Marriage, Divorce & Remarriage – Part 1

Introduction

They’re not doing it for recognition of men, I trust, but to please the Lord. And that’s why we’re all here, in order to please our God. We are not the audience. God is the audience. And the worship service is not the service that the worship leaders provide to everybody else, but is our service to God, is what we are offering God, and let us give him our absolute best because he is watching. Henry VIII had a lot of wives. His first wife was Catherine of Aragon. He annulled that marriage and married Anne Bullyan. That marriage was annulled, and she was later executed. He thirdly married Jane Seymour, who died after giving birth. Fourth, Anne of Cleves, whose marriage was annulled. Fifth, Catherine Howard, whose marriage was annulled, and she was also later beheaded.

And sixth, Catherine Parr. So to sum up, the wives were in this order divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. Pretty extreme. And we look at that and say, now that that is very extreme, and it is. But our society today is pretty extreme. Beheading spouses is not common, but remarrying is very common. About one-third of all marriages are remarriages. And of course, some of those are scriptural remarriages, but the vast majority are not. And so we want to talk today about marriage, divorce, and remarriage. We’re not going to try to look at every aspect of it. We’re just going to focus mainly on two passages that Jesus spoke. And what we need to remember in looking at this topic is that we must be objective. And simply look at what does the text say and remove our emotions from it and simply go according to the word of God.

1. Is It Lawful to Divorce for Any Reason?

And that’s what we’re going to do this morning. And so we’re going to begin with Matthew 19. And we’ll go to Matthew 5 after Matthew 19. But Matthew 19 is much longer and gives us much more background to discuss this topic. Then Matthew 5 will be much easier. In verse 3 of Matthew 19, some Pharisees came to Jesus testing him and asking, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all? And he answered and said, Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female? And said, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh.

What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.

And we could say it the reverse way a wife to divorce her husband for just any reason at all. You know, as we say, well, she burnt the toast. And people do divorce over silly things. Well, she burnt the toast, so I don’t I don’t want to be married to her. I’ve read about one man who divorced his wife because she she broke the beer cans on the porch. I’m serious. There are ridiculous reasons that people will choose to get a divorce. Well, I just don’t love her anymore. Love, it’s all about love. As if love was just this pixie dust that just hits you and you can’t control yourself, and then one day the pixie dust wears off, and well, there’s no more love. So, you know, people don’t give up on the idea of love.

They just give up on the idea of the person. And we’ll go find another person and love them for as long as our love shall last. So is it lawful to divorce for just any reason at all? Jesus’ answer to that, in short, is no. It is not lawful to divorce for any reason at all. And he says that God’s intention from the beginning was for there to be one man and one woman for life. And that’s key. Jesus goes back to the beginning. He was restoring God’s marriage laws to what they were in the beginning. And that’s what we’ve got to do. You know, today, changing times. There’s a lot of changing things. And well, we need to apply the word of God to today.

And so what we’ve got to realize is that God’s word doesn’t change. And Jesus was making that point that we’ve got to go back to the way God established it in the very beginning. We might look to a generation like, you know, in the 1950s. Oh man, it was a great time, right? Well, it wasn’t so great in a lot of ways. But it might have been better in terms of marriage and divorce. But we don’t need to look to any former generation as our standard. What we need to look back to is we need to look to the standard of God’s word. And in this case, Jesus goes all the way back to the very beginning. And notice that what God established in the beginning is unchanging and universal.

2. Moses Permitted Divorce Because of Hardness of Heart

And God never said that it only applies to believers. It was God’s will for there to be one man and one woman for life across the board for all time. And so a lot of people want to kind of mess with that, but we can’t we cannot mess with that. Alright, continuing in our context, they said to him in verse 7, why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away. He said to them, Because of your hardness of heart, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it has not been that way, this way. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality and marries another woman commits adultery. In martial arts, we used to say when somebody just had their way with another fighter, he cleaned their clock.

Jesus cleaned their clock right here. He just, every way you look at it. So what they do is they come back and they cite Deuteronomy 24. And so that’s what they’re referring to. It’s not a direct quote. Deuteronomy 24, verses 1 through 4 in the law of Moses. Now let’s go ahead and read that, because you may have never actually read that to see what does the law of Moses have to say about writing a certificate of divorce. In verse 1 of Deuteronomy 24, when a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes, because he has found some uncleanness in her or indecency, the New King James says. And he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house.

Now just pause there. So you just got a situation where a man doesn’t want to be married to this woman. He finds some uncleanness in her, some indecency in her, something he doesn’t like, and he is now divorcing her. He gives her a certificate of divorce. Verse 2, when she has departed from his house and goes and becomes another man’s wife, so now she remarries. Verse 3, if the latter husband detests her and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies, who took her as his wife. So pause there for a second. So this wife who was divorced went and remarried, and that husband wanted a divorce, so he divorces her, or else he dies.

Either way, now she’s no longer married to that second man. Verse 4, then her former husband who divorced her, must not take her back to be his wife after she has been defiled. Meaning she was with another man. For that is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. Now that’s in the Old Testament. That’s in the law of Moses. Now, do you see that this passage was given by Moses to control the worst aspects of divorce? It was to prevent this type of situation where this woman, she was divorced, so she goes and marries somebody else, then she’s divorced from that man, and she goes back to the first man, just kind of bounced around like a ping pong ball.

Moses says that is not to happen. That is the primary emphasis of this passage. This passage was not written with the primary idea of giving permission to divorce. Though this passage does, under the law of Moses, grant permission to divorce. It was not written with that primary emphasis. It was written to control the worst aspects of it. But Jesus responds in two parts. The first thing is, yes, Moses permitted divorce because of the hardness of your hearts. Is that a good thing? Is that something you should be proud of? Is that something you should want to continue to stand in, the hardness of your hearts? And he says, But in the beginning, it was not that way. So again, he goes back to the beginning. So that’s kind of the first chunk of his response.

3. Divorce Plus Remarriage Equals Adultery, With One Exception

Then he says, But I say to you, not Moses, but I, Jesus, say to you that he who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery. Put that in a mathematical formula. Divorce plus remarriage equals adultery, with one exception. And we only find the exception clause in Matthew 19 9 and in Matthew 5.32. So it’s important that we look at this. So let’s look at the exception clause. Except for immorality, New American standard. Except for sexual immorality is another version. Except for fornication. The word there is pornea. We get pornography from the same root of the word that’s used here. Sexual immorality is the idea. It could include even homosexual acts. Okay. So that’s the exception. Sexual immorality is the only justifiable cause, according to Jesus, for divorce and remarriage.

In other words, only if your spouse commits sexual immorality against you with somebody else, only then do you have the right to divorce that spouse and to marry another. Now, let’s look at the rule, because sometimes we just focus on the exception clause. But let’s focus on the rule now and take the exception clause out to help us to understand. Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery. You see, that’s the general rule. We have the exception clause in there. Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery. And I think we could obviously go both ways here. Instead of the man divorcing his wife, the wife divorcing her husband, the same thing would be true either way. I say that because there are some who don’t feel that that would be the case.

They think it only applies to the man and not the woman. But I could go into that. We could really go off on that, but I’m not going to go there. Okay. So commits adultery. The idea here is that that marriage, that second marriage that this man is now in, is an adulterous relationship. It wasn’t just the first act that was adultery. When they are married, that relationship is an adulterous one. It is an adulterous marriage, you might say. The Greek present tense here could be translated is committing adultery. Now the reason I really want us to see that is because an adulterous marriage will always be an adulterous marriage as long as it remains a marriage. As long as it remains intact.

Or they learned the truth and they didn’t know it before. Well, that doesn’t magically stop it from being an adulterous marriage. It continues to be an adulterous marriage as long as it remains intact. And so the only way to repent in such a situation is to end the marriage. Thus ending the adultery. There are some who will say that baptism washes away all past marriages. That is not uncommonly taught in the religious world. And among some churches that have the signed church of Christ in the front. That baptism washes away all past marriages. Or those who don’t believe in baptism might just say, when you become a Christian, well, that’s that’s when it applies to you. However, you became a Christian, they would say, you know, praying the sinner’s prayer.

Or so on. So in Matthew or in Mark chapter 6, you might recall this regarding John the Imerser and Herod. In verse 17, it says, For Herod himself had sent and had John arrested and bound in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, because he had married her. So Herod married Herodias. And that was his brother’s wife, but he married her. Verse 18, for John had been saying to Herod, it is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife. In other words, you need to divorce and end this marriage. We could also look to the example of the Old Testament in Ezra chapter 10. And this is a different type situation, but it was one where marriages should not be. And the marriages that should not be at that time was the foreign women that the uh the Israelites had married.

4. The Innocent Party Has the Option

And so the command was put these women away. And the very last verse of Ezra 10, that’s verse 44, says, All of these had married foreign wives, and some of them had wives by whom they had children, and they put away these wives. So if it isn’t a if it is a marriage that God does not approve, then the only solution in order to be pleasing to God is to end the marriage. Now I I know that’s hard. And uh it is, and we need to have great compassion when we are dealing with people and helping and teaching people about this matter. But that is what the word of God says, you know, whether whether I like it or whether anybody likes it or not. If a spouse commits adultery, the innocent party has the option to either remain married or to divorce and remarry.

The key word there is option. They can remain married if the guilty party is still willing. Now, sometimes that’s not the case. The guilty party doesn’t want to be married anymore. That can happen. But if the guilty party is still willing, the innocent party doesn’t have to remain married to that person. They have the option to remain married, but they also have the option to divorce and remarry. Either decision would be acceptable to the Lord. Now, we need to be careful, I think, in inserting our opinion about what should happen in this type situation. I can see reason to say, well, I think they should try to work it out. If the guilty party repents and is sorry, then the innocent party needs to try to work it out.

5. All Cannot Accept This Saying

I can see where we could say that might be the best situation. But we need not judge somebody who says, No, I’ll I want a divorce here. They committed adultery. I want a divorce. And I want to remarry. The reason we can’t stand in judgment of that is because the Lord doesn’t. The Lord gives permission in that case to divorce and remarry. Either decision would be acceptable before the Lord. Continuing in the context, verse 11 and 12, but he said to them, All cannot accept this saying, but only to those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who are born thus from their mother’s womb, and there are eunuchs who are made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake.

He who is able to accept it, let him accept it. And I do believe that I skipped verse ten in there, where the disciples, surprised by such a strict standard, said, Well, it’s better for a man not to even marry. If divorce is sinful, then man, it’s better just not to get involved with this whole marriage ordeal. And Jesus basically says, Well, you know, maybe that’s true, but there are only some who could actually do that and remain unmarried. I started dating Holly, and she’s not here this morning because she always gets embarrassed when I talk about her, so it doesn’t matter now. I started dating Holly, and it was April or May of 2001. We were married in May of 2002. There was no waiting around.

We got to it pretty quick, and we got married. The Bible says that a man who finds a wife finds a good thing. I found my good thing. I’m getting married. The wisest man in the Bible, the strongest man in the Bible, and the most godly man in the Bible, all fell to sexual sin. I’m not wiser than Solomon, I’m not stronger than Samson, and I’m not more godly than David. I got married. And so if you’re in a situation where you are single, and uh maybe you have done that even by choice, to remain unmarried. That is a commendable thing. Some people may need to just go ahead and get married. But what if you, what if you aren’t, or what if you cannot? You know what?

You’re going to avoid some of the troubles of life by remaining unmarried. You will never have to worry about divorce. You will never have to worry about marriage problems. But that’s not to say that marriage is not a beautiful and wonderful thing. It sure is. Now, we look at this in chart form, Matthew 19 and verse 9. The rule without the exception clause. You got a man and a wife, and this is a scriptural marriage that Jesus is referring to in the first place here. The man divorces his wife for whatever reason. She burnt the toast. I don’t love her anymore. Whatever the reason. Then the man remarries. Now that man is committing adultery. As well as the woman. Now, this passage doesn’t point that out, but that is an adulterous relationship, an adulterous marriage.

6. Everyone Who Divorces His Wife Makes Her Commit Adultery

Now, about the exception clause. Let’s kind of play that out. Let’s play that out. You got a man and a woman in a scriptural marriage, but in this case, the man doesn’t just divorce his wife. The woman commits sexual immorality. Now he has the option to try to work it out or to divorce and remarry. If he follows through with the exception clause, he divorces his wife for her immorality. And if he remarries, then that is a scriptural marriage. Now, let’s move on to Matthew chapter 5. This one will be very short and pretty simple. Matthew chapter 5. And verses 31 and 32, this is in the Sermon on the Mount. Verse 31, it was said, Whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce.

What passage is he referring to there? Deuteronomy chapter 24. So that’s important to remember. So he’s dealing with the same passage. But now we already have the background because we’ve looked at Matthew 19. Verse 32, Jesus says, But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, New American Standard Virgin, makes her commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Alright, now let’s break down verse 32 there. And first let’s look at the general rule that is stated, minus the exception clause, and minus the very last clause of the sentence. Everyone who divorces his wife makes her commit adultery. Now do you see the difference between this and what he said in Matthew 19, 9, which was a man who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery.

There he deals with the man who divorced. Okay. Now he’s going to deal with the situation that that puts the innocent, the one that was left, the one that was divorced, in. Everyone who divorces his wife makes her commit adultery. Now, how does he make her commit adultery? Did he put a gun up to her head? How does he make her commit adultery? I believe what this means is he puts her in a position to commit adultery. She was innocent. He just decided I don’t love you anymore or whatever. And he divorced her, so now she is single. She has been divorced. And she must remain single. And if she remarries, she commits adultery. And guess who shares in responsibility for what she did? The one who left her.

Her first husband. So he is guilty. Do you see that Jesus is condemning here not only the remarriage, he is condemning divorce itself. I remember as a 15-year-old boy or so, a man that I greatly respected, a Christian man told me divorce is not sinful. Remarriage would be sinful. It’s okay to divorce your wife. I don’t know if he said it’s okay, but it would be allowed to divorce, as long as you don’t go and remarry. When you do that, that’s a sin. But do you notice here that Jesus condemns not just remarriage, he condemns divorce. That is divorcing for whatever reason. Okay. We understand that. Thus a person who divorces for just any reason has already sinned. Now, the exception clause in this passage is virtually the same, except for the reason of unchastity or except for the cause of fornication, except for sexual immorality.

And we have the same word pornea that we have in Matthew 19 and verse 9. And we’ve already looked at that, so we’re not going to spell that out for us. Jesus then concludes the verse with, and whoever marries a divorced woman, commits adultery. Now, let’s put all this together in chart form. Without the exception clause. You got a man and a woman, scriptural marriage. The man divorces his wife for just any reason. In this passage, Jesus points out that he makes her commit adultery. Which means if she remarries, she will be committing adultery, and he will be at fault for that. He will share in her responsibility for that. So let’s say she does remarry. Jesus says, a man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Conclusion

So in this case, in Matthew 5.32, he is dealing with the one who was divorced. Whereas in Matthew 19, 9, he is dealing with the one who did the divorcing and remarried. So he looks at it from both sides. You could put the two passages together and come up with four guilty parties. Some of you will get that, and some of you might have to think about it, and I won’t go into all that right now. Well, this morning was not a motivational, exciting, uh moving kind of a lesson, was it? But do we need these lessons? We do. And it is my duty as one of your preachers to impart God’s objective truth, black and white, without inserting my opinions about the matter or my emotions.

Simply, it’s this is what it says. And I am a married man, and I apply it to myself. And I trust that you apply it to yourselves as well. Those of you who are not married, those of you who are young, who one day will get married, stone tells me he’s never getting married. When you get married one day, if you do, realize that it is a lifelong commitment. One flesh. That is perhaps the biggest decision you’ll make besides becoming a Christian. It is. It is major. And so make sure you marry the right one and realize that when you’re dating, you can break up for just any reason at all. You don’t like the way their hair is parted one day. I don’t want to date you anymore.

Go right ahead. Go for it. But once you marry them, you accept them with all their flaws for the rest of your life. We’re talking decades. So make sure that you make the right decision. Would you bow with me in a word of prayer? Our Father, our God, we thank you for your truth. We thank you for your word. We pray that we may understand it by reading it. We pray that we may apply it simple principles to our lives without complicating it or without inserting man-made thoughts or opinions or what any other preacher or anyone says, but simply according to what your word says, plain and simple. Humble us and teach us to submit to your word in all cases and never to change our views toward marriage based on what things we experience in life, but to keep our views towards marriage consistent with what your word teaches in the New Testament and what you established in the beginning.

It is through your Son that we pray. Amen. We’ll now go to our classes.