The NXR Podcast - QUESTIONS - When Can A Marriage Be Annulled？

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00:00:21.000 If a marriage is not consummated, even for physical reasons, should that be grounds to

00:00:26.160 annul it. All right. I don't know what the physical reasons might be, but I'm assuming what

00:00:29.780 you're saying is in terms of consummated for everybody who's listening in case somebody's

00:00:33.600 not up to speed. What Nate is asking is if two people get married, they actually have the marriage

00:00:39.680 ceremony, they sign a marriage covenant, they exchange vows, exchange rings, all those things.

00:00:46.260 They have gone through that process, but they don't consummate the marriage, meaning they do not

00:00:51.000 consummate the marriage through sexual intercourse. Is the marriage valid?

00:00:56.160 And biblically, I would say no. No. There are two primary components of marriage. One is covenant

00:01:05.140 or ceremony. The other is consummation. Covenant and consummation. What you have in hookup culture

00:01:13.680 and these kinds of things is you have a bunch of people wanting to consummate, but without covenant

00:01:17.980 by design, by intent. That's precisely what men and sadly women often want is they want

00:01:25.720 the consummation, but without the obligation, without the covenant, without the responsibility,

00:01:31.380 without being bound to one another in marriage, right? And so, you know, you can have consummation

00:01:38.260 without covenant. You're not married. You're not. What you've done is fornicated. What you've done

00:01:45.480 is sinful, but it is not marriage. If you have sex with someone in the back of a car in the

00:01:50.880 middle of the night in some dark alleyway, you're not married to that person. You're in sin, 0.70

00:01:55.720 most certainly, but you're not married to that person. Likewise, in the same way that

00:01:59.960 consummation apart from covenant ceremony does not mean marriage, so too covenant or ceremony

00:02:07.560 without consummation does not mean marriage. And that's why we've had laws on the books. I don't

00:02:11.980 know. It depends what state you're in, but we have had laws on the books in our nations and

00:02:17.180 our nation and certain states, I think, I don't quote me on this, fact check this, but I believe

00:02:23.540 there are certain states in our union still to this day that have laws on the books that say

00:02:27.320 that if a marriage is not consummated, then the marriage can be annulled rather than requiring a

00:02:34.180 divorce. If both individuals want out of the marriage without having to get a divorce, they

00:02:38.700 can simply annul the marriage saying that the marriage was never official. Even though they've

00:02:44.080 had covenant ceremony, signed even a document, exchanged rings, exchanged vows. There were

00:02:50.100 witnesses present, all these things in the covenant ceremonial side of things, but without

00:02:54.320 consummation, you can annul the marriage rather than the marriage in a divorce. Bring the question

00:03:01.220 up one more time. I want to make sure I'm not missing anything. One more time, even for physical

00:03:06.760 reasons. Okay. So that's, that's the only part that I'm just, I'm not sure about. I'd have to

00:03:13.640 just think about that. I think, you know, so on one hand, if the person really, it's not like

00:03:20.140 just, you know, the wife, you know, they're married and then the wife, you know, on their

00:03:25.200 honeymoon is like, oh, I've got a migraine. And then that migraine, you know, continues to

00:03:30.200 magically appear every time the husband wants to have sex with his wife, you know, for six months.

00:03:34.760 I'm assuming what you're talking about physical reasons is actual physiological reason. We're

00:03:40.040 Like, like literally one of the spouses, the wife or the husband cannot actually engage

00:03:44.580 in sexual intercourse.

00:03:49.420 Right. 0.98

00:03:51.600 Well, even with dying with cancer, you know, it's very likely they can, but I get it.

00:03:54.960 I get it.

00:03:55.900 Right.

00:03:56.280 Okay. 0.78

00:03:56.560 Cervical cancer.

00:03:57.320 All right.

00:03:57.480 There you go.

00:03:57.800 There's an example.

00:03:58.540 Right.

00:03:58.740 So, um, I guess what I would say in that case, Nate is, um, so there'd be a lot of disclaimers

00:04:06.180 here, but I'll, you know, I'll, I'll give it my best.

00:04:08.060 Um, one, I would want to know, um, did, did, did both spouses have awareness of this before

00:04:14.580 they entered into the marriage covenant?

00:04:16.580 Because I would say that, that, um, if you're entering into a marriage covenant, right,

00:04:21.400 you're coming up on your wedding day and you're not able to have sex, um, you better let your

00:04:26.840 fiance know that before they marry you.

00:04:29.500 They need to be aware of that.

00:04:31.260 Um, so if, if someone enters into a marriage, unable physically, actually physically unable

00:04:36.920 to engage in sexual intercourse. And their spouse is figuring that out, discovering that fact on

00:04:43.880 their wedding night after saying his vows, after entering into the marriage covenant. I think that's

00:04:50.240 duplicitous. I think that that's deceitful. And in that case, I might be open to annulment.

00:04:57.860 I'm not saying that that's the will of God necessarily, that that's what God wants,

00:05:02.960 but you can make an argument that that would be permissible, permissible, right? I mean,

00:05:08.240 it's the same as, you know, Jesus, we have, you know, the cause, one biblical cause for divorce

00:05:13.240 that Jesus gives is marital infidelity, adultery, not adultery of the heart, as Jesus talks about

00:05:20.400 in the Sermon on the Mount. If a man even looks at a woman with lustful intent, then he's committed

00:05:27.960 adultery in his heart. No, a woman cannot have biblical cause for divorcing her husband because

00:05:33.260 he turned his head and looked at a woman crossing by. No, it needs to be full-blown adultery. It 0.92

00:05:38.080 needs to actually be marital infidelity, physically engaging with another woman. 0.99

00:05:42.500 If there is marital infidelity, that's a cause for divorce. However, the Bible doesn't say,

00:05:48.340 Jesus doesn't say that they must get divorced. Do you see the difference? So it's not, hey,

00:05:53.980 there's adultery and it's proven two or three witnesses or confession from the individual who

00:05:58.740 committed adultery. So it's valid according to God's law that this adultery did in fact take

00:06:04.500 place and Jesus gives this as a biblical cause permissibility for divorce. Therefore we must

00:06:10.240 get divorced. No, you could also work it out. If both parties are willing to stay and to work on

00:06:16.240 their marriage, to pray that God might perform a miracle in their marriage over to forgive and

00:06:21.160 over time as it's earned to once more, again, trust, forgiveness and trust are not the same,

00:06:27.180 right? Forgiveness is free. We've been freely forgiven, but trust is earned. But if they're

00:06:31.700 willing to work through that, right? If there's adultery in the marriage and it's in my church

00:06:35.920 and I'm doing the marriage counseling, I'm not going to say, you guys should get a divorce.

00:06:40.060 That's not going to be the pastoral counsel that I give. We're first going to explore every single

00:06:44.920 option for salvaging the marriage. So again, to answer your question, Nate, I don't think that

00:06:50.380 that you must annul the marriage. But, but if we're asking, is it permissible,

00:06:56.640 is it permissible that you married a woman in this particular case, since the question's coming

00:07:01.940 from a man, you married a woman and she did not disclose to you at all that she is incapable of

00:07:08.780 physical intercourse, that she's going to make a covenant of marriage with you, but incapable of

00:07:13.380 consummating that marriage. And you discover that post covenant after the wedding, here it is,

00:07:20.800 your wedding night, and you're finding out that she can't consummate the marriage. And she didn't

00:07:24.140 tell you that. Must you annul the marriage? No, of course not. But may you annul the marriage?

00:07:34.260 Perhaps. Perhaps. Now, if it's unwillingness, right? And I know that's not your question,

00:07:38.820 but if it's just unwillingness, right? Your spouse just will not consummate the marriage.

00:07:44.920 Then yeah, you can definitely annul it. But even with that, it's not that you must annul

00:07:50.540 the marriage. Again, you could try to work through it and not work through it without

00:07:55.100 sex, but work through it working towards sex, working with your spouse that God would change

00:07:59.960 their heart, that they would seek to honor the Lord. In the same way that sexual activity,

00:08:05.020 any sexual activity outside of the covenant of marriage is sin, so too sexual inactivity

00:08:10.980 within the covenant of marriage can be, and notice I'm saying can be sin. It's not sin in

00:08:17.000 every case because it's not like you get married and then therefore it's the will of God that

00:08:20.380 you're having sex 24-7. So obviously there are times where married couples are not sexually

00:08:25.720 active with one another. But to refuse, see that's the difference. The apostle Paul talks about this, 0.79

00:08:33.980 that there are conjugal rights. Again, we've had this on the books in our nation, even with 1.00

00:08:38.840 prison inmates, right? Having conjugal rights, if they're married, not just for their fling,

00:08:44.040 but if they're married in the covenant marriage, that their spouse can come and they can actually

00:08:48.060 engage in sexual intercourse periodically at certain times while in prison as a criminal,

00:08:55.360 right? Because marriage is a covenant. It's a big deal. It's to be held in high esteem by

00:09:01.580 the public, by societies. And there are certain marriage rights and privileges and duties that

00:09:08.400 we have. A husband may not deprive his wife unless there's mutual consent. A wife, likewise,

00:09:14.580 should not deprive, may not deprive her husband. And so if there's an unwillingness to consummate

00:09:19.820 the marriage, then certainly it could be annulled. Again, though, it's not that you must get an

00:09:24.160 annulment, but you may get an annulment. It is permissible. If it's that the person is not

00:09:30.320 unwilling, but they're unable, my question would be, well, were they honest about being unable

00:09:35.240 beforehand? If they were, just for the record, if they were honest beforehand, you shouldn't

00:09:40.480 have married them. And I know that that may sound cruel. That may sound cold or uncaring,

00:09:47.840 right? That you fall in love with someone. Let's say, you know, well, I actually knew someone like

00:09:52.860 this. Great person, great couple. And they're married now. And so therefore it is God's will

00:09:59.200 that they stay married, right? It's the same as like, if you get a divorce without biblical cause,

00:10:03.760 the Bible says that, that, you know, if, if a woman is, you know, divorced from her husband

00:10:09.600 without biblical cause and marries another man, she commits, he's committing adultery with her

00:10:15.060 and causes her to be an adulterer. Now that said, that doesn't mean that, that if a woman gets a 0.98

00:10:22.020 divorce without biblical cause and marries another man, that, that, you know, if she all of a sudden

00:10:27.000 realizes her sin, that it's the will of God now that she divorce again. No, she's already in the 0.95

00:10:32.380 marriage. There's a difference in sinning versus being in sin, continuous ongoing state of sin 0.98

00:10:39.800 versus a prior committing of sinful act. So it is wrong for a woman or a man to remarry, 0.89

00:10:48.080 to remarry if they have been divorced, especially if they've been divorced without biblical cause.

00:10:53.880 And in terms of my position on divorce and remarriage, because you might have noticed

00:10:57.560 I just said especially, I'll have to talk about that in depth another time.

00:11:01.720 But the point is, without what we can be sure of, without biblical cause, if there's divorce

00:11:05.640 and then remarriage, that remarriage is a sin, but they're not in a state of sin, right?

00:11:11.820 So if the gospel comes to bear on someone who's on their second marriage or their third

00:11:15.680 marriage and their prior marriages, they ended without biblical cause, the gospel coming

00:11:20.980 to bear on that individual does not mean that that individual needs to divorce again, right?

00:11:27.420 Two wrongs don't make a right. That doesn't fit. You're in it. And in the providence of God,

00:11:31.460 God is sovereign over all things, including our sin, including our sin. So they're not in a state

00:11:37.240 of ongoing continual sin, but it was a sin to get remarried. Likewise, for this particular couple

00:11:45.540 that I'm thinking of, I don't believe that they're in a state of sin by being married. I think it

00:11:49.200 would be sinful for them to divorce. I think they should be married because they are married. They

00:11:55.920 entered into marriage. But in this case, what happened is that the husband, when they were

00:12:01.040 engaged, I believe it might've been when they were dating, but before the wedding, the husband

00:12:06.800 had a terrible accident and became paralyzed from the neck down, quadriplegic, and cannot move.

00:12:14.740 and the wife, or at the time, fiance, loved this man and married him anyways.

00:12:25.220 And I don't know, that's a tricky one, right? So she knew he wasn't hiding it. He couldn't hide it

00:12:30.640 even if he wanted to. It was quite obvious that he was invalid and invalid. And she decided to 1.00

00:12:38.920 marry him anyways. I think she would have been well within her God-given rights to say, I love

00:12:46.060 you. I care for you deeply, but I'm not willing to proceed with marriage. I don't think that

00:12:52.620 would have been sin by any stretch of the imagination. She was not morally obligated

00:12:56.060 to go through with the marriage. The question is, was it actually wrong to go through with

00:13:01.740 the marriage? Again, not in a state of sin now. They're married. God's sovereign over it. Even

00:13:06.540 even things, even mistakes, God's sovereign over those things. But was it a mistake? That's the

00:13:10.400 question. Was it a mistake? Should she not have entered into that marriage union, knowing that

00:13:16.660 the husband was invalid, that he was impotent, that he was not going to be able to fulfill

00:13:22.680 his marital duties in that sense, according to 1 Corinthians 7. I don't know. Maybe.

00:13:31.480 maybe it was wrong. Maybe it was wrong for her to do that. But the point is certainly at minimum, 0.98

00:13:39.260 at minimum, the spouse should know. They should at least be privy to that knowledge that if you're

00:13:46.180 entering into marriage and you're actually, it's not unwillingness, but you're actually

00:13:49.540 physically incapable of consummating that marriage. You should tell that individual

00:13:54.640 before you get married. If not, you are being deceitful. You are lying. That is sin.

00:13:58.420 and in telling that individual, they may call off the marriage. And I would probably argue

00:14:05.440 that they should because marriage exists for a purpose. And I'm not saying it's the exclusive

00:14:13.400 purpose, but one of the primary purposes of marriage is procreation and child rearing to

00:14:19.680 be fruitful and multiply. And if that's out of the equation, if that's not going to be a part

00:14:25.880 of the marriage, then the person entering into that marriage needs to know about it.

00:14:30.620 And if they say, well, I'm not going to enter into this marriage now that I know that because

00:14:34.340 marriage exists for a purpose and that purpose is impossible if I marry you, I think that's

00:14:40.520 perfectly, perfectly appropriate.

00:14:43.520 And obviously you want to do that with compassion and sensitivity and kindness and all those

00:14:46.960 kinds of things.

00:14:47.580 But I think that that's not only is that something that's permissible for you to call off the

00:14:52.280 wedding, I think you probably are at some level morally obligated to make that choice, to call it

00:14:58.560 off, to call it off and trust in the sovereignty of God that this individual who is unable to

00:15:05.380 consummate the marriage physically, that in God's sovereignty, he allowed for that. And that simply

00:15:11.780 means singleness for this person and that God will bless their singleness and that God will use them

00:15:17.700 in their singleness, but that this person isn't meant for marriage. In God's sovereign providence,

00:15:24.300 God determined by happenstance, by this accident or whatever it is, whatever physical condition

00:15:30.000 disallows for this person to consummate the marriage, God by doing that providentially

00:15:35.400 has determined that this person should remain single. It's kind of like what the scripture

00:15:40.240 talks about, about eunuchs, right? Some were born eunuchs, the scripture says, some were made eunuchs

00:15:46.640 by men. And then some choose, are voluntary, you know, choose to be eunuchs. What we're talking

00:15:53.220 about in this case would be someone who's born a eunuch. They're born unable to procreate and to

00:15:59.400 consummate a marriage, to engage in sexual intercourse. Or they were made that way. They 0.84

00:16:04.500 weren't born that way, but they were made that way. And hopefully not by some leftists, you know,

00:16:08.900 castrating them. Although this is going to, oh my goodness, I just thought of this. This is going

00:16:13.760 to be, we're going to have to really work out this doctrine. The Bible speaks to it. I just

00:16:19.940 need to study it a little bit more, but this is going to actually be something that's going to

00:16:23.800 have to be taught multiple times and probably entire books written about, because we're about 1.00

00:16:31.320 to have an entire generation of eunuchs in our nation because of transing a bunch of kids and 1.00

00:16:38.700 castrating little boys. Because of the insanity of the progressive left. I mean, the amount of, 0.98

00:16:48.240 you watch some of the videos and they're just gut-wrenching. Kids transitioning, right?

00:16:55.980 De-transitioning. And just the immense, they're just, they're just weighed down by regret and 1.00

00:17:04.880 remorse. Like, why did I do this? Why didn't anyone stop me? Why was I encouraged to do this?

00:17:12.700 I mean, we're going to have, for one, we're going to have a ton of lawsuits and praise God,

00:17:17.660 hopefully a bunch of people get locked up. But we're also going to have a ton of

00:17:23.660 hurting young people in our nation who are effectively, were made, they weren't born,

00:17:31.460 but they were made eunuchs on both sides, male and female. And I think in many of those cases,

00:17:39.180 yeah, I think my position would be that they cannot marry, that they shouldn't marry.

00:17:44.060 That God providentially, sovereignly, through their sin, through their foolishness, and through

00:17:48.260 other people's sin of lying to them and grooming them and indoctrinating them with leftist Marxist 0.98

00:17:54.000 garbage, God is still sovereign over all those things. And in this way, by means of his providence, 0.88

00:18:00.020 has determined that that individual will not marry. And that's going to be incredibly painful.

00:18:06.660 But I think that's probably the right position. I think that's probably the right teaching.

00:18:11.520 I'll have to go back and look at this. This is something that we're going to have to teach on

00:18:15.520 more. So Nate Werner, thanks for the question. I think there's far-reaching implications and a lot

00:18:21.540 of application with this particular thing because of where we're at as a culture that's just

00:18:26.960 completely lost its mind. But again, I guess, you know, my short answer would be, um, if it was

00:18:32.300 deceitful, if you did not know you enter into the marriage and physically they're actually incapable

00:18:36.020 your spouse of consummating the marriage. Um, yes, you can get an annulment. Um, you can get

00:18:41.700 an annulment, um, in terms of, uh, that's what's permissible in terms of what you should do. Uh,

00:18:46.820 what are you more morally obligated to do? Are you morally obligated to get an annulment because

00:18:51.400 marriage and sex, one of its chief purposes is procreation. And you've now discovered that you 0.52

00:18:56.880 cannot procreate with this individual. I don't know. I'd have to go back and look at the scripture

00:19:02.500 and come up with what I think about that, read some commentaries. And so maybe give me time,

00:19:08.120 maybe come back to that question in a while, but certainly it would be permissible to annul the

00:19:12.000 marriage, at least permissible, if not even a moral obligation. Oh, hi. I didn't see you there.

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The NXR Podcast - November 12, 2022

QUESTIONS - When Can A Marriage Be Annulled？

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