Faithfullness
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Proclaiming Repentance and the Kingdom.
Fulfilling the law.
Jesus’ examples of errors in understanding [who God is.](intensification)
Who God is, is faithful.
9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,
9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
3 But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.
Matthew5
First, Anger and reconciliation (being faithful like God).
Next, Adultery and lust. (Strong rebuke against this faithless act; breaking covenant).
In v 31. Divorce.
Circle into , starting by looking at what Jesus says in:
3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?”
Matthew 19:3
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.”
Matthew 19:4
Jesus goes back to the beginning. God never changes… is, was, will be. Jesus gives fullness of who God is. Pharisees obsessed with the letter.
It is as if … “don’t touch your sister/brother”
“But, I didn’t touch him!”
A few verses Later, Pharisees: “All God said is that we have to give a certificate!”
Back to the beginning:
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
(our image = relationship)
Male and female.
be fruitful, multiply
rule with him; dominion.
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.
3. one flesh.
4. no shame with one another.
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,
Wait, what? What happened to God’s &2 plan for a man and a woman?
deut. 24:1
“because of your hardness of heart.”
Not them specifically, but us all.
Matthew 19:7-9
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.”
“because of your hardness of heart.”
Not them specifically, but us all. What is different now from the way it was at the beginning?
Sin.
v. 9 Jesus reinterates what he says in Matthew 5:31-32.
That is Jesus’ reference and context for:
He is continuing same thought as adultery - covenant.
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.
Here, He is continuing same thought as adultery - covenant. And, to give us even more context, note that the next topic on his list is about making and keeping oaths.
So lets exegete this a bit.
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. 5 “When a man is newly married, he shall not go out with the army or be liable for any other public duty. He shall be free at home one year to be happy with his wife whom he has taken. 6 “No one shall take a mill or an upper millstone in pledge, for that would be taking a life in pledge. 7 “If a man is found stealing one of his brothers of the people of Israel, and if he treats him as a slave or sells him, then that thief shall die. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. 8 “Take care, in a case of leprous disease, to be very careful to do according to all that the Levitical priests shall direct you. As I commanded them, so you shall be careful to do. 9 Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam on the way as you came out of Egypt. 10 “When you make your neighbor a loan of any sort, you shall not go into his house to collect his pledge. 11 You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you make the loan shall bring the pledge out to you. 12 And if he is a poor man, you shall not sleep in his pledge. 13 You shall restore to him the pledge as the sun sets, that he may sleep in his cloak and bless you. And it shall be righteousness for you before the Lord your God. 14 “You shall not oppress a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or one of the sojourners who are in your land within your towns. 15 You shall give him his wages on the same day, before the sun sets (for he is poor and counts on it), lest he cry against you to the Lord, and you be guilty of sin. 16 “Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin. 17 “You shall not pervert the justice due to the sojourner or to the fatherless, or take a widow’s garment in pledge, 18 but you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this. 19 “When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. 20 When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over them again. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. 21 When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not strip it afterward. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. 22 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you to do this.
[deut 24] was the law but 1) represents sin management, (Paul: if not for the law I wouldn’t know what it was to covet). 2) its use/misuse in no way represented God, specifically the faithfulness of our covenant-keeping God.
Jesus says there’s no acceptable reason for divorce except if the covenant has already been broken. Porneia. Adultery/Incest/ Figuratively: Idolotry. Unfaithfulness.
Fault is set at the statement “everyone who divorces” Others sin as a matter of circumstance.
Point is to emphasize Faithfulness in the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus emphasizes it as a specific point of repentance for the people. relationships are key.
(everyone who… unless already broken faith… makes her break faith when she marries again, along with the man she marries.)
(everyone who… unless already broken faith… makes her break faith when she marries again, along with the man she marries.)
Porneia.
Matth
8 We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day.
1 While Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab. 2 These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. 3 So Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. 4 And the Lord said to Moses, “Take all the chiefs of the people and hang them in the sun before the Lord, that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel.” 5 And Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you kill those of his men who have yoked themselves to Baal of Peor.”
28 Then they yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor, and ate sacrifices offered to the dead; 29 they provoked the Lord to anger with their deeds, and a plague broke out among them. 30 Then Phinehas stood up and intervened, and the plague was stayed. 31 And that was counted to him as righteousness from generation to generation forever.
Psalm 26:
Sex was a part of it, but it certainly wasn’t the end of it.
Back to Jesus’ emphasis: the fullness of who God is, is shown and seen in the faithfulness of his people to their relationships, and chief among them, marriages. Breaking covenant for no good reason (today’s equivalent of a no-fault divorce) is disallowed. And the only good reason is Porneia, which broadly (and biblically) is unfaithfulness to the covenant made between husband and wife.
Probably no one here is unaffected by this. It is a societal epidemic and the results of the epidemic are catastrophic. Truly God weeps and what divorce has wrought.
My final point, though is this: It is forgiven. Jesus shows us the truth of the law; he keeps the law; and then he keeps us. All things find their wholeness in Him.