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.
Matthew 5:32
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.
Matthew 19:9
In their brief yet thorough book, Meant to Last, Paul Steele and Charles Ryrie write, “No amount of theological juggling or exegetical gymnastics can remove the clear fact that the preponderance of biblical data teaches clearly that God’s best is one man for one woman until death. This was God’s original design and, though it has been violated regularly through the ages, the design has never changed.” The authors go on to point out that there are five major views on divorce and remarriage based on various interpretations of the Mosaic “exception” in Deuteronomy 24, Matthew’s exception clauses in chapters 5 and 19, and Paul’s teaching that a brother or sister is not “under bondage” if his unbelieving spouse departs in 1 Corinthians 7. While we have not yet examined Paul’s teaching on marriage and divorce, we need to survey these views as each attempts to explain Jesus’ teaching in the Gospel of Matthew.
The Church Fathers’ View – The early Church Fathers were virtually unanimous in their view that both Christ and Paul taught that divorce is sinful and remarriage is forbidden in every case. This view held sway throughout the early centuries of church history with only one 4th century Latin writer taking an alternative view. They believed that the clause, “except for sexual immorality” in 19:9 was attached to divorce and not remarriage, meaning that even if one could justly divorce his wife for immorality, he could not rightly remarry.
The Reformers’ View – This view was first suggested by Erasmus, a contemporary of Martin Luther, and has since been adopted by the majority of Protestant scholars and pastors. It teaches that Jesus meant adultery when he spoke of sexual immorality as the only acceptable ground for divorce, and that Paul expanded on Jesus’ exception by including abandonment by an unbelieving spouse. In such a case, the innocent spouse is considered free to remarry. The Westminster Confession of Faith adopted this view, and it is widely held by evangelical Christians today.
The Augustinian View – This view was held by the 5th century theologian who argued that Jesus used the word “except” as a means of bypassing the question of the Pharisees altogether. He was essentially saying that their debate over Moses’ words in Deuteronomy 24 was irrelevant, it doesn’t matter if sexual immorality is involved, divorce is contrary to God’s design and remarriage is not allowed.
The Betrothal View – As we noted in our survey of the OT texts on marriage, betrothal was in some ways similar to our modern-day engagement, but quite different in other ways. This view holds that Christ’s exception clause was speaking of breaking off the engagement due to an act of sexual impropriety on the part of one’s betrothed spouse, a process that required a legal divorce. This is illustrated, as we mentioned, in Matt. 1:18-20 where Joseph considered divorcing Mary privately when he became aware of her pregnancy, concluding rationally that she committed sexual immorality before consummating their marriage. The betrothal view also argues that the meaning of “sexual immorality” is distinct from the word “adultery,” which is used elsewhere in the NT. The former speaks of sexual sin by and with an unmarried person, while the latter speaks specifically of sexual sin by or with a married partner. In this view, then, once the marriage has been consummated, divorce is not allowed for any reason and neither is remarriage.
The Unlawful Marriage View – The final view presented by Steele and Ryrie teaches that Jesus had in mind marriages that involved close family members as prohibited by Leviticus 18:6-18. In this view, the word translated “sexual immorality” in Jesus’ exception clause was a technical term for this kind of extraordinary circumstance where someone discovered he was married to a close relative. Apart from this very limited situation, no divorce or remarriage would be allowed.
Which of these views (if any) is correct? That is where all the controversy lies, and in order to make a case for what I believe to be the biblical position, we need to examine each view a little more closely. What can be said at this point is that all the views hold some things in common. All Bible-believing Christians agree that God’s best for everyone is monogamy in marriage, and that God is, at least in principle, opposed to divorce. We all understand that the divorce certificate described by Moses was an accommodation to man’s sinfulness. And we all believe that Christ upheld and taught a high view of marriage. Whatever one’s view on these disputed phrases, we ought to do everything we can to encourage faithful, healthy marriages, including supporting those whose relationships are struggling in the hope of preventing divorce whenever possible. With that in mind, we will begin to examine these views more closely next.