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.
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 1:E-68
Let me drop in something here that will both amaze and help you. There is hardly a student that does not believe the New Testament was originally in the Greek language. All our great Bible students have said that God gave the world three great nations with three great contributions for the sake of the Gospel. He gave the Greeks who gave a universal language. He gave us the Jews who gave us the true religion and true knowledge of God through the Saviour. He gave us the Romans who gave us a unified empire with law an...
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 3:E-104
Now that we have come this far, let me try to crystallize your thinking on this subject so you can see the necessity of our going into the 'serpent seed doctrine' as I have. We start with the fact that there were TWO trees in the midst of the garden. The Tree of Life was Jesus. The other tree is definitely Satan because of what came forth of the fruit of that tree. Now then, we know that both of those trees had a relationship to man or they would never have been placed there. They must have had a part in the sovere...
Marriage and Divorce
65-0221M §80
Now, look. In the final analysis, look, there is one Jesus Christ. Is that right? One man, God Immanuel. Do you believe that? But the members of His wife are many, thousands times thousands of thousands. Is that right? His wife, the bride, the church. You understand now? That's why He said to Adam before sex was ever induced ... or, introduced, "Multiply to replenish the earth"---when he was yet in the beginning, when he was yet both male and female in himself! There it shows then that the bride's got to come from...
The invisible union of the Bride of Christ
65-1125 §29
The prophet Paul, here, is saying that a woman cannot remarry until her first husband is dead. She cannot remarry as long as her first husband is living. She, by no circumstances at all. She must remain single as long as her first husband is living. And if she should do such a sin, she shall be called an adulteress. I am speaking of the natural now, to type it with the spiritual. If this woman would commit such a sin, then she is marked an adulteress---if she has two living husbands at the same time. Therefore, she...
We would see Jesus
61-0208 §15
You never judge a man by how big his hands is, and how wide his shoulders is. I've heard them say, "Oh, isn't he a man!" I've seen men that weighed two hundred pounds, didn't have an ounce of man in him. That's right. You don't measure a man by his size. That's brute. You measure him by his character. There never was a greater character in man than Jesus Christ. A big body... A mule's stouter than any man, or elephant. So that would be brute. But a man's not how big a muscle he's got. I don't measure him by that, b...