Matthew 19:1-12 #3

Matthew 19:1-12 #3
The Pharisees came testing Jesus concerning the lawfulness of divorcing one’s spouse for any cause. Jesus surprised them by going back to Genesis and citing the law from the beginning. The Pharisees had concentrated their argument on the rabbinical interpretations of Deuteronomy 24:1-4. Please read that text carefully. The Jews understood this text to teach that if a man found some indecency or uncleanness in his wife, he was given a lawful right to divorce her. However, you will notice that there is nothing in the text that explicitly gives a law allowing divorce. The text simply says, “if.” This text is similar to many texts in the Law of Moses that are giving “contingency law.” For example, Exodus 21:26-27, states that if a man beats his slave and knocks out his eye or his tooth, he must let the slave go free. Now does this mean it is lawful for a man to beat his slave as long as he doesn’t knock out an eye or tooth? Is God condoning violence against a slave? Of course not. There is little doubt that the Lord will judge this kind of a master (Col. 4:1). The same is true in Deuteronomy 24. The text simply states that if a man divorces his wife and she marries another and then the second man dies or divorces her, she may not go back to her original husband. Nothing is said as to whether the divorce or the remarriage is acceptable to God. In fact, as Jesus has pointed out to the Pharisees, the words of the Lord in the beginning forbid divorce. Further, Malachi 2:13-16 tells us that the Lord hates divorce and that it is doing violence to one’s spouse. This should be enough to prove that Deuteronomy was not condoning divorce and remarriage.
Having said that, we do notice that Jesus said, “Moses allowed you to divorce your wives.” What was the “allowance?” It cannot be that God condoned divorce because Jesus said the allowance was “because of the hardness of your hearts.” Not only that, Jesus said that this allowance was not the law from the beginning. The word “hardness” means to be “hard, harsh, or mean-spirited.” The Jewish men were practicing harshness toward their wives, flippantly divorcing them so that they sought another husband, and then taking them back after the second man had died or divorced her. God could have just said, “You shall not divorce….” But in that He only placed a restriction, implied an allowance; however, the allowance was because of the sinfulness of the husbands. In other words, such divorces under the Law of Moses were not justified. See again Mat. 5:31-32.
Berry Kercheville