Preached · February 12, 2012
Text · Matthew 19
We've been going through the Sermon on the Mount—Matthew 5, 6, and 7—bit by bit, and I've been given the grand task of talking about divorce. The title of the sermon is "Jesus and Divorce," or "The Worst Valentine's Day Sermon You've Ever Heard." Fun stuff.
A couple of ground rules. When we're talking about a topic like divorce, I would dare to say that 90 to 100% of us in this room have been affected by divorce in some way. If you know my story at all, I've lived with three different families, and two out of three of them were affected by divorce. It's a prevalent, huge, massive thing in this culture, in this society. So when we're talking about divorce, let's keep in mind that we're not just talking about a word or a definition—we're talking about people. We're talking about real lives. So let's not over-theorize, let's not be too quick to cast judgment, because we're talking about people's hearts.
Here's what we're going to do. We're going to read through Matthew 19. Now, let me throw you for a second: we're in Matthew 5, but we're going to talk about Matthew 19, which is the larger teaching of Jesus on divorce. So we're going to read through that. Then, part two, we're going to talk about some of the background that's going on—what's happening in Matthew 19—and so you'll find us in the Old Testament. And then part three, we'll talk about some of the application for followers of Jesus today.
So, Matthew 19. Here we go.
Some Pharisees came to test Jesus. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?" "Haven't you read," Jesus 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'? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate." "Why then," the Pharisees asked, "did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?" Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman, commits adultery."
And then the disciples—who always make us laugh—say, "If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it's better not to marry."
So we're going to get the background on this conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees, make some observations about Jesus' response, and then draw some conclusions for today's church.
Genesis 1
We see Jesus asked this question, and he responds like any good Bible-believing person does—by quoting Scripture. So if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn to the book of Genesis chapter 1. Genesis 1, as you all know—or maybe you don't, and that's okay—is this creation narrative. It's the story about how the world came to be. Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 kind of dovetail; they tell the story from two different perspectives, two different ways. And the writer is trying to get a message across about what the world is really like.
When we get to Genesis chapter 1, verse 26, we're on day 6 of creation, and God is about to do his final work before he rests on day 7. Genesis 1:26 says:
Then God said, "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." So God created mankind in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
A couple of observations. First, God makes humankind in God's own image, in God's own likeness. There have been volumes and volumes trying to guess at what this means. Simply: if you were a king living 4, 5, 6,000 years ago, you ruled over a large territory, and there was no mass media. So how are you going to tell your people who's in charge? What kings would do is set up an image, a likeness of themselves, in the different lands they conquered, in the different cities, as a reminder: "I'm in charge. This is the one you're supposed to be bowing down to. This is the one you're supposed to be obeying." So when somebody reads this 4, 5, 6,000 years ago and God says, "Let's make mankind in our image and our likeness," what they're thinking is, "Oh, this makes sense. If God's king of the world, then what else is he going to do except set up his images to let people know who's really in charge?"
So from the first chapter of the Bible, we're given this idea, this concept, of being ambassadors for the sake of God, or Yahweh. We're given this idea of representing God to the world, of letting the world know who's in charge.
Now, God sets up human beings to behave this way. How does he want them to do it? Second observation: he wants them to rule, or to subdue, the earth. If you keep going in verses 28 and 29, you get this idea—he wants them to subdue and rule over the whole world: all the animals, all the plants, all the earth, and all the sea. And this ruling or subduing—don't get into your mind the idea of a despot. It's the concept of taking care. You're regents. You've been given responsibility. You know, when the dad leaves home and says, "Son, you're the man of the house, I need you to take care of it"—that's the idea going on here. God makes humankind and says, "Take care of my world."
Then, observation number three, verse 27: "God created mankind in his own image. In the image of God he created them. Male and female he created them." So again, from the first chapter of Genesis, we're given the idea of being ambassadors to God's world. We're given the idea of taking care of God's world. And third, we're given the concept that gender—male and female—was on purpose. It wasn't an accident.
We talked about this a little bit on Wednesday night; I was talking with the worship team about these passages. If there was ever a book to be written about how males and females communicate, it would have to be this thick—and you still wouldn't be able to conquer every single topic, because male and female, we're constantly doing this. But that's a result of the fall. In chapter one of Genesis, male and female being together—ruling the world, acting as God's images, showing God's likeness to the world—was meant to be a male-and-female enterprise together. Femaleness wasn't a second thought. Maleness wasn't a second thought. It was supposed to be this way from day one—or, you know, day six.
Genesis 2
Genesis chapter 2 continues the story. It focuses in on some different subjects and topics. Verse 18 says:
The Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky, and all the wild animals. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. And the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. And the man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of the man." That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
A couple of observations. When the man sees the woman, he doesn't make any claims like, "Oh, this is a nice idea, I'm glad I finally have a helper." He says, "She is bone of my bones, she is flesh of my flesh." This is a statement of equality—that they're made out of the same stuff, and that they're meant to work hand in hand together.
At verse 24, you have to remember that this is being written to a group of people called the Israelites, to explain why things are the way they are. So verse 24 basically explains why there's such a thing as marriage: "This is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh." Verse 24 is saying there's a bond even closer than that of a child to their parents. We typically think of that as the closest possible bond, but the writer of Genesis is saying in chapter 2, verse 24, that there's a bond closer than that—and that bond is when male and female come together in marriage.
The word "united" can be used in a lot of different ways. It can be used in terms of metalworking—if you're putting two metals together, or welding them together. That's the image happening in verse 24. And "they become one flesh" is this idea of something inseparable, something that can't be broken apart.
So that's Genesis chapters 1 and 2. This is explaining why the world is the way it is.
Deuteronomy 24
Now we jump ahead a couple thousand years, and we're in Deuteronomy chapter 24. Some context: in the ancient world, it's pretty barbaric. It's been a long time since Genesis 1 and 2, and so what was meant to be an enterprise of representing God and taking care of his world together, as male and female, has broken apart. Now women, in general, are treated like property. They're treated like something that can be traded and cashed in and upgraded. And this, of course, is nothing like today's society. So Deuteronomy 24 is trying to deal with a situation of women being traded in and out for the newest model.
Verse 1 says—if a man—let me repeat that—"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..." So Deuteronomy 24 is actually about a hypothetical situation. It's not a commandment. It's not saying, "Oh, this is what you should do." It's saying, "If this happens, this is what I want to happen in that case."
It continues on—we won't read through it—to give the story of a woman who's married to a man; the man divorces her; the woman is then married to a second man; and the second man also divorces her. What this passage prohibits is the first husband taking her back. And you're going to ask why. The reason is that in that day, if you divorced a woman, the beginnings of trying to take care of women were starting: you'd divorce a woman and give her a little bit of money to pay her way. What it's trying to avoid is a situation where husband one sends her away, husband two takes her and sends her away but gives her a little cash, and then husband one says, "Ah, return on my investment," and takes her back and takes her cash. Gross. A gross situation, that God is saying, "Stop. Don't do that."
Some more observations. "He writes her a certificate of divorce." Again, remember, this is not a commandment—it's a hypothetical situation. It's, "If this happens, or when this happens, this is what you need to do." And this, again, is the beginning in the Old Testament of women being restored to their original position in creation, as equals, co-equals with men.
And then, what's the reason? "He finds something indecent about her"—something objectionable about her. Literally, this phrase translates "the nakedness of a thing." Of course, there's going to be a lot of debate. What on earth is Moses talking about? What is "the nakedness of a thing"? What is this "something objectionable"?
Shammai and Hillel
So you jump forward another 1,000, 1,500 years, and now we're in a period about 100 years before the time of Jesus. There are these rabbis—the master teachers of their day—a guy named Shammai and a guy named Hillel. What rabbis would do is take Scripture, usually Scripture that had some reason to be debated, and go at it. They'd say, "This is how you should interpret it," or, "No, this is how you should interpret it." And these debates got written down for us, fortunately, so we're able to see them.
Shammai was the conservative of his day—the hard-nosed one. He said that "something objectionable," "the nakedness of a thing," refers simply to unfaithfulness: a man sends away his wife because of unfaithfulness. He's focusing on the word "nakedness." Then Hillel comes along and says, "Oh yeah, I interpret the Bible literally as well. But to me it means anything displeasing." He focuses on the phrase "of a thing." Hillel even goes so far as to say that if your wife burns your food, that is grounds for divorce. And then he goes on to say that if the man finds a wife—a woman—who simply looks more appealing, that is grounds for divorce.
So we jump forward 50 to 100 years, and this is the climate we're in. Most people in first-century Palestine, the time of Jesus, have taken on the position of Hillel: anything displeasing can be grounds for divorce.
Back to Matthew 19
So when we get to Matthew 19, this is the debate happening in the scholarly world—between the rabbis, the Pharisees, the scribes, and the teachers. They're debating: are you on the side of Hillel, or are you on the side of Shammai, the conservative? And, not surprisingly, most people are on the side of Hillel. Anything displeasing. If she burns your toast, if you find a woman who just looks better, that's grounds for divorce.
So when we get to Matthew 19, we find the Pharisees coming to Jesus to test him, and they ask, "What's the proper grounds for divorce?" Now, the Pharisees assume that divorce is lawful, and perhaps even the preferred course of action. They simply want to test Jesus on the rules, the regulations, and the laws.
We cannot approach this text in the same way. The Pharisees are looking back to Deuteronomy 24. They're looking at this hypothetical situation that was meant to protect women, and they have drawn out all these conclusions that were never meant to be read into it. If you look at Matthew 19, you even see that the Pharisees say, "Why did Moses command us to give certificates of divorce?" There's no command in there—there's simply an allowance.
Jesus' response was never meant to be the definitive answer on when divorce and remarriage is and is not appropriate. Instead, Jesus goes around the Pharisees' legalistic question and dives into the heart of the matter: What is marriage really about?
So my first warning to all of us is this: when we go to Matthew 5, or Matthew 19, or its parallel passages in Mark and Luke, we cannot—we must not—go to this passage looking for the rules, the laws, the regulations, and the list of when it's appropriate or not appropriate. Because that's the exact same thing the Pharisees did. And Jesus whips them across the face, saying, "No—the first question should never be, 'When is divorce permissible?' but should always be, 'What's marriage about?'"
What Marriage Is Really About
Marriage is the joining together of two people in order to accomplish God's mission for the world. When Emily and I got married, we stood before our friends and family—a couple hundred of them—and the minister gave us a message. We actually have it hanging above our bed, in a beautiful frame, and we read it every year. It's the minister's message to us, a reminder every year of what the purpose of marriage is. In that message, it basically says this: the reason marriage even exists is to accomplish God's mission—to show God's love, to be Jesus' hands and feet to a broken world. We have been changed to bring change.
So, back to Matthew 19:
Some Pharisees came to Jesus to test him. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?"
In this we find the assumption: "Divorce, of course, is okay. But what we want to find out is, Jesus, how often is it okay?" And Jesus responds:
"Haven't you read 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'? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate."
Jesus responds by giving us Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. And the Pharisees say:
"Why did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?"
And Jesus replies:
"Moses permitted you"—not commanded, permitted you—"because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning."
Whenever we're asking questions—and we do this a lot—whenever we're asking questions about what's acceptable and what's not, what's okay and what's wrong, we can't start by defining the wrong thing and going from there. We have to start by defining the right thing and then moving on. We can't start by saying, "This is what you can't do." Instead, we must begin our questioning by saying, "This is the way it was meant to be."
Now, when the Pharisees ask this question, they're basically asking: How much like property can we treat women? And Jesus' strong, strong response is: not at all. Jesus is calling us back to a Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 world, where God creates humankind in his own image, male and female, together as co-regents of his creation—to represent him to the world, to show his loving kindness, his grace, his mercy, his intent.
So when the Pharisees come and ask, "What's the bare minimum? How much can we get away with? How much can we say, 'You know what, woman, we're done with you—you burnt our toast, you don't look very good anymore, it's time to move on'?"—Jesus says, "No. You've missed it entirely. You've gone to Deuteronomy 24, you've looked at it with this evil intent in your heart, trying to figure out how much you can get away with." And Jesus instead says, "No—how much can you become one again with your wives?"
This is where we have to begin. This is where our discussion has to start. Otherwise, we've already lost our way. Once we begin to soak in the true meaning, the true purpose, of marriage, it's at that point—and only at that point—that we can begin to ask questions about the brokenness of our world. Because the truth of the matter is, we are broken, and things aren't quite right. Things aren't the way they should be. How do we respond as the people of God?
Marriage is treated as a commodity anymore, as something that can be taken away—and you see that in just about every facet of entertainment, of news, of society. Just some quick statistics: prenuptial agreements—and I'm not talking about the kind of agreements for the case of somebody dying or something like that; there are prenuptial agreements written for the express purpose of anticipating divorce. The rate at which they're being written has gone up about three times in the past eight years. One out of three single adults say that if they were to get married, they would ask for a prenuptial agreement. Forty percent of divorced adults say that if they were to get remarried, they would ask for a prenuptial agreement.
And my question—and it's just a question—is: was that kind of worldview looking back toward Genesis 1, or is it just looking at Deuteronomy 24? Is it the kind of worldview that says, "Ah, this is what marriage is supposed to be"? Or is it the kind of worldview that says, "Okay, we're going to anticipate this, because more than likely it's going to happen"? These are the kinds of questions we have to ask. And this is why we have to start with Genesis 1 and 2.
Application
So for those who are already divorced and remarried—for those who have had Matthew 5 and Matthew 19 used to beat you up—I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. That's really, really sad and unfortunate. Because Matthew 5 and Matthew 19, when Jesus is asking these questions, never intended to take those who are divorced and/or remarried and break you to pieces. So I'm sorry for that, on behalf of the church. What they should be saying is: for those who are in Christ Jesus, the old is gone, the new has come. And for those who keep telling you, "No, look back—look back at all the mistakes you made, look back at how badly things went"—where did they get that? I'm not sure. Jesus is calling us into a new life, not to rehash the old over and over and over again.
For those married, we're for four things. I got this from Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, and I think it pretty much sums up what any church should be for. We're for fidelity, reconciliation, endurance, and peace.
We as a church are for fidelity. Don't cheat. It's mean. It's ugly. It's stupid. And you're just inviting worlds of hurt into your life. So don't cheat.
Second, we're for reconciliation. Jesus calls the church into a ministry of reconciliation. That means whenever it's possible, we're looking to bring peace back into relationships. So that should be our first question: Is reconciliation possible? And don't ask that from a merely human perspective, because humans are going to constantly say no. Look at it from the perspective of Jesus. He brought reconciliation to a dark and broken and needy world, and brought reconciliation to God himself. Certainly he can bring reconciliation between two broken people as well.
We're for endurance. There's something in us that just loves to see those stories of couples married for 50, 60, 70 years and still going strong. We love that. That speaks to the image of God in our hearts. It says we're for this—this is what's beautiful and right about creation. So whenever possible, endure. We love those stories where a couple has been broken and battered and yet somehow they continue on. Those are the stories that inspire us.
And finally, we're for peace. In 1 Corinthians chapter 7, the Apostle Paul is given this really heavy task of trying to answer questions about what happens if a believer marries an unbeliever, or if two unbelievers get married and one of them gets saved—are they supposed to stay together? Paul has to answer these really sticky questions. In 1 Corinthians 7 we find an example. You can turn there real quick if you want—verse 15. The situation is two people married together, one of them believing in Jesus, one of them not. 1 Corinthians 7:15-16:
But if the unbeliever leaves, let it be so. The brother or the sister is not bound in such circumstances. God has called us to live in peace.
When Paul is answering these questions, the principle he uses is the idea of peace—that this is God's calling for us. So we confess that we do live in a broken world, and among broken people. There are going to be times when something that came together doesn't bring peace anymore. We can all probably think of situations where that's true—where children are in the middle, where there's just disaster every day in the home. And so Paul says, "God's called you to peace." That is when the hard questions come about. But my encouragement is that you never, ever have to walk that alone. That's why there's a church. That's why there's a body of believers. And that's why we're all called to live as God's images.
We're for fidelity, reconciliation, endurance, and peace—wherever it is possible.
And for those affected by divorce—you have friends or family or loved ones currently in the ravages of it—don't take sides. You're just inserting yourself into a situation where you might cause more hurt than the good you're trying to do. Really, the question you have to ask yourself is, in any relationship, there are questions of authority: Do I have authority to speak into the situation? Do I have the longevity of relationship? Have I been asked to insert my opinion? And if the answer to those questions is no—shh. Just be quiet.
And for those considering marriage: what God has joined together, let no one separate. This is God's calling. Marriage is not merely meant to be about the joys of a physical relationship, or the joys of how good you feel around one another. Thank God he put those into marriage. But its highest purpose, its highest calling, is about doing God's mission in his world.
We cannot get into that same tired debate about Matthew 19 and what verse 9 is about:
I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.
We come to this passage expecting it to be the systematic teaching of when divorce is and is not permissible. It was never meant to be read that way. Instead, what Jesus is saying is that when a marriage partner goes and sins with another person, that's a broken marriage—and it's then that we ask Jesus to come in and heal. But, as Paul says, God has called you to live in peace.
The Pharisees' assumption is that divorce can sometimes be the preferred option. But what we'd like to say is that divorce is never the preferred option. Sometimes, yeah, it's going to happen. Sometimes it needs to happen. But know that your life will never be the same. Know that you're going to have those hurts and those scars. But God brings healing.
Communion
Now, we talk about marriage on the same day that we're talking about communion. And in many ways, the two share a theme. We, male and female, come together to achieve God's purpose for the world in marriage. We ask these questions of how we represent God, how we show his kingdom to a broken world. And this has to do with being together—one flesh—being God's body.
In the same way, the church comes together, brothers and sisters, and we do this ritual of eating Jesus' body and drinking Jesus' blood. This is about the covenant of reconciliation—of God bringing together brokenness into healing, of reminding us that out of ashes can come life, that out of a God broken and beaten and nailed to a cross can come direction. These are the themes of the church. This is why we exist. Marriage reminds us of that every day. And so does communion.
So we celebrate that together this morning, reminding ourselves that there's hope—that something beautiful can come from dust. Be that the dust of your lives, the dust of your prior marriages, the dust of your mistakes. Jesus says, "I make all things new."
I invite the servers to come forward. Pastor Chad is going to do the words of institution. And right now, what I invite you to do is just search your hearts. What do you need to confess? What do you need to change? What about the purposes of your marriage, or your dating relationship, or your engagement, needs to change? And for those who are single, this message affects you too—because God intends for your lives to serve that same mission. You're not half a person because you're not married. Let no one ever tell you that. You belong to the full body of believers. This is why we call it communion: because we do it together.
So. May you think. May you allow God to speak. May you be changed.
This is a transcript of the sermon as preached, lightly edited for readability.
