Matthew 5:31-32 “Furthermore it has been said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.”
Malachi 2:16 begins with the words, “’For I hate divorce’, says the LORD, the God of Israel”. Most of us have heard those words but have no idea what He said next, no idea why He would say these words and even less understanding about what these words are supposed to mean to us. God hates divorce because He loves marriage. He has called His Son a Bridgroom and the church His Bride; He is preparing a wedding feast called “the marriage supper of the Lamb” in which the Church, the Bride of Christ, will be joined to Jesus the Bridegroom for eternity. God did not pick marriage as an earthly thing that He could use as an analogy we could understand, He created marriage as His instrument of love, commitment, relationship and faithfulness, first to and then through us. While there will be no giving and taking of marriage in heaven, marriage is not a human creation it was created by God for humans and when the marriage of the Bride of Christ to the Bridegroom Jesus is finally complete, all weddings will cease because marriage, like the Law before it, will be fulfilled. This morning I pray that we will learn not that divorce is terrible; the truth is, we have already all figured that out to some degree whether by personal experience or the experience of someone we love; I pray that we will learn the beauty and power of marriage. At the same time, it is important that we search the Scriptures rightly and realize that Jesus is not giving His opinion on marriage and divorce in this passage; He is continuing to teach on sexual purity and surpassing righteousness. In many of our Bibles verse 30 is divided from verse 31 as if Jesus ended one thought and began another but the truth is Jesus is still teaching about the condition of the heart and danger of lust. My ultimate prayer for this brief time in God’s Word today is that we will all see clearly God’s incredible love. His hatred for divorce can only be rightly seen through His love for marriage and His love for marriage can only be fully grasped when we see His surpassing righteousness toward us and then, finally, we are able to see that same righteousness returned to Him through us.
In real estate the saying is, “location, location, location”. In studying the Bible context must be king. Many people read verses 31 and 32 and make them Jesus’ treatise on marriage and divorce, while we can learn about Jesus’ belief on marriage from these two verses the context of them is much different. Jesus is teaching about the surpassing righteousness of sexual purity. We have to understand what is being taught by Jesus as well as the time and people that He was originally speaking two. Again, this all comes back to the all important statement, “Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus is teaching about the condition of the heart and the reality of the sexual sin of adultery.