Yesterday we read a large section from the Sermon on the Mount. It was too large, in fact, to adequately comment on all of it. Normally I take this in stride, but yesterday’s text makes that a bit harder. Yesterday we read Jesus’ words on divorce from the Sermon on the Mount, namely, that anyone who divorces his wife makes her commit adultery and whoever marries a woman who has been divorced commits adultery. I think this needs to be commented on for three reasons.
First, divorce causes a lot of pain and guilt for everyone involved. I have heard David Gravelly (a local divorce lawyer) say that the best divorce is terrible, and it only gets worse from there. Second, culturally we have tried to salve the pain caused by divorce by minimalizing it. From no fault divorce laws to sitcoms that treat divorce like its just a small hiccup that you have to get over in order to move on with your life after your relationship has lost its passion, the cultural megaphone proclaims that divorce is no big deal. In reality, divorce is not only a big deal morally, but it causes untold pain for everyone involved no matter how far gone the marriage was in the first place. Finally, I know many many Christians who have been through divorces whether before they came to faith or after. Reading these texts can make them feel like they are unforgivable. More than that, if they have remarried or desire to remarry, they don’t know how to handle Jesus’ words without feeling eternally guilty. To add on to these cultural grapplings with divorce, most Christian denominations have either handled divorce with kid gloves or boxing gloves. They either affirm unconditionally anyone who has gone through the pain of divorce without confrontation for their own sinfulness, or they treat them as if they have, in fact, committed the unforgivable sin. I want to try and walk between these to positions by confronting divorce with what I believe is the truth, but provide hope and comfort from the Gospel. If, therefore, you are divorced and while reading this you find something hard to swallow, I would encourage you to finish reading the whole article.
It is my desire that we will begin to think more consciously about divorce, and I think the place to start is with Jesus Himself. Like I said, yesterday we read Matthew 5:31-32, where He says, “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.” Now, in order to understand this text, we need to look at two things. First, we need to look at the background of what Jesus is saying. Second, we need to read everything Jesus has said about divorce.
So, what is the background of Jesus’ statement here on divorce? Well, Jesus is entering into what was a cultural, moral, and religious debate in his day. While divorce is mentioned in the Old Testament law, it is only dealt with casuistically. In other words, the Law only deals with situations that arise from divorce, it doesn’t talk deal with the particulars of divorce itself. It doesn’t answer the questions of what are permissible grounds for divorce, who gets the kids, etc.. So, Bible scholars were left to infer the answers to these questions from the scattered references to divorce.
In Jesus’ day, the Bible scholars (i.e. the scribes and Pharisees) were working hard on figuring out what permissible grounds for divorce were. Two schools had emerged. The first school, the school of the rabbi Shammai said that divorce was only permissible if one party had committed an act of marital infidelity. The other school, that of Rabbi Hillel, allowed divorce if your wife spilled a dish or even if you found a prettier woman. While these might seem like widely divergent opinions, Jesus’ response to them shows that they come from the same starting point. They are asking the wrong question, namely, “when is it ok for me to get a divorce?”
By even asking this question, they show that they have missed the point of the Old Testament laws on divorce. What they don’t realize is that these laws were not set in place so that people could feel justified for getting a divorce under certain circumstances. Rather, they were set up to protect women. In the Ancient Near East, marriage was a woman’s social security. If her husband cast her away, she would be defenseless and helpless. She would have no economic means of providing for or protecting herself. Thus, the Old Testament forces men who have lost pleasure in their wives to provide a certificate of divorce, so that the woman would be able to find a new husband. In fact, the Scripture that Jesus appeals to here in Matthew, Deuteronomy 24, is set in place not only to provide a certificate of divorce for a woman who has been cast away, but to keep a man from putting his wife on the back burner while he tries to find a new one. Read the chapter, and you’ll find that it actually prohibits a woman from returning to a previous husband if she’s remarried after her first husband casts her away. Ironically, some churches today actually encourage this for remarried people! Anyway, the point is, the Old Testament laws on divorce were written to provide social protection for women, especially in the context of marriage and divorce. The Pharisees fundamentally misunderstood these passages when they tried to use them as means to divine when divorce was permissible.
That’s the background to what Jesus says in Matthew’s Gospel. Let’s look now at all that Matthew records of Jesus’ teaching on divorce. In Matthew 5, Jesus simply says that if a man divorces his wife he makes her an adulteress. If he marries a divorcee, he’s an adulterer. The exception to both of these is in the case of sexual immorality. That seems pretty straight forward. It also seems pretty damning for anyone who is either divorced, married to a divorced person, or both.
Jesus speaks much more fully about his perspective on divorce in Matthew 19:1-12. In this chapter, the Pharisees ask Jesus if a man can divorce his wife for any cause (referring to the above discussion between the schools of Hillel and Shammai). Jesus responds by pointing not to the texts on divorce, but to the creation narrative itself! In other words, they are asking about divorce, and Jesus tells them to consider the meaning of marriage first. He says that marriage is built into the way human beings are designed. We were not created as a group of individuals, but Adam and Eve were created as an integrated unit. In fact, you could look at Adam and Eve and say “they are one.” Jesus says that every married couple enters into the same relationship that Adam and Eve had. Since Adam and Eve’s unity in marriage was a work of God in creation, every married couple should view their unity with their spouse as part of God’s work in their lives. Thus, to undo the marriage relationship is to undo something that God has done!
More than that, the word used in Genesis to describe the unity between Adam and Eve is ‘achad. That is the same word used in the Deuteronomy 6:4 that says “Hear oh Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one.” Do you see the implications of this? That Adam and Eve are one is a reflection of the unity of God. We cannot fully understand this until we read the New Testament and find out that God the Father and Jesus are one. They are, in fact, ‘achad. Thus, to be married is to proclaim the Father’s love for the Son, and vice versa, to the world. Likewise, to get divorced is to proclaim a falsehood about God. That He is not one.
As if that weren’t enough, Paul writes in Ephesians and Colossians about marriage, comparing it this time not to the love between the Father and the Son, but to the love between Jesus and His Church! Thus, our marriages proclaim something about who Jesus is. Now, this truth does not allow non-divorced people treat divorcees with contempt. Why? Because, how I treat my wife says something about how Jesus loves His bride. So, if I get mad at her and fly off the handle, if I’m unfaithful to her, if I treat her contemptuously and talk down to her, I am blaspheming the name of Jesus. While divorce proclaims to the world that Jesus isn’t faithful to His bride, every sin I sin against my wife says something false about Jesus. So, I cannot criticize a divorced person until I love my wife perfectly as Christ has loved the church. So, Jesus teaching on divorce should cause us not to try and justify ourselves, but rather to appeal to God’s mercy.
An appeal to God’s mercy, though, must always be made with an eye towards repentance . What then does repentance look like for the divorced person? I think it looks different in every case. In some cases, it might mean endeavoring to reconcile with your spouse and restore your marriage (this is probably true in more cases than we’d like to admit). The reality is that many marriages are too far gone to be recovered. Some churches teach that a marriage can never be ended, and so a divorced person’s only hope for repentance is to return to their ex no matter what the cost. I do not think the Bible teaches that divorce isn’t real. That it’s real is exactly why it is so terrible. In other words, I still believe that divorce ends a marriage. I think repentance in these cases means that you take ownership of your own sin in the marriage and in the divorce and seek forgiveness. This might be severely painful for some people. The reality is that no marriage consists of only one sinner. That means everyone has something they can seek forgiveness for. What few people will tell you about divorce is that if you continue to blame your divorce solely on your ex, even if you take some small amount of blame but put most of it on their plate, you will not be able to forgive them, and you’ll most likely be consumed by bitterness towards them. Only if we know ourselves to be the chief of sinners can we conjure up the grace to forgive another person.
I would also like to say briefly that I cannot conceive of a situation where I would actually counsel a person to get a divorce. I can think of lots of situations where I would counsel separation. If a person is engaged in destructive behavior, like abuse or addiction, love doesn’t refuse to confront them. In one of these cases, love might kick them to the curb so that they can see their sin and repent. Love would also hope against hope for reconciliation, and leave the possibility open (only at the recommendation of wise and godly counsel) for the marriage to be repaired. While I think divorce might be excusable in the case of infidelity, I still probably wouldn’t counsel it, because, I’m unfaithful to Jesus every day, and He never divorces me.
So, in summary, it seems that Jesus takes divorce very seriously. In fact, it seems that the only out Jesus gives for married people is in the case of ‘sexual immorality’ in the Greek ‘porneia’. This Greek word, in my opinion, refers to unfaithfulness. So, Jesus only excuses divorce in the case of marital unfaithfulness. What does Jesus think about the divorced person then? I would have to say He thinks the same thing about the divorced person that he does about the angry person, the lustful person, or the dishonest person. He loves them and longs for them to come to Him to receive mercy for their sin. What that means is that the divorced person is not beyond the reach of God’s grace. More specifically, your divorce itself is not beyond God’s grace. The point of Jesus’ teaching, in my opinion, is first and foremost to stop the divorced person from committing the work of self-justification for their divorce, and instead to appeal to God’s mercy.
Iain,
Thorough, well thought-out, and helpful. One question though, how do you then counsel about re-marriage? Very different in Western Christianity versus Global South. Any thoughts about making the spouse an adulteress? It seems to apply without the certificate she will be forced to find protection from another man and thus be committing adultery.
Interested,
Shay
Shay, thanks for the question. I think this is actually the sticky wicket here in America. I am afraid that I’m very tempted to soften that particular phrase from Jesus. I think my council on Jesus’ statement in Matthew 5 flows from an understanding of the Sermon on the Mount as a restatement of the Law intended to address the guilt of the heart above external technical obedience. Thus, Jesus’ intention in telling folks that if they divorce, they force their spouse to be adulterers and if they remarry they are guilty of adultery, it shows something about their hearts. When Jesus talks about anger, He says unjustly angry people are guilty of murder. We don’t try to arraign angry people and try them for murder though. It just shows that the heart is the same. I would take a similar tact with Jesus’ teaching on divorce. If we glibly dismiss our past marriage(s), it shows that we are as unfaithful to our marriage vows as the person who cheats on their spouse. Our heart is guilty of adultery, but does that mean that we are subject to legal sanctions against adultery? I’m not sure. Like I said in the article, I think the church needs to recognize that divorce is real. Jesus would not have commanded us not to rend asunder what God has joined together if divorce didn’t rend it asunder. If the marriage is dead beyond recovery, we might be doing due diligence to seek reconciliation as far as possible before we ever even think of remarriage. Then again, like I said, I’m tempted to soften it even if it does say that people ought not remarry after divorce. What’s your thought?