WWUTT 2058 Jesus Teaches on Marriage and Divorce (Matthew 19:7-12)

The Pharisees had been teaching wrongly about marriage. They had been telling people that you can get divorced for any reason at all. Jesus comes back to the way that God created marriage in the beginning and says this is how it is to be when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ. Find all our videos online at www .wutt .com as well as links to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Matthew 19 and Jesus’ Teaching on Divorce

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Gospel of Matthew, we are in chapter 19 this week looking at Jesus teaching on divorce in verses 1 -12. I'm going to open by reading that section again from the Legacy Standard Bible.

Hear the word of the Lord. Now it happened that when Jesus had finished these words, he departed from Galilee and came into the region of Judea beyond the Jordan, and large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.

And some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing him and saying, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all? And he answered and said, Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?

So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. They said to him, Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send.

Her away?

And he said to them, Because of your hardness of heart, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it has not been this way. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another woman commits adultery.

The disciples said to him, If the relationship of man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry. But he said to them, Not all men can accept this statement, but only those to whom it has been given.

For there are eunuchs who were born this way from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.

He who was able to accept this, let him accept it. You know, it did not occur to me until after I had already posted yesterday's devotional lesson that I did that lesson on December 19th. That is the anniversary of when the Netherlands legalized same-sex marriage.

There isn't such a thing as same-sex marriage, but just using the term, that's when they legalized same-sex marriage. December 19th of the year 2000, it went into effect on April 1st, April Fool's Day of 2001.

The Netherlands became the first nation in the history of the world to recognize legally, socially, culturally, that a man and a man can marry one another or a woman and a woman and that be called a marriage.

In the history of the world, this had never happened. The Netherlands were the first to do it, and now today there are 35 nations on earth that recognize this abomination that is called same-sex marriage.

It is often said that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality, but he said everything that he needed to say here in this passage. He gives the definition of marriage, and I was teaching on this out of Matthew 19 on December 19, which was the anniversary of when the Netherlands had legalized same-sex marriage.

Jesus never directly confronts the sin of homosexuality. It's true. Not in the Gospels, we don't see it that way. But he does address sexual immorality, and homosexuality falls under that. Here Jesus gives the definition of marriage, which we considered yesterday.

A man will leave his father and mother and join to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh, a man and his wife. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.

And those who try to defend same-sex marriage, they will say, well, Jesus was just talking in the context of divorce here. Of course he was, but he's giving the definition of marriage. It does not matter in what context you are talking about marriage.

This is what it is.

It was created by God from the beginning to be a man and his wife.

That's it.

And everybody knows, we all know a man and a man can't marry one another. They can't produce offspring. You go back to the old adage of God didn't make Adam and Steve. He made Adam and Eve, right? If it had been Adam and Steve, that would be the end of the human race.

We all understand that. A man and a man cannot produce offspring. A woman and a woman cannot have children together. We know, we inherently know by nature, as God created it, that it is to be a man and his wife, that the two become one flesh, that they can have offspring and create a family.

That is as God intended it. That is the natural function of a man and a woman. But as said in Romans 1 18, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who, by their unrighteousness, suppress the truth.

They love their sin, and so they deny reality. And we're seeing one nation after the other, one culture after the next, become more and more tolerant of these sexual perversions, even accepting that which is contrary to nature.

Itself.

Jesus gave the definition of marriage here. He did not need to lay it out in every single context. Once you have the definition of what it is, it applies in every context. Marriage is a man and his wife joined together, consummated as one flesh.

They are that one flesh union, which God created, Jesus pointing back to the created order, and what God has joined together, let no man separate nor redefine. This is what marriage is, and there is no other.

Moses, the Created Order, and the Meaning of Divorce

So we come back to this lesson again today, these verses 1 through 12. Yesterday, we looked at the first question that the Pharisees asked of Jesus in verse 3 and his response. Today we come to the second address in verse 7, and then the disciples' response that will come up in verse 10.

So after Jesus goes back to the created order and gives this indicting question, we can use the same indicting question with anybody who tries to redefine marriage. Well, marriage is this. You can say, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female?

Genesis 127. That's even the answer to the gender confusion that's going on in our culture today. There's male and female. That's it. And you know that, but you want to deny the truth by your unrighteousness because you love your sin.

It's even said in 2 Thessalonians 2 that God gave them a strong delusion so that they would do what is false and come into condemnation, come into judgment. They love their sin, revealing their hearts in their rebellion against God that they would come into judgment for their wickedness.

Jesus points back to nature, back to the law, back to the created order when he says that God made them male and female. And that's who we are. We are male and we are female. God doesn't make mistakes.

He didn't accidentally put you in the wrong body. You are either male or female, and there are certain roles and functions that God intends for you to fulfill as either a man or a woman. We'll have that discussion for another time when there is more time.

The Pharisees respond to Jesus after he has pointed back to the way that God created it from the very beginning. And by the way, I know I should be getting to the Pharisees next statement here, but let me just say, Jesus is pointing back to the way that he created marriage.

It's not, this is what the father intended from the beginning. Jesus made it this way. The son of God, who is the creator of all things, by him, all things were made, as it says in John 1, Colossians 1, and Hebrews 1.

So Jesus is the one who created all things, even marriage itself. He's telling the Pharisees, here's what I intended it to be from the beginning. The guy who authored it is now telling you, here's how it is.

The Pharisees argue with this. They say in verse 7, why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send.

Her away?

Remember, their initial question was, can a man divorce his wife for any reason? And as I said yesterday, I postulated yesterday, I think that this question was spurred because of what Jesus had taught in the Sermon on the Mount, because he had already talked about this in Matthew 5.

They're familiar with his teaching, so now they come to him with this challenge, and they believe that the law rightly interpreted means that a man can divorce his wife for any reason. Jesus says, here's the definition of marriage, the two are one flesh, so you can't separate.

Them.

What God has joined together, let man not separate. So the Pharisees fire back, why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away? Now, who is the one who gave the law?

It's not Moses. Moses is just repeating what God said. The Pharisees think that they are appealing to authority. That's what they think, not realizing that the greater authority was standing right there before them.

And Jesus responds in verse 8 and says, because of your hardness of heart, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives. Notice the turn of phrase, the Pharisees had said Moses commanded to give her a certificate of divorce.

No, that was never the law. That was never what the law said. Moses doesn't command you to divorce your wives. But if there is going to be a divorce, you give her a certificate. That was the way that the law was written.

It wasn't Moses saying you can divorce your wife for any reason, just as long as you give her a certificate. Be sure you hand that to her on her way out the door. That was never the reason. Jesus says Moses permitted you.

So he corrects what it was that the Pharisees said, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But from the beginning, it has not been this way. And once again, calling their attention back to what God had designed in the beginning.

This is the definition of marriage. There isn't supposed to be multiple wives. There's not a woman and a woman or a man and a man together. Even though there were some men in the Old Testament, Abraham being one of them, David being another Solomon, of course, even though there were men in the Old Testament who had multiple wives, polygamy is what we call that.

That does not mean that God endorsed that you still have a man and his wife. If he just has multiple wives in a polygamous relationship, none of those wives are having relations with each other. It's just the man and his wife, but he has multiple wives.

It's not the way that God intended marriage to be, but it's still marriage. It's still actually a marriage. It's amazing to me that in this culture, the way that marriage has been perverted, that we haven't gotten to the legalization of polygamy yet.

I really do find that astonishing because in the progression of the perversion of marriage, you would have that step first before you jump into the homosexuality thing. Anyway, that's just kind of an off comment.

But Jesus is, again, he's pointing the Pharisees back to the created order. You want to go back to the law. I'm going back to the very beginning of the law. You're stopping in Deuteronomy. I'm going back to Genesis.

Here's how God created them. Genesis 1 .27. He made them male and female in the image of God. He told them be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. And then in Genesis 2, making out of the rib of a man, making that into a woman and bringing that to the man.

And the man saying this is at last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She will be called woman because she was taken out of man. And then the statement about him leaving his father and his mother and joining fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.

And by the way, father and mother, that's man and woman. You have constant reminders of this being man and woman and this being the one union, the one flesh union that God had intended. When you go back to the creation story, it points back to man and wife.

Jesus corrects their wording, corrects their thinking, saying, because of your hardness of heart, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives. But from the beginning, it has not been this way. And now verse nine and verse nine is the same thing that he said back in the Sermon on the Mount in chapter five.

And this is one of the reasons why, like I said, I think this is what had spurred the Pharisees on to addressing him with this particular matter and trying to catch him in it because they know what his teaching is on this.

And so they think they've got him trapped. We're going to we're going to ask him this question and see if he'll deny the law of Moses. Instead, Jesus clarifies the law for them, the parts that they weren't considering.

They were misinterpreting the law. Jesus gives it to him straight and says in verse nine, I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another woman commits adultery.

That's the same statement he made back in Matthew chapter five in the Sermon on the Mount. And so there is an allowance there. And the interesting thing about it, this has been pointed out many times by many preachers.

But Matthew is the only gospel where you find that allowance in other places where Jesus says that anyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery in in Mark and in Luke. That allowance or the the the caveat is not given there with regards to sexual immorality.

It's only in Matthew's gospel now. It's said twice. It's in Matthew five and it's in Matthew 19. Really, it only needs to be said once. But indeed, if your partner has committed sexual immorality, then you are released from the marriage covenant and you are not obligated to have to remain single.

They did something that, according to the law, is worthy of death. And the Westminster Confession, by the way, gets this right. This is from the WCF chapter 24 of Marriage and Divorce, paragraph five, adultery or fornication committed after a contract being detected before marriage.

In other words, during an engagement, giveth justification to the innocent party to dissolve that contract in the cause of adultery after marriage. So now you're talking about adultery within the covenant of marriage.

It is lawful for the innocent party to sue out a divorce and after the divorce to marry another as if the offending party were dead. And I think that is an absolute correct interpretation of what Jesus is saying here with regards to the permission he gives.

After a divorce, if if the marriage came to an end because one committed adultery. Then the person who is the innocent party in that marriage can get divorced and get remarried and it's not committed.

It's not considered sexual immorality because once again, the statement that he makes in verse nine, I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another woman commits adultery.

So if this is a man whose wife cheats on him and he divorces her, he can go get remarried and that is not considered adultery. I know there are many men out there and men that I greatly admire preachers that will that will hold to the marriage permanence view.

They will say that that's not the correct interpretation of verse nine. I don't know how they are able to get around that. And I mean, I've heard their explanations, but it just it's not convincing to me to say that in the marriage permanence view, even if your spouse cheats on you a hundred times, you can get divorced, but you can't get remarried.

And I just don't agree. And I think that Jesus is clearly giving the allowance here when he says, except for sexual immorality. Now, the disciples hearing what it is that Jesus said, verse 10, they say to him, if the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry.

So the disciples have just heard Jesus tell the Pharisees, here is the original intention for marriage. Here's what God intended from the very beginning, a man and his wife for life. And the disciples are going, if we can't get out, if there's not an easy way out of this contract of this covenant, then it would just be better for us not to marry.

They have heard Jesus just revolutionize the Pharisees teaching on marriage. They were abusing the teaching. They were twisting the law. Jesus clarifies from the beginning, from the created order, what God had intended marriage to be.

And even the disciples feel like if this is what marriage is supposed to be, then that's really hard. Hey, fancy that marriage is difficult. So Jesus responds to them. Not all men can accept this statement, but only those to whom it has been given.

So in other words, not everybody can accept that these are the rules for marriage, but only those to whom it has been given, only those who get married and they understand, well, here is what a marriage is supposed to be.

Then they will get these rules and they will get married and they will do it to the glory of God. And it will not be too burdensome for them because a marriage that is built upon Christ is a joyful thing.

We know by what Paul says about this in Ephesians chapter 5, that marriage is meant to be a picture of the way that Christ loves his church. There are roles for men in a marriage, roles for women in a marriage.

And even though they are co-heirs of eternal life and both receive the same eternal reward in Christ, there is nonetheless a role that a man is supposed to fill in marriage that his wife cannot do. And there is a role that a woman is supposed to fill in a marriage that the man cannot.

Do.

And only those who can receive this saying are the ones that should be getting married. And so then Jesus goes on to say in verse 12, this is a confusing passage. We're at the end of the devotion today, but let me see if I can give you a Cliff's Notes explanation for it.

There are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb. And there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men. And there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.

He who is able to accept this, let him accept it, which was same sort of thing that Jesus said in verse 11, only those who can accept this, let them accept it. So what does Jesus mean by this reference to eunuchs?

Well, you understand that a eunuch is a castrated man. And some eunuchs have been made eunuchs. Some were born that way. They were born without testicles. There are other men who were made eunuchs. So they were castrated and they were castrated for the purpose of slavery or service to somebody in particular.

And their commitment to that service meant that they would not have a spouse and therefore have children. They were to be fully devoted to this other person, so hence why they were castrated. We know that Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego would have been eunuchs.

They would have been made eunuchs to be made wise men in the service of the king, which at first was the king of Babylon and then the king of Persia, the king of the Medes and the Persians. So what you have with the first example, there were eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb.

So these are men who are, they are physically unable to enter into matrimony and therefore have children. They would not even be able to consummate their union. Then you have those eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, which is a wicked practice if they were forced into that against their will.

That's a horrible thing. But nonetheless, now they are not able to be united with a wife. And so are not therefore going to be able to receive the saying concerning marriage, concerning the one flesh union that a marriage is supposed to be.

And then you have the third category, which is eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven. And that's not a command to do that. Like if you're going to become a person who is committed to the kingdom of God, well then you should probably go and castrate yourself.

And that way you won't be distracted by other earthly things and you can devote yourself fully unto the Lord. That's not what Jesus is saying here. But for those that have done that, have decided to live in celibacy, even to the point that they have physically altered themselves in a way that would prevent them from any kind of temptation.

Well, then they are not to receive the saying concerning marriage, but only those for whom it is given are to understand these things concerning what marriage is supposed to be, this one flesh union for life, and are to do so in honor of the Lord in keeping with his word.

This is what marriage is. And you actually don't have to read the Bible to know this is what marriage is. Civilizations that have not known the word of God have understood marriage to be between a man and his wife.

Now they might pervert that in some way. You have really domineering men or you might have, you know, the kind of polygamous structure where a man has multiple wives or something to that effect. But it is still understood by nature, by natural general revelation.

We understand marriage to be a union between a man and his wife. That's the way God had created it. And it is so ingrained in nature that you can know that just by observation. But again, as said in Romans 1 .18, as said in 2 Thessalonians 2, there are people who suppress the truth because they love their sin.

God created sex and he created it to be good, to be shared between a man and his wife in marriage. Anything else is sexual immorality. Let's finish there. We come to the close of this particular lesson in Matthew chapter 19 and we are coming upon Jesus' encounter with the rich young ruler in the latter part of the chapter, which we'll get to next week.

Prayer for Faithfulness in Marriage

Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we've read here and I pray it is a saying that we are able to accept and understand. Here is how God created marriage and we are to honor God with our marriages.

And we are not to try and break up anybody else's marriage or even try to redefine marriage. As said in Hebrews 13 .4, marriage is to be held in honor among all and the marriage bed is to be undefiled for the sexually immoral and adulterers God will judge.

Forgive us our sins and help us to live lives of holiness before you, following what you have said and you have commanded in your word to the glory of Christ. He who died for our sins, who rose again from the dead, who ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God.

If we are guilty of sexual immorality, we are promised forgiveness in Jesus Christ. If we turn to him, repent and confess our sins, he will forgive. Cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Lead us in paths of righteousness for your name's sake.

It's in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.