NXR Podcast - QUESTIONS - When Can A Marriage Be Annulled?
Aired: 2022-11-12
Duration: 20:34


=== Marriage Without Consummation (15:21) ===

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[00:00:18]  If a marriage is not consummated, even for physical reasons, should that be grounds to annul it?
[00:00:26]  All right.
[00:00:27]  I don't know what the physical reasons might be, but I'm assuming what you're saying is.
[00:00:31]  In terms of consummated, for everybody who's listening, in case somebody's not up to speed, what Nate is asking is if two people get married, they actually have the marriage ceremony, they sign a marriage covenant, they exchange vows, exchange rings, all those things.
[00:00:46]  They have gone through that process, but they don't consummate the marriage, meaning they do not consummate the marriage through sexual intercourse.
[00:00:54]  Is the marriage valid?
[00:00:56]  And biblically, I would say no.
[00:00:58]  No.
[00:01:00]  There are two primary components of marriage one is covenant.
[00:01:05]  Or ceremony.
[00:01:07]  The other is consummation, covenant and consummation.
[00:01:12]  What you have in hookup culture and these kinds of things is you have a bunch of people wanting to consummate but without covenant by design, by intent.
[00:01:20]  That's precisely what men and sadly women often want they want the consummation but without the obligation, without the covenant, without the responsibility, without being bound to one another in marriage.
[00:01:35]  And so you can have consummation without covenant, you're not married.
[00:01:41]  You're not.
[00:01:42]  What you've done is fornicated.
[00:01:44]  What you've done is sinful, but it is not marriage.
[00:01:47]  If you have sex with someone in the back of a car in the middle of the night in some dark alleyway, you're not married to that person.
[00:01:54]  You're in sin, most certainly, but you're not married to that person.
[00:01:57]  Likewise, in the same way that consummation apart from covenant, ceremony, does not mean marriage, so too, covenant or ceremony without consummation does not mean marriage.
[00:02:10]  And that's why we've had laws on the books.
[00:02:11]  I don't know, it depends what state you're in.
[00:02:14]  But we have had laws on the books in our nations and in our nation and certain states, I think, don't quote me on this, fact check this, but I believe there are certain states in our union still to this day that have laws on the books that say that if a marriage is not consummated, then the marriage can be annulled rather than requiring a divorce.
[00:02:35]  If both individuals want out of the marriage without having to get a divorce, they can simply annul the marriage, saying that the marriage was never official.
[00:02:43]  Even though they've had covenant ceremony, Signed even a document, exchanged rings, exchanged vows.
[00:02:49]  There were witnesses present, all these things in the covenant ceremonial side of things.
[00:02:53]  But without consummation, you can annul the marriage rather than the marriage in a divorce.
[00:03:00]  Bring the question up one more time.
[00:03:02]  I want to make sure I'm not missing anything.
[00:03:05]  One more time.
[00:03:06]  Even for physical reasons.
[00:03:07]  Okay, so that's the only part that I'm just not sure about.
[00:03:13]  I'd have to just think about that.
[00:03:15]  I think, you know, so on one hand, If the person really, it's not like just, you know, the wife, you know, they're married and then the wife, you know, on their honeymoon is like, I've got a migraine.
[00:03:27]  And then that migraine, you know, continues to magically appear every time the husband wants to have sex with his wife, you know, for six months.
[00:03:34]  I'm assuming what you're talking about, physical reasons, is actual physiological reasons.
[00:03:40]  Like literally one of the spouses, the wife or the husband, cannot actually engage in sexual intercourse.
[00:03:45]  Let's say one spouse is dying of cancer and cannot.
[00:03:50]  Right.
[00:03:51]  Well, even with dying with cancer, you know, it's very likely they can, but I get it.
[00:03:55]  I get it.
[00:03:56]  Right.
[00:03:56]  Okay.
[00:03:56]  Cervical cancer.
[00:03:57]  All right.
[00:03:57]  There you go.
[00:03:57]  There's an example, right?
[00:03:58]  So, I guess what I would say in that case, Nate, is so there'd be a lot of disclaimers here, but I'll give it my best.
[00:04:09]  One, I would want to know did both spouses have awareness of this before they entered into the marriage covenant?
[00:04:16]  Because I would say that if you're entering into a marriage covenant, right?
[00:04:21]  You're coming up on your wedding day and you're not able to have sex, you better let your fiance know that before they marry you.
[00:04:29]  They need to be aware of that.
[00:04:31]  So, if someone enters into a marriage unable, physically, actually physically unable to engage in sexual intercourse, and their spouse is figuring that out, discovering that fact on their wedding night after saying his vows, after entering into the marriage covenant, I think that's duplicitous.
[00:04:51]  I think that that's deceitful.
[00:04:53]  And in that case, I might be open to annulment.
[00:04:59]  The will of God necessarily, that's what God wants.
[00:05:03]  But you can make an argument that that would be permissible, permissible, right?
[00:05:08]  I mean, it's the same as, you know, Jesus, we have, you know, the cause, one biblical cause for divorce that Jesus gives is marital infidelity, adultery.
[00:05:18]  Not adultery of the heart, as Jesus talks about in the Sermon on the Mount.
[00:05:22]  If a man even looks at a woman with lustful intent, then he's committed adultery in his heart.
[00:05:30]  No, a woman cannot have biblical cause for divorcing her husband because he turned his head and looked at a woman crossing by.
[00:05:36]  No, it needs to be full blown adultery.
[00:05:38]  It needs to actually be marital infidelity, physically engaging with another woman.
[00:05:42]  If there is marital infidelity, that's a cause for divorce.
[00:05:46]  However, the Bible doesn't say, Jesus doesn't say that they must get divorced.
[00:05:52]  You see the difference?
[00:05:53]  So it's not, hey, there's adultery and it's proven two or three witnesses or confession from the individual who committed adultery.
[00:06:00]  So it's valid according to God's law.
[00:06:02]  That this adultery did in fact take place, and Jesus gives this as a biblical cause permissibility for divorce.
[00:06:09]  Therefore, we must get divorced.
[00:06:10]  No, you could also work it out.
[00:06:13]  If both parties are willing to stay and to work on their marriage, to pray that God might perform a miracle in their marriage over it, to forgive and over time as it's earned, to once more again trust.
[00:06:25]  Forgiveness and trust are not the same, right?
[00:06:27]  Forgiveness is free.
[00:06:28]  We've been freely forgiven, but trust is earned.
[00:06:31]  But if they're willing to work through that, Right?
[00:06:33]  If there's adultery in the marriage and it's in my church and I'm doing the marriage counseling, I'm not going to say you guys should get a divorce.
[00:06:40]  That's not going to be the pastoral counsel that I give.
[00:06:43]  We're first going to explore every single option for salvaging the marriage.
[00:06:47]  So, again, to answer your question, Nate, I don't think that you must annul the marriage.
[00:06:53]  But if we're asking, is it permissible that you married a woman in this particular case, since the question is coming from a man, you married a woman and she did not disclose to you at all.
[00:07:07]  That she is incapable of physical intercourse, that she's going to make a covenant of marriage with you, but incapable of consummating that marriage.
[00:07:14]  And you discover that post covenant, after the wedding, here it is, your wedding night, and you're finding out that she can't consummate the marriage.
[00:07:23]  And she didn't tell you that.
[00:07:26]  Must you annul the marriage?
[00:07:28]  No, of course not.
[00:07:31]  But may you annul the marriage?
[00:07:34]  Perhaps.
[00:07:35]  Perhaps.
[00:07:36]  Now, if it's unwillingness, right, and I know that's not your question, but if it's just unwillingness, Your spouse just will not consummate the marriage.
[00:07:45]  Then, yeah, you can definitely annul it.
[00:07:47]  But even with that, it's not that you must annul the marriage.
[00:07:51]  Again, you could try to work through it and not work through it without sex, but work through it working towards sex, working with your spouse that God would change their heart, that they would seek to honor the Lord.
[00:08:03]  In the same way that sexual activity, any sexual activity outside of the covenant of marriage is sin, so too sexual inactivity within the covenant of marriage can be, and notice I'm saying can be sin.
[00:08:16]  It's not sin in every case because it's not like you get married and then therefore it's the will of God that you're having sex 24 7.
[00:08:22]  So obviously there are times where married couples are not.
[00:08:25]  Sexually active with one another.
[00:08:28]  But to refuse, see, that's the difference.
[00:08:32]  The Apostle Paul talks about this that there are conjugal rights.
[00:08:36]  Again, we've had this on the books in our nation, even with prison inmates, right?
[00:08:40]  Having conjugal rights if they're married, not just for their fling, but if they're married in the covenant marriage, that their spouse can come and they can actually engage in sexual intercourse periodically at certain times while in prison as a criminal.
[00:08:55]  Right, because marriage is a covenant, it's a big deal, it's to be held in high esteem by the public, by societies.
[00:09:03]  And there are certain marriage rights and privileges and duties that we have.
[00:09:09]  A husband may not deprive his wife unless there's mutual consent.
[00:09:13]  A wife, likewise, should not deprive her husband.
[00:09:17]  And so, if there's an unwillingness to consummate the marriage, then certainly it could be annulled.
[00:09:22]  Again, though, it's not that you must get an annulment, but you may get an annulment.
[00:09:26]  It is permissible if it's That the person is not unwilling, but they're unable.
[00:09:32]  My question would be, well, were they honest about being unable beforehand?
[00:09:36]  If they were, just for the record, if they were honest beforehand, you shouldn't have married them.
[00:09:42]  And I know that that may sound cruel, that may sound cold or uncaring, right?
[00:09:48]  That you fall in love with someone.
[00:09:50]  Let's say, you know, well, I actually knew someone like this great person, great couple.
[00:09:56]  And they're married now.
[00:09:57]  And so, therefore, it is God's will that they.
[00:09:59]  Stay married, right?
[00:10:00]  It's the same as if you get a divorce without biblical cause.
[00:10:04]  The Bible says that if a woman is divorced from her husband without biblical cause and marries another man, he is committing adultery with her and causes her to be an adulterer.
[00:10:17]  Now, that said, that doesn't mean that if a woman gets a divorce without biblical cause and marries another man, that if she all of a sudden realizes her sin, that it's the will of God now that she divorce again.
[00:10:31]  No, she's already in the marriage.
[00:10:33]  There's a difference in sinning versus being in sin, continuous, ongoing state of sin versus a prior committing of a sinful act.
[00:10:45]  So it is wrong for a woman or a man to remarry, to remarry if they have been divorced, especially if they've been divorced without biblical cause.
[00:10:54]  And in terms of my position on divorce and remarriage, because you might have noticed I just said especially, I'll have to talk about that in depth another time.
[00:11:01]  But the point is, without what we can be sure of, without biblical cause, if there's divorce and then remarriage, That remarriage is a sin, but they're not in a state of sin, right?
[00:11:11]  So, if the gospel comes to bear on someone who's on their second marriage or their third marriage and their prior marriages they ended without biblical cause, the gospel coming to bear on that individual does not mean that that individual needs to divorce again, right?
[00:11:27]  Two wrongs don't make a right.
[00:11:28]  That doesn't fix it.
[00:11:29]  You're in it, and in the providence of God, God is sovereign over all things, including our sin, including our sin.
[00:11:36]  So, they're not in a state of ongoing, continual sin, but it was a sin.
[00:11:41]  To get remarried.
[00:11:42]  Likewise, for this particular couple that I'm thinking of, I don't believe that they're in a state of sin by being married.
[00:11:48]  I think it would be sinful for them to divorce.
[00:11:52]  I think they should be married because they are married.
[00:11:55]  They entered into marriage.
[00:11:57]  But in this case, what happened is that the husband, when they were engaged, I believe it might have been when they were dating, but before the wedding, the husband had a terrible accident and became paralyzed from the neck down, quadriplegic, and cannot move.
[00:12:16]  And the wife, or at the time, fiance, loved this man and married him, anyways.
[00:12:25]  And I don't know.
[00:12:26]  That's a tricky one, right?
[00:12:28]  So she knew he wasn't hiding it.
[00:12:30]  He couldn't hide it even if he wanted to.
[00:12:31]  It was quite obvious that he was invalid, an invalid.
[00:12:37]  And she decided to marry him, anyways.
[00:12:42]  I think she would have been well within her God given rights to say, I love you.
[00:12:46]  I care for you deeply.
[00:12:49]  But I'm not willing to proceed with marriage.
[00:12:52]  I don't think that would have been sin by any stretch of the imagination.
[00:12:54]  She was not morally obligated.
[00:12:56]  To go through with the marriage.
[00:12:57]  The question is, was it actually wrong to go through with the marriage?
[00:13:02]  Again, not in a state of sin now.
[00:13:03]  They're married.
[00:13:05]  God's sovereign over it.
[00:13:06]  Even things, even mistakes, God's sovereign over those things.
[00:13:09]  But was it a mistake?
[00:13:10]  That's the question.
[00:13:10]  Was it a mistake?
[00:13:11]  Should she not have entered into that marriage union knowing that the husband was invalid, that he was impotent, that he was not going to be able to fulfill his marital duties in that sense, according to 1 Corinthians chapter 7?
[00:13:30]  I don't know.
[00:13:31]  Maybe.
[00:13:32]  Maybe it was wrong.
[00:13:33]  Maybe it was wrong for her to do that.
[00:13:36]  But the point is, certainly, at minimum, the spouse should know.
[00:13:43]  They should at least be privy to that knowledge.
[00:13:45]  That if you're entering into marriage and you're actually, it's not unwillingness, but you're actually physically incapable of consummating that marriage, you should tell that individual before you get married.
[00:13:55]  If not, you are being deceitful.
[00:13:57]  You are lying.
[00:13:57]  That is sin.
[00:13:59]  And in telling that individual, They may call off the marriage, and I would probably argue that they should because marriage exists for a purpose.
[00:14:11]  And I'm not saying it's the exclusive purpose, but one of the primary purposes of marriage is procreation and child rearing to be fruitful and multiply.
[00:14:22]  And if that's out of the equation, if that's not going to be a part of the marriage, then the person entering into that marriage needs to know about it.
[00:14:30]  And if they say, Well, I'm not going to enter into this marriage now that I know that because marriage exists for a purpose.
[00:14:36]  And that purpose is impossible if I marry you.
[00:14:40]  I think that's perfectly, perfectly appropriate.
[00:14:43]  And obviously, you want to do that with compassion and sensitivity and kindness and all those kinds of things.
[00:14:47]  But I think that that's not only something that's permissible for you to call off the wedding, I think you probably are at some level morally obligated to make that choice, to call it off, to call it off.
[00:15:01]  And trust in the sovereignty of God that this individual who is unable to consummate the marriage physically, That in God's sovereignty, He allowed for that, and that simply means singleness for this person, and that God will bless their singleness, and that God will use them in their singleness, but that this person isn't meant for marriage.

=== Biblical Eunuchs and Singleness (04:10) ===

[00:15:22]  In God's sovereign providence, God determined by happenstance, by this accident or whatever it is, whatever physical condition disallows for this person to consummate the marriage, God, by doing that, providentially has determined that this person should remain single.
[00:15:39]  It's kind of like what the scripture talks about eunuchs.
[00:15:42]  Some were born eunuchs, the scripture says.
[00:15:45]  Some were made eunuchs by men.
[00:15:47]  And then some choose, are voluntary, you know, choose to be eunuchs.
[00:15:52]  What we're talking about in this case would be someone who's born a eunuch.
[00:15:55]  They're born unable to procreate and to consummate a marriage, to engage in sexual intercourse.
[00:16:03]  Or they were made that way.
[00:16:04]  They weren't born that way, but they were made that way, and hopefully not by some leftist, you know, castrating them.
[00:16:09]  Although this is going to be, oh my goodness, I just thought of this.
[00:16:13]  This is going to be, we're going to have to really work out this doctrine.
[00:16:17]  The Bible speaks to it.
[00:16:19]  I just need to study it a little bit more.
[00:16:21]  But this is going to actually be something that's going to have to be taught multiple times and probably entire books written about because we're about to have an entire generation of eunuchs in our nation because of transing a bunch of kids and castrating little boys.
[00:16:41]  Because of the insanity of the progressive left.
[00:16:47]  I mean, the amount of you watch some of the videos and they're just gut wrenching.
[00:16:53]  Kids transitioning, right?
[00:16:55]  De transitioning.
[00:16:59]  And just the immense, they're just weighed down by regret and remorse.
[00:17:05]  Like, why did I do this?
[00:17:07]  Why didn't anyone stop me?
[00:17:10]  Why was I encouraged to do this?
[00:17:12]  I mean, we're going to have, for one, we're going to have a ton of lawsuits, and praise God.
[00:17:17]  Hopefully, a bunch of people get locked up.
[00:17:21]  But we're also going to have a ton of, Hurting young people in our nation who are effectively were made, they weren't born, but they were made eunuchs on both sides, male and female.
[00:17:36]  And I think in many of those cases, yeah, I think my position would be that they cannot marry, that they shouldn't marry, that God providentially, sovereignly, through their sin, through their foolishness, and through other people's sin of lying to them and grooming them and indoctrinating them with leftist, Marxist garbage.
[00:17:55]  God is still sovereign over all those things.
[00:17:57]  And in this way, by means of his providence, has determined that that individual not marry.
[00:18:04]  And that's going to be incredibly painful.
[00:18:06]  But I think that's probably the right position.
[00:18:09]  I think that's probably the right teaching.
[00:18:11]  I'll have to go back and look at this.
[00:18:13]  This is something that we're going to have to teach on more.
[00:18:15]  So, Nate Werner, thanks for the question.
[00:18:18]  I think there are far reaching implications and a lot of application with this particular thing because of where we're at.
[00:18:25]  As a culture that's just completely lost its mind.
[00:18:29]  But again, I guess my short answer would be if it was deceitful, if you did not know, you enter into the marriage and physically they're actually incapable, your spouse, of consummating the marriage, yes, you can get an annulment.
[00:18:41]  You can get an annulment.
[00:18:43]  In terms of that's what's permissible, in terms of what you should do, what are you morally obligated to do?
[00:18:49]  Are you morally obligated to get an annulment because marriage and sex, one of its chief purposes is procreation, and you've now discovered that you cannot procreate with this individual?
[00:18:59]  I don't know.
[00:18:59]  I'd have to go back and look at the scripture and come up with what I think about that, read some commentaries.
[00:19:06]  So maybe give me time, maybe come back to that question in a while.
[00:19:09]  But certainly it would be permissible to annul the marriage, at least permissible, if not even a moral obligation.
[00:19:16]  Oh, hi.
[00:19:17]  I didn't see you there.
[00:19:18]  Thanks for sticking around.
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