Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: Divorce; Setting the Record Straight

Matthew 5:31-32, “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’  But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. 

OK; what are we saying here?  We’re saying that, with the exception of an extramarital affair (and we’ll look at another exception after this), divorce and the subsequent union with another partner, is adultery, adultery being the union with any sexual partner other than your spouse.  OK, those are the technical bits. 

Now, here’s the context:  The Law of Moses regulated divorce.  Deuteronomy chapter 25 speaks of a provision for divorce where indecency is found in the spouse.  Jesus will interpret this indecency as adultery, there has been an extramarital affair.  And in such cases the offended party may give a letter of divorce to their spouse and send them away.  But here are a few things to note about this provision.  It does not condone divorce, nor does it permit divorce for any reason.  Nor does it allow for the reunion of the marriage if the spouse has gone and married someone else.  The provision here in the Law of Moses has a very limited application.  However, the Rabbis in Jesus’ day would go on to apply this provision for almost any reason.  For example, there was one rabbinic school that taught that if a woman burned your dinner, there is a reason to divorce here right there.  What was the result of this kind of loose application of the Law?  It resulted in rampant divorce and remarriage.  It resulted in broken homes, the crumbling of the foundations of society, and in the dishonoring of God among his people.  In Jesus’ day, this practice had produced much the same kind of situation we see in our communities today.  So, this is the context that Jesus is speaking into.  He has come to set the record straight about marriage and divorce.  And we can let him do that for us today as well.        

Let’s go to another place in Matthew to delve deeper into Jesus’ teaching on the subject and I think it will help us round things out.   

Matthew 19:3-9, And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?”  He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?  So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”  They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?”  He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed 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.”

Jesus is not saying anything different from what he said in his Sermon on the Mount, but he is saying more!  He’s showing us God’s original plan for marriage.  From the beginning, God joined one man and one woman together for life.  They join to become one flesh.  This is why Jesus gives the command: “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”  This is God’s plan and his ideal for marriage.  This is the way it’s supposed to be.  And it’s the way the world works best.  The Pharisees’ reply to Jesus was, “Then why was divorce permitted!?”  Jesus’ answer points to the problem.  It’s because of sin.  It’s because of the hardness of the heart and the brokenness of the world.  Sin exists, and this is why we have broken relationships. 

So, the command is the same, “Stop it!”  Stop the rampant divorce for whatever reason!  Divorce isn’t the answer for your unhappiness.  It isn’t the answer for your anxiety.  And it’s not the answer for a troubled marriage!  There’s only one, actually two, provisions made in Scripture for divorce. 

Speaking of that second exception, let’s talk about that.  It comes from 1 Corinthians 7:12-15, “To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her.  If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him.  For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.  But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace.”

What’s going on here?  This is a context where a person comes to faith in Christ, but they have an unbelieving spouse.  This is a lot more common than you might think.  I’ve had personal experience counseling those who were in such a situation.  They asked me the question, “Well, since I am a Christian now and my wife is not, should I get a divorce?”  The counsel from Scripture is, if your spouse consents to be with you, do not pursue a divorce.  The unbelieving spouse and your children are better off having you in their lives.  Don’t divorce! 

However, if your commitment to the Lord is unacceptable to your spouse and they desire to leave and remarry, Paul says you are not bound.  God has called you to peace.  Now, there are some differences in interpretation at this point.  Some interpret this as, the believer who has been abandoned is free to remarry a believing spouse.  Others interpret this to mean the abandoned believer is free from the marriage but is not free to remarry. 

On this, I stand with the former interpretation.  I believe this is the majority interpretation among evangelical Christians, that is, if a believer has been abandoned by an unbelieving spouse, they are free to marry a believing spouse.  I personally don’t see how a believer who has done nothing wrong could be condemned to live a celibate life and be barred from the enjoyment of a godly marriage.  They aren’t in their situation because they’ve sinned, but because they’ve been abandoned.

Now, I could take you through 100 different hypothetical scenarios and tell you how I would handle these, but I’m not going to do that.  The world is just too broken and there’s too much variation from one situation to the next.  But my hope is that this would be clear to you.  I hope this is a good introduction for you.  All good counsel about marriage and also trouble in marriage has to start with this.  It has to begin with the sanctity of marriage.  Marriage was created by God to glorify God.  It’s the basis of the institutions that form our societies.  Divorce messes things up. 

I’m going to end this episode like this.  If you have any questions about this subject, I’d be more than happy to speak with you.  There is a lot of brokenness out there.  Sin exists.  But, Jesus died for sin.  And there’s grace in his presence.  There was once a woman from Samaria who had been married 5 times, and she was living in an impure relationship with a man who wasn’t even her husband.  Not only did Jesus not reject her, but he went out of his way to find her.  There is transformation in Christ.  There is grace in his presence for past sin.  He’s willing and able to help us to repent of present sin, restore us, and reconcile us to the Father.  We can always come to Jesus.