A Fresh Look at Divorce and Remarriage, Part 10

When it comes to the issue of divorce and remarriage, there are basically four views:

First, no divorce and remarriage whatsoever.

Second, divorce yes, but no remarriage whatsoever.

Third, divorce and remarriage whenever.

Fourth, divorce and remarriage yes, but only under certain circumstances.

This is where we find the Pharisees in Matthew 5:31.  In order to fit their religious and moral views on divorce and remarriage, they had invented views of their own.  So Jesus takes two verses in Matthew 5:31-32 and sets the record straight.

"It hath been said, (verse 31) Whosoever shall put away his wife, (or divorce his wife) let him give her a writing of divorcement; But I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife, except for the cause of fornication, causes her to commit adultery; and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced commits adultery."

Now keep in mind, Jesus has more in His mind than merely educating the Pharisees about divorce and remarriage.  He also wants to unmask their hypocrisy.  They be­lieved that you could be righteous by your works, but they couldn't keep God's standard so they invented their own and then called it God's standard.

Now God has a very high view of marriage, God has a very clear command regarding marriage, remarriage and divorce.  The attitude of God was never in question about it but they couldn't live by that standard, so they invented a new standard and called it God's standard and said, “Look we can keep this one, we're not that bad.”

But by inventing their own standard of divorce and remarriage, they dragged God’s moral ethics down to their level by inventing their own code of ethics, and so Jesus seeks to unmasks them, and show that their standard of ethics was nowhere near that of God’s. 

Now the Pharisees, by inventing their own standard for divorce and remarriage, does what everyone else does, they seek to find a verse in the bible to help support their view.

They used the passage found in Deuteronomy 24.

“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. . .”

So, since the Pharisees believed that a man ought to divorce his wife for any reason that he finds displeasing to him, they gravitated toward Deuteronomy 24.

They invented their view to justify their sin and then they misinterpreted a passage in the Bible to fit their justification.   This is why Jesus said, “You have heard it has been said” (v. 31), the view of the Rabbis who taught the people such things. However, in verse 32, Jesus said, “But I say to you.”

Jesus is going to set the record straight. He is going to first, point out their misuse of the passage in Deuteronomy 24, and then explain God’s original intent.

By the way, the phrases, “You have heard it has been said,” and “But I say unto you,” are repeated in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7).  For example, take the time and look up the following passages: Matt. 5:21-22; 27-28; 33-34; 38-39; 43-44.

In other words, in the Sermon on the Mount in order to lay these people bare and naked as sinners before God Jesus says to them, your interpretations of God's truth are all wrong.  You are injecting into the Scriptures your own personal biases, opinions and self-justifications. In doing so, you are twisting and perverting the Word of God, and so I am going to set the record straight.  

So as we go deeper into this, two main thoughts will be contrasted:  The Pharisees tolerated divorce and remarriage for any and all reasons. On the other hand, Jesus did not. Therefore, it is imperative to come to the Scriptures in order to find out what is God’s true intent for marriage, divorce and remarriage.

End of part 10