Marriage and Divorce
Matthew 5:31-32
This week Kathy and I will be celebrating our 38th wedding anniversary. Of all the decisions a person makes in life, getting married is one of the most important. No matter how it goes, marriage changes you forever. A happy marriage is one of the greatest blessings you can have on this earth. On the other hand, an unhappy marriage is something else. It is tragic that what God meant for love and fulfillment so often can degenerate into a non-relationship of bitterness, discord, and despair.[1]
In our passage from Matthew 5:31-32 today, Jesus teaches about marriage, divorce, and remarriage. Divorce is a controversial and complex subject because it touches people’s emotions at a deep level.[2] Almost all of us here today have been directly or indirectly affected by divorce. For some, this subject brings up painful memories and deep personal losses. It may call to mind periods of life that involve deep and abiding regrets. If you have a divorce in your past this sermon is not meant to pick on you. The divorced are not second-class citizens in the kingdom of God, nor is divorce an unforgivable sin. It is my desire this morning to minister to those who have failed in marriage and to give practical instruction to those seeking to be faithful in their current marriage.
It is good to remember that these words on marriage and divorce are the words of our wonderful, loving, forgiving Savior Jesus. He is the holy Son of God who loved us enough to die for our sins while we were still sinners. There isn’t anyone who could teach us about this subject with more grace and goodness than Jesus. I believe that the teaching of Jesus on this and every subject is good—intrinsically good, good for individuals, and good for society. Jesus only desires good for those who love Him, and He’s always ready to forgive us our sins and to help us live in righteousness by His life-changing grace.[3]
These two verses on marriage, divorce, and remarriage are a part of the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus contrasts the ‘letter of the law’ that the scribes and Pharisees taught concerning God’s commandments with the true ‘spirit’ of God’s commandments. The scribes and Pharisees believed that they were sufficiently righteous if they just observed the letter of the law according to their man-made rules. If they didn’t actually take someone’s physical life, they thought they were innocent with respect to the command against murder. Or if they hadn’t slept with another man’s wife, they thought they were innocent with respect to the command against adultery.
But Jesus calls His disciples to a righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees (Matt. 5:20). He calls them to obey the true spirit of God’s commandments. He taught that, unless someone refrains from being resentfully angry toward another, or from calling them names, or from despising them in their heart, then they are guilty of murder in the heart. He taught that, unless someone refrained from lusting after another woman in his heart, he was guilty of adultery in the heart. And the same sort of thing is going on in this morning’s passage regarding marriage.
God calls people to faithfulness in their commitment to the covenant of marriage. But again, the scribes and Pharisees were focused on the letter of the law and not its true spirit. In the previous passage, Matthew 5:27-30, Christ corrected the Pharisees’ view on adultery saying that if one lusted in his heart, he had already committed adultery. Here in Matthew 5:31-32, he corrects their permissive view of divorce which also resulted in adultery.
As Jesus has done with murder and adultery, He first states the error that was being taught about marriage and divorce.
1. The wrong view of marriage and divorce (Matt. 5:31).
Jesus taught, “Furthermore it has been said, “Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce” (Matt. 5:31). Most scholars believe that the scribes and Pharisees drew this principle from Deuteronomy 24:1-4. In that passage, it says,
When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, when she has departed from his house, and goes and becomes another man’s wife, if the latter husband detests her and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her as his wife, then her former husband who divorced her must not take her back to be his wife after she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the LORD, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance (Deut. 24:1-4).
The point of this Old Testament passage was to regulate remarriage in the case where a man divorces his wife. It basically says, that if a man and wife are married, and he finds some indecency in her, and he gives her divorce papers and sends her away, and if she goes and marries another man who finds the same problem and he sends her away, then the first husband can’t have her back, because she has been defiled. That passage is not teaching about the act of divorce, but rather it is teaching that divorce causes adultery.
The rabbis and scribes read into that passage that God was only concerned that in their divorce, they should be sure and give a certificate. They taught from this passage that if a man simply gave his wife a legal certificate of divorce, that was all that was required for the marriage bond to be broken. A certificate of divorce is mentioned twice in it, but its importance to the point of this passage is only incidental. A certificate of divorce was a way of providing a woman with a valid document that certified that a divorce from her former husband had legally occurred. But from that, the scribes and Pharisees developed the principle that whoever wished to divorce his wife is commanded to simply give her a certificate of divorce; and that was sufficient to break the marriage bond. Such a man was then free to marry another if he wished. Jesus is going to show that they missed the whole point and were twisting scripture to excuse their sin.
Their scripture twisting becomes clear when we look at the other passage in Matthew where Jesus teaches about marriage and divorce. It seems there was a long-standing debate among the Jewish rabbis in our Lord’s day about this subject of divorce that may have been behind this interpretation of the scribes and Pharisees. We read about it in Matthew 19; “Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these sayings, that He departed from Galilee and came to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them there. The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?’” (Matt. 19:1-3).
You see, there were two main schools of thought on this and they both looked back to the words of that Deuteronomy 24 passage that spoke of a man divorcing his wife because he had found “some uncleanness” in her. The literal meaning of the Hebrew phrase was “some nakedness“; and it ordinarily meant some kind of sexual immorality. The teaching of one famous rabbi had been to follow that understanding somewhat literally. According to this school, divorce could only happen in the case of some kind of sexual unfaithfulness being found in her. The teaching of another famous rabbi, however, had been that the words “some uncleanness” should be understood in a much broader way; that is, that a husband could present his wife with a divorce for anything about her that the husband found to be ‘unseemly’ or ‘embarrassing’ even if she simply spoiled the cooking. Another rabbi took that broader interpretation even further; interpreting the phrase about the woman who “finds no favor” in her husband’s “eyes” to mean a divorce was allowable if the husband found another woman to be more attractive than her.[4] As you can imagine, the broader interpretation had come to rule the day. But in Deuteronomy 24 God was not saying a husband could send a wife away for embarrassing him, He was merely pointing out that that is why most women were being sent away, and that was causing adultery.
Jesus’ answer is very instructive to us. They asked if it was allowable to divorce one’s wife for any reason, but He answered them by pointing them back to God’s original intention in marriage. He said, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matt. 19:4-6). The Pharisees were preoccupied with the grounds for divorce; Jesus with the institution of marriage.[5] He emphasized that the real issue wasn’t divorce, but commitment to the covenant of marriage.
Jesus took them back to Genesis 1 and 2 to see marriage as God had originally designed it at creation. God’s plan was to make human beings “male and female.” God intentionally made two different genders. Adam was created prior to Eve. As God surveyed His creation, He knew that it was not good for Adam to be alone. God chose to create a wife, for Adam. Gen.2:18 says, “And the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.’” God made the woman as one “corresponding to, agreeing with, a counterpart, opposite and equal to” the man.
God’s purpose for marriage is that “a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24; Matt. 19:5). God’s design was for them to come together in marriage and create the family. They were to leave father and mother because the relationship with their spouse took priority over any other human relationship. A man was to cleave to his wife. This literally has the idea of “sticking like glue.” It reveals an intentional desire to unite as one. This “one flesh” union includes their physical union which results in procreation, but it also involves a uniting of their whole selves: heart, soul, mind, and body. They are to share the same goals and work together as one for the common good of the family. Married couples no longer operate independently. They are one in the eyes of God.
And then Jesus added a comment about the permanence of marriage, “Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matt. 19:6). Marriage is to be permanent because it is God Himself who joins the husband and wife in marriage, and no one, not even themselves have the authority to break that covenant.
At this point in Matthew 19, the Pharisees raised a question: “Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?” (Matt. 19:7) And this is where they erred. The Pharisees called Moses’ provision for divorce a command; Jesus called it a concession to the hardness of human hearts.[6] Moses never “commanded” divorce in that passage, but only regulated it. They not only emphasized the letter of the law over the spirit; they didn’t even have the letter of the law right! The Pharisees taught that divorce was fine, so long as you did it the proper way and gave the woman the right paperwork.
However, Jesus stressed to them that, even in the case of unfaithfulness, divorce wasn’t “commanded”. It was only “permitted”. Jesus told them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery” (Matt. 19:8-9).
It was not God’s intention that divorce occur. It was only permitted because of the hardness of their sinful hearts. And even then, it was only permitted in the case of sexual sin. God’s great example is not divorce, nor is it hard-heartedness. His great example is one of tender-heartedness, pursuing grace, forgiveness, and reconciliation; because He is a God of commitment to the covenant bond of love.
The Pharisees thought that a simple letter of divorce was sufficient to end the bond of marriage. They thought divorce was okay for any reason, so long as you make it legal. But Jesus shows that this clearly was not so. This leads us, then, to . . .
2. Jesus’ view on divorce and remarriage (Matt. 5:32).
Jesus says in our passage this morning, “But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.” Here, Jesus is teaching that very same truth that the Old Testament taught—that divorce causes adultery. He is teaching us that a husband and a wife are joined together by a bond that is permanent and indissoluble. They may obtain a legal document of divorce from the governing authorities, they may separate from one another, and they may even become married to someone else; but before God, their marriage bond remains unbroken. This is why they are said to commit adultery and violate the indissoluble bond of marriage, even after obtaining a legal divorce, if they become joined to another.
You see, the marriage bond may be viewed as legally broken as a result of a divorce, but in the eyes of God, it’s still intact. And so, if a man divorces his wife in a way that is contrary to God’s law, he places her in a very vulnerable position; so that if she marries another man, the husband has led his own wife to commit adultery. And the man who marries her has married a woman who is still in a bond of marriage; and so, he too commits adultery. And if the first husband who had put away his wife then turns around and marries another, he too commits adultery.
And please understand what Jesus is doing in saying this. He is taking the matter away from the mere letter of the law, and on to the true spirit of the law. He shows that all parties involved become guilty of adultery; because, from the standpoint of the true spirit of the law, a bond of marriage has not truly been severed. And this is wrong because God is calling us to follow His own example of covenant faithfulness toward those He has committed Himself to.
Now, you are probably wondering, “But didn’t Jesus give an exception?” Didn’t Jesus say, “for any reason except sexual immorality”? The Greek word for “sexual immorality” is porneia, a very broad term that can refer to any kind of sexual immorality. Our English words fornication and pornography stem from this Greek word. It can certainly include marital unfaithfulness; but it also can include all other kinds of sexual sin.
That is the only reason Jesus gives that permits a person to get a divorce. Why? Because in the case of sexual immorality the marriage covenant has already been broken. Marriage is a permanent covenant in which God commanded the husband and wife to honor it for the rest of their lives. However, if one of the two breaks that covenant, God does not hold the innocent part responsible, and He permits divorce. But please know this: even in this case, God does not require divorce, He only permits it. What Jesus is saying is that if a man divorces his wife for anything less than sexual immorality, he then causes her to commit adultery and commits adultery himself.
This “exception” is an act of mercy from God toward those who are trapped in a situation in which their spouse is aggressively and habitually violating the marriage vow. But let’s remember: To focus on this exception clause and make it the key point of this passage is to commit the same error as the scribes and Pharisees had committed with respect to the letter of the law.
Some people rationalize that since they are in a marriage they do not like, the best thing to do would be to go ahead and commit adultery, then they can have their new relationship with a new marriage. They conclude that God will forgive them, and they can go on with life. After all, that would surely be better than being stuck in this awful present relationship for the rest of their lives. Would it? To my mind, that’s the ultimate expression of clinging to the mere ‘letter’ of the law and completely missing the ‘spirit’!
Jesus is calling His disciples to something higher than the mere letter of the law. He is not trying to teach them when they may or may not divorce. Rather, He is calling them to live the spirit of the law in their relationship to their spouses, to imitate the committed love of His own covenant-keeping Father toward them.
God is faithful to His covenant commitments. He not only stays committed to those He binds to Himself, but He also seeks to protect and defend them and advance the relationship of love He has with them. And we are to do the same. Wives are to behave toward their husbands as the church is to behave toward Christ. The wife is to submit to her husband out of reverence and love toward the Lord, just as the church is subject to Christ (Eph. 5:22-23). Husbands are to behave toward their wives as Christ behaves toward the church. The husband is to love his wife and give himself for her; sanctifying her and cleansing her ‘with the washing of water by the word’; seeking to beautify her and make her glorious for himself, just as Jesus does for the church (Eph. 5:24-28). We are to become so deeply moved by the love of God in His commitment toward us, that we will behave in the same way toward our spouses.
This leads us to . . .
3. Practical applications of Jesus’ teaching.
Now, let me suggest some practical implications of what Jesus taught here. Some will read these words of the Lord and realize that, after coming to Him and placing their faith in Him, they are now in a marriage that they entered disobediently. They divorced without biblical cause, being still bound to a husband or wife; and now, having entered into a marriage with another, they find that they are in a marriage that resulted in adultery. And of course, Deuteronomy 24:1-4 teaches us that it’s an “abomination before the Lord” to now divorce and go back to our former spouses. What does someone do in a case like that?
First, if this is the case you find yourself in, then it means you’re a sinner. And I hope that you know by now that, in the church of Jesus Christ, you are one among many others who are also recovering from their sins. And the good news is that Jesus died on the cross to take our sins away. So first, I would urge you to hold tightly to what the Bible says; that, “if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Confess the sin of having violated the covenant bond of marriage, and by becoming unbiblically joined to another. If you have repented and confessed your sin, God does not see you in a continual state of adultery. He forgives us and cleanses us.
Second, I would assert what Paul said to many others in the church of Corinth that found themselves to be in complicated marital situations – “Brethren, let each one remain with God in that state in which he was called” (1 Cor. 7:24). Don’t go back now and try to unscramble the egg; because that will only result in more sin. Having confessed your sin, trust in Christ’s forgiving grace, and commit yourself completely to God in your current marriage. Live and behave toward your spouse as God behaves in His covenant bond of love toward us.
Finally, if you are in a marriage that is difficult, and you are feeling the temptation and pressure to separate or divorce, then follow the example of God’s covenant commitment to love those He binds to Himself. As Paul writes, “Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:31-32). Seek reconciliation, not divorce.
John Stott shares:
So, speaking personally as a Christian pastor, whenever somebody asks to speak with me about divorce, I have now for some years steadfastly refused to do so. I have made the rule never to speak with anybody about divorce, until I have first spoken with him (or her) about two other subjects, namely marriage and reconciliation. Sometimes a discussion on these topics makes a discussion of the other unnecessary. At the very least, it is only when a person has understood and accepted God’s view of marriage and God’s call to reconciliation that a possible context has been created within which one may regretfully go on to talk about divorce.[7]
Honor your marriage, honor the covenant with your spouse, love and forgive one another, and work towards reconciliation. God hates divorce, but He does not hate divorced people. We have all committed adultery in our hearts, and we are all in need of God’s grace and forgiveness. Just because society says something is ok, doesn’t mean God says it is ok. And if you have offended Him, you must seek His forgiveness. Praise God, He offers us that forgiveness through Jesus Christ His Son.
The Bible tells us that “God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). We were utterly unworthy of that love. We were in rebellion against Him. And yet, He loved us enough to purchase us for Himself through the sacrifice of the cross. Jesus says, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand” (John 10:27-29). God is committed in love to the people He binds to Himself. He will never cease to love them. He will never let them go. Our God is a God of faithful and committed love.
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[1] John R. W. Stott and John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): Christian Counter-Culture, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 92.
[2] John R. W. Stott and John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): Christian Counter-Culture, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 92.
[3] Greg Allen, Honoring the Sacred Bond, https://www.bethanybible.org/archive/2004/102404.htm accessed 11/19/2022
[4] Cohen, Everyman’s Talmud (New York; E.P. Dutton & Co., 1949), p. 167.
[5] John R. W. Stott and John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): Christian Counter-Culture, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 94.
[6] John R. W. Stott and John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): Christian Counter-Culture, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 94.
[7] John R. W. Stott and John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): Christian Counter-Culture, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 98–99.
