The Gospel of Luke does not record the exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees on the subject of marriage and divorce that we find in Matthew 19 and Mark 10. In fact, the only reference to divorce in Luke’s Gospel is found in the middle of a chapter dealing with money and possessions and how our attitude toward these things reveals our heart attitude toward God and eternity. Let’s compare:
| Matthew 19:9 | Luke 16:18 |
| “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.” | “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband commits adultery.” |
These two verses are much closer to each other than to Mark 10:11-12, and they both appear to be discussing the same circumstance. Mark seems to point to two different marriages, one ended by the husband leaving his wife for another woman, and the other ended by the wife leaving her husband for another man. Matthew and Luke seem to speak of a single marriage where the husband divorces his wife to marry another woman. In doing so, he commits adultery. And the woman in the second half of the verse, “her who is divorced,” would be the wife of the man in the first part who, divorcing her and marrying another, commits adultery. So Matthew and Luke both record Jesus as discussing both parties to the original marriage and divorce, the one who puts away and the one who is put away. And what they say about the one who is put away is quite significant, because both record that if another man marries the woman who has been abandoned by her first husband, that man is also guilty of adultery, just like the first husband. In other words, the fact that someone is an innocent party in a divorce or is divorced against their will and without their consent, does not make them free to remarry. So Paul can say in 1 Cor. 7:15 that the believer who is abandoned by his unbelieving spouse has done no wrong, but he does not go so far as to say they may remarry. That conclusion is one that must be read into the text, as many have chosen to do.
Why does all this matter? Why go back to these texts more than a year after completing our original study on marriage, divorce, and remarriage? First, because we need to be sure that our understanding of God’s view on these issues can make sense of all of Scripture, and we did not examine Mark 10 or Luke 16 the first time around. Second, because divorce continues to be a scourge in the church in America, destroying families, ruining testimonies, and bringing lasting pain and grief to far too many professing Christians and their loved ones. And while I do believe that those who make exceptions for divorce in cases of adultery and abandonment would prefer to see less divorce rather than more, the practical outworking of that position has led to the rise in instances of divorce by making it easier to justify not only divorce but remarriage afterward. We must be willing to do the hard work of digging into the text of Scripture and wrestling with the issues, and then accept God’s teaching as final and authoritative rather than bow to what is “easier” or more culturally acceptable among Christians.