What God Joined Together (1 of 3)

Jesus on Marriage and Divorce in Full — The Teaching the Church Has Most Consistently Softened

“So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

— Matthew 19:6 (NET)

WARNING: This chapter addresses divorce and remarriage directly and without softening. If you are currently divorced, in a second marriage, or navigating a difficult marriage, read it as a person seeking truth, not as a person being condemned. The gospel covers every past failure. The question is not where you have been. It is where you go from here.

Why This Chapter Must Exist

Matthew 5:31–32, Matthew 19:3–12, and Mark 10:2–12 contain the most consistently avoided body of teaching in the contemporary Western church. Not because they are obscure or difficult to find. They sit in the middle of the Synoptic Gospels, repeated across three accounts, addressed by Jesus with unmistakable directness. They are avoided because they are costly to preach in a culture where approximately forty percent of first marriages end in divorce, where the church’s divorce rate approaches the culture’s, and where remarried couples sit in every congregation.

The pastoral calculation is understandable. Preaching Jesus’ teaching on divorce and remarriage in full will hurt people in the congregation who have been divorced. It will produce difficult questions from people in second marriages. It will create conflict with people who are currently considering divorce. The path of least resistance is to preach the positive theology of marriage and leave the divorce and remarriage sections quietly unproclaimed.

The result of that calculation, over decades, is a church that has lost the capacity to present God’s design for marriage as a real and achievable standard, that has no resources to offer couples considering divorce beyond generic encouragement, that has normalized a view of marriage as a commitment that lasts until it is too hard, and whose members have no idea what Jesus actually said about the subject.

This chapter will not produce that result. Jesus spoke plainly. This chapter will do the same. With the compassion He modeled and the directness He required.

The Context: A Trap That Became a Teaching

The fullest treatment of Jesus’ teaching on marriage and divorce is in Matthew 19:3–12, where the Pharisees come to Him with what they intend as a trick question. Divorce was a contested issue between two major rabbinic schools: the school of Shammai, which permitted divorce only for sexual immorality, and the school of Hillel, which permitted divorce for virtually any reason including “if she spoils a dish for him.” The Pharisees ask: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” They are testing Jesus. Whichever school He sides with, He will alienate the other.

Jesus does not side with either school. He goes back further — past Moses, past Sinai, past the Deuteronomic permission for divorce — all the way back to creation.

“‘Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and said, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and will be united with his wife, and the two will become one flesh”? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’”

— Matthew 19:4–6 (NET)

The appeal to creation is the appeal to design. Jesus is not adjusting the Law. He is revealing what the Law was trying to protect: the original intention of the One who created marriage before the Law existed. Before Moses, before Sinai, before the Fall had fully expressed its consequences in the hardness of human hearts — before all of that, God created marriage as a permanent, exclusive, one-flesh union between one man and one woman. That is the design. That is the standard. And Jesus, who sat on the hillside and said “I tell you,” is reasserting it with the authority of the One who designed it.

The Moses Question: Why Was Divorce Permitted?

The Pharisees press back: “Why then did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” (Matthew 19:7)

Jesus’ answer is the hinge of the entire teaching, and the answer that the contemporary church most needs to understand:

“Jesus said to them, ‘Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of your hard hearts, but from the beginning it was not this way.’”

— Matthew 19:8 (NET)

Moses did not command divorce. He permitted it. Not because it was God’s design but because human hearts were hard and something better than abandonment had to be provided for women in a culture where a woman without a husband had no legal status or economic survival. The certificate of divorce was a concession to human brokenness, not a revision of God’s design. It was the best that could be done in a fallen world with people whose capacity for covenant faithfulness had been degraded by sin.

This distinction — between what God designed and what Moses conceded — is essential for understanding everything Jesus says afterward. He is not abolishing the Mosaic permission. He is revealing that it was always a concession to hardness of heart, not an expression of God’s will for marriage. The Kingdom standard is not the concession. It is the design. “But it was not this way from the beginning.”

The Exception Clause: What Jesus Actually Said

Matthew 19:9 contains the statement that has generated more theological debate and more pastoral difficulty than almost any other verse in the Gospels:

“Now I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another commits adultery.”

— Matthew 19:9 (NET)

Three things require careful attention.

The Exception: Sexual Immorality

The Greek word translated “sexual immorality” is πορνεία (porneia), which covers a range of sexual sin broader than adultery alone: fornication, ongoing adultery, prostitution, incest. It describes a pattern of sexual unfaithfulness that constitutes a fundamental violation of the one-flesh covenant.