He says to them, Moses, in view of your hardheartedness, allowed you to put away your wives; but from the beginning it was not thus.
The Pharisees thought they had found a loophole: if Moses gave rules for a certificate of divorce, then God must approve of divorce. Jesus corrects them twice over. Moses allowed it; he did not command it. And behind the law stands what God did at the start.
Everything turns on one word the Pharisees swapped. They said Moses "commanded." The Lord said Moses "allowed," and He gave the reason.
The Lord goes back beyond the Law to show that God set up this relationship at the beginning, and that it comes before every other. They asked, "Why did Moses then command a man to give a certificate of divorce and send her away?" In the Law, through Moses, God had permitted divorce in a certain exceptional case (see Deut. 24:1), not commanded it as they said, and it was because of the hardness of their hearts. This word is the key to the whole passage. These men had never felt the deeper feelings of the human soul about God's arrangement for His creature. If they had, they could never have quibbled about divorce.
The Pharisees produced Moses as their defence. In the Lord's hands the same words become the evidence against them.
But they did not understand Moses, and they did not understand themselves. The Lord turns their own argument against them in the simplest way: "Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so." Moses himself was the one supplying the evidence of their own condition — and what evidence it was! The law, which was "weak through the flesh," could not perfect anything because a people ruled by the flesh resisted it. Their objection proved two things at once: their own evil, and how hopeless that evil was under law.
If the law came from God, how could it permit what God never wanted? Because God gave it to a whole nation, believers and unbelievers alike.
Moses allowed certain things that were not according to God's original pattern. This should be no surprise, for the law made nothing perfect. It was good in itself, but it could not make anyone good… The law contained certain concessions that did not express the mind of God at all. In it God was dealing with a people who lived by the flesh. The law does not treat a man as born of God; Christianity does… The law itself drew no line between those born of God and those who were not. It addressed all Israel, and not believers only, and so it allowed certain things in view of the hardness of their hearts.
So the law was a stage in God's dealings with man. What He set up at creation never expired.
The Lord takes the occasion to insist on this truth, that what God had established from the beginning of creation was always valid in itself. Moses had allowed a man to put away his wife under the law, but this was only the patience of God with the hardness of man's heart. It was not according to God's own heart and will. In creation at the beginning God made what was good — weak, but good. He allowed other things when He set up a temporary order for His people, for fallen man. But when He created them, He had made things another way. God had joined husband and wife, and man had no right to separate them.
People assume that law is strict and grace is easy. Here the opposite is true, and the reason is what each one supplies.
Moses allowed this because of their hardness of heart, but from the beginning it was not so. How clearly this shows that the law itself was not at all the expression of God's heart! In this case law was more permissive than the grace of God is! For grace enables a person to overcome difficulties in a way law could never do.
So the compromise had a time limit. It ended when the King came, and what replaced it was not a lower standard but a new power.
In the law there was a compromise between God's order and the hardness of men's hearts, and so under the law men could divorce their wives. But the Lord's coming into the world set all that aside. He came to establish a kingdom in which the will of God would be done, and He swept away the provision Moses had made for hard hearts. Grace reigns in that kingdom, and it enables all who are in it to fulfil every relationship according to God.
- Hardness — Moses' concession existed because of what the people were. That one word is the key to the whole passage.
- Allowed — Moses permitted divorce in one exceptional case. He never commanded it. The Pharisees misquoted him to defend themselves.
- Weakness — the law made nothing perfect. It drew no line between believer and unbeliever, so it stood lower than God's own mind.
- Beginning — what God set up at creation always holds. The later allowance was His patience with fallen man, not His heart.
- Grace — law allowed more than grace does, because grace gives power that law could never give.
But I say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, not for fornication, and shall marry another, commits adultery; and he who marries one put away commits adultery.
The Pharisees came to Jesus with a test: could a man divorce his wife for any reason he liked? His answer took them back past Moses to creation, and then landed on this verse. In one sentence He names the only ground for ending a marriage, and the point at which a second marriage becomes adultery.
The Pharisees thought Scripture was on their side. They pointed to Moses, who allowed a man to hand his wife a certificate of divorce. That permission was itself evidence against them, and the Lord answers with His own authority:
They did not understand Moses, and they did not understand themselves. Their own argument turns against them in the simplest way: "Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so." It was Moses himself who was supplying the evidence — and what evidence — of their own condition! ... And He turns on them with one of those commanding sayings that sweep aside all power of resistance like a lightning flash of truth.
One writer contrasts what Moses allowed with what God's heart is really like:
Moses had allowed this because of the hardness of their hearts, but from the beginning it was not so. How clearly this shows that the law itself was not at all the expression of God's heart! In this case law was more permissive than the grace of God is! For grace enables a person to overcome difficulties in a way that law never could.
The clause "except for sexual immorality" does not open a loophole in a bond that would otherwise hold. It points to a bond already destroyed.
He establishes, or rather re-establishes, the true character of marriage as a bond that cannot be dissolved. I say it cannot be dissolved, because the case of unfaithfulness is not really an exception. The guilty person had already broken the bond. It was no longer man and woman one flesh.
This is also why the innocent party is not the one sinning:
The one exception is allowed because the sin has violated the marriage bond so deeply that it is as good as broken already. If one partner is guilty of sexual immorality, then it would not be adultery for the other to divorce and marry someone else. But the person who marries the partner put away for that sin would be guilty of adultery.
Nothing here tells a wronged partner to divorce. One writer shows both the mercy and the limit:
In His grace He makes room for one possible exception. A marriage can be dissolved before God when the terrible sin of adultery attacks its spiritual, mental and physical unity. This is not a command. It is an exception, in which God meets the wronged partner in his spiritual or emotional weakness. Yet do not forget: the sin of adultery can and should be forgiven when the guilty partner confesses it honestly, and it does not have to lead to divorce.
The weight of the verse falls on the words "and marries another." Adultery lies in the new union, not in the paperwork:
A divorce carried out before men (that is, in a court) does not by itself break the marriage entered into before God and man. What breaks it is the sexual union with another partner afterwards — even when this takes place in a new marriage!
All agree that sexual immorality is the one ground stated here. Whether Scripture allows any other ground, they do not all say the same. One writer treats the clause as closing the question:
The Lord Jesus here gives room for one exception, which clearly excludes any other exception... Yet this one and only exception is missing in Mark 10:11-12 and Luke 16:18. Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 does not mention it either... The Lord does not say that divorce cannot be avoided when one partner commits sexual immorality. He says only that in such a case, if the other partner remarries after a divorce, it is not adultery.
Another writer, commenting on the same teaching in Mark, points to a second case:
Often there may have been fault on both sides, and before another marriage a person should be broken before God, seeking only His will. 1 Corinthians 7:15 also shows that desertion breaks the marriage bond, so the deserted partner is left no longer under that bond.
- Beginning. God's design at creation is the standard, not what Moses allowed. That permission measured hard hearts, not God's mind.
- Bond. Marriage is a bond that cannot be dissolved, so the exception is no loophole. Sexual sin has already broken the one-flesh tie; the divorce only admits it.
- But. Even then God permits divorce; He does not command it. Confession opens the way to forgiveness, and the marriage can stand.
- Beyond paper. A court decree does not undo what God joined. The adultery named here belongs to the new union, and to whoever marries the partner put away.
- Beware. Commentators differ on whether desertion also frees the deserted partner. Anyone in that position should seek only God's will before remarrying.