Matthew 5:31-32, 19:3-10
with 1 Corinthians 7:10-15
What God has joined together
Manuscript
Well today we have finally arrived, for some, the most anticipated sermon of the year, delayed by one week because of volcanic ash-cloud! Yes, today we have arrived at the famous verse in Matthew 5 about divorce and remarriage. And I’ve had lots of you anticipating this sermon and asking me questions about it, before I’ve even preached it! And because of the nature of this sermon we will be talking about the birds and bees, so please take your younger children down to the movie we will be running downstairs which will be supervised. Today we have just two verses to look at in Matthew 5 - verses 31-32, but because Jesus talks about marriage and divorce elsewhere in Matthew, in chapter 19, we will also look at those verses and we will also look at what Paul has to say about in 1 Corinthians 7:10-15.
Marriage. Divorce. Remarriage. These are hot topics today. Why? The main reason these are hot topics today is because people want to know a number of things. First, some want to know how they can get out of their current marriages and are looking for a biblical reason or loophole that would allow them to divorce their current spouse. Others have already divorced or left their spouse and have remarried, and want to know if that is okay. Others are divorced or separated and not remarried, and want to know if they can get remarried again, and if so, under what circumstances or conditions. And then there are those us who are happily married, but wouldn’t mind knowing our options just in case something goes wrong, or we find someone more attractive sometime down the track… And then there are those who have never been married, and would like to know what they are getting in for when they are married. That’s why this topic is such a hot topic today.
But I want to tell you that it’s not just today that it is a hot topic. It was a hot topic in Jesus’ day, in Paul’s day. That’s why Jesus talks about it in Matthew and why Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians. And to understand what Jesus is saying, we first need to understand the context in which Jesus lived and the attitudes and rules about divorce in those times. In Matthew 5:31, Jesus says,
Matthew 531 “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’”
Now where does it say that, that whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce? Well it comes from Deuternomony 24:1 which says:
24 “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 then it goes to talk about a situation where a man divorces his first wife, then his second wife and wants to go back to his first wife! And we can see that the main thing this passage in Deutonomy is talking about is not commanding a man to give a certificate of divorce to his ex-wife but something else, and as an aside, it mentions that when he divorces his wife, then he would give her a certificate of divorce. Now Deuternomony had been written over a 1000 years before Jesus’ time and in that time a whole lot of misunderstanding had developed about that verse in Deuteronomy. And in the popular thought of Jesus’s day, people had twisted these few words mentioning a certificate of divorce to mean that Moses, who wrote Deutonomony, had actually commanded a man to give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away. We read that in Matthew 19:7 when the Pharisees challenge Jesus with:
Matt 197 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?”
If you look at Deutonomy 24, it doesn’t say that Moses commanded people to divorce their wives, but rather that Moses allowed for real life – what actually happens, and then regulates that. And Jesus corrects this misunderstanding in verse 8 when He says:
Matt 198 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives.
So why do I say all this? Because we see that by Jesus’ time, people had used a passing reference to divorce in Deuteronomy 24 to construct a whole theology justifying divorce in all sorts of circumstances. And we can see that in Matt 19:3 when we see the Pharisee’s initial question to Jesus:
Matt 193 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?”
At that time there was debate over the acceptable reasons for divorce. Some of the religious teachers taught that divorce was only allowed in exceptional circumstances, while other religious teachers taught that a man could divorce his wife for all sorts of reasons, including if she burnt his dinner, and including if the man found a more attractive woman and wanted to divorce his first wife so he could marry the more attractive woman. In other words, people back then were pretty much the same as now. They read the Scriptures, the Old Testament, looking for loopholes, looking for biblical reasons to justify divorcing their wives, or to justify their past actions. And we are the same. You know, these passages in Matthew we are looking at today are commonly known as teaching on divorce and remarriage, and we look at them and exegete them, and there are books and books and books written on them, with the main purpose of trying to work out when divorce is okay, and when it’s not. And whether remarriage is allowed after divorce or not, and if so, under what circumstances. And while we can learn about those things from these verses, and I will discuss those later in the sermon, it misses the whole point of Jesus’ argument. In both Matthew chapter 5 and 19, Jesus is not talking so much talking about divorce and remarriage, but He is talking about marriage and how to protect it.
Last time I preached, we looked at Matt 5:27-30. We looked at adultery of the mind. Jesus’ listeners knew they weren’t supposed to commit adultery. They knew that adultery was a big no-no. But Jesus expanded adultery to include not only what we do but also what we think. if we see someone who is not our spouse and desire to sleep with them, then that is adultery. If we engage in flirting with someone who is not our spouse, then that is adultery. If we tempt someone else to lust after us, then that is adultery. And now in the verses we are looking at today, Jesus continues to defend marriage - this time against divorce.
And in Jewish culture, many Jews had come up with all these reasons to justify divorce, much like we do today, but Jesus says in verse 32:
Matt 532 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.
When we read that verse we tend to focus on the exception, that is, “except on the ground of sexual immorality,” but Jesus’ main focus here is not the exception, but on the permanence of the marriage bond. That is, except for the exception of sexual immorality, divorce is out of the question. You cannot, must not divorce, for any other reason. And over in Chapter 19, Jesus is even more explicit. When the Pharisees ask him if it is lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause, Jesus quotes from Genesis 2:24 and replies with:
Matt 194 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 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’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
That is, marriage is for life. What God has joined together, we must not separate. If you are married, then divorce must not be in your vocabularly. If you are contemplating getting married, then divorce must not be part of your contigency plans. You don’t enter marriage to try it out, you enter marriage with a lifelong commitment. If you marriage is struggling, divorce is not the solution. And hey, I know marriage is difficult. My wife is married to someone who is difficult to get along with, so I know it’s not always easy! But Jesus says here, marriage is for life. And if your marriage is struggling, you ought not to look for an escape from your marriage, but to work on your marriage. And if you are having problems doing that, please, please, please, come and talk to me or one of the other elders and get some help with working on your marriage.
But you might say, what about real life? Aren’t there some cases where divorce is okay, even the lesser of two evils? Well the Pharisees wanted to know the answer to that question too, so let’s look at their question and Jesus’ answer:
Matthew 197 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?”
And Jesus answers
Matthew 198 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. 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”
Similarly Jesus says, that except in the case of sexual immorality, divorce is out of the question. The main thrust of what Jesus is saying is that marriage is for life - no divorce. But of course, we must deal with this one exception, this sexual immorality. What does this mean – this exception of sexual immorality? Well, I think that is obvious! Sexual immorality means any form of sex with someone you are not married to. And so what it means is that if your spouse has sex with, or engages in a sexual act with someone who is not you, then you may divorce them. So that includes a one night stand, it includes an affair, it includes homosexual relationships, it includes incest. If your spouse does any of those things, that is grounds for divorce.
Why? Why is sexual immorality the only valid reason that Jesus gives for divorce? Why not incompatibility? Why not if you can’t have children? Why not if you argue all the time – or even physically fight? Why not if one or both parties verbally abuse each other? Why not if one partner is an alcoholic or wastes all your money? Why is sexual immorality, of all things singled out? The reason is because sex is given by God as the mark, even the recognition of the marriage relationship.In Genesis 2:24, when God institutes marriage with Adam and Eve, it says
Genesis 224 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Where it says, “and they shall become one flesh,” that is talking about the act of sex. How do we know that? Because that’s what Paul tells us in
1 Corinthians 616 Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.”
Paul is saying that when you have sex with someone, even if that person is a prostitute, you become one flesh with that person. Yes, when you marry someone, you unite with them in all sorts of ways. Hopefully you unite in your dreams and ambitions. You do lots of things together. You live under the one roof, you have a great friendship. But all these things you can do with other people too. You can be great friends with your parents, with your friends. You can do things together, have common dreams and ambitions with other people besides your spouse. Yet there is one thing that is reserved for your spouse only, and that is sex. And that’s why sexual immorality is the only grounds for divorce, because if someone has sex with someone who isn’t their husband or wife, then they have effectively already broken the marriage bond by uniting with someone who isn’t their spouse.
So does this mean that if your husband or wife commites sexual immorality that you are obligated to divorce them? That you should divorce them? No it doesn’t, it just means you may divorce them. You don’t have to. And in fact, as we read the Bible, we always see that confession, repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation is God’s preference. When we sin against God, if we repent, God forgives us and we are reconciled to Him. So if your spouse commits adultery against you, and repents, truly repents, not just empty words, then you must forgive them. Now forgiving them doesn’t necessarily mean restoring the marriage, but it’s certainly an option and is usually the preferred option, especially if the adultery was a one off thing. But of course, if it is an ongoing thing, that just keeps happening, or if your husband and wife leaves you for another person, then you may divorce them.
And now the big question: does that mean you can re-marry if you are divorced because your spouse committed sexual immorality? Well in the Jewish culture, the whole point of divorce was so that the parties could go and marry someone else. And if we look at Matthew 19:9 it says
Matt 19 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”
What this means is that a man who divorces his wife and marrries another commits adultery, except in the case of sexual immorality. And so the meaning of that word “except” means that in the case of sexual immorality on the part of the wife, then the husband can divorce her and remarry.
Now what about the other way around? If it is the husband who commits adultery, can the wife divorce him and remarry? Well, Jesus only spoke to husbands here, because in Jewish society, only men could divorce anyway, so Jesus didn’t address a situation that didn’t exist in that culture. But when Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he wrote to a people in a different culture, a Greco-Roman culture where either men or women could initiate divorce. And Paul gives the same rules for both men and women, which we shall shortly see, so I think it is fair enough to imply from Jesus’ commands that in God’s eyes, what Jesus says about husbands in Matthew also applies to wives.
But speaking of Paul and Corinthians, let us now pop over to 1 Corinthians 7, where Paul talks about marriage. And we’ll look at that today too, because so far we’ve seen that in Matthew, Jesus gives only one legitatate reason for divorce - that is – that your spouse has committed adultery against you. And people often see another exception in 1 Corinthians 7. Let’s have a look at it. Firstly, Paul gives the general rule, and it seems he got this straight from Jesus’ teaching:
1 Corinthians 710 To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband 11 (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife.
In Corinthian society, divorce and remarriage was quite acceptable, actually, it was expected. The couple who remained together until the end of their lives was probably more the exception rather than the rule. Divorce and sexual immorality was probably more common that it is today. And so Paul has to remind the Corinthian church that now that they are believers, they must follow Jesus’ commands and stick with their spouse for life.
But, a number of Corinthians had become Christians but their spouses hadn’t. What should they do in such a situation? Elsewhere Paul said that a believer should not marry an unbeliever, but what if you were already married to an unbeliever? Should you divorce them? Well, Paul answers that question:
1 Corinthians 712 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. 13 If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him.
So if you are here today, and you are married to a non-Christian and they are happy to continue living with you as your husband or wife, then you should remain married to them and work on your marriage, and be a witness to them of good Christian living. But what if your unbelieving spouse wants out? Well, Paul takes about that too:
1 Corinthians 715 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.
That is, if your unbelieving spouse insists on leaving, let them leave, and Paul also says that in that case you are not enslaved. Now there is argument over what it means to not be enslaved, or bound. Does it mean that the belieiving spouse is now free to remarry? Or does it just mean that they are no longer bound to the marriage but are not free to remarry? Well again, like in Jewish society, if a marriage bond was broken, it did indicate in that society that remarriage was possible. So my take on this is that in the case of an unbelieving spouse insisting on leaving, then the marriage bond is broken and the innocent party is free to remarry. But the questions is, does this mean that Paul added another exception to Jesus’ exception about adultery? Well, probably not, because in Greco-Roman culture, if the unbelieving spouse left the believing spouse, he or she almost certainly would have left the believing spouse for another person, and would thus be in a sexual relationship with another person. So in other words, they would be committing adultery, and thus breaking the marriage bond in a simlar way to what Jesus was talking about. And that’s similar today: usually if an unbeliever leaves a Christian partner, they do so, so that they can go and live with another person.
Well I hope you followed all that. So… What does all this mean for today?
Firstly for those who are married it means this: Marriage is for life. Fullstop. Don’t even talk about divorce or consider it or think about it. If you are having trouble in your marriage, work on it, come and see me or one of the other elders and get some counselling.
Now, for those who are married and your spouse has committed adultery against you, or if your spouse is an unbeliever and insists on leaving you or divorcing you, then you may let them go and divorce you, and you may remarry someone else. But but but, the overwhelming evidence from Scripture is that you ought to do everything you can to save the marriage. Notice what Paul says in the case of unbelieving partners - you ought to try and live with them. Only divorce if the other person initiates it. And in the case of adultery, if your spouse repents, truly repents, and that means you can see they turned from their sin, and are no longer sleeping around, then you ought to forgive them, and seek to restore the marriage. Mulitple times in the New Testament it tells us to forgive others.
But apart from this reason of sexual immorality and/or desertion, there are no other reasons to divorce and remarry. No others. You might say – well what about abuse? Well, in the case of sexual abuse of children, well that is sexual immorality, so it is grounds for divorce. It’s also a crime and ought to be reported to the police.
What about physical abuse? Wife-bashing? Well, that’s actually not listed as grounds for divorce, but common sense would say that if you or your children are in physical danger, then you ought to protect your and your children from that, and if that means removing yourself and your children from the danger of a physcially abusive spouse then do that, and take whatever legal measures you can take to protect you and your children, even though you may remain legally married.
And now I want to say something to those of you who are divorced, firstly to those who are divorced and are currently single. I guess a question you have is – can I remarry? Well, it depends. Did you divorce your spouse because they committed adultery against you, or they were an unbeliever and deserted you for someone else? If so, yes you can. If not, then no you can’t. And if you divorced without scriptural grounds to do so, then that is sin, and you need to repent of that. Don’t look for a justification for it if there isn’t one, but truly repent, and if you do, God can and will forgive you.
And I realise that not all cases will be as cut and dried as that. With some people, untangling one’s relationship history and working out what you can do is a bit like tyring to untangle spaghetti. And if you are previously married and are not sure whether you can remarry and you would like to remarry, then please come and talk to me or one of the other elders and we can prayefully search the Scriptures together.
And I’m very aware that for some of you who according to the Bible ought not to remarry, that it would seem like the Bible’s teaching is condemning you to a life of singleness and loneliness. For you I would like to say, yes I understand that is tough, but it is not impossible. Jesus never said that following Him would be easy. And you need to ask yourself, am I willing to obey Jesus’ teaching in this matter? And besides, many people have lived happily for years as single people. I personally did not marry till I was 31, and didn’t meet Marcela till I was 29, and she was my first girlfriend. I was happily single from puberty to 31. Yes it was tough at times, but it wasn’t impossible, and with the Lord’s help I was happy and contented most of the time, and many many single people who have been single for much longer can testify that it is possible to be single and happy in the Lord.
And now for those of you who have been divorced and are remarried, if you were divorced and remarried because your spouse committed adultery or deserted you, then, my take on it is that you have not sinned. But if you divorced and remarried, and you were the one who committed adultery, or you divorced and remarried and your previous spouse had not committed sexual immorality against you before your divorce, then you have sinned by remarrying. What then should you do? Should you dissolve your current, newer marriage? Well, I don’t think so. For example, David should never have married Bathsheeba, but once he did, and was then convicted, he repented, but remained married to Bathsheeba, and worked on that marriage. So if that’s you, you should do is this:
1. Don’t try and justify what you have done but
2. Confess your sin and repent.
3. If you do this, God will forgive you.
4. And then work on the marriage you are currently in!
And if you’d like help with that, please come and see me or one of the other elders.
And now to those who are single, and this includes those who have never been married, and to those who are widowed, and to those who have been legitimately divorced with the right to remarry. Yes you may marry, but you need to be careful whom you marry.
Firstly, you may only marry another Christian. 2 Corinthians 6:14 says 2 Corinthians 614 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.
Secondly, be very careful about marrying some who has been divorced. Our verse, Matthew 5:32 says
Matt 532 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.
Notice the last bit – whoever marries a divored woman commits adultery. So the same rules apply that we’ve just talked about. Unless that person was legitimately divorced - that is, their spouse committed adultery against them or deserted them - then not only do they sin by marrying you, but you also sin by marrying them, even if you have never been married.
And thirdly, whoever you marry, choose carefully. Notice what Jesus’ disciples say to Him after Jesus basically outlaws divorce. Matthew 1910 The disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” Yes, marriage is for life. It is often diffucult as you work on that lifelong commitment. No wonder Jesus’ disciples wondered if it was so difficult that it is better not to marry! But I can tell you that although it is difficult, if you are both committed to it, it is worth it.
And fourthly for the single people, keep yourselves sexually pure. Do not have sex until you are married. Remember what Paul says in
1 Corinthians 618 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
And for any who have sinned by having sex outside marriage, if you haven’t previously admitted that to God and repented, then do so. Acknowledge that sin before God and ask for His forgiveness, which He will give to you if you are sincere. And if you are currently in a sexual relationship that you shouldn’t be in, then stop that relationship. As Jesus said when He forgave the woman caught in adultery
John 8:11b And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
Jesus does forgive us when we ask Him to, but He expects us to leave that sin behind. If you don’t then you are playing with fire.
So, how do we close this sermon today? Well, I am very aware that for many of you this will be a very hard sermon. For some it may seem harsh if it seems that because of your past you are condemned to a life of singleness. Others of you will be confronted with the need to confess your sins and repent to God. Some you may have further questions. For others you may not agree with what I’ve said, you might be struggling with what the Bible says. If you fall into any of those categories, please, I urge you, make a time to come and see me to talk about it more. I will be disappointed if no-one comes and talks to me more about this during this week, because I know many of you have questions that go beyond what I’ve been able to talk about today.
And for all us, let us commit ourselves to the Lord and His instructions for our life which we find in the Bible. No matter how hard or easy it is for each of us in our particular circumstances, let us let God take our lives and let them be consecrated to Him.
