Law & Grace - Matthew 19:1-12 "Marriage, divorce, singleness"
Matthew 19:1-12 · Vern Peterman · Feb 26, 2012
Law & Grace, No. 56
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492634224658

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. I am deeply grateful that Roger taught in my place this last Sunday, so much so that I'm just speechless, or at least I was. I felt fine. I just had absolutely no voice last Sunday. So with short notice, Roger stepped in. I'm glad for that.

We're stepping into this passage here which is a critical one in the first 12 verses of Matthew 19. The first few verses of that passage talk about Jesus going from Galilee down to Judea. Most of his ministry was carried out in Galilee, but when he did travel down to Judea, he would typically go, not always, but typically go south along the Jordan River, as many of the Jews did going between Galilee and Judea. and then make the climb from Jericho up to Jerusalem, as was typically the case. And when he went there, most of the time the travel was to go in and around the area of Jerusalem, because that was where the temple was located.

That was where the feasts of the Jews would take place. And so this was one of those instances. Jesus and his disciples got there by walking. It took about four or five days typically. And so they would go along and camp quite often along the way, going down the Jordan River until the last climb from Jericho up to Jerusalem. And that was quite a climb.

Now, the Pharisees, however, have some not so innocent questions that they have for Jesus. They're not really wishing for answers to their questions. They're not looking to be informed and enlightened. Increasingly, what we find is the Pharisees and the Sadducees and other groups are there to ask questions to get Jesus to take sides on some sort of a controversy, especially if they think that having him take sides is going to get him in trouble. And so this is part of a series of questions that gets steeper and steeper as to the consequence.

Soon they will be asking him, should we pay taxes to Caesar? Of course, the yes, you should pay taxes to Caesar would mean, well, here is this Roman, this fellow who claims to be a god, and you're paying taxes to him. And so that would get him in trouble with the Jews if he said, yes, you should. But if you said not, then of course they could turn him over to the Roman authority. So either way, they figured they'd had him. So we'll soon encounter that in our study through Matthew.

Another one that the Sadducees came up with is in the resurrection, therefore, whose wife of the seven will she be?" Well, they had this sequence of hypothetical marryings of seven wives for one man. Now, the Sadducees would ask that question. Why? Because they didn't believe in the resurrection. And so they thought, ah, now we'll snag him with an impossible question.

At any rate, so this is a part of a series of increasingly, supposedly difficult questions that are being posed to Jesus here. Now, that's certainly the case here in our present passage as the Pharisees come and attempt to get Jesus to choose sides in an ongoing controversy. It had in fact been a controversy that had been going on since before Jesus was born. It had been going on for quite some time. And there were some Jewish rabbis who had different opinions.

We'll talk about that in a minute. So the question that they came with is, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all? Now, the debate was this. One group said any reason at all is good enough. any reason is good enough to divorce the wife another group said oh no no no it's only for certain things and so that was the focus of the discussion they're trying to get him to pick one side or the other so the Pharisees began their grilling of Jesus with this question and what they're trying to get him to do is to pick Do you go along with getting divorced for any reason at all, or do you say, no, there are only particular reasons for divorce?

Their question came from a debate between two Pharisees from a couple of generations back, before Jesus was born, who held different views on divorce. This was Hillel and Shammai. The Pharisees would ask another question after Jesus' first response. I don't think they intended to have Jesus give them the answer that he gave, and so they had to come up with another one. So this is the first question, and after his response to the first question, then they would come up with another one. Now, here's the basis, here's the Deuteronomy 24, 1 and 2.

Moses wrote it like this, when a man takes a wife and marries her and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency. So the question is, what is this indecency? some indecency in her and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house. So there was in fact in the Law of Moses a provision for divorce and this is it. And notice that it doesn't say you can't do that it actually says yes you can have a certificate of divorce. I stop it in the middle of verse 2 and here's why because the rest of the passage goes to address this issue and it says if a man marries a woman and then divorces her and then she gets married to somebody else she cannot again get married to that same man. That's what the passage is about. The passage does not debate whether or not you can have a divorce. It assumes it. Right? Okay.

So, this is the great divorce debate, because what was that indecency was the question. Now, the debate was between Hillel, the grandfather of Gamaliel, Paul's teacher, and Shammai. Rabbi Hillel, the grandfather of Paul's Rabbi Gamaliel said that a man could divorce a woman for any reason at all. It might even be she burnt the roast. Right? That's indecent. And so there was no question asked. So that was his point. Any reason at all. You don't even have to say what it is. No questions asked.

Rabbi Shammai said the divorce was allowed only for unfaithfulness, for abandonment, for lack of material support or denial of affection. You could grant a divorce for those reasons and those reasons only. So that was the crux of the debate between them. Rabbis Hillel and Shammai could not agree between them. They would debate it and go back and forth and never reach a conclusion. Now this is typical of the way Jews handled things. In fact, they liked it that way. Really. I told you the story before. I'll tell it again just in case. There were two groups of Jews and they were contesting with one another about what's the tradition. And so they got in this great big row and hollering about what's the Jewish tradition.

And finally the rabbi walks in and one group says, hey, rabbi, rabbi, you've got to help settle this disagreement between us. And so the one group says, and they go and spell out what they thought was the tradition. And the rabbi says, that's not the tradition. And then the other group says, oh, well, it must be this, and they spell out their position on this particular tradition. The rabbi says, no, that's not the tradition. So once the rabbi says, neither one is the tradition, then they go into this great big noise and argument.

He says, that's the tradition! Right? Okay. So, they actually liked it, having the rabbi's debate back and forth. It was the debate that was actually sort of sport. And so you can imagine the Pharisees, they wanted Jesus to enter this sport. this reasoning back and forth about which one it is.

So, what the Jews did is, rather than settle the arrangement, they said, we're going to make two entirely different court systems, and you can pick which one you go to. As a matter of fact, if you can't change your mind, you can switch back and forth. So, since these two great rabbis could not agree, the Jews in Israel could pick whichever court they wanted to get a divorce, Rabbi Hillel or Rabbi Shammai. So, if you went to Rabbi Hillel, they didn't ask, why do you want a divorce? It was no-fault divorce. No questions asked. You want a divorce? There you go. That's it.

You can imagine, here's Joseph, before he knew that Mary's being pregnant with Christ was of the Lord, it says that he determined to put her away quietly. Which court would that be in? That would be the Rabbi Hillel court, because he didn't even ask any questions. If he went to the Rabbi Shammai court, they would say, why do you want a divorce? And he would have to say, because The lady that I'm engaged to is pregnant, which of course would be terrible. That meant that she committed adultery. So it was the Hillel court that Joseph determined to go to because then there would be no questions asked and no embarrassment. Right? And by the way, most people chose the Hillel court for that reason. Nothing to discuss. You don't have to give any justification. Just walk in, say you want it. That was it. It's easy.

So a Jew could make the decision to go to one court or the other, and here's the weird thing, their decisions once done would be honored in the other court. So in the end, it really didn't matter which one you went to. They were both messed up. Okay. So you could get divorced in one, and then remarried in the other, and then divorced in the other, and go back and forth. And so even though you could choose between two courts, it really didn't matter which court you went to.

Because they were both all scrambled between one another. The Pharisees, however, wanted Jesus to pick sides. Pick one. Pick one because we'd like you to, because we'd like to see you get over a barrel on this issue. and get some people that disagree with you. And besides that, among the Jews, this kind of argumentation was just sport anyway, right? It's kind of recreational.

So, Jesus responds to the Pharisees having this question. Of course, everybody knew this was the court system, and these were the two rabbis, and that's the way things were. So in response, Jesus asked a question back to them. Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female?

This is from Genesis 1.27. Haven't you read that? Don't you guys know? Right?

Then he finished his question by quoting Genesis 2.24. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. Haven't you read that too? Don't you know? So he lays it out from Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, right in front of him. Haven't you read that, guys? Of course you have, right?

So Jesus told the Pharisees, the man and the woman, so married, are not two but one flesh. Now, when did this take place? It took place before there was sin in the world, right? Was not maleness and femaleness and marriage established before there was sin in the world therefore marriage is not a punishment okay marriage is not a punishment just so you know just so it's clear Jesus answered their question with the statement whatever God has put together let no man separate and of course at this the Pharisees are in a near panic No, we want to get him over a barrel, not have him put us over a barrel, right?

And so, ah, what are we going to do? Another question, okay? So that's their response. It was not at all to their liking, so they wanted to pick sides in this debate, and so we've got to come up with another question. So here it is. So the Pharisees shot back with a reference to the Law of Moses by making a requirement of the law's allowance, get the difference there, for divorce.

Moses commanded, right? Everything Moses did was a command. No. So, the Pharisees said to Jesus, why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away? As if that's something you just got to do, right? It's like, we're married, okay, now let's go get divorced, because Moses said so.

Right? That's their approach. Why? Hmm. Jesus corrects the Pharisees by saying that Moses had only permitted, allowed them to divorce due to their, what did he say? Interesting. He actually said it, your hardness of heart. He pointed to them. He didn't say, you know, because of hardness of heart. He says your hardness of heart.

But when marriage was established in the Garden of Eden, it was not so. From the beginning, it was not so. God didn't set up marriage so that you could say, okay, and a man should be joined to his wife and then splits bill. Right? God did not intend post-it note marriages. Stick, stick, stick, stick, stick, stick. Right? Not that. So in verse 9, Jesus does this. In verse 9, Jesus tells them that he agrees with the court of Shammai.

Divorce must be for a valid cause. He's answering their first question, which is, is it true that we can have divorce for any reason? And he says, no. There must be a valid cause, not just for any matter whatsoever, as in burning the roast. as the court of Hillel allowed and that was where most of the people were going because why volunteer for a divorce where they ask a bunch of questions when I can get one where they don't ask any other than you just want one. So Jesus does agree with the court of Shammai in that respect but that's not the end of the story. Here in Deuteronomy 24, 1 and 2, when a man takes a wife and marries her and it happens, she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency. It's the question of what's that indecency? Is that indecency a burnt roast? He's saying, no, it needs to be something far more significant than that. That's not adequate.

Not just any reason at all. Here's something else that had happened. By New Testament times, The rabbis had begun to interpret the law all in favor of the male. This is why, remember in John chapter 8, the woman who is caught in adultery is brought to Jesus and they ask Jesus, hey, should we stone her? And, problem. They'd only brought the woman. The law says you bring the woman and the man.

And so what they had done here is in this divorce decision, they had made it so that the man just, oh, any reason I want to. I don't even have to justify it. Any reason that the man wants to, he gets the divorce. It was another part of the tendency to interpret the law increasingly in favor of the man and increasingly against women. The Law of Moses permitted remarriage after divorce. That was actually allowed.

But Jesus defined the indecency as adultery and not just any dissatisfaction whatever as the Hillel court had allowed. So Jesus stands that far with the system. But now the disciples say, uh-oh. When the disciples hear from Jesus that the Hillel court divorces resulted in remarriages that were invalid and were therefore adulterous, and most people were getting Hillel divorces, they remark that it would be better not to get married at all. Because why? Because Jesus just said this leads to adultery.

Well, both the Hillel court and the Shammai court accepted each other's divorces in order to get remarried. So Jesus was saying all the remarriages should be considered invalid and therefore adulterous. You see that? Yes, I agree with Shammai that divorces should only be given for cause, not just for any reason at all.

But in the end, since they each swap each other's decisions, the whole system is messed up. How messed up. Yeah, this is a big uh-oh. And this is why the disciples would say, it's better not to get married at all. Well, by saying that all Hillel, and this is not in your handout here, but by saying that all Hillel court marriages were invalid, and invalidating any marriage in both the Hillel or Shammai courts, Jesus was saying that the Jews had major legal and social and moral problems.

Here is one of them. Many Jews were essentially committing adultery, and adultery is subject to the death penalty, right? This major legal problem include many of the Levites, the ones who were carrying out the sacrifices in the temple. Those were subject to the penalty, the death penalty for adultery, according to what Jesus said. Because many of them would go for the Hillel court divorces. So you had here is the people carrying out the sacrificial system. Many of them ought to be slaughtered for adultery. But he's not done.

Many such Jews would enter the inner courts of the temple to do the required sacrifices were in violation of the temple rules. You see here at this This part of the temple is the inner part of the temple and this and this and over here out of sight, those three doors, you were not permitted to go in there if you were Gentile or if you were a Jew who was disqualified. And if you had committed adultery, you were disqualified, right? And so the Jews that were going in there to get sacrifices done and to pray and do the other things they did in the temple, should not have been going in there and the consequence was the death penalty. You see, so all the ones who were going in there doing the sacrifices, the ones who were going in there to bring sacrifices, all of them were committing death penalty offenses according to what Jesus said. That's not all. The offspring of all such Jews were illegitimate and that invalidated not only the subsequent the offspring for 10 generations from going into the temple, but it also said that they could not inherit property for 10 generations.

What you would find is, if the law was actually carried out from what Jesus said, most of Israel would be dead, because they had violated multiple points of the law, very critical points of the law. So this is why the apostles, the disciples listening to Jesus said, whoa, if it's that bad, then you shouldn't even get married at all. That's why they would say such a thing. Now, Jesus didn't respond to their remark. Isn't that interesting? He didn't respond to their remark, but he did use it as a basis to correct another Jewish error. The Jews had concluded that to be fruitful and multiply, like Genesis 128, required a person to be married. You must, under the law of Moses, get married. Required. Because you have to be fruitful and multiply.

As a matter of fact, one of the reasons why they would, and it's still done by Jews now, one of the reasons why they would divorce is if a woman did not get pregnant within a certain period of time after the marriage, then she was not being fruitful and multiplying and so they divorce her and marry another because that was considered a requirement under the Jewish law. Genesis 9 7 when Noah's coming off of the the ark and After the flood same thing be fruitful and multiply Again looked upon as a requirement of the law after all the first book of the Bible is one that Moses wrote, right?

So that's part of the law of Moses now What Jesus says in the last part of this passage is is contrary to the idea that the Law of Moses requires marriage, Jesus gives three valid reasons why a person might remain single, and he uses the term eunuch to convey that. And we in fact have gone over this in our singles seminar and laid that out because it's important that people understand what is the Bible's teaching about singleness.

It is perhaps even a gift, and we'll see that here in a minute. Jesus said that some may be single because of a condition since birth. It may be, in this case, something that makes marriage either impossible or unadvisable for a person because of a condition since birth. So that's one possibility. The next possibility is some may be single because of an event since birth, either a disease or an accident or the one instance that where the term eunuch was applied, was where they would take a person and neuter them so that they would not be tempted when in service, say for a harem or something of that sort. So there would be an event from birth, an event since birth, either an accident, a disease, or by human doing that a person would be either unable to be married or inadvisable to be married. And thirdly, that there are some who will remain single in order to better serve the Lord. This was a brand new teaching. The Jews had not gone about teaching this, that there was any place for singleness. So Jesus corrects that. He says, because people have wrongly taken the be fruitful and multiply as a requirement for marriage. He says, not necessarily. He says, there is a place.

In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul calls it a gift. Here in this passage, Jesus says it is given. So a similar implication. So, one of the questions would be, how could a person tell Whether they were gifted for singleness, as Jesus has it here, or for marriage. Paul actually calls both in 1 Corinthians 7 a gift. One a gift for this, another a gift for that. I think that's the verse on the top of the inside of your bulletin there. One a gift for this, another a gift for that.

There is a place for singleness, there is a place for those who are married, and each is a gift. And one other qualification, the Lord might change what your giftedness is over time. A person might be married for some number of years and then have the gift of singleness after that, for instance.

The Apostle Paul has that teaching in 1 Corinthians 7, and we quote briefly from that in your bulletin there. It's consistent with what Christ teaches in this passage here. If a believer, and this is how we can tell, if a believer has desires that can only rightfully be fulfilled in marriage, and this is the first several verses of 1 Corinthians chapter 7, then that believer is gifted for marriage and ought to pursue being married. But if someone is content to remain single in order to be more devoted in time and focus to the Lord's work, then they're so gifted.

So unlike a great many things, this actually has sort of a subjective test. What is my sense of things? Am I satisfied to remain single or do I have a desire to be married and do I have desires that can only rightfully be fulfilled in marriage? then that's the case. And it may change over the course of a person's lifetime. You may have the gift of marriage at one time and singleness at another, or vice versa.

So, what's the point here? What are we getting at? The Pharisees' questions to Jesus are all focused on ending marriage. Did you notice that? They don't talk about, hey, how do we stay married and how do we make the marriage better and put more richness in it. None of that. It's, hey, he commanded us to get a divorce. Isn't that what it's all about? Everything that they say is focused on the exits. Jesus says, focus on staying in the building, not focus on where's the exit. They had no questions on how to improve marriages or how to improve the spiritual or other circumstances in a marriage.

The Pharisees wanted to make both marriage and divorce requirements of the law. That's the way they put it. Jesus said that being married or being single are both valid and each have their place and purpose. A very different message. And if you think about it, Jesus was very often disagreeing with the Pharisees on various points of the law. And this is one of them. Whereas they said, you must get married, anything else is wrong. Jesus said there is a place for both.

And the Apostle Paul agrees with them, actually entirely. No disagreement between Paul and Christ here. So the question is, what's the church to do in view of these things? The ministries of the church ought to be gracious toward believers, whether they are gifted to be single or gifted to be married.

Recognizing there is a gift for each. No arm twisting. You notice at Holly Hills here, we don't have a professional matchmaker on staff, right? We don't have somebody whose job it is to shove people together and make sure that they get connected. The church ought not to be pressuring people either into singleness or into marriage, and I have seen churches do both.

I have seen situations where the church takes 1 Corinthians 7.1 and says, see, it's better for a man, not such a woman, don't get married.

Not realizing that 1 Corinthians 1.7 is what the Corinthians wrote to Paul, not Paul's command. See the distinction there? Not pressuring people into singleness or marriage, but to teach and counsel biblically for both. recognizing that a person, even the same person, may go from one gift to the other at certain points in time.

While some are quick to condemn those who are divorced, and especially those who are remarried, we don't want to go there. Nancy and I had a good friend in Carson City and we moved away from there and so did our friend. Interestingly, several years ago, this friend got in touch with us and some Christian had sat down next to her and said, you know, we love you dearly, but you are an adulteress. You know, and basically very judgmental.

What we find all too often is that the churches are there pointing fingers and very quick to condemn, but giving very little help for marriages and doing very little to build up the body of Christ. As a matter of fact, a number of churches and ministries have a ministry of condemnation.

I get that out of 2 Corinthians 3.9. Christians and churches who simply wait to condemn those who struggle with singleness and marriage are carrying out a ministry of condemnation which springs from the law. We've been called to a ministry of righteousness.

Christians and churches ought instead to graciously shine a light on those passages in scripture, and there are a great many, that provide biblical insight into maleness and femaleness, into singleness and marriage so that believers grow in whatever state or role God has called them to. Our job is not to stand there doing nothing until someone starts running into trouble and then condemning them. It's instead to be building up the body of Christ. Ministry ought to, in fact, build up the body of Christ, not wait until you blow it and then say, gotcha!

And so that's one reason why we, last fall we had about three or four single seminars and we've completed, it's actually the fifth, yesterday morning, the fifth marriage seminar. Why? Because we want to build up the body of Christ, whether a person is called to be single, as Jesus makes room for in this passage, or whether a person is called to be married. In either case, God has a purpose for both. We want people, whether they're single or married, to be growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a place whether a person is single or married for that. It's God's intent.

We want people to be focusing on our new spiritual history in Christ. Everyone who has believed is identified with Christ in his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding. We want people to focus on that because that's their new history. It's their new spiritual history. One of the ways we put it is this, we are always catching up to where we already are. In the Christian life, we are always catching up to where we already are. Are you already in Christ? Yes.

Growing into these things and understanding them is what God has in mind. We want people to focus on that. Whether they're single or married. We want people to focus on their heavenly citizenship, their heavenly seating. In that there is growth whether you're single or married. We want people to be beholding the Lord through his written word, single or married.

You know, there will come a day There will come a day when the physical things of male and femaleness, male and femaleness, God has a purpose for it, but it's for this earthly time. There will come a time when that's gone. Maleness and femaleness is created for here. And God does have a place and a purpose and an intent for that.

But there will come a time we're going to walk through heaven's gates and it'll all be past. It'll all be history. And for those who are married, walking through heaven's gates, the fulfillment of that marriage will be with Christ in the church. If you are called to be married now, it's for the fulfillment of what's eternity. I'll put it another way. If you're married now, your marriage is not about you. Your marriage is about Christ and the church. And in the end, Christ and the church will be what's forever. So we're living a time now that will be fulfilled for eternity, whether you're single or married.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you that you have, in fact, an eternal purpose for the things that we do now, whether we're single, whether we're married, or whether we end up spending part of life in one and part in the other. You have a purpose for now, but Lord, help us to see and to live this day for that day, that day when we will see you face to face. And we thank you, Lord, for all the ways that you've gifted us, all the ways that you've blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. We thank you in Christ Jesus. Amen.