On the Mount: Christians And Divorce, Part 2
Matthew 5:31-32
Part of our series on the Sermon on the Mount, this sermon was preached by Rev. Chris Roberts during the evening service on Sunday, January 03, 2010.
We return tonight to Matthew 5:31-32 and Matthew 19:3-9. This morning we discussed in more general terms issues of adultery, divorce, and remarriage. Tonight I want to move into some specific situations.
If you missed the message this morning I encourage you to get a copy from the website sometime tomorrow afternoon or call the church office to ask for a CD.
We will not rehash everything we said this morning but I do want to restate our concluding summary. We said that marriage is precious in the site of God. It is his doing, he has united this man and woman into one flesh. Husbands and wives, do not commit adultery. Husbands and wives, do not divorce your spouse. If there is divorce and there has not been adultery, do not remarry. Honor God. Be faithful. Seek reconciliation.
Tonight we will look at various situations involving divorce. I want to start by looking at legitimate divorce. If a spouse has not committed adultery, when else might a husband or wife be justified in deciding to divorce his or her spouse?
Let me first emphasize another point from this morning. I said this morning that I am horrified at the thought that someone might come away from these messages saying, “I have found a way out of my marriage.” There are cases when one might legitimately seek a divorce, but this should never be something you desire. It is a last resort and is always followed with attempts at reconciliation.
But what are the circumstances permitting divorce? Let’s look at Deuteronomy 24:1. This comes from the passage the Pharisees would use to debate grounds for divorce: When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her… Moses goes on to give instructions for a specific situation involving divorced spouses. I am not as interested here in the situation as in the reason for the divorce.
In verse 1 Moses simply says, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her… The issue, then, is indecency. But what is indecency? Some of the Jews argued that adultery was the only offense that allowed a person to divorce. But as we noted this morning the Mosaic Law already had a provision for adultery. In Leviticus 20:10 we see that the adulterer was to be put to death.
But at the same time Moses certainly did not mean what other Jews assumed: anything your wife does that you find displeasing is grounds for divorce. Toast burned? You can divorce. House not clean? End the marriage. No! Moses does not allow divorce for your every sinful whim.
The word Moses uses for indecency literally means nakedness. In Hebrew culture nakedness was a shameful, indecent thing. For Moses to use the word in this context, he meant that a husband might divorce his wife if she has engaged in revolting behavior, something abhorrent to the marriage relationship. No common circumstance would do, it had to be a great offense against the marriage yet one that did not violate the Mosaic law.
This morning we mentioned two examples: abuse and addiction. If a husband physically (and in some circumstances emotionally) abuses his wife, he has committed something repugnant to the marriage. Likewise if a wife is addicted to drugs or alcohol and keeps bringing these substances into the home, exposing and endangering children, she has done something repugnant. We could name many situations of this sort. The wife who spends all of a family’s money, bringing constant financial crisis. The husband with a chronic addiction to internet pornography. Things that might not be violations of the law and do not constitute the physical sin of adultery (though in the case of pornography the guilty party is guilty of the sin of adultery, though not, I think, to the point of destroying a marriage).
Divorce may be justified if one spouse, say a husband, is chronically engaged in sinful activity that is harmful to his wife or to the children and he refuses to repent and turn from his sinful actions. His wife may find divorce the last resort, the only way to be protected from her husband’s sin. Even after divorce reconciliation should be sought, working to lead the sinning husband to repentance.
But as we saw this morning, the only circumstance allowing remarriage following divorce is adultery. Now let me give you a scenario. Suppose a man has a wife who regularly brings drugs into the home. After months of this and no change in her he finally divorces her. He continues to seek reconciliation and he does not marry someone else. But one day he learns that she has moved in with another man and they are sleeping together. In the eyes of God she has committed adultery since, as we noted this morning, the legal divorce did not end the covenant a husband and wife makes with God. By her adultery the marriage covenant is destroyed. Is the husband free to remarry? Or if after the divorce his wife marries another, can he remarry and not be guilty of adultery?
I probably wrestled with this question more than any other but in the end my conclusion was yes, the husband is free to remarry. Though he did not divorce his wife because of adultery, in the end she committed adultery and destroyed the marriage covenant. He is free to marry again. Let us remember that the goal should always be reconciliation. But if reconciliation becomes impossible due to the spouse’s remarriage, or if adultery has in some other way been committed, remarriage is permissible.
Let me again state my concern that we not look for excuses to divorce. I can imagine someone might hear me and say, “I have a way out! My husband is a lazy slob, that is surely repugnant to a marriage, it is repugnant to me! So I will divorce him and remain single. But I know he will remarry and when he does I will be free to marry someone better!” To anyone having a desire like this, I remind you that God is as interested in the condition of your heart as the faithfulness of your obedience. You might appear to be obedient to the letter of the law (though I would argue you have not been obedient) but certainly in your heart you have done wrong. Man looks at the outward appearance but God looks at the heart and he sees your wicked desire to find a way out of what God has joined together. You will be guilty of sin.
Let me briefly mention one more situation then we will shift gears a little bit. In 1 Corinthians 7:12-16 Paul presents the circumstances of someone married to an unbeliever. He says to the Christian, do not seek a divorce. It may be hard to be married to a non-Christian but you are still called to faithfulness and the union is still from God. But what happens if that non-Christian wants the divorce? Paul says not to fight but allow the divorce. Some think that Paul here gives another exception to the remarriage rule, as if to say you cannot remarry unless your spouse has committed adultery or is an unbeliever who divorces you. But this argument goes farther than Paul goes. Paul has just given a general instruction in verses 10-11: do not divorce, but if you divorce, do not remarry. Then he comes back in verses 12-16 to give a specific example. If your unbelieving spouse seeks a divorce, grant the divorce. What do you do then? Based on verses 10-11, you seek reconciliation.
I could give more situations but what we have said will cover many circumstances. Now we will shift gears to see if you have any questions or comments remaining from the things we have discussed.