By: Mike Kelly
Retired Pastor
As we continue our series on the Sermon on the Mount, we get into some very difficult and potentially divisive verses, none more so than Matt 5:31-32: “It was said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife must give her a legal document.’ But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”
Let’s keep it honest and quickly explain that men fall under the same constraints of this verse as women. Matt 19:9 reads “I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
So, no matter who it is, male or female, divorce “makes him/her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced man/woman commits adultery.”
If we have been married and divorced, this passage says we are not to marry again or we will be committing adultery since we are being unfaithful to our first spouse. We’ll come back to that in a moment.
Culturally, the word “divorce” which is also translated “put away” would have been understood by Jesus’s hearers to mean what we call a dissolution of the marriage so that both were free to remarry.
However, Jesus is clearly saying that remarriage is not to be a consideration after divorce. The historical context of this verse sees 2 major theological schools of thought.
One represented by Rabbi Hillel and the other by Rabbi Shammai. And like today, one, Hillel, was liberal and the other, Shammai, was traditional or conservative.
Rabbi Hillel allowed for divorce for just about any reason as frivolous as your wife burning your morning toast or losing her figure or even if you found a better-looking woman.
Whereas Rabbi Shummai allowed it for adultery only. What surprised me as I prepared this was that divorce was almost as common then in the Jewish community as it is now in American society.
To ameliorate some of the damage of divorce, there were some built-in legal restraints to divorce much as we see today. For instance, if the husband decided to divorce his wife, he had to return her dowry and then some extra making divorce an economic decision as well.
If only God had meant that responsible divorce was OK. But Jesus reminds us in Matt 19:4-5 that marriage is a covenant that makes the couple one flesh so they cannot ever again be 2 distinct people.
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So, they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
What Jesus is saying is that even when divorce is obtained on the grounds of the specific sin of adultery (which violated the essence of the marriage covenant), allowing for remarriage was at variance with the true eternal law of God.
I like black and white. It makes things so much easier. Do this, don’t do that. Easy. But as a pastor for over 4 decades, I can tell you that we live mostly in gray. In the area of divorce with remarriage, I have 3 situations that I feel allow for divorce and remarriage. Adultery, abuse, and abandonment.
Jesus allowed for adultery, Paul added abandonment, and I think abuse is just as covenant breaking as the other 2. Then, you have the total regeneration of people after they come to Christ as Savior.
2 Cor 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” Does that mean that a person previously divorced is now free to remarry since their divorce was pre-salvation?
And to further complicate things, God’s grace is such that “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”
(Ps 103:12). If that’s true of my sins, then wouldn’t that cover the sin of divorce as well? So, shouldn’t a genuine repentance for the sin of divorce allow me to remarry just as a genuine repentance for the sin of fornication allows me to marry even after I have slept with or become one with another?
This topic is much too broad to be covered in 900 words. The light I personally walk in says that divorce is a sin and must be seen as such, truly repented as such, and then it can be covered by the blood, no longer to be seen. And remember, we can lie to ourselves, but God knows the motivations of our hearts.
And I know that many people disagree with me and that is OK. We each have to walk in the light we have been shown. Please don’t take this to your pastor to argue with him/her.
I can assure you that every pastor has had to face this issue and has had to come to their own position through much prayer, study and courage. We don’t have to all agree.
We just have to be able to look God in the eyes and say that we did our best given the light we had, that we made our judgements with a clear conscience. That doesn’t mean we made them correctly, but that we tried to do so.
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Mike Kelly is the founding pastor of Bryan’s Grace Community Church (retired) and Board Chairman of Bryan’s Sanctuary Homeless Shelter and Williams County’s Compassion (free) Medical Clinic.