He answered, “Have you not read … ‘What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate’?” Matthew 19:4a & 6b ESV1
Read Matthew 19:1-9
I thought one of our smoke detectors was chirping. I changed the battery, but the chirping continued. I assumed the replacement battery was bad, so I threw away that battery and installed a new one. The chirping continued. Naturally, I was convinced the unit must no longer be working. I planned on purchasing and installing another unit, but to hook up a new one, I needed to detach the clip which connected the current smoke detector to my home’s wiring. For some reason, I was unable to get the clip to release. So, the chirping continued.
My husband couldn’t help me change the smoke detector; he was on a business trip. So, I listened to the constant chirping for days. Finally, my parents came to visit; I asked my dad to try his hand at disconnecting the smoke detector. He was more successful than I had been. The smoke detector was detached, but the chirping continued.
It was my mom who discovered that the device which was signaling its need for a battery change wasn’t the smoke detector at all; it was the carbon monoxide detector! Once we changed the battery in the correct unit, the chirping quit. Day and night for the better part of a week, I had unnecessarily put up with the annoying noise. Because I was so sure that something was wrong with the smoke detector, I never considered the possibility that something else needed a new battery. I wonder how many times we experience needless suffering or cause avoidable pain because we are convinced of something which just is not true. In most such cases, much more is at stake than being slightly annoyed for a short period.
Once, when Jesus was in “the region of Judea beyond the Jordan … Pharisees came up to Him and tested Him by asking, ‘Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?’ He answered, ‘Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast 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 not man separate.’ They said to Him, ‘Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?’ He said to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning, it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery’” (Matthew 19:1b, 3-9).
Jesus’ response shouldn’t have been a surprise to the Pharisees. Earlier in His ministry, Jesus had taught, “‘It [has been] 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’” (Matthew 5:31-32). Still, the Pharisees confronted Jesus. Their purpose was to test Jesus. They did not really want to discover the truth concerning divorce. The Pharisees were convinced that Jesus was off-base, they were so sure that their interpretation of Moses’ teaching was correct, and they were so overcome with selfishness that, though they were very learned, they had missed the whole point of why God created marriage in the first place.
Moses did teach, “‘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, [he could write] her a certificate of divorce and [put] it in her hand and [send] her out of his house” (Deuteronomy 24:1-2b). But this wasn’t a command; it was an option. Many marriages in Moses’ time were arranged marriages. A man might not even see his wife until he had already married her. After seeing her, there was a chance that a man would discover something about his new wife with which he could not live. It was then that he could send her back to her family.
But this option was only available if he found something indecent about his new wife. Interestingly, God used the same word, indecent, in His command, “‘You shall have a place outside the camp, and you shall go out to it. And you shall have a trowel with your tools, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it and turn back and cover up your excrement. Because the LORD your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and to give up your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy, so that He may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you’” (Deuteronomy 23:12-14, emphasis mine). I can only imagine what a man might discover about a woman that would be equal to God being turned off by human waste.
But I do know that the discovered indecency couldn’t have been that she was not as sexually pure as she had claimed. If so, she wouldn’t have been allowed just to leave and return to her father’s house; she would have been severely punished. Moses taught, “‘If … evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones because she has done an outrageous thing in Israel by whoring in her father’s house. So, you shall purge the evil from your midst’” (Deuteronomy 22:20-21).
And I know a man wouldn’t have been allowed to divorce his wife after he had sexual intercourse with her. “‘If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then hates her and accuses her of misconduct and brings a bad name upon her, saying, “I took this woman, and when I came near her, I did not find in her evidence of virginity,” then the father of the young woman and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of her virginity to the elders of the city in the gate. And the father of the young woman shall say to the elders, “I gave my daughter to this man to marry, and he hates her; and behold, he has accused her of misconduct, saying, ‘I did not find in your daughter evidence of virginity.’ And yet this is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.” And they shall spread the cloak before the elders of the city. Then the elders of that city shall take the man and whip him, and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the father of the young woman because he has brought a bad name upon a virgin of Israel. And she shall be his wife. He may not divorce her all his days’” (Deuteronomy 22:13-19, emphasis mine). The Mosaic Law also required, “‘If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days’” (Deuteronomy 22:28-29, emphasis mine).
It could only have been in hopes of justifying their own sin, selfishness, and past behavior that the Pharisees could have believed that the Mosaic Law would allow divorce for any reason. It could only have only been their own pride and blatant disregard for the plight of women and children that allowed the Pharisees to entertain the thought that writing out a certificate and sending a woman away was a noble thing to do. No wonder Jesus chastised them for having hard hearts (see Matthew 19:8b).
Actually, the teaching of Moses to which the Pharisees referred had a lot more to do with remarriage than divorce. The context of the verses the Pharisees quoted is as follows: “‘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, and if she goes and becomes another man’s wife, 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, or if the latter man dies, who took her to be his wife, then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance’” (Deuteronomy 24:1-4). The point of this teaching was not the proper way to divorce one’s wife, but if a man rejects a woman and another man accepts her as his wife, and she later finds herself single again, the first man can’t have her back.
The rejection of one’s spouse was never part of God’s original plan. Jesus made this quite clear when “He answered, ‘Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast 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 not man separate’” (Matthew 19:4-6). And when He explained, “‘Because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning, it was not so’” (Matthew 19:8).
You see, from the beginning, marriage was intended to be a picture of God’s relationship with believing humans. The LORD is represented by the husband; Believers are symbolized by the wife. Once people accept God’s proposal to enter into a relationship with Him, He never rejects them. When He finds something in them which isn’t up to His standard, God doesn’t send them packing. God works with those who have committed themselves to Him to remove from them anything indecent. He gives them everything they need to be pure and pleasing to Him. He remakes them into the very image of His dearly loved Son (see 2 Corinthians 3:18 & 1 John 3:2-3). God never gives up on His Bride. He will never leave her or forsake her (see Deuteronomy 31:6). God will never put out her to fend for herself. He will never send her into the arms of another–Satan. God’s commitment to His Bride is permanent.
From the beginning, marriage was not solely intended for the benefit of humans. Marriage is supposed to be a picture of the relationship between Christ and the Church. The Apostle Paul understood this and referenced this truth in his teaching. “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the Head of the Church, His Body, and is Himself its Savior. Now, as the Church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, so that He might present the Church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish … ‘Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the Church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband” (Ephesians 5:22-27, 31-33).
It doesn’t take much of an imagination to realize the phrase “‘they are no longer two, but one flesh’” (Matthew 19:6a) refers to sexual intercourse. But did you realize that sexual intercourse is a picture of Christ in us—without which reproduction is impossible—and procreation symbolizes the kind of fruit-bearing Jesus spoke of in John 15? “‘I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing’” (John 15:5). No wonder, Jesus emphasized, “‘What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate’” (Matthew 19:6b). Jesus will never divorce His Bride, but, unfortunately, some of His Bride may choose to divorce Him. When that happens, there is great heartache for Jesus and much suffering for His former Bride. (See 1 Timothy 4:1; Hebrews 6:4-6 & 10:26-31 & 2 Peter 2:20-21).
Fornication, adultery, homosexuality, prostitution, and all other sexual expressions which are not monogamously enjoyed by a married, heterosexual couple are, in God’s opinion, considered sin. Not because He doesn’t care about preferences, or love, or satisfaction, not because He ignores human logic, past experiences, or ways people have been hurt, but because all these uses of human sexuality represent forms of false religion and the glorification of self and Satan. These sexual expressions cloud the picture of the true Gospel which God is trying to proclaim through godly marriage. Only that which exemplifies the character of the One True God is pure and right. Everything else is an affront to Him.
But not all monogamous, heterosexual, married couples are accurate pictures of Christ and His Bride either. Many husbands do not love their wives “as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25b). There is an abundance of wives who do not model the Church by respecting or having submissive attitudes when relating to their husbands. Several husbands are entitled and domineering. Numerous wives are bossy and overbearing; they know nothing of the “gentle and quiet spirit” (see 1 Peter 3:4). Other husbands refuse to take the lead in providing for and protecting their families. Still, other wives allow themselves to be treated poorly and to be oppressed. None of these practices is what God intended for marriage, and none of these attitudes proclaims the Gospel. It may even be in part the failure of those who are supposed to be showing others, through their marriages, the beauty of the relationship available between God and those who belong to Him that much sexual sin exists in the first place.
This is not at all a condemnation of those who have been divorced or those who have been sexually abused or suffered rape, nor is it a chastisement of those who were involved in sexual sin before they became Christians or those whose marriages could use work. The Lord is a God of grace and forgiveness, healing and restoration. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). This is a call to look at the Scriptures as a whole and discover that which God has intended.
The Pharisees were twisting the words of Moses to justify their own selfish indulgences. Sadly, today, we often do the same thing. We don’t always know what we really believe, so we allow the opinion of others to determine our “truth.” Or, sometimes, we don’t really want to know what God thinks or what the Bible says.
Paul warned Timothy, “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Timothy 4:1-4).
The Pharisees who confronted Jesus about divorce hadn’t considered God’s point of view. They weren’t taking into context the whole character of God. They were picking and choosing from Moses’ teaching to fit their own wishes. We display the same hardness of heart when we only take from God’s Word that which makes us feel good or confirms our own views. And when we question the authority of Scripture, because we think contradictions exist, we are no different than the Pharisees in accusing Jesus of wrong-doing.
When one looks at the look at all the evidence, Jesus’ teachings about divorce and remarriage don’t conflict with, but actually, complement Moses’ teaching. When two commands in the Bible seem to contradict, there isn’t something wrong with God or the Bible; there is something that the reader does not yet understand. When one finds an apparent discrepancy, it is the time to dig deeper not give up and disregard God or His Word.
I challenge you to be humble enough to believe that your interpretations could be flawed. Don’t just mindlessly accept the opinion of popular culture. Don’t merely take the word of an appealing religious leader as fact. Don’t unquestionably accept my explanation. (I have been known to be dead wrong. Refer to my story above for proof). Get into the Scriptures, pray for enlightenment, and discover for yourself what Bible really says.
1 Scripture quotations marked with ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All Scriptures are taken from the ESV unless otherwise noted. To aid in understanding, I have capitalized references to God.