Matthew 5:31-37 Divorce

Matthew 5:31-37 Divorce

What God has joined together…

Divorce is a thing that has caused much pain for the church, this subject is charged with emotions and pain for so many people. 50% of all marriages end in divorce. The separation for those who choose to simply live together is even higher, because the initial commitment is lower. People choose to live together because they want to avoid divorce, will manage to avoid the legal part of divorce, but not the pain the separation will cause.

When people talk about marriage they could be talking about a social contract. Some will talk of covenant or spiritual contract. But back when God brought up the idea it was one of completion.

Gen 2:18-24
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So, the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

 

The word “hold fast” or “cleave in KJV” means to joined or mixed. The concept is becoming one being with two bodies. It is a permanent psychological and spiritual connection. This is how Jesus is treating marriage which He makes clear in Matthew 19:1-12

Matthew 19:1-12
Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?”
He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” 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. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” The disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” But he said to them, “Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given.

 

Yet in Deut 24:1-4 the law gave God has rules about divorce, and in our passage, Jesus gives the reason of adultery as a valid reason for divorce.

 

Matthew 5:31-37
“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’
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.

  “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’

But I say to you, do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God,

or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.

And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.

Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.

 

While Jesus strengthens the meaning of marriage, He extended the concept of adultery to include lustful thoughts.

I will interject this about abuse. Physical or psychological abuse is a breaking of the marriage, the person who is being abused is divorced when the abuse starts.

 

This could just lead to mud slinging in a who did what contest, which only adds to the pain. The intimate nature of marriage is such that anyone outside of the two people can never figure out who is at fault and it is not their business to do so. In my years counseling couples, I have found that in every marriage there is enough sin to go around, everybody is guilty of something.

Is a person who ends up divorced somehow more defective or more sinful than the rest of us? No, their human, and as such we are all defective and sinful in some way.  To which Jesus says in John 8:1-11 “go and sin no more”

The church has added to the problem with a reading of 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 “the husband of one wife” to eliminate divorced persons from church leadership. These passages are more likely talking about polygamy than they are divorce.

 

You will notice the in Matthew 5 Jesus connects His teaching on adultery, divorce, and oaths. They are connected. It is all wrapped up in “let your yes be yes and your no be no” be a person of your word. The commitment you make is to be a commitment you keep. But the solution is not forcing people to stay in bad marriages, it is in making good choices in who and why we marry in the first place. If we change what we think marriage is, we should choose more carefully.

Do you know this person’s character? Are there habits or ideas this person has that you feel need to be changed? If this person were old, fat and wrinkly, are they still the kind of person you would want to be with? Does this person really complete me? Am I less than whole without them?

Remember you are making a promise not only to the person you marry but also to God.
Choose carefully and let your yes be yes and your no be no.