Is There Any Bible Passage That Stops a Man from Having Two Wives?
1) Direct answer
Yes. The New Testament sets one man with one woman as God’s order, and it closes the door on adding another wife while the first is living.
2) Scriptural explanation
- From the beginning: “They two shall be one flesh” (Genesis 2:24; repeated by Jesus in Matthew 19:4–6; Mark 10:6–9). Notice, it’s two—one man and one woman—becoming one flesh.
- Church order and example: “Husband of one wife” is required for overseers and deacons (1 Timothy 3:2, 12; Titus 1:6). The same standard appears for widows: “wife of one man” (1 Timothy 5:9). God sets the pattern plainly.
- Purity in marriage: “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.
- Bound by the first covenant: Jesus said that marrying another while bound is adultery (Mark 10:11–12; Luke 16:18). If even a legal “putting away” doesn’t free a man to take another without guilt, taking an additional wife beside the first certainly doesn’t make it right.
- Warning against multiplying wives: God forbade kings to multiply wives (Deuteronomy 17:17), showing His displeasure with the practice.
-God allowed polygamy in the old testament because of the fall but restored back the original order in the new testament. However, those who came to Christ already married to many wives or part of a harem of wives were not forbidden from worshipping God, only they were not allowed to hold any leadership office in the church.
3) Simple clarifying logic
- God joined two to be one flesh. The Bible never says “three (or more) shall be one flesh.” You can’t be “one flesh” with several at the same time.
- If God requires leaders—the examples to the flock—to have one wife, that reveals the divine pattern for all believers.
- Jesus restored marriage to God’s original intent. Where men once tolerated arrangements, the Lord pointed back to the beginning and fixed it: one man, one woman, for life.
4) Reinforcing statement
So yes—the Scripture sets a clear stop: a believer is to have one living wife. That’s the Bible way.
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.
Marriage and Divorce
65-0221M §62
That's why God forbids her to teach His Word. That's right. I Timothy 2:9-15: "I suffer not a woman to teach, or to have any authority..." See? And also I Corinthians 14:34: "Let your women keep silent in the churches, for it's not permitted to them to speak, for they are commanded to be in silent, also saith the law." But today, what does the church do? They make her pastors, evangelists, when the Bible completely forbids it! And the Bible said: "...as also saith the law," making it run in continuity, the whole th...
The conflict between God and Satan
62-0531 §42
Now the great ... many of the theologians... I don't want to be different. I don't mean to be, but many of you know that theologians believe that these fallen angels that had fell by Lucifer's lie took themselves wives. They were fallen angels, actually sons of God that fell from grace, cast out into the earth, pressed themselves into flesh, and took wives. I just a little don't think that just makes reasonings with the Scripture. Because, the first place, before a fallen angel could make himself a man, he would fi...
The choosing of a Bride
65-0429E §50
Notice, now. She could not have but one husband, because woman was made for man and not man for woman. That whole five hundred women was just David's wife. It was a type. When Christ sits on the throne in the millennium, His bride will be, not one person, but it will be tens of thousands---the bride, all-in-one. And David had many wives as individuals, but only all of them together was his wife. Like the whole body of believers is the bride of Christ, because it's she, the woman. He was the man. Now, we were made f...
Seeking after Jesus
53-0531 §22
Here's an old man standing there, blind, saying, "Somebody, please help me into the pool." Any historian knows that they even stabbed one another with knives, trying to beat to the pool, the first time the Angel troubled the water. For, whoever getting in had faith, got healed. Then the Angel went away. Just one at a time, maybe every month or two. But they waited for years. We can't wait for an hour where hundreds are healed. How times has changed. How people's faith has changed. How the desires has changed. You g...
Show us the Father
61-0521 §74
I said, "All right, let's carry the subject on. I'll admit that He was a man, but He was a God-man." I said, "He went to the grave of Lazarus, He wept like a man. But when He stood there and pulled them little shoulders together, said, 'Lazarus, come forth!' and a man had been dead four days... His nose had already fell in, the skin worms eating in his body, his soul was four days' journey somewhere---I don't know, and I don't believe you do either---but his soul had been gone from him for four days, his body corru...