Quote of the Day

Mathew 5:32 states: 'Every one who divorces his wife, except for the cause of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.' If with Erasmus we suppose that 'divorce' here means 'the complete dissolution of the marriage', the logic of this statement seems defective or at least unfair. For on this understanding Mathew 5:32a means that divorce with the right to remarry is only valid if the wife commits the particular sin of adultery.  Yet in other situations that result in divorce neither party can remarry as the unconditional statement of Mathew 5:32b declares.  Now if the sin of adultery results in the complete dissolution of the marriage, that allows both parties, the adulterous wife and the innocent husband, to remarry!  Dupont regards it as 'manifestly absurd' to allow a woman divorced for adultery to remarry, but to deny this right to a woman divorced for another reason.

This absurdity may be alleviated, as Dupont suggests, if one supposes that the divorced adulteress is refused the right of remarriage, but the innocent husband may remarry (=Erasmian view). But this is effectively to allow polygamy!  For if the woman cannot remarry she is not technically divorced, but separated. The marriage bond with her husband  still exists: that is why remarrying a divorced woman is adultery (5:32b).  Thus her former husband is really becoming a bigamist if he takes a second wife since the marital bond with his former spouse has not been dissolved.  The early church view, in contrast, leads to no such contradiction.  In no case is there the right of remarriage. Immorality may justify separation but not remarriage: in every case remarriage involves adultery.

William A. Heath and Gordan Wenham 

From their book "Jesus And Divorce: The Problem of the Evangelical Consensus"