What is a certificate of divorce (Matthew 5:31)?

However, the sad fact is that a man often finds an excuse for putting away his wife. In such a case in Israel he was required to give her a certificate of divorce, thereby leaving her free to marry another (vs.1-3). but if she did marry another man and he also divorced her, or if he died, then the former husband must not take her back a wife (v.4). This would be most unseemly, for he had before rejected her for what he considered good reason. This is said to be "abomination before the Lord." If there had been no marriage to another, the case would be different. The law is firm and decided about this matter, though when the grace of God is known, it can lead to honest self-judgment on the part of those who are guilty, and can wonderfully overcome the evil by a gracious and righteous recovery. Believers too often put themselves into positions that are so compromising as to be outwardly hopeless; yet we must remember that there is no situation too difficult for the grace of God.

Yet we know that throughout the Old Testament these things were ignored. Many (even believers) had more then one wife. The Pharisees too thought they could prove the Lord wrong by referring to Deut.24:1, which speaks of Moses, the lawgiver, instructing that if a man had found some uncleanness in his wife, he could give her a bill of divorcement and send her away. This bill of divorce was to guard against a man's cruel treatment of a wife by discarding her while not leaving her free to be married to any other.

The Pharisees raised the question as to the legality of one's divorcing his wife. Their motives were bad, for they wanted to catch Him in His words, a most foolish thing in dealing with the Son of God. Since it was the law they appealed to, then He asks them, "What did Moses command you?" They were aware of Deuteronomy 24:1-2, and answered that Moses had allowed it. They did not say Moses commanded it, for he had actually commanded that if one did put away his wife, he must give her a bill of divorcement.

The Lord meets the question, "Is it lawful?" by appealing to the law. "What did Moses command you?" In their reply they sought to turn aside the Lord's question by speaking, not of what Moses commanded, but of what Moses allowed (N. Tr.). So doing they unwittingly exposed the hardness of their hearts. They neglected the positive commands of Moses, and speak only of special precepts instituted to meet their own hardness. The commands met God's heart for man; the precepts as to divorce were to meet their hearts.

The writing of divorcement

The Lord Jesus does not refer to a commandment from the Old Testament, but to a habit of the Jews which was likely to have existed before the giving of the law at Sinai-that of the writing of a letter of divorce. "It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement."

This was explained by the Lord. Moses had suffered a man to put away his wife for any cause, as we see in Deut. 24:1, 3; but the Lord maintained God's original ordinance that what God had joined together, man had no right to put asunder, therefore a man must not put away his wife except for fornication, when she herself had broken the bond. Matt. 5:31-32; Matt. 19:3-9. A BILL OF DIVORCEMENT must be given to the woman, the drawing up of which, and having it witnessed, was some little check upon a man's hasty temper.

Divorce is used symbolically to express God's action in putting away Israel, who had been grossly unfaithful, and giving her a bill of divorcement. Isa. 50:1; Jer. 3:8.

In verse 31 the Lord refers to Deut.24:1. Under law one who put away his wife was required to give her a letter of divorcement, in order that she might be free to marry another man. But the Lord's words go further then law, to give marriage its proper place. If a man puts away his wife he virtually makes her to commit adultery (unless she has first been guilty of fornication, in which case it is her guilt, not his--ch.19:9). If the women has not been guilty of fornication, and the man marries another before his wife remarries, then it is he who is committing adultery. If the woman remarried first, however, she would be committing adultery, and so would the man who married her. Marriage is a most serious matter, and must not be regarded lightly.

The commandment in these verses is therefore that a woman who remarried following a divorce from her first husband, could under no circumstances return to him. But the fact that a writing of divorcement is mentioned twice does in no way mean 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 put away their wives because of their hardness of heart. He adds, "But from the beginning (i.e. according to the creatorial order) it was not so." When the people of Israel received the law at Sinai, the habit of divorce by a writing of divorcement obviously already existed. Moses left it like that, perhaps even for the protection of the wife from a hard-hearted and malicious husband who could cause great harm to her if they continued to live together.

Yet from this allowance in Deuteronomy 24 the Jews had derived a permission for divorce and a commandment for giving a writing of divorcement. We can see this from the Pharisees' question in Matthew 19:7: "Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?" The only disagreement among them was about the reasons for divorce. One school of rabbis taught that "uncleanness" in Deuteronomy 24:1 was adultery or some other form of immoral behaviour, while other rabbis accepted anything a husband did not like about his wife as a reason for divorce. In Matthew 19:3 the Pharisees seem to refer to these disagreements among their teachers, "Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?"

In connection with the light of heaven on the lusts of the heart, the Lord adds His word on the permission of divorce in Deut. 24. It is here the woman protected against hard-hearted man. Positive sin in violation of the marriage tie alone calls for divorce. Men abused the licence beyond measure, as if the permission were a precept; and any vexation sufficed. But Jehovah hates putting away, as the last prophet testified to the Jews in their evil day.

The Lord then denounces the easy dissolution of the tie of marriage: "It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement. But I say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery" (vers. 31, 32). Thus our Lord shows that though there might be serious difficulties, still this human relationship receives the strong sanction of God's ordinance. Though an earthly relationship, the light of heaven is thrown upon it, the sanctity of marriage held up, and the possibility of allowing anything to interfere with its holiness entirely put down by Christ, save only where there was that which interrupted it in the sight of God, in which case the act of separation would be only a declaration of its being already actually broken.