In this arti­cle we want to exam­ine what the Bible says con­cern­ing the ques­tion of divorce and remar­riage. Jesus’ words record­ed in Matthew’s gospel, usu­al­ly trans­lat­ed as “except on the grounds of sex­u­al immoral­i­ty”, do not con­tra­dict the clear rejec­tion of divorce in oth­er texts of the New Tes­ta­ment. Although the Old Tes­ta­ment law per­mit­ted divorce because of peo­ples’ sin­ful­ness, it has nev­er been God’s will. Jesus showed us unmis­tak­ably what God’s will is in this mat­ter. By his work of sal­va­tion he changes our hearts and enables us to remain faith­ful in accor­dance with God’s will, even if it may be nec­es­sary under cer­tain cir­cum­stances to live sep­a­rat­ed from one’s unbe­liev­ing spouse. In clos­ing we will add some thoughts that should pro­vide guid­ance for those seek­ing solu­tions to today’s often com­plex and tan­gled life sit­u­a­tions.

1 Is Divorce the Solution?

Lov­ing some­one means seek­ing the best for that per­son regard­less of any dif­fi­cul­ties that it might involve. Mar­ried peo­ple are also con­stant­ly faced with the chal­lenge to deny them­selves. In the very sit­u­a­tion when prob­lems arise it can be tempt­ing to choose the eas­i­er way and get divorced or to be remar­ried after hav­ing been left by one’s spouse. Yet mar­riage is an irre­versible step, even if it was a step tak­en in dis­re­gard of one’s own con­science.

There­fore we want to encour­age any­one con­sid­er­ing divorce or remar­riage to be coura­geous enough to open them­selves to receive the words of Jesus. He not only shows us the right way, but he helps us to put his words into prac­tice, even if that is hard for us to imag­ine.

The fol­low­ing Bible pas­sages on this top­ic show that Jesus expects uncon­di­tion­al, life-long faith­ful­ness to one and only one part­ner. The Bible pas­sages are fol­lowed by more detailed expla­na­tions.

2 Clear Words from the Bible Concerning Divorce and Remarriage

Sev­er­al pas­sages in the New Tes­ta­ment show us that monogamy is God’s will, i.e. to be mar­ried to one spouse and to remain faith­ful until the mar­riage part­ner dies:

Every­one who divorces his wife and mar­ries anoth­er com­mits adul­tery, and he who mar­ries a woman divorced from her hus­band com­mits adul­tery. (Luke 16:18 ESV)

And Phar­isees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it law­ful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses com­mand you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a cer­tifi­cate of divorce and to send her away.” And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hard­ness of heart he wrote you this com­mand­ment. But from the begin­ning of cre­ation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘There­fore a man shall leave his father and moth­er and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What there­fore God has joined togeth­er, let not man sep­a­rate.”
And in the house the dis­ci­ples asked him again about this mat­ter. And he said to them, “Who­ev­er divorces his wife and mar­ries anoth­er com­mits adul­tery against her, and if she divorces her hus­band and mar­ries anoth­er, she com­mits adul­tery.” (Mark 10:2–12 ESV)

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 Corinthi­ans 7:10–11 ESV)

For a mar­ried woman is bound by law to her hus­band while he lives, but if her hus­band dies she is released from the law of mar­riage. Accord­ing­ly, she will be called an adul­ter­ess if she lives with anoth­er man while her hus­band is alive. But if her hus­band dies, she is free from that law, and if she mar­ries anoth­er man she is not an adul­ter­ess. (Romans 7:2–3 ESV)

God rejects divorce clear­ly, even in the Old Tes­ta­ment :

This is anoth­er thing you do: you cov­er the altar of the LORD with tears, with weep­ing and with groan­ing, because He no longer regards the offer­ing or accepts it with favour from your hand. Yet you say, “For what rea­son?” Because the LORD has been a wit­ness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treach­er­ous­ly, though she is your com­pan­ion and your wife by covenant. But not one has done so who has a rem­nant of the Spir­it. And what did that one do while he was seek­ing a god­ly off­spring? Take heed then to your spir­it, and let no one deal treach­er­ous­ly against the wife of your youth. “For I hate divorce,” says the LORD, the God of Israel, “and him who cov­ers his gar­ment with wrong,” says the LORD of hosts. “So take heed to your spir­it, that you do not deal treach­er­ous­ly.” (Malachi 2:13–16, NASB)

3 Except for Sexual Immorality?

There are two pas­sages in the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 5:31–32 and 19:1–12) where an excep­tion seems to be pos­si­ble in the case of sex­u­al immoral­i­ty. Why don’t we find this impor­tant excep­tion in oth­er Gospels and let­ters of the New Tes­ta­ment? The Gospel of Matthew was writ­ten for Jew­ish read­ers.  In the fol­low­ing sec­tion we will show that the Jews under­stood these words dif­fer­ent­ly than most peo­ple nowa­days. Unfor­tu­nate­ly today’s under­stand­ing has also influ­enced the mod­ern Bible trans­la­tions, so we will have to explain some ques­tions of trans­la­tion. We will, how­ev­er, try to keep this as brief and con­cise as pos­si­ble.

3.1 Matthew 5:32

The ESV trans­lates Mt 5:31–32 as fol­lows:

It was also said, ‘Who­ev­er divorces his wife, let him give her a cer­tifi­cate of divorce.’ But I say to you that every­one who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sex­u­al immoral­i­ty, makes her com­mit adul­tery, and who­ev­er mar­ries a divorced woman com­mits adul­tery.

The Greek word “parek­tos” trans­lat­ed here as “except” lit­er­al­ly express­es that some­thing is out­side, not men­tioned, or exclud­ed (e.g. in 2 Corinthi­ans 11:28 it is trans­lat­ed either with “exter­nal” things or “unmen­tioned” things. Here it does not refer to an excep­tion.)

A trans­la­tion keep­ing as close as pos­si­ble to the text could be ren­dered:

It was also said, ‘Who­ev­er divorces his wife, let him give her a cer­tifi­cate of divorce.’ But I say to you that every­one who divorces his wife (the ground of sex­u­al immoral­i­ty is exclud­ed), caus­es adul­tery to be com­mit­ted con­cern­ing her¹, and who­ev­er mar­ries a divorced woman com­mits adul­tery.²

Sexual immorality was generally accepted as a reason for divorce

In the whole con­text of Matthew 5 Jesus refers to the Jew­ish law and the Jew­ish tra­di­tions. In vers­es 31–32 he refers specif­i­cal­ly to a pas­sage in Deuteron­o­my 24:1:

When a man takes a wife and mar­ries her, if then she finds no favour 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 of his house, and she departs out of his house, … (Deuteron­o­my 24:1 ESV)

The expres­sion “some inde­cen­cy” was under­stood by the rab­binic schools of that time to mean “sex­u­al immoral­i­ty”.  For many Jews this was the only legit­i­mate rea­son for divorce.³

Jesus brings something new

Jesus said, “It was also said, … But I say to you”.  It is obvi­ous that Jesus was teach­ing some­thing new—something the Jews had nev­er heard before.  In the con­text of the Ser­mon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) Jesus inten­si­fies God’s com­mands in regard to puri­ty and love. In Matthew 5:21–48 Jesus com­ment­ed on the com­mand­ments of the Old Tes­ta­ment with the words, “But I say to you …” and point­ed out what God’s orig­i­nal­ly clear will was con­cern­ing the top­ics he addressed. For instance in vers­es 21–22 he says:

You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not mur­der; and who­ev­er mur­ders will be liable to judg­ment.’ But I say to you that every­one who is angry with his broth­er will be liable to judg­ment;  …  (ESV)

If Jesus had only want­ed to express in Matthew 5:32 that he agrees with the gen­er­al­ly accept­ed rea­son for divorce, his state­ments about divorce would not fit this con­text. He would not be bring­ing any­thing new (the “new” things brought by Jesus are, how­ev­er, the “old” eter­nal will of God).

The mes­sage of Jesus is that the gen­er­al­ly accept­ed rea­son among the Jews for divorce is no longer valid.  Jesus excludes this rea­son with the words “the ground of sex­u­al immoral­i­ty is exclud­ed”.

This does not mean, how­ev­er, that a per­son is oblig­ed to remain togeth­er with his or her spouse in all cir­cum­stances, even if the spouse’s behav­iour is unac­cept­able. It may indeed be nec­es­sary to sep­a­rate from one’s part­ner due to their bad moral con­duct. Under cer­tain cir­cum­stances, this sep­a­ra­tion can even take the legal form of a divorce. Even then, though, the bond of mar­riage still remains intact and with it, the oblig­a­tion to mar­i­tal faith­ful­ness. What this means is that no fur­ther mar­riage is pos­si­ble. A divorce in which the mar­riage bond is dis­solved and both part­ners are free to mar­ry again was reject­ed by Jesus.

3.2 Matthew 19:9

With Matthew 19:9 the sit­u­a­tion is very sim­i­lar to Matthew 5. Dar­by trans­lat­ed close to the Greek text:

And the Phar­isees came to him tempt­ing him, and say­ing, Is it law­ful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? But he answer­ing said, Have ye not read that he who made [them], from the begin­ning made them male and female, and said, On account of this a man shall leave father and moth­er, and shall be unit­ed to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh? so that they are no longer two, but one flesh. What there­fore God has joined togeth­er, let not man sep­a­rate. They say to him, Why then did Moses com­mand to give a let­ter of divorce and to send [her] away? He says to them, Moses, in view of your hard­heart­ed­ness, allowed you to put away your wives; but from the begin­ning it was not thus. But I say unto you, that whoso­ev­er shall put away his wife, not for for­ni­ca­tion, and shall mar­ry anoth­er, com­mits adul­tery; [and he who mar­ries one put away com­mits adul­tery.] His dis­ci­ples say to him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to mar­ry. (Matthew 19:3–10)

There are two words in the Greek lan­guage which can be trans­lat­ed into Eng­lish as “not”. One is the Greek word “me” found in the phrase “not for for­ni­ca­tion” which is used in the con­text of pro­hi­bi­tions. There a sev­er­al exam­ples in the New Tes­ta­ment where the word “me” is used with­out a verb that explains it, and where the con­tent of the pro­hi­bi­tion has to be derived from the con­text⁴. So Jesus is say­ing that some­thing in par­tic­u­lar should not be done in the case of for­ni­ca­tion. From the con­text we can see that what should not be done is to divorce. Thus the mean­ing is: “not even for for­ni­ca­tion (sex­u­al immoral­i­ty)”.

Mark 10:12 shows that in the reverse case, that is, when a wife sends her hus­band away, the same is true.

Matthew 19:1–12 and Mark 10:1–12 are par­al­lel in con­tent and speak about the same sit­u­a­tion. In reply to the Phar­isees’ ques­tion, whether it is law­ful to divorce one’s wife for any cause⁵ Jesus refers to the order of cre­ation in which man and woman are one flesh and what God has joined togeth­er, man must not sep­a­rate. The giv­ing of a cer­tifi­cate of divorce, com­mand­ed by Moses, was allowed only because of the hard­ness of their hearts. God’s orig­i­nal will was dif­fer­ent. Jesus “cor­rects” the law at this point. The indis­sol­u­ble char­ac­ter of the mar­riage covenant is found­ed in the order of cre­ation.

The reac­tion of the dis­ci­ples in Matthew 19:10⁶ also shows us that what Jesus was teach­ing on this mat­ter was some­thing com­plete­ly new for them. Accord­ing to Jew­ish law, it was law­ful to divorce and remar­ry, for instance when the wife had sinned in sex­u­al immoral­i­ty (accord­ing to Rab­bi Sham­mai). The dis­ci­ples under­stood from the words of Jesus, how­ev­er, that accord­ing to God’s will the bond of mat­ri­mo­ny can­not be dis­solved, not even if a man’s wife com­mits an act of sex­u­al immorality—and then they ask them­selves whether it is advis­able to mar­ry at all. This reac­tion also shows that Jesus brought some­thing new. If Jesus had taught that a hus­band was per­mit­ted to remar­ry after a divorce which was due to adul­tery, his teach­ing would have been the same as that of many oth­er con­tem­po­rary Jews and would not have been so aston­ish­ing for his dis­ci­ples.

3.3 Concerning Both Passages

In both Matthew 5:32 and 19:9 we find that the Mosa­ic law of the cer­tifi­cate of divorce (Deuteron­o­my 24:1) is in the back­ground of the words of Jesus. In both pas­sages Jesus expressed that it is not accord­ing to God’s will to regard sex­u­al immoral­i­ty as a rea­son for divorce. As the ques­tion of the inter­pre­ta­tion of Deuteron­o­my 24:1 was impor­tant espe­cial­ly for Jew­ish Chris­tians, it should not sur­prise us that these two vers­es in which Jesus said that not even sex­u­al immoral­i­ty can be a rea­son for divorce (with the option of remar­riage) are only found in Matthew⁷. Mark and Luke, whose audi­ence was main­ly non-Jew­ish, did not want their read­ers to deal with the ques­tion of how to inter­pret the rea­son for divorce men­tioned in Deuteron­o­my 24:1 and thus omit­ted these words of Jesus which were direct­ed to Jews.

Matthew 5:32 and 19:9 are in agree­ment with all the oth­er words of the New Tes­ta­ment and do not speak about a pos­si­ble rea­son for divorce but just the opposite—they explain that the rea­sons the Jews held on to were not valid.

4 Why Was Divorce Permitted in the Old Testament, But Not Any More According to the Words of Jesus?

Divorce was nev­er God’s will. Moses per­mit­ted divorce because of the dis­obe­di­ence of the nation. It was an unfor­tu­nate fact that in the Jew­ish nation only very few real­ly strove for obe­di­ence. The major­i­ty were often dis­obe­di­ent. That is why God per­mit­ted divorce and remar­riage in the Old Tes­ta­ment, because oth­er­wise some peo­ple would have had to suf­fer great­ly due to the sins of oth­ers. A woman who had been sent away was prac­ti­cal­ly forced to remar­ry because she could not pro­vide for her­self, and with­out chil­dren she had no prospect of sup­port in her old age. That is why Moses com­mand­ed a hus­band who sent his wife away to give her a cer­tifi­cate of divorce. This cer­tifi­cate was an impor­tant means of pro­tec­tion for her because it was proof that she was nei­ther a pros­ti­tute nor had she had any sex­u­al rela­tions out­side of mar­riage (a crime pun­ish­able by death). It showed that she had been sent away and was law­ful­ly per­mit­ted to mar­ry again.

To live togeth­er in obe­di­ence, love and deep uni­ty was nev­er attain­able for the whole nation of Israel—but Jesus made this a real­i­ty in the Church. There are no unbe­liev­ers in the church⁸, but every sin­gle mem­ber has decid­ed to fol­low Jesus with­out com­pro­mise. They have all received the pow­er of the Holy Spir­it to live a life of holi­ness, devo­tion, love and obe­di­ence. It is only by under­stand­ing and prac­tis­ing Jesus’ com­mand to share our lives in broth­er­ly love that we can ful­ly com­pre­hend the stan­dard set by Jesus—from God’s per­spec­tive, there is no such thing as divorce, and as Chris­tians it is pos­si­ble to live accord­ing to this stan­dard. In God’s eyes, a mar­riage is valid until the death of one of the part­ners. If one part­ner is an unbe­liev­er, and he or she wants to sep­a­rate from their Chris­t­ian part­ner, Paul express­es that this is pos­si­ble. From God’s per­spec­tive, how­ev­er, this does not con­sti­tute a divorce which would enti­tle them to remar­ry. As far as God is con­cerned, they are still mar­ried, but they can live sep­a­rate­ly.

Mar­riage is a covenant before God—to which one must remain faith­ful, even if the oth­er part­ner breaks this covenant. Should the unbe­liev­ing part­ner sep­a­rate from the Chris­t­ian, regard­less of the rea­son, and the Chris­t­ian then remar­ried, the Chris­t­ian would not only be break­ing the mar­riage covenant, but draw­ing their “new” part­ner deeply into the sin of for­ni­ca­tion and adul­tery with them.

Chris­tians share their pos­ses­sions as an expres­sion of broth­er­ly love (Acts 2:44–47, Acts 4:32–37), which means that a Chris­t­ian wife whose hus­band has sep­a­rat­ed from her will be tak­en care of. She will not be on her own either, because through shar­ing their lives in broth­er­ly love and uni­ty, God gives every Chris­t­ian deep joy and ful­fil­ment.

5 How Should We Assess Marriages from One’s “Old Life” (Before Becoming a Christian)?

There­fore, if any­one is in Christ, he is a new cre­ation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Corinthi­ans 5:17 ESV)

Paul’s words here are very impor­tant and show that becom­ing a Chris­t­ian involves a com­plete trans­for­ma­tion. Yet this does not mean that all our com­mit­ments from the time before becom­ing a Chris­t­ian are inval­i­dat­ed.

Let what you say be sim­ply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’! (Matthew 5:37 ESV)

This is espe­cial­ly valid for wed­ding vows. As already men­tioned (sec­tion 3.2) Jesus based the indis­sol­u­bil­i­ty of mar­riage on the order of cre­ation. The belief that a mar­riage which a per­son entered into before becom­ing a Chris­t­ian is not valid and can there­fore be dis­solved (because becom­ing a Chris­t­ian means begin­ning a new life), is a heresy and dis­re­gards Jesus’ words.

In 1 Corinthi­ans 7:12–15 Paul writes about Chris­tians who got mar­ried before their repen­tance:

(12) To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any broth­er has a wife who is an unbe­liev­er, and she con­sents to live with him, he should not divorce her. (13) If any woman has a hus­band who is an unbe­liev­er, and he con­sents to live with her, she should not divorce him. (14) For the unbe­liev­ing hus­band is made holy because of his wife, and the unbe­liev­ing wife is made holy because of her hus­band. Oth­er­wise your chil­dren would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. (15) But if the unbe­liev­ing part­ner sep­a­rates, let it be so. In such cas­es the broth­er or sis­ter is not enslaved. God has called you to peace.

Paul’s prin­ci­ple is that if the unbe­liev­ing part­ner accepts their Chris­t­ian partner’s new way of life with good will they should not sep­a­rate. If a sep­a­ra­tion does occur (verse 15), Paul’s advice from verse 11⁹ still applies, i.e. that the Chris­t­ian is either to remain alone or rec­on­cile with his or her part­ner.

At this stage, we would like to point at Romans 7:2–3 again. Here, Paul is mak­ing gen­er­al state­ments about mar­riage that applies to all peo­ple, inde­pen­dent­ly of whether they are believ­ers (Chris­tians) or not. A per­son is bound to his or her spouse as long as he or she is liv­ing. Only when he or she dies is it pos­si­ble to enter a new mar­riage.

6 Some Thoughts Concerning the Situation Today

We live in an age in which God’s intend­ed stan­dard for mar­riage, i.e. that a hus­band and wife share their lives in mutu­al faith­ful­ness until death as they promised one anoth­er when they mar­ried, has become a rare excep­tion. “Blend­ed fam­i­lies” are becom­ing increas­ing­ly com­mon. Even the teach­ings and prac­tices of var­i­ous “church­es” and reli­gious groups are being influ­enced by this devel­op­ment.

In order to under­stand the Bible’s clear rejec­tion of divorce with the option to remar­ry, it is help­ful to keep in mind the pos­i­tive val­ue of mar­riage with­in God’s plan of cre­ation. You can read more about this in our arti­cle on “Mar­riage and Stay­ing Sin­gle for God”. It is also always impor­tant to con­sid­er how a gen­er­al bib­li­cal teach­ing ought to be applied prac­ti­cal­ly to each spe­cif­ic individual’s sit­u­a­tion.

Jesus brought to light the orig­i­nal clar­i­ty in regard to the issue of divorce and remar­riage. This shocked even his dis­ci­ples, who were well acquaint­ed with the prac­tice of the Old Tes­ta­ment.

Among the first Chris­tians there were cer­tain­ly some (from both Jew­ish and Gen­tile back­grounds) who were liv­ing in their sec­ond mar­riage. We can­not derive from the Holy Scrip­tures that these cou­ples had to dis­solve their sec­ond mar­riage, as they had not entered the sec­ond mar­riage with the aware­ness that they were doing some­thing that was absolute­ly for­bid­den by God, even if Jew­ish believ­ers, at least, ought to have known that God did not regard divorce as good.

Paul wrote to Tim­o­thy in 1 Tim­o­thy 3:2 that an over­seer must be the hus­band of only one wife. This shows that men who had remar­ried (before becom­ing Chris­tians) were not allowed to be elders, but that they cer­tain­ly were accept­ed as mem­bers of the church. In our time the prac­tice that in the church remar­ried peo­ple can con­tin­ue their sec­ond mar­riage can­not be applied in all cas­es. This is because the New Tes­ta­ment, and con­se­quent­ly Jesus’ clear posi­tion on this issue, are wide­ly known. Many peo­ple are aware of the (the­o­ret­i­cal­ly) clear view of the Roman Catholic Church on this mat­ter. Thus, there is a stronger aware­ness nowa­days that enter­ing a sec­ond mar­riage is wrong than at the time of the first Chris­tians. Cer­tain­ly, a lot depends on how much a per­son knew about God’s will at the time when he entered his sec­ond mar­riage. If some­one remar­ried with the knowl­edge that this con­tra­dicts God’s will, this mar­riage can­not be con­sid­ered to be a mar­riage accord­ing to God’s will. The prob­lem often has deep­er roots, espe­cial­ly if when enter­ing one’s first mar­riage, a per­son neglect­ed to face the spir­i­tu­al ques­tions, most impor­tant­ly the ques­tion of which atti­tude one’s part­ner had towards God.

How­ev­er, it is always nec­es­sary to exam­ine each spe­cif­ic case and to look hon­est­ly for God’s will. Even if the result of this hon­est exam­i­na­tion turns out to be that the sec­ond mar­riage can­not be con­tin­ued, var­i­ous oth­er fac­tors must be con­sid­ered. Espe­cial­ly if both part­ners are Chris­tians the con­se­quence will prob­a­bly not be a com­plete sep­a­ra­tion. In many cas­es there will be tasks which need to be shared, espe­cial­ly the task of bring­ing up their chil­dren. It is cer­tain­ly not help­ful for chil­dren to see that their par­ents are sep­a­rat­ed. But in such a case (if the con­clu­sion has been reached that the sec­ond mar­riage can­not be con­tin­ued) there will be no room for a sex­u­al rela­tion­ship with­in this part­ner­ship.

7 Summary and Encouragement

Jesus empha­sizes that life-long faith­ful­ness to one mar­riage part­ner is God’s will. This is vis­i­ble from the way he argues that the two become one flesh and from his state­ment that a man should not divorce his wife. If they divorce, then nei­ther he nor she may enter into a new mar­riage, as long as the for­mer part­ner is alive, because the first mar­riage covenant still stands as long as both are alive. If one part­ner enters into a new mar­riage while his orig­i­nal part­ner is alive, he is com­mit­ting adul­tery. From God’s point of view there is no such thing as divorce. A mar­riage is valid as long as both part­ners are still alive. Jesus does not make an excep­tion in any of these pas­sages depend­ing on whether the part­ner who was sent away was guilty or inno­cent.

Because Jesus makes no excep­tions in Mark or Luke, he can­not have intend­ed to make an excep­tion in Matthew either. The reac­tion of the dis­ci­ples also shows that in the mat­ter of divorce there is no excep­tion. It is not pos­si­ble to remar­ry as long as both part­ners are alive.

Paul address­es oth­er cas­es in more detail in 1 Corinthi­ans 7:

If some­one is already divorced, and then becomes a Chris­t­ian, they should remain alone or be rec­on­ciled to their orig­i­nal part­ner. If the unbe­liev­ing part­ner wants to sep­a­rate from the Chris­t­ian part­ner, then the Chris­t­ian should allow this:

“In such cas­es the broth­er or sis­ter is not enslaved. God has called you to peace.”

The point that the broth­er or sis­ter is not “enslaved” in such cas­es means that they are not con­demned to a life with an unbe­liev­er in strife and prob­lems. They can separate—and remain unmar­ried.

What may be hard to imag­ine for many is nev­er­the­less not an unbear­able bur­den. Through Jesus Christ a Chris­t­ian has a new rela­tion­ship with God. This new rela­tion­ship con­fronts us much more strong­ly with what God’s holi­ness requires of us. A high­er demand is placed on us than on the believ­ers of the Old Tes­ta­ment. In this way we are made much more aware of our own weak­ness­es and sins and God teach­es us to become ful­ly depen­dent on him. Our close rela­tion­ship with him gives us strength to do what goes beyond our own strength.

With him and through him the “impos­si­ble” becomes pos­si­ble. God also helps us through the fel­low­ship with broth­ers and sis­ters which every Chris­t­ian needs very much. This is the fel­low­ship with those who lis­ten to God’s words and do them. They are our broth­ers and sis­ters in Christ, our spir­i­tu­al fam­i­ly that remains for eter­ni­ty. So even with­out a spouse a Chris­t­ian is nev­er on his own.

1. This ren­der­ing, in con­trast to the usu­al ren­der­ing since the Vul­gate: “makes her com­mit adul­tery,” ought to under­line that the adul­ter­ous act is car­ried out by the hus­band who divorces his wife. The mat­ter is not adul­tery in the fullest sense (i.e. a sex­u­al rela­tion­ship with anoth­er woman), yet even divorc­ing one’s wife is regard­ed as an adul­ter­ous act. ↩
2. You can find a detailed expla­na­tion (in Ger­man) of this pro­posed trans­la­tion in: Karl Staab, Die Unau­flös­lichkeit der Ehe und die sog. “Ehe­bruch­sklauseln” bei Mt 5,32 und 19,9: Festschrift für E. Eich­mann, Pader­born 1940, pp. 435–452 ↩
3. There was, how­ev­er, also a quite dif­fer­ent inter­pre­ta­tion of this verse. The school of Rab­bi Hil­lel allowed divorce for many, even very triv­ial, rea­sons. ↩
4. E.g. the Jew­ish lead­ers in Matthew 26:5 said, “Not dur­ing the feast, lest there be an uproar among the peo­ple.” In this sen­tence the verb is miss­ing. From the con­text it becomes clear that the lead­ers did not want Jesus to be arrest­ed dur­ing the feast (but before­hand). The com­plete sen­tence would be: “Not dur­ing the feast (should he be arrest­ed), lest there be an uproar among the peo­ple.” ↩
5. Sim­i­lar to Matthew 5:32 the back­ground is the inter­pre­ta­tion of Deuteron­o­my 24:1. ↩
6. The dis­ci­ples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is bet­ter not to mar­ry.” (ESV)  ↩
7. The ear­li­est sources which com­ment on Matthew’s Gospel (Papias, Ire­naeus, Ori­gin) regard this Gospel as being addressed to read­ers with a Jew­ish back­ground. The con­tent itself (e.g. many ref­er­ences to the Old Tes­ta­ment) lend sup­port to this view. ↩
8. Read more about this here: The Church is Holy  ↩
9. …but if she does [divorce], she should remain unmar­ried or else be rec­on­ciled to her hus­band…  ↩