What does Matthew 19:9 mean?
Some Pharisees have asked Jesus if it is lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason. Jesus' first response was that God designed marriage between a man and a woman to be lifelong. It makes two people into one flesh, and God's will is that they remained joined. When pushed by the Pharisees, though, that Moses allowed for divorce, Jesus agreed this was true—not because divorce was God's will, but to limit the damage it could do. This allowance was due to the hardened hearts of the people (Matthew 19:1–8).Now Jesus gives a direct answer to the Pharisees' question. In Deuteronomy 24:1, a man is pictured as giving his wife a certificate of divorce because he finds some "indecency" in her. One group of Pharisees believed "indecency" to mean some kind of sexual sin. Others believed it to mean anything the husband might not like about his wife. The Pharisees want to know which side Jesus takes.
Though He is speaking directly to the question of men divorcing their wives, these guidelines would apply to the question of a woman seeking divorce, as well. Jesus puts His answer in very specific terms. Any man who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman, commits adultery. In short, Jesus declares divorce sinful except in the case of sexual immorality.
The Greek word for sexual immorality, porneia, does not refer to adultery specifically, but to any kind of sexual sin. If a wife is guilty of sexual sin, that will amount to unfaithfulness and the husband is permitted to divorce her under the law and marry another woman. Any man who divorces his wife apart from this one exception, however, will be guilty of adultery as soon as he marries or has intercourse with another woman. This is because his prior marriage will not have been legally ended.
This verse raises many more questions, and much has been written about it by scholars. The bottom line is this: God's heart is that divorce should never happen, but human hearts are hard and sinful. If a woman commits a sexual sin, Jesus allowed that the law permitted her husband to divorce her. A man is not permitted to divorce his wife under any other circumstance.
This does not, of course, resolve all the issues concerning divorce for believers. What about situations where the husband is the one who is unfaithful? What if there is physical or emotional abuse? What if one of the spouses is not a believer? What if the divorce and remarriage has already happened?
Some of those questions are answered in other parts of the New Testament. Others are not, and Christians sometimes differ on the best ways to apply them.
