16  Jesus’ Teaching on  Divorce  (19:1-12)

And it came about that when Jesus had finished these words, He departed from Galilee, and came into the region of Judea beyond the Jordan; and great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them there.

And some Pharisees came to Him, testing Him, and saying, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause at all?” And He answered and said, “Have you not read, that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh’? Consequently they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate and divorce her?” He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” The disciples said to Him, “If the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry.” But He said to them, “Not all men can accept this statement, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it.” (19:1-12)

Some years ago a journalist for a national news magazine asked rhetorically, “Are there any persons left in the land who have not heard a friend or a child or a parent describe the agony of divorce?” Divorce has become pandemic, to the point that hardly a person can be found who has not been affected by it either directly or indirectly. Many marriages, including a tragic number of Christian marriages, seem to be little more than a socially recognized battleground where warfare between the spouses is the rule and harmony the exception.

Each year in the United States there are well over one million divorces, and beneath the rubble of those numbing statistics lie the crushed lives of men, women, and children. For every million divorces, there are two million adults and several more million children who are directly involved. None of them escapes suffering and damage, no matter how amicable the divorce may be. Nearly every state has enacted “no fault” divorce laws, making divorce almost as easy as marriage. It is not surprising that the largest caseloads in civil courts today relate to family disputes.

In past years in this nation the vast majority of marriages held together, and divorce was difficult and rare. The reasons for that stability are not hard to find. First was the family moral force. Not only the immediate family but the extended family of grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins was the center of personal loyalty and activity and usually had a tradition of moral and religious convictions. It was these intimate loved ones that all family members, adults as well as children, knew they could depend on for help, comfort, encouragement, and security. But as moral permissiveness, feminism, humanism, easier mobility, and the disruptive and worldly influences of television, movies, and other media began to undermine the family, divorce rapidly increased. The number of single adults living apart from any close family relationship has also increased dramatically, adding to the decrease of family support, encouragement, and influence.

The second reason for family stability in the past was community expectation. Society in general, and the legal system in particular, recognized and strongly supported and protected the primacy of the family as well as a biblically-based morality. Strict laws made divorce difficult, and community ethics and peer pressure made the stigma of it severe.

The third and strongest of forces that helped maintain family stability was the teaching of the church. Until modern times, every branch of Christendom—Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant—strongly supported family life and just as strongly opposed divorce. But as their constituencies pled for more concessions to worldly standards and practices, church bodies acquiesced, and the family has suffered the bitter consequences of those compromises.

In the name of Christian love, some individuals and groups not only condone divorce but insist that it is sometimes God’s will. A well-known entertainer claimed that her divorce was justified because her husband was a detriment to her career. She claimed that she did not believe her divorce related to her religious beliefs in any significant way and that, even if the divorce were wrong, God loved her in spite of it. In other words, it made no real difference to God. The final evidence given to justify the divorce was the fact that she and her husband would be happier as divorced friends than as married enemies.

Even when Christians go to Scripture for guidance concerning divorce and remarriage, they often do so with preconceptions and predispositions that make responsible interpretation impossible. Some people consult Scripture solely to find justification for views they already hold. Others fall into the trap either of adding to or taking from what it teaches. To justify divorce, some people lower the biblical standard in the name of love. To try to stem the tide of divorce and promote spirituality, others raise the standard higher than the Bible teaches. But that which is contrary to Scripture can never be either loving or spiritual. A human standard may be more lenient or more restrictive than Scripture, but it can never be better. When God’s Word is ignored or perverted in any area, tragedy is always the consequence. The matter of marriage and divorce standards is no exception.

The first sin of mankind was not marital, but it was committed within the framework of marriage. God created man and woman equal in many ways, but He gave them clearly different roles. Man was to be the provider and leader and woman his helper in a perfect, balanced, and majestic coregency over all the earth (Gen. 1:27-28). The man’s headship and the woman’s submission were blended in a loving interdependence that allowed them to multiply and fill the earth together, subdue the earth together, and rule the earth together. But because Eve did not consult Adam, her head and protector, when temptation came she easily succumbed to Satan’s wiles. And when Adam forfeited his role of headship and willingly followed her lead, he also succumbed to sin.

As a consequence of that sin, God cursed Eve and all other women to pain in childbirth and cursed Adam and all other men to the hardship of laboring for their food and sustenance (Gen. 3:16-19). In addition to that, because the God-given harmony between man and woman had been broken, God also placed a curse upon their relationship to each other. Because they reversed their roles, with Eve usurping the place of leadership and Adam submitting to the place of follower, God destined them to continual conflict.

God declared to Eve, “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (Gen. 3:16b). The desire spoken of here does not refer to her original God-given desire for loving submission and companionship, which she already had before the Fall. Her desire would no longer be to submit to his rule but to usurp it. The use of the Hebrew word translated “desire” in this text relates to seeking control and dominance. It is the same term used in the next chapter in the same way to describe sin’s personified desire to corrupt and gain control over Cain (4:7).

Just as the fallen woman’s role of submission was subverted, so was the fallen man’s role of headship. His rule over her would no longer be benevolent and selfless but overbearing and selfish. It was at the Fall that both feminism and male chauvinism were born, when women began to seek supremacy and men began to be suppressive.

Because men are naturally stronger, male chauvinism has been the dominant of those two perversions throughout history. In many ancient cultures, including Jewish, women were frequently treated more like animals than human beings, and wives were treated more like possessions to be bought and traded than partners to be loved and cherished.

But God did not change His standard because men changed theirs. “I, the Lord, do not change,” He declared (Mal. 3:6). Just prior to that declaration God had given a stinging rebuke to Jewish men who “dealt treacherously” with their wives. He Himself was witness between husband and wife when they made their marital covenant, as the One who ordains all marriage and every marriage. Therefore “‘I hate divorce,’ says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘and him who covers his garment with wrong’ ” (Mal. 2:14-16).

The prophet Hosea pictured the epitome of God-ordained and God-empowered marital love. He was a living illustration of God’s undying love for His people Israel. The prophet married a woman named Gomer, who became an adulterous prostitute. He had children by her and continued to love, care for, and protect her despite her persistent unfaithfulness. He even bought her back from the slave market after she had sunk to the pits of immorality. His life with Gomer was surely not without times of anger and resentment, but he forgave her and did whatever was necessary to bring her back to himself. His love for Gomer and his commitment to her as his wife, like God’s love for and covenant with His people Israel, was exceedingly gracious and forgiving.

By the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, God expects His redeemed people in Christ to exemplify the original beauty and mutuality of the marriage relationship as well as the grace of forgiveness. “Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord,” Paul declares. “For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.” The divinely ordained and exemplified responsibility of the husband is just as clear: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her” (Eph. 5:18, 22-25).

The two key attitudes in a successful marriage are self-denial and self-giving, both of which are contrary to human nature but made possible to Christians through the Holy Spirit. The husband and wife who are walking in the Spirit will be walking in unselfish humility and forgiving, restoring love that always puts the other first.

In Matthew 19:1-12 Jesus gives a clear discourse on God’s revelation about marriage and divorce.

THE BACKGROUND AND SETTING

And it came about that when Jesus had finished these words, He departed from Galilee, and came into the region of Judea beyond the Jordan; and great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them there. (19:1-2)

These two verses mark an especially significant transition in Jesus’ ministry. For about two years He had been preaching, teaching, and healing in Galilee in northern Palestine. For the last two months He had concentrated almost entirely on private instruction to the Twelve.

To mark the end of each of Jesus’ major discourses Matthew used a phrase such as when Jesus had finished these words (cf. 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 26:1). In the present passage, the phrase these words refers to the Lord’s discourse on childlikeness recorded in chapter 18 and given to the disciples just before He left Capernaum. At the end of that discourse, He departed from Galilee.

As Jesus had already announced to the Twelve, it was necessary that He “go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day” (16:21). He would not, however, go directly south to Jerusalem but rather east and then south by way of the region of Judea beyond the Jordan and Jericho (20:29).

This region later came to be called Perea, a name taken from the Greek peran, which means beyond. Lying to the east of the Jordan River, this territory which had long been sparsely populated was now well settled. Because the Passover time was nearing, Jesus would be able to minister not only to the residents of Perea but also to the many Jews traveling through there as they also made their annual Passover pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

As Jesus preached and taught in Perea (see Mark 10:1), great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them there. His ministry in that region is recorded in Matthew 19-20, and as always, by demonstrating His power and His compassion, Jesus’ healing miracles attested to His divine, messianic credentials.

THE ATTACK

And some Pharisees came to Him, testing Him, and saying, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause at all?” (19:3)

Almost from the beginning of His ministry (see Matt. 9:11), Jesus had been criticized by the Pharisees, who even before this time had become His arch-enemies and planned to kill Him (12:14). They were the largest and most influential party in the Jewish religious establishment, whose unbiblical traditions and hypocritical lifestyles were the antithesis of true righteousness (5:20). They despised Jesus because He undermined their false teaching and exposed their deceitful living.

Therefore when they came to Him, this group of religious leaders obviously was asking questions testing Him in the hope that He would fail publicly. They wanted to discredit Him in the eyes of the people so that He would lose His popularity and be easier for them to destroy. This time their test question was well thought out, carefully calculated to place Him at odds with Moses, the great giver of God’s law

For many centuries divorce had been a volatile issue for debate among the Jews. As women came to be treated almost like merchandise to be bought, sold, or traded, divorce inevitably became common. Because of their spurious, self-serving interpretations of the Mosaic law to justify their lusts for other women, the Pharisees had become the leading exponents of easy divorce. They were known for frequently divorcing their wives for any cause at all to marry another woman and for teaching that the practice not only was permissible but sometimes mandatory.

At the other extreme was an opposing and much less influential faction of rabbis, represented by a certain Shammai, who maintained that divorce was never permissible. That narrow-minded, hard-line view not only was unpopular but, like the liberal position of the Pharisees, was also unscriptural.

Representing the liberal Pharisaic view was rabbi Hillel, who had died only about twenty years before Jesus began His ministry. He taught that a man could divorce his wife for the most trivial of reasons, for such things as taking her hair down in public or talking to other men and even for burning the bread or putting too much salt in the food. For her to speak ill of her mother-in-law or to be infertile were more than sufficient grounds for divorce.

From His previous teaching, the Pharisees knew Jesus did not hold to such a liberalized view of divorce. They had heard Him say that “everyone who divorces his wife, except for the cause of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (Matt. 5:32). They now expected Him to take the same stand and thereby alienate and intimidate the many other Jews besides themselves who accepted the idea of divorce for any cause at all. They hoped to discredit Him by identifying Him in the minds of the people with the narrow and intolerant view of the Shammai school.

Ultimately, of course, they wanted to destroy Him. The clever Pharisees were well aware that Perea, where Jesus now ministered, was under the rule of Herod Antipas. He was the tetrarch who had John the Baptist imprisoned and eventually beheaded for condemning his unlawful marriage to Herodias, whom he had seduced away from his brother Philip (see Matt. 14:3-12). No doubt the Pharisees hoped that, by denouncing divorce for any cause at all, Jesus would thereby publicly condemn Herod’s adulterous relationship just as John had done—and suffer John’s fate.

THE ANSWER

And He answered and said, “Have you not read, that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh’? Consequently they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” (19:4-6)

Instead of giving a direct yes or no, Jesus went back beyond rabbinical tradition, and even further back than the law of Moses, all the way to God’s creation of man.

Jesus’ opening words had nothing directly to do with the question of divorce but were a sarcastic and biting rebuke to the learned Pharisees, who prided themselves on their great knowledge of Scripture. Responding to their question with a question of His own, Jesus was in effect asking, “Have you not read the book of Genesis? Are you not aware of what God Himself declared at the very creation? Don’t you know the very first thing God said about marriage? Don’t you recall that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh?’” By quoting from Genesis 1:27 and 2:24, Jesus was saying, “Your argument is not with Me, but with God.” His words must have stung the proud, self-righteous Pharisees, who considered themselves to be the supreme authorities on Scripture.

From those two verses, taken from the first two chapters of Scripture, the Lord presented four reasons why divorce was never in God’s plan. First, He said, God created them from the beginning . . . male and female. In the Hebrew text of Genesis 1:27, both male and female are in the emphatic position, giving the sense of “the one male and the one female.” In other words, God did not create a group of males and females who could pick and choose mates as it suited them. There were no spares or options. There was no provision, or even possibility, for multiple or alternate spouses. There were only one man and one woman in the beginning, and for that very obvious reason, divorce and remarriage was not an option.

Second, Jesus said, “For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife.” Since Adam and Eve had no parents to leave, the leaving of father and mother was a principle to be projected into and applied to all future generations.

The Hebrew word (dbaq) behind cleave refers to a strong bonding together of objects and often was used to represent gluing or cementing. Job used the word when he spoke of his bones clinging to his skin and flesh (Job 19:20; cf. Ps. 102:5). It could also have the connotation of following closely. The two ideas were, in fact, sometimes carried together, as in Ruth’s clinging to Naomi (Ruth (1:14) and the men of Judah remaining steadfast to David (2 Sam. 20:2). Several times the term is used of the Israelites’ holding to the Lord in love and obedience (Deut. 10:20; 11:22; 13:4; Josh. 22:5; 23:8).

The idea of close bonding and interrelationship is seen in the modern Hebrew word for marriage, kiddushin, a word closely related to the terms for holy and sanctified, which have the basic meaning of being set apart and consecrated. This meaningful word for marriage beautifully expresses the consecration of husband and wife to each other as well as to God. Marriage as God has always intended it to be involves the total commitment and consecration of husbands and wives to each other and to Him as the divine author of their union and witness to their covenant.

The third reason Jesus gives for divorce not being in God’s plan is that, in marriage, the two . . . become one flesh. As Paul declares in 1 Corinthians 7:4, spouses belong to each other in the physical relationship of marriage: “The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.”

“Consequently” Jesus said, “when a man and woman are joined in marriage they are no longer two, but one flesh.” They are therefore indivisible and inseparable, except through death. In God’s eyes they become the total possession of each other, one in mind and spirit, in goals and direction, in emotion and will. When they have a child it becomes the perfect emblem and demonstration of their oneness, because that child is a unique product of the fusion of two people into one flesh and carries the combined traits of both parents.

But it is not, as some foolishly argue, that becoming one flesh in the sex act is what constitutes marriage. If that were true, there would be no such thing as fornication, because as soon as an unmarried man and woman engaged in the sex act they would be automatically married, rather than guilty of wickedness. Under the Mosaic law, the act of fornication obligated the man to marry the woman or pay compensation to her father (Ex. 22:16-17), further indicating that the sexual act itself is not the equivalent of marriage.

On the other hand, the act of adultery, shattering as it is to the marriage relationship, does not in itself dissolve a marriage. Marriage is a mutual covenant, a God-ordained obligation between a man and a woman to lifelong companionship. When rebuking the Israelites for their adultery and frequent divorces, the Lord declared that by divorcing his wife a man “dealt treacherously” with her, “though she is your companion and your wife by covenant” (Mal. 2:14-16). In God’s eyes, every wife is a “wife by covenant,” never merely a wife by fornication, convenience, or whim.

The fourth reason Jesus gives for divorce not being in God’s perfect design is that, in the creative sense, every marriage is made in heaven. From the very first marriage of Adam and Eve, God has joined together every husband and wife. Marriage is first of all God’s institution and God’s doing, regardless of how men may corrupt it and deny or disregard His part in it. Whether it is between faithful believers or between rank pagans or atheists, or whether it was arranged by the parents or by the mutual desire and consent of the bride and groom, marriage as a general social relationship is above all the plan and work of God for the procreation, pleasure, and preservation of the race. Whether it is entered into wisely or foolishly, sincerely or insincerely, selfishly or unselfishly, with great or little commitment, God’s design for every marriage is that it be permanent until the death of one of the spouses.

God engineered man and woman to complement, support, and give joy to each other through the mutual commitment of the marriage bond. It is by His divine hand that they are created to fulfill each other, encourage each other, strengthen each other, and produce children as fruit of their love for each other. Whether they recognize it or not, every couple who has enjoyed the companionship, happiness, and fulfillment of marriage has experienced the miraculous blessing of God. There is no good thing in marriage that is not derived from Him.

No child can be conceived by the procreative act of a man and woman who is not first conceived by the creative act of God. Every marriage and every child is a creation of God, and therefore divorce and abortion share this tragically evil common denominator: they kill a creation of God.

To destroy a marriage is to destroy a creation of Almighty God. “What therefore God has joined together,” Jesus warned, “let no man separate.” The word separate is from , which in the context of marriage always carried the idea of divorce, not simply temporary separation. It is translated “leave” in 1 Corinthians 7:10, where Paul is clearly speaking of divorce.

Jesus’ point is that marriage is always the work of God, whereas divorce is always the work of man, and that no man—whoever he is or wherever he is or for whatever reason he may have—has the right to separate what God has joined together. A pagan husband and wife who divorce break God’s law just as surely as believers who divorce. In the ultimate sense, every marriage is ordained of God and every divorce is not. At best, divorce and remarriage is only permitted by the Lord, never commended and certainly never commanded, as some of Jesus’ contemporary rabbis taught. Jesus said that God permits it only on the basis of sexual immorality and even then as a gracious concession to man’s sinfulness (vv. 8-9). To claim, as some professing Christians do, that the Lord led them out of a marriage is to lie and to make God a liar.

Although Jesus here mentions only Genesis 1:27 and 2:24, the Old Testament is replete with other teachings about the divine sanctity and permanence of marriage. Two of the Ten Commandments—the one against the physical act of adultery (Ex. 20:14) and the one against coveting a neighbor’s wife (v. 17), which is the mental act of adultery (Matt. 5:28)—specifically protect the sanctity of marriage. Adultery was such a heinous sin that its punishment was death (Lev. 20:10; Deut. 22:22-24). God made no legal provision for divorce. Adultery could bring the end of a marriage, but by execution, not divorce.

THE ARGUMENT

They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate and divorce her?” (19:7)

No doubt anticipating Jesus’ appeal to Scripture, the Pharisees were prepared with what they considered to be a scriptural rebuttal. They were so intent on defending their own fleshly standards and on trying to discredit and destroy Jesus that they totally disregarded what He had just said. They were not interested in the divine standard for marriage God had established at creation but in defending their own low, self-centered standards. They were classic examples of the natural man looking for moral and spiritual loopholes to accommodate his sin.

To give the appearance of divine support for their liberal divorce customs, they appealed to Moses, seeking to pit Jesus against God’s great law giver. Because it is the only passage in the five books of Moses that mentions any grounds for divorce, the passage to which the Pharisees referred had to be Deuteronomy 24:1-4. But that passage clearly does not command divorce, as the Pharisees claimed. And all the other Pentateuch passages that mention divorce simply acknowledge its existence (see Lev 21:7, 14; Deut. 22:19, 29).

A careful reading of the Deuteronomy 24 text shows that, far from commanding divorce, the passage does not teach about divorce at all. Moses was giving a command with regard to a particular case of remarriage. That passage neither commends nor condemns the reason and procedure for the divorce mentioned there. It states that the reason was “indecency,” without detailing what that might involve, and it then mentions the giving of a certificate of divorce, without commenting on the propriety of that procedure. The only command in the passage relates to the issue of remarriage, not divorce. The command is simply that, if a divorced woman remarries and that husband divorces her or dies, her first “former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled” (v. 4). It is to that commandment regarding remarriage, not a commandment to divorce, as some have supposed, that Jesus refers here and in Mark 10:5.

Because the penalty for adultery was death, the indecency mentioned here obviously referred to some kind of sexual looseness or lewdness that came short of adultery. And it was because such indecency, vile as it might have been, was not sufficient grounds for divorce that the divorced wife was defiled by remarriage and could not be taken back by her first husband. Because her divorce to her first husband had no sufficient grounds and thus was invalid, she became an adulteress, and therefore defiled, when she married again. That is why John the Baptist declared that Herod and Herodias were living in adultery. In God’s sight, she was still “the wife of his brother Philip” (Matt. 14:3-4). For the first husband to take back a defiled woman would be unholy.

THE AFFIRMATION

He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” (19:8-9)

After clarifying that the Mosaic law did not commend, much less command, divorce, Jesus affirmed that it permitted divorce under certain conditions. Speaking to them as representatives of their fleshly forefathers, Jesus told the Pharisees that it was only because of your hardness of heart that Moses permitted you to divorce your wives.

As noted above, even the scriptural permission for divorce is implied rather than explicitly taught. In no Old Testament passage, including the Deuteronomy 24:1-4 text to which the Pharisees no doubt were referring, is specific permission for divorce given. One reason is not hard to surmise. If the Israelites so abused implied permission for divorce, how much more would they have abused explicit permission?

Because of His loving grace God did not always exact the death penalty for adultery under the Mosaic covenant. Israel’s later history is replete with instances of adultery that did not lead to execution. David was strongly rebuked and severely punished for his adultery with Bathsheba, but he was not put to death. Because of his hundreds of wives and concubines, Solomon lived in virtual unremitting adultery on the basis of the one-man, one-woman standard of Genesis 1-2. Yet, like his father David, he did not suffer the death penalty.

When the Jewish exiles returned from the seventy years of captivity in Babylon and were seeking to restore the Temple and to begin living according to God’s Word, they were brought face to face with the problem of their many intermarriages with pagan women. Consequently, under Ezra they decided they would put away their unbelieving wives and the children born of those marriages, based on “the commandment of our God” and “according to the law” (Ezra 10:3).

There is no record that this action was specifically approved by God, but lack of any condemnation implies that the resulting divorces were permitted by Him. And the historical context supports the idea that those divorces were on the grounds of adultery. Not only were all pagans of that day idolatrous, which Scripture repeatedly refers to as spiritual adultery (see, e.g., Jer. 3:8; 13:27; Ezek. 16:32), but most pagan religious systems involved gross immorality as an integral part of their rites and ceremonies. It is therefore likely that most, if not all, of the foreign wives the Israelite men had married were both physical and spiritual adulterers, thereby giving their husbands legitimate grounds for divorce.

God had taken Israel as a wife, and like Hosea’s Gomer, she too was unfaithful. Through Isaiah the Lord rebuked Israel for her spiritual adultery in worshiping pagan deities. “Where is the certificate of divorce,” He asks them rhetorically, “by which I have sent your mother away?” (Isa. 50:1). The answer, of course, was that God had not given such a certificate, because, just as Hosea with Gomer, God was not ready to put Israel away, despite her constant spiritual adultery committed against Him. She had no freedom from her relationship to God that would allow her to consummate relations with other gods.

Finally, however, by the time of Jeremiah, after pleading with His people for some 700 years to forsake idolatry and return to Him, God did something startling. “Have you seen what faithless Israel did?” He asked the prophet. “She went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and she was a harlot there. And I thought, ‘After she has done all these things, she will return to Me’; but she did not return.” Because of her unrelenting hardness of heart in persisting with her unfaithfulness, “I had sent her away,” the Lord said, “and given her a writ of divorce” (Jer. 3:6-8). It was on the basis of her spiritual adultery that God, as it were, finally gave Israel a certificate of divorce.

It is remarkable that, since the Exile and even to our present day, no significant number of Jews has been involved in idolatry. Because His people have not “married” the false gods with whom they commit spiritual adultery, just as Gomer had not married any of her lovers, God predicts that one day He will take Israel back to Himself:

“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” (Jer. 31:31-33)

In light of God’s spiritual divorce and eventual remarriage to Israel, it is surely not possible to claim that Scripture recognizes no grounds at all for divorce and remarriage, as some ancient rabbis claimed and as some Christians still claim today. God does not give us illustrations of His own righteous behavior that we cannot follow. If He finally divorced idolatrous and unrepentant Israel, after long years of forgiveness and mercy, it cannot be wrong for a man or woman to divorce a continually adulterous and unrepentant partner after long years of tolerance.

Before Joseph realized that Mary “was with child by the Holy Spirit, . . . being a righteous man, and not wanting to disgrace her, [he] desired to put her away secretly” (Matt. 1:18-19). Had his assumption about her been correct, that is, that she was pregnant by another man and therefore an adulteress, Joseph, who was only engaged to her, knew he had legitimate grounds for divorce. The engagement was by a legal and binding contract, though the union was not yet physically consummated. The context suggests that, because he was “a righteous man,” he felt he was obligated to divorce her. To protect her reputation, however, not to mention her life, he planned to do it privately.

Hardness of heart suggests the condition where adultery was prolonged and the sinning spouse was unrepentant, making reconciliation and a normal marriage relationship impossible. When an adulterous husband or wife became totally insensitive to marital fidelity, God through Moses indirectly and reluctantly permitted . . . divorce.

Reminding His adversaries again of the Genesis teaching about God’s plan for marriage, Jesus then declared that from the beginning it has not been this way. Divorce was never in God’s original, ideal design for mankind and will never be.

When a man obtains a divorce for any reason except immorality, and marries another woman, he commits adultery. When giving the same basic teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus emphasized that the divorced wife and her new husband would be led to commit adultery. The man “who divorces his wife, except for the cause of unchastity,” He said, “makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (Matt. 5:32). In other words, the message Jesus wanted to get across to those exponents of easy divorce and remarriage is that illegitimate divorce followed by remarriage makes adulterers of everyone involved.

Porneia, here translated immorality, is a broad term that encompasses all illicit sexual activity. In the context of marriage it always constituted adultery, which, by definition, is illicit sex by a married person. The verb form of the term is used by Paul to describe the immorality for which 23,000 (of the total of 24,000) Israelites were killed by a plague in one day (1 Cor. 10:8; cf. Num. 25:9). Because the majority, if not all, of those slain were probably married, porneia clearly includes adultery.

Although in this passage and in Matthew 5:32 Jesus spoke only of a man who divorces his wife, the same principle applies to a woman who divorces her husband. That situation is not mentioned by the Lord because it was virtually unheard of. Although a Jewish man could divorce his wife on the most trivial grounds, “for any cause at all” (Matt. 19:3), a Jewish woman could rarely divorce her husband even on the most serious grounds.

A divorce on any other grounds than immorality, that is, adultery by one of the spouses, is always illegitimate, regardless of which one initiates the divorce. Jesus here uses immorality and adultery synonymously. He was saying that divorce that does not result from adultery results in adultery if there is remarriage.

If God is gracious to the sinning spouse by tolerating divorce instead of requiring execution, He would surely also be gracious to the innocent spouse by permitting remarriage, which was permissible when a spouse died (cf. Rom. 7:2-3). The purpose of permitting divorce is to show mercy to the sinning spouse, not to condemn the innocent one to a lifetime of singleness and loneliness that would not be required if the Lord had the sinning partner executed. Should His grace to the sinner penalize the innocent? The Lord allows divorce in order that the adulterer might have opportunity to repent rather than be put to death. And both here and in Matthew 5:32 Jesus specifically allows remarriage by the innocent spouse in order that he or she might have opportunity to enjoy again the blessings of marriage that were destroyed by the other partner’s adultery. The qualification except for immorality clearly permits the innocent party who marries another to do so without committing adultery.

Jesus’ declaration here not only reinforced His previous teaching about divorce and remarriage but was a devastating indictment of the Pharisees who were then trying to devastate Him. During the Sermon on the Mount, and in the context of contrasting God’s true righteousness with the false and hypocritical righteousness typified by the scribes and Pharisees (Matt. 5:20), Jesus had declared that even looking on a woman lustfully constituted adultery (v. 28). Very shortly after that statement, as in the present text, Jesus then declared that divorce on any grounds but immorality also resulted in adultery when there was remarriage, as was almost always the case. The strong implication of that statement, which the self-righteous Pharisees could not have missed, was that they themselves were guilty of proliferating adultery.

It should be noted that the Holy Spirit adds one other gracious concession by also allowing divorce and remarriage as an option for a believer who is deserted by an unbeliever. (For a full treatment of this issue, see the author’s 1 Corinthians [Chicago: Moody 1984], pp. 153-86.)

THE APPROPRIATION

The disciples said to Him, “If the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry.” But He said to them, “Not all men can accept this statement, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it.” (19:10-12)

By this time the Pharisees had disappeared. They doubtlessly were thoroughly enraged, both because they had not succeeded in making Jesus contradict Moses and because, on the contrary, Jesus had succeeded in showing that they themselves were condemned by Moses in their illegitimate divorces and consequent adulteries.

Jesus was now alone in a house with the disciples (Mark 10:10), where they felt free to comment on what He had just been saying. They may have discussed divorce and remarriage with the Lord at some length before finally saying to Him, “If the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry.”

Because they had grown up in a culture where divorce was rampant, largely due to that rabbinical teaching which not only permitted but even required divorce for virtually any reason, the Twelve were more than a little perplexed by what Jesus taught. Many Jews considered divorce a virtue almost on a par with marriage itself. Among the Talmudic writings of the rabbis is the statement, “A bad wife is like leprosy to her husband. What is the remedy? Let him divorce her and be cured of his leprosy.” Another rabbi wrote, “If a man has a bad wife, it is a religious duty to divorce her.”

The difference between what the disciples had been taught all their lives and what Jesus was teaching was so radical that they were completely nonplussed. It is probable that they had looked on marriage like most of their Jewish male counterparts—and like many people today—believing that if things did not work out, there was always divorce as an out. But if adultery is the only justification for divorce, they concluded, it is better not to marry.

Although their response was not well thought out, it shows that they rightly understood what Jesus was saying. They realized that the Lord was declaring that marriage is a lifetime commitment that can legitimately be broken only by death or adultery, and that even adultery does not require divorce. The idea of “for better or worse” was more than they could accept. Better, they thought, not to marry at all.

They had difficulty accepting the idea of lifelong marital commitment because of the existing shallow and unbiblical view of marriage. Had they paid more attention to God’s Word than to the traditions of the rabbinical elders (cf. Matt. 15:6), they would have realized that God instituted marriage as the epitome of pleasant, joyful, and fulfilling human relationships. “Let your fountain be blessed,” the writer of Proverbs said, “and rejoice in the wife of your youth, as a loving hind and a graceful doe” (Prov. 5:18-19). In the same book they could read, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor from the Lord” (18:22) and “House and wealth are an inheritance from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord” (19:14).

Like most people of both sexes today, many Jewish men in New Testament times looked on marriage only as a means of gratifying their own lusts and of fulfilling their own purposes. Marriage was the accepted means of sexual indulgence and of procreating children, and it also provided a convenient cook and housekeeper. Unlike modern people, however, most Jewish men appear to have been little concerned about romance.

Romance can be a beautiful part of marriage that lasts even through old age. But romantic feelings cannot be the basis for a sound and enduring marriage, because they are largely composed of pleasant sensations toward the other person that are easily subject to change. A sound marriage is based on permanent, unconditional commitment to one’s spouse, even if romantic feelings flicker or are extinguished altogether. If romantic feelings are the basis of a marriage, when a spouse begins to lose attractiveness, the other’s attention is turned to someone else who seems more promising and exciting. When one romantic fling after another is pursued, emotional burnout is inevitable. Such a superficial relationship cannot last long and never achieves the expected fulfillment. Each successive failure brings less satisfaction and more disappointment, disillusionment, and emptiness. The collective result, as seen so dramatically and tragically in modern society, is a generation of disoriented, lonely, isolated, untrustworthy, untrusting, and emotionally bankrupt misfits looking for the next arousing sensation.

Some years ago I heard the story of an elderly minister who had been married for fifty years. One morning at breakfast his wife slumped over the table, unconscious. By the time her husband got her to the hospital she was dead. After the funeral he said to his sons, “This is a good day, a wonderful day.” When they asked what he meant, he explained, “Well, I know she is with the Lord now. And I am glad she went first. That’s the way I wanted it to be, because I didn’t want her to have the grief of burying me and of having to live alone.”

Some years later that minister was asked to speak at a feminist meeting on the subject of marriage. He recounted his wife’s death and his gratitude that she had died first. “Listen,” he told them, “anybody who knows the meaning of true love always wants the other person to go first, because they don’t want them to endure the pain and the sorrow and the anxiety and loneliness of burying the one they’ve loved. I daresay that the modern romantic relationships that try to pass for love are a far cry from that kind of feeling and that kind of reality.” He was right.

Most people, including many Christians, know little of the self-giving, self-committing, and self-sacrificing love that knits two souls together for a lifetime of sharing and happiness. Instead of the rich, deepening, meaningful, and thrilling friendship that only such love can bring, they settle for a cheap, shallow substitute that fluctuates with every mood and that is doomed from the beginning to be disappointing and short-lived. A relationship that is built only on pleasant emotions and good feelings will soon die, because those emotions and feelings are built on circumstances and on superficial and selfish expectations. But amazingly, a relationship that is built on loving commitment and self-giving concern for the other person will produce emotions and feelings that not only do not die but grow richer and more satisfying with every year. Feelings are a poor foundation for marriage, but they can be a wonderful, glorious by-product.

The committed marriage is the only happy and enduring marriage. When two Christians love each other for the other’s sake rather than their own and live their lives in humble submission to God’s Word and to each other, a bond is formed that can withstand every temptation, disappointment, and failure that Satan and the world can hurl against them. They become lovers and friends in a way that the unbeliever and the disobedient Christian can never know. In sharing everything together, they forge a friendship that knows no limitations, no bounds, no secrets, and no conditions.

Like the disciples, some Christians today seem afraid that lifelong, unconditional commitment would destine them to a life of boredom and frustrating restrictions. They conclude with the Twelve that it is therefore simply better not to marry. But God planned and designed marital commitment to bring just the opposite. No marriage can be happy and satisfying, much less enduring, without it. God blesses a committed union in ways that a single person, or an uncommitted husband and wife, can never experience and hardly imagine. Far from being a reason to avoid marriage, lifelong and loving commitment is the very thing that makes it most fulfilling and desirable.

Obviously a Christian’s marriage partner should be chosen carefully and with much prayer. Marriage commitment should only be given to a person who shares one’s spiritual values and commitments. But there is no human joy or fulfillment that can measure up to that which is experienced by a husband and wife who love Jesus Christ and each other and who live together in obedience to His Word and in the power of His Spirit.

There was a certain truth to what the disciples had just said about it being better not to marry, but the context suggests that it was not that truth they had in mind. Their view of marriage, like that of their fellow Jews, focused primarily on selfish, shallow satisfaction and fulfillment. From a purely practical standpoint they therefore concluded that lonely singleness is preferable to risky marriage. (For a detailed discussion of Paul’s statement about the benefits of singleness, see the author’s 1 Corinthians, pp. 153-86.)

Jesus reminded them that not all men can accept this statement, but only those to whom it has been given. Singleness has its own problems and temptations, and not every Christian is capable of living a godly single life. Paul said that it is good to remain single for spiritual purposes, but that it was “better to marry than to burn” with lust (1 Cor. 7:8-9).

Accept is from chre, which has the basic idea of making room or space for something. Metaphorically it means to completely embrace an idea or principle with the heart and mind so that it becomes part of one’s very nature. Singleness cannot be wholeheartedly accepted simply by human willpower or sincerity. Nor can it be successfully lived out simply by applying the right biblical principles. Celibate singleness is a kind of spiritual gift (1 Cor. 7:7), and only those to whom it has been given can hope to spiritually survive in it, much less find happiness and be effective in the Lord’s service.

Many single Christians endure continual frustration, temptations, and unnecessary loneliness because, for one reason or another, they intentionally avoid marriage. Some perhaps are more concerned about a mate’s looks than character. Some do not want anyone around who may invade and disrupt their selfish world. Others may be looking for the perfect mate, someone who measures up in every detail to their vision of the perfect husband or wife. Others, like certain religious orders, have the mistaken belief that there is spiritual merit in celibacy and choose singleness as a means of gaining God’s favor through self-sacrifice. But singleness based on any such reasons dooms one to a life of disappointment and unfulfillment.

Jesus proceeds to mention the only three categories where there can be successful singleness. First are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb. These are people who are born with congenital deformities that involve undeveloped sexual capacity. Second are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, such as were male harem guards of that day. In some ancient religions, castration was considered a way of pleasing and serving a pagan deity, and parents sometimes even had their infant sons castrated for that purpose. Obviously, castrated men do not have normal desires for a woman.

Third are eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Unlike the other two forms, this one is not physical. Mutilation of the flesh in order to please God is a purely pagan idea. Jesus is speaking of the voluntary celibacy of those to whom that gift has been granted by God (v. 11). In that case, celibacy can indeed be for the sake of the kingdom of God and be pleasing to Him and used by Him.

Paul had the gift of celibacy and strongly exhorted others who had the gift to be content with it and to use its obvious advantages for God’s glory. “One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord,” he said; “but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the woman who is unmarried, and the virgin, is concerned about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit; but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how she may please her husband” (1 Cor. 7:32-34).

He who is able to accept this, let him accept it, Jesus said. In the narrowest and most specific sense the Lord was saying that those who by God’s gift are able to accept a life of celibate singleness should accept it as God’s will for them. But He seems also to have been speaking more broadly about the disciples’ accepting everything He had just taught about marriage, divorce, remarriage, and singleness. They were to put aside the false ideas and practices they had inherited from the humanly-devised and unscriptural rabbinical traditions. In other words, accept what I have been teaching as God’s Word and live accordingly.

The unsaved person cannot accept Jesus’ standards for marriage and divorce, and would not have the resources to live up to those standards if he did accept them. The idea of self-giving, unconditional, and lifelong commitment in any area of life, including marriage, runs completely against the grain of fallen human nature. God’s truth has no authority in an unredeemed life because God Himself has no place in that life.

Even the worldly believer has great difficulty accepting the idea of total, unconditional commitment, because he has lost his first love and has turned his interests back on himself. Only those who truly honor Jesus as Lord and Savior can truly accept His teachings. Even then His teachings become fully acceptable only in the life walked in the Spirit, who alone can keep believers from carrying out the natural “desire of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16), which is committed to self rather than to God, one’s life partner, or others.

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For further study of what God’s Word says about divorce and remarriage, see the author’s The Family (Chicago: Moody, 1982).