Thursday, July 8

It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery. – Matthew 5:31-32

Whew! Jesus does doesn’t let up does he? We are not even through chapter 5 yet and he has tackled anger and conflict, lust and adultery, and now he brings up divorce! It is as if Jesus wants us to understand that there is no area of our lives that is exempt from the impact of his message of the kingdom.

When we surrender ourselves, and come under the rule and reign of Jesus as our king, nothing will remain the same. There is no aspect of our lives and no corner of our hearts that Jesus is not interested in transforming!

When Jesus begins to talk about divorce, he is not changing the subject. He is actually just moving from the previous section where he talked about adultery in the heart (lust) to addressing the actual physical act of adultery and how it impacts the marriage relationship.

The question that Jesus is addressing in Matthew 5:31-32 comes from the OT teaching in Deuteronomy 24. 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 (Deut. 24:1) There were two schools of thought regarding the interpretation of this phrase, the conservative and the liberal approach.

The liberals interpreted 'indecency' very broadly to include anything the husband did not like about his wife. In fact, one rabbi wrote about a hundred years after Christ that it was acceptable to divorce your wife on the basis of this verse if you found somebody prettier. The liberal school had made this word broad enough to include everything - no fault divorce.

The conservative school limited this word to immorality or adultery. They said the only thing encompassed in 'indecency' is marital infidelity. This is the background behind Jesus' statement in Matthew 5. (Jesus' interpretation of this question is continued more fully in Matthew 19 when the question is raised to Jesus.)

Jesus’ clearly lines up with the conservative interpretation. He pushes us to consider God’s intent and design for marriage. The Old Testament starts out in Genesis with God establishing marriage. It closes out in the Book of Malachi with God saying He hates divorce. Even though divorce is being practiced, God's attitude toward it has not changed. From fifteen hundred years before the time of Christ when Moses wrote the Book of Genesis down to Malachi's time, God has not changed His position. It is the same in spite of the fact that divorce and remarriage have become a common practice. The fact that divorce statistics are mushrooming today does not mean that God has changed His mind. His attitude toward divorce is the same.

Jesus is saying in Matthew 5 that in spite of the prevailing practice of divorce among the Greeks and Romans of His day, the central issue is still adultery.

Jesus only refers to the husband divorcing his wife because, among the Jews, the wife could not divorce her husband. But the guilt is true for either side. In our society, it has become acceptable for divorce to be initiated by either party. However, God's attitude toward divorce has not changed.

What about a believer who has been divorced and remarried unbiblically?

This is a tough question and one that is a sensitive issue for many individuals.
First of all, we should praise God that he picks us up where we are. There is no indication anywhere in Scripture that you must break off such a marriage relationship. Whether your present marriage is your first or your fourth is not the issue. Your previous actions may have involved sin, but God picks you up where you are.

Second, if you have previously been divorced unbiblically and have since remarried, when that marriage was consummated physically, you became one flesh. That may have been an adulterous act before God. But the former marriage is broken. As far as your past goes, you must recognize the fact that God has forgiven you. Then you should go on from here. Praise God for his forgiveness! You are just as forgiven as anybody else for any other sin. There are no limitations in Scripture on that forgiveness.

Obviously, there are more aspects and implications of this teaching than can be dealt with here in this little devotion (which is already way past “10 minutes”).

The primary point for us as Christians is not to be bogged down with every nuance and possible exception, but rather to remember that God designed and invented marriage. He is very serious about it. His intent is that a Christian marriage should be a witness to the world of God’s faithfulness and love toward his people!

I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
– Revelation 21:12

Jeff Frazier