Sermon on the Mount VI

Subtitle: Fulfilling the Torah and the Prophets of God IV

Matthew 5:31-32.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on January 14, 2024.

We continue looking at the first section of the teaching of Messiah Jesus called the Sermon on the Mount.  He is comparing what the people were being taught by the leaders of his day with what he teaches.

Today, we look at the third section of the Law of Moses that Jesus explains.  The first was about the law against murder.  The second was the law against adultery.  It seems that Jesus moves to divorce next since he was talking about a marriage already. 

Also, I mentioned last time that Jesus focuses on moral, or ethical, laws, rather than on things that were intended to be symbolic, such as the sacrificial system and the dietary laws.  He does speak to these in other contexts.

So let’s look at our passage and talk about divorce.

The law of divorce (v. 31-32)

It is easy for people today to take potshots at the Law of Moses without respecting just how revolutionary it was for the surrounding culture and times.  Jesus is not castigating, or destroying, the Law. Rather, he is taking the religious leaders to task for not understanding the heart of God in the Law.

A case in point is how people laughingly disparage the principle, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” (Exodus 21:24, Leviticus 24:20).  “All that will do is create a world of one eyed, toothless people!”  Of course, this law cannot change the hearts of people, and God never intended it to change their hearts by itself.  The point of this principle is to forbid overkill.  If someone injures me, it is easy to want to do even more back to them.  We see this in Genesis 4 with the story of Lamech.  He justifies his killing of a man who “wounded” him by pointing to God’s grace towards Cain.  “If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold,
then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.”  Of course, he neglects to mention the curse placed upon Cain.  If you lived in those days, you would have learned to fear getting on Lamech’s bad side.  The whole earth became a place of overkill for infractions upon each one.  It was a revolutionary concept to limit punishment to the same degree of the infraction.  The point is not to be punitive, but to reconcile, to make things right.

In our case, we are looking at a law about divorce.  It allowed divorce, but required a certificate to be given to the woman who is divorced by her husband.  This comes from Deuteronomy 24.  In this passage, the cause for divorce is described as, “…and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her…”  There are actually two phrases that are tied together with a word translated as “because” that further explains the first general phrase.  “She finds no favor in his eyes” is a very broad term that could be interpreted as anything you want it to be.”  However, it is qualified by the next phrase, “because he has found some uncleanness in her…”  Uncleanness is a word that generally has a sexual connotation to it.  It would definitely include adultery, but could also incorporate sexual improprieties with another man that may not have gone as far as adultery.

The certificate of divorce may seem stupid to people today, but it served a real purpose.  The man could not divorce on a whim, but would need to make the divorce public, and issue a certificate to the woman.  The details of what was needed on the certificate, whether there was a witness, or the cause be stated, is not stipulated in the Law, but was left up to the people of Israel to determine.  This added requirement would give second thoughts to a man, and keep him from taking advantage of the Law of marriage.

It would also be a protection to the woman, if she remarried.  It would be proof that she is not worthy of death, but is truly divorced from her previous husband.  Notice that this doesn’t fix anyone’s heart, but it restricts the ugliness to which their actions could go if unrestrained.

It is worth noting that Jesus is asked about divorce by the Pharisees in Matthew 19:1-10.  They ask him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?”  This is important because there were two schools of thought on this in those days.

In the first century BC, two rabbis named Shammai and Hillel argued over what was an acceptable cause for divorce.  Shammai argued that the word for uncleanness governed the passage, and so divorce was only acceptable in the case of sexual immorality.  Hillel saw pointed to the first phrase and taught that divorce was acceptable if a wife no longer found favor in her husband’s eyes.  Over time, the school of Hillel developed the idea of no longer finding favor from a woman being a bad cook, to the husband simply not finding her appealing, and instead, finding someone else more appealing.  On top of this, by the first century AD (the days of Jesus), their were far more disciples of the school of Hillel in power.  By the way, Saul of Tarsus and his Rabbi, Gamaliel, were of the school of Hillel.

Jesus does more than just say that he agrees with Shammai.  He does something greater.  He responds in Matthew 19:4-6 by pointing to the Genesis story of Adam and Eve.  It was God whom made us male and female.  When a man and woman come together, it is also God who makes them one flesh.  Jesus then caps the teaching with a powerful command that blows past divorce to the whole purpose for marriage:  “What God has joined together, let not man separate.”  This challenges both people in the marriage with the purpose and actions of God.  Are you resisting and rebelling against God’s purpose and work?

Of course, this gets a shocked response from the Pharisees.  They ask why then did “Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?”  Jesus answers that Moses did not command, but rather “permitted” divorce because of the hardness of their hearts (he is particularly addressing guys here).  Picture it.  If a woman is in a marriage where a man wants rid of her, but he can’t because it is against the law, what could happen?  He will grow to resent her, be angry with her, and he will be tempted to be abusive towards her.  He may even wish she were dead.   Some situations can become so cruel, wicked and evil that it is best for all involved to break it off.  Yet, Moses still placed some stipulations on it.

Notice that the lack of repentance and forgiveness is at the heart of such cases.  Whether lust, anger, frustration, or all of the above, if a husband and wife do not deal with the issues of their heart, then it will affect the marital relationship.

The teachers of Israel focused more on the proper way, acceptable causes, and form of a certificate of divorce, rather than on how divorce impacts God’s purpose for marriage.

The teaching of Jesus here highlights a fact of that day.  A woman did not have the right of divorcing a man.  It was something that was done to her.  Thus, Jesus points the man to think about what he is doing to his “ex-wife” when he divorces her.  The husband is putting her in a tough situation.  First of all, a woman’s ability to make a livable wage in those days was extremely limited.  She would most likely be force to find someone who would marry her, depending on her age.  This would often not be her fault, i.e., she did nothing worthy of divorce.  Jesus warns the men listening to him.  “I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.  He is causing her, i.e., forcing her, to be guilty of adultery.  Society won’t think so because she has a certificate of divorce.  So, why does Jesus see it as adultery?  He is referring to a divorce that is not legitimate.  Who determines if a divorce is legitimate?  God does.  Jesus is clear that God was not good with all the reasons they were concocting for getting a divorce.  These men were letting the lusts and vices of their heart mistreat these women.  They didn’t want to marry other men and become adulterers in God’s eyes, but they were forced to by an ex-husband’s hard heart.

Jesus doesn’t comment on the man who divorces here.  But, in Matthew 19, he states that the man who divorces and then remarries is also an adulterer, unless there was marital unfaithfulness by his wife.

This reminds me of Malachi chapter 2.  There, God takes Israel to task for covering his altar with tears and weeping.  He is particularly speaking about divorced wives who were hurt by the divorce and the tough situation that they were placed in by hard-hearted husbands.  In that passage, God makes it clear that He hates divorce.  It should only be a last resort when a partner refuses to stay faithful to the marriage bond.  Even then, God never commands divorce.  If a partner is unfaithful, we owe it to the LORD to attempt to heal the marriage.  Repentance and forgiveness are a hard road to walk out, but it can be done.  That said, once a person has been unfaithful, the percentages are very slim of those who truly repent and turn away from infidelity.

This is a very hurtful and damaging area.  There is no wound worse than finding out a spouse has been unfaithful.  Jesus recognizes this exception to what he is saying.  If a partner has been unfaithful, then they have broken the marital covenant.  The faithful spouse has to wrestle with the reality of whether or not the marriage can be saved.  Many times it cannot.  Notice that, in the case of a divorce, the unfaithful spouse is already an adulterer.  If they remarry, it is irrelevant if the marriage is considered adultery.  However, what about the faithful spouse?  Are they free to remarry?

It is good to remember at this point that though we are no longer under the law of Moses, we are still to seek to please the Lord Jesus.  Paul mentions two more exceptions in 1 Corinthians 7:15, 39.  The first is when you have an unbelieving spouse (not a Christian) who wants out of the marriage.  They want a divorce.  Paul says that God does not hold you accountable to the heart of the unbeliever.  Presumably a person would be free to remarry in that case.  However, if you read the chapter, you would recognize that Paul’s advice would be to remain single if you can.  The last exception was the reality that when a spouse dies, the living spouse is no longer bound to them in marriage.  The widow, or widower, is free to remarry.

So, in the case of divorce, we must always ask ourselves if God sees it as legitimate.  God knows if you tried to save the marriage and the other person would not cooperate.  It is probably best not to be too quick to remarry when you are divorced by a hard-hearted spouse.  You can pray for them to repent and change their mind so that the marriage can be resumed and lived out as God intended.  However, if they remarry, it is then time to move on, and let the Spirit of God lead you in what is next, whether singleness or remarriage.

God’s heart is that we stay faithful to Him, and when we do that, we will bend over backwards to be faithful to our spouse.  If a spouse continues to take advantage of that in unfaithfulness, divorce will become inevitable.  This is where we recognize that marriage is supposed to be a picture of Christ’s marriage to the Church.

We should work hard to reflect this reality to the world through our marriage.  The Kingdom of Messiah calls us to repentance and imaging God. The question is never, have I done anything sinful.  The question is what will I do about it now that Messiah is calling me to follow Him into the Kingdom of God, where we are letting God help us to love one another, instead of sinning against one another.

Read 1 Corinthians 6:9-11.  Notice this, “And such were some of you.  But you were washed…”  Kingdom believers are not looking for an excuse to continue in sin.  However, we are sinners who have been washed by Christ and His Spirit from our sins.  He is setting us free!  We are not looking for an excuse to get a divorce.  We are seeking to follow Jesus, and to image him to the world.

What am I displaying, imaging to the world?  I can’t go back and change what I did, or what another person did.  But, I can be washed and move forward clean before the LORD.

Some people married never intending to be faithful.  However, I believe that the larger number are those who married hoping and expecting it to be something wonderful.  They then find it to be hard work, and sometimes not as fun as we imagined.  We can be tempted to “want someone better.”  Perhaps, we just picked the wrong person.  Surely, the next person I pick will be the right one!

Yet, the truth is that we are kicking against the goading of God.  Marriage is God’s way of getting a hold of our heart, and teaching us to deal with some bad things in our flesh.  We can resist the work of the Spirit through our relationship with our spouse.  We can use the failures of our spouse (they are only human) as excuses to blame the failure on them.  Marriage challenges us to grow up emotionally, and spiritually.  However, not everyone wants to grow up.  Many reject God’s purpose for marriage, and continue down a path of an egoistic, even egotistic, focus.  Growing up is not easy, but it is not only good for us, but good for everyone around us.

It is sad that we can treat the holiest of things in life, like marriage, as merely another way to have a good time.  When we don’t take marriage seriously, we try to have fun with it.  Eventually, it will no longer be fun.  Thus, we have a high percentage of adults who have not grown up emotionally, and especially spiritually.  Let me just say this.  A perfect marriage is one that challenges me to grow up in Christ.  May we surrender to him.

I will finish by highlighting that God does hate divorce, but He doesn’t hate you if you have had someone divorce you, or be unfaithful to you.  Jesus, of all people, knows what it is to have a covenant partner reject you.  He was even put to death by his.  When you look back at a divorced marriage, you will see all the ways that you were not perfect.  You may feel guilt and even wonder if God can love you.  You might wonder how you can move forward.  I will just say this.  Jesus loves you, and knows how you feel.  Give yourself to him and he will pour his healing into your heart.  It will take time, but the Rejected Lord knows how to minister to a Rejected heart.

May God help us to take marriage seriously and shine the example of God’s heart for “Whosoever will” (John 3:16).

Divorce audio

Marriage & Divorce

Mark 10:1-12.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, February 09, 2020.

In our country, divorce and remarriage have become increasingly easier and acceptable.  Of course, I am not implying that divorce is emotionally and psychologically easy upon those who do it.  For every situation where this is a good thing (like in the case of physical abuse), there are countless others that are simply because the couple no longer love each other. 

In first century, AD Israel, there were some similar dynamics that had led to some rabbis having a very strict teaching regarding divorce and other rabbis having a very loose teaching on it.

I would encourage you today to receive this message as an attempt to clarify rather than to condemn people.  It is important for us to understand the issues clearly so that we are not adding to the overall confusion that exists in our country.  Confusion such that people who are married and not divorced yet are already committing adultery with another person.  Confusion such that people treat a casual sexual affair as if it is just a regular maintenance of a marriage that has lost any sense of true love. 

God wants us to have clarity about His purpose for marriage so that we will work towards it.  Yet, there are times when marriages fail because of the hardness of our hearts.  Regardless of your experience in this area, let’s talk about God’s desire for our marriages and how we can turn our hearts in the right direction.

Is it lawful to divorce your spouse?

A parallel account of this passage can be found in Matthew 19:1-10.  It shows us that there are some subtle details left out of Mark’s version.  In Matthew, we see that the question above is even more specific.  “Is it lawful to divorce your spouse for just any reason?”

There is some necessary background to this question.  At the time in Israel, there were two theological schools of thought on the issue of divorce.  Rabbi Shammai had a strict interpretation and taught that it was only permissible in the case of sexual immorality, i.e. infidelity.  Rabbi Hillel had a looser interpretation and taught that it was permissible for almost any reason.  In fact, it was common in this second group to say that if a man had a “bad wife,” it was his duty to divorce her.  We will come back to these conflicting interpretations of the Law of Moses, but for now let’s just recognize that the debate existed and affected many lives.

On top of this general debate, we also have a very public situation between the wife of Herod Philip and his brother Herod Antipas, which John the Baptist had openly condemned as unlawful.  Lust was at the heart of this divorce and remarriage.

We have a similar situation today where some Bible teachers teach that divorce is always wrong in every case (i.e. Christians are to be more righteous than the Pharisees) and others who are very lax to the point that divorce is no big deal before God (i.e. it is forgiven under the blood of Christ so you can do it if you want).  As we work through this passage, we will try to pull out some timeless truths so that we can better know how to please God in our day and age.

Now that we understand the question, let’s look at the response of Jesus.  Jesus may appear to be avoiding the question, but such is not the case.  Rather, he is making them work through the issue.  Just what does Moses command?  The key word in this question is “command.”  When it comes to divorce, what are the commands of the Law of Moses?  The Pharisees respond by changing the verb from “command” to “permit.”  This underlines something important.  When a divorce occurs, some tend to see it as an unfortunate, but necessary solution to their problem.  However, we should never kid ourselves how God sees it.  Divorce is always the failure of accomplishing the will and purpose of God for marriage.  It is not the solving of a problem, but rather the walking away from a problem that God desires you to work through.  Yes, it is more nuanced than that, but this is a bedrock truth from Scripture.  God hates divorce, period!  The Law of Moses never commanded anyone to divorce another even in cases of sexual immorality.  It only permitted it.

Second of all, Jesus points out why it was permitted.  It was permitted “because your hearts were hard.”  Now, there are different reasons why something may be permitted.  The permitted thing can be a good thing that simply needs to be regulated, for example, you may give a child permission to have another cookie.  However, the permitted thing can be a bad thing that becomes a lesser of two evils, which is clearly the case here.  Divorce is not a good thing.  It is something to be avoided at drastic cost to both parties in the marriage.

In cases today where both parties amiably agree and get along afterward (i.e. the “best-case scenario”), they have still hardened their hearts towards working out their differences with one another.  The hard heart may be on the part of one spouse, or both, but it is the salient point.

God has a purpose in marriage that we are going to talk about in a second.  Yet, people’s hearts can become hard towards one another and towards God’s purpose for their marriage.  It is not God’s intention to have people trapped in a marriage that is failing to accomplish his purposes.  However, many people feel trapped in a marriage because their hearts are in the wrong place.  They are living for themselves and their own fleshly desires instead of living for God.  They are looking to the hills for something better instead of weeding the garden of their own marriage.  Thus, divorce occurs when one spouse or both become hard-hearted towards the other and towards God.

Believers in Jesus should not be as concerned about lawfulness as we should be concerned about the plan and purpose of God.  In verses 6-9, Jesus takes the Pharisees back to the beginning of the book of Genesis and he reminds them of God’s purpose in the Garden.

God had made them “male and female.”  Marriage was designed by God for one man and one woman as was seen in the original couple, Adam and Eve.  Secondly, it is to be a union of a new family before God (Genesis 2:24).  This union involves the leaving of their parents and a joining to each other.  The word “joining” has the idea of being glued together.  The phrase “one flesh” becomes more than a physical description of sex, but rather something far greater with emotional, relational, and social implications.  They become a unity that is difficult to separate without tearing parts of the other away.  They are to be a new unity within society, a oneness.

Once a marriage begins, there is no question what God’s will is.  He wants us to work in order to be a unified couple.  Marriage is the holy ground upon which we are challenged in what it means to love another person.  It becomes that wrestling place in which we either mature and become something greater, or we remain immature and become something lesser.

Jesus then ends with what sounds like a categorical prohibition of divorce.  “What God has joined let not man separate.”  The Greeks had two words for “not.”  One of them is a categorical negation.  However, the one used here is the negation of the idea.  Thus, the meaning is something like this.  God has joined you together and wants you to be unified.  Therefore, you should not be working towards something that goes against it.  At this point, you can hear the protestations.  “But, he will never change!” Or, “She doesn’t love me like she used to do!”  Yes, those are no doubt the realities on the ground, but God is asking you to learn to love them, to learn who they are, and to learn how to become one with them.  So, are the things that I am doing in my marriage contributing to emotional separation, or are they helping to draw us closer?  Of course, this is not about a “perfect marriage” in which neither spouse ever does anything that stirs up emotional separation.  This is about learning to love, which involves repentance and forgiveness among each other.  If you have never repented of mistakes you made, and you have never forgiven your spouse for their faults, then you aren’t being real with each other.  As long as the endorphins of sexual desire are still pumping, we ignore all manner of sins, but sooner or later, we will come down to earth and realize that it takes work, repentance, and forgiveness, in order to have a “perfect marriage.”  Yes, the perfect marriage is one that trusts God’s purposes by living out repentance and forgiveness every day.

Jesus gives further clarification on divorce

In verses 10-12, we are told that the next discussion takes place later between Jesus and his disciples.  They are asking for further clarification on this matter.  Here, Jesus basically tells his disciples that those who divorce and remarry are committing adultery.    Matthew 19:9 adds the phrase, “except for sexual immorality.”  I do not believe that Jesus is trying to say that Moses made a mistake and that he is now correcting it.  He is not saying that previously God let Israel sin, but now it is time to throw off this antiquated law.  Rather, Jesus is teaching them the true interpretation of what the Law intended all along.  Deuteronomy 24:1 lays out how divorce should be done, and it has the phrase “because he has found some uncleanness in her.”  The rabbis’ debate centered upon what constituted uncleanness.  Jesus is stating that it meant sexual immorality, not burning dinner, or getting wrinkles.  He is giving them a warning that ties back into the original question.  If you divorce your spouse, for just any reason (i.e. other than sexual immorality), then you are committing adultery when you remarry. 

The key here is this question.  Does God recognize legitimate grounds for divorce?  It is clear that an unfaithful partner is legitimate grounds in God’s eyes.  If you divorce an unfaithful spouse and remarry then it would not be adultery.  Yet, neither does he command you to divorce.

The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:15 talks about the situation when an unbelieving spouse wants a divorce.  In a sense, they are wanting to abandon the marriage.  Paul states, “but if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases.  But God has called us to peace.”  The phrase “not under bondage” seems to imply to a moral obligation not to divorce.  He is easing the conscience of those who do not want to divorce, but their spouse is abandoning the marriage.  It seems clear from the passage that Paul would counsel them to remain single.  However, if they are no longer “under bondage” does that also mean they are free to marry?  Some teachers believe so.  They would say that the spouse who abandons the marriage would be committing adultery to remarry, but the spouse who was abandoned is free to remarry.

The Bible does not give any directive on the issue of physical abuse.  However, even more so, we could bring up the issue of God not wanting to chain people in bondage, but rather for them to have peace.  God does not demand a woman to remain in a marriage where she is being physically abused.  God recognizes that there are times when the hardness of a spouse may put you in a situation where there is nothing left to do but to admit that the marriage has failed, or even died.  This does not remove the greater purpose.  As much as is possible with me, I should be working with God to heal the marriage and grow, not working to tear it apart.  If a marriage fails then let it be over the top of my sacrificial attempts to make it work because God intends marriage to be for life.

What do I do if I have failed in this area?  What if my current marriage fits the description of Jesus and is technically adultery?  Like Adam and Eve, we cannot go back into Paradise and Innocence.  We must repent before God, draw a line in the sand, and determine to work with God to help the marriage that we have today to become what He wants it to be.  We have to carry the burden of past decisions, and the effects that they have had on us, and move forward towards the healing that only God can bring.  Only He can take that which is not holy and make it holy.  May God help us to soften our hearts towards him and our spouse, and learn to love like He loves, sacrificially and to the end.

Marriage & Divorce Audio