Demon of Divorce

Now we come to verse nine in the great battleground, the verse which the ignorant have wrested and the vicious have perverted to provide an aperture through which the demon of divorce has been permitted to enter nominal Christendom. This writer admits with shame that he himself was formerly one of “the ignorant who wrested” the verse to mean something that with careful consideration and hallowed study it obviously does not mean.

When we viewed the blighting effects of divorce within that which calls itself the church and became convicted that we and others had spoken all too glibly about “Scriptural grounds for divorce” without any very careful study of the lone two verses of almost identical phraseology (Matthew 5:32; 19:9), from which such “grounds” were allegedly derived, we set ourselves to discover the truth.

We know of no occasion on which we have carefully and open-mindedly set ourselves to know the truth of any passage under the guidance of the blessed Holy Spirit that we have been left further in darkness or error. This occasion was no exception.

“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.”* (Matthew 19:9) If the verse is read at first omitting the parenthetical phrase, “except it be for fornication,” it will be seen that divorce and remarriage are forbidden in the strongest terms. What a volume of sin and wickedness has been excused with that little parenthetical phrase! We note the exception rests with the word fornication, while the word adultery occurs twice later on in the same verse. Exactly the same thing is true in Matthew 5:32. We are forced to conclude then that there is a definite distinction in the use of the two words fornication and adultery. The consultation of any reputable English dictionary will show that fornication means “illegitimate sex relation on the part of an unmarried person,” while adultery means “illegitimate sex relation on the part of a married person.”

A study of the Greek words which these English words are used to translate will show about the same meanings, with the difference that porneia (fornication) widens out on some occasions to mean general unchastity. However, when in this verse Christ uses it in contradistinction to moikeia (adultery), we are compelled to the conclusion that it is used in its specific sense of premarital impurity.

A simple illustration will aid us in understanding the issue. The word man has both a specific and a general meaning. Specifically it means the male of the human species; in general it means the whole of the genus homo. The context will always reveal whether it is used in its general or its specific sense. If the word man is used in the same sentence with the word woman, one is sure that it is used in its specific and not in its general sense.

So it is with porneia and moikeia. When these words are used together they denote a contrast and no amount of sophistry or obscurantism can make them synonymous or interchangeable. Fornication here simply does not mean adultery unless words have lost their meaning, and it is a reflection if not an insult to the omniscient Son of God to insinuate that He was unable to express Himself clearly in such an important statement. If He had intended to make adultery a ground for divorce under His law He could very easily have said so. When He meant moikeia (adultery), He said “Moikeia.”