But *I* say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, except for cause of fornication, makes her commit adultery, and whosoever marries one that is put away commits adultery.
Jesus has been reshaping the commandments one by one. Here He turns to the certificate of divorce, which men in His day used as a legal escape hatch. The verse raises two hard questions. What does divorce do to the person sent away? And why does one situation stand outside the rule?
What Moses Allowed
The saying quoted in the previous verse came from a law meant to restrain cruelty, not to license it.
In connection with the light of heaven on the lusts of the heart, the Lord adds His word on the permission of divorce in Deuteronomy 24. Here the law protects the woman against hard-hearted man. Only actual sin that breaks the marriage tie calls for divorce. Men abused this permission beyond measure, as if it were a command; and any annoyance was enough. But the Lord hates putting away, as the last prophet testified to the Jews in their evil day.
The teachers of the day argued only over how wide the loophole was.
One school of rabbis taught that "uncleanness" in Deuteronomy 24:1 meant adultery or some other immoral behaviour. Other rabbis accepted anything a husband did not like about his wife as a reason for divorce.
The Force of "Makes Her Commit Adultery"
Jesus does not say the man sins and the woman escapes. He says the man puts her in the way of sin.
Whatever the wife's faults and weaknesses may be, the man who divorces her puts her in danger. She may be bound to another husband afterwards. The Lord here calls such a relationship adultery. This implies that the first marriage is still valid before God. A marriage is entered into before God and man. A divorce carried out before men, that is, in a court, does not break it. What breaks it is sexual union with another partner afterwards — even when that union takes place in a new marriage. It hardly needs to be said that this also applies to the spouse who puts away, that is, divorces, the other.
Why the Exception Is Not a Loophole
Commentators read the single exception not as a fresh permission but as recognition of something already true.
The one exception is allowed here because the marriage bond has been so violated that it is already broken in fact. If one party is guilty of sexual immorality, then it would not be adultery for the other party to divorce the first and marry another.
Jesus does not command the wronged partner to divorce. He says only what is not adultery.
Here the Lord Jesus makes room for one exception, and it clearly rules out any other. This exception is missing in Mark 10:11-12 and Luke 16:18, and Paul does not mention it in 1 Corinthians 7. The Lord does not say that divorce is unavoidable when one partner commits sexual immorality. He says only that in such a case, if the other partner divorces and remarries, that is not adultery.
The Third Person in the Verse
The closing words reach beyond the couple to the man who marries the divorced woman.
In God's thoughts, the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. He breaks into a marriage that still exists before Him. These words of the Lord agree with what the apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians: "the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife."
Marriage Under the Light of Heaven
Marriage is a relationship of this earth. It does not rest on human agreement alone.
So our Lord shows that serious difficulties may arise, yet God's own ordinance still stands strongly behind this human relationship. It belongs to this earth, but the light of heaven falls on it. Christ holds up the holiness of marriage. He shuts out every possibility that anything may interfere with it. One case stands apart: where something had already interrupted the marriage in the sight of God. There the act of separation only declares that it was broken already.
Grace Behind the Severity
The law's penalty for adultery was death. Jesus does not repeat it here.
Here we see again what the Lord Jesus asks in His kingdom. He does not demand the literal keeping of the law given at Sinai. He seeks instead that His own should follow Him honestly and with a whole heart. For that reason He does not speak about the death penalty for the woman who had committed adultery. He warns His disciples about divorce and the sins caused by it. At the same time, in His grace, He makes room for the possible exception... We should not forget that the sin of adultery can and should be forgiven when the guilty one confesses it honestly. It does not have to lead to divorce.
Summary
- Permission, not command. Moses' certificate restrained hard-hearted men; the Jews turned a concession into a right.
- Bond, not paperwork. A court ruling does not end a marriage made before God. The first marriage still stands before Him.
- Exception, not escape. The one allowance covers a bond already broken by sin — it declares a fact rather than creating a freedom.
- Reach, not privacy. The words touch the one who divorces, the one divorced, and the one who marries her.
- Grace, not the death penalty. Christ does not repeat the death sentence of the law. He calls for whole-hearted faithfulness, and He leaves room for confession and forgiveness.