THE QUESTION ABOUT DIVORCE
For Jesus, the basic understanding of what marriage is, comes from the story of that first marriage in Eden, when God made Eve for Adam and joined them, permanently, and irrevocably, so that in God's sight they were regarded as no longer two, but one.
(Gen. 2:18-24 & Matt. 19:4-5)

So when Jesus was asked whether there were any grounds on which a man might divorce his wife, he gave an answer which amounted to an absolute prohibition against man-made separation of a God-ordained union.
"What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder." (Matt. 19:6)

This led to a question. If Jesus said divorce was not possible AT ALL, what did Moses mean by commanding that a divorced wife be given a certificate of divorce? (Matt. 19:7)

Jesus' answer (in verses 8-9) contains five points :-
(1) Divorce was never God's intention.
(2) Moses did not command divorce, but permitted it.
(3) It was hardness of heart that caused the Israelites to take licence from what Moses said, instead of listening to God's original intention.
(4) In any case, they had misunderstood Moses completely. For Jesus, the "indecency" (RSV) mentioned by Moses as the cause of divorce was limited to "fornication" alone. It did not extend to any of the other causes commonly accepted by them.
(5) Remarriage after divorce for any of those other causes is adultery.

THE LAW OF MOSES
Moses actually said very little about divorce. It is all contained in just a couple of verses in Deuteronomy. The Jews had turned those few words into a complex set of rules by which the hard-hearted managed to ignore what God really wanted and go their own way instead.

The verse in question says :-
"When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favour in his eyes, because he finds some indecency in her, and he writes her a bill of divorce and puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house ......" (Deut. 24:1 RSV)

There was considerable disagreement amongst the Jews about what was meant by "some indecency". Some argued that it might mean anything at all which displeased a husband. Others were more narrow, limiting it to ''adultery. In Jesus' day, the prominent rabbis and their followers were divided between those two views. Jesus, as it became clear, agreed with neither.

The words translated "some indecency" are the Hebrew words "dabar ervah" - literally "a word of nakedness". In other places (especially Lev. 18) this word is almost entirely used in the context of various forms of sexual sin.

It is important to our understanding of this, to note that Jesus substituted "fornication" for "nakedness" when interpreting what Moses said about the grounds for divorce.

Instead of accepting that Moses meant all forms of sexual sin, Jesus narrowed the meaning to "fornication". By doing this he was saying that this was the only possible understanding of "nakedness" consistent with his Father's definition of marriage.

Jesus is not contradicting Moses! Rather, he is defining what Moses really meant by "nakedness" in the context of divorce, when seen through God's eyes.

Only a couple of chapters earlier, in Deut. 22:13-21, there is the description of such a situation. The woman who has been found guilty of premarital unchastity, is supposed to be stoned to death.

On the other hand, a just and merciful man might take the course proposed by Joseph with Mary ...... a quiet, private divorce, consistent with what Moses taught in Deut. 24.

Hard-hearted people, intent on justifying a new marriage, insisted on taking licence from what Moses said, for divorce on other grounds. The same hardness of heart has invaded the church of our day.

But for Jesus, that has never been God's intention, from the beginning.

Only the hard-hearted could fail to see that.

CAN A PERSON SO DIVORCED MARRY AGAIN?
Moses certainly gave permission for the woman to marry again. The law provides for the woman to find another husband and remain with him in a life-long union.

The only prohibition is that, once married, she may never return to the first husband, after any subsequent divorce on the same grounds, or even after her second husband's death.

The man permitted by Moses to divorce the woman on the ground of fornication was never really joined to her in God's sight, and would also be free to find a partner with whom he could be so joined.

Since Jesus also permits divorce on this ground, it must be excluded from all the other cases in which remarriage is adultery. Remarriage in this case is therefore permissible for Christians.