The Permanence of Marriage - Matthew 19:3-10

There is much confusion today about the nature of marriage, and of the permanence God intended it to have. Many see marriage as a key to happiness, but to see it in that light is to inevitably end up disappointed, because that was never its intended purpose. Maybe this misconception explains the 50% divorce rate in our country—even among Christians. So, what do you think marriage is about? The passage we’re studying today is going to provide some needed clarity on that.

What I tell Christian couples I counsel who are seriously considering divorce is that their solution is not for the two of them to part ways but to learn the foundational principles of marriage from Scripture, and then to find out how to remake their own failing relationship in that image. The first step is to discover God’s purpose for marriage, and it isn’t happiness. Happiness is not attainable as a pursuit. It is a by-product of seeking after Christ. We have already learned God’s three purposes in marriage: to reflect His likeness, to result in family, and to be on mission for the Lord together. Understanding these things is what allows us accurately evaluate where we stand in our own.

When it comes to divorce, which is the subject before us, it is important to understand that if we as believers are going to please God, a number of issues that modern divorce exists to address cannot even be on the table for us, because the Christian who wants to please the Lord does not ask, “How do I get out of this relationship?” He/she asks, “How do I please God?” In other words, you have to ask the right question, which, by the way, brings us to our text for today—one that finds the Pharisees asking Jesus the wrong question. His answer is calculated to correct that. But where the Pharisees are concerned, it isn’t just that they’re asking the wrong question, they’ve also chosen one that is patently unfair—one they hope will trip Him up. Instead, His reply both confounds them and throws them off guard. Jesus is going to explain three things: 1) The grounds of divorce did not exist originally. 2) Divorce was allowed not as ideal but as a concession. 3) The marriage covenant is violated by re-marriage.

I. The Grounds of Divorce Did Not Exist Originally

Matthew 19:3-6

There were two Rabbinical schools of thought during Jesus’ day on the acceptable grounds for divorce. The Shammai school of thought said the only grounds for divorce was adultery. The Hillel school of thought was much more permissive, claiming that the man could divorce the woman for any reason, even for spoiling his dinner too often, or ‘losing favor’ in his eyes, for instance.

The Pharisees, then, expect Jesus to choose between those two prevailing points of view, and in doing so end up alienating and upsetting the disfavored faction. They are not prepared for how He answers, and His approach serves as a model for us, too. He makes three appeals: First, He makes an appeal to Scripture— “Have you not read?” By beginning this way, He is taking aim at the very thing the Pharisees are most proud of—their biblical scholarship. But, “What does the Bible say?” is the appropriate starting point for anyone who enters into a discussion of difficult or controversial topics. Second, He makes an appeal to Creation, citing Genesis 1:26 as God’s original intent. And, third, He makes an appeal to the nature of marriage itself, a union in which two become one flesh. From these three points, then, He draws His conclusion: “therefore, what God has joined together, let no man separate.”

The Pharisees have no idea what to do with this. Neither of the key Rabbinical writings is that strict. The more restrictive school at least allows for adultery, and the permissive one allows for anything. Jesus’ answer has completely thrown them into a ditch. (And it’s safe to say, it has alienated them all.)

So, are we asking the right questions? The Pharisees want to know, “Is it lawful?” and “Under what grounds is it lawful?” But Jesus, by answering as He does, seems to imply that they don’t even have the right questions in mind, which are “What is marriage for?” and “Why should you be married?” They are debating ways to get out of marriage without actually understanding its nature and purpose. We, like them, also need to be focused on something other than, “How can I lawfully and morally end this relationship?” The right question is, “How do I please God IN the relationship?” Why? Because…

God hates divorce. Malachi 2:16 tells us so. “For the LORD God of Israel says That He hates divorce, ‘For it covers one’s garment with violence,’ Says the LORD of hosts. Therefore take heed to your spirit, That you do not deal treacherously.” The simple fact is that a sinless divorce is not possible. One party in the divorce certainly may be innocent, but a broken marriage is always the result of someone’s sin. I know that divorce is an exceedingly painful experience. This message is not intended to worsen that pain or to make anyone feel guilty. The best comfort available to someone who is, or has been, in this situation is what comes from God’s Word, where we are told, that where sin abounds, grace much more abounds. Furthermore…

Divorce is not a page you turn to start a new chapter—something I once heard a woman I was counselling say. I asked her why she wanted a divorce. She said, “I just feel that that chapter is done, and I need to turn the page.” Marriage is not a chapter. It is not a page to be turned. This is not God’s leading for your life. D.A. Carson said it like this: “…Any view of divorce or marriage taught in the Old Testament or the New that sees the problem only in terms of what may or may not be done has already overlooked the basic fact: divorce is never to be thought of as a God-ordained, morally neutral option, but as evidence of sin, of hardness of heart, the fundamental attitude of the Pharisee to question what is wrong.”

II. The Allowance of Divorce is Only a Concession in a Fallen World

(Matthew 19: 7, 8)

The Pharisees then ask Jesus, “Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce and to put her away?” Here, their choice of the word command misrepresents Moses’ intent—something Jesus corrects in His response. “… Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.’” In other words, pre-fall there were no grounds for divorce at all, and it was not an option for a great many years beyond that. Moses instituted divorce. He did so because of the hardness of the men’s hearts.

To understand divorce in the context of the O.T. we need to delve a bit deeper. Let’s first look at the expression hardness of heart. Unsurprisingly, it appears in Mark 10:5, a passage parallel to the one in Matthew. But it also appears in Mark 16:14 referring to the disciples following Jesus’ resurrection: “Later He appeared to the eleven…and He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen.” Coupling it together here with unbelief appears to suggest that hardness of heart, on some level, has something to do with unbelief. How does that fit into the Old Testament context of divorce? In this way: O.T. Jewish society over time degenerated into an entirely patriarchal one in which the woman had almost no rights, not even property rights, making her survival altogether dependent upon either her father’s good will, or that of her husband, who could, if he so chose, expel her from his household. She could not legally re-marry under that circumstance, since she was still the man’s wife, so expulsion left her with no legitimate way to survive on her own.

Moses found this hardness of heart unacceptable. He required the husband to issue the disfavored wife a letter of divorcement so she could survive apart from that relationship. It was not God’s intention from the beginning, not God’s ideal. It came about because of husbands who callously failed to do the right thing in these situations. Deuteronomy 24 deals with this matter by providing what we call case law. Case law was not part of the original law reflecting God’s attributes and character. Case law covers what to do in the presence of specific circumstances and events, in a sort of “if/then” configuration.

This is one of many examples of why when studying Scripture it is of prime importance to determine scriptural intent. The Pharisees, looking at the Deuteronomy passage in isolation, make the mistake of seeing marriage as a contract—something that under certain circumstances may be legally dissolved—when in fact God’s original intent was for it to be a covenant. They make a second mistake by not seeking out the reason this portion of case law was included in Scripture in the first place. Here’s the passage:

"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 uncleanness in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, when she has departed from his house, and goes and becomes another man’s wife…” (Deut. 24:1, 2)

The term “uncleanness” is vague, so we don’t know exactly what it means. Perhaps it is some type of ceremonial uncleanness not alluded to in the New Testament. We don’t know. The fact that it is undefined is actually at the crux of the debate among the Jews of Jesus’ day, as well as among Christians and Jews today. Is this adultery? Is it some kind of unnatural sexual sin? Again, we don’t know. But either way, in this instance the husband has divorced the wife and she has now married someone else. Reading on:  

 “..if the latter husband detests her and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her as his wife, then her former husband who divorced her must not take her back to be his wife after she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the LORD…” (Deut. 24:3, 4).

So, the actual point of this case law is to spell out that the wife, once divorced from the first husband and remarried to another cannot go back to the first husband, for the reasons specified, to marry him again. This means that the Pharisees are basing their question to Jesus about divorce on a passage of Scripture taken out of context and in disregard of its real intent. Is there a passage in the New Testament that correlates in its own way to the above example of Deuteronomy case law? Here is one in I Corinthians 7:12-15.

“But to the rest I, not the Lord, say: If any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her. And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him… But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases...”

Paul’s focus, as he pens this, is on how to manage a marriage between a believer and a non-believer. If the non-believer chooses to walk away from that marriage, then the believer incurs no guilt in its break-up.

III. The Marriage Covenant is Violated by Remarriage

Matthew 19:9, 10 tells us what Jesus says about divorce and remarriage. Here is what is clearly revealed in Scripture about the subject, and how the disciples react to the news:

“‘And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.’ His disciples said to Him, ‘If such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry’” (Matthew 19:9, 10).

A source of confusion is that parallel passages in Mark and Luke omit the exception clause. One thing is certain, though, whichever the account: Jesus makes clear the permanence of marriage, and His disciples’ reaction underlines how strong the statement is. Jesus has categorically labeled divorce and remarriage adultery. The one exception He specifically names in Matthew 19 is sexual immorality. Before we take a closer look at the phrase sexual immorality, let’s consider a question: If someone who is divorced remarries, is it unforgiveable? Of course not. Scripture says, “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” Romans 5:20. God’s grace is able to restore to spiritual fellowship one who is in this situation.

Now, about the exception clause: there are four views as to the meaning of the phrase sexual immorality. The Greek word used here is not the usual term we translate as adultery. It is porneia, which refers to some sort of unspecified illicit sexual activity. The Shammai school took it to mean adultery. That seems unlikely, since the penalty for adultery in the Old Testament, anyway, was the stoning of both guilty parties (See Deuteronomy 22:22). Another interpretation is that it refers to deviant sexual sin, such as homosexuality or bestiality. Still another interpretation took it to mean premarital unchastity during the year of Jewish betrothal—a period of time in which the Jewish couple were considered legally wed despite the marriage as yet not having been consummated, something that would take place following the official wedding ceremony at the end of that year. Should premarital unchastity be discovered during that first year, the wronged party could legally divorce the guilty one. The other interpretation, which seems the most unlikely, is incest, but incest and marriage are not the same thing in Scripture.

While godly people differ on the issue of divorce, in the immediate context we know one thing: divorce seems always to have something to do with the hardness of the heart. Jesus already has said so in His answer to the Pharisees: Moses allowed divorce because of men’s hardness of heart. Think about it. How can any divorce occur apart from that, really? In any event, we can debate, we can raise questions about possible exceptions, but there are inherent ambiguities involved that are hard to resolve. That is why my personal policy as a pastor is not to preside over any remarriages at all unless the previous spouse has died.

There are godly couples who are made up of people who are remarried, and who somewhere along the line realized they had married unbiblically. They repented of the decision and acknowledged the sin, seeking forgiveness from the Lord and restoration, and these same people have gone on to serve the Lord well. But if you are married and in a difficult situation, your responsibility is to ask, “How can I best please God in my present situation,” rather than look for a way to end the relationship. If you’re single, don’t get married unless it pleases God. If you’re married, please God in your marriage. If you are divorced, please God in that state. And if you are remarried, please God in that state and realize that happiness is not found in your marital status. Happiness is found in pleasing God.

Concluding Applications

1. Christians who take marriage vows seriously should please God sacrificially, rather than looking for grounds to escape sacrifice.

2. It is impossible for two Christians to divorce without sin on either one side or the other or both.

3. Outside of departure, any grounds for divorce are at best unclear, and may be non-existent.

4. God’s love and grace abounds for those who have gone through the pain of divorce.

5. Although marriage, like everything else, has been marred by the fall, we can look forward to a marriage that won’t be. We need only see Revelation 19:6-10 to understand that.