Scriptural Divorce

Are there any circumstances under which a Christian may go further and obtain a divorce with freedom to remarry? Remember, Jesus counseled, “What God has yoked together let no man put apart.” But he went on to indicate that there could be a proper ground for divorce, for he said: “Whoever divorces his wife, except on the ground of fornication, and marries another commits adultery.”​—Matthew 19:6, 9; see also 5:32.

Does this mean that if a Christian tires of a marriage mate or ‘falls in love’ with another person, he can freely use some situation involving fornication to change partners? Sad to say, in some cases where both partners claim to be believers, the device of committing fornication (usually adultery) has been used in a scheming and willful way to break Scriptural marriage ties. Can such ones be so foolish as to think that Jehovah does not know the “thoughts and intentions of the heart”? (Hebrews 4:12, 13) Such seem to have taken the viewpoint that they can commit immorality deliberately, be disfellowshipped for a year or so, and then with a new marriage mate “repent” and be reinstated in the congregation.

In such a case, however, considerable time should elapse before elders could even entertain any request for reinstatement. Conscientious elders would not be hasty. They need to see very clear evidence of fruits befitting repentance. Even if such a sinner were in due course reinstated, it would be many years, if ever, before the elders could recommend him for special privileges in the congregation, and in any event not before the remarriage or death of the innocent mate. (1 Timothy 3:2, 12) We can appreciate the seriousness of this sort of planned adultery before Jehovah God by recalling that under his righteous Law in ancient Israel adulterers would have been stoned to death. (Deuteronomy 22:22) And today, whatever congregations may decide, Jehovah is the ultimate Judge. “God will judge fornicators and adulterers.”​—Hebrews 13:4.a

Preserving the Marriage

For the protection of God’s people, and in the hope that any who have moral problems will look to the Christian congregation for guidance in honoring Jehovah’s institution of marriage, certain aspects of the matter of fornication will here be discussed explicitly. This is done in harmony with the Scriptures, which are frank and outspoken even when discussing such delicate and intimate matters.​—Compare Leviticus 20:10-23; Deuteronomy 31:12; Matthew 5:27, 28; Romans 1:26, 27; Jude 7.

Rather than seek an excuse for divorce, married persons should be seeking ways of holding a marriage together. If a mate commits immorality and is repentant, the innocent mate may choose to forgive, with a view to maintaining the God-given marriage arrangement. Mercy may thus be shown, in imitation of another of Jehovah’s excelling qualities.​—Exodus 34:6; compare Nehemiah 9:17.

However, what if the mate is unrepentant, is disfellowshipped and even continues in a proved course of gross immorality? Or what if the personal health and spirituality of the innocent mate are endangered? While not ignoring the Scriptural admonition to preserve the marriage if at all possible, Jesus’ words quoted above from Matthew 19:9 indicate that there is a ground for divorce​—the only Scriptural ground for a divorce—​fornication.

Defining “Fornication”

What do we understand here by “fornication”? The Greek word in this text is porneia. In discussing the matter, The Watchtower of December 15, 1972, pages 766-768, showed that porneia “comes from a root word meaning ‘to sell.’” Thus it is tied in with prostitution, such as that practiced in many pagan temples in the first century and in ‘houses of ill fame’ today.

True, porneia is sometimes used in a limited sense, as applying to sex relations between unmarried (single) persons. An instance of such a limited usage is 1 Corinthians 6:9, where “fornicators” are mentioned separately and in addition to those who engage in such other sexual vices as adultery and homosexuality. But just before this, at 1 Corinthians 5:9-11, Paul used the same word when counseling Christians not to mix with “fornicators.” Is it reasonable to think that here he referred only to immoral unmarried persons? That could not be so, for chapter 6 sets out a broad range of illicit sexual practices that must be shunned, including adultery and homosexuality. Likewise, Jude 7 and Revelation 21:8, which show that God judges unrepentant “fornicators” as worthy of eternal destruction, could hardly be limited only to unmarried persons that have sex relations. And the Jerusalem governing body’s edict at Acts 15:29, “to keep abstaining . . . from fornication,” must be understood to have the wide field of application.b

So, then, “fornication” in the broad sense, and as used at Matthew 5:32 and Mt 19:9, evidently refers to a broad range of unlawful or illicit sex relations outside marriage. Porneia involves the grossly immoral use of the genital organ(s) of at least one human (whether in a natural or a perverted way); also, there must have been another party to the immorality​—a human of either sex, or a beast.c Thus, self-abuse (unwise and spiritually dangerous as this may be) is not porneia. But to this day, the term porneia embraces the various kinds of sexual activity that might take place in a house of prostitution, where sexual favors are bought and sold. A person who goes to a male or a female prostitute to buy any kind of sexual favors would be guilty of porneia.​—Compare 1 Corinthians 6:18.

What, though, if one mate wants or even demands to share with his or her partner in what is clearly a perverted sex practice? The above-presented facts show that porneia involves unlawful sexual conduct outside the marital arrangement. Thus, a mate’s enforcing perverted acts, such as oral or anal sex, within the marriage would not constitute a Scriptural basis for a divorce that would free either for remarriage.d

The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology states, for example, that porneia means “unchastity, harlotry, prostitution, fornication.” It also says: “The word-group [involving porneia] can describe various extra-marital sexual modes of behaviour insofar as they deviate from accepted social and religious norms (e.g. homosexuality, promiscuity, paedophilia [sexual abuse of children], and especially prostitution).” Thus, porneia would include adultery (Greek, moikheia), and can cover a broader range of other immoral practices outside marriage, such as oral or anal sex and bestiality.

The 1979 edition of the highly regarded Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (by Bauer, Arndt and Gingrich) defines porneia as “prostitution, unchastity, fornication, of every kind of unlawful sexual intercourse.”