Reflect God in Your Relationships

Last week, we talked about how the sort of controlling idea of the second half of Matthew, chapter 5 is that we who follow Jesus Christ in faith are t=o see others the way that God sees them. We are to see them as people whom He loved so much that He made them in His own image.

And when see in others the image of God, it should cause us to relate to them differently — both differently from the way the world does and differently than we did before we became citizens of the kingdom of heaven.

What we’ll see in today’s passage, verses 31-48 of chapter 5, is that — because of that controlling idea — love should be the guiding principle of our relationships, both with God and with others.

Let’s read this passage together, and then we’ll take a look at some of the principles of Kingdom living that Jesus uncovers in these 18 verses.

Matthew 5:31–48 NASB95

“It was said, ‘Whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce’; but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. “Again, you have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not make false vows, but shall fulfill your vows to the Lord.’ “But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. “Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. “But let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil. “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ “But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. “If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. “Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two. “Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? “If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Now, Jesus picks out three areas of personal relationships — divorce, vows, and retribution — and He uses them as examples of the degree of difference He expects between those who are subjects of His Kingdom and those who are not.

And then, in the last six verses of this passage, He describes the attitude of Kingdom subjects that will enable the counter-cultural actions He prescribes for them in those three areas and, indeed, in all areas of personal relationships that we have.

So, let’s start with a look at what He says about divorce.

To understand what Jesus says about divorce here, we first have to understand what the Old Testament said about it and also what the religious leaders of Jesus’ time were saying about it.

Let’s start with the Old Testament. The first place divorce is mentioned in Scripture is in the Book of Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 24:1–4 NASB95

“When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that 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 from his house, and she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man’s wife, and if the latter husband turns against 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 husband dies who took her to be his wife, then her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.

So, what’s the thrust of these verses? What they seem to address is the situation in which a woman who has been divorced and then remarried must not then remarry her first husband if her second husband dies or divorces her.

Now, does the text say anything about divorce being OK in God’s eyes? It does not.

In fact, we’re going to see that God considers divorce to be either evidence of existing sin or sin itself. God hates divorce. That’s what He said through the prophet Malachi, and His ways are unchanging, so what was true of Him during the times of the Old Testament is still true of Him today.

But God knew that His people would do what was wrong, so He set some boundaries within what was wrong to keep them from making a bad situation even worse.

The same idea was in play when He gave them laws about how they were to treat slaves. Slavery was commonplace in the Ancient Near East, and even though God is opposed to slavery because it treats people as property who are made in His image, He knew that His people would take up the customs of the nations that surrounded them.

So, He set up boundaries for them that were to result in them at least treating slaves with compassion, something that wasn’t normally true of how slaves were treated in other nearby cultures.

So, just as He had with slavery, God set some boundaries — some restrictions — regarding divorce in the Old Testament. A man would have to give his wife a written certificate of divorce, and the two could not get married again if she married another man. The point of this double restriction was to discourage hasty divorces.

You see, one of the problems with divorce in Old and New Testament times was that the woman who had been divorced generally had no means to provide for herself. She would have to get remarried so that her new husband could do so.

That’s what Jesus meant when He said here that divorcing a woman would “make her commit adultery.” She would almost certainly have to marry a new man and in doing so, she would be violating the sacred bond of her first marriage.

It seems that the Pharisees — many of whom were known to divorce their wives over something as “indecent” as a badly cooked meal — were concerned about this teaching of Jesus’, because they asked Him about it later in His ministry, and the way He responded sheds a bit more light on the matter. Matthew records this exchange in chapter 19.

Matthew 19:3–9 NASB95

Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?” And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined 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 no man separate.” They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away?” He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. “And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

Now, you might recognize that Jesus was quoting from the Book of Genesis in His response. And the fact that He does so is important, because it tells us something about the nature of marriage and why God hates divorce.

“The ‘one flesh’ in every marriage between a man and a woman is a reenactment of and testimony to the very structure of humanity as God created it.... If God has joined them together, according to the structure of his own creation, divorce is not only ‘unnatural’ but rebellion against God.” [D. A. Carson, “Matthew,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984), 412.]

You see, the Pharisees in chapter 19 are looking for Jesus to give them reasons for divorce, but Jesus replies by talking about the sanctity of the marriage bond, “by focusing on the God-ordained unity of the couple.” [Ibid.]

It is true that God had given the people a way to be divorced — and Jesus seems to confirm in chapter 5 that adultery is acceptable as a reason for doing so, probably because of the damage it does to the relationship.

But what we see when we look at these two passages together is that “any view of divorce and remarriage (taught in either Testament) that sees the problem only in terms of what may or may not be done has already overlooked a basic fact—divorce is never to be thought of as a God-ordained, morally neutral option but as evidence of sin, of hardness of heart.” (Ibid., 413.)

Now, let me say something here before we move on.

I recognize that some of you here today have been through divorces. Some of you have remarried.

Nothing in this passage or anywhere else in the Bible suggests that you cannot be forgiven for this sin. Indeed, Scripture tells us that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Nothing here suggests that if you’ve divorced and remarried you should now divorce again. That would be compounding sin with sin. God can and will use the brokenness and wrong decisions in our lives to His glory.

“We know that God causes all things — ALL THINGS — to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

What does ALL things mean in that verse? Well, it means all things.

If you are a follower of Christ and you have divorced and remarried, then work in the power of the Holy Spirit to make this marriage stick. He will use that to His glory.

Surely you should go to Him in repentance, confessing your sin to Him — in other words, agreeing with Him that your actions fell short of His perfect standard.

But your focus from now forward should be to honor Him in THIS marriage by honoring your new husband or wife and loving them as one who is made in God’s image.

That was the problem with divorce in Jesus’ time. It allowed men — women were not legally able to divorce their husbands — so, it allowed men to treat their wives as possessions that could be discarded on a whim.

And that’s the thing Jesus was addressing in chapter 5 of the Book of Matthew, this idea that others exist simply to serve our own needs or desires.

Now, having talked about divorce, He moves on to talking about vows, and once again, it’s useful to understand what both the Old Testament and the religious leaders of Jesus’ time said about vows.

“The Mosaic law forbade irreverent oaths, light use of the Lord’s name [and] broken vows. Once Yahweh’s name was invoked, the vow to which it was attached became a debt that had to be paid to the Lord.” (Ibid., 153.)

But the Pharisees of Jesus’ time had constructed an elaborate system of rules concerning vows and oaths.

For instance, “they taught that swearing by God’s name was binding, but swearing by heaven and earth was not binding. Swearing toward Jerusalem was binding, but swearing by Jerusalem was not.” [Tom Constable, Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible (Galaxie Software, 2003), Mt 5:33.]

But Jesus cut through all this silliness. “Let your yes be yes and your no be no.” That’s how verse 37 is translated in the NIV.

In other words, there is nothing you can swear by that does not belong to God, not even the hairs on your head, so any oath you swear is an appeal to God to judge you if you do not keep it.

How much better to simply be a person of your word, a person who recognizes that everyone you meet bears the image of God and therefore deserves to be treated with integrity?

Now, having discussed divorce and oaths, Jesus moves to retribution.

Matthew 5:38 NASB95

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’

Here again, Jesus is quoting from the Mosaic Law, which allowed retributive justice. But again, the law that allowed an eye for an eye was there as a boundary. It was there to keep retribution from spinning out of control as one generation of vigilantes one-upped another.

Think of it like the Hatfields and McCoys. One murder spawned another murder, and that murder spawned another, and pretty soon everybody was killing everybody.

Setting boundaries like “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” would keep the people of Israel from pursuing these kinds of ever-spiraling, inter-generational conflicts with one another.

But the Jewish people had interpreted the law of retaliation as permission from God to take vengeance.

Here, Jesus corrects that mistaken view, and He raises the bar for subjects of His Kingdom. We who follow Him are to react to perceived slights with love, rather than retribution.

We are to accept injustice without taking revenge. We are to trust God’s "promises that [He] will take care of the righteous.... To accept injustice without retaliating expresses trust that God will faithfully care for His own.” (Tom Constable, Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible (Galaxie Software, 2003), Mt 5:39.)

Has someone unjustly attacked you? Then accept the attack and be prepared to accept the same attack again.

Has someone made unjust demands of you? Then give them more than they have demanded.

Has someone asked you for money? Then be generous to them.

"There is a progression in these illustrations from simply not resisting to giving generously to those who make demands that tempt us to retaliate against them. Love must be the disciple’s governing principle, not selfishness.” (Ibid.)

It has been said that “To return evil for good is devilish; to return good for good is human; to return good for evil is divine.” [D. A. Carson, “Matthew,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984), 159.]

As we look at others and see in them the image of God — even when it is perverted by their unjust actions toward us — our response to them must reflect the character of God. We must show grace and mercy and love.

And this is the principle that Jesus points to as the foundation of our correct behavior as subjects of His Kingdom.

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.”

He’s not saying here that doing those things MAKES us sons and daughters of God. What He’s saying is that we who have followed Jesus in faith — we who have been adopted as sons and daughters of God as a result of this faith — should reflect the character of our Father in heaven.

And how does His character reveal itself? Well, it is revealed in His grace and mercy and love. He makes the sun shine on the evil and good, and He sends rain for the righteous and the unrighteous.

Biblical scholars call this God’s common grace. There is a special grace He shows to those who follow Jesus in faith. But it is God’s common grace that gives life and sustains it in every person who lives, whether they are believers or not.

So, if we are going to reflect God’s character — if we are going to be perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect — then we must show grace and mercy and love to all who are made in His image.

This was a radical departure from the norm in Jesus’ time, and it’s a radical departure from the norm in our time, too.

It’s easy to love those who love us. What’s hard is to love those who hate us. It’s easy to show courtesy and respect to those who are like us. What’s hard is to show courtesy and respect to those who don’t have the same values that we do, to those who don’t show US courtesy and respect.

But this is exactly the counter-cultural thing that we who are Christians have been called to do as subjects of the kingdom of heaven.

John Stott wrote that “the life of the old (fallen) humanity is based on rough justice, avenging injuries and returning favors. The life of the new (redeemed) humanity is based on divine love, refusing to take revenge but overcoming evil with good.” [D. A. Carson, “Matthew,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984), 160.]

We who have followed Jesus in faith have been called to be His ambassadors to the lost world in which we live. We are to reflect His character in the world. We are to value what He values.

And that means we are to recognize the divine spark of God in everyone we meet. We are to treat them as people whom God loves, even when they treat us unjustly, even when they hurt us, and even when they hate us.

We are to be gracious and merciful and loving in all our relationships, regardless of how we have been treated, recognizing that this is exactly the way Jesus treats us, even when we sin against Him.

Do you want to be salt and light in this tasteless and dark world?

Then treat marriage as a sacred bond that reflects God’s desire that one man and one woman would come together as one flesh that must not be separated.

Do you want to be salt and light in this tasteless and dark world?

Then let yourself be known for integrity. Be known as someone whose words can be trusted.

Do you want to be salt and light in this tasteless and dark world?

Then be someone who returns good for evil. Be someone who is known for your generosity.

Do you want to be salt and light in this tasteless and dark world?

Then be someone whose every interaction with others is defined by love.