Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 5:32

"but I say unto you, that every one that putteth away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, maketh her an adulteress: and whosoever shall marry her when she is put away committeth adultery." — Matthew 5:32 (ASV)

Saving for the cause of fornication — The most general term seems intentionally used to include premarital as well as post-marital sin. It might even refer only to the former, since the strict letter of the Law of Moses made death the punishment for adultery, which would exclude the possibility of a second marriage.

The words causeth her to commit adultery imply that the “putting away” was legally a full divorce, leaving the wife—and even more so, the husband—at liberty to marry again. If this were not the case, she could not be guilty of adultery in a second marriage. However, the text asserts that when a divorce was obtained for any reason other than the specific sin that violates the essence of the marriage contract, man’s law (even that of Moses) was in conflict with the true, eternal law of God.

Whosoever shall marry her that is divorced — The Greek is less definite and can be translated as either “a woman who has been put away” or, more likely, “her when she has been put away.” Those who adopt the first interpretation infer from it the absolute unlawfulness of marrying a divorced woman under any circumstances. Some hold that the husband is under the same restriction—that is, that the bond of marriage is absolutely indissoluble.

Others teach that in the one excepted case, both the husband and the wife gain the right to contract a second marriage. The Roman Catholic Church, in theory, takes the former view, while the Greek Orthodox and most Reformed Churches take the latter. In contrast, some legal codes, like those in modern Europe, return to the looser interpretation of Deuteronomy 24:1 and allow for a full divorce for many lesser causes than sexual immorality.

Of these competing views, the one that is intermediate between the two extremes seems most in harmony with the true meaning of our Lord’s words. The phrase “put away” would have necessarily conveyed to His Jewish audience the idea of a complete dissolution of the marriage, leaving both parties free to remarry. If this were not so, then the one case in which He permits this dissolution would be on the same level as all the others. The injured husband would still be bound to the wife who had broken the vow essential to the marriage contract.

But if the husband was free to marry again, then the guilt of adultery could not possibly apply to the wife's subsequent marriage to another man. The context, therefore, requires us to restrict that guilt to the case of a wife divorced for other reasons—the kind of reasons that Jewish legal reasoning considered adequate. This, then, seems to be the true law of divorce for the Church of Christ to recognize.

The question of how far national legislation may permit divorce for other causes, such as cruelty or desertion, stands on a different footing and must be discussed on different grounds. To the extent that the “hardness of heart” which made the wider permission the lesser of two evils still prevails today, it may be not only expedient but right and necessary to meet it with a similar reluctant permission, just as it was met in the past, even though this implies a moral standard lower than the law of Christ.