Sadly, some marriages don’t last.  In these situations, the natural question is, “Can I remarry?”  What does the Bible say about remarrying if you are divorced?  In considering this question it is helpful to discuss marriage, divorce, and remarriage separately.

Marriage

God established marriage at the creation of Adam and Eve.

Gen 2:24  Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Jesus made this clear when the Pharisees questioned Jesus about divorce, wanting to know if a man could divorce his wife.

Mat 19:3  The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?”
Mat 19:4  And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’
Mat 19:5  “and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 

A parallel passage is found in Mark.

Mar 10:6  But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE.’
Mar 10:7  ‘FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE,
Mar 10:8  AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh.

Marriage is something God established when He created Adam and Eve.

Divorce

Jesus continued with His response to the Pharisees by addressing the issue of divorce.

Mat 19:6  “So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Mar 10:9  Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

In other words, don’t get divorced.  It’s clear that God intends married couples to remain married and not divorce.  In fact, God says that He hates divorce.

Mal 2:16  For the LORD God of Israel says That He hates divorce,

Unfortunately, divorce does happen sometimes.  In fact God divorced Israel.

Jer 3:8  Then I [the LORD] saw that for all the causes for which backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but went and played the harlot also.

If God divorced Israel, when did He marry her?  God considered the covenant He made with Israel (when He gave the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai) to be the marriage.

Jer 31:31  “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—
Jer 31:32  not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD.

The apostle Paul also addressed divorce when he wrote to the Corinthian church.

1 Cor 7:10  Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband.
1 Cor 7:11  But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife.

1 Cor 7:10-11 is instruction to married couples in the church, because in the next verse Paul addressed “the rest”, which are those with an unbelieving spouse.  Married couples in the church are to remain married.  If they really can’t get on with each other, they can separate but remain unmarried.

1 Cor 7:12  But to the rest I, not the Lord, say: If any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her.
1 Cor 7:13  And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him.
1 Cor 7:14  For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy.
1 Cor 7:15  But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother or a sister is not under bondage [doloo] in such cases. But God has called us to peace.

1 Cor 7:12-15 is instruction to brethren who are married to unbelievers.  They are to remain married if the unbeliever is happy to remain married.  If an unbelieving partner makes married life impossible, for example by walking out, or by committing adultery, or being abusive, then clearly, they are not pleased to dwell in the marriage, and divorce is permissible.  They are no longer under bondage.  The Greek word for bondage is doloo, which comes from dolos, meaning slave.  The believer in such a situation is not under bondage and is free to depart the unbelieving spouse. 

Some people argue that 1 Cor 7:15 allows a divorced believer to remarry if their former spouse is not a believer regardless of whether adultery has taken place.  We will return to this later.

Remarriage

From what we have covered it’s clear that God intends married couples to remain married and not divorce.  Given that unfortunately divorce does happen sometimes, under what circumstances can a divorcee remarry?  Let’s return to the passage in Matthew 19 (and the parallel passage in Mark 10) where the Pharisees questioned Jesus about divorce.  We read the verses where Jesus said, “what God has joined together, let not man separate”.  In other words, don’t get divorced.  The Pharisees response was to ask, if God doesn’t want married couples to divorce then why did Moses permit divorce?

Mat 19:7  They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?”
Mat 19:8  He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 

Mar 10:2  The Pharisees came and asked Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” testing Him.
Mar 10:3  And He answered and said to them, “What did Moses command you?”
Mar 10:4  They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce, and to dismiss her.”
Mar 10:5  And Jesus answered and said to them, “Because of the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept.

Jesus’s response is that Moses permitted divorce, not because it’s good, but because of “the hardness of your hearts”.  Let’s have a look at what Moses permitted.

Deu 24:1  “When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness [ervah] in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, 
Deu 24:2  “when she has departed from his house, and goes and becomes another man’s wife, 
Deu 24:3  “if the latter husband detests her and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her as his wife, 
Deu 24:4  “then her former husband who divorced her must not take her back to be his wife after she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the LORD, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.

Moses allowed divorce in cases where the man found some “uncleanness”.  The Hebrew word translated “uncleanness” is ervah, which means nakedness, indecent behaviour, pudenda (exposure of genitals).  The uncleanness is some kind of sexual uncleanness or sexual immorality.  What Moses allowed was nothing other than allowing divorce for “sexual immorality”.

Jesus’s next statement in Mat 19:9 is a restatement or explanation of what Moses permitted.

Mat 19:9  “And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality [porneia], and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.”

The Bible is quite clear.  Jesus stated that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another commits adultery.  This is repeated in Mat 5:32.

Mat 5:31 “Furthermore it has been said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 
Mat 5:32 But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality [porneia] causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.

A similar verse is found in Luke, although the exception is not mentioned.

Luk 16:18  “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband commits adultery.

So the only circumstance a divorcee can remarry is if the other spouse has committed sexual immorality.  But what exactly does the Greek word translated “sexual immorality”, porneia, mean?  Let’s look at how it is used in other verses.

1 Cor 5:1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality [porneia] among you, and such sexual immorality [porneia] as is not even named among the Gentiles; that a man has his father’s wife!

Paul uses porneia to describe the affair between a married woman and her stepson.  So porneia can mean adultery.

Acts 15:19  “Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God,
Acts 15:20  “but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality [porneia], from things strangled, and from blood.

James clearly meant that the gentiles should abstain from all forms of immoral conduct, be it fornication, adultery, or any form of sexual perversion.

Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament defines porneia as “illicit sexual intercourse in general.”

The meaning of porneia is sexual immorality, be it fornication, adultery, homosexuality, or even bestiality.

In Mat 5:32 and 19:9 Jesus clearly stated, “whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality [porneia], and marries another, commits adultery”.  The Biblical teaching is clear.  The only circumstance a divorcee can remarry is if the other spouse has committed sexual immorality.  Some may find this a very hard teaching to accept.  Jesus’s disciples found it hard.  Their immediate reaction to Jesus’s words was to say, “it’s better not to marry”!

Mat 19:10  His disciples said to Him, “If such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry.”

It is a difficult teaching.  Yet in reality, the vast majority of unbelievers who depart their believer spouses do so for another man or woman, and thus sexual immorality is involved, freeing the believer to remarry if they want.

Amazingly, despite Jesus’s clear teaching, there are churches that teach there are additional reasons when remarriage is permissible, even though Jesus said the only exception was for sexual immorality.  These churches teach that “no longer under bondage” in 1 Cor 7:15 means free to remarry. 

1 Cor 7:15  But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases. But God has called us to peace.

In other words they argue that 1 Cor 7:15 allows a divorced believer to remarry if their former spouse is not a believer regardless of whether adultery has taken place.  The term “not under bondage” is ambiguous and could mean just “free to depart” or “free to depart and remarry”.  But other Scriptures, such as Mat 5:32 and 19:9, resolve the ambiguity.

Some churches also teach that if fraud is involved then divorce is allowed, or even that the marriage can be annulled.  To support annulment, they cite the case of Joseph wanting to put Mary away when he found out she was pregnant.  This case is not applicable as Joseph and Mary were betrothed (engaged) and not married.  The Bible never mentions fraud as a reason for divorce nor annulment of a marriage.  Such teachings are teachings of men and not God.

Conclusion

The only circumstance a divorcee can remarry is if the other spouse has committed sexual immorality.