We live in a society that devalues marriage.  The majority of people in the world believe that marriage is nothing more than a secular contract that can be broken over the smallest offenses, or even over no offense at all.  It is not unusual at all for a person to be married, divorced, and remarried several times.  Such is not the will of God.  Our Lord emphasizes the sanctity of marriage in Matthew 19:9.

Matthew 19:9 (KJV)
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.

Fornication is the sole reason that allows a person to divorce a spouse and still have the right to remarry.  In every other case, the one who gets out of a marriage and marries someone else is guilty of entering an adulterous relationship, committing adultery every time sexual relations occur.

Over the years there have been many false doctrines that attempt to get around this straightforward teaching from our Lord.  Some have said that the guilty party that caused the dissolution of a marriage can remarry, arguing that if one spouse is no longer bound, the other one cannot be.  This conclusion fails to consider what we are bound to do when we get married.  We are not only bound to our spouse, but also to the law of God (Romans 7:1-4), which says that only the one who puts away a spouse for the express reason of fornication can remarry.

It has also been argued that when a marriage is dissolved for a reason other than fornication, one spouse can just wait for the other one to commit fornication and then put him or her away mentally, even though a divorce has already taken place.  This has been labeled “mental divorce.”  There are multiple problems with this false doctrine, but in the end, it boils down to the fact that one cannot divorce someone from whom he or she has already been divorced.  Those who hold to this doctrine attempt to get around this by declaring that the couple who were divorced are still married in the eyes of God. Unfortunately for them, Paul called Them “unmarried” (1 Corinthians 7:11).

Another false doctrine that has surfaced, is that sexual sins such as the viewing of pornography give one grounds for divorce.  Is there any merit to this doctrine?   The answer is no.

While I know this doctrine exists, I have never been in a detailed discussion with anyone who holds to it; thus, I am not sure what the arguments are for it.  Nevertheless, it is not too hard to determine what kind of arguments they would make.  One would, no doubt, be based on the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 5:28 (ESV)
²⁸  But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Is Jesus saying that this man has literally committed adultery?  No.  What Jesus condemns here is in contrast to the literal act of adultery referred to in the previous verse.  Jesus was condemning this man for lust, fantasizing about committing the literal act of adultery in his heart, which was sin, but not a scriptural reason for divorce.  Adultery, and every other kind of fornication, is committed with the body, not the heart (1 Corinthians 6:18).  Only the physical act of adultery gives one grounds for divorce.

Another thing that might be causing some confusion on this issue is the loose translation of the word “porneia” as sexual immorality.  The term sexual immorality might encompass many things, including pornography, but in the Bible, “porneia” is referring to illicit sexual intercourse.

Vine’s Expository Dictionary – Is used of “illicit sexual intercourse,” in John 8:41; Acts 15:20, 29; Acts 21:25; 1 Cor. 5:1; 1 Cor. 6:13, 18; 2 Cor. 12:21; Gal. 5:19; Eph. 5:3; Col. 3:5; 1 Thess. 4:3; Rev. 2:21; Rev. 9:21.

Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament  – Used properly, of illicit sexual intercourse in general (Demosthenes, 403, 27; 433, 25): Acts 15:20,29; 21:25 (that this meaning must be adopted in these passages will surprise no one who has learned from 1 Corinthians 6:12ff how leniently converts from among the heathen regarded this vice and how lightly they indulged in it;

An example of “porneia” being distinct from other types of sexual immorality is found in Colossians 3:5 where Paul condemns it, as well as, impurity, passion, and evil desire.  Pornography might well involve evil desire passion, and most certainly would be a type of impurity, but it is not “porneia.”

When Jesus denied that some Jews had Abraham as their father, they said, “We be not born of fornication, we have one Father, even God” (John 8:41).  Clearly they were not referring to lustful behavior when they used the word fornication (porneia) but to illicit sexual intercourse.

The physical act of adultery is the only cause for scriptural divorce.  Let us never be deceived into believing anything else.