No Remarriage After Divorce
Gordon J. Wenham
The issue of remarriage after divorce painfully divides evangelical Christians. Perhaps you have seen tension over this issue in your own family or church or among your friends. I hope to shed light on what I believe Scripture teaches about this sensitive issue. My goal is that you will become biblically informed and feel better equipped to discuss the issue. But before I set out the reasons why I think divorced Christians should not remarry, I want to set out some points about marriage with which I believe my coauthors agree. Perhaps you will agree as well.
POINTS OF AGREEMENT ABOUT MARRIAGE
First, the Bible advocates lifelong, monogamous heterosexual marriage as best for human welfare. Jesus points to two passages in Genesis as foundational for his view of marriage (Mark 10:6 – 7; Matt. 19:4 – 5). The first is Genesis 1:27 – 28, which tells of God’s creation of man and woman in his image. Their union is blessed by God as a means of perpetuating the human race for the benefit of creation. They are told to “be fruitful and increase in number.” The second passage Jesus cites, Genesis 2:24, is even more explicit about biblical ideals for marriage. Adam’s loneliness could not be satisfied by the creation of the animals or by the creation of other men, but by just one woman. Adam’s joy at Eve’s creation shows that monogamous heterosexual partnership offers the most satisfying sort of human relationship. It is noteworthy, too, that Eve is created out of Adam’s rib. She is formed from him, which indicates the intimate bond between them — and between every married couple. This is summed up in Jesus’ quotation of Genesis 2:24 in Matthew 19:5: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”
The Hebrew term here translated “be united,” which may also be rendered “stick,” suggests a bond that cannot easily be broken. Indeed, the statement that they become “one flesh” is a description of the relationship between close relatives (cf. Gen 29:14), which endures whatever changes occur to the related individuals.
The second point of agreement with my colleagues is that marriage is an image of the relationship between God and Israel, and in the New Testament it’s an image of Christ and the church. Traditionally, Song of Songs, which on the surface is all about human love, has been understood as an image of God and his bride, Israel, or the church. The prophets identify the infidelity of Israel as adultery against God (cf. Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea). The apostle Paul is most explicit: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. . . . ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery — but I am talking about Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:25, 31 – 32).
The third point of agreement is the understanding that divorce is a failure due to sin. As Jesus put it, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning” (Matt. 19:8). Though all of us are sinners, and this fact will have an obvious impact on the marriage relationship, to agree that divorce is caused by sin is not to say that, when it occurs, both parties are equally to blame. Some divorced people are more innocent than others. But when divorce occurs, it demonstrates a breakdown in relationships, which is at odds with the gospel message of forgiveness and reconciliation. God loves us even though we are sinners (Rom. 5:8), so his people should love each other despite the experience and reality of sin.
The fourth point of agreement is the awareness that the present situation is catastrophic. The present anarchy in sexual behavior is leading to family and social instability on an unparalleled scale. In Western societies, about half of marriages end in divorce. A large percentage of children are born out of wedlock. One in five pregnancies is aborted. Teenage homelessness is largely caused by conflict with stepfathers. Violence between partners is five times as common in cases where the couple cohabits rather than marries. Child abuse is thirty times more common in situations where single mothers have a series of boyfriends. The non-Western world is appalled as they look at the West and its destruction of family values.1
None of us would suggest that simply banning divorce and remarriage will cure the breakdown of family life. But I believe that the rejection of the traditional Christian approach to this issue is one part of the package of secularism that has led to our present situation. We cannot simply turn the clock back and restore primitive Christian practices in our broken society, but we do need to recapture the biblical understanding of marriage and press our churches and our politicians to change their approach to family issues, so that once again there are incentives for people to follow the Christian pathway.
It is my contention that both the New Testament and the history of the church support the view that Christians should not remarry after divorce.2 Because this view is so little appreciated in American evangelical circles, I want to spend most of this chapter on giving you reasons why I believe it is the correct view.
MY ARGUMENT FOR NO REMARRIAGE AFTER DIVORCE
The argument proceeds in four stages (see chart on p. 22). First, I will examine the attitude of the early church. In the first three centuries of the Christian era, not a single writer supposes that the New Testament allows remarriage after divorce. Since these writers’ mother tongue was Greek, they understood the language of the New Testament much better than any modern scholar. Furthermore, the very earliest writers may have known the apostles personally — or at least their immediate successors — so they would have been familiar with apostolic attitudes.
Second, I will look at the teaching of the texts dealing with marriage outside Matthew, such as Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 7 and Romans 7, as well as the teaching of Jesus as reported in Mark 10 and Luke 16. Were we in possession of only these texts, there would be no question that the New Testament forbids remarriage after divorce.
Third, I will look at the teaching in Matthew’s gospel. Matthew wrote the only gospel that mentions an exception to Jesus’ blanket condemnation of divorce and remarriage. In Matthew 5:32, divorce is not condemned as adultery in cases where the divorce is caused by sexual immorality, but other reasons for divorce and any remarriage after divorce are so condemned; the same ideas are reiterated in Matthew 19. Some interpreters interpret Matthew 19 to allow remarriage after some divorces (see the other chapters in this book). I will argue that this makes Jesus contradict himself. The text makes much better sense if Jesus is understood to prohibit remarriage after divorce in every case.
Fourth, I will briefly comment on the Jewish mind-set about divorce in Jesus’ day. Here I agree with my colleagues that both the Old Testament and first-century Judaism allowed people to remarry after divorce. I do not think the Old Testament likes divorce or remarriage afterward, but it certainly does not ban them. However, it does not follow that because first-century Jews allowed remarriage after divorce, Jesus did too. One of the fundamental themes of the Gospels is Jesus’ conflict with Jews of his day. That is one reason he was crucified. So I find it quite unconvincing to argue that on the divorce issue he agreed with the Jews; in fact, it makes nonsense of the argument in Matthew 19.
When I have established what I believe the New Testament teaches about remarriage, I’ll make some observations on how this teaching should be implemented in churches and a society for which it is a quite novel, if not shocking, view.
STAGES IN THE CASE FOR THE NO-REMARRIAGE VIEW
1. Support in the attitude of the early church — first five centuries
2. Support from the New Testament outside of Matthew
3. Support from Matthew’s gospel
4. Support from the Judaism of Christ’s day
The Early Church Context
Early Christian writers — often referred to as the church fathers — almost universally rejected remarriage after divorce.3 Among Greek-speaking fathers there was total unanimity. The earlier writers (Hermas, Justin, Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen) all explicitly condemned remarriage after divorce or clearly presupposed this view. The Constantinian settlement that made Christian ity the official religion of the empire (ca. AD 312) might have encouraged Christian writers to identify imperial legal practice, which permitted divorce and remarriage, with Christian values. But there was no sign of that happening. Later Greek theologians such as Basil, Gregory Nazianzus, Apollina-rius, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and John Chrysostom all maintained the traditional Christian position that the Gospels do not permit remarriage after divorce. These theologians regarded the exception clause as authorizing or requiring separation, not permitting remarriage afterward.4 That this was the way native Greek speakers understood our Lord’s teaching surely indicates it is the most natural interpretation.
The evidence of the Latin fathers is equally impressive. Among those who condemned remarriage after divorce were Tertullian, Ambrose, Innocent, Pelagius, Jerome, and Augustine. There was only one dissenting voice in the West, namely, Ambrosiaster, who wrote between 366 and 383. His views on marriage and divorce were strongly influenced by Roman law. For example, he regarded adultery by a husband as much less serious than that by a wife. This inequality put him at odds with both the New Testament and the general attitude of the early church, which always insisted on mutual fidelity. Little wonder that Ambrosiaster was ignored by subsequent fifth-century Latin writers.
The witness of the early church thus points unequivocally to a no-remarriage understanding of the gospel divorce texts. Since no modern New Testament scholar can ever hope to approach the Greek fathers’ grasp of their mother tongue and its nuances, dissenters will have to have extremely powerful arguments to show that the understanding of the Greek fathers is not the natural understanding of the texts.
The New Testament Context (apart from Matthew)
But could these Fathers have misunderstood the gospel divorce texts? Although they were much closer in time, place, language, and presuppositions than the modern reader is to the gospel texts, they were not contemporaries of the Evangelists. So although it is very unlikely that they misunderstood Jesus’ teaching, it is not impossible. I’ll first examine the teaching of Paul in his letters and Jesus in the gospels of Mark and Luke to see whether they allow remarriage after divorce. Then I will turn to the statements unique to Matthew.
Paul’s Letters
Paul’s comments in 1 Corinthians 7:10 – 11 (cf. Rom. 7:2 – 3) are very explicit: “To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.”
Paul makes three points here. First, his teaching is based on Jesus’ teaching (“not I, but the Lord”). This is one of four passages in 1 Corinthians where Paul explicitly appeals to Jesus’ own teaching to justify his instructions. Second, couples should not divorce each other. Third, if one does leave the other, she should not remarry. Paul does not actually say that a husband who divorces his wife should not remarry, but this is surely implied. If he should not divorce his wife, he certainly should not remarry.
Gordon Fee sums up the thrust of this passage this way:
There is little question that both Paul and Jesus disallowed divorce between two believers, especially when it served as grounds for remarriage. . . . On the other hand . . . divorce may happen. . . . What is not allowed is remarriage, both because for him that presupposes the teaching of Jesus that such is adultery and because in the Christian community reconciliation is the norm. If the Christian husband and wife cannot be reconciled to one another, then how can they expect to become models of reconciliation before a fractured and broken world?5
The thrust of Paul’s teaching may be clear, but it is not so obvious what form of Jesus’ teaching he was appealing to. Did Paul know the gospel sayings about divorce in the form in which we now have them in the Gospels, or was he appealing to some tradition independent of them? If it could be proved that he knew the sayings in their gospel form, the no-remarriage view would be unassailable. But, of course, this is not so easy to demonstrate, especially because the critical consensus is that the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) were written after Paul’s epistles.
As my case at this point rests not on Paul’s knowing Matthew in its present form but only on the observation that nowhere outside Matthew 19 is there ever a hint that remarriage after divorce might be allowed, I will first review the remarks in Luke and Mark. Then I’ll reopen the question of Matthew 19.
The Gospels of Mark and Luke
Two cases are discussed in Mark and Luke — the husband who divorces and remarries, and the divorced woman who remarries. I will consider, first, the remarrying husband:
• “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her” (Mark 10:11).
• “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery” (Luke 16:18a).
Despite very slight differences in wording, both sayings make two remarkable points. First, a husband can commit adultery against his own wife. This is implied by Luke and explicit in Mark. But under Old Testament law, adultery was committed against husbands, not against wives. If a married man took a second partner in marriage, or had intercourse with her without marrying her, it did not count as adultery; hence, the practice of polygamy was legal. However, if a married woman had sexual relations with anyone except her husband, it was adultery by her and the third party. But this saying of Jesus introduces full reciprocity into marriage law: infidelity by a husband is just as culpable as infidelity by a wife. Second, Jesus also implies that polygamy is not permitted. Divorce was supposed to give permission for a second union without the stigma of adultery. But if a second union after divorce with the explicit permission for remarriage that divorce entailed was to be counted as adultery according to Jesus, how much more second or subsequent unions without divorce.6
However, it is also important to notice what is not said. Divorce on its own is not equated with adultery, only divorce followed by remarriage. The same is true of the second half of the statement in both gospels:
• “And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery” (Mark 10:12).
• “. . . and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (Luke 16:18b).
Luke’s form of the statement is almost the same as the statement in Matthew 5:32b. Mark’s form is unusual in that it envisages a woman taking the initiative in divorce proceedings, which rarely happened in first-century Palestine.7 But what is striking about both forms of the saying is the implication that divorce does not break the marriage bond, so that sexual relations with anyone but one’s first spouse is adultery.
According to Jewish law, “the essential formula in the bill of divorce is ‘Lo, thou art free to marry any man’ ” (m. Git. 9:3). The implication of Jesus’ pronouncement is that the essential declaration in the divorce formula does not work. A woman is not free to marry any man after divorce. If she does, she commits adultery. In other words, she is still bound by the vow of exclusive loyalty to her husband. Thus the two halves of the statements in Luke 16:18 and Mark 10:11 – 12 place both partners under the same obligations of mutual loyalty. If either husband or wife divorces the other and remarries, he or she commits adultery against the other because they are both bound together as husband and wife.
The theological logic behind this position is explained in Jesus’ debate with the Pharisees that immediately precedes these remarks in Mark 10. Asked whether divorce was legal, Jesus declared it contradicted God’s creative purpose that in marriage “ ‘the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate” (vv. 8 – 9). It is because God joins a couple together in marriage that the human declaration “You are free to marry any man” has no legal effect in God’s eyes. He looks on remarriage after divorce as adultery.
My interim conclusion is, therefore, that in the wider NT context outside Matthew’s gospel, there is no permission for remarriage after divorce. The teaching of Jesus as reported by Mark, Luke, and Paul is completely congruent with the teaching of the early church on this issue from the second to the fifth centuries AD. This makes it unlikely that Matthew’s gospel should be interpreted differently. If it is to be dated as late as AD 85, as is often suggested, it would be curious if its teaching on marriage differed so radically from the NT texts that preceded it and the early church fathers who followed it. On the other hand, if it was written much earlier, as church tradition maintained, why did Paul and the other Evangelists understand Jesus’ teaching so differently? Whatever context we prefer for Matthew’s gospel, it is clear that the writers closest to him in time understood Jesus to prohibit remarriage after divorce.
The Context in Matthew
So far what I have said is widely accepted. Historians agree that the early church did not approve of remarriage after divorce. Most biblical scholars accept that the New Testament, apart from Matthew, also condemned remarriage after divorce. The idea that Matthew allowed remarriage after divorce in some cases rests on the interpretation of two short phrases. In 5:32 Jesus declared that “everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality [porneia], makes her commit adultery” (ESV, emphasis added). In 19:9 Jesus noted that “whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality [porneia], and marries another, commits adultery” (ESV, emphasis added). The early church understood the italicized phrases to allow separation, but not remarriage, for sexual immorality (porneia).8 But from the time of Erasmus (1519) on, many Protestants have held that the exception clauses allow full divorce with the right to remarry in cases where a spouse is guilty of sexual immorality, typically adultery. I want to examine which interpretation — the permissive Erasmian view or the restrictive early church view — makes the best sense within the context of Matthew’s gospel and the flow of his thought. I’ll look at the two passages in turn.
Matthew 5:32
Matthew 5:32 is unusual in that it says the act of divorce causes the woman to commit adultery. How can divorce by itself cause adultery? The most likely explanation is that the woman will be forced by economic or social pressure to remarry. The husband who initiates the divorce has thereby himself caused her to break the seventh commandment.9 All the blame is being transferred to the man.
This approach fits the rest of Jesus’ exposition of the seventh commandment in the Sermon on the Mount. Contrary to much Jewish thinking, which tended to blame women for sexual sins, Jesus focuses all his attention on the male and the steps men must take to avoid falling into temptation. It is the man who looks at a woman lustfully in verse 28. It is the man who must gouge out his right eye or cut off his right hand in verses 29 – 30. It is the man who causes the woman to commit adultery in verse 32a or commits adultery himself in verse 32b.
Not only is the focus on the man in this passage, but there is a progression in the seriousness of the man’s sin (see diagram below). It begins in the man’s mind (“adultery . . . in his heart”), develops in his eyes, and then moves to his hand. Next it becomes adultery by proxy (“causes her to commit adultery,” ESV), and finally he commits adultery himself by marrying a divorced woman.
PROGRESSION OF SIN IN MAN
Mind 
Eyes Hand Proxy Adultery by marrying divorced woman
Within this context, the exception clause simply notes that should a wife have already committed adultery — one type of sexual immorality — her husband can hardly be said to have made her commit adultery. There is no suggestion here that a husband gains the right to marry again. The most that permissive interpreters can claim is that this text leaves open the possibility that an innocent husband may remarry. This text certainly does not authorize remarriage in such circumstances.
The whole tenor of the passage suggests that a permissive interpretation is wrong. The point Jesus is focusing on here is the man’s responsibility to be loyal to his wife. Men must make every effort to avoid transgressing the commandment, even in their thought-life. To see the idea of remarriage in verse 32a, where the central concern is to prohibit men from even divorcing their wives, is surely unlikely. It becomes even more unlikely when we reach verse 32b, where marrying any divorced woman is the climax of Jesus’ exposition of the seventh commandment’s implications. Contextually, therefore, a reading that allows for remarriage after some divorces in 32a misses the central thrust of this section — its focus on male waywardness — and the way it builds to its climax in 32b.
Remarriage readings also lead to an illogicality in verse 32.10 Such an interpretation offers a perverse incentive to sexual immorality. For if the only circumstance in which someone is free to remarry is when the spouse has committed adultery, one could envisage a partner in a desperate marriage encouraging the other to commit adultery in order to secure freedom to remarry instead of to merely separate. But this type of casuistry seems far removed from Jesus’ approach. In context, he is condemning every kind of infidelity, not providing excuses for remarriage.
This reading of Matthew 5:32 suggests that, far from giving an escape clause from Jesus’ condemnation of remarriage found in the other gospels, Matthew could be underlining the strictness of Jesus’ teaching against divorce. According to Matthew 5:32b; Mark 10:11 – 12; and Luke 16:18, divorce followed by remarriage is equivalent to adultery. But according to Matthew 5:32 (“anyone who divorces his wife . . . causes her to commit adultery”), divorce by itself can lead to the breaking of the seventh commandment.11
I would, therefore, sum up Matthew’s version of Jesus’ words in three statements:
1. Divorce + remarriage = adultery (5:32b; cf. Mark 10:11 – 12; Luke 16:18).
2. Divorce alone (except for porneia) = adultery (5:32a).
3. Divorce (except for porneia) + remarriage = adultery (19:9).
Matthew 19:9
Having established that Matthew 5:32 offers no support for permissive interpretations, I now wish to argue that the same sense fits 19:9: “Anyone who divorces his wife, except for [porneia], and marries another woman commits adultery.” In his monumental study, Hans Dieter Betz sums up Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 19 as follows: “Matthew seems to be affirming . . . that any remarriage after divorce is adulterous but that divorce alone is not.”12
To understand Matthew 19:9 correctly, it is important to read it in context and to understand how it fits into Jesus’ argument. It comes in the course of a debate with the Pharisees about the justification for divorce: “Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?’ ” (19:3). This is slightly different from the way Mark phrases the Pharisaic question: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” (Mark 10:2). Matthew clearly situates the debate in the context of intra-Jewish disputes about reasons for divorce, whereas Mark simplifies the debate to bring out the essence of the dispute for Gentile readers. In Matthew 19:3, Jesus is asked to say on whose side he is when it comes to allowing for divorce. Does he agree with the conservative Shammaites, who allowed divorce on very few grounds, or with the liberal Hillelites?
Before looking at Jesus’ argument about divorce, we should point out that the pattern of the debate here is typical of many in the Gospels (see chart below):13
ACTION
SCRIPTURE
1. Someone asks a question.
Matthew 19:16
2. Jesus attacks the very foundations of his opponents’ position.
Matthew 19:17
3. They counterattack, raising objections from Scripture to his views.
Matthew 19:18, 20
4. Jesus dismisses these objections.
Matthew 19:21, 24
5. Then the disciples interject their struggles with Jesus teaching.
Matthew 19:25
6. Finally, Jesus reaffirms his own position and challenges his disciples to have faith and accept it.
Matthew 19:26
The divorce debate follows this same pattern (see chart):
ACTION
SCRIPTURE
1. Pharisees Question: Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?
Matthew 19:3
2. Jesus Fundamental Challenge to Principle of Divorce: Haven't you read? . . . what God has joined together, let man not separate.
Matthew 19:4 -6
3. Pharisees Counterattack: Why then . . . did Moses command . . . ?
Matthew 19:7
4. Jesus’ Dismissal of Objection: Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. . . . I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.
Matthew 19:8-9
5. Disciples Objection: If this is the situation . . . , it is better not to marry.
Matthew 19:10
6. Jesus Reaffirmation of His Position: Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. . . . The one who can accept this should accept it.
Matthew 19:11-12
The most important point to grasp about this pattern is that Jesus does not back down or make concessions to the original questioner or to the disciples when they object to his teaching. Instead, he enlarges on his original point or restates it in a vivid way and challenges his hearers to have the faith to accept his teaching.
It is this context that makes the permissive interpretation of Matthew 19:9 so unlikely. The interpretation that allows divorce and remarriage for porneia (sexual immorality) makes Jesus agree with one side in the Pharisaic debate, the Shammaite Pharisees, who allowed divorce and remarriage in a few cases. But the whole thrust of his teaching up to this point has been that divorce is contrary to God’s creation purposes (19:4 – 6). The Pharisees correctly read this as a rejection of their concept of divorce, so they counterattack by quoting Deuteronomy 24:1: “Why then . . . did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” (19:7).
We should now expect Jesus to reject the Pharisaic view and reaffirm his own teaching. The no-remarriage view fits this perfectly. By only permitting divorce (i.e., separation) for porneia and by ruling out remarriage, Jesus shows that his views are quite different from both Pharisaic positions.
This view also explains the disciples’ objection in verse 10. Quentin Quesnell notes that “the whole thrust of the passage has been toward building up the greatness and sanctity before God of monogamous marriage, the importance of the bond between spouses, as an expression of the divine will for man from the beginning. Then in verse 10 the disciples reject this picture of life utterly. ‘If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.’ ”14
Jesus’ response should not be read as a concession to the disciples, as it would be if verses 10 – 12 were simply a call to celibacy. This is the way many commentators and gospel critics have read it. Such a reading would be totally out of character in Matthew’s gospel. Quesnell writes, “The ordinary function of the disciples’ speeches in the gospels is to ask questions, to misunderstand or object, or simply to advance the action dramatically. They do not enunciate the Christian ideal for life. Their objections are not accepted and confirmed by the Master, but are refuted, or made the occasion for stronger restatements of the original teaching.”15
These verses, then, are “a challenging formulation of the state of a man whose wife has been put away (set loose) on account of porneia.”16 He may not remarry, so in a sense he is like others who do not marry, who are born eunuchs, and who are made eunuchs by men. Quesnell makes this observation: “Having rebuffed the disciples’ attack in characteristic fashion — with a rebuke to them for lack of faith necessary to receive the difficult word — Jesus repeats the call to understanding: He who can grasp it, let him grasp it.”17 Similar calls to faith are found in Matthew 13:9 (“He who has ears, let him hear”) and Mark 4:9.
Read this way, Matthew 19:3 – 12 is coherent and logical, building to a climax in the fashion typical of Jesus’ disputes with his opponents. There is no need to suppose different gospels disagree on what Jesus taught about marriage or to suppose that he backed down when challenged by the Pharisees or his disciples. Within the context of Matthew’s gospel, let alone the rest of the New Testament and the witness of the early church, a permissive remarriage view is a most improbable interpretation.
The Context within Judaism
I turn now to the context of the life of Jesus and his teaching within the setting of first-century Judaism. I’ve already discussed this in passing as we looked at the other contexts, and it is discussed more fully in my Jesus and Divorce. For those who allow for remarriage after divorce, the argument from the Jewish context is quite simple: All Jews in the first century permitted divorce in certain cases, and a Jewish divorce always entailed the right to remarry. Therefore, any Jewish reader of the New Testament would understand that when divorce was mentioned, it included the right to remarry.18
Now no one would dispute that Jews, Greeks, and Romans in the first century assumed that a divorce entitled one to remarry. It is plain, too, that the Old Testament tolerates divorce with the right to remarry, though it also quite clearly does not like it. Many first-century Jews supposed that since God allowed divorce in the Old Testament, he did not object to it or even approved of it. But does this mean that Jesus shared the same thinking? Could he not have taught something different from first-century Jews? For this is basically how the argument goes: When Jesus used the word “divorce” (apolyein), he must have been using it in the sense that those contemporary Jews used it.
This seems implausible to me for three reasons. First, Christians have always supposed that at some points Jesus did disagree with contemporary Jews. Why were there so many dispute stories in the Gospels if Jesus taught only what his contemporaries believed?
Second, it is clear that the Pharisees expected him to disagree with them about divorce. As both Matthew and Mark observe, the Pharisees came to test him (Matt. 19:3; Mark 10:2). This was one of several episodes in which Jewish leaders came to him to debate political or theological issues to attempt to make his “heretical” views public (Matt. 16:1; 21:23; 22:15, 23, 34). They were out to prove that he disagreed with their interpretation of the law of the Old Testament. But if the divorce-with-remarriage view is correct, Jesus is just another Pharisee who supported the school of Shammai.19
Third, this view rests on a linguistic fallacy. It is a recognized principle of linguistics that the sense of a word exists not in the word alone but also in the utterances in which it is embedded. So it is quite unwarranted to argue that because apolyein means “to divorce” (permitting remarriage) in the mouth of the Pharisees, it cannot mean “to separate” (without remarrying) in the mouth of Jesus. It is the context that must decide the nuance in each case. I have already stated my reasons for believing that when Jesus talks of apolyein, he is talking merely of separation without the right to remarry. This is the only sense that fits the context.20
But there is a final consideration. Even permissive interpreters who hold that Jesus did allow remarriage after divorce for porneia admit that, according to Jesus, apolyein did not always allow remarriage after divorce.21 They essentially understand Matthew 19:9 to cover two situations: (1) whoever divorces his wife in a non-porneia case and marries another commits adultery; (2) whoever divorces his wife in the case of porneia and marries another does not commit adultery.
In the second case, the divorce is full and proper because remarriage does not count as adultery. However, in the fi rst case, not even the husband is free to remarry without committing adultery. In other words, the legal form of divorce does not give the right to remarry. So we ought to render the first case (1) whoever separates from his wife and marries another commits adultery. In other words, apolyein here does not mean “divorce with the right to remarry” but only “separation.” So here Jesus is using apolyein in a different sense from his Jewish opponents. At most, permissive interpreters can argue that sometimes Jesus uses apolyein to mean “divorce,” but sometimes he means only “separate.” They cannot argue that apolyein always means “divorce with the right to remarry.”22
Finally, if we admit that Jesus is using apolyein in a different sense from the Pharisees, is this not to accuse him (or Mat-thew) of being obscure? Not at all. It is a great example of Jesus’ verbal dexterity. It demonstrates his command of language and the debate process. No one can read the Gospels without being amazed at his vivid and striking use of language. He takes up old terms and gives them new meanings. Dupont notes that in another dispute with the Pharisees about purity, Jesus does just the same sort of thing.23 The Pharisees followed the Old Testament law, which said that what you ate and touched made you unclean, but Jesus said, “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth” (Matt 15:11 ESV). Jesus takes familiar Jewish terminology and fills it with new meaning; he does the same when discussing divorce.
My brother David has observed that this type of quip or pun is entirely characteristic of Jesus’ teaching.24 Talking with Nicodemus, Jesus reinterpreted what being “born again” means; with the woman of Samaria the meaning of “living water”; and with the Pharisees the meaning of “blindness” (John 3:3 – 7; 4:10 – 14; 9:38 – 41). The Synoptic Gospels often show Jesus picking up a term used by someone else and giving it a different meaning. For example, “Someone told [Jesus], ‘Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.’ He replied, ‘My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice’ ” (Luke 8:20 – 21; cf. Matt. 12:46 – 50; Mark 3:32 – 35). At his trial and while he hung on the cross, he was accused of having said, “I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days” (Matt. 26:61; cf. 27:40; Mark 14:58; 15:29). John 2:21 explains what Jesus meant: “the temple he had spoken of was his body.” When children were brought to Jesus, he spoke first of children and then of “little ones.” It would be easy to equate the two, but a more careful reading shows that “little ones” are not necessarily youngsters but humble believers (Matt. 18:5 – 6; Mark 9:42). Finally, one could argue that Jesus enjoyed this sort of quip from an early age! Having at last found him in the temple, Mary scolded, “Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” He replied, “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:48 – 49). In light of these examples, it could be argued that it would be strange if Jesus had not used apolyein in a different sense from his opponents.
Thus, all these New Testament contexts point in the same direction, namely, that separation was allowed for porneia, i.e., in situations where Jewish and Roman law required divorce for sexual immorality, but remarriage was never approved. No one, not even ardent defenders of the permissive view, contests that the early church held this view. But if one holds that the permissive view is the original sense of Jesus’ teaching, it becomes a great mystery as to how the early church came to hold the view that remarriage after divorce is wrong. On this improbable scenario, second-century Christians would have had both the apostolic tradition and non-Christian practice endorsing the right to remarry. What on earth could have persuaded the whole church to adopt the strict discipline of no remarriage after divorce? This was no minor adjustment to doctrine or ethics. It potentially affected the lifestyle of every member of the church and every potential convert. It does not seem likely that it could be based simply on the ignorance of Gentiles who were reading the Gospels, who did not know the Jewish customs about divorce entailing the right to remarry, for, in fact, there was plenty of interaction between Jews and Christians in the early centuries.25
Similar principles prevailed elsewhere in the Roman Empire. Divorce allowed people to remarry. So why should second-century Christians suddenly have started to read the Gospels in a way that was contrary both to contemporary custom and the traditions of Jesus that they had inherited from the apostolic age? I find this scenario historically implausible. I believe that only our Lord could have persuaded his followers to make this immense change in marriage discipline and thus break with both Jewish and classical tradition.
APPLYING NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING TODAY
I am sure what I have written will shock and dismay many readers. You may say to yourself, “I never realized it was wrong for me to remarry or to have encouraged someone else to remarry.” It is most important to realize that if this is your situation, God will forgive you. An old hymn puts it beautifully.
There’s a wideness in God’s mercy
Like the wideness of the sea;
There’s a kindness in his justice
Which is more than liberty.
There is no place where earth’s sorrows
Are more felt than up in heaven;
There is no place where earth’s failings
Have such kindly judgment given.
The prophets picture God as having experienced divorce and all the pain associated with it, so he certainly understands your situation if that is what you or your friends are going through. Furthermore, it is obvious that those who have never been taught that divorce and remarriage are wrong are less to blame than those who have been taught that Jesus condemned it. We all sin unknowingly at times, which is why Jesus taught us to pray not only for daily bread but also for forgiveness of our sins. We need forgiveness each day just as much as we need daily bread.
So my first point is that if my conclusions have convicted you, do not despair, but turn to our great high priest who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses “so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Heb. 4:16).
But can we go further? Everyone can see that our society is suffering terribly as the result of marital instability. A hundred years ago, divorce was very rare. Of course, that is not to say that all marriages were happy or that no one committed adultery, but such an atmosphere must have, on balance, made for much greater psychological stability and social cohesiveness than we see today with our rampant individualism.
The situation is so bad that it’s difficult to know what to do. If pastors speak up on this subject, they will offend many in their congregations. If politicians propose legislation that would favor traditional families, they will lose the votes of single parents and like-minded people. As Amos said, “The prudent man keeps quiet in such times, for the times are evil” (5:13). Nevertheless, the Old Testament prophets, as well as Jesus and Paul, were willing to speak out, despite the unpopularity it caused. And I think the modern church should do the same.
Action Priority: Education
So how should we act? The first priority is, of course, education. We cannot change the attitudes and practices of people unless they are aware of Christ’s standards. To ban second marriages in a church that has long permitted them is to court disaster and will achieve very little, unless it is done with the broad consent of its membership. So at every level of church life, from the seminary to the home, our Lord’s teaching about marriage must be passed on. In the local church, marriage should be a subject that is discussed at every level. Particularly important will be the teaching given to teenagers in youth groups and to couples in marriage preparation classes. Every engaged couple should have several sessions that deal with both the theology of marriage and practical aspects of married life. People today often spend more time learning how to drive than how to be married.
Ministers should also preach about marriage. Obviously they must emphasize the positive value of marriage as it is portrayed in the Bible, but they must not shy away from the difficult issues of divorce, remarriage, and singleness. To do so will require great sensitivity, since most congregations contain both divorced and remarried people. In his book Divorce and Remarriage, Andrew Cornes says that before he preached a series of sermons on these topics, he arranged five meetings with a group of divorced and remarried members of his congregation in which he explained what he wanted to say in his sermons, listened to their comments, and heard their life stories. He observed that “this was of the utmost benefit to me. . . . As a series, it has provoked more discussion and thought than any other in living memory.”26
Action Priority: Caring
The second priority of the church is caring. It is the Christian’s duty to bear one another’s burdens, not to pass by on the other side. Individual church members should be alert to their friends’ needs. If someone senses that a couple is having problems, they should encourage them to sort it out. This must be done with great sensitivity, or it will be rejected as interference. But probably more of us suffer from an excess of timidity than the opposite fault. We live in an age that tells us we are all individuals and everyone must be allowed to do their own thing, no matter how bad it might be for them. So we are reluctant to get involved in other people’s affairs. But Scripture teaches us that we are all part of the body of Christ, and that we have a duty to care for each other (1 Cor. 12:24 – 26).
This mutual concern must especially be extended to those who have been divorced, who suffer tremendous pain and guilt and encounter many practical difficulties. They need reassurance that no matter what they have done in the past, God cares for them — and he will forgive them if they seek it. Friends must be ready to listen and sympathize and give the support that the divorced person needs. It can be a tricky path to pursue, because we need to support the person in a nonjudgmental manner without giving the impression that it was a good thing to terminate the marriage. In supportive counseling, it is necessary to bear witness gently and compassionately to God’s standards, as well as to the fullness of his love and forgiveness.
More practically, the loneliness of the divorced person needs to be recognized and catered to. So many social functions cater to couples that singles often feel left out, and this is even more painful if one has known the joys of marriage. Old Testament law is particularly concerned with the needs of widows and orphans. The widespread breakdown of marriage has sadly increased the scope of this category, and we need to be especially aware of the needs of single persons for friendship. More than that, we need to value the contribution that single people make to church and society. Their freedom from family commitments should be an asset to both the church and the community (Matt. 19:12; 1 Cor. 7:32 – 33).
It is not simply the duty of individual Christians to care for the divorced and the separated, but the church community should support them too. Larger churches may have pastors who have responsibility to minister to families. There should be opportunities in private and public worship for divorced people and others to hear God’s promises of forgiveness. Cornes writes, “I cannot stress enough that one of the greatest needs of the divorcée is to deal with his or her guilt. He often finds it very hard to forgive himself or to feel forgiven by God.”27
Action Priority: Worship and Church Discipline
I think it would also be helpful to consider the style of our worship. In my experience, evangelical worship tends to be almost entirely praise oriented. But if one looks at the psalms, the most common category is laments, psalms in which the worshiper pours out his complaint to God and prays for help and healing. In our congregations, there are many who come to worship bearing great pain in their souls, and they need the opportunity to express their woes to God. If the way is not clear for them to do so, they will feel even more excluded and cut off from their fellow worshipers and from God.
Another aspect of caring is church discipline. It is not sufficient simply to teach Jesus’ marriage principles and to support those who fail. It is necessary to uphold those principles when people disregard them. In the present divided state of Protestantism, this is well-nigh impossible, because if Church A will not remarry you, Church B just down the road will. In two denominations in the United Kingdom — the Methodist Church and United Reformed Church — half the weddings involve people who have been divorced. The reason? Because the Church of England and Roman Catholics have traditionally been unwilling to remarry people. Nevertheless, the early church usually excommunicated for long periods members who remarried after divorce, indeed, sometimes for the rest of their lives. Origentells us that some bishops in Egypt allowed remarriage “to avoid worse evils,” although they knew doing so was contrary to Jesus’ teaching. So throughout church history, discipline in this area has been a very messy business. But unless principles are enforced, we may as well give up the attempt to teach the permanency of marriage.
Though some people may leave the church if marriage discipline is enforced, others may leave if it is not. Cornesmentions the case of a man who left his wife and married someone else from the church. This remarried couple then was promoted to an office in the church, where the deserted wife was still worshiping. Her outrage at the church’s stance can well be imagined. But having said that churches must uphold Jesus’ principles by both their practice and their teaching, I am very reluctant to lay down guidelines. The issue of just how strict the discipline should be, it seems to me, should depend on where a church is at the moment. We should be aware of what Jesus teaches and seek to move our church in that direction, but we cannot expect changes of attitude or practice overnight.
In this matter, we must distinguish between tolerance and approval. The Old Testament clearly tolerates divorce and remarriage, but never, I think, approves of it. As Jesus said, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning” (Matt. 19:8). Following Jesus’ teaching, the New Testament church took a much tougher stance. Though they sometimes tolerated divorce for porneia (Matt. 5:32) or desertion (1 Cor. 7:15), they never tolerated, let alone approved of, remarriage after divorce. Regrettably, many modern churches have slipped back into Old Testament attitudes. Indeed, some would seem to be even more liberal than the Old Testament by actually approving of, not simply tolerating, divorce and remarriage. Somehow we have to move our churches and our society to accept the standards Jesus insisted on. It will be a very difficult and slow process. I fear it will take decades, not years. But with persistence and God’s help, the situation may change.
Let’s imagine a church that is moving from its currently permissive stance toward divorce and remarriage to a more restrictive stance. Change would start by teaching Jesus’ principles at all levels of church life. The care of divorced people and other singles would be just as important to stress as the restriction on remarriage. When Jesus’ teachings come to be widely understood, it may be that the congregation will become restive about remarrying divorced persons in church; and with the consent of the leaders in the church, the pastor may feel empowered to decline future requests for remarriage. Subsequently, the issue of remarried church officers may come up, and in the course of time it may be thought improper to appoint them to positions of leadership in the church. First Timothy 3:2, 12 insist that overseers and deacons in the church must be married only once. At some stage in the process, it may seem right to exclude from fellowship those whom the Anglican Book of Common Prayer calls “open and notorious evil livers.”
All these changes would have to be implemented gradually and with great discretion. If a permissive congregation is pushed too hard, it will resist and probably throw out its pastor and appoint someone more suited to their taste. Then nothing will have been achieved. The most effective leaders are those who stay close to their people.
Action Priority: Politics
A final area of concern is that of politics. The present breakdown in marriage is costing society dearly. Children do poorly in school. There is delinquency among young people and depression among the old. Social services are overstretched in responding to spousal and child abuse. Vast sums are spent on supporting single-parent families.28 In the United Kingdom, a policy of so-called equality means that in many respects people are better-off financially to cohabit than to marry. Those who divorce get various benefits denied to married couples. This is one of the pressures that discourages marriage today.
So we need financial experts and media gurus who will point out these problems to our political leaders, and thus help get our laws changed in ways that will support marriage. We need divorce lawyers who do not see it as their first and only duty to facilitate their clients’ cases as quickly as possible but who try to explore whether there may be a chance to save the marriage first. We need sex education programs in schools that do not just teach about sexual techniques and condoms but encourage abstinence before marriage and lifelong fidelity within marriage. We need restrictions on the media, not simply to prevent pornography, but to encourage lifestyles that are dedicated to the good of the other and not merely to self-gratification. We must work for a world where Christ’s standards are honored, not only in the hearts of the faithful, but in our laws and in the institutions that regulate our lives.