Jesus Teaching on divorce
Jesus taught about divorce on two occasions. The first time was during the Sermon on the Mount, recorded in Matthew chapter five, and the second occasion, recorded in Mark 10:1 and Matthew 19:1, was toward the end of his ministry when the Pharisees confronted him regarding the causes of divorce. The gospel of Luke also gives a brief summary of Jesus’ teaching.
Moral responsibility towards marriage (Matthew 5:31–32)
It is significant that Jesus taught about divorce in his Sermon on the Mount while setting his standards for human behaviour. He was dealing with the question of individual responsibility. The Lord outlined a moral framework that was completely revolutionary in its content. In essence he taught that our inner attitude toward God and other people is the foundation for morality. Jesus taught that we ought to treat others as we would like them to treat us. The attitude of our heart is the essence of morality. By Jesus’ standard, to look at a woman with lust is adultery; that is, the inward, lustful desire is of itself sinful. These are the standards of behaviour that God expects from his people; they have to do with attitudes, thoughts and desires, as well as the way we treat others. Above all, the standard is that we should be kind and forgiving. We should not seek revenge when wronged, and should even pray for our enemies and those who persecute us. Applying his teaching to divorce, Jesus shows that divorce is not only wrong, but with the correct attitude to one’s marriage partner should not even be contemplated.
While on the Mount, Jesus dealt with divorce in the context of his teaching on adultery. Jesus said,
It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to commit adultery, and anyone who marries a woman so divorced commits adultery (Matthew 5:31–32).
Here Jesus sets God’s standard for marriage. With the words, ‘but I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to commit adultery’, Jesus says that any man who divorces his wife is causing her great harm, for he is the cause of her becoming an adulteress. It is against God’s will and cannot be an option to be used for man’s convenience. What Jesus is teaching is that an attitude of the heart that even entertains the thought of divorce is adultery against one’s marriage partner. So the principle the Lord is laying down is that in God’s eyes even the thought of divorce is immoral—an act equal to adultery. However, he makes an exception to this rule for the man whose wife is guilty of marital unfaithfulness. For a man to divorce an unfaithful, adulterous wife is not equal to adultery on the part of the man for it does not cause her to commit adultery because she has already done so. (The exception clause is discussed in more detail below.)
Having established the principle that to divorce is immoral, unless it is for marital unfaithfulness, Jesus places an absolute restriction on remarriage. He says that a man who divorces his wife causes her to commit adultery, unless of course she has already committed adultery. The assumption is that the divorced wife will remarry and so commit adultery against her husband. The fact that the divorced wife commits adultery when she remarries a single man means that her marriage bond is still intact and therefore was not destroyed by the divorce. And Jesus lays the responsibility squarely at the feet of the husband; it is his immoral action in divorcing his wife that causes her to commit adultery.
Furthermore anyone who marries a woman so divorced commits adultery. That is, the (single) man who marries the divorced woman, whether she is the innocent partner or not, commits adultery against her husband. This is a remarkable teaching for it raises the obvious question: how can a man be guilty of adultery if he marries a divorced woman? The only possible explanation is that in Jesus’ understanding the marriage bond is still intact because she is joined to her husband by God—so the divorced woman is still bound to her husband for the marriage bond is indissoluble except by death. Therefore, in God’s eyes, her first marriage is still intact even although her husband has divorced her, and so the (single) man who marries her is entering into an illicit sexual relationship with a married (although divorced) woman. For this reason anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery, and the divorced woman commits adultery when she remarries.
In evidence to the Royal Commission of 1912, Professor JP Whitney, a church historian, explained that the passage was dealing with the question of human responsibility. ‘A man was responsible if by the act of divorcing his wife he put her in the position in which she was almost bound to commit adultery. The question is presented as one of the responsibilities of man and in pronouncing it the Lord, as it were, pulled himself up before condemning the man, because if the man put away his wife for adultery it is clear that he could not be held responsible for her afterwards falling into adultery. The real cause and responsibility (for the adultery) then lay not with the man but with the woman.’8
The Lower House of the Convocation of York explained this passage in a report produced in 1896. ‘Here the putting away of the wife for fornication is granted, but for no other cause. To put her away for any other cause save this would be to put her into the way of temptation to adultery, and the guilt would lie at the husband’s door, he would be the cause if she fell into adultery. If, however, she be put away for fornication, which is a just cause of separation, the guilt of any future sin rests with her, as the separation came about through her own misconduct. But to marry a woman thus separated from her husband for fornication – is adultery. In this passage, then, putting away for fornication is allowed, but for any woman put away to marry again is adultery. Why? It can only be because her husband is alive, and because the bond exists. If it exists for her, it equally exists for him. If a new marriage is adultery for her, so is a new marriage for him.’9