Porneia, not adultery, the only cause for divorce according to the ancient Greek of the New Testament

There are different sexual sins mentioned in the Scriptures. Under Moses, almost all of the sexual sins were punishable by death (Leviticus 20:10-21). With the advent of Jesus, the capital punishments of Moses are abolished. Jesus signifies the reprieve in telling the adulterous woman brought to Him as a trap in seeking His opinion on the punishment, to go and sin no more (John 8:1-11) because each of us is guilty of some sin.

John 8:10-11 MKJV

(10)  And bending back up, and seeing no one but the woman, Jesus said to her, Woman, where are the ones who accused you? Did not one give judgment against you?

(11)  And she said, No one, Lord. And Jesus said to her, Neither do I give judgment. Go, and sin no more.

So, Jesus reverses Moses in capital punishments.

Jesus also reversed Moses on divorce.

Matthew 5:31-32 MKJV

(31)  It was also said, Whoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a bill of divorce.

(32)  But I say to you that whoever shall put away his wife, except for the cause of fornication, causes her to commit adultery. And whoever shall marry her who is put away commits adultery.

From the statement of Jesus on divorce, we learn about 2 doctrines: Fornication and adultery.

We learn that adultery is not a cause for divorce because Jesus stated that if we divorce for any reason except for fornication we cause adultery. In other words, fornication is the only cause for divorce in a marriage. Today, we divorce for any reason and we remarry without taking into consideration the word of God (Jesus).

Fornication is one of the various English words used to translate the Greek word "porneia" that Jesus used in the Greek tongues. The other words used for porneia are: sexual immorality, whoredom, lewdness, unfaithfulness, harlotry, infidelity, whoring, unchastity, even "any sexual sin" by some lexicons.

Since Jesus is a Jew, a Hebrew, what is considered "porneia" in Hebrews?

Paul complained of ungodly tolerance of porneia at an ekklesia. Let us analyze it his stance on that case study of porneia.

1 Corinthians 5:1 Darby

(1)  It is universally reported that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not even among the nations, so that one should have his father's wife.

We read that a son has his father's woman (wife). From Moses, a sexual sin involving the woman of another man is considered adultery.

Leviticus 20:10 KJ3

(10)  And a man who commits adultery with a man’s wife, who commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, the adulterer and the adulteress dying shall die.

Paul did not consider the sin of the son a "moicheía (adultery" but a porneía (fornocation, sexual immorality, etc). There is a reason for that because Moses has a list of other sexual sins besides adultery. Those other sins are considered porneia in Greek because the porneia of the son is part of those other sexual sin list in Leviticus 18.

The sin of the son, according to Moses, is in Leviticus 18:8

Leviticus 18:8 MKJV

(8)  You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife. It is your father's nakedness.

Therefore, here are the porneia sins that are causes for divorce.

Leviticus 18:1-24 KJ3

(1)  And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying,

(2)  Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, I am Jehovah your God.

(3)  You shall not do according to the doings of the land of Egypt in which you lived; and you shall not do according to the doings of the land of Canaan to which I am bringing you; nor shall you walk in their statutes.

(4)  You shall do My judgments and you shall keep My statutes, to walk in them; I am Jehovah your God,

(5)  and you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, which if a man any man do, he shall live by them. I am Jehovah.

(6)  Not a man, any man, of you shall draw near to any relative of his flesh to uncover their nakedness; I am Jehovah.

(7)  You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father or the nakedness of your mother; she is your mother; you shall not uncover her nakedness.

• We may not have sex with our father nor our mother

(8)  You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife; it is the nakedness of your father.

• We may not have sex with our step-mother

(9)  You shall not bare your sister’s nakedness, the daughter of your father, or the daughter of your mother, born at home, or born away; you shall not bare their nakedness.

• We may not have sex with our sister or half-sister

(10)  You shall not uncover the nakedness of your son’s daughter, or your daughter’s daughter; you shall not uncover their nakedness, for theirs is your own nakedness.

• We may not have sex with our granddaughter, the daughter of our son or of our daughter

(11)  The nakedness of the daughter of your father’s wife, begotten by your father, she is your sister; you shall not uncover her nakedness.

• We may not have sex with our half-sister, the daughter of our stepmother and our father

(12)  You shall not uncover the nakedness of a sister of your father; she is a relative of your father.

• We may not have sex with our paternal aunt

(13)  You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister; for she is your mother’s relative.

• We may not have sex with our maternal aunt

(14)  You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s brother; you shall not draw near to his wife; she is your aunt.

• We may not have sex with our paternal uncle, nor our uncle's woman because she is our aunt

(15)  You shall not uncover the nakedness of your daughter-in-law; she is your son’s wife; you shall not uncover her nakedness.

• We may not have sex with our daughter-in-law.

(16)  You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother’s wife; it is your brother’s nakedness.

• We may not have sex with our sister-in-law, the wife of our brother.

(17)  You shall not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter; you shall not undertake to uncover her son’s daughter, or her daughter’s daughter; they are her relatives; it is wickedness.

• We may not have sex with both a woman and her daughter, nor with her granddaughter,

(18)  And you shall not take a wife with her sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her lifetime.

• We may not have sex with our sister-in-law, the sister of our wife.

(19)  And you shall not draw near to uncover the nakedness of a woman in her menstrual impurity.

• We may not have sex with a woman who has her period.

(20)  And you shall not give your semen to your neighbor’s wife by lying with her, for uncleanness with her.

• We may not be a surrogate father for the woman of our neighbor by directly having sex with her. What about by insemination??

(21)  And you shall not give your seed to pass them through to Molech, and you shall not, pollute the name of your God; I am Jehovah.

(22)  And you shall not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is a perversion.

• Man may not have sex with another man as a man has sex with woman.

(23)  And you shall not give your semen with any animal, for uncleanness with it. And a woman shall not stand before an animal to lie down with it; it is a disgusting thing.

• We may not give our semen to an animal. A woman may not have sex with an animal.

(24)  Do not defile yourself with all these, for with all these the nations have been defiled, which I am casting out before you;

Those sexual forbiddings are still valid not only because Jesus said that not one dot of an i may be taken off from Moses but also because the very reason God cast out the people the Israelites were supplanting was they were engaged in all those sexual practices that God objects to, at that time, today, and tomorrow. The sacrifice of Jesus can never make those forbiddances tolerable to The Father nor to Jesus.

We may divorce only on account of those sexual sins (porneia), according to Jesus, not whenever love has been buried.

Which two people can marry each other?

The man and the woman who are not in the porneia forbiddances of Leviticus 18.