The True Meaning of Christmas

 The following is a devotion I gave in Church after our annual kids' Christmas program:

I bet just about everyone here this morning has watched the Charlie Brown Christmas special at one time or other. At one point in the show, Charlie Brown yells out “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas all is about?” And Linus responds by reading the Christmas story out of the Gospel of Luke. This morning our kids have reminded us of what Christmas is all about.

I’d like to take just a few minutes now to put that story in a broader theological context. The Christmas story actually begins with an unfathomably powerful, intelligent and loving God who created human beings for mutual love and fellowship with Him.

Unfortunately, people—without exception—rebelled against their Creator by their thoughts, words, actions, and attitudes; destroying the very purpose for which they were created. You might almost say that human beings collectively extended their middle finger in God’s face saying, in effect, “We’re going to do things our way!”

So in his wrath, God did one of the worst things he could have done to us. He let us have our own way! He gave us up to follow our own desires, to live as we pleased, and to reap the natural consequences of our own rebellion. You might say he allowed us to stew in our own juices.

The result was generations of what has often been called, “man’s inhumanity to man”—murder, torture, slavery, rape, robbery, corruption, extortion, adultery, pornography, hatred, racism, drunkenness, physical and emotional abuse, vindictiveness, arrogance, callousness, lies, bitterness, greed, envy, gossip, self-centeredness, self-righteousness, refusal to forgive—and failure to show empathy, compassion and generosity. And above all else: failure to love, worship and give thanks to the God who created us and provides for us daily.

Our rebellion not only destroys human relationships; it destroyed our relationship with God. It destroyed the very purpose for which we were created! And every one of us have contributed to this stew to varying degrees. God allowed this insurrection in the hope that people would acknowledge the disastrous results of their rebellion and turn back to him.

But not so fast! The relationship was broken. Mutual love and fellowship are impossible when one party is in rebellion. Besides that, no amount of philanthropy or other good works could ever make up for rebellion against a holy God, or for the utter destruction that rebellion caused to God’s originally perfect creation.

And that’s where Christmas comes in! Rather than destroying his rebellious creatures—which may be what many of us would have done—the Gospel of John says that God became flesh and lived among us. God—in the person of Jesus Christ—was born as a baby in a manger and grew up in a world of corruption and oppression. On that first Christmas day he entered the stew of suffering that we created; and suffered right along with us. He willingly submitted himself to mocking, beating, and torture on a Roman cross as a sacrifice in our place. Jesus did this to save us from the eternal consequences of our rebellion; and to restore us to the purpose for which we were created. The good news is that all those who turn to Jesus Christ in repentance and faith will have their sins forgiven and be reconciled with God.

But there is a dark side to this “good news.” Those who persist in rejecting the love of God that was born in a manger on that first Christmas Day; and was later poured out on a Roman cross—those who unrepentantly continue in rebellion against their Creator; will face God’s wrath at the final judgment. The Gospel of John says, that "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on them."

All that is necessary to be saved from that wrath, is to renounce or “repent” of our sinful rebellion against God; and commit our life to Jesus Christ in faith. This faith is not about something we do. It is about having a heart of loving devotion dedicated to Jesus Christ above all else. Such faith—if it is genuine—always produces a desire to follow and obey him. If you have no desire to obey Jesus, you don’t have biblical saving faith. As the book of James says, faith without works is dead.

This faith does not guarantee freedom from trouble or tragedy in this life—in fact, it may sometimes make life harder—but it does give forgiveness of sins, peace and fellowship with God, a purpose for living, a sense of stability in a turbulent world, and a bright hope for life after death.

In the words of the Gospel of John, Christmas is the time when we remember that God—The Word—became flesh and dwelt among us. And that God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

According to Acts chapter 2, Peter had just finished preaching to a large crowd when he concluded by telling them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you, for the forgiveness of sins…” To anyone here this morning who has not committed their life to Jesus Christ in faith, that would be my plea to you as well.

 

The Gospel According to Jesus

 The following is a sermon preached at Randolph Baptist Church, July 25, 2021

We’ve been studying the book of Genesis for the past several weeks and one thing that keeps coming up is Abraham’s faith. My question this morning is, What does Abraham’s faith have to do with us living 4,000 years later? This morning I’m going to take a tangent for just one Sunday to talk more in-depth about faith.

      Among the scariest words in the Bible are the words of Jesus recorded in Matthew 7:15-23. The scene is the final judgment when people will stand before the judgment throne of God saying, Lord, we prophesied, and performed miracles and cast out demons in your name; and he will say to them, “Depart from me you workers of evil. I never knew you!” These are people who think God will welcome them into his kingdom. They will undoubtedly be shocked and terrified to find that they have been rejected!

      Way back when Moses and I were in high school, I remember thinking that if heaven and hell are real, there could be nothing more important than for me to know for myself how to go to one and avoid the other. I mean, someday we will all stand before the judgment throne of God and give account of our lives. The most terrifying thing in the world would be to hear him say, “Depart from me…I never knew you.”

That began a lifelong study—off and on—of what it means to “believe” or have “faith” in Jesus.

I’m now 67-years-old. After a lifetime of study, and listening to countless salvation sermons, I have come to the conclusion that much of what I was taught growing up was confusing or misleading at best, and sometimes flat-out wrong.

One problem is that most of the well-meaning preachers I heard, started with what Paul says about being saved by faith, and then they came up with their own definitions of what faith was—like “asking Jesus to come into your heart,” or “trusting Jesus to save you like you would trust a chair enough to sit in.” They were then puzzled when the Gospels seemed to teach something different. So in many of the churches I grew up in, the preachers rarely preached out of the Gospels. In fact, one of my pastors said, “There is precious little gospel in the Gospels!”

      But Paul called himself a servant of Jesus Christ! He based his theology of salvation on the on Jesus, so if we want to know how to be saved from the wrath of God at the final judgment, the place to start is where Paul started—and that is Jesus! If you start with Jesus, you will find that Paul’s theology of faith fits like a glove. Before we delve into this further,

LET’S PRAY

      There are two places in the Gospels where Jesus was specifically asked, What must I do to inherit eternal life? One of them is in Luke 10:25-28. Starting in verse 25:

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is written in the Law?” Jesus replied. “How do you read it?” The man answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

So in a nutshell, the expert in the Law of Moses asks Jesus, What must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus asks this expert in the Law of Moses, What does the Law of Moses say? And the man says, to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love your neighbors. Jesus says he has answered correctly. That is what you must do to have eternal life.

But what does that have to do with faith? One of my favorite Bible scholars is Dr. Darrel Bock from Dallas Theological Seminary. He is an expert on the historical study of Jesus and on the Gospel of Luke. Dr. Bock writes that verse 27 is an expression of total allegiance and devotion that in other contexts could be called faith. Bock continues, “At the heart of entering the future life”—i.e. eternal life—"is a relationship of devotion, a devotion that places God at the center of one’s spiritual life and responds to others in love…”^[1]  According to Bock, that is “faith.”

Bingo! Bock hits the nail on the head! According to Jesus, if you want to have eternal life, you need unqualified loving devotion to God that springs forth in love for others.

The twist in the New Testament is that Jesus says, “I and my Father are One.” To truly love God is to love Jesus with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. And that is exactly what we see in the next passage where Jesus is asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  We find that story in Mark 10:17-22. This same story, by the way, is also found in Luke 18 and Matthew 19, but we’ll just focus on Mark this morning. Mark 10 starting in verse 17 says:

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.

Now when Jesus says, “Why do you call me good?”… “No one is good except God alone” Jesus is saying that no one is always, absolutely good except God. Reading between the lines, I think Jesus is implying, “Are you just coming to me as a good teacher who can give you an answer to your question? Or are you coming to me as the “Good One” who can grant you the eternal life you seek?”

Jesus doesn’t wait for an answer. He continues in verse 19, You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”

“Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”

Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad because he had great wealth.

This command to sell everything is puzzling because Jesus did not tell everyone else to sell all they had in order to follow him. For example, in Luke chapter 8 when Jesus cast demons out of a man, the man begged to follow Jesus. Jesus didn’t tell that man to sell everything, or even to leave his home. In fact, Jesus told the man to return home and tell all the good things God had done for him. Jesus apparently didn’t tell Mary, Martha and Lazarus to sell their home either, since their home always seemed to be available to Jesus when he came to Jerusalem. Other examples could be cited but the question is, Why did Jesus tell this man to sell everything when Jesus had not made that demand of others?

The answer is that Jesus was testing this man. The man had claimed to have kept all of the commandments, so Jesus tested him on the very first Commandment which says, “You shall have no other gods before me.” Jesus was asking the man to demonstrate that he valued Jesus (the Good One, or God) more than he valued his possessions. The man’s response indicated that he valued his possessions more than he valued Jesus, the Good One. Contrary to the man’s claim to have kept all the Commandments, he failed on the very first one—he had other gods before Jesus.

So how, according to Jesus, does one inherit eternal life? By having no other gods before Jesus. In other words, by loving the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and loving your neighbor as yourself—which is exactly what Jesus said in Luke 10.

But that’s just two passages. Is this interpretation supported in the rest of the Gospels? Indeed it is. Let’s look at Mark 12:28-34, on page 1005 in your pew Bible. In Mark 12:28-34 a scribe came up to Jesus and asked, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” In verse 29, quoting from Deuteronomy chapter 6, Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” 

Actually, Luke’s version is more clear. Jesus responds saying, “do this and you will live.” On the subject of how to inherit eternal life, Jesus gives a very consistent answer: Love God—and Jesus says that he and the Father are One—Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. And that is exactly what the Old Testament taught.

And by the way, loving our neighbor as ourselves does not necessarily mean having warm fuzzy feelings for our neighbors. It is a heart attitude that leads to behaving longingly toward others—Treating others the way we would want others to treat us.

      Now many scholars would say that it is impossible to love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and your neighbor as yourself, therefore Jesus is simply pointing us to our need for him as a savior. But that idea is a misunderstanding of Paul, and is simply not found in any of the Gospels or the Old Testament. Jesus fully seems to expect that people can and should love God with all their hearts and their neighbor as themselves—not perfectly, of course. Only Jesus was perfect. And as we’ve seen in Genesis, even Abraham’s faith faltered at times and had to grow. But it is entirely possible to love God in such a way that he is first in one’s life so that there are no idols coming before Him. This is not an isolated teaching in the gospels. It is also found, for example, in Matthew 10, Matthew 16, Mark 8, Luke 9 and John 12 among others.

      Finally, in Luke 7:36-50, Jesus accepted an invitation to dinner with some religious leaders. They were probably eating in an open courtyard when a woman came in. She was known for her sinful lifestyle. In fact, her sinfulness is emphasized 4x in this short story. She comes to Jesus crying with tears streaming down her cheeks. She wet Jesus’ feet with her tears, wiped them with her hair, anointed them with perfume and kissed them.

The host—a religious leader named Simon—was indignant. If Jesus were really a prophet as people claimed, he would know what kind of woman this was and would not let her touch him! Sensing the host’s indignation, Jesus asked him whether someone would have more love for a creditor who forgave a debt of 500 denarii, or a debt of 50 denarii. The host, Simon, said the one who had been forgiven most would love the most. Jesus said that Simon was right. Jesus then pointed out that when he came to Simon’s home, Simon, a religious leader, had not even shown him the common courtesies that would be shown to any guest in that culture—some water to wash the feet, and a kiss on the cheek. But this sinful woman had shown amazing love and devotion by wetting Jesus’ feet with her tears, wiping them with her hair, anointing them with perfume, and kissing them continually.

Jesus then says, “Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much” (ESV). In other words, because of her repentant heart and the loving devotion she demonstrated toward Jesus, her sins were forgiven. When Jesus then said that her faith had saved her, he was defining “faith” as her repentant heart coupled with her loving devotion to Jesus.

Passages like these and others are why I define saving faith as a repentant heart attitude of loving devotion, dedication or allegiance to Jesus as our savior, lord and king above all else. But that’s a mouthful! Instead of giving such a wordy definition each time, the New Testament just uses shorthand words like “faith” or “believe.” So when the Gospel of John talks about “believing” in Jesus, or when Paul talks about faith in Jesus, that is kind of a shorthand for what Jesus taught about a repentant heart attitude of loving devotion to Jesus as our savior, lord and king above all else. This is why Paul wrote in First Corinthians 16:22, that “If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed.”

Perhaps Darrell Bock even put it better when he wrote, “At the heart of entering the future life is a relationship of devotion, a devotion that places God at the center of one’s spiritual life and responds to others in love…”^[2]. Bock said that in other New Testament contexts that heart attitude of devotion is called “faith.”

This raises some questions. First is, “Why should we love Jesus?” The biblical answer is because he first loved us. He died a torturous death on a Roman cross to pay the penalty for our rebelliousness and sin. Jesus himself said that his death would be a ransom for many. In other words, his death was for you, and for me! Our reasonable response should be loving devotion or faith in him.

My next question is Why would we believe someone who would demand absolute devotion and allegiance to himself? —Someone who claimed to be One with God! This sounds like a malignant narcissist or megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur! So why would anyone believe someone who talked like that? The fact is that most people didn’t believe him. Some thought he was nuts. Some thought he was a blasphemer. Some thought he was demon possessed.

But he did have a lot of followers, so why would ANYONE believe him? First, they believed because he didn’t talk or act like a crazy person. He was a very good teacher and could hold his own and even defeat his very educated opponents in rational debate.

      Second, they believed because they were convinced that he had fulfilled prophecies about a coming Messiah—Prophecies written long before he was born.

Third, they believed because of the phenomenal miracles he did—things that no one had ever done! No one in Jesus’ time denied that he did such amazing miracles. Those who did not believe just tried to explain them away as sorcery or demon possession, but no one denied that he did them.

Finally, they believed because they saw him alive after his death—in a fully healthy, resurrected, physical body. In fact, they not only saw him; they touched him, talked with him and even ate with him. They were saved because of their heart of loving devotion, dedication, or allegiance to Jesus. In other words, they had faith. They believed in Jesus.

      This is the kind of faith or belief a soldier has when they have a deep devotion and respect for their commanding officer and would willingly follow him anywhere—right into the valley of the shadow of death if necessary!

      So back to the question I asked at the beginning of this sermon, “What does Abraham’s faith have to do with us today.” The answer is that it is the same kind of faith. God came to Abraham, living in one of the most advanced cities of his time, and told him to go to a land of uncertainty. And Abraham believed God—and went. His faith moved him to obedience. Abraham’s faith journey had ups and downs, was often scarry and sometimes life-threatening, and his faith was not perfect, it sometimes faltered.

God is calling us to follow Jesus as he called Abraham. The journey will be uncertain, often scarry, and maybe even life-threatening. Like Abraham, our faith will not be perfect either. It will often falter. But according to Jesus, if you want to have eternal life, you need unqualified loving devotion to Jesus Christ that springs forth in love for others. The Bible calls that “faith.”

I’m not preaching this sermon because I think you all need to get saved. I’m preaching it because the better you understand the Gospel the better able you will be to share it.

But it is likely that in any group this size, there will be some who have never turned their hearts and lives over to Christ. I urge you by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for you, confess your sinful rebellion to God, and give your heart and life to Jesus Christ in loving devotion—as expressed on the back of your bulletin. In other words, repent and believe in Jesus. And then be baptized to demonstrate that you mean business with God and that your faith is genuine.

If you have questions or want to know more, please ask. If you’re not comfortable coming in person, my email address is in the bulletin.

LET’S PRAY

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[1] Bock, Darrell. Luke, 1024-1025.

[2] Bock, Darrell. Luke, 1024-1025.

Divorce and Remarriage

 

Divorce and Remarriage—Position Paper

How can a pastor possibly justify officiating in the wedding ceremony of someone who has been divorced? After all, Jesus was very clear, was he not, that divorce and remarriage are equivalent to adultery! This is a topic on which godly, Evangelical scholars and pastors disagree. This essay is my personal position on the issue of divorce and remarriage.[1]

              The united voice of the biblical writers is that God opposes divorce. Malachi goes so far as to say that God hates divorce. Jesus insisted that no one should separate what God has joined (Mark 10:9). Paul also insisted that people should not divorce (1 Corinthians 7:10). God’s intention was one man and one woman together until death.[2]

              On the other hand, according to Moses and the prophets, because of the hardness of people’s hearts, God Himself allowed divorce (Mt 19:8; Mk 10:5). When Jesus says that Moses allowed divorce, he was referring to Deuteronomy 24:1-3.[3] This passage forbids a man from remarrying his former wife after she had been remarried to another. The fact that divorce and remarriage were allowed was assumed and not even questioned.[4] Jesus—clarifying the true intent of the Law—says this allowance for divorce was made because of the hardness of people’s hearts. In other words, because some people are so wicked, so violent, so cruel or so utterly perverse, God sometimes allowed divorce.[5]

The real question is whether Jesus overturned the Father’s allowance for divorce. After all, Jesus overturned dietary laws (Mark 7:19)—did he overturn the allowance for divorce as well?

The answer to that question is not entirely clear. My position is that Jesus did not overturn the allowance for divorce. In other words, God still allows divorce for the hardness of people’s hearts. In the immediate context of Jesus’ prohibition of divorce and remarriage in Matthew 5 (in the Sermon on the Mount), Jesus says that he did not come to abolish the Law and Prophets (our Old Testament) and that not even the smallest part would disappear until all was fulfilled.

Although the New Covenant fulfilled and overturned the Old Covenant (the sacrificial system. See Hebrews 8-9), I see no reason to believe that Jesus had somehow fulfilled or overturned God’s allowance for divorce. People’s hearts are still just as hard now as they ever were. When Jesus said that not the smallest part of the Law would pass away, I am inclined to think that the Mosaic Law’s allowance for divorce did not pass away either.

When Jesus says that Moses allowed divorce for the hardness of people’s hearts, many people read that as if Jesus was correcting Moses to say that there should never have been an allowance for divorce (except maybe for sexual immorality). I propose that Jesus was not correcting Moses at all. Moses was, after all, speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit! Jesus was correcting the way Moses had been twisted into allowing divorce for any reason!

More specifically, I believe Jesus’ was reacting to at least two historical issues. One was the position of those like Rabbi Hillel who taught that men should be able to divorce their wives for any reason. In the Sermon on the Mount, which contains one of Jesus’ prohibitions against divorce, Jesus was teaching the true intent of the Law. In the case of marriage, the true intent of the Law was that marriage be until death. In Mark 10:10-12 Jesus goes back to the creation account saying that God made them male and female and that no one should separate what God has joined. Jesus was clear that even in the Old Testament, the allowance for divorce was never intended as an “easy-out” whenever someone became dissatisfied with their marriage or found someone else they wanted more. Jesus was clarifying the Law regarding divorce, not overturning the Law’s allowance for divorce.

A second historical consideration is a more specific application of the first. In Jesus’ time Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee, had gone to Rome to discuss affairs of state with Sejanus, the Emperor’s right-hand man. While in Rome, Antipas had an affair with Herodias, the wife of his half-brother, Philip. Antipas and Herodias agreed to divorce their spouses so they could marry each other. That way they could make their adultery “legal.” John the Baptist preached against this affair[6] which was apparently public knowledge. This was, I believe, the historical background behind Jesus’ prohibitions against divorce in Matthew 5:32, 19:7-9; Mark 10:2-12, and Luke 16:18. Jesus was insisting that to divorce your spouse so you could marry another—like Antipas and Herodias were doing—is still just as much adultery in God’s eyes as if you hadn’t bothered to go through the motions. In my view, Jesus was not even addressing a scenario in which a wife, for example, divorces her husband because of cruelty or other evil (the hardness of man’s heart) and then later marries someone else.

But many would object that this is simply not what these passages say! They would argue that Jesus was clearly overturning Moses’ allowance for divorce, for example, in Mark 10:10-12 which says, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.” That simply does not allow for divorce due to the hardness of man’s heart.

My response is that Jesus was known for his use of hyperbole or overstatement! It is something that made his teaching so provocative, powerful and memorable. So for example, in the Sermon on the Mount which contains one of the prohibitions against divorce and remarriage, Jesus also says, “Anyone who says, “you fool” will be in danger of hell fire” (Matthew 5:22). Yet Jesus was apparently speaking hyperbolically since he himself called people fools in Matthew 23:17. In the same context Jesus also talks about plucking out your eye and cutting off your hand if it might cause you to fall into adultery (Matthew 5:27-30). But Jesus was clearly speaking hyperbolically since even if you literally plucked out your eye, you’d still have another one to lust with. In the same passage, Jesus also commands his followers not to take oaths (Matthew 5:33-37). Apparently not even Paul interpreted Jesus literally since Paul took oaths (e.g. Romans 1:9; 2 Corinthians 1:23)! Most Evangelicals seem to have no problem swearing “to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God,” which is clearly an oath. They understand that Jesus was using hyperbole.

Similarly, very few Evangelicals would say that Jesus’ commands to “turn the other cheek” or not to “resist an evil person” in Matthew 5:38-39 should prohibit all Christians from joining the military, serving as police, or protecting their family. We understand that Jesus is speaking hyperbolically. In Matthew 6:19-21 Jesus specifically says not to lay up treasures on earth, and yet how many evangelicals have savings accounts and 401k's?  We understand that Jesus regularly uses hyperbole to make his points.[7]

Yet right in the middle of all this hyperbolic instruction is Jesus’ teaching not to divorce except for sexual immorality (Matthew 5:31-32), and many Evangelical pastors insist that this could not possibly be hyperbole but must be taken literally with no other possible exceptions. This seems a bit selective and inconsistent.

It is certainly true that in Jesus’ prohibitions against divorce there is either no exception given, or only one exception, i.e. for sexual immorality. But the Bible was not written like modern American law books in which every exception is specifically spelled out in the immediate context or in legal cross references and footnotes. In the Bible, we are expected to compare Scripture with Scripture.

For example, in First Peter 2:13-17, Peter commands believers to submit to the government. He mentions no exceptions. And yet Peter himself defied his government saying, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). The idea that God always comes first is assumed in First Peter 2 as it is in Romans 13:1-6, even though no exceptions to the command to obey government are mentioned in those letters.

Why would we think there might be exceptions to the prohibition against divorce? The evidence is admittedly slim. In Mark 10:10-12 Jesus taught, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.” This passage allows no exceptions. The same is true of Luke 16:18. So if all we had to go on was the Gospel of Mark or the Gospel of Luke, we would conclude that Jesus allowed absolutely no exceptions to his prohibition against divorce—and we would be wrong! In Matthew 5:32 and 19:9 Jesus says there is an exception for sexual immorality.[8] Matthew apparently knew there was more to Jesus’ teaching on this subject than Mark takes time to summarize. Surprisingly, in First Corinthians 7:15-16, Paul teaches that desertion is yet another valid allowance for divorce—and not only for divorce, but also for remarriage![9] How dare Paul add an exception to Jesus’ prohibition against divorce! Apparently, Paul either disagreed with what Jesus’ taught, or was ignorant of what Jesus taught, or (my view) Paul knew that there were more exceptions to Jesus’ teaching on divorce than the Gospel writers would later take time to summarize.[10]

Another possibility is the very disputed passage in Matthew 19:4-12 in which Jesus says that “anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” Jesus’ disciples respond saying that it is better, then, not get married at all, and Jesus tells them, “Not everyone can accept this word.” In his discussion of this passage, Biblical scholar, R.T. France concludes, “In the end any of these options comes to much the same result that Jesus will here be conceding that not everyone is able to maintain God’s high standard for the permanence of marriage—in other words, that divorce (other than as a result of pornea) may in some cases be permissible after all”[11] (“Pornea” is the Greek word for sexual immorality). Like France, I would interpret Matthew 19:4-12 as saying, if you divorce in order to marry someone else you have committed adultery. For others who find divorce necessary because of the hardness of a spouse’s heart, it is preferable that they remain unmarried, but not every divorced person is able to remain unmarried, and in remarrying, they have not necessarily sinned (I think, is one of Paul’s points in I Corinthians 7).

Two other considerations affect my thinking on this issue. First, according to Jesus, the second most important command in all of Scripture is the command to love one’s neighbor as oneself. In Galatians 5:14 Paul says that “the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command.” Certainly there are no “neighbors” closer than one’s children. If the only way to protect those children[12] from an abusive or dangerous spouse is by divorce, then, I believe Jesus would say that following the second greatest commandment by protecting those children, would take priority over the prohibition against divorce.[13]

A second consideration is admittedly even more subjective. Imagine two scenarios. In the first scenario, a woman whose military spouse was stationed overseas for a year, had a brief affair in a time of weakness. She quickly ended the affair and sincerely repented of her sin. In a second scenario, a husband regularly gets drunk, beats his wife and burns his children with cigarette butts. He absolutely refuses to seek help or to even acknowledge that he has a problem. I simply find it impossible to believe that if we could sit across the table from Jesus today, he would say that the first scenario is valid grounds for divorce but not the second scenario.

It is important to recognize that our decision on this issue may have serious pastoral consequences. Pastors who insist that Jesus prohibited divorce for any reason—or only for immorality—are often condemning people to live with malicious, evil and violent spouses who put them and their children in danger. One very prominent conservative, systematic theologian recently changed his view on this issue. After many years of teaching and writing, he now agrees with my conclusion. I’m glad for that, but one wonders how many lives he ruined over the years by telling the wives of abusive husbands that  they must never leave those husbands. The pastoral consequences of this issue are serious and sometimes have life-and-death ramifications.

My conclusion is that Jesus affirmed and strengthened the Old Testament teaching that marriage was intended as the union of one man and one woman until death. Divorce should never be considered just because two people “fall out of love,” become dissatisfied, or are “incompatible.” Marriage is a life-long commitment that can sometimes be lonely and painful—but God never promises a pain-free life, and following Jesus often leads to suffering! In such cases, pastoral or professional counseling may be helpful. Sometimes medication or temporary separation may be necessary. But the ultimate goal should be restoration of the marriage (1 Cor. 7:10-16). If someone is looking for excuses to get out of the marriage, they have already missed Jesus’ point.

Nevertheless, in cases when a spouse is exceptionally hard-hearted and all efforts at reconciliation fail, God allowed divorce. I do not believe Jesus overturned that allowance. That being the case, Paul’s admonition to widows and widowers that it is “better to marry than to burn with passion” (1 Cor. 7:9) would also seem to apply to those who are unmarried due to the hardness of their former spouses’ heart.

 

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[1] My position on divorce and remarriage has remained unchanged since I wrote a research paper on it in seminary over 30 years ago.

[2] Although God allowed polygamy, polygamy was not God’s ideal and every case of polygamy in the Bible was a disaster.

[3] That God allowed divorce, however, is also implied in the prophets like Hosea, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, which depict God as divorcing Israel because of Israel's persistent unfaithfulness to the covenant. If divorce was practically the unforgivable sin that some pastors portray it to be, it seems odd that God would use an illustration in which he would depict himself as committing that sin by divorcing his people, Israel! That God allowed divorce is much clearer in Ezra where Jews were commanded to divorce their foreign, idolatrous wives, and this was said to be according to the will of God (Ezra 10:11). Everyone agrees that in the Old Testament, God reluctantly allowed divorce.

[4] The reason for the law was presumably to keep people from using the divorce allowance as legalized adultery, i.e. divorce your wife so you can legally marry and have sex with another. Then divorce your new wife and marry your previous wife again—assuming she was financially bad enough off to have you (Historically, this has actually happened in some Islamic countries)!

[5] It does not mean that every time a divorce occurs it was because both spouses’ hearts were hard, as some pastors have erroneously taught! For example, I once heard of a case in which a woman’s husband divorced her because she got saved and would no longer go out and get drunk with him. Her husband even acknowledged that she was a good wife—he just wanted someone to party with. In this case, the woman’s divorce was due to her commitment to Christ, not from any hardness on her part.

[6] Matthew 14:3-4; Mark 6:17-19; Luke 3:19-20.

[7] A more graphic example is in John 6 where Jesus tells people they must eat his flesh and drink his blood in order to be saved!

[8] It is worth noting that Jesus’ stepfather, Joseph, was characterized as a “just” or “righteous” man even when he intended to divorce Mary from their betrothal commitment (Matthew 1:19).

[9] In First Corinthians 7:10, Paul said that a woman is not to leave her husband, but if she does…. Paul’s command not to leave her husband appears to be an ideal but not an absolute. In other words, she has not necessarily sinned by doing so. She is not to leave her husband but if she does, she is to remain unmarried. But Paul also says it is better to marry than to burn with passion, which leads me to believe that his command to remain unmarried is also an ideal and not an absolute.

[10] Paul, of course, was not referring to the Gospels themselves, since most, if not all, of the Gospels were written after Paul’s letters. But Paul was certainly aware of Jesus’ teachings.

[11] R.T. France. 2007. The Gospel of Matthew (New International Commentary on the New Testament). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 723.

[12] Jesus was particularly protective of children as seen in Matthew 18:6, Mark 9:42, and Luke 17:2.

[13] Unfortunately, this argument could easily be abused and turned in to an excuse to find a “biblical” reason for divorce. A vegetarian spouse, for example could argue that divorce is necessary to prevent the children from the “abuse” of being allowed to eat meat! That, however, would violate the point of Jesus’ prohibition against divorce. If someone is looking for an excuse to get divorced, they have already violated the intent of Jesus’ teaching.