It is not until we come to the third book of the Bible that we find divorce and remarriage specifically mentioned. Contained within the Law of Moses was a prohibition against priests marrying divorced women:

They shall not take a woman who is profaned by harlotry, nor shall they take a woman divorced from her husband; for he is holy to his God (Lev. 21:7).

Nowhere within the Law of Moses is there such a prohibition addressed to the general population of Israelite men. Moreover, the just-quoted verse implies (1) that there were divorced Israelite women and (2) that there would be nothing wrong with non-priestly Israelite men marrying women who had been previously married. The above-quoted law applies only to priests and divorced women who might marry priests. There was nothing wrong under the Law of Moses with any divorced woman remarrying, just as long as she didn’t marry a priest. And there was nothing wrong with any man, other than a priest, marrying a divorced woman.

The high priest (perhaps as a supreme type of Christ) was required to live by even higher standards than regular priests. He was not even permitted to marry a widow . We read just a few verses later in Leviticus:

A widow, or a divorced woman, or one who is profaned by harlotry, these he may not take; but rather he is to marry a virgin of his own people (Lev. 21:14).

Does this verse prove that it was sinful for any and all Israelite widows to ever remarry or that it was sinful for any and all Israelite men to marry widows? No, certainly not. In fact this verse strongly implies that it would not be sinful for any widow to marry any man as long as he wasn’t the high priest. And it strongly implies that any man besides a high priest was permitted to marry a widow. Other scriptures affirm the complete legitimacy of widows remarrying (see Rom. 7:2-3; 1 Tim.5:14).

This verse also implies, along with the previous verse we considered (Lev. 21:7), that that there would be nothing wrong for any Israelite man (other than a priest or high priest) to marry a divorced woman or even a woman who was not a virgin, “profaned by harlotry.” It likewise implies that, under the Law of Moses, there was nothing wrong for a divorced woman to remarry or for a woman “profaned by harlotry” to marry, just as long as she didn’t marry a priest. God graciously gave both fornicators and divorcees another chance, even though He was very opposed to both fornication and divorce.

The Bible consistently says that divorce always involves sin on the part of one or both parties. God never intended for anyone to divorce, but mercifully made provision for divorce when immorality occurs. He also mercifully made provision for divorced people to remarry.

If it wasn’t for Jesus’ words about remarriage, no one reading the Bible would have ever thought that remarriage was a sin (except for two very rare cases under the old covenant and for one rare case under the new, namely, remarriage after one was divorced from a Christian as a Christian). We have, however, found a logical way to harmonize what Jesus said about remarriage with what the rest of the Bible teaches. Jesus was not replacing God’s law of remarriage with a stricter law that forbids all remarriage in every case, an impossible law for people who are already divorced and remarried to obey (like trying to unscramble eggs), and one that would create unlimited confusion and lead people to break other laws of God. Rather, He was helping people to see their hypocrisy. He was helping those who believed they would never commit adultery to see that they were committing adultery in other ways, by their lust and by their liberal attitude toward divorce.

As the entire Bible teaches, forgiveness is offered to repentant sinners regardless of their sin, and second and third chances are given to sinners, including divorced people. There is no sin in any remarriage under the new covenant, with the exception of the believer who has been divorced from another believer, which should never occur since true believers are not committing immoralities and there is thus no valid reason to divorce. In such a rare event that they do, both should remain single or be reconciled to each other.

With this foundation laid, we can begin to explore more specifically what God has declared about divorce and remarriage. Since the most controversial statements about divorce and remarriage are those spoken by Jesus to Israelites, it will help us to first study what God said hundreds of years before on the same subject to earlier Israelites. If we find that what God said through Moses and what God said through Jesus are contradictory, we can be sure that either God’s law changed or that we’ve misinterpreted something said by either Moses or Jesus. So let us begin with what God first revealed regarding divorce and remarriage.

I’ve already made mention of the passage in Genesis 2 that, according to Jesus, has some relevance to the subject of divorce. This time, let’s read it straight from the Genesis account:

And the Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. And the man said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh (Gen. 2:22-24).

Here then is the origin of marriage. God made the first woman from the first man and for the first man, and personally brought her to him. In the words of Jesus, ” God …joined [them] together” (Matt. 19:6, emphasis added). This first God-ordained marriage set the pattern for all subsequent marriages. God creates about the same number of women as men, and He creates them so that they are attracted to the opposite sex. So it could be said that God is still into arranging marriages on a grand scale (even though there are many more prospective mates for each individual than there were for Adam and Eve). Therefore, as Jesus pointed out, no human should separate what God joins together. It was not God’s intention that the original couple live separate lives, but that they would find blessing in living together in mutual dependence. A violation of God’s clearly revealed will would constitute sin. Thus, from the second chapter of the Bible, it is an established fact that divorce was not God’s intention for any marriage.

I would also like to suggest that even those who have never read the second chapter of Genesis instinctively know that divorce is wrong, as the covenant of lifetime marriage is practiced in many pagan cultures where the people have no biblical knowledge. As Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans:

For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them (Rom. 2:14-15).

God’s code of ethics is written on every human heart. In fact, that code of ethics that speaks through the conscience is all the law that God ever gave anyone , except the people of Israel, from Adam until the time of Jesus. Anyone even contemplating a divorce will find that he has to deal with his conscience. And the only way that he can overcome his conscience is to find some good justification for divorce. If he proceeds with a divorce without a good justification, his conscience will condemn him, although he may well suppress it.

As far as we know, for 27 generations from Adam until the giving of the Law of Moses to Israel around 1440 BC, the law of the conscience was all the revelation that God gave to anyone, the Israelites included, regarding divorce and remarriage, and God considered that to be sufficient. (Remember that Moses didn’t pen the Genesis 2 creation account until the time of the Exodus.) It certainly seems reasonable to think that, during those 27 generations before the Mosaic Law, which included the time of Noah’s flood, some of the millions of marriages during those hundreds of years ended in divorce. It also seems reasonable to conclude that God, who never changes, was willing to forgive those who incurred guilt from divorce if they confessed and repented of their sin. We are certain that people could be saved, or declared righteous by God, before the giving of the Law of Moses, as was Abraham, through his faith (see Rom. 4:1-12). If people could be declared righteous through their faith from Adam until Moses, that means they could be forgiven of anything, including sin incurred in divorce. Thus, as we begin to probe the subject of divorce and remarriage, I wonder, Would people who incurred sin in divorce before the Mosaic Law and who received forgiveness from God then be convicted by their conscience (since there was no written law) that they would incur guilt if they remarried? I only pose the question.

What about divorce victims who had not incurred sin, those who were divorced through no fault of their own, but only because of selfish spouses? Would their consciences have prohibited them from remarrying? That would seem unlikely to me. If a man abandoned his wife for another woman, what would ever lead her to conclude that she had no right to remarry? She had been divorced through no fault of her own.

Note that Jesus said, “Everyone who divorces his wife, except for the cause of unchastity, makes her commit adultery .” This again leads us to believe that He was not laying down a new law of remarriage, but only revealing the truth about the sin of a man who divorces his wife without a good cause. He “makes her commit adultery.” Some say that Jesus was thus prohibiting her remarriage, because He makes it to be adultery. But that is absurd. The emphasis is on the sin of the man doing the divorcing. Because of what he does, his wife will have no other choice but to remarry, which is no sin on her part as she was just the victim of her husband’s selfishness. In God’s eyes, however, because the man left his wife destitute with no other choice but to remarry, it was just as if he forced his wife into bed with another man. So the one who thinks he has not committed adultery is held guilty for a double adultery, his and his wife’s.

Jesus could not have been saying that God held the victimized wife to be guilty of adultery, as that would be completely unfair, and in fact would be utterly meaningless if the victimized wife never remarried. How could God say she was an adulteress unless she remarried? It would make no sense whatsoever. Thus it is plain to see that God is holding the man guilty for his own adultery, and the “adultery” of his wife, which is really not adultery at all for her. It is lawful remarriage.

And what about Jesus’ next statement that “whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery”? There are only two possibilities that make any sense. Either Jesus was now adding a third count of adultery against the man who thinks he has never committed adultery (for a similar reason as He added the second count), or Jesus was speaking of the man who encourages a woman to divorce her husband in order to marry her so as “not to commit adultery.” If Jesus was saying that any man on earth who marries a divorced woman is committing adultery, then every Israelite man during the previous hundreds of years committed adultery who, in complete compliance with the Law of Moses, married a divorced woman. In fact, every man in Jesus’ audience that day who was presently married to a divorced woman in full compliance with the Mosaic Law suddenly become guilty of what he was not guilty just one minute before, and Jesus must have changed God’s law at that moment. Moreover, every person in the future who married a divorced person, trusting Paul’s words in his letter to the Corinthians that such was not a sin, was actually sinning, committing adultery.

The entire spirit of the Bible would lead me to admire a man who married a divorced woman. If she had been a blameless victim of her former husband’s selfishness, I would admire him as much as I admire a man who marries a widow, taking her under his care. If she bore some blame for her previous divorce, I would admire him for his Christ-likeness in believing the best of her, and for his grace in offering to forget the past and take a risk. Why would anyone who has read the Bible and who has the Holy Spirit living in him conclude that Jesus was forbidding everyone from marrying any divorced person? How does such a view fit with God’s justice, a justice that would never punish someone for being a victim, as is the case of the woman who is divorced through no fault of her own? How does such a view fit with the message of the gospel, which offers forgiveness and another chance to repentant sinners?

The subject of divorce and remarriage is one that is often debated among sincere Christians. Two fundamental questions are the basis of that debate: (1) When, if ever, is divorce permissible in God’s eyes? and (2) When, if ever, is remarriage permissible in God’s eyes? Most denominations and independent churches have an official doctrinal stance on what is permissible and what is not, based on their particular interpretation of Scripture. We should respect them all for having convictions and living by them—if their convictions are motivated by their love for God. It would surely be best, however, if all of us held convictions that are 100% scriptural. The disciple-making minister does not want to teach what falls short of what God intends. Neither does he want to place burdens upon people that God never intended for them to carry. With that goal in mind, I’m going to do my best to interpret Scripture on this controversial topic and let you decide if you agree or disagree.

Let me begin by telling you that I am, like you, grieved that divorce is so rampant in the world today. Even more grievous is the fact that so many professing Christians are divorcing, including those in the ministry. This is a great tragedy. We need to do all we can to prevent this from happening more, and the best solution to the divorce problem is to preach the gospel and call people to repentance. When two married people are genuinely born again and both are following Christ, they’ll never be divorced. The disciple-making minister will do all he can to make his own marriage strong, knowing that his example is his most influential means of teaching.

May I also add that I’ve been happily married for over thirty-six years and have never been previously married. I can’t imagine ever being divorced. So I have no motive to soften difficult divorce scriptures for my own sake. I do, however, possess a strong sympathy for divorced people, knowing that I could have easily made a bad decision as a young man myself, marrying someone who I would have later been sorely tempted to divorce, or someone less tolerant of me than the wonderful woman I did marry. In other words, I could have ended up divorced, but I have not because of the grace of God. I think that most married people can relate to what I’m saying, and so we need to restrain ourselves from throwing stones at divorced people. Who are we, who have low-maintenance marriages, to condemn divorced persons, having no idea what they might have endured? God might consider them to be much more righteous than us, as He knows that we, under the same circumstances, would have divorced much sooner.

No one who marries expects to be ultimately divorced, and I don’t think anyone hates divorce more than those who have suffered through it. So we should try and help married people stay married, and help divorced people find whatever grace God might be offering. It is in that spirit which I write.

I will do my best to allow scripture to interpret scripture. I’ve noticed that verses on this subject are often interpreted in such a way that they contradict other scriptures, which is a sure indication that those verses have been misunderstood, at least in part.

With this background in mind, we can better understand what Jesus was up against. Before Him stood a group of hypocritical religious teachers, many of whom, if not all, had divorced one or more times, and most likely because they had found more attractive mates. (I think it is no coincidence that Jesus’ words about divorce in the Sermon on the Mount directly follow His warnings regarding lust, also calling it a form of adultery.) Yet they were justifying themselves, claiming to have kept the Law of Moses.

Their question itself reveals their bias. They clearly believed one could divorce his wife for any cause at all. Jesus exposed their very flawed understanding of God’s intention in marriage by appealing to Moses’ words about marriage in Genesis chapter 2. God never intended that there be any divorces, much less divorce “for any cause,” yet the leaders of Israel were divorcing their wives like teenagers break up with their “steadies”!

I suspect that the Pharisees already knew Jesus’ stand on divorce, as He had stated it publicly before. And so they were ready with their rebuttal: “Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away?” (Matt. 19:7).

This question again reveals their bias. It is phrased in such a way that makes it sound as if Moses was commanding men to divorce their wives when they discovered an “indecency,” and requiring a proper divorce certificate. But as we know from reading Deuteronomy 24:1-4, that is not what Moses was saying at all. He was only regulating a woman’s third marriage, prohibiting her from remarrying her first husband.

Since Moses mentioned divorce, divorce must have been permitted for some reason. But notice how the verb Jesus used in His response, permitted , contrasts with the Pharisees’ choice of verbs: commanded . Moses permitted divorce; he never commanded it. And the reason Moses permitted divorce was because of the hardness of the hearts of the Israelites. That is, God permitted divorce as a merciful concession to people’s sinfulness. He knew that people would be unfaithful to their spouses. He knew there would be immoralities. He knew people’s hearts would be broken. And so He made allowance for divorce. It wasn’t what He had originally intended, but sin made it necessary.

Next, Jesus laid down God’s law to the Pharisees, defining what Moses’ “indecency” really was: “Whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality , and marries another woman commits adultery” (Matt. 19:9, emphasis added). In God’s eyes, immorality is the only valid reason for a man to divorce his wife. And I can understand that. What could either a man or woman do that would be more offensive to his or her spouse? When one commits adultery or has an affair, he/she sends a brutal message. And certainly Jesus was not just referring to adultery when He used the word “immorality.” Surely passionate kissing and fondling someone else’s mate would be a very offensive immorality, as would the practice of viewing pornography, and other sexual perversions. Remember that Jesus equated lust with adultery during His Sermon on the Mount.

Let us not forget to whom Jesus was speaking–Pharisees who were divorcing their wives for any cause and quickly remarrying, but who would, God forbid, never commit adultery lest they break the seventh commandment. Jesus was telling them that they were only fooling themselves. What they were doing was no different than adultery. And that makes perfect sense. Anyone who is honest can see that a man who divorces his wife so that he can marry another woman is doing what an adulterer does, but under a guise of some legality.

Let us imagine two people. One is a married man, religious, who claims to love God with all his heart, and who begins to lust for a younger woman next door. Soon he divorces his wife and then quickly marries the girl of his fantasies.

The other man is not religious. He has never heard the gospel, and lives a sinful lifestyle, which ultimately costs him his marriage. Some years later, as a single man, he hears the gospel, repents, and begins following Jesus with all his heart. Three years later he falls in love with a very committed Christian woman whom he meets at his church. They both diligently seek the Lord and the counsel of others, and then decide to get married. They do get married, and serve the Lord and each other faithfully until death.

Now, let us assume that both men have sinned in getting remarried. Which of the two has the greater sin? Clearly, the first man. He is just like an adulterer.

But what about the second man? Does it really seem that he has sinned? Can it be said that he is no different than an adulterer, as can be said to the first man? I don’t think so. Shall we tell him what Jesus said about those who divorce and remarry, informing him that he is now living with a woman whom God did not join him to, because God considers him still married to his first wife? Shall we tell him that he is living in adultery?

The answers are obvious. Adultery is committed by married people who get their eyes on someone other than their spouse. So divorcing one’s spouse because one has found a more attractive mate is just like adultery. But an unmarried person cannot commit adultery since he has no spouse to be unfaithful to, and neither can a divorced person commit adultery since he has no spouse to which he can be unfaithful. Once we understand the biblical and historical context of what Jesus said, we don’t come up with conclusions that make no sense and that contradict the rest of the Bible.

Incidentally, when the disciples heard Jesus’ response to the Pharisees’ question, they responded by saying, “If the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry” (Matt. 19:10). Realize that they had grown up under the teaching and influence of the Pharisees, and within a culture that was greatly influenced by the Pharisees. They had never considered that marriage was to be so permanent. In fact, up until a few minutes before, they too probably believed it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause. So they quickly concluded it might be best to just avoid marriage all together, and not risk committing divorce and adultery.

Jesus responded,

Not all men can accept this statement, but only those to whom it has given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it (Matt. 19:11-12).

That is, one’s sexual drive and/or one’s ability to control it is more of the determining factor. Even Paul said, “It is better to marry than to burn” (1 Cor. 7:9). Those who are born eunuchs or who are made eunuchs by men (as was done by men who needed other men whom they could trust to guard their harems) have no sexual desire. Those who make “themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” would seem to be those who are specially gifted by God with extra self-control, which is why “not all men can accept this statement, but only those to whom it has been given” (Matt. 19:11).

“But if people are told that it is lawful for them to remarry after divorcing for any reason, that will encourage them to divorce for illegitimate reasons,” it is often claimed. I suppose that might be true in some cases of religious people who are not truly attempting to please God. But trying to restrain people from sinning who are not submitted to God is a fairly useless exercise. People who are truly submitted to God in their hearts, however, are not trying to find ways to sin. They are trying to please God. And those kinds of people usually have strong marriages. Moreover, apparently God was not too concerned about people under the old covenant divorcing for illegitimate reasons due to a liberal law of remarriage, because He gave Israel a liberal law of remarriage.

Should we avoid telling people that God is willing to forgive them of any sin, lest they be encouraged to sin because they know that forgiveness is available? If so, we’ll have to stop preaching the gospel. Again, it all comes down to the condition of people’s hearts. Those who love God want to obey Him. I know very well that God’s forgiveness would be available for me if I ask for it, no matter what sin I might commit. But that doesn’t motivate me at all to sin, because I love God and have been born again. I’ve been transformed by God’s grace. I want to please Him.

God knows there is no need to add one more negative consequence to the many unavoidable negative consequences of divorce in hopes of motivating people to remain married. Telling people with troubled marriages that they better not divorce because they will not be permitted to ever remarry provides very little motivation for staying married. Even if he believes you, the prospect of a life of singleness compared to a life of continual marital misery sounds like heaven to the miserably-married person.

How many “second chances” did God give divorced women? Should we conclude that God gave divorced women just one more chance under the Law of Moses, permitting just one remarriage? That would be a wrong conclusion. We read later in the Law of Moses,

When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house, and she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man’s wife, and if the latter husband turns against her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her to be his wife, then her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance (Deut. 24:1-4).

Note that, in these verses, the sole prohibition was against the twice-divorced woman (or once-divorced once-widowed woman) remarrying her first husband. Nothing is said about her incurring guilt for remarrying the second time. And once she was divorced the second time (or widowed from her second husband), she was only prohibited from going back to her first husband. The clear implication is that she would be free to remarry any other man (who is willing to take the chance on her). If it were a sin for her to remarry anyone else, then there would have been no need for God to give this kind of specific instructions. All he would have had to say was, “Divorced people are forbidden to remarry.”

Moreover, if God permitted this woman to marry a second time, then the man who married her after her first divorce could not have been incurring guilt either. And if she was permitted to be married a third time, then any man who married her after she was twice divorced would not be sinning (unless he had been her first husband). So the God who hated divorce loved divorced people, and He mercifully offered them another chance.