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Lesson Seven: The Nature
of Marriage
"The Permanency of
Marriage"
Matt. 19:1 - 12
Introduction: We
have been looking for the past two weeks at the nature of marriage.
The point I have been making is that if we understand and
incorporate three critical concepts into our marriages, we will have
a strong marriage, which obviously leads to a strong family. The
first concept was that marriage is an
unconditional covenant; it is not a civil, legal uniting of two
lives. It is a covenant in which the man, as the initiator of the
covenant assumes a greater responsibility in carrying out the terms
of the covenant. Secondly, marriage is a
picture of salvation. It is a divine object lesson. It shows the
unsaved world all around us what the nature of salvation is. God
woos us and pursues us, and then initiates the covenant of salvation
with us. He make promises to us and we make promises back to Him.
When we are unfaithful to God, He remains faithful to us. He
doesn't toss us our on our ear - He is faithful to the terms of the
covenant as we saw so vividly illustrated last week in the story of
Hosea and Gomer.
This morning we are going to be
looking at the final plank in building a strong foundation for
marriage, and this concept focuses on the permanency of marriage.
Before we get into this, let me share with you for a few moments my
motivation for this. Let me say first of all that I am not here to
cast stones at my brothers and sisters in Christ who have divorce in
their past. When I think about my life before I came to Christ, I
realize I am what I am today only by the grace of God. The
immorality, and the drug abuse, and all those things that accompany
a life apart from Jesus are now all under the blood of Jesus. They
are buried in the depths of the deepest sea. So please understand
that as we start to talk about the permanency of marriage, I am not
here to condemn anyone for their past. I am not trying to open old
wounds and resurrect painful events that have been covered by the
grace of God. My attitude toward sins that have been committed in
the past is the same attitude that Paul had toward his sins that he
had committed before He came to know Jesus. In Phil. 3:13 he
says, "Dear brothers and sisters, I am still not all I should be,
but I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the
past and looking forward to what lies ahead." That is my
attitude, and my adivce, to anyone who is divorced. I am not here
to cast stones or condemn, I am here to share what the Bible says
about the permanency of marriage.
But I have another motive. You
may have heard me say in the past that Evangelicalism in the United
States has bought into the divorce culture. What I mean by that is
that there is a general consensus of opinion in Evangelical circles
that views divorce as an unfortunate but legitimate option for
a believer. The most egregious example of this mindset I
have seen is in a conversation I had with the pastor who ordained me
to the gospel ministry. I had a deacon in the church who was
involved in an affair, and when his girlfried got pregnant, I got on
the phone with my former pastor to get some advice. I shared with
him what was going on and what steps we had taken to get our sinning
brother restored. When I finished the story, the first words out of
my pastor's mouth were, "Well, she has biblical grounds for
divorcing him." The first words! Nothing about having the church
fast and pray for his restoration. Nothing about following the
steps of discipline that are designed to bring a straying member
back into the fold. That is the practical outworking of this
attitude that I am calling "embracing the divorce culture." It is
the idea that divorce is an unfortunate, but legitimate option for
the believer.
And just in case you need more
evidence that Evangelicalism has embraced the divorce culture, just
pick up a copy of the October edition of Christianity Today.
One of the feature articles addresses the matter of divorce, and on
the cover of the magazine it says, "When to Separate." It is no
longer a matter of "if" I should leave my spouse, or "whether" I
should leave my spouse, but "when" to leave my spouse. In other
words, it is a forgone conclusion that it is going to happen, now
all we have to do is figure out the time frame. And just in case
you think I am overstating the author's point, as you read the
article the author basically makes the point that every marriage
today could already have legitimately ended in divorce. He argues
from the Old Testament that not only does infidelity to your spouse
give you just cause for divorcing your spouse, but also, and I
quote, "emotional and physical neglect" are biblical grounds for
divorce. This mentality is what I am calling "embracing the divorce
culture." And let me tell you at the outset that I am here to do
battle with that mindset.
By way of background to this
matter, let me tell you there are three basic schools of thought in
the evangelical church concerning this matter of the permanency of
marriage. One school of thought, the smallest school, holds to the
idea that divorce is never an option for a believer. It recognizes
that sometimes a believer doesn't have a say in the matter because
his spouse divorces him. But as far as a believer initiating a
divorce, that is never an option. It is contrary to God's original
model. It violates the nature of unconditional covenants. It does
violence to the picture of salvation that marriage illustrates.
Proponents of this position would say that there is simply no way to
reconcile everything the Bible teaches about what marriage entails
with divorce, regardless of the reason for the divorce.
The second school of thought,
the much larger school, holds to the idea that divorce is a
legitimate option for a believer if his spouse has broken the vows
of the marriage covenant by committing adultery. Proponents of this
thinking would be quick to say that divorce is never the first
option, that the objective should always be forgiveness and
reconciliation. But if repentance of the sin is never made and
reconciliation is not possible, then yes, the Bible does give the
believer permission to divorce his adulterous spouse because of the
teaching of Jesus in Matthew 19.
The third school of thought
builds on the previous one by adding to the adultery scenario and
saying that divorce is an option if your spouse simply deserts you.
It is called "willful desertion." The line of thinking is that no
man or woman ever leaves his spouse for the purpose of remaining
celibate for the rest of his life. And since adultery is inevitable
in these situations, willful desertion is tantamount to adultery,
and therefore the vows of the covenant have been broken, and the
covenant is no longer in effect in God's eyes. Proponents of this
view base it on Paul's teaching in 1 Cor. 7:15, "Yet if the
unbelieving one leaves, let him leave; the brother or the sister is
not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us to peace."
With this background in mind, I want us to
look at this passage in Matthew 19 and deal first of all with the
second school of thought. You are probably aware by now that I
consider myself to be a member of the first school of thought, so
let's see what Jesus has to say about this matter. In the days of
Jesus, much like in our own day, there were two schools of though
about divorce. One group held to a very liberal divorce policy.
They felt that you could divorce your spouse for basically any
reason at all. They based this on a misunderstanding of Deut. 24:1,
"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 . . . "
This group felt like "some indecency" could be anything the wife did
that would cause her to fall out of favor with her husband.
The other group was much
stricter, and allowed divorce only for some specific sins that were
sexual in nature. So when we get to Matthew 19, the Pharisees are
trying to figure out what school Jesus is in. Let's start reading
in verse three.
3 And
some Pharisees came to Him, testing Him, and saying, "Is it
lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause at all?" (This
would be a reference to the liberal school of thought, and they are
trying to figure out if Jesus holds that position) 4
And He answered and said, "Have you not read, that He who created
them from the beginning made them male and female, 5
and said, 'For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother,
and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh '?
6 "Consequently they are no longer two, but one flesh.
What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate."
I want us to pause here because
Jesus has just answered their question. Which school is Jesus in?
Neither! Now, I want you to let the significance of that sink in
for a moment. "What God has joined together, let no man
separate!" Jesus is introducing a new school of thought by
appealing to the original model that was established in Genesis. I
have said it over and over in this series, but I'm going to say it
again. God established a model in the Garden of Eden, and we tamper
with it at our own peril!
But the Pharisees weren't quite
convinced, so they continue in verse seven.
7
They said to Him, "Why then did Moses command to give her a
certificate of divorce and send her away?" 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.
Here is Jesus' second answer,
and it is no different from the first one. He concedes that Moses
did indeed regulate the practice of divorce, but He appeals for a
second time to God's original model - "from the beginning, it has
not been this way." Like He often did in His earthly ministry,
Jesus is calling the Jews to a higher level of living. He does this
repatedly in Mt. 5 through 7 showing people that the Mosaic standard
wasn't high enough. So twice now, Jesus has declared that he is in
neither the liberal nor conservative school of thought concerning
divorce. Please don't dismiss the weight of this evidence.
Now let's look at verse nine.
This is the verse that causes all the arguing. Jesus says,
"And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for
immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery."
How are we supposed to
interpret this verse? The first thing Jesus is saying is easy to
see because it is right there in the text. All we have to do is
look at the words. He is saying that if you divorce your spouse for
"any cause at all," as opposed to "except for immorality" (i.e., the
liberal school of thought vs. the conservative school of thought),
and then get remarried, you are living in adultery. This would be
because in God's eyes the original covenant you struck with your
first spouse is still in effect. This is Jesus' categorical
denunciation of the liberal school.
The second thing Jesus is
saying is not quite so obvious, which is why there is so much
argument about it. It is a logical concluion drawn based on what He
actually did say - "If you divorce your spouse because he or she has
committed some kind of sin that is sexual in nature, and then you
get remarried, you are not living in adultery." Now
again, Jesus doesn't actually say this, but it is a logical
inference based on what He actually does say.
The illustration would be
this. We have a law in this state that says you have to stop for
red lights and then proceed when the light turns green. But there
is an exception to the rule. If we are turning right, we can do so
after we come to a complete stop. In the same way there is an
exception to the red light rule, there is an exception to the
marriage rule. Generally speaking, we are supposed to stop for red
lights. But if you are turning right, you may do so if you come to a
complete stop first. Generally speaking, marriage is to be
permanent. Bu if your spouse commits adultery, you may divorce
him.
Now the reason so many people
hold to this understanding of Mt. 19:9 is because they stop reading
at this verse. But note that Jesus isn't done with the
conversation. In verse 10 the disciples say,
10
The disciples said to Him, "If the relationship of the man with his
wife is like this, it is better not to marry."
The question I have always had about this
verse is, "Why did the disciples have such a reactionary response to
what Jesus has just said?" Mt. 19:9 is nothing more than an
expression of the conservative school of thought of Jesus' day - you
can divorce your wife if she commits adultery. But the disciples
react like Jesus has just imparted some new teaching to them. And
when they grasp the gravity of what this teaching is, they respond
by saying, "Nobody should get married!" As I study this, I see the
disciple's response as very inconsistent with the popular
interpretation of this verse - which raises red flags in my mind.
But I have another question
about verse nine because I see another inconsistency in the popular
interpretation of the verse. This inconsistency has to do with the
vocabulary Jesus uses. Look at the word "immorality" in the phrase
"except for immorality." The Greek word there is
porn,eia. Our word pornography
comes from it, and it is a very broad word that encompasses every
conceivable kind of sexual sin. It can be something as small as a
fleeting lustful thought that you entertain for a few moments, to
the most vile and debauched sexual sin imaginable.
porn,eia is a very broad word.
Look next at the word "adultery" at the end of the sentence. This
is the word
moicaw, and it is a very narrow
word. It is limited to sexual sin with a person who is not your
spouse.
moicaw falls under the umbrella of
porn,eia, but a single person
cannot commit
moicaw
. You have to be married to be able to
commit
moicaw.
Now here is what I want you to
think about. Jesus does not say in verse nine that you can divorce
your spouse if he commits adultery with another person, does He?
But without exception, that is how modern evangelicalism interprets
this verse - if you have a spouse who commits adultry, you can
divorce him. That is very inconsistent! In fact, I refer to it as
The Great Evangelical Inconsistency. What right do we have to limit
biblical grounds for divorce to adultery only when the Bible says,
"except for immorality?" My challenge to any pastor who holds to
this position is this. "What are you going to say to the woman who
comes into your office and says, 'Pastor, I want to divorce my
husband because I have caught him repeatedly looking at pornography
on the internet.'" Does that pastor have the authority to say, "I'm
sorry, but looking at pornography is not biblical grounds for
divorce?" If he is going to accurately and consistently interpret
Mt. 19:9, he is going to have to say, "Go ahead and divorce him"
because that is what the vocabulary in the verse says.
This is why I believe
Evangelicalism has missed the whole point of what Jesus is saying in
Matthew 19:9. All Jesus is saying in this verse is that if you
divorce your spouse because he has committed some kind of sexual
sin, and then you get remarried, you are not living in adultery.
You do not have to worry about living day after day in violation of
the seventh commandment. That is all Jesus is saying. But do you
see that that is not an endorsement of divorce? Do you see that
Jesus is not putting His stamp of approval on divorce? Do you see
that Jesus is not creating a biblical basis for divorce?
In this whole discourse with
the Pharisees, Jesus was explicitly clear in how He felt about
divorce - don't do it. It violates the model God established in the
original creation. Two times He expressed this idea. And then, as
if to ease the conscience of those who had divorced their
spouse for sexual sins under the Mosaic system, He reassures them
they aren't living in adultery. But that is a far cry from teaching
that adultery is legitimate grounds for divorce.
This is all we have time for
today, so we will have to wait until next week to finish this up,
but the thought I want to leave with you is that it is dangerous for
us to add to the scriptures! And I am afraid the the contemporary
church has done exactly that. Here is the phrase I want you to take
home with you today - marriage is for better, for worse, and
forever. |
