Bible], in order that, if any are not obedient to the word, they may be won without a word through the conduct of their wives, because of having been eyewitnesses of your chaste conduct together with deep respect [toward your husbands]. And do not let your adornment be that of the external braiding of the hair and of the putting on of gold ornaments or the wearing of outer garments [which outward adornment will not win husbands who are not yet obedient to God’s Word], but let [your adornment] be the secret person of the heart in the incorruptible apparel of the quiet and mild spirit, which is of great value in the eyes of God. For so, too, formerly the holy women who were hoping in God used to adorn themselves, subjecting themselves to their own husbands, as Sarah used to obey Abraham, calling him ‘lord’. And you [wives] have become her children, provided you keep on doing good and not fearing any cause for terror [toward your husbands].”—1 Pet. 2:18 to 3:6.

Separation and Divorce for the Sake of Peace

1. If, in spite of all, the unbeliever chooses to leave and live separate, what should the believing mate do about it?

THERE are innumerable cases of where dedicated, baptized believers have obeyed the apostle Paul’s advice and have kept dwelling with unbelieving mates to have the joy of finally ‘saving’ the marriage mate. But what about a believer who uses God’s spirit to endure persecution and opposition in the effort to hold the marriage together, but whose unbelieving mate still finds it disagreeable and at length departs, either by living independently somewhere else or by divorce or legal separation? Paul answers: “But if the unbelieving one proceeds to depart, let him depart; a brother or a sister is not in servitude under such circumstances, but God has called you to peace.”—1 Cor. 7:15.

2. If a separation does occur, is there a Scriptural ground for divorce, to be followed by remarriage to another?

² In the interest of his own Christian peace, the believer may let the unbelieving marriage mate depart and live elsewhere. The departed unbeliever may not remarry, any more than a departed Christian believer may do so: “But if she should actually depart, let her remain single or else make up again with her husband.” (1 Cor. 7:11) The abandoned believer has no Scripture grounds for procuring a legal divorce, that is, on the mere basis of abandonment or of incompatible difference of religion. Hence if he did get a divorce, he would not have the Scriptural freedom to relieve himself of unsatisfying legal singleness by remarrying. Jesus Christ himself says not, in the following words:

3. What did Jesus say on the matter, according to Matthew 19:3-9?

³ “Pharisees came up to him, intent on tempting him and saying: ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife on every kind of grounds?’ In reply he said: ‘Did you not read that he who created them at the beginning made them male and female and said: “For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and will stick to his wife, and the two will be one flesh”? So that they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has yoked together let no man put apart.’ They said to him: Why, then, did Moses prescribe giving a certificate of dismissal and divorcing her?’ He said to them: ‘Moses, out of regard for your hardheartedness, made the concession to you of divorcing your wives, but such has not been the case from the beginning. I say to you that whoever divorces his wife except on the grounds of fornication and marries another commits adultery.’”—Matt. 19:3-9; also Deuteronomy 24:1-4.

4. Do Jesus’ words support the passing of a total antidivorce law, and what is the most effective way to reduce or prevent legal divorce cases?

⁴ Thus Jesus did not say that divorce should be forbidden by the law of the State on any ground, even on adultery. The religious priests of today who insist on such a law of no possible divorce want to bind innocent marriage mates to adulterous partners. By such a law they shield the adulterous mate and also encourage and promote marital unfaithfulness by allowing no relief for the innocent mate. If they permitted the innocent mate to divorce the adulterous one, then it would nullify the confessional forgiveness that the priests extend to the adulterous mate. In that case the adulterous mate would not be shielded by the priest’s indulgence or remission of sins toward the adulterous one who merely confesses but does not reform. The Scriptural way, the most effective way, to reduce or prevent legal divorce is by teaching the Holy Scriptures and its morality and keeping the Christian congregation free of adulterers, and not by a total antidivorce law. Such a law has not stopped adultery.

5. What divorce rests upon a Scriptural basis, and what privilege does it allow the innocent divorcee?

⁵ God’s law under his new covenant, as stated by Jesus in his above-quoted words, certainly allows for divorce on the proper basis. That one Scriptural or New Covenant basis is adultery. Divorce on that basis frees the innocent mate to remarry without thus committing adultery himself by remarriage. Divorce on any other basis does not free the legally separated ones to remarry without becoming guilty of adultery in God’s eyes and so becoming unworthy of being in His congregation under Christ. This is how Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount are to be understood. He referred to the divorce law recorded by the prophet Moses in Deuteronomy 24:1 and went on to say: “You heard that it was said, ‘You must not commit adultery.’ . . . Moreover it was said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ However, I say to you that everyone divorcing his wife except on account of fornication makes her a subject for adultery, seeing that whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”—Matt. 5:27-32.

6. Do both Scriptural and unscriptural divorce make a woman a subject for adultery, or what difference, if any, is there?

⁶ If a dedicated Christian divorces his wife for adultery, how does he thereby make her a subject for adultery? She is already an adulteress by her own course and choice. It would not be divorce that drives her into adultery. However, if the husband divorces his wife for any other reasons, even reasons admitted by the law of the land, except for fornication or adultery, then he does expose her to adultery in the future. How so? Because according to God’s law the unadulterous wife is not disunited from her husband by such an unscriptural divorce. She is still his wife and is thus not free to remarry and have sex relations with another legal husband.

7. Which kind of divorcee, then, did Jesus mean when saying that whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery?

⁷ Hence when Jesus says, “seeing that whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery,” he does not mean any divorced woman at all. He means the woman legally divorced “except on account of fornication”; that is, an unadulterous divorced woman. This same principle holds true in the case of a husband whom his wife divorced although he had not acted adulterously. Any woman marrying him would lead him into adultery and herself become a fornicatrix.

8, 9. (a) Taken by themselves, what would the statements by Mark and by Luke mean for all divorcees? (b) In harmony with what are the statements by Mark and Luke to be explained, and why does adultery really break a marriage union and open the way for Scriptural divorce?

⁸ In Mark 10:11, 12 Jesus’ statement on divorce reads: “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if ever a woman, after divorcing her husband, marries another, she commits adultery.” Luke 16:18 reads similarly: “Everyone that divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he that marries a woman divorced from a husband commits adultery.”

⁹ Those verses do not forbid divorce. But, taken by themselves, they would say that no divorcee would be entitled to remarry, except after the death of the divorced mate; and that to remarry during the lifetime of the divorced mate would mean to break God’s law against adultery. However, those two versions of Jesus’ words on divorce are to be explained in the light of the fuller statement recorded by the apostle Matthew, who shows that what Mark and Luke wrote on divorce is true if the ground for procuring the divorce is anything else but adultery on the part of the unfaithful mate. The single person who commits fornication with a harlotrous woman makes himself “one body” with a woman not his wife. Likewise the adulterer makes himself one body, not with his legal wife, but with the immoral person with whom he illegally lies. The adulterer thus sins against his own flesh. Yes, not only against his own personal flesh but also against his legal wife who till then has been “one flesh” with him. (1 Cor. 6:16, 17) For that reason, adultery really breaks the marriage union. This is why divorce on the basis of adultery formally and finally dissolves the legal marriage union. It frees the innocent partner to remarry with honor and with no stain on good morality during the lifetime of the guilty divorced mate.

10. What does divorcing an adulterous mate free that one for and also free the innocent mate for?

¹⁰ Divorcing an adulterous mate does not expose the divorced wrongdoer to adultery. Rather, the legal marriage, as long as it lasted, had failed to protect the unfaithful one from immorality. So the one marrying the adulterous divorcee merely marries an unclean person with an immoral record; and this remarriage does not cause the adulterous divorcee to become adulterous for the first time. If the innocent marriage mate divorces the adulterous mate, it frees the innocent one to remarry. The Scriptural divorcer is not divorcing merely to get rid of an adulterous mate no longer loved or physically safe to live with and have intercourse with. Such a divorcer is really freeing himself for remarriage, if that becomes advisable, due to the need for a faithful, dedicated life partner. By divorcing the adulterous mate, the divorcer simply lets the adulterous one have the kind of life desired, an immoral life.

JUDGMENT AGAINST IMMORAL ONES

11. Besides to legal marriage, to what more serious thing can adultery work disaster, especially since Jehovah has come to his temple?

¹¹ The committing of adultery can work disaster to the legal marriage tie through a resultant divorce. But it certainly works disaster to one’s relationship to God, who has now come to his spiritual temple with his judicial Messenger Jesus Christ to do judging. He warns: “‘I will come near to you people for the judgment, and I will become a speedy witness against the sorcerers,