Biblical Teaching on Divorce, Part I
The most recent figures on marriage and divorce in the 1975 World Almanac show that for every two new marriages in the United States there is one divorce. It has been estimated that desertions—called “the poor man’s divorce”—equal the number of legal divorces, pushing the total of terminated marriages to almost two million a year. This means that divorces and desertions together almost equal the number of new marriages!
One of the familiar statements in the Bible on divorce is that of Jesus in Matthew 19:3–9. The Pharisees came to “tempt” Jesus. They wanted to find occasion to accurse or humiliate him. “Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?” they asked. In Jesus’ day there were two schools of thought on divorce: the liberal school of Hillel, which permitted divorce for any cause, and the conservative school of Shammai, which permitted divorce only for infidelity. The Pharisees were asking Jesus, “Whose side are you on, Shammai’s or Hillel’s?”
Jesus answered in a way they did not expect:
Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and the twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
Instead of appealing to the current views of divorce, Jesus went back to the original institution of marriage and showed that God never intended that there be divorce for any cause.
The Pharisees thought that they had Jesus on the spot, that he had not taken into consideration the Law of Moses. So they asked “Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?” Jesus’ answer was, “Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.” Jesus made it clear that he intended to reestablish the original pattern of marriage that allowed no divorce.
Now this brings us to the famous “exception clause”: “And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.” The usual interpretation of this clause is divorce on the ground of infidelity. It is suggested that the word “fornication” normally carries the idea of sexual impurity, and that its normal usage should be applied here.
Several considerations raise doubts about this interpretation, however. First, “adultery” would be the better word to describe the violation of the marriage vow; yet the word “fornication” is used. Second, Mark and Luke omit the exception clause; this suggests that Matthew, who wrote for Jewish readers, included something that was of particular interest to the Jewish reader. Third, the disciples’ reaction to Jesus’ words is one of amazement: “If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry” (Matt. 19:10). Why this amazement? Divorce on the ground of infidelity was a view currently in vogue among even the Jews of the conservative school of Shammai. If Jesus were merely supporting the conservative view, the disciples’ amazement is hard to understand.
Another meaning of the word “fornication” seems to fit the context better. If we understand fornication as consanguineous marriage, marriage to a close blood relative, then the passage is more understandable. Such marriage was a special prohibition to the Jews (Leviticus 18), which would explain why only Matthew included the exception clause. Also, by advancing this narrow exception and by not going along with Shammai, Jesus would indeed provoke the reaction he did in the disciples.
This view has not gone unnoticed by expositors. For instance, Charles Ryrie makes a case for it in You Mean the Bible Teaches That … (Moody, pp. 47–51). J. Dwight Pentecost also supports this interpretation in his “Exposition of Matthew” (unpublished class notes, Dallas Theological Seminary). Although Roger Nicole takes the traditional view, he mentions the idea of consanguinity in his article “Divorce” in Baker’s Dictionary of Christian Ethics, edited by Carl F. H. Henry.
When Jesus says that the only ground for divorce is fornication, I think he means that those marrying within prohibited degrees can and should be divorced. He is not giving permission for divorce on the ground of marital infidelity.
This raises a curious problem, one that is seldom mentioned. If we say that divorce under any conditions other than the one Jesus mentioned is wrong, then it appears that the Mosaic Law is immoral, because the Law was quite liberal on this question. Some try to get around the problem by saying that the Mosaic Law and Jesus taught the same thing: divorce on the ground of marital infidelity. This, they say, takes care of the problem of remarriage, because the adulterer was stoned to death. This was not the case. Deuteronomy 24:1–4 gives three rules that cover divorce:
1. Divorce was permitted on the ground of “uncleanness.” Some have taught that “uncleanness” is marital infidelity and that Jesus and the Law agreed on the same ground for divorce. But the passage does not bear out this thesis. The Law provided that the adulterer be stoned (Deut. 22:22), but the woman in Deuteronomy 24 who is guilty of uncleanness is not stoned but is free to go her way and remarry. The Hebrew expression “uncleanness” means “improper behavior.” The Hebrew husband could accuse his wife of improper behavior for the slightest displeasure, and could divorce her for something as simple as burning his toast.
2. The woman who was divorced could remarry. This, incidentally, proves that divorce dissolves a marriage and that it is not merely separation.
3. The only remarriage banned was remarriage to a former husband, if the woman had remarried and divorced. The example given is the case where the woman divorces, remarries, and divorces again. When she is divorced by her second husband, she cannot go back to the first one, though the law allowed her to take a third husband.
We cannot say, then, that divorce in itself is immoral. The Law, which was holy, just, and good, allowed divorce and remarriage, and on the flimsiest grounds.
Then how do we reconcile these two teachings on divorce, both of which are morally acceptable to God? The answer seems to be that there are really two divorce laws in the Bible: one for Christians, who are able to conform to the original pattern of marriage, and one for unbelievers—those with hardened hearts who are not able to do so. In Matthew 19 Christ was not advancing a new law for unregenerate people or a law more moral than the law of Moses; God’s moral law is unchangeable, whether given by Moses or Christ. He was laying down a standard of conduct for Christians. Although the Mosaic Law had been done away with, the principle of divorce for the hardness of the heart remained. We cannot say that divorce for the hardness of the heart, which was once considered moral, is now immoral.
That this teaching of Christ was binding only on believers is supported by Paul, the interpreter of Christ. In his First Epistle to the Corinthians he wrote to a church that needed instruction in the problem of marriage and divorce, especially where a Christian was married to an unbeliever. He taught that if the unbeliever divorces the believer, the believer is free of that union. If Paul had understood Christ’s rule of no divorce to apply to unbelievers, he would not have allowed divorce under any circumstances. But Paul says, “If the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace” (1 Cor. 7:15). The word “depart” is the Greek word koridzo. The same word is used in First Corinthians 7:11, where Paul says, “If the wife depart, let her remain unmarried.” If “depart” did not mean divorce, then he would not have instructed her to remain unmarried. Paul says that if the unbeliever divorces, let him divorce. The believer is no longer bound by that marriage. Since Deuteronomy 24 teaches that divorce dissolves the marriage bond, permission to remarry is implicit in First Corinthians 7:15.
Someone will say that this makes Jesus and Paul contradictory. No, it doesn’t. The divorce rule of Jesus applies to believers only. Paul is speaking of the union of a believer and an unbeliever, and in such a case only the unbeliever can initiate the divorce. There is no contradiction between the Law of Moses and the commandment of Christ if the following rules of divorce are observed:
1. A Christian husband and wife are not permitted divorce and remarriage because they have in Christ the means of fulfilling the ideal of marriage. Divorce without remarriage is permitted in First Corinthians 7:10, 11.
2. A Christian and an unbeliever may divorce if the unbeliever initiates the divorce. Divorce being a real dissolution of the marriage, the believer is free to remarry.
3. Two unbelievers are permitted to divorce for any cause, and divorce being a real dissolution of the marriage, they are permitted to remarry.
Such a permissive attitude toward divorce will shock many Christians. They will feel that divorce is rampant enough without Christians’ approving it under any circumstances. But this attitude overlooks an important feature of divorce for the hardness of the heart. Every time a marriage breaks up, the basic sinfulness of the husband and wife is revealed. Sit in a divorce court sometime and listen to the dirt dredged up by husbands and wives. Many divorced persons try to make a go at a second marriage, and many of these will end in divorce again. Why? The reason usually is that the same sinful drives that broke up the first marriage are carried over into the second. The Mosaic Law may approve unlimited divorces and remarriage, but the more a person divorces and remarries, the more he demonstrates his inability to make marriage work as God intended.
The answer to the divorce question is not to condemn what was and is permitted by God. It is to do something about the hardness of the heart. It is to point sinful husbands and wives to the Saviour, Jesus Christ, who is able to make them new creatures—people who can live together in harmony as God intended, and as Christ taught.
What is a pastor to do when a new Christian couple comes into his church and he discovers that they both divorced Christian spouses to marry each other? The divorce and remarriage contrary to Scripture are a fait accompli. Does he discriminate against them? Does he tell them to divorce each other and go back to their original spouses? That may well be impossible to do because the original spouses have remarried also. And divorcing the current spouse also raises the problem of sinning again by divorcing again. (Some might reply to this that the act of divorce is a single sin whereas living in an adulterous relationship involves repeated adulteries. Such logic would be saying that they should commit one sin to avoid committing many sins—a logic that does not befit Christian theology.)
A Christian pastor has a responsibility not to encourage the remarriage of a Christian divorced from a Christian, but discrimination against a Christian couple already divorced from Christian spouses seems to place them in the position of having committed an unforgivable sin. The biblical teachings on divorce and remarriage are designed to bring pressure to bear on couples to make their marriage work. It is hoped, however, that the Christian couple guilty of sinning against these teachings might be granted the same compassion Jesus showed to the woman caught in adultery: “Go and sin no more.”
It is extremely important that Christian leaders understand the spirit of biblical teaching on divorce and remarriage. The complexities and lack of uniformity of divorce laws among the states make it virtually impossible to come up with neat theological answers every time. For example, a couple living in the District of Columbia can have their marriage annulled on the ground of impotence, but in Maryland this is ground only for divorce, not for annulment. Shall a Christian couple forever bear the stigma of divorce simply because they live in the wrong state?
The Church is in danger of slipping into the errors of the Scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ day on this question. Certainly it was this that Jesus had in mind when he told the Pharisees that they laid burdens on the people they themselves could not bear. Jesus’ yoke still is easy and his burden light.
NOTE:Part two of this article will appear in the July 18 issue. The Minister’s Workshop feature in this issue (June 20) discusses how ministers and congregations can help the divorced.—ED.
