It seems to me that most Christians have chosen to ignore Jesus’ teaching on divorce and remarriage. I realize that the Bible’s teaching on divorce and remarriage is not crystal clear, and that even conservative Christians hold to a number of different interpretations of the Biblical teaching. That said, I think it’s abundantly clear that Jesus only permitted divorce and remarriage in a very narrow set of circumstances.
And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” 4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” 7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” 8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” 10 The disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” (Mt 19:3-10, ESV)
It’s pretty clear that Jesus opposed no-fault divorce, which is tantamount to our modern “irreconcilable differences.” Jesus only provided one justification for divorce, and it has to do with some kind of sexual sin (opinions differ as to what constitutes this sin). Unfortunately, I would venture to say that most confessing Christians get a divorce for irreconcilable differences as opposed to sexual sin.
It’s also pretty clear that if Jesus allowed remarriage for the divorced at all, He only allowed it for those whose divorce was justified. That would limit remarriage to the person who divorced his/her spouse for sexual sin. It does not include the person who committed sexual sin, nor those who divorced for reasons other than sexual sin. And yet, improperly divorced Christians get remarried with the sanction of the church all the time. I am not personally aware of a single case in which an improperly divorced Christian was prohibited from remarriage by church leadership.
What got me thinking about this was an article I read a few months ago regarding a former pastor. His former wife divorced him for infidelity, and he has since remarried. Surely, if Jesus’ teaching against remarriage applies to anyone, it is to a person in this precise situation. If the church will allow an adulterer to remarry, then who would it possibly prohibit? It seems that no one is prohibited from remarrying these days. Jesus’ teaching is simply ignored.
You might be thinking at this point, “Of course he should be allowed to remarry so long as he repented. That’s what forgiveness is all about.” But Jesus didn’t say that those who wrongly divorce can get remarried if they repent of their divorce. He said that those who wrongly divorce are guilty of adultery if they remarry. There is no “unless they repent” clause. If repentance allowed for remarriage, then to whom does Jesus’ teaching apply? It would only apply to the unrepentant. Since genuine Christians will repent, then every genuine Christian could remarry and Jesus’ teaching would be effectively nullified.
I’m not the only one who recognized there was no repentance clause in Jesus’ teaching. So did His disciples. That’s why they reacted to Jesus’ teaching by saying, “If that’s the case, then it’s better to never marry.” The disciples’ understood Jesus to mean that the grounds for divorce and remarriage were very narrow, and few would “qualify.” Jesus didn’t correct their understanding by saying, “Hold your horses, boys. You misunderstood. When I said those who remarry following an unjustified divorce commit adultery, I was only referring to the unrepentant. If you repent regarding your unjustified divorce, you can remarry.” If Jesus’ teaching was conditioned on repentance, He could have said so. He didn’t, because His teaching was not conditioned on one’s repentance. God may forgive the sin of divorce when one repents, but there are still consequences for that sin that remain – one of which is the inability to remarry. While those guilty of unjust divorce do need to repent of their sin, there is no reason to believe that such repentance erases the consequences of their sin. While God may forgive them for what they did, that forgiveness is not grounds for a new marriage.
My purpose for this post is not to shame anyone who has already remarried following an unjustified divorce, or to explore every possible exception and circumstance. Rather, I am speaking to those who seek to be married, the married, and the divorced who have not remarried, encouraging them to be obedient to Jesus. I am also speaking to pastors who have – for too long – been silent on this issue. It’s time we start taking Jesus’ teaching seriously and apply it in the real world. Obedience matters, especially when it hurts.
If you are interested to learn more about this topic, I will be releasing a paper soon that is the culmination of over one year of study on this topic. Stay tuned.
September 14, 2021 at 5:57 pm
I usually take issue on your posts, but I have to say I agree with everything you say here. I do find many Christians who vigorously object to the right to an abortion completely ignore the right to a divorce…even though Jesus said nothing at all against abortion but was very clearly against divorce and remarriage. Yet far more Christians divorce and remarry than have an abortion. I suppose everyone picks and chooses what appeals to them and ignores the rest.
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September 14, 2021 at 8:55 pm
lol ………… poor lost dm. Jesus didn’t have to speak about abortion because nobody disputed the clear biblical teaching against abortion in the circumstances i mentioned earlier.
the problem was not the clear biblical teachings that allowed divorce and the right to re-marry. the problem was the jewish leaders perverted the teaching so much you could divorce your wife for any reason and be free to re-marry again. which is a perversion of the bible just like you and others do.
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September 14, 2021 at 10:44 pm
And there you go: Paul is a perfect example of a Christian picking and choosing what appeals to him and ignoring the rest. He vigorously objects to abortion rights with “creative” interpretation of scripture that doesn’t say a thing against abortion, while studiously ignoring Jesus’ far clearer and unambiguous teachings against divorce and remarriage…all the while doubling down on the claim that he’s not doing exactly that. Watch him do it again.
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September 15, 2021 at 4:57 am
The Post is about Remarriage , not abortion!
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September 15, 2021 at 3:57 pm
One of the arguments i have heard many times of why the conservative view is wrong, is that it is to Harsh , its just not doable, how can you expect healthy, young , vibrant, people to not have companionship, and physical pleasure, or deny some of having children etc. God surely cannot be that cruel, that harsh.
I was thinking of this last week while reading the 10th chapter of Ezra, where the Priests, Levites, and people who had married foreign women, were required to make a covenant with God, and commanded to put their wives and children out.
Talk about harsh, your married , hopefully happy , have children , life is good, and you are told that your wife and children must be put aside.
And i would assume they were free to remarry.
Jason , i am curious of whether or not you think this incident, should be considered in the church age when discussing divorce and remarriage?
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September 15, 2021 at 8:18 pm
J Gefroh, I actually address this in my paper. I speak to it in two separate sections. I will quote both:
The Law of Moses prohibited the Israelites from marrying their pagan neighbors (Deuteronomy 7:1-4), and yet the returning exiles had done so anyway. Shecaniah suggested, and Ezra agreed, that the people should “put away” their wives and children (10:4) and “separate” (10:11) themselves from them. This is the language of divorce. The men of Israel were commanded to divorce their foreign wives by sending them (and their children) away from the family home.
This is a particularly interesting case in that divorce was not merely permitted, but required. One might argue that the command came from Ezra rather than God, but this misses the entire spirit of the passage. Ezra’s command was the result of his reading of the Law of Moses and an example of the people’s repentance toward God. If God had disapproved of Ezra’s interpretation or command, He could have made His will known. He did not. The book of Ezra portrays these divorces as a great act of repentance, not as a moral travesty.
This is not the only example in Scripture where divorce is commanded. John the Baptist told Herod that his marriage was immoral/unlawful (Matthew 14:3-4), implying that it was wrong for them to continue in the “marriage.” Could such scenarios apply today? Could the church demand that certain immoral marriages be broken up? Consider the marriage of a believer to an unbeliever. A Christian who marries an unbeliever – despite the Biblical prohibition against doing so (1 Corinthians 7:39; 9:5; 2 Corinthians 6:14) – would appear to be in the exact same situation faced by the Israelites. If the Israelites’ repentance required them to divorce their unbelieving wives, does the Christian’s repentance require him/her to divorce his/her unbelieving spouse today? Some might point to Paul’s instructions to Christians not to divorce their unbelieving spouses (1 Corinthians 7:12-13) as evidence that the church should not force a separation, but Paul was speaking to a different situation. Paul was addressing new believers who were already married prior to their conversion, and now find themselves in a mixed religious marriage. He was not addressing Christians who chose to marry unbelievers. While I must admit that I am personally averse to demanding divorce in the case of immoral marriages, I could not claim that there is no Biblical precedent for doing so. At best, one might appeal to Biblical examples involving marriages to foreign women where divorce was not required (Nehemiah 13:23-30; Malachi 2:13-16). If divorce was not always required in the Bible, then perhaps divorce is not required today.
….
There is good Biblical precedent for requiring people to end immoral marriages. As discussed previously, Ezra commanded that those who had wrongly married foreign women to divorce those women and send away any children produced by those immoral unions (Ezra 10:2-12). John the Baptist told Herod he was morally obliged to divorce his wife because the marriage was immoral (Matthew 14:3-4; see Leviticus 20:21 for the basis of John’s claim). There was even a precedent for this in Jesus’ day. As noted earlier, it was Jewish practice in the time of Jesus to require the spouses in a second marriage to divorce if one’s first divorce was determined to be invalid. There was, then, a social context in which requiring divorce for an adulterous remarriage would be expected.
Despite the Biblical precedent for demanding divorce for immoral marriages, there is nothing in the NT that commands those who have wrongly divorced and remarried to divorce their new “spouse,” or even to cease sexual relations for that matter. This silence would be odd if divorce was the expected form of repentance. After all, a large number of people in the early church would have been impacted. While we cannot know how many marriages ended in divorce in the first century A.D., given the prevalence of “any matter” divorce in Judaism and “no fault” divorce in the Greco-Roman world, it is likely that divorce was just as common for them as it is for us today. Why, then, do we not see Jesus or Paul commanding divorce for those who wrongly remarry? While Jesus considered such relationships to be adulterous, He did not prescribe any particular punishment for those in them, and He gave no command for the original couple to reconcile. Can we require something of people that Jesus did not?
We do not need to rely entirely on negative evidence, however. Paul’s teaching regarding Christians who divorce Christian spouses is also instructive (1 Corinthians 7:10-11). Here was a situation in which believers had clearly disobeyed Jesus’ command not to divorce, and yet Paul did not recommend church discipline. He encouraged them to reconcile, but did not force them to do so. He gave them the option to remain single. If Paul would not command believers who had wrongly divorced to reconcile (he allowed them to remain divorced), why think he would command believers who had wrongly divorced and wrongly remarried to divorce their illegitimate spouse and reconcile with their former spouse? If Paul did not exercise church discipline for Christians who had disobeyed Jesus’ teaching on divorce, why think we have the obligation to “force” Christians who wrongly remarried to divorce?
At the end of the day, I do not think a literal interpretation necessarily requires divorce, although it would seem to be an appropriate response for the repentant if they so choose. While there is Biblical precedent for encouraging divorce as part of one’s repentance, there are also Biblical precedent for allowing the marriage to stand.
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September 16, 2021 at 1:05 am
Is your paper going to be presented at a symposium or online?
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September 16, 2021 at 10:30 pm
It will be posted to this blog.
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September 20, 2021 at 2:10 pm
I’m looking forward to this paper!
I know many conservative Christians who don’t believe in divorce and remarriage for any reason other than the death of one of the spouses. They consider any Christian who has been divorced and remarried to be committing adultery. Unless of course the divorce and remarriage happened before conversion. Apparently that’s “under the blood”. I’ve never thought that to follow logically or to be sound Scriptural reasoning, but I will be curious to see if you address this in your paper.
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September 28, 2021 at 7:57 am
lol ……… poor lost and delusional dm — it’s you not me ignoring things. the bible is clear on these topics —- divorce and re-marriage is allowed under certain circumstances only, same for abortion. but people like you ignore the facts to remain in your delusion. you twist and pervert the bible to support your erroneous position. so, as the bible correctly states — under certain circumstances divorce and re-marriage becomes adultery and abortion becomes murder.
the context of Jesus’ teaching here is clear — marriage was supposed to be 1 man and 1 women until death they do part except for “porenia.” but because of the “hardness of our hearts” He gave Moses other exceptions. and like the rabbis’ did in other instances they perverted the word of God and made it irrelevant because of their traditions. that’s what Jesus was condemning
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November 1, 2021 at 10:31 pm
My view is that biblical justifications for divorce are few and far between and would include adultery and desertion as mentioned in scripture, and I’d also add physical abuse for obvious reasons. However, I do not believe that any justifications are given for remarriage in the case of divorce by Jesus or Paul, and that if the former spouse still lives, any remarriage that takes place is considered to be adultery. The only viable options for the divorced believer are to remain as such or be reconciled to the divorced spouse. Remarriage on the part of either is considered divorce. However, for believers who have been divorced and remarried, I’m inclined to believe that the grace of God covers them and that although the remarriage shouldn’t have happened, dissolving it would incur more harm than anything so let it be. Admittedly scripture is silent concerning this situation but that is what leads me to believe as I do. Otherwise, it would seem that a proscription of dissolution or some similar act would be offered for remarried believers with former living spouses and yet we see none in scripture.
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February 3, 2022 at 8:53 am
Marriage was created and ordained by God.Marriage is not a sin, so God isn’t going to forgive anyone of their marriage. Notice I said marriage, not remarriage.My wife left me years ago, she is with another man. When that man goes to bed with MY wife, he is going to bed with me because she is my body (one flesh). I never remarried because death is the ONLY way to end a marriage to one spouse and remarry another. This is God’s law. As lonely as I feel, I know that I am obeying God. Not man, not even if that pastor is apostolic. Most do not teach against this topic in the first place, and the assemblies are full of adultery as a result. What God has joined together, let not man put asunder. Period. UPC, and other alphabet soup organizations can teach whatever they want contrary to the Bible. But, you that do, are not going to convince God.
In Jeremiah God said that He had written Israel a bill of divorcement, then a little further into the passage said, nevertheless return unto me, for I am married to you. We were en-grafted into the natural branch by death. Jesus died so that He could marry a gentile bride. The whole Bible is about a wedding. God followed His own law of marriage. Why would you ever thing man can defy it? My wife, is lost. She is not my sister in the Lord either, she is an adulteress by her choice.
If I stole your car, and then repented, can I keep your car?
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February 3, 2022 at 9:25 am
Hi Kevin. Sorry to hear about your situation, and I applaud you for having such integrity to follow your understanding of Scripture despite your desire to remarry. And I agree with you that mere repentance is not enough to undo Jesus’ teachings. They apply even after repentance.
While I think most divorces and remarriages are unjustified, I think those in your situation are justified in remarrying. When I (eventually) release the results of my paper on this topic, I hope you will read the section on the exception clause. I engage with the interpretations that claim it only applies to the bethrothed, or only applies to divorce but not remarriage.
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February 3, 2022 at 9:26 am
“ I never remarried because death is the ONLY way to end a marriage to one spouse and remarry another. This is God’s law. As lonely as I feel, I know that I am obeying God.”
To me, this is the saddest thing about religion. People end up wasting the one and only life we know for certain that we have for the promise of something that can’t be demonstrated to be true. At least when I die it will be after having lived life to its fullest, without regrets, and without having wasted it on a sad, lonely existence.
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February 3, 2022 at 9:36 am
Derek, even if Kevin is wrong, at least he has principles and lives by those principles even when it hurts. I can respect that. There’s not that many people like that these days. I don’t know too many atheists who have such strong principles and strong resolve to keep them. I’ll take a man of principle over a man who doesn’t believe in much of anything any day of the week (and to clarify, I’m not saying that is you).
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February 3, 2022 at 12:53 pm
“I don’t know too many atheists who have such strong principles and strong resolve to keep them.”
Then I would have to say you don’t know many atheists. I’ve experienced the churches of enough denominations to know that believers act one way in public and the opposite way in private. That’s not to say that some atheists behave the same way, but you get more honesty from atheists, in my experience. You see, many of them are former theists who suffered under the unaccountable behavior of their church leaders. Others were fed misinformation about evolution and cosmology that they discovered wasn’t true when they looked up the science for themselves. Still others found religious prejudice against gays, women, etc. cruel and unacceptable.
That sense of betrayal has helped turn many a former theist into an atheist dedicated to honesty and critical thinking (which serves people well *during* this life). Have you noticed the precipitous decline in Christianity over the past few decades? It’s no coincidence that it coincides with the public exposure of corruption and sexual abuse in the Catholic and Evangelical churches, as well as the exposure of church members to accurate scientific information and to maligned people who turn out to be good people. The discovery of hypocrisy among a formerly trusted religion doesn’t just drive people away, but it also forges strong moral and ethical principles in response.
Regardless, though, unless principles are based on demonstrated evidence, I don’t know why it should be lauded. After all, would you say a Buddhist who strives to deprive himself of earthly experiences his whole life is exhibiting worthwhile principles? Or just wasting his one opportunity to experience the joy life has to offer?
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May 5, 2022 at 6:07 pm
Hi Jason,
Have you read or have you heard of the paper by Daniel R. Jennings, Except For Fornication? It seems like a slam dunk on the issue.
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May 6, 2022 at 12:36 pm
I have not read it. What is his position?
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May 6, 2022 at 4:57 pm
His position is that the only reason that would allow a divorce and remarriage is death of a spouse or undisclosed pre-marital fornication. He said he preached the opposing view for years. Also says, … “I do not intend this to be either
my or the final word on this subject. There are still many questions that I
have.” It is a 135-page PDF file found easily online. It seems very well sourced. Here is the table of contents. Also, an interesting take from appendix 2. —”Every denomination that today accepts
homosexual behavior began by first lowering their standards regarding divorce
and remarriage.”
. Is It Post-Marital Adultery Or Pre-Marital Fornication That
Justifies Divorce And Remarriage?……………………………………………. 1
2. A Simple Grammar Lesson To Understand The Porneia Family
Of Words……………………………………………………………………. 3
3. The Way Pre-New Testament Writers Used Porneia…………….. 4
4. The Way New Testament Writers Used Porneia………………….. 6
5. The Way Post-New Testament Writers Used Porneia……………. 9
6. The King James Translation Committee And Numerous Other
Translators Whose Translations Favored The Fornication View.. 19
7. The Apparent Contradiction Between Matthew 19:9a And Luke
16:18 Which Arises Under The Adultery View…………………… 27
8. The Fornication View Matches An Actual Reference To
Concealed Pre-nuptial Sin In The Law Of Moses………………… 28
9. The Theological Underpinnings Supporting The Fornication
View…………………………………………………………………………… 30
A.) Medical Literature And The Rupturing Of The Hymen… 35
10. The Fornication View Is Contained In Natural
Law………………………………………………………………………….. 39
A.) Statistically Those Who Engage In Fornication And Then
Marry Someone Else Are More Likely To Divorce………. 43
11. Why Is The Adultery View So Popular In American
Christianity?……………………………………………………………………………. 45
12. Some Objections Answered………………………………………………. 47
Objection 1: Doesn’t the Septuagint (the 2nd century BC
Greek translation of the Hebrew Old
Testament) use porneia to describe
adultery?………………………………………………………. 47
Objection 2: Didn’t God divorce his wife Israel because she
committed adultery?……………………………………. 55
Objection 3: Doesn’t the Apostle Paul use porneia to
describe the ancient Israelis committing
adultery?………………………………………………………. 56
Objection 4: Doesn’t the Apostle Paul use porneia to
describe an adulterous relationship in
1Corinthians 5:1?………………………………………….. 58
Objection 5: Didn’t God divorce Israel and marry the
Church?……………………………………………………….. 61
Objection 6: Some of the Greek dictionaries that I have say
that one of the definitions of porneia is
adultery, so how could the exception clause
not be referring to adultery?…………………………. 63
Objection 7: If the Adultery View is not the correct
interpretation then why did some of the great
preachers from the past teach it?………………….. 71
Objection 8: Aren’t there some post-New Testament Greek
quotes which prove that porneia carried with
it the idea of adultery?………………………………….. 74
13. The Adultery View Has Been Rejected By Christians
Throughout History………………………………………………………….. 80
14. What the Bible Clearly Teaches About Divorce And
Remarriage…………………………………………………………….. 111
A.) The Clear Teachings Of The New Testament Upon
Divorce And Remarriage………………………………………. 111
B.) Let’s Dig Deeper…………………………………………………. 113
C.) Imaginary Aoristic Presents………………………………… 115
D.) Thoughts On The Pauline Privilege…………………………… 119
15. Going With The Evidence………………………………………….. 122
16. Appendix 1: Some Personal Observations Upon Divorce And
Remarriage Within The Evangelical Church…………………….. 124
17. Appendix 2: The Testimony Of The Liberal Churches Who
Preceded The Evangelicals In Abandoning Jesus’ Teachings
On Divorce And Remarriage……………………………………
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August 6, 2022 at 4:57 am
[…] Quote from the source: … […]
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November 16, 2022 at 4:11 am
Thank you for this article! I wanted to ask if Scripture prevents a person to remarry after a divorce that was pursued by his/her ex, but there was no known adultery at the time of divorce. Is the spouse who tried to save the marriage still forbidden to remarry? This has recently come up at our church. Thank you
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November 22, 2022 at 10:01 am
Ann, if the divorce was ended without Biblical justification then remarriage is not permitted. Paul addressed this in 1 Cor 7:10-11. Christians who divorced must either remain single or be reconciled to one another.
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