"And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery"
(Matthew 19:9 NKJV)

except for fornication (sexual immorality), divorce and remarriage is adultery

The context of this memory verse includes a picture of religious men who have ulterior motives. One of their goals is to put Jesus at odds with His followers and thus diminish His popularity.

Sadly, there are unscrupulous people today who raise questions about divorce and remarriage. They attempt to manipulate the biblical text. They think that if a preacher agrees with their pet theories, this somehow justifies their resultant adulterous state. They are as far from the truth as the Pharisees were.

Jesus begins by calling their attention to the reading of God’s word. “And He answered and said to them, ‘Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning made them male and female’” (Matthew 19:4). This implies that Scripture, not preachers, determine truth. Sadly, the Pharisees had been too long impressed with the traditions of men to give Scripture an honest glance (consider Matthew 15). Long held error is still a lie.

Their attempt at justifying their personal desires is exposed by their foolish and frivolous misrepresentation of Moses’ decrees in Deuteronomy 24. “They said to Him, ‘Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?’” Neither personal desires, the opinions of scholars, the voice of the majority, or the manipulation of scripture cannot justify frivolous divorce.

If the Pharisees had started reading in Genesis 1-2, it would not have taken them long to see the importance that God places on the marriage relationship. If they read all the way to Malachi 2, they would have seen another powerful warning against the kind of divorce they were trying to justify. Instead they dishonestly set Deuteronomy 24 in opposition to other verses that warn against lighthearted divorces. They think they are free to cherry-pick the verse that suits them and to reject all others.

Jesus shows that Moses allowed (not commanded) divorce in a circumstance that was designed to protect a woman from a cruel, hard-hearted husband, BUT from the beginning it was not so (Matthew 19:8). Verse 9 should frighten casual attitudes toward this issue.

Those who do not take marriage seriously may end up divorced, and eventually remarried. Jesus shows that, except for fornication, this ends in adultery. They calmly condemn a woman for adultery (John 8:3-4) apparently without realizing that their position would lead many others (including themselves) into the same state. Times have not changed very much since then, have they?

– Rick Duggin