31 “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Jesus has been using shock texts in every part of the Sermon on the Mount. One after the other. I’m sure the people were gasping and saying it was all impossible. And yes, that was true. Jesus did not apologize for high standards. But nor was anyone able to keep them. Don’t lust as it is adultery? Don’t call someone a bad name as it is murder? And now he said don’t divorce as it means adultery for the woman?
Wait. What? Let’s pause a minute. How is the woman the issue here? She was the one who, against her will, is being divorced. Why was she then charged with the crime of adultery?
Let’s deal with that one first. In ancient times the woman was the responsibility of a man. A woman was not in a place to be able to live and make it on her own in society. So if a man divorced her, she would need to move back to her family temporarily and then soon remarry to be able to survive.
If the divorce was not permissible, then she would be made an adulteress against her wishes and will. It would then be the man who faces the responsibility of causing this for her and doing this to her. And the brokenness of the marriage would follow them both.
Marriage wasn’t only about love and good feelings and being happy. Though these were part of it. Marriage was more than that. It was having children together and strengthening relationships between families and taking care of one another.
Jesus so very much raises the bar. He says not to treat marriage lightly.
In Jesus’ time there were two schools of thought regarding divorce based on Deut 24:1. Let’s look at the verse in question:
If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house...
The two schools of thought were based on how one would interpret the word “indecent.” The school of Shammai in the first century interpreted this as adultery. But the school of Hillel interpreted this that as if she even burns her husband’s toast, she is worthy of divorce. She was unfit. This was extraordinary pressure and stress on the wife.
Jesus raises the stakes to shocking levels. Don’t divorce except for marital unfaithfulness or you, men, will be guilty of causing her to be an adulteress as she is forced to remarry. Not only that but you cause the one who marries her to have also committed adultery.
This was shocking to the men in the audience. He would shock them again with a similar teaching in Matthew 19. But what he was doing was protecting women.
Can you imagine the stress that if you even so much as burned your husband’s toast he could divorce you, leave you with no money and no way to survive on your own? You would be homeless and hungry. Jesus is saying enough with that nonsense. Take marriage and your responsibilities seriously.
Ok, so now let’s pause for a minute. Are we to take this as a hard fast rule that the ONLY time ever in all of marriage that there’s time for divorce is when there is an adulteress relationship? That no other conditions apply such as when a man beats his wife and children half to death?
I would say this: Remember the context! The context of this particular verse is a shock text for men to raise the bar and to take their marriage seriously, not divorcing their wives easily.
First of all if we take this as rigid with no exception, then we must take the verses immediately preceding this in the same way. And what do those verses say? It talks about cutting off your hands if you lust or fantasize about someone. So if the marriage/divorce text is a hard and fast rule, then take the verses to cut off your hands equally as rigidly, literally and with no exception.
So if you say “nope!” Jesus said divorce is wrong always with one exception of adultery and that clearly and always is what it means…then I expect you cut your hands off as well. Because that’s clear also.
We can’t take the texts we want and use them as weapons against someone and not take the other verses in this same section in the same way. We can’t say that cutting off your hands was just a shock text and figurative but the divorce text was meant literally and was ironclad.
They all were shock texts. And there is truth to all of them. The shock factor was meant to raise high the bar of righteousness.
But what about the verses in the rest of the Bible??? They teach on divorce also! Yes, they do.
Again, first of all those verses have to be taken within their respective contexts. And we will get to those when their context comes.
Second, if Jesus meant divorce could only happen in the context of adultery, then we would have to erase 1 Corinthians 7. Because in that chapter it says divorce is permissible if someone is married to a non-believer and the unbeliever wants to leave. At that point the Bible teaches to let them go in that case. Divorce was allowed. Bottom line is that there IS more than just one case where divorce is permissible according to the Bible.
Jesus wasn’t making a rigid law here just as he wasn’t making a rigid law to cut off your hands when you lust/fantasize. What Jesus was doing was saying stop taking divorce lightly. Marriage is a covenant and should be treated as such.
