Matthew 5:31-32

 ³¹ “Furthermore it has been said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ ³² But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.

Commentary

The Lord Jesus now continues on with His teachings on sexual immorality by moving into the realm of marriage. Now marriage is honorable amongst all, and bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge (Heb. 13:4). Therefore in seeking to preserve the purity of marriage the Lord Jesus now lays down for us some clear instructions of just what constitutes grounds for a Godly marriage, and sadly, when necessary, a just divorce. Now the priests, scribes, and Pharisees in Jesus’ day were the religious authorities and administrators of God’s Law; they knew the Law, and just how to exploit it for their own advantage. And so to avoid breaking God’s commandment not to commit adultery, they would simply divorce their current wives (by giving them a certificate of divorce, see Deut. 24:1-4) if they desired another woman, and then take her as a wife instead, using the Law’s passage in Deut. 24:1-4 as grounds for doing so. Now this practice became widespread amongst them in ancient Israel (Malachi 2:13-16). Therefore even as far back as the Book of Malachi we read of God’s great displeasure at their doing so, because by their doing so they were not only misusing that passage in the Law; (which permitted them to divorce their wives only in case of finding some sort of uncleanness with ones wife; i.e. she was degenerate, or an idolater, or was doing something that would also make him defiled by her behavior, and so not simply because he wanted to marry another women); therefore by their doing so they were not only covering God’s altar with tears, the tears of their abandoned wives and children whom they were leaving for the “love”/lust of another woman! But God says that they were also covering their own garments with violence, violence because of the devastating effects on both their wives and their children, which left them scarred for the rest of their lives. Therefore Jesus now readdresses the “infamous” passage in the Law that permitted divorce (but only if “uncleanness” was found in the wife), which they were clearly misusing for their own advantage so that they could divorce their current wives and marry another woman. Therefore to correct this, the Lord Jesus’ now says: “Furthermore it has been said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ ³² But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.” Therefore the Lord Jesus Christ makes it very clear to us all that the only just grounds for divorcing ones wife is that the wife has committed sexual immorality against him, (and thus no longer can the “uncleanness” mentioned in Deut. 24:1-4 be used to justify divorcing ones wife unless it is an “uncleanness” upon her because the wife has already committed sexual immorality against her husband, thus breaking the marriage covenant, and thus justifying its annulment if that was sought by him. Therefore by stating as much Jesus has ended forever anyone justifying divorcing their wives just so that they can take another woman and marry her so as not to be committing adultery, and break God’s commandment. Now in this Jesus also says that a divorced woman is not to be remarried by anyone, because if one does then one is only committing adultery themselves. The assumption then is that the divorced woman being mentioned here was the adulterous party in the previous marriages annulment, and thus no one should marry her for then they would only be marrying an adulterous! Again the same would also apply to a man if he is the guilty party.

Scripture Quotations

The New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.