Matthew 19:8, commentary and pictures

Moses permitted divorce because of the hardness of hearts and moral degeneracy. Divorce was not part of God's original plan, purpose, and arrangement, for from the beginning it was not so. The verse points back to creation, where marriage began as a divine institution given as a lasting law and blessing for humanity, in which what God has joined together no man is to put asunder.

The permission was given in mercy and in consideration of circumstances. Every precept has an underlying principle that the permission does not overturn. Keeping God's commandments would have fostered harmony, peace, and love and prevented such divisions, while disregard for them brings ruin, so people are to be warned to keep His commandments and avoid His wrath.

Divorce by the laws of the land does not divorce in the sight of God under the higher law, so a couple divorced by civil law are still husband and wife in Bible light unless freed by the one sin of adultery, which alone can free husband or wife from the marriage vow. A woman without that cause has no right to marry another man, while a woman legally divorced on the ground of her husband's adultery is free to marry whom she chooses; therefore Sister Johnson is not free to marry again. Marriage vows should not be lightly set aside, and loss of affection, bad advice, or a spouse's alleged deception does not by itself provide grounds for divorce.

What God set up at the beginning is the true standard, and God suffers what was not His original plan because of hardness of heart. Applied to diet, the food appointed in the beginning did not include animal food, for God provided fruit in its natural state, gave Adam charge of the garden to dress and care for it, and appointed vegetables and grains as diet, with one animal not to destroy another for food. Eating of flesh was suffered and allowed after the fall to shorten the existence of the long-lived race and after the flood when every green thing had been destroyed. Muscular strength does not depend on animal food, for simple grains, fruits of the trees, and vegetables have all the nutritive properties necessary to make good blood, which a flesh diet cannot do.