What does the Bible say about divorce and remarriage?
Few subjects touch real lives as sharply as this one, and Scripture handles it in only a handful of passages: Deuteronomy 24, the Lord's words in Matthew 5 and 19, Mark 10 and Luke 16, and Paul's directions in 1 Corinthians 7. The commentators read them together, and the questions they keep returning to are these: what actually breaks a marriage before God, and who — if anyone — is free to marry again?
Creation, not the law, is the standard
When the Pharisees pressed the Lord about divorce, He did not begin with Moses. He went back further, to how God made things.
C. E. StuartThe same lawgiver who allowed divorces had, earlier in the Pentateuch, made known the original institution of marriage, in which there was no clause permitting divorce. Both passages (Deuteronomy 24:1; Genesis 2:23-24) were God's Word. The first was a provision "for the hardness of their hearts," and was no doubt often used without the qualifying ground stated in it, "because he has found some indecency in her." The second taught the sacredness and the real character of the tie. "What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate" is the Lord's declaration about marriage.
Moses allowed; he did not command
Deuteronomy 24 is often read as if it authorised divorce. Writers point out that the passage regulates something already happening, and that its actual command is about something else.
Arend RemmersThe command in these verses is that a woman who remarried after divorce from her first husband could under no circumstances return to him. But the fact that a certificate of divorce is mentioned twice in no way means that God commanded divorce or even approved of it. In Matthew 19:8 the Lord Jesus explains to the Pharisees that Moses only allowed them to send their wives away because of their hardness of heart... Moses left it as it was, perhaps even to protect the wife from a hard-hearted and malicious husband.
The one exception, and how narrow it is
Matthew alone records the clause "except for sexual immorality." Its scope is defined as carefully as its existence.
Arend RemmersThe 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 is unavoidable when one partner commits sexual immorality, but only that in such a case the remarriage of the other partner after a divorce is not adultery.
The same writer adds that the exception is a concession, not an obligation, and that forgiveness remains open:
Arend RemmersHe in His grace makes room for the possible exception, that a marriage can be dissolved before God when it has been attacked in its spiritual, mental and physical unity by the terrible sin of adultery. This is not a command, but an exception by which God meets the wronged partner in his spiritual or emotional weakness. However, it should not be forgotten that the sin of adultery can and should be forgiven if an honest confession has been made, and does not necessarily have to lead to divorce.
The second half of the verse: marrying someone divorced
The Lord's words do not stop at the one who divorces. They reach the person who marries the divorced partner — and Paul's instruction runs along the same line.
Arend RemmersHe who marries a divorced woman commits adultery, because he violates a marriage that exists before God. In agreement with these words of the Lord, the apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians, "To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): 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" (1 Cor. 7:10-11).
Desertion: commentators differ
1 Corinthians 7:15 says the believer deserted by an unbeliever "is not enslaved." How far that freedom goes is disputed. Some read it as freedom to remarry:
Leslie M. GrantSexual immorality would in itself be a breaking of the marriage bond, which a divorce in this case only confirms. The partner who was not guilty would therefore not be committing adultery by marrying another after divorce... 1 Corinthians 7:15 also shows that desertion is considered a breaking of the marriage bond, so that the one deserted would no longer be under that bond.
Others read the same verse as opening a door to separation only, deliberately leaving divorce untouched:
Numerical Bible NotesThere are cases in which separation may be a necessity or allowable, where divorce could not be according to God; separation still leaves room for the mercy of God to come in and restore. The apostle opens this door in Corinthians (1 Cor. 7:15), but not too widely. Divorce he does not touch, for the Lord has decided there.
When the past cannot be undone
Deuteronomy 24:4 forbids a man to take back a wife who has since married another. Writers apply this to converted people whose history cannot be reversed.
Numerical Bible NotesWhen converted to God we may have spent a large part of our lives in disobedience, and the effects are not necessarily removed by our conversion. With the truest desire to do so, it may be absolutely impossible to return to the position we were in before the sin was committed... Restoration to a past state may be — and commonly will be, where divorce has taken place — impossible. We have only to accept things as they are, and rejoice in the mercy that has blotted out the past and enables us to start afresh, with Him.
On a tangled case predating conversion, the counsel is the same:
J. N. DarbyI judge the church must take her as she is when converted... I should certainly take him as I found him.
Summary
- Beginning. The Lord settles the question not from Deuteronomy but from Genesis: two become one flesh, and what God joined, man is not to separate.
- Allowance. Deuteronomy 24 was a concession to hard hearts, never a command; its actual rule was that a remarried wife could not return to her first husband.
- Exception. Matthew alone records the one ground — sexual immorality — and even then divorce is permitted, not required; confession and forgiveness may end the matter instead.
- Reach. The Lord's word touches three parties: the one who divorces, the one who remarries, and the one who marries a divorced person.
- Afterwards. Commentators differ on whether desertion frees a believer to remarry; all agree that where the past cannot be undone, mercy blots it out and lets a person start afresh with God.