3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
4 “Haven't you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
Jesus’ Words certainly shed His pure Light upon our modern day lame and cavalier attitudes and excuses regarding divorce. Much like the Israelites when our Lord walked this earth, modern day believers oftentimes cling to the same wrong viewpoints regarding this subject. Indeed, the Prophet Malachi records God’s opinion on divorce for us and His reasoning why. God affirmed and continues to affirm the permanence of marriage:
13 Another thing you do: You flood the LORD's altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. 14 You ask, “Why?” It is because the LORD is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. 15 Has not [the LORD] made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth. 16 “I hate divorce,” says the LORD God of Israel, “and I hate a man's covering himself with violence as well as with his garment,” says the LORD Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith. Mal 2:13-16 (NIV)
Whatever God intends for the good of mankind, Satan intends to prevent and pervert through sin, self and the world – ever masking around as an angel of light or a roaring lion seeking to devour. In our verses for today, the Pharisees – we are told – came to test Jesus regarding the subject of divorce not to be taught by Him. It is funny to me that these religious leaders continually thought the Master could be trapped – silly Pharisees. In their twisted and tricky thinking they were asking Him what they thought to be a no win question seeking to pit Him between the people’s varying opinions on the subject. If He had declared against divorce they would have used it to make the people angrily prejudiced against Him as One who attempted to destroy a liberty allowed by Moses which they were quite partial to – their Delilah so to speak. If the Lord Jesus had embraced divorce “for any and every reason” - even frivolity - they would have then represented His teaching as not containing the perfection that was expected from the Messiah as divorce was looked upon by the strictest sect as disreputable.
Jesus gives them an effective reply giving a full albeit not direct answer - ever seeking to make His hearers reason. He appeals to their remembrance of Scripture. If God had joined husband and wife in the closest possible union – one flesh – man was not to lightly separate.
“Faith is reason at rest in God.” C. H. Spurgeon
Since Adam and Eve, God had made this union of two to be one in flesh and spirit – for humankind’s good and God’s glory. God has yoked them together. The relationship between husband and wife was and is to be closer than the parent and child relationship and surely a child was not to desert his parent nor does a parent abandon their child “for any and every reason”.
The Pharisees then wrongly bring up the Law of Moses as if Moses had commanded divorce rather than merely allowed it due to their hardened hearts – hardened against God and hardened against His ways. Jesus urges them to go back to the original covenant. When people make copies of copies corruption inevitably enters in therefore the institution must be examined and corrected against the original which Jesus here sets out to accomplish. He quiets their duplicitous question with Truth – how like the Master.
“The law reflects God’s holiness; it is a plumbline that shows us that we are crooked.” Erwin Lutzer
Lastly, divorce is not an unpardonable sin. Where ever this day finds us, we are to begin now. It’s a fresh start, a clean page in the notebook of life. His mercies are new every morning. In humility and repentance we approach Him – and continually approach Him – and He directs our paths and we press on. The past is over don’t live there; the future is unknown don’t anxiously fret over what may or may not even come about. Live in the fullness of the present with His Presence. That is taking hold of life that is truly life. The Apostle Paul writes:
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. 15 All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. 16 Only let us live up to what we have already attained. Phil 3:12-16 (NIV)