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.
Church Ages, part 10: The Laodicean Church Age
60-1211E §116
But "if any man [any Methodist man, any Baptist man, any Presbyterian man, any Catholic man, any Church of God man, Nazarene man, Pentecostal man] any man that will hear my voice and will open the door, I will come in and sup with him and he with me." That's the message to the Pentecostal church. Not try to revive the Pentecostal organization, but revive the Pentecostal blessing in the individual's heart. That's the only way. "And I will sup with him and he with me."
Hebrews, Chapter 7, part 1
57-0915E §71
There's a little ol' girl sitting back there tonight, my wife, I love her with all that's in me. And if I knowed that I could run around with another woman and get by with it, and go tell her, and say, "Meda, I did wrong," do you think I'd do it? If I love her right, I won't do it. That's right. Now, what if I'd say, "Oh, I can't do it, because I tell you why. She'd divorce me, and I got... Oh, I'm a preacher. See what that'd do? That'd take me out of the pulpit, if she'd divorce me; a divorced man. Oh, I got three...
The same Jesus tonight
55-0826 §10
And the woman said, "I can prove to you that He was nothing but a man. I can prove by the Bible that He wasn't divine." I said, "I want to see it done." She said, "Here, Saint John 11, when He was going down to Lazarus' grave, the Bible said, He wept." Said, "Nothing but a man could weep." I said, "Oh, lady, look. He was a man when He was weeping. But when He stood there with the tears in His eyes, and there laid a man dead, his soul four days journey, his body had rotten, He said, 'Lazarus, come forth.' And a man...
Thirst
65-0919 §47
And said, "A smoking man's taste, see; you cannot have smoke unless you get tar, and when you got tar you got cancer." So there you are, see. It's just a gimmick. And I think of a tobacco company that's in this nation, and it lives by this nation. And then, with a gimmick like that to absolutely deceive American citizens---to deceive them! A thinking man's filter? It's only a gimmick to sell more cigarettes. Then I thought of that thing, a thinking man's filter. I thought, "That's a good idea." So there is a thinki...
The flashing red light of the sign of His coming
63-0623E §89
What happened? Out of marriage... Here's another place in the Bible. Out of marriage goes the vow obey---obey?---a keeper at home, chaste, of good works. She laughs in your face and goes to the power plant, somebody's office. "My husband..." Oh, I doubt that. If these forces today... Such a disgrace, put women on the police force. If that isn't a mark of debauchery among any city. As many men is out of work and they have to put them women out there, when the Bible said she's to stay home and be a chaste keeper at h...