The True Law of Marriage

Call to Worship: Romans 11:33-36 // Prayer

Adoration: Our God: Oh the depths of the riches of your wisdom and knowledge! With Paul we say: your judgments are unsearchable and your ways are far above us. No one has ever known your mind or given you counsel; no one has ever given anything to you that you did not already own. For from you and through you and to you are all things. May you be glorified in us forever!

Confession: And though you know all things, yet we know that you still delight to hear the confessions of your children. And you know, Father, our vast need for your mercy. We confess that we’ve each been prideful, considering ourselves as the centers of our own little worlds. And to pride, we’ve added idolatry, loving the things that you’ve made and the gifts that you’ve given more than we love you yourself, our God. And from these things in our hearts have come sins of thought, of word, and of action. Father, forgive us, for we have sinned against you.

Thanksgiving: But you, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which you have loved us, even when we were dead in our sins, you made us alive together with Christ; by grace we have been saved!

Supp: And as those you have saved—as your beloved children—we come before you to ask big things from you: we ask that you would change us to be more like Christ in our home lives; we ask for homes not only ordered biblically, but filled with love and with the truth of your gospel; we ask for wives ready to follow their husbands with faith in you; we ask for husbands ready to lay down their lives for their wives in imitation of Christ; we ask for wisdom in the training of our children, and that they would hear and believe the gospel and thus be saved from sin and hell and lifted up to joy and glory with you // and we think of the Seidel family: we ask for your grace on them as they grieve Lon’s passing; we ask that you would hold up Mark and Jamie with all wisdom, comfort, and faith; we ask that you might sooth also the grief of Celeste and Jacob // and we lift up to you, today, the whole American Church—with Easter approaching, we ask that this might grab our attention with the stunning truth of your Son’s death and resurrection; that you might pull our hearts upward and secure much more our undiluted devotion to you, that we might much more say that all our springs of joy are in you // and finally, our brothers and sisters in Turkey, we ask your help: even as they are scorned by their people and their government, we ask that you would ground them in truth and empower them to know the vastness of your love to them in Christ, that the light of your gospel might go forward from them to the glory of your name // and now, as we turn to hear from your word, we ask that you would supply me with help in speaking and all of us with ears to hear, that your name might be glorified among us…

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Benediction

2 Thessalonians 3:5 ESV

May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.

Sermon

Introduction

It’s a pretty rotten thing when selfishness destroys a marriage. But when the husband says to you, “Well, I’ve just decided that it’s time for me to focus on me. I can’t do this for her anymore. So, I’m out”—when he says that, what can you say?

And if selfishness in marriage is bad, a selfish single life isn’t any better.

But why? What truths from Scripture can correct our hearts on this thing, and point us to a better way?

Well, one of Ru’s favorite things to do right now is to put something on her head and call it a hat. A normal toddler’s game, right? And really, anything will work. A book. A used washrag full of crumbs. A potty-training seat… kinda looks like a top hat if you turn it upside-down. Anything. And she’s quite proud whenever she does it. But of course, Kyleigh and I are sitting there saying, “Um, that’s not what that was designed for.” And I’ll leave it to your imagination, what unfortunate things might happen if Ru keeps using dirty wash-cloths and potty seats for hats.

Or you could imagine a brand-new gardener: he’s just bought a couple tomato starts and wants to get them into the ground but someone told him he needs to put some lime into the ground to prevent blossom end-rot from harming his crop. So he goes and buys the 25# bag from Ace Hardware and says to himself, “Well, why don’t I just put on the whole bag to make sure it’s enough.” What will happen? Well, I’ve never tried it, but I suspect that 25# of lime on two tomato plants would kill them fairly quickly. So what was that guy missing? He didn’t take the time to understand the design of agricultural lime. He didn’t bother to learn what it is, what it does, how it is put together. If he had, he would have known that he needed to be careful with how much he applied. And then, his tomato plants could have flourished. His pantry could have been full of salsa, and his summer burgers could have had thick, juicy slices of heirloom tomatoes on them. But as it was, he killed his plants before the fruit could even set.

And the point is this: it’s the design of a thing that tells us how to use it properly. Violate the design, lose the benefit of it; but humbly and thoughtfully submit yourself to the design, and it flourishes.

And, as Jesus will teach us today, marriage is exactly like that. Marriage has a particular design to it—and so does singleness. These things are created to be done in a certain way, and it is neither right nor good when we violate those creation-designed patterns. It both ruins the thing itself, and also dishonors the name of the God who designed it.

And Jesus will show this to us on marriage because, in our passage for this morning, the Pharisees come up to him to and asked if it’s OK for a man to divorce his wife for basically any reason. You see, they had a selfishly-motivated legalism which allowed them to treat God’s law as an isolated checklist, and then do whatever they felt like within it, including dismiss a wife for burning the supper. But Jesus exposed this whole way of thinking as evil by pointing back to God’s creation design for man and woman: what God has joined together, you don’t get to separate just because you don’t like it anymore.

But when his disciples heard this, they complained that that’s so hard that it would be better to never get married. But Jesus then turned that thought around also, and showed that God has a specific and good design for singleness as well: not singleness to selfishly avoid marriage, but singleness to devote yourself to God’s kingdom.

And so, in both these ways, Jesus contradicted legalistic selfishness with marriage’s creation design and singleness’s kingdom design.

=> Let’s dig in to the passage to see how this unfolds.

Selfish Legalism Vs. Creation Design in Marriage

As the passage begins, we don’t want to miss the heightened tension here.

If you remember, back in chapter 16 there was this watershed moment—the moment where Jesus first explained that his mission would climax with his death in Jerusalem. He was destined to go to Jerusalem and die. Now, here, in Chapter 19 verse 1 it says:

Matthew 19:1 ESV

“…he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.”

On a map, that means he has finally departed from the remote, northern regions of Israel, and is now in the South. So now, between him and death there is only a river and then a short, steep path up upward to the place where he would die: Jerusalem.

And as he continues his ministry there in this new place, the next thing that happens is that his enemies—the ones he predicted would put him to death—approach him with a question to trick him.

And their question is this: “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?”

Now, why did they choose this particular question to trick him—to test him, as it says in verse 3? Exactly how were they trying to mess him up?

Well, there’s a fascinating and sad cultural background here. There were basically two views on divorce among God’s people at that time:

There was the view taught by Rabbi Shammai, which said that a man could only divorce his wife if she was sexually immoral in some way, or if she was unable to have children. But this view was held by only a small minority of the Jewish population.

The large majority held the view taught by Rabbi Hillel, which said that a man could divorce his wife for really any reason at all: if she burned the food, if he didn’t like how she acted—even if he just wanted the freedom to pursue a different woman. All he needed to do was write her a certificate of divorce, and it was done. The marriage was over.

And it seems like they were hoping to trap Jesus by asking his own viewpoint on this disagreement.

Probably, they had heard about his view on marriage and divorce—how he had already condemned this idea that you could just divorce your wife for basically any reason. But since that relaxed viewpoint was the viewpoint held by most Jewish folks, maybe they thought that if they could get him to voice the more strict viewpoint, he might lose popularity with the crowds.

Or, maybe they were trying to get him into hot water with King Herod, who was married to Herod’s brother’s wife.

But whatever the case, the point is, it’s not an honest question. It’s a divisive issue and they’re using it as trap.

But instead of avoiding the dishonest question, Jesus goes straight in and really just blows it up:

Matthew 19:4 ESV

He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female...”

Do you see that? It’s the creation design. It’s the ‘thingness of the thing.’ What are they, these two people that you’re talking about getting a divorce? Male and female—God created them that way, and he did it in a breathtaking display of his infinite wisdom. He showed us a glimpse of his infinite glory when he brought out their creation design: ‘from the beginning he made them male and female.’

And the point is, you can’t grapple with questions about divorce until you understand the design of humanity: what a man is, and what a woman is. It is the creation design of humanity, given from God, that determines what the good, true, and beautiful path is for us, including on difficult questions like this.

And so Jesus continues, in verse 5, with what God himself explained about the meaning of his own design for man and woman:

Matthew 19:5 ESV

‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’

Now, that’s a direct quote from another place in the Bible—from Genesis 2:24. And Genesis 2:24 comes right after the story of the first man and woman—Adam and Eve—how God made her from his side while he was sleeping, and then brought her to him, and how when Adam saw Eve, he pledged himself to her. They were the first husband and wife. The very first display of God’s design for marriage.

And so this verse that Jesus is quoting here is God explaining to us the significance of what it means to be a husband or a wife—the creation design of it: you become one flesh. First you covenant together in marriage, and then you unite your bodies in the marriage bed together as the sign of your covenant. And in a mysterious and glorious way, it makes you “one flesh”—or you might say, “one body.” And this was the very purpose for which God made us male and female—that we might enter into this marriage union, for his glory and our joy.

Now, you might be thinking, ‘But what about folks that remain single?’ Well, we’ll get to that in a bit. But for now, let’s see how Jesus explains the significance of the marriage design in verse 6. He says:

Matthew 19:6 ESV

So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

So what is he saying?

God is the one who upholds all of creation. He made it, and he holds it in existence by his Power. All creation draws its life and its existence from him. So then, he made man and woman and marriage, and upholds them continuously by his power. God did not, in some way, set that initial marriage between Adam and Eve into motion, and then step back, allowing for us to do as we see fit with what he has made. But rather, every time a man and a woman pledge themselves to each other in marriage, God himself joins them together and sees them as ‘one flesh.’

So then, what is marriage? It is a covenant, designed and upheld by the Creator, where a man and a woman are united by God’s own action to make them one. God joins them together, and they become one flesh.

So Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees with their question about divorce is basically this: “If you send your wife away just because you don’t like her, you are violating God’s created order. You are selfishly tearing to pieces God’s own creation.” And so he contradicted their selfishness with the creation design of marriage.

But, the Pharisees have a comeback. They have some Scripture they’d like to point to. Look in verse 7. They say:

Matthew 19:7 ESV

“Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?”

So where did Moses say that? Well, he kind of said that in Deuteronomy 24:1-3. That passage does mention husbands writing divorce certificates for wives because they find some sort of problem, or because they just don’t like their wives. But the passage doesn’t actually command divorce. It just assumes that divorce will happen, and gives some rules to limit the damage.

But what had happened over time was that the Rabbis had said, “Well, it mentions divorce certificates for these kinds of reasons, so it must be saying that it’s fine for us to do that. It must be saying that’s OK.” And so they had developed a whole list of reasons that a guy could do that—basically, if he just didn’t like her, he could send her away and go get a different wife.

But this comeback just backfires on them. They asked Jesus, “Why would Moses mention divorce like that if it’s wrong?” Jesus replied:

Matthew 19:8 ESV

“Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.”

Do you see that? There’s a lot of places where OT law was written to restrain the evil actions of hardhearted people, not so much to provide an example of the good and true way to live. And it was certainly good for OT law to restrain evil in that way! But now these hardhearted men are misusing the law to justify their selfish actions against their wives.

Rather than humbly submit themselves to God’s creation-design for marriage, they opted for a legalistic solution. Take one command of Scripture, in isolation, and you can sort of twist it to mean what you want it to mean, which then allows you to do what you want to do. In this case, to opt out of your marriage when it gets tough.

But remember how Jesus began his answer to their whole question? Verse 4: “Have you not read?”—in other words, if these Pharisees had paid attention to the creation story, they would have understood that they had no right to dissolve a marriage. “From the beginning,” says Jesus, “it was not so.”

Well, with all of this in place, Jesus gives us his final conclusion on the matter—verse 9:

Matthew 19:9 ESV

And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

Notice here, Jesus does give one condition where divorce is allowed: if the wife has committed sexual immorality—if she’s united herself physically with another man—divorce is permitted. And of course, that applies to the husband as well. But you might say, “I thought Jesus just showed us that no one has the right to end a marriage. How can he then turn around and make an exception?”

Actually, Jesus is being completely consistent with what he’s said so far about the creation-design of marriage. Remember, God makes a man and a woman into one when they vow themselves to each other and then unite in the marriage bed. So if one spouse goes off and sleeps with someone else, that very act itself breaks the vows and the union. And with the vows broken in this way, other spouse can choose to leave.

And that’s one of two reasons in Scripture given for legitimate divorce. The other reason is when one spouse abandons the other. And it doesn’t take long to recognize that the logic there is similar: if one spouse just up and walks out, tossing the other one to the wind, again, the vows have already been broken. The victim, in that situation, is no longer bound to the marriage. And you can read about that in 1 Corinthians 7.

Now, there might be other situations in which a time of temporary separation between husband and wife is wise. But these two reasons—unfaithfulness and abandonment—are the only legitimate causes for divorce, precisely because in these cases what God had joined together has already been torn apart.

But in every other case, the creation-design of marriage says “No” to our selfish desire to take the easy way out when marriage gets hard. Selfishness within marriage is contradicted by marriage’s creation design.

Now, let’s take a moment, here, to think through this and apply it to ourselves.

But before we do that, I just want to note something: for some of you, these truths may be pretty heavy. Maybe this has touched on sin from your past, or ways that you or a loved one has been sinned against. Please stick with me. The mercy of God in Christ covers all sins, redeems any kind of life, and provides comfort in darkness. And in a moment we will dig into that. But for now, stick with me apply this:

Our culture, famously, denies the design of things. We don’t know what a man is or what a woman is, and we don’t want to know. Because if you know what men and women are, you are then bound to live as designed. If we recognize ‘male and female made he them’, then suddenly a lot of things we’re fine with in our culture won’t be fine anymore!

But… the church isn’t doing all that much better on this. And I mean gospel-preaching churches. When we approach these issues, we tend to do the same thing the Pharisees did: we take a collection of isolated verses and say, “So as long as we don’t cross these boundaries, we’re fine.”

Ex: You can see this, for example, in churches that say they would never appoint female elders, but then establish an ‘advisory counsel’ that does the work of elders and make it half male, half female. It’s certainly a violation of creation order, but you get around the creation order by isolating the commands of scripture and then figuring out ways to dance around them.

And creation design, too, is why this passage is mainly aimed at men. Yes, all of this applies to women divorcing their husbands as well. Absolutely. But, when the creation design of man was twisted by sin, he went from being a leader and defender and servant of his wife to using his power against her in service of his selfish desires. Yes, women can abuse authority, for sure. But it is especially men who have a problem with this.

So men, this is directed at us. Jesus has our sins against our wives in his cross-hairs in this passage. And you’re not off the hook if you just happen to never have wrongfully divorced a woman. Have you lived out this creation design? Have you treated your wife as if she were your own body, nourishing and cherishing her? Do you daily lay down your life for her good?

Non-Christian, don’t you want a world like that? Where God’s good design is lived out such that men feel themselves bound to lay down their lives for their wives every day? Can you imagine such a world—what it would be like? How much human pain would be avoided? Can you imagine what it would be like if every man cared for his wife with a tender affection? That’s the ethos of the Kingdom of God—and you can only enter that kingdom through the forgiving mercies of Christ.

Brothers and sisters, do you know how compelling a godly marriage is to non-believers? A brother pastor told me last week that a young, non-Christian couple came to him, and said they want a Christian household. Why? Because the only example of a marriage worth having in their whole extended family was the marriage of his grandparents—also the only Christians in their whole extended family.

The wordless witness of a christian marriage can go very far in commending the gospel to the world.

And the way to pursue it is by leaving behind selfish frameworks for marriage—whatever they are—and conforming to marriage’s good creation design.

Selfish Isolation Vs. Love of Kingdom in Singleness

Now, the disciples are there, listening in on this conversation. And they’re in shock. And what’s their reaction? They say:

Matthew 19:10 ESV

“If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.”

Wow. Do you see what they are saying? Basically, “If marriage means that kind of commitment, I want nothing of it!”

Ever heard that before? It comes in a couple different forms in our culture. There’s the ‘I’d rather party and sleep around’ variety, for sure. But then there’s also a cleaned up variety which says, “I’d rather have the freedom of singleness than the commitment of marriage.” It’s an attitude that delays marriage as long as possible, preferring the pursuit of self to the committed care for another that marriage requires.

But rather than call them out on this directly, Jesus turns their thinking on its head. He takes their words, but gives them a different motive and purpose. The disciples were imagining the single life as a life of isolation for selfish purposes—avoid marriage, have freedom. But Jesus describes a kind of singleness which is anything but selfish. To their words he replies:

Matthew 19:11 ESV

“Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given.”

Meaning, what? That for certain people, it actually is good not to marry—for people to whom it is given. Or, to put it another way, there are certain people that have the gift of singleness. Certain people that the Lord has designed for singleness.

Jesus goes on to explain, in vs. 12, three categories of eunuchs. And the word ‘eunuch’ normally means a man who, biologically, in a certain way, can’t have children. And so Jesus says that some are born eunuchs and others are made eunuchs. And that was common knowledge to his disciples. But then he adds a third category: some make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven. In other words, some choose a life of singleness because of the special opportunity it gives them to invest in serving the kingdom in ways that are much harder for married folk. And these are the ones with the gift of singleness.

So notice: it’s not a typical American-singleness-culture kind of singleness which has personal freedom and selfish pursuit in view. That’s more what the selfish disciples had in mind. What Jesus instead celebrates here is a kingdom-invested singleness—a singleness where all that extra time and care you have is spent on the good of the church and the advance of the gospel.

What does that look like? Well, go read the book of Acts. Peter, who was married, was the most outspoken leader of the church for the first few chapters. But then, when it’s time for the gospel to go to the nations, suddenly unmarried Paul is leading the charge. So as it turns out, the church would not be where it is today without folks who are ‘eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom.’ Brothers and sisters with the gift of singleness.

But it is a kingdom-centered singleness, and not self-centered singleness, because Jesus contradicted selfish isolation with kingdom-design of kingdom-centered singleness.

Legalism, the Kingdom’s Standard, and the Enabling Gospel

Now, I thank God for the examples of kingdom-centered singleness and creation-design-honoring marriage present in this congregation. That is a gift of God’s grace, as he so mercifully leads us, his needy children.

But let’s think about this for a moment.

Legalistic approaches to these things fail. Why? They view righteousness as a matter of impersonal boundaries: God gave me a rule check-list, I follow that checklist, and then he’ll bless me. And this results in a standard which allows me to think I’m good with God while acting mercilessly toward others—in this case, divorcing my wife because she burned the roast. It’s ugly, it fails to deal realistically with sin, and it cannot produce true righteousness.

But the scary thing about the alternative is that we can’t control it. It’s a beautiful picture, this creation-design of marriage. But who among us has not failed it in many ways? And so if I admit the truth of this, I’m left with something beyond my control and past my ability to complete.

But fellow saints, do not be discouraged into gloom. Rather, rejoice in the mercies of God.

Because Jesus himself has lived as the perfect husband to his bride, the church. And actually, he lived the perfect life of kingdom-devoted singleness, too. And in an act of indescribable love, he then gave himself up to death to pay for the guilt we have from our selfish ways of living—he, the husband that died to save his wife. And in forgiving all who trust in him, he has also broken the power of sin over our lives, so that we can begin to live out this picture that he gave us: the beautiful creation design of marriage and the glorious kingdom design of singleness.