What Does the Bible Say About Divorce?

By Rev. Mike Osborne

When Jesus had finished saying these things, He left Galilee and went into the region of Judea, to the other side of the Jordan. Large crowds followed Him, and He healed them there. Some Pharisees came to Him to test Him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

“Haven’t you read,” He replied, “that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore, what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

“Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”

Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

The disciples said to Him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”

Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

The Word of the Lord.

You’ve probably been to many weddings, as I have. And somewhere along the way, in almost any wedding, vows are taken. The groom will say something like, “I, Joe, take you, Mary, to be my wedded wife, and I do promise and covenant before God and these witnesses to be your loving and faithful husband—in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health—as long as we both shall live.”

Unfortunately, if the statistics are anywhere close to accurate, Joe and Mary may very well, after five, seven, ten, fifteen, twenty, or more years, decide to call it quits. They’ll tell their friends they married too young. They’ll tell the judge they had irreconcilable differences. They’ll explain to their little boy that it’s not his fault, but Mommy and Daddy can’t get along anymore, and it will be better if Daddy moves out. And so another family crashes upon the rocks of divorce.

Forty five to fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce. But as many of you know firsthand, divorce doesn’t really end anything. In fact, it usually creates more problems—financial, emotional, spiritual, social, even physical.

Some of you think it could never happen to you. Some of you who are single think, “Oh, I’ll never even consider divorce.” Those of you who are married and have been married a long time may think you’re beyond such a problem. But I want you to know this morning: not one marriage in this room is divorce proof. If you’re married, but for God’s grace, you’d be divorced today.

And if you’ve been divorced, I want to ask you this morning—don’t run away from this topic. Don’t let guilt or shame overwhelm you. It’s important that we talk about this. We have a lot of youth in our church, a lot of kids, singles, and married couples. This must be a subject we can discuss freely and without fear.

And even if your sin contributed to your divorce, let me remind you of what we sang earlier today:

Jesus has hushed the law’s loud thunder. He has quenched Mount Sinai’s flame. He washed us with His blood, and He presents our souls to God.

Grace is greater, friends—grace is greater than your divorce.

What I want to do this morning is bring three things. We’re in a summer series called Honest Answers for Honest Questions, and someone submitted this question a couple of months ago: What does the Bible say about divorce?

So we’re going to tackle that. And I want to do three things:

1. God’s design for marriage. 2. God’s concession of divorce. 3. Some words of application.

Let’s dive in.

1. God’s Design for Marriage

This passage you heard read is one of the foundational places in the whole Bible where the Lord’s teaching on marriage, divorce, and remarriage is presented. It’s very important.

The setting is in verse 3. Look at your Bibles. It says the Pharisees came to test Jesus. They were trying to trap Him—trying to back Him into a corner, trying to get Him to contradict the Mosaic Law and make Him look foolish in front of the crowd. So they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

There were two schools of thought in Jesus’ day—a conservative school and a liberal school. Just like today, you see conservatives and liberals lining up at town halls to ask questions designed to make a candidate look foolish and swing the vote. In the same way, these Pharisees lined up before Jesus because they knew there was a right and a left on this matter of divorce.

Their question revolved around an Old Testament passage—Deuteronomy 24. The key phrase in that passage is “something indecent.” Literally, in Hebrew, it means “a thing of nakedness” or “a thing of uncleanness.” It’s hard for us today to know exactly what Moses meant. The only other place the phrase appears refers to, well… human waste in the camp. A thing of uncleanness.

The conservative school, following Rabbi Shammai, said “something indecent” had to be sexual sin—marital infidelity or adultery. The liberal school, following Rabbi Hillel, said it could be almost anything the husband didn’t like. If the wife burned the bacon, he could divorce her. If she gained weight, he could divorce her.

So the Pharisees come to Jesus and say, “So Jesus, is Hillel right? Can a man divorce his wife for burning the bacon—for any and every reason?”

And Jesus refuses to choose sides. Instead, He takes them back to Genesis 1 and 2.

“Haven’t you read,” He says, “that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female… and the two will become one flesh? Therefore, what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

What’s Jesus saying?

He’s saying that marriage is a one flesh, permanent union of one man and one woman—an indissoluble, lifelong covenant, separable only by death. That is God’s design.

Notice some key words:

Verse 6: marriage is a joining—a joining of two people by God.

Verse 5: marriage is a leaving and a cleaving. A man and woman leave their parents, make vows before God and witnesses, and enter a brand new relationship that binds them together like glue. Where they were two before, they are now one.

Now, I know that’s very mystical. It’s hard for us to wrap our minds around it. It’s a little like the Trinity. We believe that God is one—one being, one God—yet in three persons. Three distinct persons in the Godhead, and yet they are one. Marriage is something like that: two becoming one.

Or think of Velcro. There’s a kind of industrial strength Velcro that, once pressed together, is almost impossible to pull apart. That’s like marriage. In the marriage covenant, God “cements,” you might say, the husband and wife together in such a way that, without losing their individual personalities, they are from the moment of the wedding one flesh, one person.

Romans 7:2 says that a married woman is bound to her husband. Same idea—binding, cleaving, a one flesh unity. That means they are intimate in every way. They share everything. They talk about everything. They keep no secrets. They make decisions together. They suffer together. They succeed together. They fail together. They are naked and unashamed together—not just physically, but emotionally, psychologically, spiritually. They are, in other words, each other’s closest companion. Each other’s best friend.

And that is why God instituted marriage in the first place: to meet our deep human need for companionship. That doesn’t mean every person is called to marriage, but most people find their closest companion within marriage.

So divorce, therefore, is contrary to God’s ideal. It separates people who were meant to stay together for life. Divorce is, you might say, an amputation—a severing of one person from another. A painful ripping apart of a fabric God designed to stay together.

Some of you know that about a year and a half ago, I had an ACDF—an anterior cervical discectomy and fusion. I had a herniated disc between C6 and C7 in my neck. They go through the throat—sorry to gross you out—remove the herniated disc, insert a piece of cadaver bone to fuse the vertebrae, and then attach a metal plate to hold everything together. Now imagine someone taking that metal plate and ripping it out of my throat. Unthinkable. Painful. Awful. That’s what divorce is like—a ripping apart of what God has fused together.

Now, you might think that because of Jesus’ strong language, that’s the end of the question. Once you’re married, there’s no way out. Divorce is out of the question.

Wrong.

Because Jesus, in Matthew 19, goes on to say that there are times when divorce is permitted.

What I want to do in the next few minutes is show you that Jesus does not command divorce, but neither does He condemn it. He does not commend divorce, but He concedes it. There’s a big difference.

Look at verses 7, 8, and 9. The Pharisees ask, “Why then did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” Jesus replies, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

Notice the Pharisees got it wrong. They said Moses commanded divorce. He did no such thing. Deuteronomy 24 was case law. It assumed divorce might happen and said, “Here’s what to do if it does.” Moses wasn’t instituting divorce; he was regulating it. And Jesus corrects them: Moses permitted divorce.

Some of you might be surprised to know that there are examples in the Bible where God clearly sanctions divorce. In Ezra 9–10, God commands the Israelites to divorce their foreign wives. In Matthew 1, Joseph—called a “just man”—was considering divorcing Mary quietly. And in the Old Testament, God Himself “divorces” Israel for her repeated idolatry (Hosea 2, Jeremiah 3, and others).

Imagine a piece of fine china—expensive, treasured, meant to be kept and honored. To say it shouldn’t be broken doesn’t mean it can’t be broken. And in the same way, while marriage is meant to be guarded and preserved, there are situations in which the covenant bond can indeed be broken.

You might ask, “When can that covenant bond be broken?”

Here’s the answer: other than the death of a spouse—and I’m not recommending anyone try that one—there are two ways the marriage covenant can be broken.

Let’s talk about the first: marital unfaithfulness. That’s the phrase in verse 9: “Anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

This verse has been debated for centuries. Let me make it as simple as possible.

There are two Greek words in verse 9 you need to understand.

The phrase “marital unfaithfulness” translates the Greek word porneia—the root of our word pornography. It’s the most general Greek word for sexual sin. It covers prostitution, adultery, fornication, incest, homosexual acts, polygamy, bestiality—any expression of sexuality outside the marriage relationship of a man and a woman.

Porneia is also used figuratively in Scripture to describe Israel’s idolatry—her unfaithfulness to the Lord. That’s why the NIV uses the broader phrase marital unfaithfulness. The ESV is more literal and uses sexual immorality.

So let’s say it this way: porneia is any immoral activity—especially sexual—that breaks the covenantal one flesh union between husband and wife.

The other Greek word in verse 9 is moicheia—a narrower word meaning adultery, intimacy between a married person and someone other than his or her spouse.

So Jesus is saying in this passage that when a husband or wife engages in certain kinds of activity—activity that violates or ruptures that one flesh relationship we’ve been talking about—the offended spouse may file for divorce. That would not be a sinful divorce, even though sin caused the divorce. Do you see that? The divorce itself would be legitimate, even though sin is what led to it.

Now, this husband or wife does not have to get a divorce. Divorce is not commanded; it is permitted. And if divorce happens because of the sexual sin of one of the partners, the innocent party may, Jesus says, remarry—because the marriage has been terminated. If the exception clause of verse 9 has been met, the offended party may remarry.

Now, all sorts of questions probably pop up at this point. For example:

Can a person divorce a spouse who has an addiction—pornography, gambling, something like that?

Or what if your spouse gets into an emotional affair?

If porneia is a general word that can apply to all sorts of unfaithful activities, might it apply to things like that?

Here’s my answer: maybe… and maybe not.

Let’s admit, friends, that the human heart is deceitful above all things. We are desperately wicked, and sin will pull us toward trying to justify our desire to get a divorce. So we must not do that. We must not expand the list of sins that fit under this broad or figurative use of porneia.

But at the same time, our friends in the PCA, after extensive study, produced a position paper saying this:

If a person becomes so obsessed with certain activities—addictions, habits, continual engagement in immoral behavior—that these activities become a substitute for fulfilling the conjugal rights of the spouse, then they could be understood to break the one flesh union.

Judgment, they say, must rest with the session—our elders—in their application of biblical principles. The guiding principle should be whether the sin truly breaks the one flesh relationship.

Alright, let’s pause there. I said the marriage covenant can be broken in two ways. One way is porneia—Matthew 19:9 and Matthew 5:32. The other way is in 1 Corinthians 7.

So turn with me from Matthew 19 to 1 Corinthians 7. First Corinthians is a letter written by the Apostle Paul. Look at verses 1–9. In those verses, Paul echoes Genesis 1 and 2 about the gift of marriage and the intimacy of the one flesh union.

Then in verses 10–16, Paul speaks to two groups.

1. Two Christians Married to Each Other (vv. 10–11)

Verses 10–11 address husbands and wives who are both Christians:

“To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband…”

That word separate is simply a synonym for divorce.

Paul says if she does separate, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.

Notice Paul doesn’t repeat the exception clause Jesus gave in Matthew 19:9. He doesn’t need to—it’s assumed. But he does add something new:

If divorce occurs for some reason other than porneia, the husband and wife must remain single. That is the penalty for a sinful divorce. Remaining single keeps open the possibility of reconciliation—which is the ideal.

2. A Mixed Marriage (vv. 12–16)

In verses 12–16, Paul addresses a marriage where one spouse is a Christian and the other is not.

He says if the unbelieving spouse is willing to live with the believer, the believer must not seek a divorce simply because the spouse doesn’t share their faith. In fact, Paul says God can use the believing spouse to bring covenantal grace into that home—and perhaps even salvation.

But look at verse 15:

“If the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances. God has called us to live in peace.”

Paul is teaching that if your non Christian spouse deserts you, you are not bound to stay in that marriage. You may divorce. That is a legitimate divorce. And by implication, you are free to remarry, because the marriage bond has been broken.

So the desertion of a believing spouse by an unbeliever is the second circumstance that makes divorce permissible. The divorce would not be sinful, even though sin caused it.

And again, just because divorce is permitted does not mean it is the right thing to do—or the only thing to do. God can heal the worst relationships. Sometimes your forgiving attitude, your selfless spirit, your commitment to the good of the other person is what brings him or her to repentance.

But What Counts as “Desertion”?

Just as with porneia, more questions arise. Might “desertion” include more than physically leaving the house?

Most evangelical thinkers say yes.

Again, the PCA paper says desertion can occur “by the imposition of intolerable conditions as well as by departure itself.”

But let me caution us: not just anything you dislike in your spouse should be included. The PCA wisely says the list of sins tantamount to desertion “cannot be very long.”

Sometimes God calls us to stay in painful relationships. Peter reminds us in 1 Peter 2 that Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example. When they hurled insults at Him, He did not retaliate. When He suffered, He made no threats. He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly. Sometimes that is your calling in a difficult marriage.

But things like physical abuse, treachery, alcohol or drug abuse, cruelty, criminal activity, absenteeism, or any habitual behavior that endangers you or your children—these are certainly a kind of desertion. And even if that spouse claims to be a Christian, if he or she engages habitually in such behavior, at some point they are acting like a non Christian and should be treated as such.

The key here is that the elders of the church must be involved.

The Bible doesn’t speak to every possibility. It won’t mention pornography addiction by name. We must take biblical principles, saturate them with prayer, seek the Lord’s guidance, and make the best decision we can.

Summary

So what have we learned today?

– God did not institute divorce; He permits it, tolerates it, regulates it.

– Divorce always stems from sin, but divorce itself is not necessarily sinful.

– Divorce terminates the covenant of marriage.

– When one partner repudiates the covenant through sexual immorality (porneia) or desertion, divorce is lawful.

– Where divorce is permitted, remarriage by the innocent party is also permitted.

I’m sure many of you have further questions. I want to say: let’s talk. It’s hard to cover all of this in one sermon. If you want to explore these things, or if you’re being affected by them right now, let’s talk.

We’re a community that cares about this issue. We care about you, and we want to nurture the marriages in our church. So let me offer a few words of final application—some takeaways.

First, remember what I said earlier this morning: there is not one marriage in this room that is divorce proof. You’ve got to know that. You’ve got to walk your marriage path humbly, aware of your vulnerability to all kinds of sins.

But if you want to make your marriage as divorce proof as possible, the first thing I’ll say is this: make sure you’re a follower of Jesus. Make sure you belong to Christ and that you’re committed to a strong, healthy, Bible believing church.

You’ve probably heard the statistics that say divorce is just as common in the church as in the world. That needs to be qualified. Better studies show that when we’re talking about people who are committed to Jesus, who take their faith seriously, who are involved in and committed to a local church, the divorce rate goes way down. There’s a reason for that: the Holy Spirit enables you—through faith in Christ, through the gospel, and through your involvement with your brothers and sisters—to overcome these problems.

Second, if you are married—or if you one day will be married—take heed to these words: your spouse must be under Christ your next priority. And if you want to make your marriage as strong as possible, you must be willing to invest in it.

You’ve got to get date nights. Husbands and wives, you’ve got to get away together. You’ve got to spend time with each other. You need boundaries around your relationship. And you need to take advantage of every resource—every conference, every book—that can help you become a better husband or wife.

Third, always give God a chance to do a miracle. Always. I’ve seen marriages that appeared hopeless turn around by the grace of God. Divorce should be your last resort. Before you give up, do everything you can. Identify the things that brought you to this place. Repent deeply of the sins you yourself have committed. Pray together and ask God to give you a spirit of forgiveness and healing grace. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Ask your friends to pray and fast for you. Go to a professional counselor.

And one more thing: get the elders involved. If you’re troubled about where you are in your marriage, come talk to one of the pastors. Let the elders shepherd you. If divorce becomes necessary—and some of you have experienced divorce—then here’s what you need to do: rest in the love of Christ. Rest in His love and move forward. Begin to rebuild your life in Him. Realize that we live in a fallen world where sometimes things don’t get better. Groan for heaven. Groan for the new earth, where things will be better.

Remember earlier today I said that God divorced Israel. God Himself experienced that. But hear what He says in Hosea 2:

Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her… I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion… You are my people, and they will say, "You are my God.”

It’s because of Jesus—because of His death on the cross—that you and I can know that divorce is not the final word.

Let’s pray together:

Lord Jesus, thank You for teaching us about divorce and marriage and remarriage. Thank You for the institution of marriage. Thank You, Father, that You created marriage for the happiness and welfare of mankind.

Lord, we pray for one another here. We admit that none of us is immune. None of us has a self righteous leg to stand on. All of us are sinners. All of us are vulnerable to fall.

And there are people in our church who are divorced and still feeling the pain of that. There are children of divorce in our church—people who have grown up without a father or mother, or in a broken home.

Lord Jesus, thank You that You can put the pieces of our puzzles back together. Thank You that You can take a wounded marriage and make it whole again. Thank You that You can take divorced people and make them well, and help them find in You grace greater than all our struggles, all our sins, all our challenges.

Lord, You be our husband today. You be the husband of this bride, the Church.

We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Rev. Mike Osborne joined the staff of RTS Orlando in March, 2019, as the new Dean of Students. He also serves as Director of Field Education and Placement, assisting and mentoring MDiv students as they prepare for full-time gospel ministry. In addition Mike is often found in the classroom, teaching preaching labs and pastoral counseling classes.

This article is based upon a verbatim text of a sermon by Rev. Osborne. It has been lightly edited by Copilot, as well as the theological staff at Third Millennium Ministries.