Loopholes in Righteousness

We’re continuing in the Sermon on the mount, and we’re looking at these examples of true righteousness that Jesus is putting forth. He has said, “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” In giving these examples, Jesus is dispelling some common misunderstandings, some common misapplications of the law.

In a sense, He is taking the law beyond the letter to its true intent, beyond the letter to its deeper significance in the life of the righteous person.

In the first case, “you shall not murder” which, on its face, seemed to be a pretty easy commandment to keep - one in which almost everyone can say, “I’m righteous on this plane. I’m righteous in this category.” When Jesus revealed that even hatred and insult are culpable as murder in the heart, he brought that law to bear on everyone.

The same with adultery - it is righteousness to simply not commit adultery, it is righteousness to not lust in the heart. Again, Jesus is not after behavior modification. Obeying the law will certainly avoid certain behaviors - but you can live your life having never physically murdered, and never physically committing adultery, and still be guilty on those accounts because of the anger and lust within your heart. Jesus wants true, heart righteousness from His followers.

We are going to look at the next two examples together today. In these two examples, Jesus moves beyond the ten commandments to the greater extent of the law. He is still dealing with things that are withing the books of Moses. It becomes clear in these examples that Jesus is not giving a complete exposition and explanation of every single law, or even every single facet of the laws in His teaching, but by explaining the ones He does, we see patterns and principles to guide us.

Read Matthew 5:31-37

As we look at these two examples, even though they are quite distinct in their individual meaning, the issue at hand is quite basic. These two explanations reveal a deeper tendency that we all probably have, and struggle with on a daily basis.

Jesus will address the first topic, Divorce and remarriage, again in Matthew 19, so in stead of devoting two full sermons in the book of Matthew on that topic, I wanted to take a flyover view today and try to unearth the principles behind the explanation. In a few months, we will come to Jesus fuller teaching on the subject and even look at a number of other scriptures that give the Bible’s full teaching on Divorce and Remarriage.

So, what do divorce and oaths have to do one with another? We find that these two things are things which the Old Testament law seems to regulate, but does not seem to explicitly forbid. In the case of Divorce, it is regulated but not proscribed. In the case of oaths, they are not forbidden, but not explicitly dealt with in the way that Jesus does here.

In our day and age, we might want to say something like “there is a lot of gray area.” And that is where these two come together in Jesus’ teaching. It seems from Jesus’ teaching that these two things, divorce and oaths, were widely abused in His day. The lack of Mosaic teaching on them had led people to run rampant with their abuse of them.

In both instances, Jesus is addressing the ideas themselves, but He is also addressing the problem of loopholes. We all know what a loophole is, right?

When I was in college, we had chapel services on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays. There was a rule on the books that unless you didn’t have a class directly before or after chapel, attendance was mandatory.

Now, that rule could be read in two different ways. You could either read it as, “if you have a class before or after chapel, you have to come to chapel.” Or it could be read as, “if either before or after chapel you don’t have a class, you don’t have to attend chapel.” Do you see the subtle difference? Well, everyone knew the true meaning of the rule - you were expected to be at chapel if you had a class either directly before or after - but the dance of interpretation allowed for a loophole. And what interpretation do you think many students took?

What interpretation of any law, rule, principle do we tend to take if we can do the dance of “letter” vs. “intentions?” Of course, we tend to take the more lenient one. And that is what was going on here with divorce and oaths. Jesus is addressing the tendency in human beings to feign righteousness by grabbing on to a loophole, or a miniscule interpretive gap that allows us to act as we wish without “technically” sinning. But what has he already taught us in the first two examples?

If there is sin in the heart, even before the action is commited, there is guilt.

Jesus continues to show that those who are counting on being “technically” righteous by the letter of the law are, in fact, riddled with unrighteousness. It has to be more than skin deep, it has to be more than letter-deep, and it has to produce more than just a loophole-seeking tendency. The goal is a changed heart.

Human tendency is to excuse, normalize, and explain away sinful behavior; but Kingdom obedience requires faithfulness that displays God’s faithfulness.

1. Two Mosaic Regulations - Vs. 31, 33

“It was also said...” “You have heard it was said...”

Jesus, again, goes back to the scripture here - and, we need to be reminded that Jesus is in no way competing with, doing away with, or nullifying the teaching of Moses - the law of Moses was revelation from God to Moses himself. For Jesus to turn back on those things would be to betray the very being of God Himself. God has not changed from Old to New Covenant. Jesus Himself is fulfilling it - He is what it points to.

Each one of these regulations comes from a specific scripture that Jesus is quoting.

Deuteronomy 24:1–4 ESV

“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, and if she goes and becomes another man’s wife, 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, 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.

Now, in that example, notice that when it comes to divorce, there is no positive command here. This teaching in Deuteronomy is the one main place in Moses’ writings that deals with Divorce at all, and it is not commanding divorce. It is regulating the circumstances around and following a letter of divorce.

If you follow the passage, you’ll notice that it is a series of “if, if, if, if, if… then.” It is prohibiting a certain kind of “abomination” that took place. There is a sort of double restriction - there is a letter of divorcement, and there is a prohibition of remarriage to that spouse. This law was pointing to the sanctity of marriage, that it was something that couldn’t be dealt with, come in and out of flippantly. This also protected against hasty divorces. If a man decided in a fit of rage to divorce his wife, and then after a time realized he was wrong, but the wife had already remarried, he was forbidden from taking her back again.

So the purpose of this teaching was not to permit or deny divorce, the purpose of the teaching was not to command divorce. The purpose of the teaching was to regulate the circumstances in the case that a letter of divorce was given. So, it is a regulation because of divorce, not a prohibition or a rubber stamp on divorce itself. Now, Jesus has more to say on that in the New Testament, and we will take a look at that in a few minutes - but keep that in your mind. The text that is being quoted is not commanding divorce, but regulating it.

Leviticus 19:12 ESV

You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.

Now, here there is a specific command about oaths or swearing - you shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God. That is, there is something tied to the holiness and sacredness of God’s name that abhorred swearing falsely. To tie a promise to God’s name was seen as a debt to God that must be paid.

There are other passages that deal with oaths and swearing in the books of Moses.

Numbers 30:2 ESV

If a man vows a vow to the Lord, or swears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.

The Law was not decrying oaths, or vows, or promises - it was promoting truthfulness.

So faithfulness in marriage, and truthfulness in word. Seems relatively simple, right?

2. Two Contemporary Distortions

Well, what seems simple becomes complicated when we add human beings into the mix, especially with our propensity to look for loopholes. So what are the loopholes?

Well, let’s start with Divorce.

There were two schools of thought contemporary with Jesus day concerning Divorce and the law. They were the School of Shammai, and the School of Hillel.

Shammai and Hillel were Rabbis, and they seem to be alive at the time or just before the time of Jesus’ ministry - and they represented two opposing views of Divorce.

Shammai took a hard line - he read Deuteronomy 24 and insisted that the only justifiable reason for Divorce was adultery or sexual impurity. But Hillel took the permissive view - he read Deuteronomy 24 and insisted that “some unclean thing” in the wife could be anything that displeased the husband, and by anything, he meant anything.

He, and his followers, interpreted “anything” up to and including, the wife not being pleasing in the eyes of the husband, and even if the wife was prone to burning dinner - these were counted as grounds for divorce.

According to Historians of the Day like Josephus, Rabbi Hillel’s view was the prominent one. “Divorce for any cause.” Those in this group, then, grabbed on to that one little phrase in Deuteronomy - “a letter of divorcement.” That was their ticket to freedom. A letter of divorce was to be given to a wife who was “let go” by her husband to officially document that she was free, and could marry again. In a society where women were highly dependent upon husbands, this was to ensure that the woman was not ultimately abandoned.

But the letter of divorce, which was a measure meant to protect the wife, became a loophole for rampant and hasty divorce - the very thing that Deuteronomy seems to decry.

Divorce was never the intention in marriage. It was never part of God’s design. Later, in Matthew 19, Jesus will teach that Divorce was “permitted” because of the hardness of hearts. That is, because of sinfulness and human hardness, Divorce is allowable in certain circumstances to protect the innocent party. But it was never part of the design.

Matthew 19:3–6 ESV

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.”

By Jesus day, divorce for “any cause” was rampant. We experience a divorce rate in our culture of somewhere around 50%, and we decry that. But it seems in Jesus’ day, even in Israel, the rate was similar. Something had been lost in the sanctity of marriage, the holiness of the bond. The “letter of Divorce” was abused, misused, and utilized as a loophole.

What about oaths?

Well, apart from the Mosaic law on Oaths, there was much in the Mishnah that carefully traced kinds of oaths that you could take that were specifically “not in the Lord’s name.” Well, these oaths that were “not in the Lord’s name” became a loophole in themselves.

You see, nobody would want to be guilty of swearing falsely by the name of the Lord. But what if you needed to make a promise that you might break? Well, you just swear by something lesser - something like heaven and earth, or by Jerusalem. These were, after all, still large and important. But they weren’t the Lord’s name.

Invoking the name of the Lord in an oath was, in essence, to say “if I break my word, may the Lord Himself hold me accountable.” That is a strong statement, for in the Law and even in wisdom literature, we know that the Lord places a high value on truthfulness.

Leviticus 19:11 ESV

“You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another.

Proverbs 19:9 ESV

A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who breathes out lies will perish.

So, to swear by something less is to lessen the severity. But, how can heaven and earth hold you accountable? How can Jerusalem hold you accountable? It seems that taking oaths became a cultural norm, a way to bolster your trustworthiness, but taking them in such flippant ways was to defeat the purpose of oaths themselves. Oaths were so common that people were apparently taking oaths for every and any promise. They were so ubiquitous that they had lost their meaning.

So divorce for any cause, and oaths for every promise. Both lessened the value of what God’s law intended, and both utilized “loopholes” that propped up a false righteousness.

3. Two Radical Declarations

Now here is where the irony comes in. Jesus’ responses to these common misapplications shows us, again, that trying to hold up righteousness by the letter of the law, or in this case by loopholes, does just the opposite - it creates more unrighteousness.

Matthew 5:32 ESV

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.

Now, there is much debate even in Christian circles about the “exceptive clause” in Jesus’ teachings. When is divorce permissible? When is remarriage permissible? Is remarriage after divorce ever permissible? These are important questions, and good people have come down on varying interpretations. We will cover the teachings in depth when we Get to Matthew 19 - but let me say a word here, as a pastor, as a brother. In no way is Jesus holding up divorce as the unforgivable sin. Jesus recognizes in His teaching, as do the other authors of scripture, that divorce will take place because of human sinfulness.

All of us have, in one way or another, been affected or witnessed a marriage that unraveled because of sin. Nobody would wish that on anyone. I have watched closely loved ones who suffered terrible mistreatment and unfaithfulness from their spouse, and while divorce was not part of God’s original design, neither was adultery, unfaithfulness, abandonment, and the like.

So don’t hear a cold heart or a holier-than-thou attitude toward divorce. It breaks God’s heart as much as it breaks yours.

But with that said, we must take incredible care to not go in the opposite direction. We live in a society of things like prenuptial agreements, no-fault divorce, and the avoidance of marriage altogether. Did you notice in Matthew 19, how Jesus’ teaching on divorce went directly back to God’s creation of man and woman in his image, and their bond together signifying a Divine “wedding” and the couple being one flesh.

God’s institution of marriage precedes any other human institution that there is. There is a forsaking of all other romance, a forsaking of all lesser bonds for the permanence and sacredness of the marriage bond. Yet, today, like in Jesus’ day, divorce is looked upon as trivial, normal, even comical in some cases. May this never be the attitude of God’s children! Marriage itself pictures God’s design and God’s faithfulness - and to break that bond willingly and joyfully is to disregard the image of God in one another, and the holiness of the union that He created for His glory.

Jesus words about divorce and remarriage are strong, and without going into extreme detail today, let’s suffice it to say this - serial divorce and remarriage, and divorce for any cause, while holding on to a loophole in the law to prop up righteousness, ends up making people swim in a sea of adultery.

It was very likely that some of Jesus’ audience in that day had taken advantage of the “divorce for any cause” interpretation - and they did so to avoid breaking the law, while still being able to act upon their lust. Just as Jesus says Lust begins in the heart, Jesus teaches here that illegitimate divorce and remarriage is adultery. It makes the innocent party the victim of adultery, that is one translation of “makes her commit adultery”, because the permanent bond is illegitimately broken. And, since the divorce itself was not recognized by God, any remarriage that takes place then is adultery - because it is union with already-married people.

Do you see how this loophole, “divorce for any cause,” which men used to prop up their obedience to the law, made them transgressors in the trust sense? Beloved, these things ought not to be so. May we never be so flippant and trivial about this beautiful union that God designed. And if you have been a victim of unfaithfulness, and some legitimate divorce, you know it is not trivial like Jesus’ culture and our culture make it out to be.

And what about oaths? Jesus says,

Matthew 5:34–36 ESV

But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.

In trying to avoid swearing by God’s name, and breaking that vow, and profaning the name, invoking guilt on their own behalf, men would swear by lesser things. Not only was that ridiculous, as earth and heaven and jerusalem have no authority for guilt or innocence, but Jesus reveals that any of these oaths are, in fact, binding as if they were in God’s name.

Heaven is God’s throne - earth is His footstool - Jerusalem is His great city - even the hairs of your head reveal that God is ultimately in control. We go to great lengths to preserve, or shape, or temporarily color our hair - but the truth of it is we don’t even have sovereignty over our own hair. It falls out when it is time, it grows or doesn’t grow in places that we don’t desire - and its color changes, and repeated temporary dying reminds us that that we are fighting a losing battle.

What is Jesus saying? He is saying that all these oaths are still promises before God, because God is God over all these things as well.

We are just as guilty and culpable if we swear by God’s name as we are if we swear on our mother’s grave.

Now, Jesus is not making a new law that we are never to take an oath or a vow. Even Paul does so in a right manner.

2 Corinthians 1:18 ESV

As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been Yes and No.

Galatians 1:20 ESV

(In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie!)

But Jesus is demanding that true, heart righteousness does not look for a loophole in keeping our word.

Matthew 5:37 ESV

Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.

Now, how do we do this? Or how do we not do this?

As I was studying and thinking this week, I was personally convicted on two fronts in this regard.

One is, the flippant making of promises. And second is, the careful wording of a promise to give myself an “out.”

We’ve all made empty promises. I am guilty of that. We tell our children, “if you do that one more time then…” and then we give some threat of discipline that we don’t follow through with.

We tell people, “I will be there, as long as...” and then we give some qualification that gives us an easy out.

Perhaps the most heinous one that I commit, though, is this. Someone asks me to do something, to be part of something, to commit to something, and being a people-pleaser and not wanting to disappoint, in stead of saying “No” when I know the answer is “no,” I say, “I’ll pray about it and get back to you.”

Now, promising to pray about something is good - James teaches us to make our plans by saying, “if the Lord wills I will do this or that.” But in my own life, I know that I have abused the disguise of a prayerful attitude to simply avoid having to give a direct answer of yes or no.

“Let your yes be yes, let your no be no. Anything more than this comes from evil” or, “the evil one.”

Ecclesiastes 5:5 ESV

It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay.

We commit to things and intend to keep that commitment, as long as something better or more important doesn’t come up. We make promises that are knowingly conditional, never intending to keep the promise. “Let your yes be yes, and your no be no.”

Now, these two things, divorce and vows, come together in a unique way, don’t they? In our culture, to signify the importance and bond of marriage, we have ceremonies where we take vows.

A man and woman fall in love, a man proposes to the woman (traditionally), they are engaged, they set a date, and on that date they, before God and a number of witnesses, promise themselves fully and inseparably to one another. Yet, so often this happens with the back door to that marriage open.

I will pick on men, because I am one. Men make a vow before God and their wife and their family and friends that they will love, honor, cherish, and be faithful to that woman so long as they both live. Yet, a few years pass, and time takes its tole on mind and body, and that commitment wavers, and in lust adultery is commited. That is not only a breaking of a promise, it is the disregard of marriage. Something that God cares about deeply - faithfulness - is broken on all accounts.

4. One Principle Summation

And that is the summary where these two ideas meet.

Marriage is not a contract to be cancelled when it is no longer convenient, but a sacred union that calls for faithfulness.

Our word is something that is not binding simply when we invoke some great vow or pledge, but our word ought to be binding simply because we gave it.

At the end of this section, Jesus gives one final summary that is gutwrenching yet powerful.

Matthew 5:48 ESV

You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Last week, Scott gave a wonderful message that pointed to the Grace and Strength that we get from Christ in being made Holy, and dear ones, these areas are areas where we need that grace and strength.

Even though Jesus’ conclusions here would have been radical, and are still radical in our day, the obedience in these areas is really not that radical - it is simply faithfulness, to be faithful.

Do you see that it is the will and desire of Christ that we would reflect God’s holiness, God’s righteousness? And if anything can be said about God’s nature, it is that He is faithful! God is faithful when we are not, God keeps His word when no one else does. God does not neglect His people even when they fall short. God is faithful, and He calls us to be faithful.

God does not seek loopholes of how he can abandon us when the going gets tough. God does not try to wiggle His way out of promises when they are no longer convenient to keep. God’s faithfulness is undying, unfailing, steadfast, and sure - and Jesus calls His followers to the same.

1 Corinthians 1:9 ESV

God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

And know this, you cannot do this without Christ’s grace and mercy. We go back to the beatitudes - and we realize that we are poor in spirit, we do mourn over our own unfaithfulness, we are meek because we don’t have a leg to stand on - we have all failed, and we hunger and thirst for the righteousness that Jesus is speaking of here - but we are blessed - we will be filled.

By the Grace of Jesus, may we exhibit faithfulness in word and deed. May we exhibit truthfulness in our dealings, integrity in our relationships, may we never seek a loophole or an easy way out.

Human tendency is to excuse, normalize, and explain away sinful behavior; but Kingdom obedience requires faithfulness that displays God’s faithfulness.