Jesus' Teaching on Divorce, Part 5
Paul's Commentary, I Corinthians 7:1‑7
Matthew 19:1‑12
Let's open our Bibles this morning to Matthew chapter 19 again as we are looking at Jesus' teaching on the subject of divorce. And I had thought about, perhaps, taking a...a respite this Sunday but it was pressed in my heart to keep on because what started out as a sermon has turned into a six‑part series and I really do want to get it finished. And so, we're going to continue in our thoughts regarding our Lord's teaching in this matter.
You know, I'm reminded so many times of the marvel of the Holy Scripture. We had a seminar this week on expository preaching and we had about 20 pastors who came and we had a marvelous time working with them and just kind of working on the whole area of preaching. And one young man sat down with me at the table and he said, "John," he said, "I have such a love for the Word of God." And he said, "I ... I've only been a Christian six years," but he said, "I'm in the ministry and I can't get enough of the Word of God." And he took out of his Bible three cards on which he had set up a reading schedule for himself so that he was reading repetitiously the Word of God. Each book over 30 times during the year, and then he was reading flowing through the New Testament one full time each year, and then he had it set up where he was reading through the Old Testament as well each year. And he said, "I just want you to know that since I began to do this, it actually has changed my entire life."
And we talked about the fact that the Word of God touches on every dimension of living. It gives us God's clear teaching wherever we need God's clear teaching. And where the Bible leaves things unsaid, it provides a foundation which the Spirit of God can use to apply a direct kind of leading in an individual's life. And so...so I was reminded again, just to affirm in my own heart, the tremendous treasure of the Word of God... of knowing that we have a chart and a compass and an answer book, a place to go to find out what we need to know. And one of the subjects with which the Bible deals is the subject of divorce. It is a very important subject today. And we have been looking at Matthew 19, verses 1 to 12, and hearing the teaching of our Lord Himself on this subject. And I want us to return to that for just at least an introduction and then to another passage which we'll look at in a moment.
Now, as you come to chapter 19, you're reminded in the two first verses that the Lord is finishing His ministry in Galilee. He has closed the great teaching of chapter 18 on the child‑likeness of the believer, He has finished the Galilean ministry and now He begins to move south, it's only a few months until He will be crucified. And as He moves to the south, He crosses the Jordan River to the east, goes into an area known as the "Beyond," or the word peran from which we get Perea, and we find His Perean ministry. We've seen His Galilean ministry, now His Perean ministry...He teaches, He heals people, the crowds follow Him, very much like in Galilee.
And among the crowd, it seems inevitably, are His enemies‑‑the Pharisees. And so, as we pick it up in verse 3, we find an encounter between the Lord and the Pharisees. And the subject is divorce. And it is out of that encounter that our Lord's teaching proceeds.
"The Pharisees came to Him, testing Him and saying to Him, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for every cause?"
Now, that is what I call the attack. They don't want an answer, they want to discredit Jesus. They want Him to articulate His hard-line, God‑never‑intended‑divorce view and so alienate Himself from the people. They also know that He's in the territory of Herod Antipas who already beheaded John the Baptist for his views of divorce and they think maybe they can even have Jesus eliminated. So, they're after Him. So in verse 3 is the attack.
In verses 4 to 6 is the answer. And He doesn't give a personal answer ... wisely... so that any anger would have to be diverted from Him to God. He answers with Genesis 1:27 and 2:24, that God created a man and a woman and no spares in the original creation, therefore He was obviously making a statement about the fact that two people are to be married and that's the limit. And then He talked about cleaving, that they should be glued to each other. God ordained that they would become one flesh, that's the indivisible number. And what God has put together, let no man divorce. And so, He puts the burden of proof on God and says if you're going to argue with this, your argument is not with Me, it's with God. God said no divorce ... that was not the divine ideal.
Now out of the answer comes the argument, verse 7. They respond by saying: "Then why did Moses command a bill of divorce to divorce your wife?" What is the bill of divorce, then, if that was not God's intention? And then you have the affirmation in verses 8 and 9 where Jesus simply reaffirms the Old Testament standard, that Moses permitted a bill of divorcement under one condition, and that one condition is adultery which comes under the term fornication in verse 9. And there He says if you put away or divorce your wife for anything other than fornication or adultery, you cause her to become an adulteress and so forth and so on. So, the only Old Testament permission was given in cases of adultery. Hosea gives us the example of restoration in an adulterous union where there is a willingness on the part of the adulteress, but where there is an unwilling evil partner, divorce is a concession or a permission of grace to that innocent party who cannot bring about a reconciliation.
So, what the Lord affirms then, in answer to their question, their question again, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for every cause? Jesus' answer is .... what? .... No. It is no. Now look at the appropriation in verses 10 to 12. The disciples' response as they appropriated the teaching to themselves was it's better to be single if you can't get out of it. And Jesus' response to that in verse 11 is ‑ Yes, but not everybody can handle being single. Not everybody can receive this saying. What saying? "If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry." Not everybody can handle being single.
In verse 12 He says who can: those who are congenitally born with an inability to have a relationship with the opposite sex, those who have been made that way by castration or some other thing done by men, or those who have chosen singleness because they are going to devote themselves in a special way for the Kingdom of heaven's sake.
And so, He says ‑ Look, you can't just take the idea of a commitment in marriage being a lifelong commitment and say if it's that hard to get out of, I'm not getting in... not everybody can handle that. That's not the right response. The right response is to make the commitment. Unless you have a congenital reason, or unless you've been injured in some way, or unless you decide because you are calling yourself apart to the kingdom of God and you feel gifted by God for that to stay single. But certainly, you're not to avoid marriage just because it's a binding relationship you'll want to get out of. That's an illegitimate reason.
So, the Lord exalts marriage and He says divorce for only one reason, but that's no reason not to get married because not everybody can handle being single, it's a worse problem for most people than being married is because of the temptation. And so, the Lord has given us very clear teaching. Marriage is an honorable thing. It's for life. Stay married. Divorce only in one kind of situation, He says. And when the disciples say they will stay single, He says ‑ No, don't stay out of it because it takes a lifelong commitment; get in it for that reason unless you have very clear reason not to. And unless it's a physical deformity, it should be because you're staying single for the glory and the advance of the kingdom. Very clear teaching.
Now, keep this in mind. You say ‑ Well, this doesn't deal with a lot of problems, this doesn't deal with what happens when you come to the Lord and your background's all fouled up and what happens if you're living with somebody and what happens if you've been married five times and now whose your wife and all of this, this doesn't deal with any of that. You're right ... you're right, it doesn't. You see, Jesus is just establishing the divine ideal and that doesn't need to deal with exceptions. You understand? That doesn't need to deal with other extraneous issues. Jesus is affirming His Messiahship and He affirms His Messiahship by lining up with the clear word of the living God ... which is to say to the people ‑ I speak for God. And so, He doesn't deal in a lot of other things, He stays true to the revelation of God. He says in Matthew 5: "I have come to fulfill the law, not to alter the law, not to eliminate the law, not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it." And so He affirms the divine ideal and does not deal with all kinds of exceptions.
Now keep also in mind that He's talking to A Jewish group of people who have been living all their life long under the economy of Moses. That is, they have been circumscribed, to one degree or another, to their interpretation of Mosaic Law. And so they are in a Mosaic environment and He is simply stating for them the intended ideal of God given to His special people Israel.
You say, "Well, what do you do with all the exceptions?" And that's what I know has been on your mind over the last four or five weeks. You've been saying, "But...but...but...but...but ... but ... you can't just keep saying that ideal thing again, I'm not there, I've already gone beyond that, or I've already had divorces in my background, or I've... I've been living with somebody and when I became a Christian I had had several wives, or several husbands, and what ha .... whose am I know and what do I do and can I marry and should I and what's going on here?" Jesus doesn't get into that. But fortunately, Paul does. And if you'll open your Bible to I Corinthians chapter 7, we'll look together at Paul. Jesus gave the divine ideal and Paul had the handle the mess ... that was going on in the world... and try to make application of that divine ideal to the chaos of life.