Fifty years ago, sin was still rampant in our nation but with one major difference; for the most part marriages were very stable. It was virtually unheard of to get divorced even though sin was as prevalent as it is today. Reflecting on your childhood, many of you may not remember any of your young friends coming from broken homes. This is sadly not the case today—more children will come from broken families than not.

The topic before us is one that has confused many and there exists today many godly people who are all over the board on this topic. Our purpose is not to draw fellowship lines but rather to consider a very complicated teaching.

• From the beginning God created the institution of marriage and has considered it to be a praiseworthy thing. When marriage was created before the fall, there was no indication that it wasn’t a lifelong, unbreakable covenant. There is no provision for changing spouses or divorce. The man and the woman are brought together in covenant for life.

• In this instruction given by Moses, the primary principle is not the use of a writ of divorcement but is a marriage prohibition in a specific scenario where a woman who has been divorced, remarried and then divorced again must not again marry her first husband. Notice that the reason for the principle is that for the first husband, she has become defiled and if they were to get married again, it would be a defilement of the land which would be felt by all living in the land.

• There are a number of things to note here: 1) the woman must not have been put away for adultery for that would have been punishable by stoning; 2) there is no indication that the woman’s remarriage was a sin which means that the first covenant must have been fully broken; 3) she is no longer married to the first husband because he is referred to as the "former" husband.

• In this context, Jesus teaches that there is only one reason for divorcing a wife, sexual immorality. The word for sexual immorality in the Greek is porneia. This word is defined in many dictionaries as a broad word referring to many different kinds of sin but all of a sexual nature. It is not limited to adultery but does include adultery as one kind of sexual sin. We can see the broadness of the word used elsewhere in the Scriptures: Acts 21:25; 1 Cor 6:13, 18; Gal 5:19; 1 Thess 4:3.

• If Christ had wanted to limit this "exception clause" to just adultery, He had a very specific and narrow word to use in the Greek, moicheuo which he does use in the same verse. But He uses the broad sexual term which means that there is more than one type of sexual sin for which divorce is permitted. The problem here is that because of this broadness, we must apply wisdom because the word is also a general term. We immediately start to concoct any number of different scenarios in our minds to test the law and we can run too far with the imagination. Bottom line principle, a marriage is a sexual relationship between one man and one woman founded on a covenant; sexual sins are grounds for divorce.

• When a divorce occurs for Biblical reasons such as porneia, then the covenant is dissolved and therefore, the innocent party is free to remarry. Aside from the exception clause, divorce is not allowed and is forbidden by God. If a man or woman does divorce their spouse for some reason not Biblically permitted, then the admonition for them is to remain unmarried or restore the relationship with the spouse (1 Cor. 7:10-11). The teaching from Jesus here is that if you divorce for other reasons, then you are forcing your spouse (as well as yourself) to commit adultery when you remarry.

• Although the Pharisees are trying to put Jesus in a tight position by recalling the verses in Deuteronomy, Jesus goes further back than Moses to the creation account and reminds them that in the beginning God made no provision of divorce. But then because of sin (the hardness of their hearts) Moses permitted divorce. We can see the distortion of Moses’ teaching by the way they phrased the question, "…for just any reason?"

• The common understanding of marriage and divorce in Christ’s day was that divorce was permitted as long as you completed the paperwork properly. Where did this come from? If we refer back to the case in Deuteronomy, we can see that Moses said that the first divorce occurs because the husband has found some uncleanness in his wife. But the second husband divorces her because he hates her. This instruction obviously became interpreted to mean that a man could divorce his wife for any reason that pleases him. The argument focused on the interpretation of the words "some indecency." The Shammai school took a very narrow view. They interpreted it as referring to some grossly shameful act such as sexual infidelity. On the other hand, the Hillel school took a broad and lax view of the matter, granting divorce for almost anything. Hillel permitted divorce if the wife burned the food she was cooking or broke one of her husband’s favorite dishes. Rabbi Akiba permitted divorce if the husband discovered a more attractive woman. It seems evident that popular Jewish opinion followed the Hillel school in its liberal view. The Jewish historian Josephus indicated that divorce could be granted "for any cause whatsoever." Thus the question of the rabbis is put to Jesus. If he sides with Hillel, he can be charged with moral laxity by the conservatives. If he sides with Shammai, he alienates the Hillel school and popular opinion and risks the wrath of Herod Antipas.

• We see the permanence of the marriage covenant in the command that man should not break that which God has brought together. This principle should be our overarching understanding of marriage. It is a covenant between a man and a woman done before God. We realize that we do not have permission to break the covenant—but God does. If God has given the grounds upon which a divorce may occur then we are free to divorce but this is only because God has given us the grounds—not because it seemed right to us.

• The reaction of the disciples is rather telling. Their response suggests that they perhaps were more inclined to side with Hillel and saw Jesus’ teaching extremely restrictive. Allowing for divorce for only porneia, seemed like a very hard teaching to them.

• Although in this section Paul’s primary intent is to teach on the death of the old man, by way of analogy, he uses the example of the permanence of the marriage covenant. Again we are taught that the marriage covenant is lifelong and should be thought of as permanent. However, we must consider other passages where divorce is permitted for particular reasons so as to be equipped by all of Scripture.

• The primary point to pull out from this section is that if a believer is deserted by his or her spouse, they are not bound to the covenant but are permitted to be divorced. How do we know this? In this example, Paul gives a principle and then gives the contrary principle: If an unbelieving spouse is willing to live with a believing spouse, do not divorce them. However, if they are not willing to stay, don’t attempt to force them to stay, let them go, and you are not bound to the covenant (you may divorce them).
• When Paul says that he gives them a commandment from the Lord, he is reminding them of a principle which Christ had taught on before which is that we should not divorce. Then Paul goes on to give an instruction which Christ did not address which was the case of mixed marriages (Christian and non-Christian). It would be a grave mistake to think that this instruction from Paul was somehow less authoritative just because it came from him (while under the inspiration of the Spirit) and not from Christ.