What did Jesus have to say? (Matthew 19:3-9; Mark 10:2-12)

Matthew and Mark both record for us an instance when Jesus was asked about divorce, and we see Jesus taking the time to clarify what God’s intention for man has always been concerning marriage. This is another occasion where the Pharisees were trying to entrap Jesus, showing that their hearts were not right and their questioning was insincere. They ask Jesus if it is lawful to divorce one’s wife for any reason. Adding the qualifier “for any reason” would presumably lead one to anticipate a resounding “no” from Jesus, but that is not at all how He answers them. Notice that Jesus says neither “yes” nor “no,” nor does He initially mention anything about the “one exception.” This ought to grab our attention. Jesus directs their minds to the very beginning of time to show what God’s purpose has always been for man, regarding marriage. Notice that God never even mentions the concept of divorce. On the contrary, He says, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24) The same Hebrew term translated “hold fast” in Genesis is also used in Deuteronomy 10:20, where Moses says, “You shall fear the LORD your God. You shall serve Him and hold fast to Him.” If God uses the same phrase to describe marriage as He does the relationship between His people and Himself, then would it not be reasonable to conclude that God requires the same unrestricted commitment? Jesus goes on to say, “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” The emphasis here is on God doing the joining, thus defining marriage as something divinely instituted, rather than a mere custom of man. If God created woman for man, instituted marriage, and intended it to be an unrestricted commitment, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” This is the Pharisees’ follow-up question to Jesus’ answer, but notice the reason Jesus gives. It is not that God changed His mind about the permanency of marriage, but rather, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.” Has God ever condoned the hardening of anyone’s heart? Has God ever been pleased with the sin that resulted from a heart that was hardened? God certainly grants man the freedom to choose, even if his choice is a rebellious act against God, but does that mean that God deems such an act to be “good” or “right?” The truth is God ordained marriage as a relationship of unrestricted commitment, and as brother Doy Moyer has put it, “The nature of truth means that it is objective...truth does not change to fit the whims of fallible people.”

What is divorce and why does God hate it? (Malachi 2:13-16)

To understand the nature of divorce, one needs to understand the nature of the initial existence which is to be severed. When one uses the term “marriage,” he is not merely referring to two people who often and intimately associate with one another. In fact, marriage does not primarily refer to two people at all, but rather the union of those two people which creates one new existence. Malachi asks, “Did He not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union?” If one were to think about marriage as two people walking down a sidewalk, with a rope tied to each of their necks, it would not be too gruesome to imagine a buzz saw swiftly cutting that rope in half and separating the two. If however one were to think about marriage as God does, as one new person which God made from two, and that new person was walking down the same sidewalk, the same buzz saw would yield much more horrific results as it brutally tore that person in half. This is the reality of divorce—there is never a clean separation without casualties. The two that God made one flesh are left as halves of a whole, fragments fractured from a once united existence. This being the reality, could God be the infinitely good God that He is if He encouraged man to do something which destroyed himself and others? Would we continue to trust God as being indefinitely faithful if He condoned a practice which constantly breaks covenants to which He was the primary witness? Is it not then reasonable to conclude “from the beginning it was not so” because God’s command was for the good of man? If God’s command, devoid of any mention of divorce, is good, then it can only be reasonable to conclude that divorce, from God’s perspective, is a great evil. “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the LORD, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts.”

If not divorce, then what did God command? (Leviticus 18:20, Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:13-29)

In the initial giving of the law God said, “And you shall not lie sexually with your neighbor’s wife and so make yourself unclean with her.” And, “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.” Even as Moses repeats the law, he mentions that accusations of adultery needed to be proven, and upon receiving sufficient evidence, God’s command was, “they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done an outrageous thing in Israel by whoring in her father’s house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.” Two times does God repeat that Israel was to purge the evil of adultery from its midst. Jesus reminds the Pharisees that Moses allowed the issuing of certificates of divorce because of the people’s hard hearts. Is it not possible that the hardness of their hearts was manifested in their unwillingness to both honor the sanctity of marriage and put to death the participants of the abominable act of adultery?

Did Moses’ command allow any more than Jesus’? (Deuteronomy 24:1-4)

The better question is, “Did Moses even give a command regarding divorce, in the first place?” What does Moses actually say? In the context, Moses is talking about the potential of remarrying, following a divorce. In this context, Moses does not actually command anyone to give a certificate of divorce. Rather, he speaks in a tone that presupposes the general practice among the people already. He identifies the man’s reason, “If then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her.” This word “indecency” literally means “nudity, to make naked; spread self; uncover,” but it can also be used figuratively to mean “disgrace; blemish.” Several times, however, God uses the phrase “uncover the nakedness,” (Leviticus 18:6-18) each time referring to one having inappropriate sexual relations with another. Interestingly, even the reason Moses gives in his example is one that, if taken literally, addresses sexual sin, and even if this is not the case, the frivolity with which men were dismissing their wives was surely wrong.

While this law in no way condones divorce, it does say that one who has been put away and has remarried may not again enter into a relationship with her first spouse. This seems to give grave caution to the one who would desire divorce as the response to adultery. We have already examined the parts of the law where God commanded death as the appropriate response to adultery. The word translated “favor” means “graciousness; kindness; to bend or stoop in kindness to an inferior; be merciful, have/show mercy, have pity upon.” By saying, “She finds no favor in his eyes,” Moses has already identified that the men who were not putting these indecent women to death (either because they were unwilling, or because no sexual sin had actually been committed) were failing to do so not because they were showing grace, kindness, and mercy. We do not get a picture here of godly men, full of mercy, pleading with God on the behalf of their adulterous wives that their souls might be spared. We instead get a picture of men finding fault with their wives to get out of a marriage with which they were unsatisfied. Moses also seems to emphasize God’s seriousness concerning the covenant to which He was a witness, that it is not to be treated like some common relationship that one can just “fall in” and “fall out of.”

Neither Moses nor Jesus ever condone divorce. They both certainly acknowledge that divorce is something man practices, but their commands regard marriage, rather than its undoing. I think modern man has taken it upon himself to read meanings other than what God intended into the words of His Son, just as the Pharisees did with the words of Moses. Consider this: if Jesus says divorce for any reason other than sexual immorality constitutes adultery, does this automatically mean divorce as a response to sexual immorality is okay? What we are really asking then is, “What does God deem a ‘lawful divorce?’” Is this even possible when divorce itself stands in opposition to God’s law communicated to the first humans that ever walked the face of this earth? Can there be a lawful way to break a law?

So what about the one exception...? 

Given all that we have examined thus far, my initial question to anyone asking this question would be, “Why are you looking for the exception in the first place?” If we have already examined the Scriptures to see God’s purpose in ordaining marriage and His hatred of divorce, would this not be something we would want to avoid at all costs? Remember, divorce is something God equates with violence. We would think him a monster who reveled in violence and sought the pain of others. Respected minds of the recent past understood that violence never helped man achieve the ultimate goals of peace, joy, and contentment. “The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder the hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” (Martin Luther King Jr.)

What is a disciple of Christ’s ultimate goal but to have peace with God through Christ Himself? And how was this peace achieved but by Christ returning good for our evil? As it is written, “When He was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten...He himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed.” (1 Peter 2:23-24) As those who did not hold fast to our God, just as a man who does not hold fast to his wife, we were “adulterous people.” (James 4:4) And just as God commanded the people of Israel, we were deserving of a death far more terrifying than being stoned. Nevertheless, God through His Son repaid our spiritual adultery with mercy. Before we even consider the “exception,” let us first consider how godly, if at all, it is to seek His authority to commit an act of violence against another. Is that attitude one that helps us “to be conformed to the image of His Son?” (Romans 8:29) Adultery is sin, something God never intended for man to practice. Divorce is also something God never intended for man to practice. Does it make sense to respond to one thing which is opposed to God’s purposes with another? Should that ever be our desire? To borrow from Mr. King’s line of reasoning, divorce may separate you from the sinner, but it does not separate you from the consequences of the sin. Instead of diminishing the pain, it multiplies it for you, your spouse, your children, your friends, and any others with concern for your well-being. Divorce is by its very nature a severance, and so cannot mend anything; only reconciliation through Christ can do that.

It takes two willing parties to reconcile. (Matthew 18:15-17, 21-35)

This is where we will finally address what I think has been misconstrued as “an exception to the rule.” As only reconciliation through Christ can do what divorce never can, let us consider what Christ has to say about being reconciled. He says, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.” What is the goal here, but to “gain” the one who sinned against me? Does seeking something God defines as covering my garment with violence achieve that goal? Jesus goes on to say that if my brother will not listen I must take two or three with me “that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.” If my brother still refuses to listen, I must take it before God’s people in the church, and if unsuccessful and only after those attempts to gain my brother do I let him be to me “as a Gentile and a tax collector.” The responsibility falls on me to seek out my brother who sinned against me and do all I can to reconcile the matter with him. If the guilty party is my spouse does Jesus say, “Oh, but spouses are an exception to this?” If the sin is of a sexual nature does Jesus say, “But of course sexual immorality is the one sin in which this does not apply?”

Peter responds to Jesus’ teaching by asking how often this forgiveness was to be extended to the offender, and Jesus answers in a way that suggests the focus ought not to be on limiting the number of times I forgive my brother, but on seeking to be merciful. He illustrates this with the following parable. He says there is a man who owed a king ten thousand talents—that is ten thousand year’s worth of payment for an average laborer. The king orders for the debtor and his family to be sold to make payment and the man falls to his knees and begs for patience to allow him to pay his debt, which of course he could never do. The king has pity on the man and out of mercy forgives him all of his debt! The same forgiven man demands payment from and begins to choke a fellow servant who owes him one hundred denarii—that is only a hundred day’s worth of payment for an average laborer. When the fellow servant begs for the same mercy shown to the man forgiven by the king, the ungrateful servant refuses and throws him in jail. The king hears about this, scolds the wicked servant, and punishes him, reminding him that he was shown mercy and ought to have shown the same to another. Jesus concludes by saying, “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

If I am being at all honest with myself, God has forgiven me of more sins than I could ever number, and certainly more than I could ever hope to repay, given that any sin earns me death. Is there any excuse for me not being merciful to those who sin against me? Does Jesus not say, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy?” (Matthew 5:7) Thank the LORD God who shows such mercy and steadfast love that He did not take the position we do when we seek things like divorce and holding grudges, else where would we be but in a state of condemnation, awaiting the terrifying wrath of God?

From all that we have examined thus far, it seems very clear that it is my responsibility to seek out my spouse and attempt to work things out. Nevertheless, I cannot make that person be reconciled to God or to me. Here is where I see the “exception” come into play. Divorce is not to be a vengeful response meant to punish the sinner who has done wrong, as Paul writes, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the LORD.’ To the contrary, ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by doing so you will heap burning coals on his head.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:19-20) If in the context here Paul has moved on from talking about brethren (for any concerned that Jesus’ teaching on reconciliation only applied to “your brother”) to talking about enemies, then how should I treat my spouse? Is retaliating with the threat and/or execution of divorce, even in response to sexual immorality, overcoming evil with good? Herein lies the problem, though. It takes two willing parties to actually be reconciled. If my spouse sins against me and the sin is of a sexual nature, thus violating the covenant we established with God and each other in marriage, I can still choose to show mercy, but s/he can choose to remain in sin. While the divorce is conceived in sexual immorality, it is delivered by the unwillingness to repent and be reconciled. Divorce then is not a very restricted response to my spouse’s sexual immorality, but my acceptance of his or her decision to remain in sin, to violate our covenant with each other before God, and be united with another person. Divorce is a heartbreaking failure and a frightening deviation from God’s purpose. Marriage is an extremely serious commitment and one that a holy God does NOT take lightly. Whether we are already or are not yet married, let us consider God’s purposes and perspective, honor them, and seek to show the love and mercy of Christ our Lord in our relationships.