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 §78
Now, you notice in I Corinthians 7:10, notice, Paul commands the wife that is ... that divorces her husband to remain single or be reconciled, not to remarry. She must remain single or to be reconciled back to her husband. She cannot remarry; she must remain single. But notice, he never said about the man. See, you can't make the Word lie. From the beginning, the sex law by polygamy. Now, the Word of God runs true with nature of God, runs in continuity. See how there is one school went east and the other one went w...
Questions and Answers
62-0527 §18
...ter, and you'll catch them what he's talking about. Now, this means here, not ... see: "Does this mean a sister or a brother is free to remarry?" No, sir. See, he explained that first. See: ... unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband: But and if she departs, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: ... [See?] There's no such things as any believer ever being reconciled to remarriage again, with a living companion.
Marriage and Divorce
65-0221M §86
...rt of Him by having spiritual sexual affair to become pregnated with further part of the Word. You understand? She refused... The Lutheran church refused for Christ to have any more desire with her. Luther refused it. And let me say this (going to call me something anyhow), so is it today with every one of them! They fail to take that Word! They refuse Christ! And any woman that refuses a man his child has no right to be a wife to him! Amen. You remember in the Bible when the king married Esther because the queen r...
Marriage and Divorce
65-0221M §96
This is an awful strong thing. I didn't know how to bring it out! What will I do when I got men and women sitting in my congregation, some that's been married twice or three times? Good men, good women, all mixed up! What done it? False teaching. Exactly. Not waiting on the Lord. "What God has joined together, let no man put asunder..." Not what man joined together, what God joined together. When you got a direct revelation from God that's your wife, and the same thing, that's yours the rest of your life. See? But...
The Queen of Sheba
60-0401E §1
...Brother Lamsa.] ... he speaks the language and can read the language and read the original documents in which the New Testament was written. So with him, it is so wonderful that he can read directly from the original script the very words that Jesus and the disciples spoke and wrote. He felt that these translations that we have are not always correct and true. And that's where the criticism comes in, because he criticizes the King James version, and some people think that St. Paul preached from the King James versi...