John Calvin Commentary Matthew 19:4

"And he answered and said, Have ye not read, that he who made [them] from the beginning made them male and female," — Matthew 19:4 (ASV)

Have you not read? Christ does not indeed reply directly to what was asked, but He fully meets the question that was proposed. It is just as if a person now questioned about the Mass were to explain faithfully the mystery of the Holy Supper, and finally to conclude that those who venture either to add or to take away anything from the pure institution of the Lord are guilty of sacrilege and forgery; he would plainly overturn the pretended sacrifice of the Mass.

Now, Christ assumes as an admitted principle that at the beginning God joined the male to the female, so that the two made an entire man. Therefore, he who divorces his wife tears from himself, as it were, half of himself. But nature does not allow any man to tear his own body in pieces.

He adds another argument drawn from the less to the greater. The bond of marriage is more sacred than that which binds children to their parents. But piety binds children to their parents by a link that cannot be broken. Much less, then, can the husband renounce his wife. Hence it follows that a chain God made is torn apart if the husband divorces his wife.⁵⁹⁴

Now, the meaning of the words is this: God, who created the human race, made them male and female, so that every man might be satisfied with his own wife and not desire more. For He insists on the number two, as the prophet Malachi (Malachi 2:15), when he remonstrates against polygamy, employs the same argument: that God, whose Spirit was so abundant that He had it in His power to create more, yet made but one man, that is, such a man as Christ here describes. And thus from the order of creation is proved the inviolable union of one husband with one wife.

If it is objected that in this way it will not be lawful, after the first wife is dead, to take another, the reply is easy: not only is the bond dissolved by death, but the second wife is substituted by God in place of the first, as if she had been one and the same woman.

⁵⁹⁴ “Que le mari qui se separe d’avecques sa femme rompt le lien dupuel Dieu estoit autheur;” — “that the husband, who separates from his wife, bursts the chain of which God was the author.”;” — “that the husband, who separates from his wife, bursts the chain of which God was the author.”