On June 30, 2011 John Piper blogged a short article entitled, “My Eyes Shed Streams of Tears” — Thoughts on the New Calamity. Here is an excerpt from the article:
My sense is that we do not realize what a calamity is happening around us. The new thing —- new for America, and new for history -— is not homosexuality. That brokenness has been here since we were all broken in the fall of man. (And there is a great distinction between the orientation and the act -— just like there is a great difference between my orientation to pride and the act of boasting.)
What’s new is not even the celebration of homosexual sin. Homosexual behavior has been exploited, and reveled in, and celebrated in art, for millennia. What’s new is normalization and institutionalization. This is the new calamity.
Marc aptly writes the following in response:
Yet the normalization and institutionalization of heterosexual sin has been around for ages.
And the hypocrite Piper is one of the ADVOCATES of adultery.
Piper is a more blatant advocate of adultery than the Westminster Confession of Faith and its adherents. For contrary to the WCF Piper will actually acknowledge that remarriage, while a divorced spouse is still living, is adultery. Piper is a Baptist of sorts and he does not hold to the legal fiction of the WCF: “as if the offending party were dead.” I don’t think Piper’s denomination uses the 1689 London Baptist Confession (LBC) but the LBC did not retain the WCF’s inventive phrase (this is not a blanket-endorsement of the LBC):
Chapter 25: Of Marriage
1. Marriage is to be between one man and one woman; neither is it lawful for any man to have more than one wife, nor for any woman to have more than one husband at the same time.(Genesis 2:24; Malachi 2:15; Matthew 19:5,6)
2. Marriage was ordained for the mutual help of husband and wife, for the increase of mankind with a legitimate issue, and the preventing of uncleanness.(Genesis 2:18; Genesis 1:28; 1 Corinthians 7:2, 9)
3. It is lawful for all sorts of people to marry, who are able with judgment to give their consent; yet it is the duty of Christians to marry in the Lord; and therefore such as profess the true religion, should not marry with infidels, or idolaters; neither should such as are godly, be unequally yoked, by marrying with such as are wicked in their life, or maintain damnable heresy.(Hebrews 13:4; 1 Timothy 4:3; 1 Corinthians 7:39; Nehemiah 13:25-27)
4. Marriage ought not to be within the degrees of consanguinity or affinity, forbidden in the Word; nor can such incestuous marriages ever be made lawful, by any law of man or consent of parties, so as those persons may live together as man and wife.(Leviticus 18; Mark 6:18; 1 Corinthians 5:1)
An excerpt from a sermon preached by John Piper on July 1, 2007, entitled “What God Has Joined Together, Let Not Man Separate, Part 2″:
>>>Second, if a divorced person has already married again, should he or she leave the later marriage?
The reason this question comes with such force is that Jesus speaks of the second marriage as committing adultery. Luke 16:18, “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.”
My answer is that remarriage, while a divorced spouse is still living, is an act of unfaithfulness to the marriage covenant. In that sense, to remarry is adultery. We promised, “till death do us part” because that is what God says marriage is, and even if our spouse breaks his or her covenant vows, we will not break ours.<<<
I already commented on this sermon a while ago, so I won’t say a whole lot here. Piper speaks of Jesus’ words in Luke 16:18 being the reason for the “force” of the question. To repeat the question put forward by Piper:
” … if a divorced person has already married again, should he or she leave the later marriage?”
To reword the question in light of Piper’s acknowledgment of Luke 16:18:
” … if a divorced person has already initiated an adulterous marriage, should he or she repent of entering into an adulterous marriage?”
Or:
” … if a person commits adultery, should he or she repent of adultery or should he or she continue in the adultery that has already begun?”
Here is how Piper answers the question:
>>>But I do not think that a person who remarries against God’s will, and thus commits adultery in this way, should later break the second marriage. <<<
Perhaps Piper would say that *at least some adulterers* ought and must repent of their adultery. But it seems that to Piper, actually repenting of adultery may depend on the kind of adultery committed. Piper speaks of those committing “adultery in this way” (emphasis mine–CD). So, at least for those who commit adultery in the way described, Piper does NOT think that a person should repent of adultery.
I’m not sure if I’ve seen an endorsement for continuing in adultery that is more blatant than this. He comes right out and says that it is adulterous, but then says that despite that, one ought not to break the adulterous marriage.
>>>The marriage should not have been done, but now that it is done, it should not be undone by man. It is a real marriage. Real vows have been made and sexual union has happened. And that real covenant of marriage may be purified by the blood of Jesus and set apart for God.<<<
Of course Jude 4 comes immediately to mind in response to Piper’s exceedingly wicked, disgusting, and offensive comment that profanes the precious blood of Christ. But also Hebrews 13:4 comes to mind.
Piper says it “is a real marriage.” And guess what, Piper? It is real adultery as well which you acknowledged by citing Luke 16:18. Piper advocates the defiling and desecration of the marriage bed. And if this were not wicked enough, he evidently has the boundless audacity to make the claim that an ongoing adulterous marriage may “be purified by the blood of Jesus and set apart for God.”
>>>In other words, I don’t think that a couple who repents and seeks God’s forgiveness, and receives his cleansing, should think of their lives as ongoing adultery, even though, in the eyes of Jesus, that’s how the relationship started.<<<
Piper believes that an unrepentant adulterous couple can repent while continuing in sin. I’ve heard some talk of “unbelieving believers,” so perhaps Piper calls these people “unrepentant repenters.”
Piper acknowledges that the relationship began as adulterous, but somehow it does not continue to be adulterous. Have you seen a more blatant advocate of adultery and defiler of the marriage bed by a professing Christian than this? Have you seen a more blatant display by a professing Christian of turning the grace of God into lewdness and profaning the blood of Christ?
Many professing Christians advocate wicked things just like Piper does. But Piper is more blatant in what he acknowledges. Many professing Christians would NOT admit that the relationship began as adultery — but Piper WILL admit this. But what Piper won’t admit is that something that BEGAN as adultery CONTINUES to be adultery while the divorced spouse is still living.
In short, Piper encourages people to live a life of ongoing adultery. But he discourages them to think of their lives as ongoing adultery. Who, but someone under a strong delusion could believe this irrational and illogical wickedness (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:11)?
Agrammatos 