DIVORCE AND RE-MARRIAGE
The Biblical position on divorce and re-marriage is accurately outlined in the Westminster Confession:
"V. Adultery or fornication committed after a contract, being detected before marriage, gives just occasion to the innocent party to dissolve that contract.[11] In the case of adultery after marriage, it is lawful for the innocent party to sue out a divorce and, after the divorce,[12] to marry another, as if the offending party were dead.[13]"
Dr. John Murray’s able defense of this position can be found at http://www.the-highway.com/divorce_Murray.html as excerpted below:
“… respecting
divorce and its implications this is on all accounts the most pivotal passage
in the New Testament. It occupies this crucial position particularly for the
reason that it is the only passage in the New Testament in which we have the
combination of two clauses, namely, the exceptive clause (mh; epi;
poreia) and the
remarriage clause (kai; gamhsh/ allhn). Both of these clauses occur elsewhere, the former in Matthew
5:32, in the parekto" logou porneia" and the latter in Mark 10:11, as also
in the form kai gamwn eteran; in Luke 16:18. But only in Matthew 19:9 are they coordinated.
It might not be proper to maintain that
the question of the legitimacy of remarriage on the part of the innocent spouse
after divorce for adultery would not arise if we did not have Matthew 19:9. The
question might well emerge in connection with Matthew
Nevertheless, Matthew 19:9 is
distinctive in that here the question of the legitimacy or illegitimacy of
remarriage after divorce for adultery is thrust upon us directly and
inescapably.
At the present stage of the discussion
we shall assume that the correct text of Matthew 19:9 reads as follows: legw de; umin
oti o" anapolush/ thn gunai kai;
autou mh; epi; pornei;a/
kai; gamhsh/ allhn, moicatai. The matter of textual variation will be discussed later. On the
above reading of the text it may be well in passing to note some of its
distinctive characteristics.
(a) This text does not reflect upon the
character of the man’s sin if he puts away his wife (for any other cause than
that of adultery) but does not himself remarry. As found already, Matthew
(b) The man who puts away his wife
(except for fornication) and marries another is expressly condemned as an
adulterer. This is an inference properly drawn from Matthew
(c) The rights of a woman in divorcing
her husband for adultery and the sin of the woman who remarries after divorce
for any other reason are not reflected on in this passage. Only in Mark 10:12
is there any express allusion to divorce action on the part of the woman and
there, as we shall see later, no reference is made to the intrinsic right of
divorce but only to the adulterous character of remarriage.
The real crux of the question in
Matthew 19:9 is, however, the force of the exceptive clause, “except for
fornication” (mh; epi; porneia). In the actual terms of the text the question is: does
this exceptive clause apply to the words gamhsh/ allhn and therefore to moicatai as well as to the verb apolush? There can be no
question but the exceptive clause provides an exception to the wrong of putting
away. The kind of wrong from which it relieves the husband is not intimated as
in Matthew
On this question the professing church
is sharply divided. On the one hand, there are those who claim that while
Matthew 19:9 (as also Matthew 5:32) gives to the innocent husband the right to
put away the wife who has committed adultery, yet this does not give any
warrant for the dissolution of the marriage bond and for the remarriage of the
guiltless spouse. In other words, adultery gives the right of separation from
bed and board (a thoro et
mensa) but does not sever the bond of marriage
nor does it give the right to dissolve that bond. Perhaps most notable in maintaining
this position is the Roman Catholic Church. The position should not, however,
be regarded as distinctively Romish. The
distinguished Latin father, Augustine, can be enlisted in support of this
interpretation. Canon law of the Church of England, while allowing separation
for adultery, does not permit of remarriage for the parties so separated as
long as they both live.
If the text of Matthew 19:9, quoted
above, is adopted as the genuine and authentic text, then there is considerable
difficulty in holding to this position. The reason is apparent. It is the
difficulty of restricting the exceptive clause to the putting away (apolush) and not extending
it also to the remarriage (gamhsh/ allhn). This is,
however, the construction that must be maintained if Matthew 19:9 is not
interpreted as legitimating remarriage after divorce for adultery. The Romish Church is insistent that the exceptive clause
modifies the first verb in the statement concerned but does not apply to the
second. This exegesis is stated quite clearly by Aug. Lehmkuhl
as follows:
The complete exclusion of absolute
divorce (divortium perfectum)
in Christian marriage is expressed in the words quoted above Mark x; Luke xvi;
I Cor. vii). The words in St. Matthews Gospel (xix,
9), ‘except it be for fornication’, have, however, given rise to the question
whether the putting away of the wife and the dissolution of the marriage bond
were not allowed on account of adultery. The Catholic Church and Catholic
theology have always maintained that by such an explanation St. Matthew would
be made to contradict St. Mark, Luke, and Paul, and the converts instructed by
these latter would have been brought into error in regard to the real doctrine
of Christ. As this is inconsistent both with the infallibility of the Apostolic teaching and the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture,
the clause in Matthew must be explained as the mere dismissal of the unfaithful
wife without the dissolution of the marriage bond. Such a dismissal is not
excluded by the parallel texts in Mark and Luke, while Paul (I Cor., vii, 11) clearly indicates the possibility of such a
dismissal: ‘And if she depart, that she remain unmarried, or be reconciled to
her husband’. Grammatically, the clause in St. Matthew may modify one member of
the sentence (that which refers to the putting away of the wife) without
applying to the following member (the remarriage of the other), though we must
admit that the construction is a little harsh. If it means, ‘whoever shall put
away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery’, then, in case of marital infidelity,
the wife may be put away; but that, in this case, adultery is not committed by
a new marriage cannot be concluded from these words. The following words, ‘And he that shall marry her that is put away’ – therefore
also the woman who is dismissed for adultery – ‘committeth
adultery’, say the contrary, since they suppose the permanence of the first
marriage.
This construction of Matthew 19:9 is
admitted to be “a little harsh” even by the foregoing apologist for the Romish interpretation. We shall see that this is very much
of an understatement.
It must indeed be allowed that an
exceptive clause is sometimes used in the Greek to intimate “an exception to
something that is more general than that which has actually been mentioned”. We
have examples of this use of eij mhv in Matthew 12:4; Romans
(1) If the exceptive clause is of the
sort indicated above, namely, not an exception to that which is expressly
stated but an exception to another closely related and more general
consideration, then this is a most unusual, if not unparalleled, way of
expressing it. In other instances where we have this kind of exception the
construction is quite different from that in our text. In these other instances
the statement of that to which a more general exception is appended is given
first in its completeness and then the exception in its completeness follows.
But this is not the case here – the exception is inserted before the statement
is completed. Analogy does not, therefore, favour
this rendering.
(2) While it is true grammatically that
an exceptive clause may modify one member of a sentence without modifying
another, yet it must be noted that, in this particular case, the one member
which the exceptive clause, on the Romish
construction, is supposed to modify does not and cannot stand alone in the
syntax of the sentence concerned. Even if eliminate the clause kai; gamhvsh/ from any modification by the exceptive clause we have not reached
any solution far as the grammatical structure is concerned. In order to
complete the sense of what is introduced by the clause o" an apoluvsh/ thn
gunai kai; autouv we must move on to the
principal verb, namely, moicatai. But if we do this without reference to the remarriage clause (kai; gamhsh/
allhn) we get nonsense and untruth,
namely, “whoever puts away his wife except for fornication commits adultery”.
In other words, it must be observed that in this sentence as it stands no
thought is complete without the principal verb, moicav tai. It is this thought of committing adultery by remarriage that is
the ruling thought in this passage, and it is quite indefensible to suppress
it. The very exceptive clause, therefore, must have direct bearing upon the
action denoted by the verb that governs. But in order to have direct bearing
upon the governing verb (moicatai) it must also have direct bearing upon that which must
occur before the action denoted by the principal verb can take effect, namely,
the marrying of another. This direct bearing which the exceptive clause must
have on the remarriage and on the committing of adultery is simply another way
of saying that, as far as the syntax of the sentence is concerned,
the exceptive clause must apply to the committing of adultery in the event of
remarriage as well as to the wrong of putting away.
A comparison with Matthew 5:32 will
help to clarify this point. There it is said, “Everyone who puts away his wife
except for the cause of fornication makes her to commit adultery”. In this case
the exceptive clause has full meaning and relevance apart altogether from
remarriage on the part of the divorcing husband. This is so because the sin
contemplated on the part of the divorcing husband is not the committing of adultery
on his part but the making of his wife to be an adulteress. But in Matthew 19:9
the case is entirely different. The burden thought here in 19:9 is the
committing of adultery on the part of the divorcing husband himself. But this
sin on his part presupposes his remarriage. Consequently, in the syntax of the
sentence as it actually is, the meaning and relevance of the exceptive clause
cannot be maintained apart from its application to the remarriage as well as to
the putting away.
(3) What is contemplated in this
sentence is not merely putting away, as in Matthew 5:31, 32, but putting away
and remarriage on the part of the husband. In this respect it is to be
carefully distinguished from the logion of Matt.
(4) The divorce permitted or tolerated
under the Mosaic economy had the effect of dissolving the marriage bond. This
Mosaic permission regarding divorce is referred to in the context of this
passage as well as in Matthew
If divorce involves dissolution of the
marriage bond, then we should not expect that remarriage would be regarded as
adultery.
(5) It is surely reasonable to assume
that if the man may legitimately put away his wife for adultery the marriage
bond is judged to be dissolved. On any other supposition the woman who has
committed adultery and who has been put away is still in reality the man’s wife
and is one flesh with him. If so it would appear very anomalous that the man
should have the right to put away one who is permanently, while life lasts, his
wife and is one flesh with him. To take action that relieves of the obligations
of matrimony while the marital tie is inviolate hardly seems compatible with
marital ethics as taught in the Scripture itself. It is true that Paul
distinctly contemplates the possibility of separation without dissolution and
propounds what the law is in such a contingency (I Cor.
(6) The position that adultery warrants
putting away but not dissolution of the marriage bond would appear to conflict
with another principle of Scripture that applies to the aggravated case of
harlotry or prostitution. If adultery does not give ground for dissolution of
the marriage bond, then a man may not secure dissolution even when his wife has
abandoned herself to prostitution. This seems quite contrary to the principle
of purity expressed by the apostle (I Cor.
On these various grounds we may
conclude that it is not feasible to construe the exceptive clause of Matthew
19:9 as applying merely to the putting away and not to the remarriage on the
part of the divorcing husband. The considerations preponderate rather in favour of the conclusion that when a man puts away his wife
for the cause of fornication this putting away has the effect of dissolving the
bond of marriage with the result that he is free to remarry without thereby
incurring the guilt of adultery. In simple terms it means that divorce
in such a case dissolves the marriage and that the parties are no longer man
and wife.”