A couple was celebrating their golden wedding anniversary. Their domestic tranquility had long been the talk of the town where they had spent their lives. The local newspaper reporter inquired as to the secret of their long and happy marriage. The husband said, “Well, it all dates back to our honeymoon. We visited the Grand Canyon and took a trip down to bottom of the canyon by pack mule. We hadn’t gone too far when my wife’s mule stumbled. My wife softly said, ‘That’s once.’ We proceeded just a little further and the mule stumbled again. Once more my wife quietly said, ‘That’s twice.’ We hadn’t gone a half-mile more when the mule stumbled a third time. My wife silently removed a revolver from her coat pocket and shot that mule dead. I started to protest over her treatment of the mule when she looked at me and said, “That’s once”

The desire of most every marriage is that it will last a lifetime.  Yet, in too many cases, this is not the reality. Divorce is the tragic outcome. This is a hard topic to address because it deeply impacts many of us directly or indirectly. It doesn’t take a theologian to know that God is not a fan of divorce.  It doesn’t take a  sociologist to know that divorce causes families and society a lot of problems.  

My goal in this article is to bring the healing words of the Savior:  1) To reestablish in our minds God’s plan for marriage. 2) To bring grace and encouragement to those who have been impacted by divorce whether directly or indirectly.  To do this we will go to what I believe is the clearest teaching Jesus gives us on this issue in Matthew 19:1-9.

Jesus and Divorce

When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

Matthew 19:1-3

Matthew writes that some Pharisees came to “test.” This means these guys were wanting to put pressure on Jesus that would cause his ministry to implode and sink his popularity.  Their goal was to impale the Savior on the horns of a dilemma by causing him to take sides in a no-win highly charged controversy.  At the time of Jesus, the leading Jewish scholars had two differing views about divorce and what justified it. Their contention was over how to interpret Deuteronomy 24:1.

If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her (erwat debar), and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house…

Deuteronomy 24:1 

“Erwat dabar” is Hebrew for “indecent about her.” There were two dominant schools of thought regarding the meaning. Rabbi Shammai said that indecent meant only ‘sexual indecency,’ meaning that Moses was saying that if a man discovered his wife had been sexually unfaithful, he could divorce her.  On the other side was Rabbi Hillel. Hillel said “indecent” meant anything you didn’t like about her. Maybe she has indecent behavior or indecent cooking skills, or indecent morning breath. This is not an exaggeration. We have record of him saying, “If she consistently burns the bread, erwat dabar, you may divorce her.” The majority of the Jewish world was on the side of Rabbi Hillel.  Jesus avoids the trap altogether. Look at his response.  

“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”            

Matthew 19:4-6

Jesus completely sidesteps the debate.  He looks not to the legislation of Moses but  goes all the way back to the creation in Genesis.  He says that God’s intention was for one man and one woman for a lifetime.  And that has not changed.  The question is not to focus on the how do we get out, but how do we stay in.  The goal is not asking when it is okay to dissolve a marriage, rather what can we do to protect and preserve marriages that are at risk of falling apart. 

There were two visions of marriage in Jesus’ day, just like there are two today: Consumer and Covenant.

Consumer View of Marriage

A consumer relationship is one where you figure out what you need and who best can meet that need. There is nothing wrong with consumer relationships. You have a consumer relationship with your grocery store—It is convenient from your house; it has fairly good prices and has a Redbox if you want a movie. However, another store might open up that is more convenient, or has better prices, bigger aisles, more selection. So you choose it, instead. No one can fault you. But the most important relationships are not consumer. Parents can’t say to their children, “You know, this is just not working out. It’s not you; it’s me. I actually have been hanging out with the neighbor’s kids, and I’m happier with them.”  With a covenant you cannot negotiate terms and have a buy-out option.

Covenant View of Marriage

Covenant is a fusion of two lives into a new entity. This is what is meant by “one flesh.” This is the reality to be protected and preserved. This is what Jesus stated should be our focus.

Yet, there are occasions where Jesus teaches that it is not possible.   

 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.“

Matthew 9:7-8

As I’ve thought through all the instances that as a pastor I have had to deal with regarding marital strife among people in my churches, in every situation I’ve sought to do everything I can to promote the healing of the relationship.  I have never encouraged divorce. But in upholding the sanctity and dignity of marriage, notice what the Savior does not say, “Once you are in a marriage the two of you, no matter what happens, and no matter what circumstances occur, under no conditions can divorce.”  Rather:

“I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

Matthew 19:9

Here is the situation Jesus was seeking to confront. Jewish men would look for ways to get rid of their wives to marry younger and more attractive women.  Thus, Jewish leaders (under Hillel’s teaching) sought to give any loopholes that could give them permission to get out of the relationship.  Jesus basically says, “If you fall in love or lust with someone else, don’t think you are off the hook from committing adultery because you received a legal divorce in order to marry this new found flame.  In God’s eyes and your own heart, even though you have the divorce paper, you have committed adultery.” 

But notice what else he says. There is an exception for legitimate grounds for divorce and remarriage: “except for marital unfaithfulness.”  The term in the Greek for marital unfaithfulness is “porneia.”  (Moichaó is the word in Greek for adultery.) So the choice of word used is instructive. It is a tough term to translate because we don’t have an equivalent word in English.  Porneia means an “something really bad or twisted that breaks trust.”  (It is where our modern term for pornography comes.) This can refer to such activities as:

• sexual immorality (Acts 15:20)
• depravity/wickedness (Romans 1:29)
• fornication (1 Cor.7:2)
• immorality (Rev.18:3)

This term does not seem to reference so much a specific sexual act as it does a strong form of emotional and spiritual violation that breaks the covenant trust. The term is vague just as the term Moses used in Deuteronomy 24:1: erwat debar. The reason for this is because God’s Word is dealing more with issues of deep human trust rather than loopholes or legal behaviors.        

As a side note, it is important to understand that Christian and non-Christian psychologists alike say that for a person who has experienced the pain of adultery; in order for him/her to be able to possibly move forward and make that marriage work, they need to have an “out.”  As the innocent person is going through the grief and betrayal from adultery, he or she needs to have the sense of dignity and  freedom to say,  “If I choose to stay, I can make it work; but if I choose to leave, I will do that.” Jesus knew that and allows for it.  

So, when is divorce permitted? In my estimation, it can be spelled out in these three areas:

• Adultery
• Abandonment          
• Abuse

I will elaborate below.

What do you need to do? 

Let’s be faithful. 

There is a difference between disappointment and hurt in a marriage and destruction and harm.   When there is disappointment and hurt we need to forgive as we’ve been forgiven by God and reconcile with our mate.  We need to work on the relationship and hang in there. 

 Here are reasons not to divorce…

• Your spouse spends too much money.
• Your spouse isn’t spending enough time with you.
• You don‘t feel you have anything in common anymore.
• You don’t feel love.
• You realized you married too young.
• You think God wanted you to marry someone else.
• She talks too much.
• He listens too little.

Even the accumulation of several of these hurts and others like them are not legitimate reasons to end up in the divorce court. Sometimes a separation is on order, but a separation is to work toward reconciliation not divorce. 

It is a different story when there is:

• Abuse: One spouse beats the other one up or seriously threatens to do physical harm. 
• Adultery: One spouse is sexually unfaithful so that person has abandoned the covenant of marriage.
• Abandonment: One spouse regularly takes money needed for groceries or utilities and spends it on alcohol or drugs leaving the family in a desperate situation.

Do you forgive?  Yes. Do you reconcile and restore a marital trust? The Bible says, “Not necessarily.”   

Divorce should be as radical as amputating an arm or a leg. There are times when amputation is necessary, but any doctor would be run out of the practice if he was constantly and quickly saying, “Let’s just amputate it.” ‘Hang nail? Amputation. Sprained ankle? Amputation. Ugly freckles or varicose veins? Cut if off!” Amputation is the last thing that you do!

Let’s be forgiving. 

Jeremiah 3:8. God says, “For all her adulteries, I gave faithless Israel a certificate of  divorce.” God has the audacity to call himself a divorced person! If I were to ask all divorced people to stand up, God would stand up with you. Now, of course, there was no sin on his side of the divorce, and maybe there was on yours. In the cross and resurrection, Jesus puts away the sin done by you and he overturns the sin done to you. The resurrection is God overturning the curse of death and destruction brought on by our sin; whether our sin or somebody else’s, and infusing the power of new life into the dead tomb of a broken relationship. The empty tomb is the answer for a soul broken by divorce.

I am well aware that this has been one of those issues where those who have been divorced have been made to feel as though they are wearing the scarlet letter D in the church.  It becomes the one sin or issue that appears to put a person in a second class status despite whatever circumstances and unique issues were involved in a person’s situation. Maybe you are innocent.  God can flip the script.  He has resurrection power. Maybe you made terrible mistakes in that process, even committed terrible sins. You can’t change that now, but those mistakes don’t mean God is done with you. Think of David and Bathsheba. That relationship started under the WORST of circumstances.  David had an affair with a married woman, and then had her husband murdered. Yet when he confessed and repented, God cleansed and blessed that marriage to the point that out of that marriage came Solomon, and Solomon would have a son who would have a son who would have a son and so on and eventually came Jesus. God brought Jesus out of a sexual relationship that began as an affair that led to murder.  What do we say, friends, but “Amazing Grace?”

What does that mean other than God is saying to all of us that he loves redeeming the worst situations. He loves redeeming the hardest cases. He loves demonstrating that no life is a lost or abandoned cause. You can trust him!