Question: Please explain Matthew 19:9, “And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.”
Answer: The basic law for interpreting Scriptures any Scripture and all Scriptures is known as “Unanimity of Faith.” This means there must be a complete accord and agreement of all Scriptures on any particular subject. To isolate one Scripture on any subject and put a private interpretation on it which is contradictory to the general plain teaching of the Scriptures on that subject is to do violence to the Scripture which will destroy the validity of that doctrine or teaching. Charles E. Brown said, “Now we ought not to found a doctrine upon a text of Scripture of doubtful meaning. We ought to found all doctrine upon Scriptural texts of plain meaning and then interpret the difficult texts by the plain texts.” I certainly agree with this statement, and failure to follow this rule in interpreting the above text has led to a general breakdown of standard on this very important doctrine.
Then what is the plain teaching of the Scriptures on the subject of marriage and putting away and remarrying etc.? Without question, it is that marriage is for life and there is only one cause for “putting away” (unfaithfulness to the marriage vow), and that if one marries another while the former spouse is still living, he is guilty of the sin of adultery before God. This is the teaching of all the plain texts in the Bible on this subject, as follows: Matthew 5:32, Luke 16:18, Mark 10:11-12, Romans 7:2-3, I Corinthians 7:10-11, 39, Malachi 2:14-16. All of these texts are plain and unmistakable in their teaching and definitely establish God’s doctrine on this subject. Matthew 19:9 must be interpreted by them.
My understanding of this text is that it contains two parts. The Pharisees had asked Jesus if it were lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause verse 3. This was the full extent of their question. They never asked anything about marrying another spouse after this one was put away. That was no question with them since that was common practice among them and divorce and remarriage was allowable under the law. They even had more than one wife and lived with them at the same time (polygamy).
In the first part of this verse, Jesus answered their question after discussing at some length God’s original purpose and arrangement for marriage by saying that the only cause for which a man could put away his wife was for fornication. This relates to Matthew 5:32 where the same thing is stated and confirms the fact that a person has the right to put away a spouse for this cause because it is backed up by two witnesses and, according to God’s Word, every word is established by two witnesses. Matthew 18:16 and John 8:17. Wife”Putting away” is all that is under consideration up to this point. Then after He had answered their question He went ahead and introduced His own New Testament doctrine that if one marries another after that one is put away, he commits adultery. This, no doubt, shocked the Pharisees and it is certain it shocked Jesus’ disciples by their response to that statement: “If the case of a man be so with his wife; it is not good to marry.” Matthew 19:10. It is evident these chosen men understood from what He said that marriage was a binding thing, and if it were that binding and that difficult to get out of, it would just be better to not enter into it.
Therefore, I conclude that according to Matthew 19:9, a man is permitted to put away his wife for the cause of fornication and for no other cause, and that to marry another while that woman is still living is forbidden and to do so is adultery. In Matthew 5:32 Jesus comes out very strongly on this point and says if a man puts away his wife for any cause except fornication, he causes her to commit adultery. In other words, he is a contributor to her delinquency for putting her away from himself when she is a loyal and chaste wife. God would hold him responsible right along with her for having done this thing and exposed her to this condition.
