Remarriage: Biblical guidelines for when it is permitted

People also ask all the time under what conditions does God allow Remarriage.  This would depend upon your present set of circumstances.  The general principle Paul laid down in I Corinthians 7 was that a Believer abide with God, doing the right thing, in whatever circumstances a person currently find themselves in.  We do not have power to change the past.  We can however start doing the right thing in the present moment.  We cannot make up for past sins just by doing good deeds; this is why Christ had to die for our sins.  However we can start doing what is right and loving from the current state we are in.  Works are not meritorious.  They do not earn you brownie points in heaven.  But works do reveal the state of your heart. They show you what your true feelings are and what you need to work on as an individual.  God is totally focused on the heart of an individual.   Having heart apart from works does have some merit in the eyes of God and people.  David was blessed for wanting to build God a temple He himself never built.  In contemporary vernacular, we would say it is the thought that counts.  Works apart from heart really have no merit in the eyes of God.  Doing something in pretense only really counts for nothing to one who sees your heart.  God desires mercy not sacrifice.  God will not require you to earn his forgiveness, but He does require you to repent to have it.  As Jesus told the adulteress ‘Neither Do I condemn you, go and sin no more.”  Given these Biblical principles, an outline regarding remarriage is given below.  

Circumstance 1: If you are bound to a current relationship you are not free to marry anyone else.

As far as it depends upon you, God would require you to do the loving thing.  All the commandments are rooted in loving God and others as their basis.  A command to love someone is not considered legalistic.  It’s simply the right thing to do.  As a general rule, God prohibits adultery.  Adultery hurts people and is not a loving thing to do.  If remarrying causes you to be unfaithful and hurt someone in the relationship you are currently in, then remarriage is forbidden.   If a couple is estranged, the loving thing is to remain faithful and eventually reconcile with your spouse.  You commit adultery if you actively separate and marry another.  Whoever is responsible for the action of the separation commits adultery.  We are to remain faithful to God and our spouse in our relationship.  God is faithful to us even when we are estranged from him.  It is in the difficult times of our relationship that we are to remain steadfast in our love for our spouse.  The dark times are where we really prove our love as genuine and unconditional.

Circumstance 2: If you are not bound to a current relationship you are free to marry anyone in the Lord.

The categories that are given in I Corinthians 7 for being allowed to marry are virgins, widows, and the unmarried.  All of these people have either never been in a marital relationship with someone or their past marital relationship is for all intents and purposes is dead.  In these cases, a person would not be harming someone by marrying another.  The Virgin is free to marry because they were never bound to anyone.  The widow or widower would be free to marry again because the past spouse was deceased.  The unmarried are allowed to remarry if their past relationships were past being salvaged and/or beyond their control.    If their past partner was unwilling to continue, abandoned the marriage, or married someone else.  It's not love to force an unwilling partner to stay with you.  A believer is not in bondage to the past marriage when the unbeliever departs.  They would be free to remarry again.  People who have divorced for reasons of a partner's immorality are also free to marry again.  Jesus makes an exception for people who divorce on these grounds alone.  He makes this particular case an exception when He labels everyone who actively divorces and remarries as adulterers.  In summary, if a person is not bound to someone by relationship (the term "unmarried" implies this), then they are free to marry.  The apostle Paul says if anyone in these categories chooses to marry, they have not sinned.  God does not try to burden people with legalistic restrictions, it really comes down to doing the loving thing to those with whom you have an obligation to do so.  If you have no one with whom you are presently bound, then you are free to marry who you wish in the Lord.

Related Links:
Sexual Immorality: Cannot Drag to Heaven. Be Washed to be Saved
Why Should I avoid Sexual Immorality?
Divorce-Biblical Guidelines for when it is permitted
Sexual Temptation:why fight the feeling?  
Lust & Love, the Contrasts Defined
How to Fix your Marriage- The Biblical Way
Nudity, Foreplay Sex: Only in the Marriage Bed do they Make Love
Affairs, Infidelity: You cannot find love with a cheat
Adultery, Fornication: Outside the Marriage Bed you only get Screwed
Rape, Sexual Violence, & Abuse: Why Brute Force it when there is a better way? 
Prostitution, Harlotry: You cannot buy Real Love  
Pornography & Erotica: Only Breed Envy