Answers In-Depth to Questions about Christianity
Adultery Does NOT Justify Remarriage
QUESTION:  My husband and I have been married for seven years, have no children, and have
been having some major problems for half of our married lives.  We started going to counselling only
two weeks ago, but Jack hates being married to me, and thinks that he does not need counselling
because he "has Jesus!"  Two years ago I had an affair that lasted a month.  It was the biggest
mistake of my life, and I have been good since then.  I felt so depressed and unloved that, when
one of my co-workers started showing me affection, my heart overtook my head and we had sex a
few times after work.  I thought it was love, but it was not.  My co-worker had been very lonely after
his own divorce.  Jack noticed my happy demeanor and became suspicious, and started putting
two-and-two together.  He's a cop.  Both of us are Catholics, but recently Jack became "a born-again
Christian"--on the golf course, of all places!  Jack's golfing buddy is now telling him that, according
to the Bible, my unfaithfulness frees him to get rid of me and marry "a nice single girl in the
Bible-believing church down the street."  Jack seems to like what he is hearing.  He says that he is
interested only in what the Bible has to say, not in what our marriage counsellor says.  What does
the Bible teach about divorce?  Answered by Rev. Paul L. Rothermel
Although I am going to share with you biblical evidence that remarriage before one’s first wife has died is seriously
wrong, whatever I write cannot do miracles for you.  Only God does miracles, and these take place through our prayers.
We need to pray that your husband experiences a change of heart.  Keep in mind the truth of the adage, “A man
convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”  Divorce is never primarily a careful, rational, logical process.  
There are many emotional elements that go into this fateful decision.  Emotions usually override reason.  I do not want to
discourage you, but it seems to me that your husband Jack may have already resolved this issue in his own heart and
mind.  Sometimes a person’s psychology is a greater factor in determining behavior than the Bible’s theology is.

You and your husband claim to be Christians.  Your husband is likely claiming to have a special loyalty to Jesus
because he has been “born again.”  On this issue, his new-found loyalty will be put to a rather severe test.  For us,
Jesus Christ must have the last word, for as our Lord, He is our Boss.

The Bible is God’s Word in human words.  These words come from ancient Near Eastern languages.  The humans who
wrote them were like us, in that they were human, but also unlike us, in that they were shaped by a strange, distant
culture of long ago.  We need to understand key aspects of their culture in order to appreciate the full meaning of their
sometimes confusing words.

In New Testament times, both Jewish and Roman law required a husband to separate from an adulterous wife, and both
of these legal systems allowed remarriage.  They both required more of married women than of married men.  An
unfaithful married woman was held to be an adulteress, while an unfaithful married man was treated only as a
fornicator.  This was clearly a double standard.  A male adult could have more than one wife, if he were a Jew, and
concubines (secondary legal consorts) in addition to a wife, if he were a Roman.  Within Jewish circles, the practice of
concubinage had died out since the early biblical era.  Among the Jews of New Testament times, there were two well-
known positions on divorce.  The followers of Rabbi Hillel permitted a husband to divorce his wife for any reason at all
and to remarry, while the followers of Rabbi Shammai permitted remarriage after divorce only in cases of the wife’s
unchastity, or only in cases of her unchastity or social immodesty.  Men, although religious ones, made the rules in that
man’s world, and could live with the truth of either position.  In no case were the males or females required to go without
sexual intercourse after divorce.  They could always remarry.  Jesus changed all that.

St. Mark, under the influence of St. Peter’s preaching, wrote what is probably the oldest of the four canonical gospels.  
He reports what Jesus taught:  “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if
she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery” (Mark 10:11-12).  St. Luke, who was well-known
to the congregations founded by St. Paul (cf. Colossians 4:14), reports the same (Luke 16:18).  Remarriage after
divorce without the intervening death of the first spouse is said quite simply to constitute adultery.  St. John does not
mention what Jesus taught on this issue, but St. Matthew gives a fuller, somewhat puzzling version of the statement in
Mark and Luke.  Christians who believe that unfaithfulness in a spouse justifies one’s divorce and allows for remarriage,
take great comfort only in Matthew’s fuller version.  They erroneously conclude that Jesus and Matthew are teaching
that unchastity is an exception to Jesus’ general prohibition of remarriage after divorce.  Fatal to this viewpoint, however,
is the disciples’ immediate reaction to Christ’s declaration.  They did not go on to comment, “So Hillel was wrong, and
Shammai was right.”  Rather, they expressed at least mild astonishment, a sort of disgruntlement, because the rules of
marriage, as Jesus had just enunciated them, seemed too strict.  Only Matthew recorded this reaction.  “His disciples
said to Him, ‘If that is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry" (Matthew 19:10).  The disciples would
never have come to such a radical conclusion if Jesus had merely required what Rabbi Shammai had previously
instructed!  On this issue, Christ was not a disciple of Shammai.  On the contrary, He was a great revolutionary who
broke with the Jewish consensus about divorce and remarriage.  It is Matthew’s version that immediately has Jesus
recommending sexual abstinence, with God’s help to accept it "for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matthew 19:11-
12).

According to the rest of the New Testament, no human has a right to break up a true marriage, which is said to result
from the uniting activity of God (Mark 10:2-9, Matthew 19:3-8).  Spouses are bound to one another as long as they both
shall live (Romans 7:1-3).  Married couples should not separate or divorce (First Corinthians 7:10).  In the case of
separation or divorce, those involved should remain single or be reconciled to one another (First Corinthians 7:11).  It
seems odd that neither Mark, Paul, nor Luke seems to know anything about an exception to Christ’s prohibition of
remarriage after divorce.  We can only assume that these biblical authors intended their readers to know everything
crucial about the matter.  If Mark was the first canonical gospel to be written, as is generally supposed by scholars, at
least his original readers did not have Matthew’s account of Jesus’ declaration in front of them.  It seems that St. Mark
did not report an exception because he did not know that any existed.

Remarrying while one’s first spouse is alive after divorcing him or her for adultery was forbidden in the early Church.  Of
those who addressed the subject of divorce within the first five centuries of orthodox Christianity, twenty-six Christian
writers forbade such remarriage after divorce, while only one writer (Ambrosiaster) allowed it in only some cases.  These
writers lived nearer to the time of the gospels than we are living, and many understood the Greek of the Bible as their
mother tongue.  When they read Matthew’s gospel, they too did not report an exception because they did not know that
any existed.  Yet they were reading what is called the exception, because none of the many surviving ancient copies of
Matthew's texts omit it.  It seems rather obvious that Matthew’s so-called “exception clauses,” when understood as the
ancients understood them, do not modify Jesus’ radical, counter-cultural teaching on this matter in any substantial way.

The early Church never lost sight of the serious nature of adultery, either.  They would regularly classify adultery along
with the other big sins of murder and apostasy from the Faith.  “When would a sexual act constitute adultery and when
would it not?”  This question is important for any religious society.  There is no evidence that the early Church ever
debated this question.  They all thought that they all knew the boundary lines.  Since divorce and remarriage have
always been a part of everyday life, it is reasonable to expect the Church to have preserved clear standards about such
matters.  The fact that the early Church unanimously taught a seemingly harsh position that differed sharply from the
easier views prevailing in contemporary Jewish and pagan cultures strongly suggests that the early Church’s strict view
prohibiting remarriage after divorce came from no less than Jesus Christ Himself.

For various reasons, most modern biblical scholars answer the question, “Did Jesus ever allow any divorce with the
right to remarry?” in the same way that the early Church did.  In effect they are saying, “No, Jesus taught that a
Christian can never marry before his or her first spouse has died.  It is either marriage to one’s first spouse until death,
or no spouse at all.  Spouses are 'one flesh' as long as life exists in both of their bodies.”

What about St. Matthew’s famous “exception clauses”?  No other book of the Bible seems to challenge the early Church’
s absolute prohibition, yet Matthew was the canonical gospel most often read by the early Church!  We only have the
Greek form of these constructions in Matthew 5:32 and 19:9.  We do not have Jesus Christ’s statements on divorce and
remarriage in His native Aramaic dialect.  Admittedly our most advanced knowledge of ancient Greek does not as yet
rule out an exception that is capable of being construed along the lines of Rabbi Shammai’s teaching.  However, these
same Greek texts easily allow the so-called exception to be construed along the lines of the early Church’s teaching as
well.  In which direction should careful, sound interpretation go?  Since only the early Church’s viewpoint easily fits the
rest of the New Testament, it is to be preferred in dealing with the challenging aspects of Matthew’s fuller version.  Of
those biblical scholars who argue that Matthew’s “exception clauses” sanction divorce for adultery with the right to
remarry while the unfaithful spouse is still alive, very few would insist that other interpretations of these words are
impossible.  Of the seven major contemporary scholarly interpretations of these constructions, only one understanding
allows for remarriage while the divorced spouse is still alive.  Needless to say, it is a very popular one.

The exception of Matthew 5:32a may simply mean that a man who divorces his wife for sexual sins would be guilty of
making her an adulteress unless she is already one [by her own previous immoral activity].  In Jewish society during the
years of the New Testament era, it would have appeared absurd to deny a divorced woman the right to remarry for any
reason, including adultery on her part.  This is because male headship was considered necessary for every woman’s
protection and survival.  This is another reason for the astonishment of the disciples.  Of course, the Church could and
did look out for them.  If we presuppose that Mark was one of Matthew’s key sources, then in the saying in Matthew 5:
32a, the author drops “and marries another woman” from Mark 10:11-12.  In this way of editing Mark, if he edited Mark
at all, Matthew would be clearly showing that he has no interest in setting forth the husband’s right to remarry under the
exception.

The exception of Matthew 19:9 is harder to explain than the one in chapter five, but it also can fit the early Church’s
absolute prohibition.  Matthew tends to mention certain topics twice (3:2 with 4:17, 3:10 with 7:19, 3:12 with 25:29, 5:29-
30 with 18:8-9). The divorce sayings in chapter five and nineteen fit this pattern, which suggests that their words of
exception ought to be understood simply as expressing the same thought in slightly different terms, with the expression
in chapter nineteen to be perceived as a shortened form of the expression in chapter five.  Unless Matthew understood
the clause in 19:9 to allow separation but not remarriage, the exception would contradict the immediate context, both
before and after.  In Matthew 19:3-8, Jesus has already taught the absolute indissolubility of marriage.  This is so
revolutionary that Mark 10:10 has the disciples querying Him once again to make sure that they heard him right the first
time.  Then comes the precise declaration as a restatement.  They heard him right the first time, and now the second
time, and now they are truly disgruntled.  In Matthew 19:10, His disciples are astonished at this seemingly unbearable
requirement.  Any man knows that there is little that is unbearable in a supposed divine permission to remarry while one’
s first spouse continues to live after having been set aside for adultery on her part.

In the Greek of Matthew 19:9, the “exception clause,” usually translated “except for immorality,” is really a phrase
because it lacks a verb.  Since it is really a qualifying prepositional phrase, which in Matthew follows its object four times
out of five, the most natural verb to be supplied from the immediate context is the last verb mentioned before the phrase
occurs.  This last verb is properly translated as “put away.”  So the full thought would be: “If a man puts away his wife, if
[it is] not for immorality [that he puts her away], and marries another, he commits adultery.”  Or, in other words, “No
cause, except unchastity, can justify putting your wife away from you, and even in this case, remarriage is adultery.”  
This answers the Pharisee’s original question, whether divorce can be justified “for any cause at all” (Matthew 19:3).  
Jesus appears to be saying that He does not hold any of His male disciples guilty for violating His prohibition against
divorce when Jewish and pagan laws require the man to separate from his unfaithful wife.  What Jesus is offering is a
general prohibition against divorce as a legal separation and an absolute prohibition against remarriage after any sort of
divorce.  This is the position of the Roman Catholic Church as well.

The Catholic Church knows that every legal marriage is not necessarily a marriage in God’s sight, however.  The
annulment process is based upon the solid understanding that Jesus’ absolute prohibition against remarriage after
divorce is concerned only with sacramental marriages in God’s sight.

If Matthew understood Jesus to be asserting a right to remarry after divorce, it is reasonable to expect that he would
have put the exception right after “and marries another,” instead of where he put it, after “put away.”  This becomes all
the more convincing because Jesus is teaching about remarriage after divorce in 19:9.  In what early Christians
considered to be legal sayings in the Bible, the main focus tends to come at the end, which in this instance is the part
about remarriage.  Mathew’s editing of Mark, as assumed by most biblical scholars, leaves Jesus’ absolute prohibition of
remarriage after divorce untouched and intact, with its full force.

An act or series of acts of adultery either dissolves the marriage bond or it does not.  If an act of adultery dissolves the
marriage bond, then your husband would have to divorce you legally, since you would no longer be married to him in
God’s sight.  He could not continue to have sex with you, because you would no longer be married to him in God’s
sight.  Your adultery itself would have ended your marriage in God’s sight.  On the other hand, if the marriage bond was
not dissolved by your acts of adultery, as is really the truth, your husband Jack, if he divorced you legally, would be
guilty of trying to separate what God has joined.  This obviously would be a sin, according to Jesus’ words.  Either your
husband must respect the enduring bond, and refrain from divorcing you, or he must, consistent with his erroneous
principles, divorce you because your adultery has dissolved the bond.  He has no moral option in either case.  Very few
“born again” Christians are consistent enough with their false position to teach that adultery requires the innocent party
to divorce legally.

As a secondary matter, Matthew’s Jesus has in mind two types of “putting away,” the case of the unfaithful wife and the
case of the faithful wife.  Since both are really viewed as being “put away,” the dissolution of the marriage bond is not an
essential part of the meaning of this Greek word in St. Matthew’s text.

The position which many “born again” Christians favor, that is, the moral option of choosing, if one wishes, to remarry
even though the first spouse divorced for infidelity is still alive, oddly enough makes Matthew’s Jesus use “put away” in
two senses at the very same time!  This makes Jesus appear very imprecise in the midst of an important legal saying of
His.  Whatever the culture or time in human history, the human condition requires that legal sayings meant as group
norms be unambiguous in every aspect.  “Born again” Christians promote some fuzziness in the present teaching of
Jesus instead.

Both the Pharisees and Jesus were drawing upon the Old Testament to express their understandings of God’s will in
this matter.  Key to any viewpoint is the understanding of marriage in Genesis.  Adam said of his wife Eve, “This one at
last is bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23a).  This “one flesh” bond is established with every genuine
marriage, according to the most ancient biblical commentator (Genesis 2:24).

Since sexual relations alone did not make a marriage in the Old Testament (cf.  Deuteronomy 22:23-29), it is hard to
believe that an illicit sexual act would be enough to dissolve a marriage in God’s sight.  On the contrary, in ancient
Semitic cultures, the “one flesh” bond of marriage established a permanent blood relationship with one’s spouse.  This
is why the Torah prohibits a man from remarrying a woman who had previously left him to marry someone else
(Deuteronomy 24:4).  To marry someone who already was of the same flesh as oneself was anciently perceived as a
form of incest.  Since this “one flesh” relationship could not be dissolved by the original divorce and the sexual activity of
the next marriage to someone else, it is clear that the law of Deuteronomy 24:4 permitted divorce and remarriage as a
form of polygamy, a concession for the sake of social harmony.  By prohibiting remarriage after divorce because of the
original “one flesh” bond, Jesus was also prohibiting polygamy.  Although Martin Luther, the Reformation leader whom
many “born-again” Christians idolize, allowed Philip of Hesse to practice polygamy rather than to divorce his first wife,
the Roman Catholic Church has always followed Jesus in prohibiting polygamy as well as remarriage while one's
divorced spouse is still alive.

Your husband Jack is running with the wrong crowd.  Let’s pray that he will have a true conversion of heart and mind.  
Jesus commands all of us to love one another precisely because love is essentially a commitment, not an emotion.  Love
is a commitment to promote the very best interests of the other person, especially his or her spiritual welfare.  I will be
praying that both of you will once again love one another.  THE END.
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