Matthew 5:32 is often used to affirm that remarriage after divorce is permissible for the innocent party. It is not clear, however, that such a view is necessarily supported by this verse. In Matthew 5:32, Jesus speaks of a situation in which a woman has been unlawfully divorced by her husband. There has not been marital unfaithfulness on her part, and thus the divorce was not permitted/should not have taken place. In this scenario, the woman is the innocent party and the man who divorced her is the guilty party. Nevertheless, we are still told that the woman becomes an adulteress if she remarries, and that the man who marries her commits adultery. Remarriage for the innocent (woman and new man) is thus equated with adultery. If we assume instead that there was marital unfaithfulness on the part of the woman and that the divorce was lawful, this would make the woman the guilty party, and it is strange to think that she is then free to marry once again, given that she has not honoured her marriage vows. To conclude, interpreting this verse is not easy and it is best to limit our conclusions and allow other (clearer) passages of Scripture to inform our thinking on this topic (see Matthew 19:1–12; Romans 7:1–3; 1 Corinthians 7:10–11, 1 Corinthians 7:39).
32 But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.