In three of the four Gospel accounts, there is a record of the teaching of Jesus on the subject of divorce. Only John does not include the subject. In Matthew's Gospel, there is record of the subject being addressed twice in the earthly ministry of our Lord. Although Luke does record the teaching of Christ, he is the briefest of the Gospel writers, devoting but one verse to the subject, and even then, his emphasis is more on the issue of remarriage than divorce. The Matthew 19 and Mark 10 passages seem to be accounts of the same of the same time in the ministry of Christ, neither of them recording all that the Lord spoke concerning the subject, choosing only that which would fulfill the purpose of the writing of their Gospel.

We begin our study with the Matthew 5 passage. The teaching on divorce in this passage is part of what is called the Sermon on the Mount. If I could summarize the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount in one sentence (but what preacher can summarize anything in one sentence?) it would be that those who are truly in a right relationship with God should live truly righteously. Beginning with verse 17 of chapter 5, through verse 23 of chapter 7, the Lord compares the prevailing standards of righteousness, taught by the Pharisees, to that which truly glorify God. The key phrase in this portion of Scripture is, "You have heard it has been said..." Each time the phrase is used, Jesus contrasts the standards of the Pharisees, who seemingly based their standards on the teaching of the Mosaic law, to that which the law truly taught. The Pharisees are usually criticized for their strict standards, but in every circumstance cited by Jesus, the standards of the Pharisees was declared inappropriately low, and in each case, Jesus raised the bar of morality. A brief survey of a few of these teaching will help set the context for His teaching on divorce.

In verse 21, the issue is murder. Without question, the law prohibited it and consequence befell the person who committed murder. But the murder of the body was not all that was in the mind of God with the law's prohibition. Character can also be assassinated which is the thrust of verse 22. But Jesus goes even a step further in stating that not only should there be an absence of malice between brothers, but there should be the presence of peace. While the Pharisees were strict in their obedience to the law concerning the murder of the body, they neglected the issues of character and peace.

In verse 27, Jesus turns His attention to the issue of adultery. Again, while the Pharisees conscientiously avoided illegitimate intercourse, they neglected other areas of sexual morality. In the marriage relationship there is to be an all out abandonment to one's spouse. If one truly loves another, there should be an attitude of righteous jealousy. Our God is a jealous God (Exodus 20:5). Jealousy is usually considered as a suspicious mistrust of someone else, and therefore an undesirable character quality. But a righteous jealousy is a loving protection from anything that would destroy or diminish the intimacy of a relationship with one who is loved. The essence of the teaching is that anything that would in the slightest way diminish the relationship of intimacy between a husband and wife should be radically removed so that there remains an absolute purity between them.

Finally, in verse 38, Jesus addresses the issue of the law and justice. The principle of the law was that for every offence, there was to be an appropriate consequence. To express the idea of the law in modern day terms, we might say do not inflict capital punishment on the person whose parking meter expired, nor simply verbally reprimand the person who has committed murder. The severity of the punishment is to be equal with the severity of the crime. But what should the attitude be of the person who has done wrong? In Jesus' day, as well as today, the saying, "I've got my rights" was heard. But in verses 39-42, Jesus states that the attitude of the repentant offender should be one of a willingness to accept whatever the punishment may be for their offence. A person guilty of a crime, no matter how small or how great, has no right to determine their punishment. Genuine repentance shows a willingness to suffer all the consequences of sin, not just what the guilty thinks is fair.

In each of these instances, it was not that what had become the standard practice of the law that was blatantly wrong. The problem was that the standards had fallen far short of all that the law had enjoined upon the people. The same is true of their obedience to the law concerning divorce. The law necessitated that in order for a man to divorce his wife, he needed to write a formal bill of divorcement. To this, most people willingly obeyed. The problem was though, that the law was not given to encourage divorce but to discourage it. Not only did the law restrict the circumstances under which a man could divorce his wife, but the law was designed to make a man think twice before proceeding with a divorce in circumstances that were legal. Marriage is something that is to be entered into wisely. It dissolution should be also. But the people of Jesus' day, by permission of the Pharisees, treated it mater-of-factly, without much thought.

There was also, another failure to their practice. Once the divorce had taken place, it was believed that there was a complete freedom to do whatever one wanted in regards to remarriage. We will deal with this issue later, but at this point we will simply state there was not a complete freedom about it. Deuteronomy 24:2 states that when a woman was divorced under just circumstances, she was free to marry another man. However, if she remarried, the first husband could never again become her mate. The law prohibited the daisy petal (she loves me, she loves me not, she loves me...) exercise of marriage divorce and remarriage. By His teaching, Jesus raises the standard of righteousness concerning divorce to what the law truly prescribed.

Without question, the Law of Moses permitted divorce in certain circumstances. But so far we have not determined exactly what those circumstances are. To this, we now turn our attention. In both the Matthew 5 and the Matthew 19 passages on divorce, there exists what is known as the "exception clause". This exception clause is not found in the Mark 10 or the Luke 16 passages. The exception clause is the only basis for a justifiable divorce under the teaching of the law. As we examine this exception clause, we must answer two important questions. What exactly are the exceptions that justify a divorce and do these exceptions found in the law apply to the church?

The discourse on divorce found in Matthew 19:3-12 began with a question asked by the Pharisees in an attempt to discredit the Lord in the eyes of the multitudes who followed Him. The question, "Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?" was a question that was debated amongst the Pharisees. Within the Pharisees were two schools of thought. The school of Shammai held to a very strict or narrow interpretation of the law concerning the grounds for divorce. The school of Hillel held to a very broad and permissive interpretation of the law. The school of Hillel was the most popular teaching with the people of that day. The question the Pharisees asked was designed to cause Jesus to choose sides. If He sided with Shammai, He would lose the support of the people. If He chose Hillel, the Pharisees could accuse Him of perverting the law. Jesus chose neither side but rather referred them back, not to Deuteronomy 24 but to Genesis 2.

In appealing to Genesis 2, Jesus takes the Pharisees back to the creational design of God in marriage. From the creation to the second utterance of the law in Deuteronomy, there had never been divine permission for divorce. The Pharisees had acted as if divorce had always been a part of the plan of God. The reaction of the Pharisees to Jesus' appeal to Genesis 2 is revealing to how they understood Jesus in His initial response. As they questioned Him as to why Moses commanded the giving of a bill of divorcement, they realized that Jesus allowed for no opportunity of divorce in creation. Jesus' words at the end of verse 8 emphasize that conclusion.

Why did Moses permit divorce and why at the time of the writing of Deuteronomy? Jesus answers part of that question for us with the explanation in that it was given because of the hardness of the hearts of the people of Israel. What did He mean by their hardness of heart? There are a number of possibilities which could be included in the answer. One possibility is that man was becoming increasingly wicked and the law was given to curb that wickedness. the problem with this answer is that man had become as wicked as wicked can be, especially in the area of marital relations prior to the flood. Instead of giving a law, God destroyed the world. If the giving of a law would have curbed the sin of the people, I believe God, who is not willing that any should perish, would have given them the law. He didn't.

Another possibility is that God conceded to the hardness of man's heart when couples stopped being faithful in the marriage relationship. Rather than making a couple who didn't love each other remain in a marriage neither of them wanted, God allowed for divorce. The problem with this idea is that the omniscient God knew from creation that this problem would someday exist. Why didn't He give it in the beginning. And can we really think that it took 2500 years for this problem to manifest itself?

The answer to our question, I believe, can be found in the one provision God made for divorce- the exception clause. In verse 9, Jesus identifies the exception clause as, "except it be for fornication". The word that is translated fornication is the Greek word pornia. The word is a general term including a broad assortment of sexual sins. Because this word is used, some have concluded that any sexual sin can be the grounds for divorce. While the word by itself could be interpreted that way, there is good cause to believe that a much narrower or specific use of the word is in the mind of Jesus here. We know that the only permission given in the law for divorce is found in Deuteronomy 24:1, where a man has found some uncleanness (ervah) in his wife. Since the only exception given in the New Testament commentary of the law is pornia, then there must be an equivalence between these two terms.

By eliminating what the Old Testament did not allow for divorce, we can narrow the possibilities of the meaning of pornia. From the six scenarios of Deuteronomy 21, we ruled out premarital sexual relations. In the case where the man and the woman were not betrothed, they were forced to marry and no opportunity was ever given throughout the marriage for divorce. Where the woman was betrothed to another man, she was stoned. When the husband brought false accusations against her virginity, he was forced to pay a fine and never allowed to divorce her. One possibility of his dislike for her and why he might have brought false accusations against her is that she might have had some sexual dysfunction. That could be included in the term pornia but it did not qualify for divorce. Most of all, as most commentators try to insist, the term did not include adultery. Adultery was punishable by death, not divorce. With premarital and extramarital sexual relations excluded from possibilities for divorce, along with other dysfunctions like impotence or frigidity, what was left?

One possibility remains. Purity of the blood line was extremely important in Old Testament times, especially to the tribe of Judah from whom the Messiah would come. But not only to the descendants of Judah was purity important but to the whole nation, for there had to be a nation for Him to come to. It seems reasonable to conclude that the one exception given for divorce in the Law of Moses had to deal with something that would corrupt the blood line and prevent the opportunity of Israel's Messiah from coming to Israel. The giving of the law for divorce then would not be a concession to or a permission of sin, but a law given to preserve purity. The reasonableness of this conclusion is founded upon a number of reasons.

First, a survey of the Old Testament history of Israel reveals that Satan repeatedly tried to corrupt the blood line or eliminate altogether the people of Israel. Beginning in Egypt under the oppression of the taskmasters, through the vengeance of the Pharaoh at the Red Sea, to the deception of the Gileadites, the cursings of Balaam and Barak, to the threats of Goliath and the rage of Haman, we see repeated but unsuccessful attempts to destroy Israel as a nation or keep them from possessing the land promised to Abraham by God. It is also interesting to note that as Satan sought to destroy Israel so that Jesus could not come to it in His first advent, so he seeks today to destroy the nation so that Jesus can not return to it in His second advent. If the blood line could become so corrupted that the identity of the people be lost by intermarriage, the task of Satan would be accomplished.

Secondly, the only time that divorce is commanded in the Old Testament is where the Israelites had intermarried with foreign wives and the children of those marriages had been corrupted in their knowledge of the things of the Lord. If the divorce was prohibited by the law in this circumstance, then Ezra could not have commanded it. The meaning of "some uncleanness" and consequently the term "pornia" must then have included the situation of mixed marriages which would corrupt the blood line of Israel and ruin its national identity.

Thirdly, the timing of the giving of the law of divorce can then be explained. Before Genesis 12 and the call of Abraham, there was not even a hint of the nation of Israel, and with the call, only the promise of it. With the birth of the 12 sons to Jacob, the nation began to come into existence, however, as they travelled into Egypt, they were yet 12 individual sons with offspring. As they multiplied in Egypt their numbers became of national quantity, but they were yet without a land and could only be considered a collection of 12 tribes. It is only as they move into the promised land of Canaan that they officially become a nation. This is when the law of divorce was given. If the law of divorce was given to preserve the nation from corruption of its identity, then of necessity, the nation must exist. It is coincidental that the law was given when the nation came into existence truly as a nation? I think not!

If the exception clause pertained to national Israel, we can also understand why it is omitted in the Gospels of Mark and Luke. The Gospel of Matthew was written to a Jewish audience. Mark and Luke were written to Roman and Greek audiences respectively. Some commentators have suggested that the exception clause was omitted in these two Gospels because the audiences already knew of them from Matthew's Gospel and there was no need to repeat what was already understood. But if the exception clause was already known, and it was unnecessary to record again, then why record the rest of the teaching of the Lord on divorce in these two Gospels? Surely they were know too. For that matter, why write another Gospel at all, at least one with overlapping and parallel accounts? The only valid reason for the omission of the exception clause in Mark and Luke is that the exception clause was given for national Israel, and not to any other nation, and therefore the exception clause did not pertain to them. The Pharisees of Jesus'' day boasted that the law of divorce was given to them and not to the Gentiles. Considering that the law was given because of the hardness of their hearts, it was a rather poor thing to boast about, but they did recognize that the Gentiles had no such permission for divorce from God, the exception clause pertained to Israel alone. Since the exception clause was given solely to Israel, and since it is contained in the Law of Moses, can today's church claim it as that which provides opportunity for divorce? I contend the answer is a resounding no for two very important reasons. the first reason concerns the purpose of the law of divorce. As we noted, its purpose was to maintain a national identity of the people of Israel that a nation could exist for its Messiah to come to. That purpose has been accomplished. The church has no national identity. The church is composed of all those who are truly born again from nations all over this planet. We are composed of Jew and Gentile, baptized into one body. there simply is no blood line to maintain a national purity of. The purpose for which the law was given to Israel is unnecessary to the church.

Secondly, the church is not governed by the Law of Moses. Some aspects of the law are repeated in the New Testament because the law is based on the unchanging nature of God and man. for example, the law stated that man was not to covet (Exodus 20:17) because God sovereignly supplied all that man needed. Likewise, children were to honor their parents (Exodus 20:12) because God relates to us as a Father and is worthy of our honor. These commandments are repeated in the New Testament (James 4:2, Ephesians 6:1) because the relationship between God and man was not altered by time. Some commandments have been altered in detail because of a change between the testament, but the essence of the command remains the same. An example is the command to remember the Sabbath and to keep it holy. Two elements were predominant in obeying this commandment. There was to be a cessation of labor and a concentration on worship during the Sabbath day. The Sabbath was the 7th day of the week which commemorated God's completion of the work of creation. With the accomplishment of the work of providing salvation on Calvary's cross and the declaration of "it is finished" by Christ, we, in Christ, rest from our labors of being made acceptable to God. As the first day of the week was marked by the resurrection, so we today devote that day for worship. Our worship is commanded in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 6:20) but the day is not mandated. There is no command in the New Testament which commands the church to remember the Sabbath.

Other aspects of the law, such as the sacrifice of animals for the worship of God, are no longer practiced since the purpose of their existence has been accomplished and the command to believers is nowhere stated in the New Testament. This is the case of the law of divorce. To accept the exception clause portion of the law of divorce, we would need also to accept the other regulations concerning marriage and divorce as pertaining to the church. If someone then commits adultery, we must stone them. If premarital intercourse is engaged in, the couple must marry and never divorce. it is obvious that since we do not accept these portion as pertaining to the church that we can not accept the exception clause also. Since the exception clause is nowhere repeated in New Testament literature pertaining to the church and since its purpose had been accomplished at the time of the first advent of Christ, the exception clause can in no way be used today as providing permission for divorce. Any permission for divorce must come from the epistolary teaching of the New Testament. The Gospels simply do not provide any permission for it.