What God Has Joined Together, Let Not Man Separate--Sermon on the Mount Series

            Today, in our study of the Sermon on the Mount, we’re going to read about Jesus touching ever-so-briefly on the subject of divorce. I’m sure the epidemic of divorce in our country is well-known to you, but I think we can take an interesting look at its history by looking at the history of the TV show Divorce Court. That show first came on the air in 1957. Now, I think the fact that a producer thought people would even watch such a show reminds us that divorce was such a novelty at that time. A show about divorce proceedings would tap into people’s curiosity about something that wasn’t very familiar to them.

            But as divorce became more common in our country, Divorce Court’s ratings fell. It survived until 1969, but was cancelled through all of the 1970’s. It was revived in 1985, but was cancelled again through most of the 1990’s. It was revived again in 1999 and has managed to stay on the air from that time until today, but there’s no telling how many people we would have to ask before we found someone who deliberately chooses to watch that show. People don’t need to watch a TV show about divorce proceedings today because sadly, too many people have lived through a divorce themselves.

            Jesus’ words in this section are words that our culture today desperately needs to hear. Later, in Matthew 19, Jesus would be asked specifically about divorce by the Pharisees, and He made a statement in that passage that is an excellent summary of God’s perspective on this subject: “What God has joined together, let not man separate.” That is God’s desire, and it should be our goal.

            As we study verses 31-32 today, we’ll focus first on the emphasis of Jesus’ teaching, then we’ll look at the exception to His teaching that He Himself mentions in v. 32.

1. The emphasis of Jesus’ teaching—Divorce followed by remarriage is adultery

            Let’s begin to read through these verses. The introductory statement that Jesus uses, especially when you read it in Greek, makes it clear that He is continuing the same train of thought from the previous verses. In those verses he told us that lust in the heart is the same as adultery in God’s eyes. Now, if I may paraphrase, its like Jesus is saying, “While I’m on the subject of adultery, let me mention something else that God considers to be adultery,” and He goes on here to mention divorce and re-marriage.

            In v. 31, He says, “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’” That statement of the Pharisees’ teaching is based on Deuteronomy 24:1-4, but it is actually a misrepresentation of that passage. Moses had prohibited a situation in which a divorced and remarried woman might return to her first husband if she was divorced again or if her second husband died, but the religious leaders had become more interested in the procedure of divorce that Moses mentioned there. Moses really had not intended to discuss when divorce might be permissible, but that’s what the debate became among the religious leaders.

            In Jesus’ day, the situation regarding divorce was much like it is in our own culture today—divorce was increasingly common, and divorces were granted for very trivial reasons. The religious leaders’ concern was simply to make sure that divorce proceedings were carried out properly, but Jesus reminds us that God’s concern was much different. So He says in v. 32, “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.”

            Jesus took a wide-angle look at his culture and announced that people were committing adultery all over the place, because they had been taught to simply make sure that the paperwork for divorce was filed properly. The marriage bond had become something that could be dissolved almost on a whim, but Jesus announced that those who treated their marriage in such a way, leaving one and entering another in such a casual way, were actually committing adultery in God’s eyes.

            What a lesson that we need to learn today! When marriages end because of “irreconcilable differences” or because “things just didn’t work out,” we need a clear reminder of God’s opinion on the subject. To treat marriage in such a casual way is an offense to the God who designed it, and we actually commit adultery when we use our own rationale for dissolving our marriage bonds and entering a new relationship. When we use a rationale for divorce and remarriage that God does not permit, we can call ourselves ex-husbands and ex-wives, but to God, we are adulterers and adulteresses.

            Now Jesus language in v. 32 seems a bit strange. Why does He say, “everyone who divorces his wife…makes her commit adultery?” Jesus was assuming that the woman would enter a new relationship, which was the most typical result of divorce at that time. In the Jewish culture, only a husband could initiate a divorce, and the prospects for a divorced woman were very bleak. Remember, this was not a time when a woman could really get a job on her own outside the home to support herself. She could try to return to her parents’ home, but there was no guarantee that they would receive her back. She could beg, but of course, that is very unpredictable. She could try to earn her own income, but you can imagine what kind of profession that might require.       Most of the time, a divorced woman would enter a relationship with another man, and Jesus said that in that situation, both the woman and the other man would be committing adultery.

            I think it is very important that we allow this emphasis of Jesus to sink in lest we move too quickly into a discussion about the exception that He mentions here. As soon as we start to talk about an exception, our sinful hearts will try to find ways to make the exception bigger and bigger. That’s exactly what the religious leaders in Jesus’ day had done. The Old Testament mentioned a divorce procedure as a detail of a larger scenario, but the people took that detail and ran with it.

            The possibility that we might commit adultery through divorce and remarriage should provide a strong push away from divorce in any situation. That is the real emphasis in Jesus’ teaching. We should not search for exceptions; instead, we should allow these words to push us away from divorce in the same way that the previous passage pushed us away from lust, since the outcome for both can be exactly the same—adultery.

With that being said, Jesus does mention an exception to his teaching in v. 32—a situation in which divorce and remarriage would not be condemned as an instance of adultery. Those words are just as authoritative as everything else that Jesus said and everything else the Bible says, so we can safely act upon them. We could state the exception like this…

2. The exception to Jesus’ teaching—Divorce followed by remarriage is not adultery when adultery led to the divorce

            Remember again that in that culture at the time, only a husband was allowed to initiate a divorce. What Jesus is saying is that if a woman was put away by a husband who was engaging in adultery, God did not consider the innocent woman to be an adulteress if she got remarried. This exception makes sense in light of Israel’s laws and history.

            In the laws that God had given to the people of Israel through Moses, adultery was supposed to be punished by execution. For example, Leviticus 20:10 says, “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.” This law is repeated in Deuteronomy 22:22—“If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.”

            If the people had obediently carried out that command, it would have clearly put an end to the innocent spouse’s marriage because his or her spouse would be dead. The innocent spouse would thus become a widow or a widower, and such people had always been allowed to remarry under God’s laws. So in that situation, there would have been no confusion—the innocent spouse’s marriage would have ended with the death of their spouse, and thus he or she would have been free to remarry.

            But the people of Israel had never consistently carried out the death penalty for adultery, which resulted in confusion—as sin always does. What was the innocent spouse supposed to do now? They were now divorced, but their spouse was still alive. Would they be committing adultery if they got remarried? I believe the exception that Jesus mentions here was meant to cut through that confusion and tell us that the innocent spouse was free to remarry after the divorce had taken place.

            Now, we as a community of Christians can also create confusion about divorce and remarriage if we fail to follow God’s commands. We don’t live under the laws of the Old Testament today, so we are not to enforce a death penalty for adultery, but God has given us clear instructions on how to deal with a person in our church who might commit that sin. Matthew 18:15-20 outlines a process of loving confrontation that we are to follow in an effort to lead that person to repentance. But if that person will not repent, Matthew 18:17 says, “let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector”—in other words, someone who is outside the family of God. We’re not supposed to hate that person, but to bring clarity to the decisions that we need to make as a church, we are supposed to consider that person to be an unbeliever.

            At that point, the Bible’s teaching on marriage in 1 Corinthians 7 becomes applicable. Let’s turn there together so we can read vv. 12-16. This letter was written by the Apostle Paul, and he begins this section by saying, “To the rest I say (I, not the Lord).” All that Paul means by that statement is that he’s about to touch on a scenario that Jesus had not specifically talked about during His ministry on Earth. Let’s read his words [READ vv. 12-13].

            Now when Paul writes that the unbelieving spouse is willing to live with the believing spouse, surely he means more than “inhabit the same house.” I believe he’s saying that if you are married to an unbeliever, if your spouse is willing to honor his or her marriage vows to you, you should be willing to honor your marriage vows to your spouse. But then beginning in v. 15, Paul discusses the scenario in which the unbelieving spouse is not willing to honor his or her marriage vows [READ vv. 15-16].

            So, if someone in our church is abandoned by their spouse, whether that spouse is pursuing adultery or has some other motivation, I believe the innocent spouse is free to be divorced and to remarry if they desire to do so. To bring this back into the context of adultery, if someone in our church commits adultery, we are to lovingly confront that person to help them come to repentance. But if that person refuses to repent and persists in adultery, we are to consider that person to be an unbeliever. Then, on the basis of this passage in 1 Corinthians 7, we should allow the innocent spouse to get a divorce and to remarry if they desire to do so.

            This exception mentioned by Jesus in Matthew 5 is divinely authoritative; thus, it gives us a basis as a church to act with clarity in situations of adultery. But we should never forget that God’s basic assessment concerning marriage is this: what God has joined together, let not man separate. As Christian spouses, we should realize that there is no scenario in which we could get a divorce that would not be the result of one of us directly disobeying God. If husband and wife are both obeying God, there is no scenario for divorce—but happily, there doesn’t need to be one in that situation! God does deal graciously with an innocent spouse who is abandoned by a sinning spouse, and we need to acknowledge that so that we don’t put the innocent spouse in a bind, but may God help us all so that there would never be another divorce among Christians. Rather, may our marriages be what God wants them to be—a beautiful picture of the love and respect that exists between Jesus and His bride, the Church.