Looking for Loopholes...

This week we are asking and answering the question “Does marriage matter to Jesus?” To answer that question, I would like for us to spend our time together looking at an event from history that has been preserved and recorded for us in an account of Jesus life in the Bible called the gospel of Matthew. Yesterday, in Matthew 19:3-6, we saw Matthew give us a front row seat to a confrontation that Jesus had with a group of people who were known as the Pharisees.

This group of self-righteous religious leaders hoped to trap Jesus with a question. So, the Pharisees asked a question that they believed would be controversial enough and emotional enough to drive the crowds away from Jesus and toward them: "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?" We talked about the reality that the emotional and controversial subject of divorce and remarriage is not new. Divorce and remarriage has been an emotional and controversial subject throughout human history.

Matthew told us that Jesus began to answer their question by quoting from a section of the very first letter in the Bible called the book of Genesis. Jesus quoted from Genesis 1:27, which we looked at last week and which referred to the creation of humanity. After quoting the last phrase of Genesis 1:27, Jesus quoted Genesis 2:24. Jesus here shows the causal linkage between the last phrase of Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:24 to reveal the reality that God created men and women with distinctiveness that was to be united in marriage in a way that those distinctive features between a man and a woman would complement one another in a lifelong commitment to one another.

Jesus pointed to this linkage to reinforce the reality that marriage, according to God’s design, is not simply about love, or sex, or a legal piece of paper. Instead, Jesus was reinforcing God’s design for marriage as being about bringing the distinctiveness of a man and a woman together to complement one another by uniting them together in a covenant commitment for their lifetime.

And because of that reality, in verse 6 Jesus proclaimed "So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate." Now what is so interesting here is that the phrase “let no man separate” is a command. In other words, Jesus responded to the question by the Pharisees by giving them a command concerning marriage. And that command was that no man was to separate, or divide into two, what God had made into one as a result of the covenant commitment that had been made before God and man.

So, Jesus not only answered their question by pointing to God’s design for marriage. In addition, Jesus doubled down on God’s design for marriage by commanding that no one should get between a man and woman who have become married. Matthew then reveals how the Pharisees responded to Jesus answer in verse 7:

 They said to Him, "Why then did Moses command to GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE AND SEND her AWAY?"

Matthew tells us that the Pharisees responded to Jesus answer by asking Jesus a second question: "Why then did Moses command to GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE AND SEND her AWAY?" The Pharisees were basically saying to Jesus “Well if God didn’t want anyone to separate what had been joined together in marriage, then why did God command us to get divorces? 

And to back up their point, the Pharisees quoted from a section of a letter that has been preserved and recorded for us in the Old Testament called the book of Deuteronomy. The Pharisees were basically saying to Jesus, “we have a verse to prove that you are wrong. Jesus you are such a hard liner that you won’t let anyone get divorces, but here God commands that there are situations where divorces are okay. Jesus you are such a legalist, but we are more loving and gracious.”

You see, the Pharisees believed that they had trapped Jesus by painting Him as being an unloving legalist while portraying themselves as the people of grace and love. However, what the Pharisees were not prepared for was what Jesus would say next. Matthew reveals what Jesus said next in verse 8:

 He said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way.

Now when Jesus uses the word hardness here, this word refers to someone who has an unyielding position or perspective. So, Jesus here responded to the Pharisees by basically saying “God did not command you to get divorces because it was okay. Instead, God permitted you to get divorces because of the unyielding nature of your selfish hearts.” To fully understand why this was such a powerful statement by Jesus, we first need to understand something about what was happening in the culture of Jesus day and the context in which the book of Deuteronomy was written.

In Deuteronomy 24:1-4, we see the Lord, through Moses, address the issue of divorce that had begun to occur amongst the Jewish people. You see, during the time in which the book of Deuteronomy was written, as it was during Jesus day, divorce was purely a male prerogative. During the time in which the book of Deuteronomy was written, as it was during Jesus day, a divorce did not require a legal hearing. Instead, a divorce was simply the husband’s decision. During the time in which the book of Deuteronomy was written, as it was during Jesus day, Jewish law made no provision for a woman to initiate a divorce and a woman had virtually no say in any divorce.

In addition, during the time in which the book of Deuteronomy was written, as it was during Jesus day, women did not have the economic opportunities that they have today and were far more dependent on men for financial support and for survival. Thus, if a woman found herself being divorced, her only options were to return to her parent’s home, become the husband of another man, or live in poverty.

And because of the cultural context during the time in which the book of Deuteronomy was written, as it was during Jesus day; and because of the divorces that were occurring during the time in which the book of Deuteronomy was written, as it was during Jesus day, the Lord addressed the issue of divorce in Deuteronomy 24:1-4. However, the Pharisees only quoted a section of these verses, not all of the verses. So let’s take a minute and look at the entire passage together, beginning in Deuteronomy 24:1-4:

"When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that 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 from his house, ² and she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man's wife, ³ and if the latter husband turns against her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her to be his wife, ⁴ then her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the LORD, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance.

Here we see the God explain to the Jewish people that since they were already getting divorces, which went against God’s design for marriage, then this was how they were to handle the issue of divorce. The Lord explained that if a man decided to divorce a woman, he was to write out a certificate of divorce to give to her. This certificate of divorce was designed to protect the woman from any additional legal action against her by her former husband. The former husband could not accuse her of committing adultery if she was to be remarried, because he was the one who instituted the divorce.

The Lord then explained that if the woman who was divorced remarried another man, and her second husband either divorced her or died, the first husband could not remarry her. However, did you notice why the Lord said she could not remarry her first husband? The Lord explained that she could not remarry her first husband because she has been defiled. The word defiled was used in the language that this letter was originally written in to describe what happened when adultery occurred.

You see, the Lord viewed the woman’s remarriage after the first divorce as being similar to adultery in that the woman would be engaged in sexual activity with someone other than her first husband. So, if the woman remarried a man and then the second husband either divorced her or died, the first husband could not remarry her because he would be committing adultery with her, as she had entered into a marriage relationship with another man.

Thus, the Lord was establishing restrictions on the already existing practice of divorce that was occurring among the Jewish people so that divorce would not become too easy and abused so as to create a legalized form of adultery. However, the Pharisees and the Jewish people of Jesus day had twisted and manipulated the Lord’s words through Moses in such a way that made it easy for people to get a divorce.

The Pharisees and the Jewish people of Jesus day did what we all have a tendency to do, which is to only quote a part of what the message and teachings of Jesus have to say in order to justify behavior that may go against what the message and teachings of Jesus have to say. Thus, the Pharisees and the Jewish people would only quote the first part of the passage in order to justify getting a divorce for any number of reasons.

Jesus however, pointed the Pharisees, and the crowds watching this confrontation back to God’s design for marriage by proclaiming “but from the beginning it has not been this way.” In other words, Jesus here is basically saying “God did not command you to get divorces because it was okay. Instead, God permitted you to get divorces because of the unyielding nature of your selfish hearts which resulted in you getting divorces regardless of what God had to say. But make no mistake, God’s design and desire for marriage has not changed since the beginning of time.”

Jesus then hammered His point home by making a statement that would have taken the breath of the crowd away. Friday we will look at that statement…