The Sermon on the Mount (13)
Notes
Transcript
Today we are looking at two verses, these two verses deal with divorce and once again Jesus clarifies what was given in the Old Testament. This is one of those subjects that many choose to avoid for fear of ruffling peoples feathers. This is also one of those subjects we must be careful to stay true to the text, and we must also exhibit Jesus love as we go through this. Lets look at some statistics before we dive into the Word
Statistics
Statistics
2024 U.S. divorce rate was 40% to 50% in first marriages and 60 to 70% in second marriages. Now according to the CDC the divorce rate has been on the decline since 2021. Studies also show that those who cohabitate before marriage are 39% more likely to divorce. It is believed one of the reasons divorce is on the decline is so are marriages. People are choosing to live together and never marry. In 1996 55.9% of couples got married and in 2023 it was done to 46.4%. Cohabitating couples have increased from 3.7% in 1996 to 9.1% in 2023. I want us to have an idea on the commonality of divorce in our day before we look at what Jesus teaches us. Now to the Word.
31 “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
31 “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’
Jesus starts off a little different in this section “it was also said” He is still referring back to the Old Testament here to Deuteronomy 24:1 specifically.
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,
Now the problem was what is meant by “indecency”. The Rabbi's had taken a very loose interpretation of this. They had gone as far as to say that if a women spoiled your dinner it was grounds for divorce, or if she displeased you in any way you could divorce her, and if they found someone prettier they could divorce. They had taken God’s law and twisted it to suit themselves. The certificate of divorce was not for the man but to actually protect the women. It was not to allow them to divorce for what ever they wanted. It was to keep them within boundaries, God never intended divorce to be a part of our relationships. Marriage is the deepest human relationship. God’s ideal was, and is, monogamous, intimate, enduring marriage. This was His plan from the beginning. Lets look at another instance when Jesus spoke on divorce to see God’s original plan.
4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
This is an interaction with Jesus and the Pharisees, they were trying to test Him. The question posed was is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any reason, and what we see here is His answer.
7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” 8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”
Here we see Jesus say the same thing as He did in the Sermon on the Mount.
32 But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
“But I say” Jesus narrows the allowable reasons for divorce. Now this is not a command, Jesus is not saying that an adulterous spouse be divorced. God’s will is always reconciliation, except in the face of ongoing unrepentant, adulterous destruction of the marriage covenant. Jesus super cedes Deut. 24 and says the only grounds for divorce are marital unfaithfulness. Jesus’ purpose was not to explain every detail about marriage and divorce but to help the people think differently about His Law— to help them begin to see the heart intention behind the letter of the Law. Jesus is responding to a specific debate in first-century Judaism. He nullifys the practice of divorce for trivial reasons. Paul gives us another reason in 1 Cor. 7:10-15.
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.
Here Paul reiterates Jesus teaching on divorce.
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.
Now Paul uses his apostolic authority to teach on something Jesus had not. He addresses the marriage of a believer to an unbeliever. He is speaking of desertion one of the unbelieving abandons their spouse. I want to make one thing very clear when someone divorces on grounds other than what is given in God’s word, and then remarries they are not in a continuous adulterous relationship. If the second marriage is a true marriage they are not living in adultery, yes Jesus teaches it started with adultery, and it is the couples responsibility to seek God’s forgiveness for their sins and a blessing for their new marriage. We must not use God’s grace as an excuse to sin it up. But we must not discount God’s grace when we come to Him with a broken and contrite heart asking for His forgiveness. Divorce was not the ideal, it is a divine concession to human weakness. God hates divorce, He also hates sin, which He forgives, if we confess our sins.
