What God Has Joined, Let No Man Separate
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This morning we come to the section of 1 Corinthians in which Paul addresses the topic of divorce, however, divorce is not the main topic of this passage, rather it is the sacredness and beauty of marriage. This is why I have entitled my sermon using the words of Jesus, “What God Has Joined, Let Not Man Separate.” Because Paul alludes to the teaching of Jesus, I want to begin with reading Matthew 19:3-9 and then read from our main text from 1 Corinthians 7. Let us hear God’s Word:
And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” 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.” They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” 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. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”
Let us now turn our attention to our main text:
To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife.
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. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. 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. 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. For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?
May God add His blessing to this the reading of His holy and infallible Word.
As we consider what both Jesus and Paul teach concerning marriage and divorce, it is apparent that...
Divorce is a Concession, Not a Solution
Divorce is a Concession, Not a Solution
When people consider the topic of divorce, the worse mistake they can make is to see it as a solution. The bond between a husband and wife is such that there will always be negative consequences. Scripture reminds us that a husband and wife are literally, “one flesh”!
Think of it like this: If you have a part of your body cut or torn off in a surgery or accident there will be painful and negative consequences. While it is true that sometimes surgery or even amputation are necessary to save a person’s life, these procedures always come with a cost. The same is true of divorce; it must always be seen as a last resort.
At the time of Jesus, there were two schools of interpretation concerning Deuteronomy 24:1, which reads:
“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,
One school taught that “indecency” referred to sexual immorality only and the other school taught it could be anything that displeased the husband. As Matthew reminds us, this was a “test” meant to entrap Jesus. Jesus knew exactly what they were up to and as He always does, He outsmarts them by bypassing the debate and going straight to the heart of the matter. Here is what He said:
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.”
In pointing us to Genesis 2:24, Jesus is reminding us that God ordained marriage as a permanent institution. The man and woman would become “one flesh”, creating a new family and their spouse would hold the highest place in their affections and loyalties, save their affection and loyalty to God. Divorce was not a part of the plan. There is no escape clause to marriage!
Naturally, the Pharisees asked, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send he away?” Citing Deuteronomy 24:1-4. Jesus answered:
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.
In pointing us to Genesis 2:24, Jesus is reminding us that God ordained marriage as a permanent institution. The man and woman would become “one flesh”, creating a new family and their spouse would hold the highest place in their affections and loyalties, save their affection and loyalty to God. Divorce was not a part of the plan. There is no escape clause to marriage.
It is in such heartbreaking situations, that God made the provision of divorce. Divorce always comes with its own heartaches and problems, but it can rescue us from even greater heartaches and problems.
So what are the biblical grounds for divorce? I think a better way of answering that questions, is to think of them as boundaries:
Divorce is Only Permissible Within the Boundaries
Divorce is Only Permissible Within the Boundaries
I purposely phrased it this way, because the Biblical grounds of divorce are rooted in the institution of marriage. The legitimate grounds for divorce are not mere acts, but the dissolving of the bound of marriage by those acts. In citing Genesis 2:24, Jesus reminds us of this:
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
The first of these boundaries is found in the phrase “one flesh”:
The Boundary of “One Flesh”
The Boundary of “One Flesh”
Being “one flesh” includes the sexual union between a man and women, as Paul reminded us in chapter six, a man who has relations with a prostitute becomes “one flesh” with her (1 Cor 6:16). However, God intended it to be much more as “the leaving of mother and father” imply. In becoming “one flesh” a husband and wife’s primarily loyalty should be to each other.
This physical and emotional bond is what is destroyed by adultery, especially when the offending party refuses to repent and continues to give his or her heart to another. I say it this way because the goal is always reconciliation, we see this in 1 Cor 7:11. However, there can come a time when reconciliation is no longer possible and it is at this time that Jesus says there is legitimate grounds for divorce (Mt. 19:9).
The second boundary we find in Genesis 2:24 is the phrase “leave and cleave.”
The Boundary of “Leave and Cleave”
The Boundary of “Leave and Cleave”
In 1 Cor 7:12-16, Paul is addressing an issue that Jesus did not have to address during His earthly ministry. The New Covenant was not instituted until Jesus’ death on the cross, under the Old Covenant, Gentiles were by definition “unclean”. If a Jew married a Gentile who had not converted to the faith of Israel, they were commanded to divorce them and send them away. In the book of Ezra we find a good example of this:
And Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have broken faith and married foreign women, and so increased the guilt of Israel. Now then make confession to the Lord, the God of your fathers and do his will. Separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign wives.”
Now under the New Covenant, the “dividing wall of hostility” between Jew and Gentile has been broken down by the death of Jesus (Eph 2:14-16). Now, under the New Covenant, the goal of the believer who is married to an unbeliever is their salvation, not their separation, as reflected in the closing verse of our text (1 Corinthians 7:16). However, if this unbeliever deserts the marriage, the believer is to let them go and the believer is no longer “enslaved” to that marriage, but is free to remarry (1 Corinthians 7:15). It is from this text that we discover the second boundary marker—desertion.
We have already seen how the “leaving of father and mother and cleaving to one’s spouse” impacts our understanding of “one flesh”, the reverse is true as well. This is clearly seen in Eph 5:28-29, which reads:
In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church,
It is not simply loyalty that should be found in marriage, but “nourishing and cherishing” as well. Desertion, by its very nature undermines loyalty, nourishing and cherishing, it destroys the oneness that is implied by the phrase “one flesh”.
These Boundaries Markers Give Us Discernment in the Difficult Cases
These Boundaries Markers Give Us Discernment in the Difficult Cases
Both desertion and adultery are clear-cut, but what about other issues such as physical and verbal abuse, addictive behaviors such as drug and alcohol use, gambling and pornography? All of these have the potential of breaking the “one flesh” nature of marriage and they are most certainly not examples of loyalty, nourishing and cherishing. Often these actions threaten the wellbeing not only of the spouse, but of children as well. The goals of preserving marriage, bringing reconciliation, and salvation to the offending party, are so strong that it is difficult for one person to discern when divorce is the best course of action. This is why this decision cannot be made privately, but in community, bringing us to the final point.
Divorce is Not a Private Matter
Divorce is Not a Private Matter
One only has to look at the collateral damage of divorce to see that this is true: children scared, friendships broken, parents and siblings alienated, the list goes on...
More important than this experiential evidence is the Word of God. The public nature of marriage is implied in all of the texts we have looked at this morning. Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 teach us that marriage was instituted by God; Deut 2:24 in requiring a certificate of divorce teaches that both the courts of the state and the church regulate divorce and the commands of God found in all these passages teach us that God has the ultimate authority on this matter.
There is a great wisdom and mercy found in this truth. As a pastor, I have clearly seen that our radical individualism has place upon people a burden they cannot bear. If you were perceptive, you probably noted that I did not state what constitutes a ligament grounds for divorce, but that I only laid out the boundary markers. This is not because of a lack of courage on my part, but the recognition that I cannot. For example, just because a person’s spouse has committed adultery does not automatically give them grounds for divorce. Other factors come into play, such as the adulterous spouse’s possible repentance. As painful as the unfaithfulness of a spouse is, unforgiveness is not a ligament grounds for divorce. Moreover, divorce always brings with it a world of problems; this means it is not always the best and wisest course to take, even if there are ligament grounds for divorce.
All this is to say that divorce is too heavy of a burden for one man or one woman to bear alone. The decision to seek divorce must be made with much prayer and with the guidance of friends, family members and most importantly the elders of the church. Not only, does this lift the burden of making this life changing decision alone, it provides us with a defense against the accusations of the Devil and other people. Without the church behind you, you have little defense from these accusations. The decision to seek a divorce is never cut and dry, there are always gray areas and these gray areas are like scabs the Devil picks at, causing them to bleed. However, when we reach this decision in community, the community can come to your aid when the Devil attacks and they can place a bandage over that wound.
There is much more that can, and probably should be said on this issue, but I believe I have covered the basics.
One final thing needs to be said before I close in prayer. Christianity is a faith of new beginnings. We all have committed mistakes in judgement and deeds of sin. The blood of Jesus can cover all these. Christian forgiveness is not based on compromise, but upon satisfaction. If you have trusted in Christ alone for your salvation, your past is in the past! You are a new creation in Christ Jesus; fully accepted and love by God the Father and by every true Christian.