Divorce According to Jesus (Matthew 5:31-32)
Divorce According to Jesus
Matthew 5:31-32
Well as you know we are presently studying the Sermon on the Mount,
And by now it is clear to all of us, the purpose in which Jesus preached it.
This was not a sermon on church growth strategy.
This was not a sermon meant to comfort.
This was a sermon meant to expose and condemn.
Jesus is taking the Law and expositing it for us.
Jesus is taking the Law and explaining it to us.
And because He is the most accurate and greatest preacher ever,
The conviction of the Law has hit us full force.
Paul said:
Romans 3:19-20 “Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.”
Romans 5:20a “The Law came in so that the transgression would increase;”
Romans 7:9 “I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died;”
The Law came to convict.
The Law came to expose.
The Law came to condemn.
And so it only stands to reason that as the greatest preacher ever
Explains the Law to us, that is exactly what it has done.
In particularly these last two weeks,
Where we all learned that if we truly understand the Law,
Then we are all murderers and we are all adulterers.
That has been the point of these “You have heard…but I say sermons”
• Jesus is taking a gross misconception of the Law and correcting it.
• Jesus is taking the Law and clarifying it.
• Jesus is taking the Law and enforcing it.
In fact this is what He said He would do.
Matthew 5:17-19 “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. “Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. “
And He proved that by taking the Law to a level
Many of us had never even considered.
They were the “You have heard, but I say” sermons.
In the first two, we saw Jesus take two of the 10 commandments,
And reveal they were only looking at them from an external perspective,
And not looking at the righteousness that was intended by them.
They were murderers in heart as revealed by their anger.
They were adulterers in heart as revealed by their lust.
So Jesus added the Internal concept to those commands.
Jesus continues to do that here,
Only here it wasn’t so much a failure to internalize the command
As it was the issue of misinterpreting it.
This morning Jesus brings up the concept of divorce,
While it was another area the Jews thought themselves to be righteous,
Jesus reveals that they had again missed the point.
They had missed the point.
They had twisted the Scripture.
The first two were issues of a failure to fully apply the command.
This is an issue of changing the command to fit their sin.
WE SEE THAT TODAY AS WELL
PEOPLE WHO WANT TO DRINK
“Even Jesus turned water in to wine”
PEOPLE WHO WANT TO GET RICH
Quote verses about prosperity
PEOPLE WHO JUST WANT TO SIN
“Judge not lest ye be judged”
Our world is full of people who pick and choose verses of Scripture
To support or defend almost any action.
Even Satan used Scripture to convince Jesus to jump off of the temple.
Misinterpreting Scripture to satisfy your desires is nothing new.
And that is the issue Jesus is dealing with.
And the topic Jesus uses is DIVORCE
• Partly because divorce ties right in with adultery.
• Partly because divorce was so common.
• Partly because divorce made His point so well.
THAT BEING SAID
I realize that there are many topics that can be preached on
That are offensive to people, and this one may be top of the list.
It is no secret that the long arm of divorce has reached deep
Into our society, and in many cases even into our churches.
And for those in this place who instantly feel singled out
Because of a divorce in your past,
I want to address you for a moment.
This sermon is not meant to come down only on you,
As a means to beat you up for something in the past.
Our desire is not to treat the divorced as second class citizens
Or as the chiefs of all sinners.
But at the same time, the truth about divorce must be preached,
In order that others may avoid it,
And in some cases those who have unwarranted divorces
Can repent of past sin.
So if you are divorced, I am not trying to pick on you this morning,
But we cannot overlook the problem of divorce
Even though we run the risk of making some uncomfortable.
So this morning we listen to Jesus’ 3rd
“You have heard…but I say” sermon.
#1 THE OBSERVATION
Matthew 5:31
“It was said, ‘Whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce’;”
And just to make sure we are on the same page,
You know that Jesus was quoting from Deuteronomy 24:1
And it is interesting that in regard to divorce
That this is the passage Jesus selected.
The fact that this was the prominent passage about divorce
Indicates that the people were not concerned about whether or not divorces occurred, but rather that they occur in the proper manner.
The verse they taught said nothing about the negative aspect of divorce,
But merely how to do it right.
It indicates that the people had come to believe
That divorce was acceptable.
And we know this is true based on a conversation
Jesus has later with the Pharisees.
Matthew 19:3-9 “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.”
There it was the Pharisees who truly thought divorce was fine,
So long as you did it the proper way and gave the woman the papers.
They viewed sending the woman away without papers as the sin,
But there was nothing wrong with the divorce.
THE SAD THING IS THAT THIS MINDSET IS QUICKLY PERMEATING OUR CULTURE AS WELL.
Divorce has really become no big deal.
Some wish to avoid because of the financial implications,
But not because of it’s offense to God.
In fact some have come to see divorce as so inevitable
That many in our day have chosen simply to live with someone unmarried
So that when the time comes to split there is no messy paperwork.
And this is tragic.
Allow me for just a moment to remind you of what God has to say
About marriage and divorce.
First of all: MARRIAGE WAS CREATED BY GOD
Genesis 2:18-24 “Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.” For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.”
God created marriage and said that it was good.
Later in the New Testament
Paul even identified false prophets as those who forbid it.
1 Timothy 4:1-3 “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth.”
God created marriage and said it was good.
And then, when God introduced His law,
Two of the 10 commandments actually served to protect marriages.
Exodus 20:14 “You shall not commit adultery.”
Exodus 20:17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
And as far as divorce bringing and end to a marriage,
God couldn’t have been clearer as to what He thought.
Malachi 2:16 “For I hate divorce,” says the LORD, the God of Israel, “and him who covers his garment with wrong,” says the LORD of hosts. “So take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously.”
In the New Testament it was Jesus saying:
Matthew 19:6 “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”
And so we get a pretty good understanding
About God’s view of marriage and divorce.
God by nature is a God of covenant.
God keeps His promises.
And so to give your word and then to break your vow,
Is the absolute opposite of Godliness.
BUT DESPITE THE CLEAR TEACHING ON DIVORCE,
GOD’S PEOPLE HAD MISSED THE POINT.
And that is what Jesus is confronting here.
“It was said, ‘WHOEVER SENDS HIS WIFE AWAY, LET HIM GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE’;”
LET’S LOOK AT THE PASSAGE JESUS IS QUOTING FROM.
Deuteronomy 24:1-4 “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.”
WHAT IS THE LAW OF GOD TEACHING HERE?
It basically says, that if a man and wife are married,
And he finds some indecency in her, and he gives her divorce papers,
And sends her away, and she goes and marries another man,
Who finds the same problem, and he sends her away,
Then the first husband can’t have her back, because she has been defiled.
That passage is not teaching about the act of divorce,
But rather it is teaching that divorce causes adultery.
However, the Jews had been reinterpreting that verse to fit their desires.
They read into that passage that God was only concerned
That in their divorce that they be sure and give a certificate.
In fact, they even took the statement about “finds indecency in her”
And found grounds for any and all divorces.
What does this indecency mean?
“Indecency” translates Er-vaw in the Hebrew.
It is the same word for when Noah’s son looked upon his nakedness.
It had to do with a promiscuous woman.
A woman who was embarrassing to her husband
Because of improper, shameful, or indecent behavior.
WE KNOW HOWEVER, THAT IT DIDN’T MEAN ADULTERY,
Because death was the penalty for adultery,
Even during the engagement period.
Leviticus 20:10 “If there is a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, one who commits adultery with his friend’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.”
And so obviously we are talking about a woman who embarrasses you.
And in that passage, God was not saying
You could send a woman away for embarrassing you,
He was merely pointing out that that is why most women
Were being sent away, and this was causing adultery.
In fact in Jesus day men were divorcing their wives
For things as simple as burning the toast or not folding the socks right.
HOW RELEVANT IS THAT TODAY.
We live in a nation that has been plagued by divorce.
We all know about the 50% of all marriages end in divorce
NAMELY BECAUSE WE HAVE GROWN TO VIEW DIVORCE
LIKE THEY DID IN JESUS DAY.
Any reason at all is a good enough reason to get a divorce,
As long as we right a certificate of divorce,
Or in other words, make it legal.
And that was Jesus’ observation.
You think that divorce is ok for any reason, so long as you make it legal.
The Observation
#2 THE EXPLANATION
Matthew 5:32
Jesus here is teaching that very same truth that the Old Testament taught.
That Divorce causes adultery.
“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.”
Notice Jesus simply spoke of two ways in which divorce causes adultery.
1) Divorcing your wife causes it
2) Marrying a divorced woman causes it
HOW?
It is NOT that if you are a woman and your husband divorces you,
Then you are instantly an adulteress.
However, you are now on the open market,
And the temptation is to go ahead and get remarried, and that is adultery.
WHY?
Because with God covenants are for life.
And just because the state of Texas may recognize your divorce,
That doesn’t mean that God does.
And in His eyes, even though you think you are free to remarry,
He sees what you are doing as adultery.
Let me give you an example.
TURN TO: GENESIS 20:1-7
Abraham almost caused adultery by sending his wife away.
And that is also true for the flip side.
A man sees a divorced woman and assumes she is now free to marry,
And because it is legal in our world, he does so.
And God sees it as him sleeping with another man’s wife.
It is adultery.
(And we learned last week the penalty for adultery)
Now we do want to be fair.
Jesus did say, “except for unchastity”
“unchastity” translatess “PORNEA”
It is where we get our term pornography.
It means, “illicit sexual intercourse”
That is the only reason Jesus gives that permits a person to get a divorce.
Why?
BECAUSE THE COVENANT HAS ALREADY BEEN BROKEN.
Marriage is a covenant in which God commanded two people
To honor it for the rest of their lives.
However, if one of the two breaks that covenant,
God does not hold the innocent part responsible, and He allows divorce.
BUT EVEN IN THAT, please know that adultery does not require divorce, you can forge a new covenant with them, it merely permits it.
I Corinthians 7:10-11 “But to the married I give instructions, not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not leave her husband (but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband should not divorce his wife.”
And in the mode of still being fair.
There is a second reason given in Scripture that permits a divorce.
I Corinthians 7:12-16 “But to the rest I say, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he must not divorce her. And a woman who has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to live with her, she must not send her husband away. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy. Yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave; the brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us to peace. For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife?”
If that unbelieving spouse wants to leave, let them leave.
Why is this so?
An adulterer was allowed to leave,
Because the covenant had already been broken.
A NON-BELIEVER COULD LEAVE,
BECAUSE IN GOD’S EYES THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A COVENANT.
2 Corinthians 6:14 “Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?”
There is not a covenant there between believers and non-believers.
There is nothing there to mix, just as you can’t join light and darkness.
This is one of the few times divorce was ever commanded in Scripture.
Ezra 10:1-4 “Now while Ezra was praying and making confession, weeping and prostrating himself before the house of God, a very large assembly, men, women and children, gathered to him from Israel; for the people wept bitterly. Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam , said to Ezra, “We have been unfaithful to our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land; yet now there is hope for Israel in spite of this. So now let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives and their children, according to the counsel of my lord and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the law. Arise! For this matter is your responsibility, but we will be with you; be courageous and act.”
Because of this verse,
One could argue it is commanded to divorce non-believers.
Paul teaches us otherwise.
There are two reasons Scripture permits a divorce to take place.
One is adultery.
The second is being unequally yoked.
Beyond that, God sees marriage as a covenant relationship,
And when a divorce takes place, we are encouraging adultery,
Because we are basically putting our spouse on the open market.
This is exactly what was going on in Israel in Jesus day.
And now even though Israel was filled with state recognized marriages, Jesus saw Israel full of adultery.
By reason of all the divorce and remarriage, Israel was an adulterous land.
DIVORCE CAUSES ADULTERY
Now, suppose I’m here and I’ve been divorced and remarried.
Suppose I married a divorced woman.
WHAT DO I DO?
Do I end this new marriage?
No – Paul’s command to the married is that they stay married.
(But repentance may indeed be in order, and forgiveness through Jesus)
YOU SEE, THAT IS JESUS POINT
You think that because you gave your wife a paper
When you sent her away, and because the state recognized it,
That you are fine.
YOU ARE NOT!
You offended God, and as a result you are not righteous.
No more so than the heart murderers
No more so than the heart adulterers
And you need the forgiveness that only Jesus can provide.
Just because society says something is ok,
Doesn’t mean God says it is ok.
And if you have offended Him, you must seek His forgiveness.
And this is a forgiveness found only in Jesus.
• So this morning, if you have never cried out to Jesus, I encourage you to do so. GIVE YOUR LIFE TO HIM.
• This morning, if you have submitted your life to Him, then by all means LIVE LIKE IT, and don’t do anything that would offend Him.
2 Corinthians 5:21 “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
Christ died to make you righteous.
SO BE RIGHTEOUS
