The Scarlet Letter We All Wear

But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery. Matthew 5:32

This is a very overlooked bible verse because we often think of adultery as sex outside of marriage. Well sex outside of marriage most certainly is adultery. Here though, we see something much bigger and important.

Essentially, if a man divorces his wife he causes her to be an adulteress. She it would seem is an innocent party. The phrase"saving for the cause of fornication," is important. Obviously if she fornicates outside of marriage she causes the adultery not her husband. According to this verse, if she is put away or divorced when she does not cheat, she is still an adulteress. Huh! Yup! How can it be?

If we look at the context in Mt 5 we see Jesus really intensifying the law. We begin to see just how sinful we are compared to his righteous standard. Jesus says if you are angry with your brother that is murder and if you look at a woman lustfully that is adultery and so on. Along the same lines we understand from v 32 that adultery is not just sex outside of marriage but a breaking of a marriage covenant.

Anytime a marriage covenant is broken it's adultery. In divorce there are always two sides to the story. There is always a shared blame for a broken marriage covenant. I realize that some times it doesn't seem that way but it's true. What we can learn from this is that God standards are higher than ours. They are perfect. We all fall short daily. We need him and his righteousness. We get that righteousness when we trust in Jesus' death on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. We are then a new creation in Christ. We can then experience a victorious life and God's will for marriage.

Has Jesus saved you from your sins? Ask Him. Do you want to honor Christ in your marriage? Ask Him. He will do it!