Jesus' Teaching on Divorce, Part 5

Paul's Commentary, I Corinthians 7:1‑7

Matthew 19:1‑12

Let's open our Bibles this morning to Matthew chapter 19 again as we are looking at Jesus' teaching on the subject of divorce. And I had thought about, perhaps, taking a...a respite this Sunday but it was pressed in my heart to keep on because what started out as a sermon has turned into a six‑part series and I really do want to get it finished. And so, we're going to continue in our thoughts regarding our Lord's teaching in this matter.

 

You know, I'm reminded so many times of the marvel of the Holy Scripture. We had a seminar this week on expository preaching and we had about 20 pastors who came and we had a marvelous time working with them and just kind of working on the whole area of preaching. And one young man sat down with me at the table and he said, "John," he said, "I have such a love for the Word of God." And he said, "I ... I've only been a Christian six years," but he said, "I'm in the ministry and I can't get enough of the Word of God." And he took out of his Bible three cards on which he had set up a reading schedule for himself so that he was reading repetitiously the Word of God. Each book over 30 times during the year, and then he was reading flowing through the New Testament one full time each year, and then he had it set up where he was reading through the Old Testament as well each year. And he said, "I just want you to know that since I began to do this, it actually has changed my entire life."

 

And we talked about the fact that the Word of God touches on every dimension of living. It gives us God's clear teaching wherever we need God's clear teaching. And where the Bible leaves things unsaid, it provides a foundation which the Spirit of God can use to apply a direct kind of leading in an individual's life. And so...so I was reminded again, just to affirm in my own heart, the tremendous treasure of the Word of God... of knowing that we have a chart and a compass and an answer book, a place to go to find out what we need to know. And one of the subjects with which the Bible deals is the subject of divorce. It is a very important subject today. And we have been looking at Matthew 19, verses 1 to 12, and hearing the teaching of our Lord Himself on this subject. And I want us to return to that for just at least an introduction and then to another passage which we'll look at in a moment.

 

Now, as you come to chapter 19, you're reminded in the two first verses that the Lord is finishing His ministry in Galilee. He has closed the great teaching of chapter 18 on the child‑likeness of the believer, He has finished the Galilean ministry and now He begins to move south, it's only a few months until He will be crucified. And as He moves to the south, He crosses the Jordan River to the east, goes into an area known as the "Beyond," or the word peran from which we get Perea, and we find His Perean ministry. We've seen His Galilean ministry, now His Perean ministry...He teaches, He heals people, the crowds follow Him, very much like in Galilee.

 

And among the crowd, it seems inevitably, are His enemies‑‑the Pharisees. And so, as we pick it up in verse 3, we find an encounter between the Lord and the Pharisees. And the subject is divorce. And it is out of that encounter that our Lord's teaching proceeds.

 

"The Pharisees came to Him, testing Him and saying to Him, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for every cause?"

 

Now, that is what I call the attack. They don't want an answer, they want to discredit Jesus. They want Him to articulate His hard-line, God‑never‑intended‑divorce view and so alienate Himself from the people. They also know that He's in the territory of Herod Antipas who already beheaded John the Baptist for his views of divorce and they think maybe they can even have Jesus eliminated. So, they're after Him. So in verse 3 is the attack.

 

In verses 4 to 6 is the answer. And He doesn't give a personal answer ... wisely... so that any anger would have to be diverted from Him to God. He answers with Genesis 1:27 and 2:24, that God created a man and a woman and no spares in the original creation, therefore He was obviously making a statement about the fact that two people are to be married and that's the limit. And then He talked about cleaving, that they should be glued to each other. God ordained that they would become one flesh, that's the indivisible number. And what God has put together, let no man divorce. And so, He puts the burden of proof on God and says if you're going to argue with this, your argument is not with Me, it's with God. God said no divorce ... that was not the divine ideal.

 

Now out of the answer comes the argument, verse 7. They respond by saying: "Then why did Moses command a bill of divorce to divorce your wife?" What is the bill of divorce, then, if that was not God's intention? And then you have the affirmation in verses 8 and 9 where Jesus simply reaffirms the Old Testament standard, that Moses permitted a bill of divorcement under one condition, and that one condition is adultery which comes under the term fornication in verse 9. And there He says if you put away or divorce your wife for anything other than fornication or adultery, you cause her to become an adulteress and so forth and so on. So, the only Old Testament permission was given in cases of adultery. Hosea gives us the example of restoration in an adulterous union where there is a willingness on the part of the adulteress, but where there is an unwilling evil partner, divorce is a concession or a permission of grace to that innocent party who cannot bring about a reconciliation.

 

So, what the Lord affirms then, in answer to their question, their question again, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for every cause? Jesus' answer is .... what? .... No. It is no. Now look at the appropriation in verses 10 to 12. The disciples' response as they appropriated the teaching to themselves was it's better to be single if you can't get out of it. And Jesus' response to that in verse 11 is ‑ Yes, but not everybody can handle being single. Not everybody can receive this saying. What saying? "If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry." Not everybody can handle being single.

 

In verse 12 He says who can: those who are congenitally born with an inability to have a relationship with the opposite sex, those who have been made that way by castration or some other thing done by men, or those who have chosen singleness because they are going to devote themselves in a special way for the Kingdom of heaven's sake.

 

And so, He says ‑ Look, you can't just take the idea of a commitment in marriage being a lifelong commitment and say if it's that hard to get out of, I'm not getting in... not everybody can handle that. That's not the right response. The right response is to make the commitment. Unless you have a congenital reason, or unless you've been injured in some way, or unless you decide because you are calling yourself apart to the kingdom of God and you feel gifted by God for that to stay single. But certainly, you're not to avoid marriage just because it's a binding relationship you'll want to get out of. That's an illegitimate reason.

 

So, the Lord exalts marriage and He says divorce for only one reason, but that's no reason not to get married because not everybody can handle being single, it's a worse problem for most people than being married is because of the temptation. And so, the Lord has given us very clear teaching. Marriage is an honorable thing. It's for life. Stay married. Divorce only in one kind of situation, He says. And when the disciples say they will stay single, He says ‑ No, don't stay out of it because it takes a lifelong commitment; get in it for that reason unless you have very clear reason not to. And unless it's a physical deformity, it should be because you're staying single for the glory and the advance of the kingdom. Very clear teaching.

 

Now, keep this in mind. You say ‑ Well, this doesn't deal with a lot of problems, this doesn't deal with what happens when you come to the Lord and your background's all fouled up and what happens if you're living with somebody and what happens if you've been married five times and now whose your wife and all of this, this doesn't deal with any of that. You're right ... you're right, it doesn't. You see, Jesus is just establishing the divine ideal and that doesn't need to deal with exceptions. You understand? That doesn't need to deal with other extraneous issues. Jesus is affirming His Messiahship and He affirms His Messiahship by lining up with the clear word of the living God ... which is to say to the people ‑ I speak for God. And so, He doesn't deal in a lot of other things, He stays true to the revelation of God. He says in Matthew 5: "I have come to fulfill the law, not to alter the law, not to eliminate the law, not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it." And so He affirms the divine ideal and does not deal with all kinds of exceptions.

 

Now keep also in mind that He's talking to A Jewish group of people who have been living all their life long under the economy of Moses. That is, they have been circumscribed, to one degree or another, to their interpretation of Mosaic Law. And so they are in a Mosaic environment and He is simply stating for them the intended ideal of God given to His special people Israel.

 

You say, "Well, what do you do with all the exceptions?" And that's what I know has been on your mind over the last four or five weeks. You've been saying, "But...but...but...but...but ... but ... you can't just keep saying that ideal thing again, I'm not there, I've already gone beyond that, or I've already had divorces in my background, or I've... I've been living with somebody and when I became a Christian I had had several wives, or several husbands, and what ha .... whose am I know and what do I do and can I marry and should I and what's going on here?" Jesus doesn't get into that. But fortunately, Paul does. And if you'll open your Bible to I Corinthians chapter 7, we'll look together at Paul. Jesus gave the divine ideal and Paul had the handle the mess ... that was going on in the world... and try to make application of that divine ideal to the chaos of life.

 

Now keep this in mind. Paul ministered to a Gentile community that had not been circumscribed to the law of Moses, they had not been raised to keep the law of Moses so their life was literally a mess from beginning to end. There was much less chaos in the Jewish community because of the Mosaic legislation then there was in the Gentile one where there was no Mosaic legislation at all. And I believe I Corinthians 7 is Paul's commentary on the teaching of Jesus. All right? It is Paul's commentary on the teaching of Jesus about marriage and divorce. He interacts with the Lord's teaching.

 

For example, verse 10: "Unto the married I command, yet not I but the Lord," and now he's reaching back and saying‑‑Look, 'm going to tell you something about being married that isn't just from me, the Lord already said this. So, he's reaching back intersecting, interfacing, touching what the Lord taught.

 

Then in verse 12: "To the rest speak I, not the Lord." Now he says this is something new, the Lord didn't say this. I'm no longer quoting the Lord. He's not disclaiming inspiration, friends, he's putting himself on an equal plain with the Lord Himself. He is saying the Lord didn't say this, but I'm saying it. And the effect of which is to say it's just as important as if the Lord said it.

 

Now you might say, "You mean to say what Paul said is equally important as to what the Lord said?" That's right because the...what the Lord said came from God and what Paul said came from God the Holy Spirit. Right? And there are no degrees, that's why I've had problems with red‑letter Bibles. The red‑letters aren't more important than any other letters. If you have a red‑letter Bible, it's okay ... just know that ... just know they're not more important. Because when Paul says the Lord said this and now I say this like the Lord said it, or when he says the Lord didn't say this but I'm saying it, all he's doing is putting himself on an equal plain with the Lord. And at the end of the chapter in verse 40 he says: "I know I have the Spirit of God." I'm not just giving you my opinions; I know I have the Spirit of God. Even though verse 25 says: "I have no direct command of the Lord, I'm giving you my judgment and I know it is from the Spirit of God."

 

So, Paul then is intersecting with what the Lord taught an& carrying it a little bit further to cover some of the problems, some of the issues, some of the struggles that he was facing.

 

Now, let me just give you a little bit of an idea, background wise, so you'll get a feeling for what he had to deal with, and it is very much like our own society. All right, Paul went into a situation like the Corinthian situation. The verb to Corinthianize, in the Greek language, meant to commit sexual sin. So, you get a little idea of what Corinth was like, right? It was a rotten, wretched, sinful, vile place. And when you wanted to talk about somebody being a lecherous, evil, vile, lewd, lascivious, adulterous person you called him a Corinthian. So that's the kind of society that little church was born in...immoral, vile, wicked kind of life. And they were involved in worshipping all kinds of deities. I've been to the ruins of Corinth, I have seen literally gross replicas of human organs hanging all over the place, it was ... it was definitely a...a place where deviate kind of worship occurred which was not uncommon in pagan systems of worship. So a church is borne in that place by the wonderful ministry of the Spirit of God through the Apostle Paul, as you know. And now these people are coming to Christ. But when they come to Christ, they're not coming out of a circumscribed conformed background of understanding of what is moral and what is ethical. They're coming to Christ in absolutely chaotic marital status.

 

I'll give you some kind of an insight into some of it. Much of the population of that part of the Roman world was slaves, right? Slaves. Now the Empire contained many, many slaves and it was very clear that many, many of them became Christians. Some people believe the majority of the church was slaves. Marriage in the strict sense did not even exist for slaves. Slaves were like animals. A farmer doesn't marry his cows, he mates them. He doesn't marry his horses, he mates them. And they didn't marry slaves, they mated them.

 

They had this thing they called contubernium. Contubernium basically has to do with tent companionship. The slave owner looked over the slaves and mated them off, to have them produce whatever kind of slaves he wanted as best he could ascertain strengths and so forth. There were never ceremonies; they just entered into a live‑in relationship, very much like contemporary society in America live‑in kind of relationships. By the way, this week I happen to find a certificate made up in sort of legal fashion or quasi‑legal fashion where two people can consent to each other to have sexual relationships under the provision that neither one of them is obligated to the other in any way, shape or form. And it's sealed and has places where you can sign and date it and have it notarized. But this is the kind of thing here, they didn't even have that. There was nothing. They just moved into the tents and lived together.

 

Now let's assume that this slave has had different masters and he's had different contubernium relationships and all of a sudden he comes to Christ and now he's a Christian. And somebody stands up and teaches him what the Lord says about one man for one woman for life ... no divorce and no fornica... and all these things, and he looks at himself and he looks back and he thinks about all these various women that he may have, you know, spawned children with, as it were, and the one that he's now living with and his question is, "What do I do? Who's my wife? Where am I?" And that is a very real issue.

 

Now, when you move one step beyond the slaves, you come to the sort of common people in the Roman culture and they were married under a term called usus u‑s‑u‑s, and it had to do with the basic common law concept. If you live with a woman for a year, you were considered to be legally married by common law. So, people tended not to get married at all. They just tended to experiment and after one year it became legal. I think in America it use to be seven; I don't even think any­body cares anymore. But common law marriage was another way.

 

So, what happens, let's say, if you become a Christian and you've got a woman, you've been living with her three years, you've never married her, what are you going to do? Is she your wife or isn't she? And what if he had three other common‑law wives before that? Or, what if you've got one in this town and three in another town? It's very much like a missionary who goes to a foreign country, translates the Bible, wins a tribe of people to Christ only to find out, of course, in the process that they all have eight or ten wives. Now that's the kind of thing Paul was dealing with in Corinth.

 

Now, there was a third kind of marriage in the inconsistent marital approaches of the Romans and that was called coemptio in manum. And this is the old sort of thing where you buy the woman from the father, the old tradition of marriage by sale. In other words, if you're a father and you've got a beautiful daughter but a crummy business ... you understand? You sell your daughter and bail out your business. And so there was much of that, selling off of daughters into marriage.

 

And then there was for the noble families what was called confarreatio and confarreatio was the term for the noble, sophisticated fancy kind of marriage ceremony. It involved exchanging rings. And by the way, that's where we get ours ... ours is a adaptation of the Roman confarreatio system and the ring is on the third finger of left hand because one of the Roman supposed wise men sages taught that there's a nerve running from that finger to the heart. And that's why you wear your ring there. They got together; they worshipped and said prayers to Jupiter and Juno. They exchanged rings. They had a cake, would you believe? They wore veils. They had music. They hold.. held their right hands, they had wreaths...the whole shot and it all filtered into the Roman Catholic marital system which eventually came out of Roman Catholicism through the Reformation into Protestantism and we still have remnants of it now.

 

So, you have all of these kind of strange marriage situations. Only the fourth of which would really constitute a marriage as we understand it with a verbal and a written covenant before people and so forth and so on. So, the question that comes to Paul or the Corinthians is what in the world do we do with all this hodgepodge of people coming to Christ, who do they belong to? Do they have a right to remarry if they're now single? Should they stay living with the one they're living with in a say contubernium relationship? What do we do with the mish‑mash of marriage and so forth?

 

Now, you add to that the fact that divorce was rampant. I read I think William Barclay notes that in one of the historical documents there was one lady getting married for the 27th time and she was the 26th wife of her husband‑to‑be. Now that will give you a little idea of how the divorce rate existed in those times. People were involved in homosexuality. They were involved in polygamy. They were involved in concubinage. One of the Roman writers, Seneca, says that men have ... women have wives for the housekeeping and the raising of children and concubines for physical pleasure. And you have all of this chaos. And to add to that there was a woman's liberation movement. Jerome Carcopino writes about it, he says: "Some were not content to live their lives by their husband's side; they carried on a totally separate life unto themselves. And Juvenal, says: "What modesty can you expect in a woman who wears a helmet, hates her own sex and delights in feats of strength?" And Juvenal* said the women were going bare‑breasted through the streets with spears, sticking pigs and climbing posts. It's not my kind of woman. But you have all of that kind of stuff. And Juvenal also says that "She lords it over her husband... before long she vacates her home ... flits from one house to another wearing out her bridal veil." So, really, you know, here comes these people to Christ. And what do you do with them? I mean, talk about trying to unscramble the omelet, this is really it.

 

*In GC 1828 John says this was said by Roman writer Mevia, not Juvenal.

 

 

Well, the Corinthians didn't know what to do either. So you know what they did? They wrote Paul a letter and that letter is alluded to in verse 1 of chapter 7. It says: "Now concerning the things about which you wrote unto me..." Now that sets up the chapter. He's going to answer their questions, right? But you know what he does? He doesn't tell us the questions. He just gives the answers. And if you're ever going to understand I Corinthians 7, you've got to figure out the questions. And that's the fun of it. We've got the answers; all we've got to do is come up with the questions. They ask the questions, he gives them answers. And if we take the answers and go backwards, I think we can figure out the question. But what he does in this chapter is cover all the categories; I'm telling you he covers every category here. And I think I've seen this in a new and a fuller way than I've ever seen it before and in today's message and next Sunday's, as we complete it‑‑oh ye of little faith‑‑you see, that's the adventure of preaching, folks, I come here to hear what I'm going to say, see. I can't always tell. You put it all in and it scrambles around in the Spirit of God... that's the way the Spirit works through the gift of preaching and it's ... it's kind of exciting that way. But ... bu