“1 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. 2 Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. 3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
10 The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.” 11 Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. 12 For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”
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‘Seven weeks have passed now since she left me. She shows her face to ask me how I am. She says the kids are fine and that they miss me. Maybe I could come and babysit sometime. She says, “are you okay? I was worried about you. Can you forgive me [for leaving you for another man]? I hope that you’ll be happy.” I said, “I’m so happy that I can’t stop crying. I’m so happy I’m laughing through my tears.”’
There’s one song on divorce. Here’s another: “don’t seem the same, seems you’ve lost your feel for me. So let’s leave it alone because we can’t see eye to eye. There ain’t no good guy, there ain’t no bad guy. There’s only you and me and we just disagree.”
I chose two songs on divorce because Jesus draws a distinction between two different types of divorce. There is a distinction between, “Can you forgive me [for leaving you for another man]” and, “There’s only you and me and we just disagree.” We tend to shy away from publicly drawing such a distinction lest anyone be offended, but when such distinctions are not drawn, it does a disservice to everyone. It does a disservice to those thinking about divorce. It does a disservice to those who have been divorced on either side of the distinction. It leaves everyone unclear about what to do. Jesus offers a better path forward for everyone. When asked about divorce, Jesus goes back to the beginning and that’s where we will go as the claim of this sermon: divorce was not God’s plan from the beginning.
We will study this in three points. First: a trick question. Second: a tricked question. Third: the disciples’ amazement. We see the trick question and Jesus’ answer in verses 1-6. We see the tricked question and Jesus’ answer in verses 7-9. We see the disciples’ amazement in verses 10-12.
First: a trick question. This is not Jesus’ first word on divorce in the gospel of Matthew. You can read that in chapter 5. What we have here in chapter 19 is an attempt on the part of the Pharisees to force Jesus to make an unpopular statement about divorce. The Pharisees knew divorce was a sticky subject. They were divided among themselves on it; that division is what they asked Jesus about in verse 3, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” This question comes from differing interpretations of Deuteronomy 24:1, “If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house…” The Pharisees who followed Hillel said that the phrase “something indecent,” could mean anything, which is what makes their position somewhat similar to no-fault divorce today. The Pharisees who followed Shammai said, “something indecent,” implied an adulterous relationship or something as devastating.
The Pharisees knew how contentious this issue was because they couldn’t agree about it themselves. They knew how explosive it was in a culture in which so many people had been divorced because a significant number of people were divorcing “for any and every reason,” to borrow a phrase from verse 1. Ours is not the first age in which divorce is quite common. The Pharisees asked this question to throw a hot potato in Jesus’ lap.
In other words, they tested him; verse 3, “Some Pharisees came to him to test him.” This word for “testing” was first used by Matthew to describe the ways Satan tested Jesus. There are earnest and important questions regarding all these matters we’ve been studying in this series, but there are also crafty questions which have more to do with advancing particular agendas—like justifying sin—than with pursuing the truth. That’s what the Pharisees were doing; they were asking questions to push an anti-Jesus agenda. That’s sometimes what people do with similar questions today.
Jesus responded to this manipulation by reframing the issue; verse 4, ‘“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?”’ Jesus didn’t let a loaded question about divorce set the agenda. He let the full scope of Scripture set the agenda. The full scope of Scripture must set the agenda for complicated issues. That’s why this series has been arranged as it has. Before we could talk about particularities of marriage and sexuality, we set had to set them within their proper context.
Jesus was making clear that divorce shouldn’t be thought of in primarily sociological categories meaning that the rising tide of divorces in the 1980’s didn’t change God’s plan from the beginning. The drop in the percentage of people getting married today doesn’t change God’s plan from the beginning. The particularities of marriage, divorce, and remarriage in the first century didn’t change God’s plan. Jesus went back to the beginning to show that God made two—male and female—by a separation at Eve’s creation and put the two together back through marriage. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”
Jesus wanted the Pharisees and his disciples to understand that becoming one flesh was not something that we accomplish alone through our decision to marry; it is something that God accomplishes and since God makes the two one flesh, God has thoughts on what turns one flesh back into two. As Jesus puts it, “what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
Jesus was giving the Pharisees and disciples a framework for understanding divorce and he was doing so to heal. If you look back up to verse 2, you will notice how Matthew sets the stage for this conversation about divorce; “Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.” My guess is that you will recognize the Greek word behind verse 2’s word for healing—thereapu-o. Ignoring Jesus’ words on any matter including divorce in an attempt to be therapeutic will not prove healing in the long run. This same Jesus who healed the sick, spoke these words about divorce with the same motivation. Don’t set the Jesus who heals the sick in opposition with the Jesus who speaks these words on divorce. Don’t set the Jesus who welcomes prostitutes in opposition with the Jesus who speaks these words on divorce.
This focus on the two being joined together—or “glued together” as it could be translated—frames the question far better than, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” As Bruner put it, “Onefleshness is so profound a reality that with it Jesus has already answered the divorce question without every directly addressing it.” The question was no longer, “how can I justifiably divorce my spouse?” The question was now, “can what God has joined be separated?”
Only God can make two one and God makes one into two. This means that Jesus’ words to this point are more than enough to answer many questions about divorce. They are more than enough most follow up questions in the same way that a father’s first answer to the question, “is it okay to and you can fill think the blank?” is enough to answer most follow up question. “I made you one flesh. Why should you separate?” Now the Pharisees did ask a follow up question. That’s our second point: a tricked question.
What you are about to see is what is called casuistry. Casuistry is clever but unsound reasoning used to justify what we can’t seem to justify. Children do it with their parents. Each of us does it in our own head more often than we would like to admit. The Pharisees were doing it in verse 7, ‘“Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”’ This question goes again to Deuteronomy 24:1, which was the main text in discussing divorce in that day. In it Moses commanded men to give their wives a certificate of divorce as part of the proceedings. This certificate made clear that she was free to marry another man. The Pharisees read this as God giving begrudging approval of divorce as in, “I’d wish you wouldn’t divorce but if you think you must, here is how you do it.”
Jesus response makes clear that the Pharisees were not only trying to trick him, but that they themselves were tricked; they were tricked by their attempts to justify what God wouldn’t; verse 8, ‘Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.” This word from Moses wasn’t God’s tacit but begrudging acceptance that divorce is just sometimes the way it goes—as in, “here ain’t no good guy, there ain’t no bad guy. There’s only you and me and we just disagree.” It was sin management. Moses was saying that these unjust divorces were still sin, but that doesn’t mean the unjustly divorced spouse had to suffer for it. That’s why he made sure she could remarry in that situation. That’s what’s going on with the “hard heart” language here for the men; “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard.”
Hard heart language is sin language. Jesus doesn’t accept the logic that we are somehow so messed up that we need not obey in certain situations. It’s common to read Jesus here as saying, “it would be great if we were in the Garden of Eden—as it was in the beginning—but we aren’t anymore and since your hearts so unavoidably hard now divorce which wouldn’t have been okay in Eden is unfortunately the way it has to go today.” That’s not what he’s saying. He is saying that those divorces that happened without just cause were caused by sin—by hard heartedness. It’s not, “there ain’t no good guy, there ain’t no bad guy. There’s only you and me and we just disagree.” It’s a case of those husbands putting something above obedience.
Now that puts those husbands and anyone who has divorced unjustly in a very familiar category, which is the category of recognizing that we’ve sinned. This is a category in which I often find myself and I hope every person hearing these words has found themselves and will find themselves because, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Coming to terms with the fact that you’ve sinned shouldn’t be a mystifying or angering situation for the Christian. It should be familiar to all of us, which is to say that people who have divorced unjustly are right at home in this sanctuary with people who have spoken words unjustly or dealt with finances unjustly or exercised authority unjustly, meaning that they are right at home with all of us and we are right at home with them. We Christians are so strange. We are so willing to say that we are sinners in general but so resistant to recognize sins in specific. That’s so bizarre because it is specific sins that can be forgiven. “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
This morning we are studying the distinction that Jesus makes between these two types of divorce. In 1 Corinthians 7, the apostle Paul explores this same distinction in terms of abandonment. Books like the ones in the bulletin explore what abandonment is and what it isn’t because that is an involved matter. We will look more at this next week; for today, however, we are just looking at this distinction Jesus made. We do so because his thinking cuts to the heart of the issue. It is all about one flesh. In verse 9, “I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery”, Jesus is saying that one flesh union is broken by one flesh behavior outside of the one flesh union.
Jesus wasn’t saying that sexual unfaithfulness in all its forms necessitates a divorce as many in his day and today would say. He urged forgiveness. This passage we are studying comes right on the heels of Jesus’ surprising answer to Peter’s question, “how many times shall I forgive my brother who sins against me?” Jesus expects forgiven people to forgive. However, unrepentant sexual unfaithfulness kills the one flesh union and so the marriage is already over. The divorce proceedings then just make clear what the unrepentant unfaithfulness has already done. It has murdered the one and now there are two again.
Jesus takes this one flesh union seriously. He was so adamant about its depth and so direct about not breaking it unless absolutely required that his disciples were amazed. That’s our third point: the disciples’ amazement.
At this point in Matthew Jesus’ disciples had a much wider view of divorce than he did. When they heard his limitations on divorce, they thought they were so restrictive that they said, in verse 10, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.” None of us should be surprised when we find ourselves amazed and even offended by Jesus. Coming to terms with him and learning why he says what he says to think as he thinks is part of the discipleship process.
Jesus’ first disciples thought it might be better to remain single than do what Jesus said. In other words, they thought it would be better to want something they didn’t have, like a wife, than to be stuck in something they didn’t want, like a difficult marriage.
Jesus acknowledged that staying married is difficult. He implied that a man shouldn’t marry unless he was prepared to consider divorce unthinkable unless forced upon him by way of unrepentant unfaithfulness or unrepentant abandonment. Jesus thought that unless a disciple was prepared to marry and stay married, it would be safer to remain single; verse 11, ‘Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given.”’
Marriage requires continued and often frustrating obedience. This makes staying married, in the words of Dale Bruner, “a form of discipleship, occasionally it is a cross, and sometimes it is a deep suffering by which (because it is so daily and personal) disciples can and in an exemplary way show their loyalty to Jesus and to each other.” Sometimes there is no other reason to stay married other than loyalty to Jesus. As we’ve seen, at other times divorce is forced upon you because your spouse has murdered the one flesh union despite your loyalty to Jesus. That’s why we had two songs at the beginning of the sermon.
It seems that in Jesus’ mind marriage has much more to do with God than it has to do with us; that is the force of, “what God has joined together, let man not separate.” Our marriages aren’t about us. Our parents’ marriages aren’t about them or weren’t about them. They are pictures of God’s love for sinful humanity. That’s what two becoming one points toward. That’s why God doesn’t want us to separate unless it is absolutely forced upon us. God doesn’t want us to do to others what He would never do to us. Remember Sally Lloyd Jones, “Most of all, the Bible is the Story—the story of how God loves His children and comes to rescue them. And in spite of everything, no matter what, whatever it cost Him— God won’t ever stop loving His children with a wonderful, never-stopping, never-giving-up, unbreaking, always, and forever love.” Amen.