Covenant, Not Contract: The Indissoluble Bond Text: Matthew 5:31-32
Introduction: The State Sanctioned Lie
We come now to a subject that our modern world treats with all the gravity of a business transaction gone sour. Marriage, in the eyes of our secular overlords, is a temporary arrangement of convenience, a contract to be dissolved at will, for any reason or no reason. This is what lies behind the great evil of no-fault divorce, a piece of legislation that effectively declared war on the family. Ronald Reagan, who signed the first such law in California, later called it the worst mistake of his political career, and for good reason. It was a lie codified into law, a public declaration that marriage is not a covenant before God but a disposable human agreement.
But the problem did not begin with the state. The state was simply ratifying a corruption that had already taken root in the hearts of men. The Pharisees of Jesus' day had their own version of no-fault divorce. They had taken the regulations Moses gave to restrain sin and twisted them into a license for sin. They wanted to know what the bare minimum was. How much paperwork did they need to file to swap out one wife for another without getting into trouble? They wanted a legal checklist for abandoning their covenant vows.
It is no accident that Jesus addresses this issue immediately after His teaching on lust. The man who refuses to govern his eyes will soon be a man who refuses to govern his vows. The heart that is full of adultery in seed form will eventually produce adultery in its damnable, home-wrecking fruit. Jesus here is not introducing a new law. He is stripping away the layers of casuistry and hard-hearted rebellion to restore the original glory and permanence of marriage as God instituted it in the beginning. He is reminding us that marriage is not a contract between two people with the state as a referee. It is a covenant, a solemn, blood-bound oath, made between a man, a woman, and God Almighty. And what God has joined together, no man, no court, and no legislature has the authority to put asunder.
The Text
"Now it was said, ‘WHOEVER SENDS HIS WIFE AWAY, LET HIM GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE’; but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery."
(Matthew 5:31-32 LSB)
The Pharisaical Loophole (v. 31)
Jesus begins by citing the common understanding, or rather, misunderstanding, of the Mosaic law.
"Now it was said, ‘WHOEVER SENDS HIS WIFE AWAY, LET HIM GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE’" (Matthew 5:31)
Jesus is referencing Deuteronomy 24:1-4. Now, if you read that passage, you will see that Moses was not instituting divorce. He was regulating it. Divorce was already happening because of the hardness of their hearts. The law of Moses, in its civil application, was a damage-control measure. It did three basic things. First, it limited the grounds for divorce to some kind of "uncleanness." This was not supposed to be a trivial matter. Second, it required a formal, judicial process. A man had to write up a certificate of divorce. This forced a man to slow down, to think about the gravity of what he was doing. He couldn't just throw his wife out on a whim. Third, it had a stinging consequence: if she remarried, he could never have her back. He was burning his bridges.
But the Pharisees, in their legalistic maneuvering, had focused only on the procedural requirement. They had reduced a solemn, restrictive process to a simple piece of paperwork. The debate in Jesus' day was between the school of Shammai, which held to a stricter interpretation of "uncleanness," and the school of Hillel, which permitted divorce for almost any reason, down to burning the toast. The popular view, then as now, was the lenient one. They had turned a guardrail into an escape hatch. They treated the certificate of divorce not as a tragic necessity but as a get-out-of-covenant-free card.
They had forgotten that the law was given to restrain sin, not to enable it. By focusing on the "how," they had completely ignored the "why" and the "what." They were asking, "What do I have to do to be legally rid of her?" Jesus is about to answer the question they should have been asking: "What has God ordained marriage to be?"
The Divine Standard (v. 32)
Jesus now delivers the authoritative correction, prefaced with His signature, "But I say to you."
"but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery." (Matthew 5:32 LSB)
First, notice the force of this. Jesus is not merely offering another rabbinic opinion. He is speaking as the Lawgiver Himself. He is taking us back behind Moses, back to the creation ordinance. "From the beginning it was not so" (Matt. 19:8). The bond of marriage is not a human invention. It is a one-flesh union forged by God Himself. This is why it is not a mere contract. When two men make a business contract, they are the lords of that contract. They can make it, and they can tear it up. But in marriage, a man and a woman are not the ones who do the joining. God does. "What God has joined together, let not man separate" (Mark 10:9). To attempt to dissolve a marriage on unbiblical grounds is to usurp the authority of God.
Second, Jesus provides the one, and only, exception: "except for the reason of sexual immorality." The Greek word here is porneia. This is a general term for sexual uncleanness. It certainly includes adultery, but it is broader. It can cover a range of gross sexual misconduct that violates the one-flesh union. When one spouse shatters the sexual exclusivity of the marriage covenant through porneia, they have, in a very real sense, already broken the union. A biblical divorce in such a case is not the breaking of the marriage; it is the formal, legal recognition that the marriage has been broken by the infidelity of the guilty party. It is a judicial declaration of what has already tragically occurred.
Third, Jesus outlines the dire consequences of an unbiblical divorce. He says the man who divorces his wife for any other reason "makes her commit adultery." How so? Is she forced to sin? No, the meaning is that he puts her in a situation where her subsequent, and likely necessary, remarriage will be adulterous. In that culture, an abandoned woman had few options for survival apart from marriage. By unlawfully divorcing her, the husband creates the circumstances for her next union to be adulterous in the eyes of God, because in God's eyes, she is still bound to him. He is the responsible party for this chain reaction of sin.
And to remove all doubt, Jesus adds, "and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery." This refers to a woman who has been unlawfully divorced. To marry her is to participate in the adultery, to receive the one who rightfully belongs to another. This is high-stakes covenant-keeping. The paperwork from the state may say "divorced," but Heaven's registry may still say "married." And God is not mocked.
Putting It All Together
So, what is the clear teaching of our Lord? Marriage is for life. It is a permanent, one-flesh covenant that reflects the unbreakable bond between Christ and His Church. The world lies about this. Our culture lies about this. Our laws lie about this. But the Word of God is plain.
This is not to say that the bond is metaphysical or absolutely indissoluble. It is a covenant, and covenants have terms. The Bible gives two clear grounds where a marriage covenant can be lawfully dissolved, freeing the innocent party to remarry. The first is here in Matthew 5, which is porneia, sexual infidelity. The second is given by the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 7, which is desertion by an unbelieving spouse. If an unbeliever is unwilling to live with the Christian and departs, the believer "is not bound in such cases."
Outside of those two specific grounds, the command stands. What God has joined, man must not separate. This is a hard teaching for a generation that has been marinated in the doctrines of self-fulfillment and personal happiness above all else. But it is a profoundly gracious teaching. The permanence of marriage is not a prison; it is a fortress. It is the stable ground upon which families are built, children are raised, and societies flourish. It is the context for learning the meaning of lifelong loyalty, forgiveness, patience, and love. It is a school for sanctification.
The gospel truth is that we are all covenant-breakers by nature. We have all committed spiritual adultery against our Maker. We have all gone after other gods and chased other lovers. And what was God's response? Did He issue us a certificate of divorce and send us away? No, He sent His Son. Christ came to the adulterous bride, to us, and instead of casting her off, He took her sin upon Himself. He endured the curse of a covenant-breaker on the cross so that He might cleanse His bride and present her to Himself holy and without blemish.
Therefore, the Christian marriage is to be a living portrait of this gospel reality. A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church, giving himself up for her. A wife is to respect her husband, as the church submits to Christ. And together, they are to demonstrate to a broken and lonely world the power of a covenant-keeping God. The world sees contracts and loopholes. We are called to show them covenant and grace.