OT Distortions: Adultery and Divorce

********** Start Timer **********

-The last time we were in this series...

…we began a subsection, wherein we hope...

…to chronicle the distortions of God’s original design...

…as we see them occuring in the Era of the OT.

-We began that subsection, by considering...

…the then prevalent practice of polygamy.

And, we saw there, that...

…it was almost always (if not ALWAYS)...

…portrayed in a negative light...

…and that, even though there were...

…OT judicial laws given to regulate the practice...

…we shouldn’t take those laws...

…to be God’s endorsement of the practice in general.

-We’ll see some similarities...

…in the related distortions...

…that we’ll be looking at today.

Adultery

Divorce

-And, let me say up front, that...

…this won’t be an exhaustive treatment of these subjects.

This is meant to focus particularly...

…on their place in the OT.

-And, please don’t think to yourself:

“With all of the corruption and perversion going on in our society today...

…are we really going to spend our time on this???”

The cold, hard truth of the matter is...

The current crisis of...

Homosexuality

Transgender-ism

Every other letter of the alphabet soup...

...Began many decades ago...

...When the Western church began to capitulate to the culture...

…on these two distortions:

Adultery

Divorce.

(as well as fornication)

Our current crisis… began way back then!

(if not with the advent of feminism itself)

-If we’re going to reclaim the ground that’s been lost...

...We’re going to have to go back and correct even that!

-All of that being said...

I recognize that many of us older folks...

(if not MOST of us)

…have either experienced...

...and/or committed these distortions ourselves.

And if you define it the way Jesus does...

(and we must)

...I am no exception...

...And if you’re of a certain stage of life...

…neither are you.

Also, My parents have been divorced...

…for as long as I can remember.

I tell you that, to say...

…that I recognize what an emotionally sensitive subject...

…that it is for many of us.

In fact, of ALL the distortions that we’ll find...

…occuring in the OT...

...These are the ones...

…that are going to hit closest to home.

And I’m sensitive to that.

And, God forbid that I (or anyone else) would...

…approach this subject with...

Arrogance

Hubris

If you have that tendency...

…think about Paul’s warning to the Church at Corinth.

He had just done what we’re about to do.

He had just pointed out OT Israel’s iniquity...

…as a negative example of what NOT to do!

Then, he told them this...

And, we had better take this to heart...

…as we approach the subject:

1 Corinthians 10:11–12 (ESV)

11 Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.

12 Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.

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-Brethren, we would not be faithful to Christ...

…if we were to continue to look the other way on this subject.

We must learn and affirm (without compromise)...

…what God’s Word says about it.

But, we MUST do so, with...

Humility

Dependence

The Fear of the Lord!

-Are we going to need “grace upon grace” . . .

…in order to be able to do that?

Let’s ask for it...

…before we begin:

Pray

-Some of you may be wondering...

…why I lumped these two Distortions together.

It’s NOT because there isn’t...

…any distinction between them, whatsoever.

There is.

It’s not even because...

…the outline I’m (loosely) following...

…does that.

Although, it does.

Primarily, it’s because...

…their fundamental manner of distortion...

…is the same.

They’re essentially a violation...

…of the same moral Law:

Exodus 20:14 ESV

14 “You shall not commit adultery.

i.e., “You shall not break a covenant union”

-Now, I’ve told you many times before...

That God’s Moral Law...

…transcends the Mosaic Covenant.

That, it is an outworking...

…of his moral perfections...

…and as such, it has been binding on men…

…from the very dawn of their existence.

-We see that in regard to the 7th Commandment...

…back in our foundational marriage text, in...

Genesis 2:18–25 (ESV)

18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.

22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.

23 Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”

24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

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The two… became one flesh...

Signified by their then unashamed physical intimacy.

This physical intimacy...

…was indicative of the nature of their union.

How many participants in this union?

“one flesh”

How enduring was it supposed to be?

“hold fast”

-But… like everything else...

This too, eventually became corrupted by the Fall.

(Which was, itself, a form of Spiritual Adultery)

Explain

-We saw last time in Genesis 4:19, how...

Genesis 4:19 (ESV)

19...Lamech took two wives...

This was essentially him committing adultery...

…against his first wife.

Why?

How?

-But, for the Grace of God...

…Sarai would have TWICE become an adulteress.

And in those narratives...

…we see something of God’s heart in the matter:

Genesis 20:1–3 (ESV)

1 From there Abraham journeyed toward the territory of the Negeb and lived between Kadesh and Shur; and he sojourned in Gerar.

2 And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah.

3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, “Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.”

Another Abimelech (potentially the same man)...

…had the same experience with Isaac’s wife, Rebekah:

Genesis 26:7–9 (ESV)

7 When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” for he feared to say, “My wife,” thinking, “lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah,” because she was attractive in appearance.

8 When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebekah his wife.

9 So Abimelech called Isaac and said, “Behold, she is your wife. How then could you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac said to him, “Because I thought, ‘Lest I die because of her.’ ”

Look at his response:

Genesis 26:10–11 (ESV)

10 Abimelech said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.”

11 So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, “Whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.”

If this is the same man...

He’s learned his lesson!

He’s learned how sacred...

…the marriage union is to God!

Consider, also, Joseph’s encounter...

…with the wife of Potiphar:

Genesis 39:6–9 (ESV)

6 . . . Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance.

7 And after a time his master’s wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, “Lie with me.”

9 ...How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?”

How did he know that?

Had he been given the Ten Commandments?

-Consider Gen35:22

Genesis 35:22 (ESV)

22 While Israel lived in that land, Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine. And Israel heard of it...

Why include that?

Because it was evil!

Here’s how we know:

Genesis 49:3–4 (ESV)

3 “Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the firstfruits of my strength...

4 ...you shall not have preeminence, because you went up to your father’s bed; then you defiled it—he went up to my couch!

Brethren, they knew this was wrong!

And these examples show us...

…that the godly line...

…ALWAYS has had the Moral Law.

-Now, we also saw that moral foundation...

…being worked out in Israel’s...

…Civil and Ceremonial Laws.

For example:

Leviticus 18:18 (ESV)

18 And you shall not take a woman as a rival wife to her sister, uncovering her nakedness while her sister is still alive.

See the allusion back to Gen2.25?

Genesis 2:25 (ESV)

25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

This is sacred… and solitary.

Leviticus 18:20 (ESV)

20 And you shall not lie sexually with your neighbor’s wife and so make yourself unclean with her.

That’s stronger than you think.

He says in a few verses:

Leviticus 18:24–25 (ESV)

24 “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean,

25 and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.

Leviticus 20:10 states it plainly:

Leviticus 20:10 (ESV)

10 “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

And Deuteronomy 22:22 adds a corporate emphasis to it:

Deuteronomy 22:22 (ESV)

22 “If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.

The popular adage of today...

…that “what happens in my bedroom...

…doesn’t affect anybody else” . . .

…is NOT biblical!

When corruption of the sacred intimacy...

…is happening on a large scale...

(even in private)

…the whole of that society...

...is going suffer because of it.

(Look at where our nation is...

…as a result of its own sexual revolution)

-Now, consider one more thing...

…before we move on to divorce:

We mustn’t forget that adultery...

…isn’t merely a matter of physical transgression

Remember what Jesus said?

Matthew 5:27–30 (ESV)

27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’

28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.

30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

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-Now, as I stated before, Divorce, is...

…a closely related problem.

And while, it can be argued...

…that not every party to a divorce has (themselves) sinned...

The action itself...

…IS a distortion of God’s design.

And, for it to occur...

…at least ONE member of the union...

…had to have transgressed.

There is no such thing as...

…an ENTIRELY sinless divorce.

-And, here too...

…the Old Testament has much to say.

Kostenberger says this about Gen 2:24:

The intricacies of what “holding fast” and “becoming one flesh” mean, there is no question that God designed marriage to be permanent. — Kostenberger

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(Jesus applied it that way in Mark 10, etc.)

But, aside from our foundational text...

…notice what light divorce is framed in...

…in the rest of the Old Testament:

Notice this, in the regulations...

…for priestly holiness:

Leviticus 21:6–7 (ESV)

6 They shall be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God...

7 They shall not marry a prostitute or a woman who has been defiled, neither shall they marry a woman divorced from her husband, for the priest is holy to his God.

Leviticus 21:8 (ESV)

8 You shall sanctify him, for he offers the bread of your God. He shall be holy to you, for I, the Lord, who sanctify you, am holy.

Similarly:

Leviticus 21:13–15 (ESV)

13 And he shall take a wife in her virginity.

14 A widow, or a divorced woman, or a woman who has been defiled, or a prostitute, these he shall not marry. But he shall take as his wife a virgin of his own people,

15 that he may not profane his offspring among his people, for I am the Lord who sanctifies him.”

Do you see how sexual intimacy...

…symbolizes the joining together of “one flesh?”

-Now, do you remember when...

Mark 10:2–4 (ESV)

2 And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

3 He answered them, “What did Moses command you?”

4 They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.”

Let’s look at a couple of these:

The primary is:

Deuteronomy 24:1–4 (ESV)

1 “When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house,

2 and if she goes and becomes another man’s wife,

3 and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies, who took her to be his wife,

4 then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.

Is this a promotion of divorce?

It’s a mere allowance...

…for when the covenant union...

…has already been broken for adultery, etc.

In fact, it was probably meant...

…to regulate and minimize it!

Let me show you another example:

Deuteronomy 22:13–21 (ESV)

13 “If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then hates her

14 and accuses her of misconduct and brings a bad name upon her, saying, ‘I took this woman, and when I came near her, I did not find in her evidence of virginity,’

15 then the father of the young woman and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of her virginity to the elders of the city in the gate.

16 And the father of the young woman shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man to marry, and he hates her;

17 and behold, he has accused her of misconduct, saying, “I did not find in your daughter evidence of virginity.” And yet this is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.’ And they shall spread the cloak before the elders of the city.

18 Then the elders of that city shall take the man and whip him,

19 and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the father of the young woman, because he has brought a bad name upon a virgin of Israel. And she shall be his wife. He may not divorce her all his days.

20 But if the thing is true, that evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman,

21 then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done an outrageous thing in Israel by whoring in her father’s house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

2 Questions?

Does God take the union of “one flesh” seriously?

Is this law promoting, or restricting divorce?

In Malachi 2:13-16, he says this:

Malachi 2:13–16 (ESV)

13 And this second thing you do. You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand.

14 But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.

15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.

16 “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”

-Notice, also, how we see...

…the heart of God concerning divorce...

…in his many metaphoric indictments against Old Covenant Israel:

Jeremiah 3:1 (ESV)

1 “If a man divorces his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man’s wife, will he return to her? Would not that land be greatly polluted? You have played the whore with many lovers; and would you return to me? declares the Lord.

Jeremiah 3:6–14 (ESV)

6 The Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah: “Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore?

7 And I thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me,’ but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it.

8 She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore.

9 Because she took her whoredom lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree.

Positive or negative light?

The only POSSIBLE affirmation...

(that I’m aware of)

…would be here:

Ezra 9:1–3 (ESV)

1 After these things had been done, the officials approached me and said, “The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands with their abominations...

2 For they have taken some of their daughters to be wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands. And in this faithlessness the hand of the officials and chief men has been foremost.”

3 As soon as I heard this, I tore my garment and my cloak and pulled hair from my head and beard and sat appalled.

And later we read:

Ezra 10:3 (ESV)

3 Therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all these wives and their children, according to the counsel of my lord and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God, and let it be done according to the Law.

2 Things:

The point here was religious purity

NOTHING ELSE!

2. This wasn’t a universal precept:

Paul addressed this issue for Believers:

1 Corinthians 7:10–16 (ESV)

10 To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband

11 (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife.

12 To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her.

13 If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him.

14 For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.

15 But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace.

16 For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

-Let’s finish by considering...

...Jesus’ response to the Pharisees...

…back in Mark 10.

He takes us back to the foundation:

Mark 10:5–9 (ESV)

5 And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.

6 But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’

7 ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife,

8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh.

9 What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

This is God’s ultimate desire...

…for those who bear his image.

Do we need his grace...

…if we’re going to be faithful?

Let’s ask him for it.