Being counter-cultural in Matthew 5 – Divorce

Last week I mentioned that a sin as serious as adultery rarely happens in a vacuum. It can lead to all sorts of other deceptions and, if discovered, can destroy a marriage entirely.

What should you do in that kind of situation if you’re a Christian?

It just so happens that the next concrete example of Christian life that Jesus gave was on that very topic. When (if ever) should a Christian seek a divorce?

Let’s read Matthew 5:31-32
It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ 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

Once again Jesus referred to a commandment from the Old Testament with which his Jewish audience would have been familiar. This time it’s not from one of the Ten Commandments, but from Deuteronomy 24:1
Suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman, but she does not please him because he finds something objectionable about her, and so he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house; she then leaves his house and goes off to become another man’s wife…

Now on one hand this commandment gave women a certain amount of protection. Leon Morris in the Pillar NT Commentary explains:
The bill of divorce was a protection for the woman; a capricious husband could not drive her from his home and afterward claim that she was still his wife. He must give her the document that set out her right to marry someone else.

Morris goes on:
It was accepted throughout Judaism that a man was entitled to divorce his wife….a wife was not permitted to divorce her husband, though she could petition the court, and if her plea was accepted the court would direct the husband to divorce her.

Any excuse will do

However, that phrase “…because he finds something objectionable about her…” seems like it could have been interpreted to justify separating from one’s wife for almost any reason at all.

So a man who got tired of his wife or lost interest in her for whatever reason, or simply wanted to replace her with a younger and prettier model, could potentially interpret this law as an excuse to get rid of her, and tell himself that he was being a good faithful Torah-abiding Jew because he’d followed the rule to the letter by writing her a certificate of divorce and sending her away. Despite the fact that his motivation was entirely self-seeking and he was leaving her potentially without any means of support.

In that time and culture, a woman typically needed a man to provide for her – if she didn’t have a husband then she might live temporarily with her father or her brother. A newly divorced woman might not have been able to find another husband quickly and returning to her father or brother’s house might not have been an option.

Unfortunately the community of God’s people, whether that means the Jews in the 1st century or Christian churches today, will always include people who want to be seen as good faithful believers while secretly hiding hearts full of selfishness and greed.

So it seems there may have been two issues Jesus was trying to address.

First, a marriage was a commitment made before God and as such needed to be taken seriously. To break it off for some trivial or selfish reason was to dishonour God.

Second, a husband had a responsibility to ensure that his wife was provided for. That meant honouring the marriage commitment he had made to her, and in the worst case scenario that this was impossible because of her unfaithfulness, he had to ensure she was able to move on and find another husband.

Jesus was evidently aware of how this commandment was being misused by some husbands, and he used the authority God had given him to spell out the only acceptable grounds for divorce: sexual unfaithfulness.

God’s ideal

For God, marriage was always intended to be a lifelong commitment for both partners. Divorce, on the other hand, was only ever intended as an absolute last resort if one or both partners had been unfaithful.

That’s very different from the view that most of the Western world takes today. Many people see marriage as an optional extra and are happy to live as if they were a married couple but without ever having made that lifelong commitment before God. Many people who do get married don’t take the ‘lifelong’ part very seriously. Divorce is often seen as a convenient way to end a marriage that’s fizzled out or just isn’t working the way it was hoped.

Now in our Western culture divorce law isn’t the same as it was in Jesus’ day. Firstly, both men and women can initiate a divorce. Secondly, most women do not need to rely on a man to provide for them (in the West, anyway). They have the opportunity to earn for themselves or, if that’s not possible, they can seek financial support from the state.

While many if not most people would probably agree those are positive developments, they do perhaps make it easier for marriages to be ended. Women may no longer feel they need to be married in order to survive. Men may no longer feel the same responsibility to provide. The incentive to stick together at all costs is perhaps not there any more, at least not to the same extent. Christian couples may feel that they should stick together through thick and thin, but may not feel that their survival depends on it.

As Christians it’s obvious that marriage is something we need to take very seriously and only enter into if we are committed to spending the rest of our lives with our partner.

Marriage isn’t easy. That’s true even if you’re a Christian and even if your spouse is one too. Even the strongest and longest marriages go through their ups and downs. Even the closest couples may have moments when they fall out and can’t stand the sight of each other.

Most marriages probably don’t work out exactly the way either the husband or wife expected. We need to be prepared to adapt or change for each other’s needs. Mistakes will be made and hurt will be caused. We need to be honest, patient and always ready to forgive.

According to Paul’s advice in Ephesians chapter 5 (read it in your own time) a wife must be ready to submit to her husband’s leadership. While that may sound outdated or even ridiculous to modern ears, consider that Paul instructed husbands to sacrifice themselves for their wives in the same way that Jesus did for the church, presumably up to and including a willingness to sacrifice their very lives for their wives’ sake. It seems to me that’s asking a lot more of the husband than the wife.

As Christians, if things don’t work out the way we hoped, we can’t simply give up and move on to someone else. We have to honour our commitment to God and to each other, and strive to make the marriage work regardless of the sacrifices required.

The only exception is the one that Jesus gave: sexual immorality.

The modern world tends to regard sex as something of little consequence, certainly not something to be saved for marriage. Yet for Jesus, marriage is the only time when it’s acceptable.

That doesn’t necessarily mean a marriage must be ended if sexual immorality occurs. Some couples may find that it’s possible to forgive, to stay together and to try and repair the damage. But Jesus made it clear that it’s entirely permissible to choose not to do this. Each person has to carefully decide the best way to move forward, either together or apart.

Is that all?

Now some people might argue: is that really the only circumstance in which God would permit a divorce?

What if the marriage has become abusive? What if a man is physically abusing his wife, causing her both bodily and emotional harm? Or what if a woman is psychologically abusing her husband, destroying his mental health perhaps even to the point of suicidality?

Does Jesus expect the abused party to remain in this awful situation? Aren’t they permitted to escape and take steps to ensure their abuser can’t get near them any more?

I’d suggest two possible ways of looking at this question.

First, it may be that Jesus doesn’t mention cases of abuse as acceptable grounds for divorce because it’s simply so obvious that nobody would question it or need it spelled out. Perhaps it’s just implicit based on his instructions elsewhere on how people ought to treat each other. One could argue that the Bible rarely gives moral instruction on matters in which everybody instinctively knows right from wrong anyway – God only needs to teach us right from wrong when we need to go against our natural inclinations in order to do it.

Second, while in these verses Jesus specifically mentioned “sexual immorality”, an argument could be made that the same principle can be applied to any form of unfaithfulness on the part of one or both partners in the marriage. Since marriage vows typically include promises to protect, honour, cherish or comfort one another, any type of abuse is a clear violation of those vows and could, perhaps, be seen as a form of unfaithfulness.

Divorce is a huge topic and for those who have experienced it, possibly one that brings feelings of immense pain and regret. Once again I’ve only been able to offer very general advice, not based on any personal experience.

In a world that has largely trivialised both marriage and divorce, we as Christians have the opportunity to show what it means to take them as seriously as Jesus did.