Honor marriage part 2

Introduction

Last week we considered this first part of Moses’ pastoral wisdom as regards the institution of marriage. We considered this initial scenario in the chapter in which Moses describes a husband who, for unmentioned reasons, decides to accuse his wife of unchastity. We looked at the connections here between the 7th commandment, to not commit adultery, and the 9th commandment, to not bear false witness. Tonight we want to continue this train of thought by exploring another handful of scenarios that faced the nation of Israel, and how Moses guides the thought and life of the nation with his wise application of the 7th commandment. My goal for tonight is to stand upon the Word of God and show you directly from it why you, as a Christian, must care about marriage, and what you must do about it.

Scenario #1: An Extramarital Affair

Verse 22 paints a fairly simply picture: the penalty for extramarital affairs is death. Both the man and the woman must die by stoning, in order that the evil may be purged from Israel.

Make no mistake: God takes this seriously.

And so we find the reality of so many professing Christians, and even Christian leaders, to be especially heartbreaking. Time after time we hear of some Christian leader having an affair, of failing to be faithful to God and to his wife. I thank God for the many faithful churches who walk in integrity and obedience and remove pastors from pulpits who commit these heinous sins. I thank God for the many faithful churches who call those among their number caught in this sin to repentance.

As a church we must be bold in this. We must take a firm stand for Biblical ethics, for the sanctity of the marriage bed, and confront these sins when they arise, both in our own lives and in the life of the church.

Scenario #2: A Betrothal Affair

Many of you may know that the ancient Hebrew custom was that the husband and wife be betrothed to one another for an extended period of time. This betrothal period was a time of preparation, primarily for the man, to prepare a home and living for his new wife. Once this preparation was complete, his wife would come with him to the new home and the marriage would practically begin and be consummated. However, even during this betrothal period, for all intents and purposes, the couple was already bound together, committed to one another in the marriage covenant, which is why the punishment is the same. While technically unmarried, in a legal sense the marriage covenant was already sealed, and so by violating it, the betrothed and the interloper have failed to uphold the sanctity of the marriage relationship.

This passage provides context to the most well-known Biblical betrothal: that of Mary and Joseph. Joseph knew full well, that because he and Mary had not yet come together, and yet she is found to be with child, that her fate would be death at the hands of the elders and the community according to this law if her pregnancy was discovered. This is why Joseph, described as a righteous man, intends to “divorce her quietly,” choosing to engage the provision in Deuteronomy 24 that states that a divorce is permissible if any uncleanness or impurity is found in the woman.

In keeping with the Law of God, this situation would require Mary to face the death penalty, but of course we know how she became pregnant, and how that story turns out.

So for a second time, we see the seriousness with which God holds the marriage relationship, and not only just the sexual aspect of it, but even the relational and covenantal aspect of it.

Scenario #3: A Rape in Betrothal

In this scenario the death penalty only awaits one party: the assaulting man. The scenario plays out that this girl is assailed in the countryside by a man and she cries for help but there is no one to hear her and rescue her. She is defiled by this evil man, and he faces the death penalty but she does not.

Notice the care and provision that God displays for the innocent young woman here. As Christians, we ought to have that same level of care for those who have been victimized by evil men. Obviously we need to balance our care with the truth, as we saw in our first point, but when the truth of the matter is that a woman has been assaulted and violated, our responsibility to that young woman is to care for her and protect her, even as God commands here.

I fear that the church has fallen short in this area in many respects. Survivors deal with deep pain, emotional scars, and haunting memories of the horror of sexual abuse and assault. We would do well to ask: how can we care well for them? I think of the imagery of Isaiah 40:10-11

Isaiah 40:10–11 NASB95

Behold, the Lord God will come with might, With His arm ruling for Him. Behold, His reward is with Him And His recompense before Him. Like a shepherd He will tend His flock, In His arm He will gather the lambs And carry them in His bosom; He will gently lead the nursing ewes.

The same arms that deal judgment to the perpetrators, also carry the victims like lambs. As a church we should reflect this aspect of God’s character, dealing justly with those who commit evil, and dealing compassionately with those who suffer because of evil. As a church do we reflect the heart of Christ, which is a heart of compassion for the sufferer? I pray that we do, and that we continue to grow in this area.

Scenario #4: A Rape Outside Betrothal

The next scenario Moses describes is another rape situation, this time with a girl who is not married or betrothed. The punishment here, like our first scenario, is a fine, and no provision for divorce under any circumstances.

Now our modern sensibilities might chafe at this a little bit. Why would we force a girl to spend the rest of her life with her abuser? There are a couple of items to point out regarding that. First of all, the context of the passage is one of community. The idea is that this couple will be under the careful watch of the elders and the people to ensure that no further harm would befall her. The other thing to keep in mind is something that RC Sproul points out:

The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version (2015 Edition) Chapter 22

Women depended on their marriage relationship for protection and status in ancient Near Eastern society, and the law provides important protections for women.

A final consideration is that the general cultural outlook on a woman who had been victimized in those days would have been unfavorable. She likely would not have found a husband if her abuser was not required to marry her, simply because of how she would be publicly perceived after the assault.

So we see that God again takes special care for the women of Israel, especially the young, the innocent, and the virgins.

Scenario 5: A father and son share a wife

This is another unique situation, in which an elderly widower takes a new, younger wife, then the widower passes away, leaving a young widow. in this scenario, a son from the previous marriage would take his father’s widow, essentially his step mom, as his wife, in a kind of kinsman redeemer situation.

you might say, there’s no blood relation, what’s the big deal? Two items:

First, it’s a matter of the honor of your father. To have relations with a woman with whom your father also had relations, regardless of age and blood relation, even after your father’s death, is a shameful thing. So this is a command out of two commandments, you shall not commit adultery and you shall honor your father and mother.

Secondly, it’s a matter of the appearance of evil. The people of god are not to even entertain the appearance of evil, and this type of situation, according to Spurgeon, Calvin, and Sproul, while not an explicit moral evil, is strange, unseemly, and unbecoming to the people of god, gives the appearance of evil, dishonors your father and mother, and is therefore forbidden by God for his people.

Now since we bought ourselves a little extra time by splitting this lermon into two parts, I want to stop for a bit and take some time to look at a few things in this passage. The first is the idea of stoning as a means of punishment.

Stoning is essentially the community act of ceremonial execution by which God commands the nation of Israel to purge evil from their midst.

We know that God instituted the death penalty in his covenant with Noah in Genesis 9. But stoning is specific type of death penalty.

We can learn a couple of things about this from God’s Word.

First, stoning is not exclusive to Israel. We see in Exodus 8 that the Egyptians customarily stoned those who offered what they deemed to be false worship. So the act of stoning as a mean of execution was connected inextricably to the breaking of codes of worship - if you worship wrongly, you die.

Second, stoning is a community act. Every instance of stoning in the writings of Moses is described as being done by the people, by the congregation, by the elders.

Thirdly, stoning is always public. This goes together with the idea that it’s a community act. Notice even in this passage that the stoning is to occur at the gate of the city, which was the ancient near Eastern equivalent of the town square.

Now contextually, the command to stone is always given in direct conjunction with a violation of a specific commandment. In fact, you can directly connect every command to stone someone with a preceding direct violation of one of the ten commandments. Whether it’s bearing false witness, to murder, to idol worship, to violating the Sabbath, the short version is, breaking any part of God’s Law results in death in the “Mosaic legal economy.”

Now this command is given maybe a dozen times in the writing of Moses, which would indicate to most people that the stoning of those who would break the Law should occur fairly frequently, in order that the evil might be purged from among you. But here’s what interesting. There’s only about 9 accounts in the entire Bible of stoning. Adoram, the labor supervisor of David, Solomon, and Rehoboam, was stoned by the people for no reason in 1 Kings 12. Naboth, the owner of the vineyard in 1 Kings 21, is stoned to death at the order of Ahab and Jezebel. Zechariah the prophet is stoned to death by King Joash in 2 Chronicles 24. The Pharisees attempt to stone Jesus twice, once in John 8 and once in John 10. The Pharisees also attempt to stone Mary Magdalene in John 8 as well. Stephen is stoned to death in Acts 7. Paul is stoned but doesn’t die in Acts 14.

So overall the Hebrews have a terrible track record when it comes to actually stoning people, and then stoning people for the correct reasons. It stands to reason, given the record of immense evil perpetrated by the Hebrew people in the Old Testament, that if there were any Israelites who actually cared about the law of God, that they would have made some effort to purge the evil from among them, but we have no record of that ever really happening. What we do have is a record of people being stoned without cause, and even worse, being stoned for evil purposes. With only one exception, Mary Magdalene, every Biblical record of stoning was unwarranted from the perspective of human justice, whereas every situation that warranted stoning, Israel failed to do it.

We can learn a couple things then from this:

First, God cares about purging evil from amongst His people. He cares about the purity and integrity of His people.

Second, God’s Law is clear that breaking it results in death. Any time the Law is broken, the death penalty is required. This comes to a shadowy fulfillment through the animal sacrifices, and it’s true and better fulfillment in the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

The Principles

So having considered the strength of God’s commands regarding marriage and adultery, and the severity of punishment that comes when you violate those commands, I would like to zoom out and take a look at the big picture, in the context of our three guiding principles that help us interpret the book of Deuteronomy.

God’s heart

For marriage

We can observe clearly here that God cares deeply about marriage. It is something that is close to His heart. We saw last week that God takes great pains to establish and ground the marriage relationship in the order of creation. This is why, throughout the world, across cultures, marriage exists and is understood on some level intrinsically by all human beings. We were designed to have intimate, close relationships of mutual service, benefit, and pleasure, as male and female. This is God’s creation design. And so, God implements commands to guard that design.

As Christians then, in order to reflect God as we are called to, we must also guard that design. We care about marriage as an institution because God cares about marriage as an institution. We care about the purity and integrity of marriage because God cares about the purity and integrity of marriage. And I’m not up here tonight to tell you this because it sounds good or because it appeals to your traditional sensibilities or because sociology and biology and psychology all proclaim the goodness and soundness and beauty of marriage. I’m here to tell you this because God tells you this.

For women

Dimestore theologians and progressive preachers will tell you that the God of the Bible is misogynistic. Beth Moore will get on Twitter and apologize on behalf of God Almighty for His archaic and patriarchal views of women. But here’s the thing: Moses disagrees vehemently with the proposition that God hates women. Moses himself takes a bold and countercultural stand for the rights of women right here in this passage. How, you may ask? The thrust of this text, particularly in our first and fifth scenarios, is the protection of women. We mentioned it a little bit last week, but the main idea behind these two commands forbidding divorce is that God is protecting and watching out for the women of the nation of Israel. Culturally, it was difficult for women to survive alone in these days. Women generally lived under their father’s roof until such a time as a suitable man would come along to protect and provide for the woman. This would be compounded in both of these situations in which some sort of sexual violation applied a cultural stigma to the woman, affording her a lesser status because she was not a virgin. Moses makes clear here that these protections are for women who have unwillingly had the honor and dignity of their chastity stripped away from them, by men who are either liars or abusers. By making these specific provisions, we gather that God cares specifically for the women of Israel and the women of the surrounding cities and peoples.

Israel’s distinctiveness

In marriage

God uses these commands again to establish the distinctiveness of Israel. God had established from the beginning that marriage would be between one man and one woman, who consent to covenant together for life before God in a relationship marked by mutual service, help, and affection, which would lead to the bearing and rearing of children, who would then multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. This is God’s created order.

The problem is, the Canaanite people were twisting this, and making marriage into something God never designed it to be. Historical records show us that marriage was not valued or dignified in any way in Canaanite culture. Much more common than the “office,” if you will, of wife, was the office of concubine and prostitute. A concubine fills one role of the wife, to bear children, but without the consequences and benefits of covenant marriage. A prostitute fills another, to bring pleasure, again with the consequences and benefits. The man brings nothing to these relationships. He does not need to protect, nor does he need to serve, nor does he need to provide. The Canaanite man has a string of one-night-stand after one-night-stand, getting what he wants - pleasure - and what he needs - offspring - and leaves the women in the dust. Canaanite men were also abusive, and we have records of rank polygamy, and child marriage.

And if you go the Middle East today, many of these pagan ideas still exist in force.

The pagan societies and nations that surrounded Israel did not honor or dignify marriage. It meant nothing to them.

And I think we find ourselves in a similar culture today. Affairs are celebrated. Rape is covered up. Pornography is placed in the palm of our hand. Homosexual unions are offered legal protection in our own country.

As the people of God, the way that we think about and approach marriage must be distinct from the world around us.

Concerning women

Again we see Israel’s distinctiveness on display in their treatment of women. Canaanite women were nothing more than objects, tools to achieve an end. Is a woman sexually attractive? Then she is useful to a Canaanite man. Is a woman able to bear children? Then she is useful to a Canaanite man.

Israel’s treatment of women is distinct in that they afford an identity to the woman that is not tied first and foremost to her sex appeal or to her ability to bear children, but to her status as an image-bearer. Genesis is clear that both the male and the female equally bear and reflect God’s image.

As God’s people then, our responsibility is to affirm and encourage God’s image in our mothers, wives, sisters and daughters. We are to be distinct from the world in this way. When the world says that the value of a woman must be measured by he professional opportunities or her paycheck or her voting rights or her cultural voice, the people of God say that a woman is measured by the image of God that she bears, and how closely she reflects that image by walking in holiness and obedience.

Ladies, I would encourage you tonight: don’t evaluate yourself by what the TV or the internet or Instagram or TikTok tells you is valuable. Evaluate yourself according to God’s Word.

Church, I would encourage you as well. Build up your mothers and sisters and wives and daughters in this. Don’t mistreat them by trying to force them into categories designed for men.

Christ’s fulfillment

We’ve seen, unequivocally, that God honors, dignifies, and protects marriage. God, through Moses, Paul, Jesus, and the example of history, demonstrates time and again that marriage is a sacred and foundational institution.

You may rightly ask why this is. Why is this institution arguably closer to the heart of God than any other?

Certainly marriage is beautiful. It is the means by which men are to subdue the earth, rule over it, and have dominion. It is the closest and most intimate human relationship we can have, fulfilling our deep-seated desire to belong to someone else. It is the cornerstone of a functioning society, and sociocultural and geopolitical systems that have upheld and defended it have largely seen success and prosperity.

But this institution is important for a reason beyond any of these.

That reason is that marriage is the institution, the event, the reality that God has chosen to serve as a type and figure of Christ’s relationship to the church.

From the very first mention of the institution of marriage in Genesis, God’s eternal design was for a bride made up of all God’s people to be prepared, by the work of the Holy Spirit, for the coming of the bridegroom, His Son, Jesus Christ.

We see this prefigured for us in Psalm 45, as the Sons of Korah describe the marriage of the King of Israel.

Psalm 45 NASB95

For the choir director; according to the Shoshannim. A Maskil of the sons of Korah. A Song of Love. My heart overflows with a good theme; I address my verses to the King; My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. You are fairer than the sons of men; Grace is poured upon Your lips; Therefore God has blessed You forever. Gird Your sword on Your thigh, O Mighty One, In Your splendor and Your majesty! And in Your majesty ride on victoriously, For the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness; Let Your right hand teach You awesome things. Your arrows are sharp; The peoples fall under You; Your arrows are in the heart of the King’s enemies. Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of uprightness is the scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You With the oil of joy above Your fellows. All Your garments are fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia; Out of ivory palaces stringed instruments have made You glad. Kings’ daughters are among Your noble ladies; At Your right hand stands the queen in gold from Ophir. Listen, O daughter, give attention and incline your ear: Forget your people and your father’s house; Then the King will desire your beauty. Because He is your Lord, bow down to Him. The daughter of Tyre will come with a gift; The rich among the people will seek your favor. The King’s daughter is all glorious within; Her clothing is interwoven with gold. She will be led to the King in embroidered work; The virgins, her companions who follow her, Will be brought to You. They will be led forth with gladness and rejoicing; They will enter into the King’s palace. In place of your fathers will be your sons; You shall make them princes in all the earth. I will cause Your name to be remembered in all generations; Therefore the peoples will give You thanks forever and ever.

This is then fulfilled in part when we read in Ephesians 5:22-33 as Paul likens the relationship between husband and wife to Christ and church.

Ephesians 5:22–33 NASB95

Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.

And the final fulfillment of this theme comes in Revelation 19:7-8

Revelation 19:7–8 NASB95

“Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.” It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.

and again in Revelation 21:2

Revelation 21:2 NASB95

And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.

The witness of the Scriptures is, time and again, that marriage occupies a first-class seat in the heart of God because it is the best human method we have to portray our relationship with Christ. The marriage of Christ and church in the last days will be the full consummation of all human history. Therefore, we are quite literally betrothed right now. The best way for us to conceive of our relationship to Christ is that we are betrothed to him. The marriage has not yet taken place, the relationship not yet been consummated. Nevertheless, we wait in patience and in purity, as Christ prepares his home for us to dwell there forever.

So you want to know why you should honor marriage? You should honor it for the same reason you honor baptism and the Lord’s Table, not necessarily because human marriage carries salvific weight, but because the Lord has chosen it so that he might accommodate himself to our feeble minds, by giving us a microcosmic example of the relationship we have with His Son. So every time you attend a wedding, or reflect upon your own marriage, or the marriage of your children, be reminded that this is Christ’s relationship with you and with his church. You are the bride of Christ.

Conclusion

So what are we to do with this information? What are we in 2022 to do with these commands?

Pursue purity as a single person. If you are unmarried, your focus must be on purity and chastity. Build boundaries in your relationships that you don’t cross. I encourage all you single people here tonight, honor marriage by pursuing purity.

Fight for fidelity as a married person. If you are married tonight, honor marriage by being faithful, in thought, word, and deed. Husbands, love your wives. Wives, submit to your husbands.

Purge the evil from your midst. God takes sins against marriage seriously. Are you willing to take radical measures to pursue purity and fidelity in your relationships? Are you willing to get off social media? Are you willing to turn off the TV? Are you willing to avoid the desks of certain people in your office? What practical, real-life steps are you prepared to take to honor marriage? God’s Word is clear - this is a life and death situation.

Purge the evil from our midst. Do we allow relational impropriety in our midst? Are we as a church bold and willing to take a stand for what’s right among our own people? Again - this was a life and death matter for the nation of Israel, and it must also be a life and death matter for our church.

Honor marriage in the public square. We live in a culture that, quite frankly, hates marriage. I was told by an unsaved coworker about 2 months ago that I should not get engaged because I am too young. I should wait until I’m 30 to get married because I don’t “know myself.” That is insanity and stands in opposition to the word of God. This might be controversial but I am a firm believer in young marriage. By young I mean, if you are capable as a man of obtaining and retaining gainful employment to the extent that you can protect and provide, if you are capable as a woman of raising children physically and spiritually, and if as a couple you have the support and discipleship of a local church, you are qualified to get married. Don’t overthink it. We also need to honor marriage in the public square by the policies we enact and the people we support. We have a sitting president who has brought on a Transportation Secretary that openly abuses and dishonors marriage by being a practicing homosexual. We live in a country where homosexual marriage is afforded legal protection and blessing. As we’ve heard recently, these are not political issues. These are moral, ethical, Biblical issues that require us a Christians to take a stand, to speak boldly and publicly, and declare the truth of God. Satan is waging war on the people of God and indeed on the entire earth, and he’s doing it by attacking at moral and ethical points like these, labeling them as political, so that pastors and preachers won’t talk about them. Well we need to talk about them. God’s Word is so clear about what marriage is and why it’s important. So we must take that and act appropriately. What do we support? What do we watch? What and whom do we vote for? Do we honor marriage in the public square?

Marriage is important. God takes it seriously. We also must take it seriously. So I encourage you tonight. Whether married or unmarried, honor marriage. God has instituted it and has ordained that it would be the foundational relationship upon which a functioning society is built. He has ordained that it would be the means by which humans would obey the creation mandate. And finally, he has ordained it as a visible means of teaching us how we relate to our Lord, to our Savior, to our true and better husband, Jesus Christ. May we walk as a worthy bride even tonight.