What God has Joined Together: Kingdom Teaching About the Permanence of Marriage
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Introduction
Exposition 1
Now when Jesus had finished these sayings, he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. And large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.
And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?”
The Pharisees, as has been typical in Matthew, seek to “test” Jesus here.
The question is a loaded one, it has to do with the interpretation of Deuteronomy 24:1-4
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.
Qumran Covenanters - Divorce was always illicit (Not mainstream)
Mainstream views (2 camps)
School of Hillel
School of Shammai
Both permitted divorce on the grounds of something “indecent”
Shammai - gross indecency though not just adultry
Hillel - anything displeasing (poorly cooked meal)
Both allowed remarriage, even if the divorce was not allowable.
He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female,
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’?
So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
I. Marriage is a permanent union rooted in creation (4-6)
I. Marriage is a permanent union rooted in creation (4-6)
They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?”
Here, the pharisees openly appeal to the Deuteronomy passage
They interpret it to mean...
If a man takes a wife…and she does not find favor in his eyes…he shall write a bill of divorce…and shall send her away from his house.
But, it actually means
If a man takes a wife…and she does not find favor in his eyes…and he writes a bill of divorce…and he sends her away from his house…and her second husband does the same thing, then her first husband must not marry her again.
Notice the focus of the text is not on the divorce but on the husband and wife getting remarried after the wife has been remarried.
This would have been considered similar to incest.
The “indecency” isn’t permission to divorce but rather simply a statement of the condition.
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.
Jesus answers their question with the answer, essentially that divorce was allow because of the hardness of hearts
II. Divorce always involves unrepentant sin
II. Divorce always involves unrepentant sin
And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”
This verse has many interpretation, I believe, primarily because people want to soften it, but also for 2 other reasons.
because the parallel accounts don’t contain the “except clause”
to harmonize it with the teaching in 1 Corinthians 7:12-15
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.
Back to the interpretation
9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”
porneia - sexual immorality
except
Basically, never get divorces, but if a divorce happens, you are only free to remarry if the divorce is because the other spouse has moved on to an adulterous relationship
In the context of forgiveness, it seems to be that that this spouse is unrepentant, preventing true forgiveness
This is consistent with the earlier context in 1 Corinthians 7 as well
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.
III. Divorce is not to take place within the covenant community (the church)
III. Divorce is not to take place within the covenant community (the church)
The disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.”
But he said to them, “Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given.
For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.”
IV. For some, it is better, for the sake of the kingdom, to practice life-long celibacy
IV. For some, it is better, for the sake of the kingdom, to practice life-long celibacy
1 Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” 2 But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.
5 Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
6 Now as a concession, not a command, I say this. 7 I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.
8 To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am. 9 But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.