Discussion on Marriage and Divorce – Part 5

Previous Articles

1. The No Divorce / No Remarriage Position.
2. The contribution of Church History
3. What is the "exception clause"?
4. Why Matthew is the key text.

Matthew 19:1–9 (ESV)

 ¹ Now when Jesus had finished these sayings, he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. ² And large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. ³ And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” ⁴ He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, ⁵ and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? ⁶ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” ⁷ They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” ⁸ He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. ⁹ And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

 “Jesus is the new Moses who reinterprets Torah.”^[1] “Matthew wrote for predominantly Jewish readers . . . Jesus interpreted the law in a way these readers did not expect.”^[2]

 Scholars have identified several underlying structural motifs in Matthew’s Gospel. The transitional statement “from that time on, Jesus began to …” (4:17; 16:21) creates three main sections:

         1.       1:1–4:16—Preliminary events leading up to Jesus’ public ministry.

         2.       4:17–16:12—Events of Jesus’ public ministry.

         3.       16:13–28:20—Events leading to the rejection and suffering of Jesus.

 Chapters 18:1–20:34 communicate the community of Christ the Messiah.  Chapter 18:1-35 instruct us the character of that community and Chapter 19 describes family life within the Kingdom (19:1–15).^[3] It is in this context that the Pharisees test Jesus with a question about divorce, He turns the tables on them to stress the permanence of marriage and corrects their misunderstanding about acceptable grounds for divorce.^[4]

 A hotly debated difference of opinion existed between the Rabbis Shammai and Hillel (both near-contemporaries of Christ). The Shammaites interpreted the law rigidly and permitted a man to divorce his wife only if she was guilty of sexual immorality. The Hillelites took a wholly pragmatic approach and permitted a man to divorce his wife indiscriminately.^[5] The question comes to Jesus with a calculated intention to place him in opposition to Moses.  “And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?”” (Matthew 19:3, ESV).  The religious leaders try to get Jesus to incriminate himself through misinterpreting the law.^[6]

 In verses 19:4-6, Christ takes them back to the beginning; back to Creation. His point was to verify that divorce was never God’s plan.  The one-flesh union infers indivisibility and inseparability.  God established marriage to be indissoluble.   That will beg the question from the Pharisees, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?”^[7]  The only possible place that the Pharisees may be thinking of was what was recorded in Deuteronomy 24:1–4 (ESV),

¹ “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, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house, ² and if she goes and becomes another man’s wife, ³ and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies, who took her to be his wife, ⁴ then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.

 First of all, Deuteronomy 24 does not “command” divorce.  There’s only one command in the passage: “then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.” (Deuteronomy 24:4, ESV) [Emphasis Mine].  Secondly, one should note that Jesus agreed that Moses had “allowed” divorce, but He did not say that He agreed with that.  This seems to follow the familiar pattern of Matthew’s Gospel, “You have heard it said; I say unto you.”  I think a correct interpretation of Matthew 19:8-9 is, “Moses did allow you to divorce but I say to you . . ..”

Deuteronomy does indicate an allowance by Moses to divorce when a man “finds no favor” (v.1) in his wife.  Only the KJV and NET renders verse 2, “And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife.” Most translations are similar to the ESV noted above.  The wife is not given permission for re-marriage.  The case is “if she goes and remarries.”

What is the lack of favor that the first husband finds in his wife? It must be someone other than adultery, which was punished by stoning (cf. Deuteronomy 22:22). The Hebrew word used here, erwah, literally means “nakedness.”  John Murray says, “ . . . there is no evidence to show that erwath davar refers to adultery or an act of sexual uncleanness.”  The idea of repugnancy or repulsiveness seems uppermost, but not sexual sin.  Her divorce from the first man could not have been biblically acceptable although Moses permitted it. If it had been proper, not sinful, that divorce would have freed her to marry the second man without sin.” [Emphasis mine]

This act (of remarriage), should it occur, would be detestable in the Lord's eyes and would bring sin on the land (v.4).[8]  Dr. P.C. Craigie writes, “Now comes the specific legislation: under all these circumstances, the first man may not remarry his former wife. After she has been defiled—the language (defiled) suggests adultery (see Lev. 18:20). The sense is that the woman’s remarriage after the first divorce is similar to adultery in that the woman cohabits with another man. However, if the woman were then to remarry her first husband, after divorcing the second, the analogy with adultery would become even more complete; the woman lives first with one man, then another, and finally returns to the first.”^[9]

Jesus admits that Moses “allows” the situation but His “but I say unto you” instruction clarifies and corrects what was happening. He is affirming His teaching in Matthew 5: ““It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 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.” (Matthew 5:31–32, ESV)

Before leaving Deuteronomy 24 it cannot be avoided, as Dr. Carson[10] points out, that a lawful “divorce and remarriage are therefore presupposed by Moses.”  An unlawful divorce that results in remarriage is adultery.    And so, the conclusion of the matter in Matthew 19 is, “And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”” (Matthew 19:9, ESV).

So, there is a sense where Deuteronomy 25, plus Matthew 5 and 19 are all saying the same thing.  Divorce and re-marriage for any cause other than marital unfaithfulness incurs the charge of adultery.  There is no difference between the Gospels and the Deuteronomic passage.  It is also inferred that a lawful divorce permits remarriage.  Once the marriage has been dissolved by adultery on the terms that Jesus specified, a new marriage is not an adulterous marriage.  Lawful divorce by the very nature of the case must allow for the right to re-marry.  Otherwise, it is a meaningless word, granting people separation but treating them as married.

How does Paul treat the subject?  That, God willing, is the next article.

 

 

 

 

 

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^[1] Williams, M. (2012). How to Read the Bible through the Jesus Lens: A Guide to Christ-Focused Reading of Scripture (p. 161). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[2] Williams, M. (2012). How to Read the Bible through the Jesus Lens: A Guide to Christ-Focused Reading of Scripture (p. 161). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[3] Whitlock, L. G., Sproul, R. C., Waltke, B. K., & Silva, M. (1995). The Reformation study Bible: bringing the light of the Reformation to Scripture: New King James Version (Mt 1:1). Nashville: T. Nelson.

^[4] Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., … Bomar, D. (2012, 2016). Faithlife Study Bible (Mt 19:1–12). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

^[5] MacArthur, J., Jr. (Ed.). (1997). The MacArthur Study Bible (electronic ed., p. 1427). Nashville, TN: Word Pub.

^[6] Crossway Bibles. (2008). The ESV Study Bible (p. 1860). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

^[7] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Mt 19:7). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

[8] Expositor's Bible Commentary, The, Pradis CD-ROM:Deuteronomy/Exposition of Deuteronomy/III. The Second Address: Stipulations of the Covenant-Treaty and Its Ratification (4:44-28:68)/C. Specific Stipulations of the Covenant-Treaty (12:1-26:19)/4. Interpersonal relationships (21:1-25:19)/e. Family, neighborhood, and national relationships (23:1-25:19)/(2) A miscellany of personal relationships (23:15-25:19)/(b) Marriage, divorce, and remarriage (24:1-5), Book Version: 4.0.2

^[9] Craigie, P. C. (1976). The Book of Deuteronomy (p. 305). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

[10] Expositor's Bible Commentary, The, Pradis CD-ROM:Matthew/Exposition of Matthew/VI. Opposition and Eschatology: The Triumph of Grace (19:3-26:5)/A. Narrative (19:3-23:39)/1. Marriage and divorce (19:3-12), Book Version: 4.0.2