Divorce and Miscellany

Deuteronomy 24 and the Background to Marriage and Divorce

You'll turn with me, please, in your Bibles to the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 24. Deuteronomy, chapter 24. We'll continue, press forward, our task of working through this material in Deuteronomy, chapter 24.

But once again, let us ask the Lord to bless our time together. Our Grace, Heavenly Father, we once again look to your Word, and we once again seek your Spirit's assistance in understanding and making application of your truth.

Make us truly to be obedient servants of your truth, of your Word. May we have an attitude of respect toward your truth. You know, there are very few these days who show true respect toward, especially, sections of Scripture like this.

May we be amongst those who have a proper attitude as we handle that which is holy. We pray in Christ's name. We actually looked at a section of Deuteronomy, chapter 24, this morning, because it paralleled a preceding section, chapter 23.

So now we'll sort of backtrack a little bit and look at the preceding part of that chapter, beginning at the very beginning of chapter 24. 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 in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house, and she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man's wife, and if the latter husband turns against her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies, who took her to be his wife, and the former husband, who sent her away, is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.

Jesus, Divorce, and the Hardness of Hearts

Now, this is a text of scripture that most of us are familiar with, not because we're necessarily spending a lot of time reading through Deuteronomy on a regular basis, but because we spend more time reading in the Gospels.

And we are familiar with the fact that this is one of the background passages to all of the discussions that we find in the Gospels concerning the subject of marriage. Now, I'm not going to spend a great deal of time this evening going back over the subject of marriage, but I would simply point out that as soon as we read this, we cannot help but remember back to Matthew chapter 19.

And in that text, you have that encounter, we've discussed this as part of this study, because it's so relevant to the issue of man creating male and female, the nature of the family, the nature of marriage.

But just to remind you briefly of the reality of Matthew chapter 19, the Jews attempt to drag Jesus into one of the great battles of their day. It was a dispute between the two major schools of the day, the school of Hillel and the school of Shammai.

And the followers of Shammai, when they saw in verse one, the phrase, he has found some indecency in her. They understood this to be a technical term that would refer to an impurity that would be a covenant breaking impurity.

So there had to be a specific, serious grounds for the writing of the certificate of divorce. On the other side were the Hillelians. And the school of Hillel had basically adopted the idea that any kind of displeasure, even for what became very trivial reasons, could be grounds for the writing of the certificate of divorce.

I just happen to mention in passing how I have been struck over the past number of years. It's been 10 years now that I have been studying Islam. And I still remember the first time, just about five, six years ago, when I heard a Muslim basically criticizing Christianity because of its strict view on the subject of divorce and said that Christianity had strayed away from the law of Moses at this point and basically made the argument that divorce is a good thing and it makes people happy.

And obviously divorce and marriage is viewed very differently within the Islamic context. And again, it's primarily, certainly in Islamic lands, it is a male-dominated thing just as it was in the nation of Israel.

It just demonstrates to me once again that the author of the Quran had no earthly idea what the New Testament contained, had no earthly idea of the true teachings of Jesus. And if he had, he would have known what Jesus said about marriage and divorce.

He would have known what was contained in the book of Ephesians, about the subject of marriage and the relationship of the church and Christ, and so on and so forth, but clearly no knowledge of any of that whatsoever.

And we know that we have an inspired commentary on this particular subject from the lips of Jesus himself. When he was asked why Moses even included this section, his response was one that we should remember, because of the hardness of your hearts, the hardness of your hearts.

So we have to keep in mind that there are provisions of the law that were given obviously in recognition of the brokenness of the creation that the law is meant to provide guidance to and a boundary to.

And so even as we read it, I hope you caught the reality that what we have here is again a limitation. It's a limitation. Some people look at it, well, this is granting certain powers and rights to men that they shouldn't have.

Well, the reality was in that day, men already had all those rights. In every nation in the world, it was a patriarchal setup, and this was circumscribing and limiting that. And what you need to recognize is that what is really here is not giving of some type of authority to men that they didn't already have.

It is a limitation of that and a banning of the frivolous, easy way of basically trading women through the use of certificates of divorce. Because what is being said here is if you have divorced a woman, you cannot bring her back.

There's not going to be any trading, there's not going to be any circle of spouses going around, etc., etc., etc., which was not unknown in other lands. God says, no, this is a permanent thing. This is not to be done in the frivolous fashion of the nations around you.

So even something that Jesus said was given because of the hardness of their hearts, even that was meant to protect, to limit what mankind had already done in regards to this subject of marriage. And we must recognize that in this time period, when people say, ah, but look at polygamy, and look at all that kind of stuff that happened in the Old Testament.

Well, yes, there was. And if we do not take a pan-canonical, all the canon of Scripture together perspective, then we'll miss the fact that it was always God's intention, one man and one woman, and anything beneath that.

Even when God blessed a king with many wives, which was a sign of power to the nations around, even that, look at the result that it had. Look at the result in David's life. Look at the result in Solomon's life.

It was always degradation. It was always deprivation. It was never the highest. This was a step down, and God dealt with people. We're going to be, we're in Joshua right now, but guess what book is next in the canon of Scripture?

Judges. And there's some stuff that I'm really going to be hoping Brother Callahan's reading in Judges. Let's just put it that way. I'm just hoping that some of those chapters are nights when I'm going to be speaking, so he gets to read it or something, I don't know.

But there's some tough stuff in there. There really, really is. And yet God dealt with his people, even when his people did not have a lot of light, and were living at a level that, in light of the full revelation of Scripture, was well below what God's intentions for mankind in the fullness of his revelation truly would be.

And so even here, there is a limitation, an identification of this idea of going back to the same woman. This is an abomination before the Lord. You shall not bring sin on the land, which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.

So this would have been seen as a rather radical limitation in that day and age. And certainly, I'm sure many people did recognize the protection that it provided at that particular point in time. It is interesting that's immediately followed by verse 5.

When a man takes a new wife, he shall not go out with the army nor be charged any duty. He shall be free at home one year and shall give happiness to his wife whom he has taken. So there is a positive element here.

There is a recognition of the necessity of the creation of that relationship. And obviously, a desire that this is going to be a long-lasting relationship. The Old Testament, God says in the Old Testament, I hate divorce.

And here you have the positive command that for that year, he shall be free at home one year and shall give happiness to his wife whom he has taken. Now, I'm not sure if this is really the ancient equivalent of maternity leave or some type of new nuptial leave or just what it is.

But it, again, was meant for the covenant people of God and gives a higher view of marriage than certainly was the common view of the people of that day. Then we have another one of those wonderful sections, which in the New American Standard are called sundry laws.

But once again, I think there is something that ties all of this together. And in this section, we have the concept of pledges. So in verse 6, no one shall take a hand mill or an upper millstone and pledge, for he would be taking a life in pledge.

Now, why would that be? Because these are necessary items for the production of food. And so if you take that as a pledge, if you take a hand mill, then you can't use it any longer. If you take the upper millstone, it can't work without.

The lower millstone can't work without the upper millstone. So in other words, you do not take as a pledge. If someone is so poor that all they can give you as a pledge is that which is necessary for the maintenance of their life, for the production of their food, you don't take it as a pledge.

Because as it says, he would be taking a life in a pledge. The person is, in essence, saying, I will place my life in your hand as a pledge for some type of financial transaction amongst people of Israel.

You're not to do that. You're to recognize the position of that person. And what I think is interesting here is connect this together with verse 10 and following. Listen to this. When you make your neighbor alone of any sort, you shall not enter his house to take his pledge.

You shall remain outside, and the man to whom you make the loan shall bring the pledge out to you. If he is a poor man, you shall not sleep with his pledge. When the sun goes down, you shall surely return the pledge to him that he may sleep in his cloak and bless you, and it will be righteousness for you before the Lord your God.

Justice, Wages, and the Value of the Poor

So there is a... Well, I think it really sort of continues on with the next section. You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your countrymen or one of your aliens who is in your land and your towns.

You shall give him his wages on his day before the sun sets, for he is poor and sets his heart on it so that he will not cry against you to the Lord and it becomes sin in you. So what ties all of this together?

Well, it seems that, well, why couldn't you go into the house? You're to wait outside for the pledge, and you're to return it by nightfall, and you're to pay the poor man. What is all this doing? It is providing a prohibition against the dehumanization of the poor amongst the people of Israel.

It's not denying them the possibility of being able to advance themselves. Sometimes you had to take even a small loan to be able to accomplish something, something you'd be giving a pledge for, but the point was that you were not to be looked down upon.

You were not to be dehumanized. You were not to be made fun of or made a lesser human being by someone who has more by the way that you're treated. So you're to be paid promptly. If you work for someone, then you're to be paid promptly.

You're not to keep their wages overnight because that may be the very money that they're going to feed their family with or feed themselves with. And so there is to be prompt payment for services due.

And the whole idea here is, once again, you're living in a community. You're living in a covenant community, and there is to be a demonstration of respect for each person, no matter what their financial or social status might be.

Well, there is an attitude here that's exactly opposite of what we see in all the prophets, but especially in the minor prophets. When you listen to what the minor prophets say to Israel, it is the arrogance of the rich.

It is the oppression of the poor. It is the oppression of the alien and the widow and the orphan, the very people that the law provided for, that the prophets are constantly saying, this is what is bringing judgment from God against the people of Israel.

Yes, their idolatries and everything else, but it all seems to go hand in hand. You stop worshiping the one true God, you start behaving like the idols that you're now worshiping. And so you have here a rather strong assertion of the human value of each individual and the fact that even when you are the one lending and you are the one taking the pledge, that there is to be a respect for that individual's home.

There is to be a respect for the work that that individual has done. And it says, you shall give him his wages on his day before the sun sets, for he is poor and sets his heart on it so that he will not cry against you to the Lord and it becomes sin in you.

And so there was clearly an understanding that the poor could cry out to the Lord and cry out for justice and he is going to hear their cry. Something we hear all the time, not only in the prophets, but in the Psalter as well.

And you don't want them to cry out to God in that way. And so there is to be an understanding that there is to be respect shown in whatever situation you find yourself in and there is to be justice done.

This idea of withholding wages, the idea of uneven scales, cheating your workers, things like that, totally against what the people of Israel are to follow in their treatment of one another. Now, verse 16 is a text that has, once again, an apologetic application.

I should let you know this. Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers. Everyone shall be put to death for his own sin. Now, what would you imagine the apologetic utilization of this verse might be?

Well, those of you who know me and know the groups I specifically deal with could probably guess that. This is a text that is frequently cited by my Muslim friends. Now, why would Muslims be citing this?

Well, because Surah 4, 157 in the Quran, denies that Jesus Christ died on the cross. And so there is no crucifixion, hence there is no burial, no resurrection, no atonement, no gospel. And as a part of the polemic against the need for atonement, very frequently this verse will be utilized.

Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers. Everyone shall be put to death for his own sin. And so the idea being there cannot be substitution. No one can take your place according to the law.

There cannot be someone else who takes your place. So Jesus could not take the place of guilty sinners and therefore the whole Christian concept of the cross is opposed to the Old Testament text. And of course, this would also be a text that would be utilized by who else?

By Jewish apologists as well. There are very strong Jewish apologists who argue, and of course their biggest advantage is how little most Christians know about the Old Testament, lamented many times the fact that most evangelicals are canonically challenged when it comes to the Old Testament.

And so this will be a text that they will utilize. And in fact, I would assume that in history, the Muslims became familiar with this text, began to utilize it because they read it in Jewish polemic works against Christianity.

I know that's been the case in a number of other instances. So does Deuteronomy 24 -16 provide a problem here? Well, first of all, we need to understand what is being said. You'll notice that it's in the context of taking pledges.

It's in the context of justice. The very next verse says, you shall not pervert the justice due an alien or an orphan or take a widow's garment and pledge, but you should remember that you are a slave in Egypt, that the Lord your God redeemed you from there, therefore I am commanding you to do this thing.

And so there is not to be a perversion of justice amongst the people of Israel. And obviously, putting a father to death for the action of a son or putting a son to death for the action of a father would be a perversion of the justice, not only due to an alien or orphan, but to everyone.

To transfer the appropriate punishment provided by the law to someone else would be a perversion of justice, except in one case. And that is, obviously, if it is done voluntarily and the one who does so is not under the curse of the law himself.

Because you see, in that situation, we're not talking here about the universal condemnation of sin. We're not talking here about how God holds men accountable in a federal headship fashion. That was already an established reality amongst the people of Israel.

In fact, we could just throw in, since it's not a text I would have thought of, but we just happened to read it, but the story of the building of the altar. What was the concern of the tribes in the land for what Reuben and Gad and the half-tribe Manasseh had done?

I'm testing you on the scripture reading this evening. That's probably not fair. I realize that. But if you were listening carefully, I see that hand back there. But if you were listening carefully, then you recognized that the concern was, if you all do this, the Lord's wrath is going to come upon whom?

All of us. The whole nation. Not just you guys. There was a recognition. And they had already seen that happen. What happened with Achan? What happened when they went against Ai because of the sin of one man?

So they already recognized. And had seen function more than once the concept of federal headship. But that's not what this is talking about. This is talking about the law says this person must die. And then you pervert justice by, and who knows what the reasons would be, the paying of a bribe, whatever it doesn't say.

But the point is, one person is to die under the law and you change it to somebody else. That has nothing to do with how God is dealing with sinners as a whole who are guilty of eternal sins against him and are not right with him.

So what is actually being talked about is a specific concept of justice. And that is, justice is to be pursued. You shall not pervert justice, is what the very next verse says. But it is not a perversion of justice.

When the judge and the substitute, who is not under the judgment of the judge, together choose to provide atonement and forgiveness. Any more than it was wrong for God to have established already at this point in time the sacrificial system that was going to point to that.

But there's one other way of responding to this that I think might be very useful. The atonement is not a matter of justice. It's a matter of mercy. You must understand that grace and mercy transcends strict categories of justice.

Now, God remains just because his law is fulfilled. But you can't draw a parallel to what Christ does amongst humanity because all of humanity is under the just judgment of God. None of us have a life we can give for someone else because our own life is on the line for our own sin.

What Christ does and what the Father does, I think the best way, if I were to have someone raise this to me, and I have obviously had people raise this to me, is to go from here to Romans chapter 8 and go straight into the law court.

And that gives you a tremendous opportunity with either Jew or Muslim to emphasize the freedom of both the Father and the Son in the roles that they take in Christ's self-giving. That it is the Father as judge who, while protecting his justice, is exercising mercy and grace, and the Son as sacrifice, who likewise has that eagle's eye to the maintenance of strict justice in regards to God's law, and yet transcending that strict justice, provides mercy and grace in the person of himself.

So it's God that provides. There is no parallel to that in Deuteronomy 24 -16. There can't be because all the fathers and all the sons that are in view here are sinners under the wrath of God. This isn't some issue of substitution.

This is an issue of the perversion of proper justice within the law court of the people of that day. And so everyone shall be put to death for his own sin. So one of the two things is going to happen.

Either you're going to be put to death, or you need to find a substitute who isn't a part of this group. And there's only one of them. And he was perfect, and he was sinless, and he was virgin-born, and there's a reason for all of that.

So I would take this text, if it is raised to me, and use it as an opportunity to introduce people to the glorious truth of how mercy and grace do not do away with justice. You have to be very careful at this point.

The Muslim needs to have it emphasized that God's justice and holiness must be fulfilled because from their perspective, God can simply just wink at sin. He can just, his justice is not, his law can remain broken, no atonement.

Sin, unforgiven in the sense of no, it's never being made right. There's all sorts of evil that happens in a law's creation that has no purpose. It does not glorify him, and there is no rectification in the final analysis.

It's just winked at and brushed away. And we must recognize, we believe in the absolute necessity of the fulfillment of God's justice, which is why atonement had to be made. But that doesn't mean that mercy and grace can be simply understood within the categories of strict justice.

Strict justice is fulfilled because of the fulfillment of the wrath of God against the substitute. But the willingness of that substitute based upon his absolutely unique character and nature is what opens that glorious door to mercy and grace.

And so whether it be the Jewish person who probably, let's be honest with ourselves, probably has a rather twisted misunderstanding of what the gospel is and understandably so. I mean, if you were raised within a very strict Jewish context, there's going to be two major things that are going to be in the way.

One is going to be what you see of Christianity around you, which is a babbling mess. Let's be honest, is it not? If you can't tell the difference between Billy Graham and Benny Hinn and you just assume that all that's Christianity, in all probability, you're not going to have much of an understanding of a meaningful gospel presentation that is based upon all of scripture, not just the New Testament.

In other words, one that takes into consideration, understands Old Testament categories and can speak to a person whose only familiarity is with that precious scripture. So there's that problem. And then the other problem is the reality of history.

There is a huge barrier of many, many Jewish people have been told the stories from the time they were young of the pogroms and the crusades. And if you think the crusades are only something relevant to Islam, you haven't read much about the crusades because the crusaders generally on their way over to fight the Muslims, ravaged the Jews on the way, just for the fun of it or for the money of it.

And to them, the cross is a repugnant symbol. It's a symbol of persecution. And it truly, I mean, if there's any situation where we have to recognize we are dependent upon the spirit of God to open hearts and minds, that's going to be it.

But there is, I think, an open door. If we know texts like this, if we can demonstrate some understanding of the Old Testament text and then make meaningful application to tremendous passages, like Romans chapter 8, there is a tremendous opportunity, I think, of reaching out to them.

And I don't want us to be afraid. Most of us, I think, when the opportunity presents itself, would be willing to give a word of testimony to your standard American pagan, which sadly is the description we must use for our culture these days.

But I think in many situations when there is a religious issue, and especially with Islam and Judaism, we hesitate because of the complexities of the conversation that might ensue. And so I hope that in looking at texts like this, in all of these texts we've been looking at, that having that familiarity and seeing what the connection is will encourage you to engage the conversation and to bring someone quickly into, not artificially into, but make the connection and bring them into such tremendous passages as Romans chapter 8.

I cannot imagine that more than half a percent of either your Jewish or Muslim contacts, in wherever we might be, have ever heard Romans chapter 8. When I'm speaking of Romans chapter 8, I'm speaking of after the golden chain of redemption, where it talks about who should bring a charge against God's elect, God's the one who justifies, who produced Christ, the one who died, yea rather is raised, and no one separates us from the love of Christ, and so on and so forth.

That section about the law court where God justifies, the son dies on our behalf, that is a tremendous place to bring someone to. Imagine what it's like to live your entire life and have never read those words.

To you and I, they're precious words because we understand what they mean, we cling to them for life, but think about what those words are like when you've never heard them before. What kind of tremendous import they could carry, especially if they are read to you, they are given to you by a believer who is clearly demonstrating a concern for you and a love for you, and says I will pray for you, here's my number, if you have any other questions, I would love to be able to talk to you, puts themselves out there.

What a powerful witness that can be, and that's where you and I come in. You and I, it's one thing for us to have a good solid theological foundation, but that means we of all people should be the ones that have the most confidence to engage those conversations, and to introduce these truths, and to be ready to do the follow-up in the proclamation of that gospel truth.

And so as we look at these texts, I hope we yes, understand how to utilize them in regards to what's going on in our society today, and giving responses and so on and so forth, but also if it doesn't result in our being better servants of Christ in the sense of being more willing, and able, and capable in proclaiming the gospel, well then we're missing part of the most important element of why we're engaging in this particular study.

So I hope to encourage you in that way. It is truly a tremendous thing. And if you have any questions as to the value of that kind of interaction, let me just close by mentioning, I haven't had really the opportunity of mentioning this, but at the end of the debate that I did in London a week ago Friday, or was it two weeks ago Friday?

Oh, whatever. When you fly that far, it's okay. You can lose days or weeks in the process. It's all right. But we had a debate on a Friday night in a place called Kensington Temple in, well, Kensington, London, obviously.

And it's amazing to be in a city where everything is just so steeped in history, and much of it goes long before our country is even founded. But it was a tremendous evening, a very good conversation between myself and a man named Adnan Rashid.

And afterwards, though, I was talking with a very large number of people. They eventually had to just drag me out. And I wanted to keep talking with everybody, but they sort of needed to close the place up.

But a young man was standing there, and he asked me to sign a book, and we started talking briefly. And he said, three years ago, I was a Muslim. And I am a follower of Jesus Christ today. And it was the debates that you've done that led me to become a follower of Christ.

And some people will say, well, avoid the polemics. Don't talk about the, don't even raise the issues that are being brought up by our society today in regards to marriage or sexuality or things like that.

If you don't take advantage of the opportunities given to you, God will bless his truth. God will bless his word. If we're consistent with ourselves, we believe God has an elect people. And what did Paul say?

I endure all things the sake of who? The elect, the elect. Now, did he know who they were? Well, I don't know who they are, but I know God has them. And therefore, I can proclaim the gospel to anyone.

I don't have to, I don't have to shave off the rough edges. I don't have to compromise anything. God will use his truth. And he is doing, he's continuing to do that. We may have to live in days where that only happens a certain period of time.

The ground may be rough, and there may be just a few plants that spring up, but all the rejoicing that should be ours when we see the Lord drawing his people unto himself. He uses his word. It remains powerful.

God hasn't gotten weak over the past couple of thousand years. His word remains strong. Let's pray together. Our heavenly father, we do thank you for your word. And we thank you that it provided a curb.

It provided a restraint upon your people. It protected. You were so wise in how you gave it to your people at that time. And yet it continues to speak to us to this day. As we look at it, as we study it, may we honor it.

May we, under the light that is given in the coming of Jesus Christ, understand it and see it. Make application of it. When given the opportunity, as it comes under attack, as it is abused and misused, may we stand in its defense and see that it remains the word of God and see you use it to draw your people to yourself.

We thank you for the preservation of your word. We thank you that we have the freedom to be here this evening to consider it once again. May we not forget. May we be good servants of yours in this coming week.

We pray in Christ's name.