There has been much discussion on what Jesus means by “sexuality immorality” (porneia in the greek) when he says that we should not divorce except for “sexuality immorality”.

Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

– Matthew 19:8-9

There have been generally two interpretations of this verse:

1. If there was sexual sin from a partner in the marriage, this violates the covenant and you are free to divorce.
2. Jesus included the clause for the cases in Jewish law where a woman was pledged to be married but was found to not have been a virgin.

While we are not biblical scholars, we did want to explore some thoughts on the later interpretation of this verse. It does seem to be the more accurate interpretation of this verse. It is interesting to note that that only Matthew includes this clause, Mark and Luke do not. Matthew is also the only gospel write to include the story of Joseph and Mary, where before Joseph received a word from God that Mary’s baby was from God, he had planned to divorce her.

Jesus may not have included the adultery as a clause, perhaps because he goes on to say that anybody divorces his wife commits adultery, so it may have not make sense to use the same word twice, or it maybe because the Jews would have known that the penalty for adultery under the old testament was stoning, so again it wouldn’t have made sense to them to say you can’t divorce except for adultery

However, if may be that what Jesus means by porrneia in this verse, is not general sexual sin, but to unlawful or invalid unions, not extramartiral, but the original marriage in question. This would be close to it’s uses in many other (but not all) places in the bible. This would include things like:

• Unions between close family members
• Same-sex unions
• Pledge unions where the bride was found not to be a virgin (like Mary and Joseph)

In these cases Jesus permits divorce, since that marriage was invalid and shouldn’t have taken place in the first place. This also seems to fit with the idea that under the new covenant, if someone divorces and remarries, they are free to divorce their second spouse and return to their first because the second marriage was never a valid union (both Jesus and Paul call it adultery). This is in contrast to the old testament and Deuteronomy 24:4.

It also is inline with Paul’s command from the Lord:

To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.
– 1 Corinthians 7:10-11

And also consistent with John the Baptist confronting Herod about marrying his brother’s wife. This was an unlawful union, a form of sexual immorality/pornenia, so under Jesus’ exception Herod not only could but should divorce his wife, who he never should have married in the first place. If now Jesus and Paul are saying that you should remain unmarried or else be reconciled, there is argument to say the most second marriages for Christians are unlawful unions, in fact they both say that they are adultery, not a marriage.

For John had been saying to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.

Mark 6:18

Under this interpretation when does the Bible permit divorce under the new covenant? There seem to two cases.

1. Paul says to allow an unbelieving spouse to leave, and to live at peace. If it is a new heart that cured the hard of heart that was the reason Moses permitted divorce, if one spouse isn’t a believer, then they as yet haven’t been given a new heart, they may not be required to keep Jesus command not to divorce. But Paul leaves the question of remarriage for the believing partner unanswered.
2. If you married someone that was in a previous covenant marriage and they divorce you to return to their previous spouse, it does seem consistent with the “invalid union” interpretation that your union was never valid in the first place, so you are free to marry again, because it is essentially for the first time.
3. Possibly if a first Marriage was only a civil ceremony (not vow/covenant before God) or the people were non-believers at the time, but this is only hypothetical, there are no specific scriptures to confirm this.

These seems to be some what similar to John Piper’s view on this verse, where he thinks it doesn’t apply in the case of adultery: