Marriage is Sacred

The marriage is a great physical picture for us to understand the spiritual relationship we have with the Lord. A husband cares for his wife, he prepares a place for her, she wants for nothing that she needs. Christ has done, is doing and will do the same for His church, His bride.

Jesus goes back again to the Law that the Jew knew. The Law was very easy to understand on the surface. Do not murder. That is easy. Dot not commit adultery. Check, I haven't ever cheated on my wife. But Jesus took it a step further. It was now an issue of the heart. If you hate you have committed murder. Oops! Guilty! If you lust you have already committed adultery. Again, guilty!

But the portion of Law that Jesus went to was concerning divorce.

"Furthermore it has been said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.'" Matthew 5:31, NKJV

Very easy. If one wants to divorce, get a divorce certificate. Simple enough. But no. The Lord says that there is something deeper.

"But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery." Matthew 5:32, NKJV

So if the end result of a divorce causes adultery, why was it prescribed in the Law? Let us first go to Matthew 19, where Jesus discusses divorce with a Pharisee.

"The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?" Matthew 19:3, NKJV

It is an honest question. It is possible that the Pharisees had heard the teaching from Matthew chapter 5 and wanted to trap Jesus, simply because Jesus questioned the Law. So after a time they came to Him to test Him. Jesus answers:

"And He answered and said to them, 'Have you not heard that He who made them at 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 then they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no man separate.'" Matthew 19:4-6, NKJV

When in doubt, go back to the beginning; go back to the Bible. The Lord is our ultimate example and instead of using His own words (I know that sounds weird) He went to Bible to back up what was being said. The the Pharisees came back with another question:

"They said to Him, 'Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce and to put her away?'" Matthew 19:7, NKJV

Jesus again has the answer, and we will have ours as well.

"He said to them, 'Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.'" Matthew 19:8, NKJV

This is their answer, Moses allowed it because of hardness of heart. This is our answer, Moses allowed it. Divorce was not written into the Law of God. This was not a part of God's plan from the beginning as Jesus pointed out. Jesus even visits a point that I have been trying to make since I began this study. Everything starts in the heart, murder and adultery were just the first two instances. But divorce was invented by man to deal with the hardness of heart. Later in the Jewish history, the Lord uses this same system to deal with the Jews. He divorces them. they become a product of their own hardness.

"Then I saw that for all the causes for which backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce..." Jeremiah 3:8, NKJV

Even in this divorce, the Lord waits. He is patient, He waits for his beloved wife. But she commits adultery. Even the Lord waited for the event of adultery to divorce. Yes Israel was hard of hear and unloving toward their God. But He always loved them. It was adultery that separated them. Even in the divorce, God did not remarry, He did not find another wife. He waited for Israel to come back to him. Divorce was not the intent of God when he created man. From the beginning the Lord intended for a marriage to be for a lifetime.