Laolu had filled in the form at the church office on a Thursday afternoon. It was a simple form, two pages, the kind every church in Lagos uses for couples who want to book a wedding date. Names. Addresses. Dates of baptism. Names of parents. Then, halfway down the second page, a box with a heading in bold: Previous marriages (if any).
He sat with the biro over that box for a long time. Then he wrote, in small careful letters, the name of his former wife, the date of their wedding in 2011, and the date in 2017 when a court in Lagos had dissolved the marriage at her petition. She had moved to Manchester two years before the divorce. She had remarried there within a year of it. He had not seen her since.
The church secretary read the form, glanced at him, and said that the senior pastor would need to see him before any date could be confirmed.
That was reasonable, and Laolu understood it. What he had not expected was what happened the following Sunday. After the second service, an elder he had respected for years drew him aside in the car park. “Brother Laolu, I heard you want to marry again. I am telling you as a father. In God’s eyes you are still married. If you do this thing, you are entering adultery, and you are taking that sister with you.”
Laolu drove home without turning on the radio. He was forty-one. He had been alone for nine years. He had not wanted the divorce. He had served in the church faithfully the whole time. And now, he told me a few days later, sitting in my office with his hands clasped between his knees, “I feel like I am on trial, and nobody will tell me the charge.”
That conversation stayed with me, because Laolu’s question deserved a careful answer, and so did the elder’s concern. Remarriage after divorce is one of the most difficult questions in Christian ethics. Sincere believers disagree about it. The way we handle the disagreement says a great deal about whether we have understood the gospel.
Why this question is so difficult
Remarriage is harder to settle than many questions about marriage, for a simple reason. Most of the key passages were written to answer other questions. Jesus was asked whether a man could divorce his wife “for every cause” (Matthew 19:3). Paul was asked whether married believers should separate, and what to do when an unbeliever left. Neither Jesus nor Paul sat down to write a full treatment of every possible case of remarriage.
So when we ask whether a divorced person may marry again, we are usually doing two things at once. We are reading what the Bible explicitly says, and we are drawing conclusions from it about situations it does not directly describe. Both are legitimate. Christians have always had to reason from Scripture to their own circumstances. But it matters a great deal that we know which is which. An explicit statement of Scripture carries the authority of God’s Word. A conclusion drawn from it, however careful, carries the weight of human reasoning, and other careful people may reason differently.
The background also matters. In the world of the Bible, divorce and remarriage were tied together. When Deuteronomy describes a woman sent away with a certificate, it assumes that “she may go and be another man’s wife” (Deuteronomy 24:2). The Mishnah, which records Jewish law from around the time of the New Testament, gives the essential words of a certificate of divorce as a declaration that the woman was now free to marry any man. In that setting, a divorce was by definition a release to remarry. That is why Jesus’ words about remarriage after an unlawful divorce were so shocking to His hearers.
What Scripture says explicitly
Let us start with what the texts plainly say.
Jesus says that whoever puts away his wife, “except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery” (Matthew 19:9). In Mark, the saying has no exception, and it applies to both husband and wife: whoever puts away his wife and marries another “committeth adultery against her,” and a woman who puts away her husband and marries another “committeth adultery” (Mark 10:11-12). Luke records the same short saying without the exception (Luke 16:18). In Matthew 5:32, Jesus says that a man who divorces his wife except for sexual immorality “causeth her to commit adultery.”
Paul passes on the Lord’s teaching that a wife should not depart from her husband, “But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband” (1 Corinthians 7:11). He says that if an unbelieving spouse departs, “A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases” (1 Corinthians 7:15). And he says that when a husband dies, the wife is free to marry whom she will, “only in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 7:39).
Those are the explicit statements. Everything else, including whether a divorced person may remarry in a particular case, involves reading these together and drawing conclusions. That is where the disagreements arise.
The disciples’ alarm
Matthew records the disciples’ response to Jesus’ teaching. It is worth pausing over:
His disciples say unto him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry. But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it , let him receive it.
The disciples were stunned. “If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry.” They had grown up in a culture where a man could leave his wife fairly easily. Jesus had just closed that door. Marriage, He said, was for life, and a man who discarded his wife to take another committed adultery. If that was so, perhaps it was safer not to marry at all.
Jesus did not soften His teaching. Instead He spoke of those who do not marry. Some are eunuchs from birth. Some have been made eunuchs by others. And some have “made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake,” choosing a life of celibacy in order to serve God. “He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.”
What is “this saying” in verse 11? Interpreters differ. Some think it refers to the disciples’ remark that it is better not to marry, so Jesus is saying that the call to celibacy is given to some, not to all. Others think it refers back to Jesus’ own teaching on divorce, so He is acknowledging that only those to whom grace is given can live by it. Those who hold the strictest view of remarriage often read the passage as Jesus’ word to divorced people: remaining unmarried is hard, but God gives grace to those He calls to it. Others note that Jesus says plainly, “All men cannot receive this saying,” and conclude that He did not intend to impose lifelong celibacy on everyone whose marriage had ended.
What is clear is that the disciples understood Jesus to be setting a very high standard for marriage, and that Jesus honoured singleness as a calling, not a punishment. Whatever view we take of remarriage, neither the married nor the single should despise the other.
PunchlineOn remarriage, Scripture gives some explicit statements and leaves other conclusions to careful reasoning. Faithful churches keep that distinction clear and treat affected people with patience, not suspicion.
Bound as long as he lives
The strongest texts for those who believe remarriage is not permitted while a former spouse is alive come from Paul. In Romans, he uses marriage to illustrate how believers have been released from the law:
Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.
Paul’s main point in this chapter is about the law and the believer. Just as death ends a marriage, so the believer’s death with Christ ends the dominion of the law over him, and he is now joined to Christ. But to make that point, Paul uses an illustration that assumes marriage lasts until death. A woman who marries another man while her husband is alive “shall be called an adulteress.”
He says something similar in 1 Corinthians:
The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord. But she is happier if she so abide, after my judgment: and I think also that I have the Spirit of God.
“The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth.” Only death releases her. Then she may marry “to whom she will; only in the Lord,” which means to a fellow believer. Paul adds that in his judgement she would be happier if she remained single, though he does not command it.
NuggetThose who hold the permanence view take these texts as Paul’s settled understanding: marriage is for life, and only death dissolves it. They read Matthew’s exception narrowly, and they read 1 Corinthians 7:15 as freedom from the obligation to pursue the departed spouse, not as freedom to remarry.
Others respond that neither passage is directly about divorce. Romans 7 is an illustration from the law, describing marriage in its normal course, and 1 Corinthians 7:39 addresses widows. In both cases, they argue, Paul is describing marriages that have not been broken by adultery or desertion, and he is not addressing those situations at all. They point out that Paul has already spoken about desertion earlier in the same chapter.
What follows from the exception and the desertion
Here we reach the heart of the disagreement. Jesus makes an exception “for fornication.” Paul says the deserted believer is “not under bondage.” What do these mean for remarriage?
Those who hold the second view argue that the exception in Matthew 19:9 applies to the whole sentence. If a man divorces his wife because she has committed sexual immorality, and marries another, he does not commit adultery. That implies freedom to remarry. This reading was set out at the time of the Reformation by Erasmus and adopted by many Protestant churches. The Westminster Confession of Faith, for example, states that after a divorce for adultery the innocent party may remarry, as if the offending party were dead, and it treats wilful desertion that cannot be remedied as another ground. On this reading, “not under bondage” in 1 Corinthians 7:15 is the language of freedom, echoing the release that the certificate of divorce always provided.
Paul gives another verse that may bear on this:
Art thou bound unto a wife? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife. But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you.
“Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife. But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned.” Some read loosed as including those who have been divorced, so that Paul is saying a divorced person who remarries has not sinned. Others think loosed refers only to those who have never married, or to widowers, and that this passage tells us nothing about divorce. The Greek word can mean released, and the debate turns partly on how widely it applies.
Those who hold the third, wider view take a further step. They argue that adultery and desertion are examples of covenant-breaking, not an exhaustive list. They point to the law of Moses:
If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish. And if he do not these three unto her, then shall she go out free without money.
In this law, a woman who was denied food, clothing and marital care was free to go. That freedom, they argue, shows a principle: a spouse who persistently and gravely refuses the obligations of marriage has broken the covenant, and the injured partner is released. On this view, serious abuse and abandonment may also break a marriage, and the injured party may be free to remarry.
Those who hold the stricter views respond that this is reasoning beyond what Jesus and Paul explicitly said, and that the risk of widening the grounds is that divorce becomes easy again, the very thing Jesus condemned. That concern deserves respect, and so does the concern of the wider view, which is to avoid binding victims of grave wrong to a lifetime of loneliness for the sins of another.
Three views, held with humility
So we have three main views, each held by careful, sincere believers who love God’s Word:
- Marriage is permanent while both spouses live. Divorce may be necessary in law and separation may be necessary for safety, but remarriage is not permitted while a former spouse is alive.
- Divorce and remarriage are permitted on two grounds: sexual unfaithfulness and desertion by an unbelieving spouse. The innocent party is free to remarry.
- Serious covenant-breaking is grounds for divorce and remarriage. Adultery and desertion are examples, and grave, persistent abuse and abandonment may also break the covenant.
I am not going to tell you which view you must hold. Each has strengths, and each faces honest questions. The first takes seriously the permanence of marriage and the plain words of Mark and Luke, but must explain why Matthew’s exception does not include remarriage. The second draws closely on the explicit grounds in the text, but must explain how it handles situations those texts do not address. The third seeks to protect the injured, but must guard against reasoning that opens the door to easy divorce.
Paul’s counsel about disputed matters applies here: “Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth” (Romans 14:4). Where Scripture is genuinely disputed among faithful readers, we should be fully persuaded in our own minds, follow our conscience before God, and refuse to treat those who differ as enemies of the truth.
And whatever view we hold, there are some things on which all the major views agree. Abuse is never a covenant obligation, and no one is required to remain in danger. Divorce is not the unforgivable sin. Where sin has been involved in a marriage’s breakdown, it can be confessed and forgiven like any other. And a person who has remarried, even if their church holds that the remarriage should not have happened, is generally counselled across all these views to remain faithful in their present marriage. Deuteronomy 24:4 forbade a woman to return to her first husband after a second marriage, and most teachers in every camp agree that a second marriage, once made, is a real marriage to be honoured.
Patience, not suspicion
How should churches treat divorced people who wish to remarry, or who already have? Consider how Jesus spoke to a woman whose marital history was as complicated as any. At the well in Sychar, He asked the Samaritan woman to call her husband. She answered that she had none, and Jesus replied, “Thou hast well said, I have no husband: For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband” (John 4:17-18).
Jesus knew everything about her. Five husbands, and a man who was not her husband. Some of those marriages may have ended through death. Some may have ended because men sent her away. We are not told. What we are told is how Jesus treated her. He did not refuse to speak to her until her history was sorted out. He did not lecture her. He named the truth plainly but without contempt, and then He offered her living water and revealed to her that He was the Messiah. She became the first evangelist to her town.
That is the spirit in which we should approach divorced and remarried people. We do not pretend that their history does not matter. Jesus did not pretend. But we start with grace, we listen before we judge, and we remember that the gospel is for people with complicated stories.
For a church considering whether to bless a remarriage, that means taking time to hear the whole story. How did the first marriage end? Was the person the one who left, or the one who was left? Was there adultery, desertion or abuse? Has there been repentance for any sin on their own part? Have they grieved and healed? Is the former spouse remarried? What do they and their church believe about the passages? These are proper questions. But they should be asked with care, by pastors who listen, not by people who have already decided.
The same patience applies to a harder case: the person who was clearly at fault in a first marriage, who left a faithful spouse or broke the marriage through adultery, and who has since come to genuine repentance. Churches across all three views will handle that person’s wish to remarry with particular caution, and rightly so. There may be restitution to make, children to support and a former spouse to whom an honest apology is owed. Yet even here the gospel holds out real forgiveness. Caution about a future marriage is not the same as doubt about God’s mercy, and a repentant sinner should never be made to feel that the cross was big enough for every sin except theirs.
Before you say yes again
If you have been divorced and are wondering about remarriage, the doctrinal question is only part of what you need to face. Even where you and your church are persuaded that you are free to marry, there are other questions to bring before God, and before a wise pastor, before you stand at an altar again.
The first is healing. A divorce is a kind of death. It ends a shared life, scatters a household and often leaves deep wounds of rejection, anger and shame. Many people rush into a second marriage to escape the loneliness or to prove that they are still wanted. The result is often a second marriage carrying the unhealed injuries of the first. Give yourself time to grieve. Talk with a counsellor. Let God speak to the parts of you that still flinch when the old memories return. Paul said it is “better to marry than to burn” (1 Corinthians 7:9), but that verse was never meant to hurry a wounded heart.
The second is honesty about your own part. Not every divorce has one guilty party and one innocent one. Sometimes a spouse was simply abandoned or abused, and the breakdown was not their fault in any meaningful sense. But often there were failures on both sides. If you contributed to the breakdown of your first marriage, through neglect, harshness, unfaithfulness or pride, face it before God. Confess it. Receive the forgiveness of Christ, which is complete. Paul reminded the Corinthians of the sins some of them had once lived in, and then said, “And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus” (1 Corinthians 6:11). Grace does not erase the lessons. It frees you to learn them without despair.
The third is honesty with the person you hope to marry. They deserve to know the whole story, including the parts you are ashamed of, and they deserve to know what your church believes and why. Nothing healthy is built on concealment.
The fourth is your children, if you have them. A remarriage changes their world. They may be grieving the first family even when you have moved on. They need time to know the new person, reassurance that they are not being replaced, and wisdom about how the new household will work.
And there is a further question for those in church leadership. Paul says that an overseer must be “the husband of one wife” (1 Timothy 3:2). Christians read that phrase in different ways. Some understand it to exclude anyone who has remarried after divorce. Others understand it to mean a man faithful to his one wife, a one-woman man, whatever his history before conversion or before a divorce in which he was wronged. Churches will need to decide this with care, and a remarried person should accept the church’s decision about leadership with grace, while remembering that their standing before God rests on Christ, not on any office.
Laolu met with his senior pastor four times over two months. The pastor listened to the whole story. He read the court papers. He called a pastor in Manchester who knew Laolu’s former wife’s new church, and confirmed what Laolu had said. He met with Laolu’s fiancée separately, and then with both of them together.
At the end, he told Laolu that the church’s leadership did not all agree on the question of remarriage. He told him honestly which passages troubled him and which ones gave him confidence. Then he said that, having heard everything, he believed Laolu was free before God to marry, and that he would be glad to officiate.
PunchlineThe wedding was small, in the church’s side hall, with about sixty guests. Near the back, in a grey suit, sat the elder who had spoken to Laolu in the car park.
At the reception, he came over to the high table. He took Laolu’s hand in both of his. “Brother Laolu,” he said, “I still read those verses differently from you and Pastor. I have not changed my mind. But I was wrong in the way I spoke to you that Sunday. I accused you before I had even asked you what happened. Please forgive me. You are my brother.”
Laolu told me that it was the best wedding gift he received. The elder had not abandoned his convictions. He had simply remembered that a man with a complicated story is still a man for whom Christ died, and that the right way to carry a conviction about Scripture is with patience, humility and love.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- What is the difference between what Scripture explicitly says about remarriage and the conclusions people draw from it? Why does that distinction matter?
- Which of the three views described here have you heard taught, and what questions does each one raise for you?
- How does Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman shape the way you think about people with complicated marital histories?
- If you hold strong convictions on this question, how can you express them without treating those who differ as enemies?
- What would it look like for your church to be a place of patience, not suspicion, toward divorced and remarried believers?
This Week
This week, read Matthew 19:3-12, 1 Corinthians 7:10-16, 1 Corinthians 7:39-40 and Romans 7:1-3 in one sitting. Make two columns in a notebook. In the first, write down what each passage explicitly says. In the second, write down the conclusions people draw from it. If you are divorced and considering remarriage, take your notes to a mature pastor and ask for an unhurried conversation. If you are not, pray this week for a divorced or remarried believer you know, and look for a way to show them kindness.
A Prayer
Lord, Your Word is true, and Your ways are higher than mine. Give me humility when I read the passages that sincere believers understand differently, and a teachable heart before Your truth. Thank You that the gospel reaches people with complicated stories, and that You speak to us with truth and with grace together. Where I have judged others before I have listened, forgive me. Where my own past is broken, heal me and lead me in Your way. Give wisdom to every pastor and every believer facing questions of remarriage, and let Your church be marked by patience, honesty and love. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.