“And it hath been said, ‘Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a bill of divorce.’ But I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, excepting for the cause of fornication, maketh her to commit adultery: and he that shall marry her that is put away, committeth adultery.”
The Law permitted divorce because the Hebrews were Hebrew in race, but took the manners and customs out of Egypt with them. The Law had to be given to dissuade pagan ways and make Israel into a nation of God. Therefore, the rules concerning divorce were actually to protect the wife, because the violence of the men could yield greater injury than separation. This shows that the Lord understands when His people are fresh from their sinful ways and need lighter ways that they may not be disheartened. It is too tall a task for someone that, freshly converted, still struggles with being freed from grave sin to ask of them to refrain entirely from backbiting. The more you grow in love, the more you will be given the strength to uphold a greater number of commandments. Your love of the Lord may keep you entirely from thinking about mortal sin, and in this case He asks you to go deeper, to fall more in love and to take on a heavier burden with Him. As your love becomes more intense, the way becomes narrower, but the burden becomes lighter due to the corresponding love. It could also be that the process of divorce took long enough that whatever issue was at hand may cool, showing how much the Lord despises separation, but rather loves the love that exists so deeply between people. Now, Jesus here wants to defend the sacrament of marriage, “This is a great sacrament; but I speak in Christ and in the church” (Ephesians 5:32), as it is an image of the love of God. Marriage is a bond closer than any other on earth, a total gift of oneself to the other, “and they shall be two in one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). It is a complete unveiling of the mystery of oneself to another, with a union that makes the two one. So too is the state of grace. Jesus becomes closer to you than you are to yourself and unveils the mystery of His love to you as you open the gift of your heart to Him: “Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled” (Song 5:2), and the two of you are present in you. In expressing divine love, the two become indistinguishable, and you become as a window through which the Sun shines on others. Similarly, just as the union of love between spouses leads them heavenward and brings forth children, so too does your union with your Spouse let Him carry you to God and yield spiritual children. Therefore, Jesus puts a strong emphasis on the sacredness of marriage, just as one would want a portrait of themselves to be expressed both well and realistically. A caricature is not something to put on display, and a painting torn is no painting at all. Rather, the figure of God’s love that is the matrimonial bond should be seen to be a strong example of the power of love: “Love is strong as death, jealousy as hard as hell” (Song 8:7). When it is feeble and discarded, it gives an impression to others that the love of God is equally feeble, when there is in fact no greater force in existence: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, saith the Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty” (Apocalypse 1:8). His love is even greater and more passionate than what is seen in marriage: “If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and marry another man, shall he return to her any more? Shall not that woman be polluted, and defiled? But thou hast prostituted thyself to many lovers: nevertheless, return to me, saith the Lord, and I will receive thee” (Jeremias 3:1), but it takes a similar expression to the love between spouses. God is a jealous God, regarding your heart as a spouse would, not wanting it wavering and wandering but held fast by an intense love. No matter where you may wander, though, He receives you back with infinite mercy: “These things I shall think over in my heart, therefore will I hope. The mercies of the Lord that we are not consumed; because his commiserations have not failed” (Lamentations 3:21-22). His merciful love is more infinite than the heavens, more inexhaustible than the ocean, and He will never put you away, despite all the spiritual fornications one could commit, His mercy is beyond all understanding: “And I will establish my covenant with thee: and thou shalt know that I am the Lord, that thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and mayest no more open thy mouth because of thy confusion, when I shall be pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God” (Ezechiel 16:63). Therefore, there is a call here for spouses to bear the shortcomings of each other for the sake of love, to let faults and failures be as breadcrumbs thrown in an ocean of endless forgiveness, for God is endless merciful love, and so desires such love to be expressed between the most intimately united of His people.