Divorce and remarriage

Divorce affects many families, including in the Church. Behind every separation there is often a great deal of suffering. This lesson draws on a study by pastor Stéphane Guillet, adopted in this course. It seeks to read the texts faithfully, while keeping in mind the people concerned.

In the Bible, the term is “repudiation”: most often, the husband sent his wife away without her having any say. These texts come from another era, but they remain the Word of God for ours.

The Old Testament

Some texts forbid repudiation in specific cases (Deuteronomy 22:13-19, 28-29). Malachi has God say: “I hate divorce” (Malachi 2:16). The prophet is addressing men who betray the wife of their youth (Malachi 2:14-15).

Deuteronomy 24:1-4 is often presented as a law authorising divorce. In reality, most commentators see in it a single law: a man may not take back the wife he has repudiated if she has remarried in the meantime. The text does not command divorce. It acknowledges an existing practice, and thereby grants it a certain legitimacy. The reason mentioned, “something indecent”, seems to refer to some form of sexual impropriety.

Overall, the Old Testament seeks less to forbid divorce than to limit its abuses, in order to protect its first victims: women.

Jesus

In the time of Jesus, two schools were opposed. That of Hillel allowed a man to repudiate his wife for almost any reason. That of Shammai scarcely admitted anything but adultery. The Pharisees ask Jesus whether it is lawful to divorce one’s wife “for any cause” (Matthew 19:3).

Jesus does not first answer about divorce. He points back to God’s purpose in creation: “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:6). The message is clear: in a crisis, we must think first of the marriage and do everything to save it.

Then he clarifies: “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives” (Matthew 19:8). Divorce is not a command, but a permission. It is less than an order, but more than mere tolerance: an open door for rebuilding one’s life outside a marriage that has become destructive.

Jesus adds: “whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery” (Matthew 19:9). The Greek word translated here as “sexual immorality” is porneia. It refers to any sexual misconduct, not only adultery, which is moicheia. Jesus therefore sides neither with Hillel nor with Shammai. He does not trivialise divorce, but neither does he draw up a precise list. His approach is neither legalistic nor lax: it is pastoral.

Other readings exist. Some, in the Catholic tradition, understand porneia as an incestuous union, and see in this clause a case of a null marriage rather than a divorce. This course does not adopt this reading, because it gives the word an unusual meaning.

Paul

In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul answers Christians who, out of concern for spirituality, wanted to give up married life. To them, he recalls the teaching of the Lord: no separation (1 Corinthians 7:10-11). The desire for asceticism does not justify a divorce. Anyone who has separated for this reason must remain single or be reconciled.

Then Paul deals with a new case: a couple in which only one of the spouses has become a Christian. If the unbelieving spouse agrees to stay, the believer must not leave. But: “if the unbeliever leaves, let it be so. The brother or the sister is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace” (1 Corinthians 7:15). This is what is called the “Pauline privilege”. God does not want to imprison the believer in an impossible situation.

Some commentators think that Paul envisages only a separation here, without the possibility of remarriage. This course holds, on the contrary, that it is a real divorce: the vocabulary Paul uses indicates this, and in the Greco-Roman world a separation amounted to a divorce.

And remarriage?

This is the most delicate question. If divorce did not break the bond, divorced and remarried people would be living in adultery. This course argues that divorce recognised by the Bible opens up the possibility of remarriage, for several reasons.

• In the Judaism of Jesus’ time, the certificate of divorce gave the right to remarry. If Jesus had wanted to oppose this, he would have said so.
• In the tradition going back to Jerome, in the fourth century, the exception clause would permit separation but never remarriage. This reading fits poorly with the construction of Jesus’ sentence.
• As the theologian Henri Blocher notes, Jesus does not say that man “cannot” separate, but that he “must not” separate what God has joined.
• In Paul, the one who chooses to leave without valid reason must remain single. But the abandoned spouse “is not bound”, like a widower, and may therefore remarry.

Examples rather than a list

The Bible mentions two grounds for divorce: sexual immorality and abandonment by an unbelieving spouse. Are they the only ones? The study followed here considers them to be examples. No biblical text is a complete treatise on divorce, and Paul himself extended the word of Jesus when faced with a new situation.

In history, some Reformers considered other serious cases, such as Melanchthon for mistreatment. One may think of violence towards the spouse or the children, abandonment, or a lasting refusal of any shared life. The criterion adopted is the following: remarriage becomes possible when the ground for separation strikes at the very heart of marriage and its commitments, such as faithfulness or shared life.

This openness calls for great caution. It must never serve as a pretext for casual break-ups. But it allows the Church to accompany each situation with truth and compassion, without imprisoning anyone in a marriage that is already broken.