Does God Permit Polygamy in the New Testament?
1) Direct Answer
No. In the New Testament God calls us back to His original order: one man and one woman. Polygamy is not permitted for believers.
2) Scriptural Explanation
- From the beginning: “They two shall be one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). Jesus restored that standard: “Have ye not read… they two shall be one flesh?… What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matthew 19:4–6; Mark 10:6–9). Notice He said “two,” not three or more.
- Moral order for believers: “Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband” (1 Corinthians 7:2). Singular on both sides.
- Marriage bond: “The woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth” (Romans 7:2–3). The passage assumes one husband, one wife.
- Example for the church: Overseers and deacons must be “the husband of one wife” (1 Timothy 3:2,12; Titus 1:6) This command suggests that there were people who came into Christ with multiple wives, however God sets the pattern in the leadership for the whole body. They could worship, but could not be leaders in the church.
- The type of Christ and the Church: “They two shall be one flesh… This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:31–32). One Christ, one Bride—monogamy is the God-given picture.
3) Simple Clarifying Logic
- Jesus did not point us to what was tolerated under Moses; He pointed us back to the beginning. What God joined as two becoming one flesh cannot be multiplied without breaking the very pattern.
- If polygamy were acceptable now, the “two shall be one flesh” and the Christ–Church type would be contradicted, and the New Testament commands in the singular would make no sense.
4) Reinforcing Statement
God may have “suffered” certain things in earlier times, but in Christ He restores the perfect will: one man, one woman, faithful for life.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
We would see Jesus
62-0727 §18
Some of you brethren, remember in the Old Testament they had a way of finding out whether a prophet was telling the truth, or a dreamer was dreaming right, his dream was from God. They taken him to the temple where the breastplate of Aaron was hanging, and it was called Urim Thummim. Many of you people know about it, reading in the Bible. And when this prophet begin to prophesy, and those supernatural lights didn't register back off of that, like a rainbow across that... , making the Urim Thummim from that breastpl...
Token
63-0901M §137
Now, remember, Hebrews, 13:10-20, a "everlasting covenant." God's Blood-bound promise makes us free from sin. Amen! There is no sin in Him. Sin, self, flesh. Worship Him, and show forth His promised power. God's Blood-bound, Token-bound covenant people, has the Spirit of Jesus Christ in here that "He that believeth on Me, the works that I do, shall he do also." Displaying the covenant, see. New Testament, "testament" means covenant. That is right, isn't it Dr. Vayle? Testament means covenant. The New Testament mean...
A Hidden Life
55-1006A §14
Now, God has made it so wonderful that in the Old Testament, where usually I go to for refuge for a text once in a while... He's made the Old Testament in parables and in symbolic forms to express Himself and His doings, that the simple-minded might be able to have a conception of His will and what He's done. Many times in the Old Testament, how I have went back to find the Old typing the New. Always, God did and what He's doing now in the New Testament, He foreshadowed it in the Old Testament. And all of those who...
If God be with us, then where is all the miracles?
61-1231E §47
If God be God, where is His miracles? If God is with us, where is His miracles? If God is with the Methodist church, why is all the women still wearing bobbed hair? If God is with the Baptist church, then why does the pastor still smoke cigarettes (many of them)? Why do they still deny the power of God to heal the sick and to raise the dead, and to speak in tongues and interpret tongues, and gifts of prophecy? Why do they still deny it, if the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament is still the s...
God keeps His Word
57-0115 §32
Now, for a background, in the Bible we're going back over into I Kings just for a little bit, in a mental conditions, to let our mind drift back to a certain event. There was King Ahab of the Old Testament. Which King Ahab in his time, is a beautiful type of the New Testament. And notice. Just as Ahab married Jezebel, an idolater, and brought idolatry into Egypt, was a type in the seven dispensations of the Old Testament, as the seven candlesticks of the New Testament. In the dark ages, the fifteen hundred years of...