s Holy Spirit would be convicting you so strongly night and day, you’d either have to end the union cold turkey or you’d have to turn from God, and if you’d turned from God after being genuinely born-again, I doubt you’d be reading this because you’d either be dead and on your way to the lake of fire or you’d be too busy serving the devil after signing on with him in a last-ditch attempt to avoid the lake of fire (sadly, you were misinformed about using the sell-your-soul card to avoid that final unavoidable destination). What I’m saying here is that no genuine born-again believer can persist in an adulterous union – enter into one, yes, possibly (we all make mistakes, some of them real humdingers), but persist in it after realizing it’s wrong? No. A genuinely born-again believer would not do that.

And yet we all know many self-styled Christians who are living in adulterous marriages and other forms of adulterous unions. Some are even leaders and pastors within their congregations, and some are rich, famous, and powerful. Why does God permit these people to openly persist in and flaunt their sin? Is it his way of saying it doesn’t matter, that “love is love” and love trumps everything, including his teachings?

Of course not. God permits sin, he doesn’t will it. He’s not giving his stamp of approval to adultery any more than he’s giving his stamp of approval to any other sin. God and his laws are the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. If adulterous unions, as defined by Jesus and God, were sinful thousands of years ago, they’re still sinful today, because God’s Truth never changes.

In all the years I attended denominational church services, not once did a minister preach on marriage and divorce. It’s as if, to the worldly church, that pivotal Gospel message doesn’t exist. It’s obvious to me why the worldly church avoids preaching on adulterous unions – so many of their paying customers are neck-deep in adultery that if they offend (i.e., convict) them, they might lose half their congregation. And so it’s safer from a financial point of view to avoid the contentious topic than to potentially shrink the church’s income. Jesus described this as either serving God or serving mammon, seeing that you cannot serve both. It’s clear who the worldly church serves.

I sincerely hope that this article has no relevance to you because you’re not living in adultery, as defined by Jesus in the Gospel. I sincerely hope that this is the case. But if you are entangled in an adulterous marriage or some other adulterous union, remember how the disciples left their wives and children solely because Jesus told them that was a condition of their becoming his disciples. Remember, too, how the remnant who returned to Jerusalem after the exile in Babylon left their “strange” (i.e., non-Jewish) wives and children behind when told that was a condition of their return. Neither the disciples nor the returnees questioned these terms, and both groups unhesitatingly did as they were advised. They are our examples.

You cannot serve God and mammon.

You cannot persist in sin and be a child of God.

You cannot live in adultery and make it to Heaven.

These are the terms, and they are unchanging and non-negotiable.