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TAPE 125
“A Discussion on Marriage”
Matt.19:1-12
Matthew in Chapter 19 opens up with these words..
Matt.19:1. “And it came to pass, [that] when Jesus had finished these sayings,”
We have of course come to Matthew having spent some considerable time in Luke’s record. All of that intervening period was covered by Luke from Luke.9:51 - Luke 17:19 and Luke recorded the journey that Jesus took up through Samaria and down to the region of Perea. “The Land Across”. This section of the Perean ministry is unique to Luke.
Now we are back to that point where Jesus is about to enter the land again from across the Jordan.
It is important to know now where he is because of the question that came to him in this chapter. The point where he is DOES make a difference.
Matthew.19:1. “And it came to pass, [that] when Jesus had finished these sayings, he departed from Galilee, and came into the coasts of Judaea beyond Jordan;”
Matthew appears to be a little astray in saying “Judea beyond Jordan” because Judea is not beyond Jordan! It is simply a poor translation. It reads in the Grk (Youngs Lit) “He came to the borders of Judea” He is about to go into Judea. Thats the point.
After one more incident he will make his way to Jericho and from there to Jerusalem for the last time for his crucifixion.
Matt.19:2 “And great multitudes followed him; and he healed them there.”
Note that this has now become GREAT multitudes! You see it is only a matter of DAYS before the Passover! The streams of pilgrims had already begun! The major journey (for Jews) from Galilee to Jerusalem was down from Galilee along the Jordan to Jericho and thence to Jerusalem.
The Pharisees could see the great potential of this moment to embarrass him. But stop and think! Matthew has just told us that he “healed them (all ) there!!” All the Pharisees are going to prove is how BLIND they are!!
Matt.19:3. “The Pharisees also came unto him,”
TWO things to note here! RSV and others delete the definite article. So what you say! So this! That this crowd came with a problem that faced ALL Pharisees everywhere! And secondly the region was where Herod Antipas ruled and HE had scandalously pinched Herodias , his brother Philips wife!! THAT was a scandal even among the ROMANS!
They knew very well the Lords teachings about marriage!! And this was the issue for which John had lost his life!! Something has to be done in order to discredit this man!
“tempting him,”
This word does not have the meaning that WE apply to it but rather “to put under trial!” They were desperate to embarrass him. To discredit him! And what a question to ask in THAT place!!
“And saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?”
The Lord is going to be put under pressure on THREE counts!
1) He is going to have to commit himself on marriage right here!
2) There are going to ask him if it was lawful FOR EVERY CAUSE to put away his wife and they knew that the Rabbis themselves were divided on that!
3) They had tucked away in their mind Deut.24:! They are going to get him to disagree with Moses!
They are CERTAIN that he has to say SOMETHING that will incriminate him!
We are going to talk about the Lord’s answer tonight. Its a wonderful answer!
This is not a subject we have sought out for the sake of speaking about it. Jesus was CONFONTED with it!
What we want to discover why it is so important for a man and a woman to remain together for life! And Jesus STRESSES that in this section! That’s where the stress is!
The union of a man and a woman is the FOUNDATION of human society!! There is NOTHING more basic than that!
The whole purpose os the production of a “Godly seed”. You break down that structure, and the whole structure collapses!
And the Lord was going to stress how important that union was. And he cared for no-one to the contrary.
And this was the question:
Matt.19:3. And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, "Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?"
And the stress would have been on “for any cause”. That was the real controversy amongst the Rabbins! Shammah and Hillel amongst the greater and Gamaliel amongst the more moderate. (In Jewish terms!).
The differences were these..
Shammah: “There was only ONE cause for divorce, and that was unchastity.”
Hillel was much more of a liberal. He taught that Divorce could occur for almost ANY cause! Burnt toast! Cakes without sugar! Meals not on time! Hillel believed really “Yes - For EVERY cause”!
The Lord was supposed to give an opinion about those two views. He never did! He gave the opinion of his Heavenly Father!
Matt.19:4 “And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read….”
That means that neither the opinion of Shammah or the opinion of Hillel was in the Bible!! Had it been he would have pointed to one or the other!
Now what did God say? Well Jesus is going to quote Gen.2; Just think about something. Just think about how unalterable this law is! The marriage of one man to one woman for life.
Consider again what the Apostle Paul says in Galatians 3. He points out that the Law is no longer applicable. Why isn’t it? There are many reasons amongst this one here.
Galat.3:17 “And this I say, [that] the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.”
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Now you might say “whats this got to do with marriage?” Paul is saying that God gave an unconditional promise to Abraham. (Gen.22). Now Pauls point is that if a LAW came 430 years AFTR that it CAN’T cancel that promise out!! PROMISE and LAW are OPPOSITES!!
Why did God then give a Law? Because He wanted to convince men of their NEED of the PROMISE! Therefore the Law had only a temporary, specific purpose!
For this reason Paul goes back to the BEGINNING! That’s where it matters!!
He is preparing them to see that Deut.24 could NOT make any difference to what was originally said!!
So Jesus took them back to the beginning.
What did the beginning say?
Matt.19:4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made [them] at the beginning made them male and female,”
Note very carefully that it does not say “He that had them married at the beginning made them male and female” It says “He that MADE THEM.” Marriage did not in the beginning consist of the enormous process that we make it today!! God CREATED the situation! What could be more FIXED!
Consider what Isaiah says in Is.54:
Is.54:5 “For thy Maker [is] thine husband; “ Creation and Marriage go hand in hand!!
There was no proposal by Adam and an acceptance by Eve! It was not an OPTION! God MADE them like that! You could not get anything more specific and more early in human activity than that!
“at the beginning made them male and female,”
Now the Grk is in the singular. Youngs Lit says he made them “A MALE” and “A FEMALE”. Now come to Malachi 2.
Mal2:15 And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed.”
God is saying through Malachi that He regarded Adam and Eve as ONE! And that He had Power still after that to have made more! Yet had he the residue of the spirit.
And then Genesis says “For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother and cleave unto his wife.” Now you may say “why does he have to do that??” Well he now has a wife and has to make his own way in life and give her all his attention.
But the crux of the issue is that as a married couple they have the right to pro-create! It is their choice! But there is a point here. Their CREATION supersedes PRO-CREATION! Those having children may consider them to be THEIRS! But it was GOD who began the process and to Him ALL belongs and is due!
Now a man therefore LEAVES those who pro-created him for the higher principle above. Thats how it was in the beginning!
A man was to “cleave” to his wife. The Grk is (4347) “Proskallao” lit “to be glued”.!! As a footnote in some of the old Grk versions, there is a note that the word means to be “cemented” !! And Jesus as it were “cements” the meaning…
Matt.19:5 : and they twain shall be one flesh?
Again we are presented with the “Creation Foundation”!
Consider the strength of Pauls point in 1.Cor 11 where he is counselling mean and women to live together and blend their lives together.
1.Cor.11:12 “For as the woman [is] of the man…” Now we know that the WOMAN brings forth the MAN! But Paul is going back to the CREATION FOUNDATION! Now, the WOMAN was IN that man prior to his side being opened!! Of course they are one flesh!! Paul gos on to say that every marriage is literally one flesh because they are NOT!! We are ALL the same flesh. But in the case of Adam and Eve it was literally true! It was NOT a case in Gods PLAN and INTENT at the beginning that a man should be presented with several partners and he choose the one that he preferred! His wife was in him already!!
Now the Lord goes on and the words he chooses are VERY carefully selected!
Matt.19:6 “Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”
Not WHO!! But WHAT!! It’s in the neuter gender! And its in the singular! What’s he mean by that? Being in the singular he is saying that it is a UNIVERSAL principle. Not “WHO” but WHAT that is ALL people!!
Imagine the Pharisees listening to all this and trying to tie it up with the teaching of Hillel and Shammah!! The record goes on to show that even the DISCIPLES were AMAZED by this teaching!
Matt.19:6 “…What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”
So Jesus is saying that “what God has glued together, let no man put a gap between them” Now the Pharisee’s think they’ve got him!! He is against the greatest teacher of all time!! Moses!!
Matt.19:7 “They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?”
What with Herod, Hillel and Moses they’ve got to get him on one!!
But they had made one HUGE mistake!! Why did Moses then command
Understand that both Rabinnical schools taught that you had a DUTY to divorce by Law in cases of fornication or adultery!
Moses made NO such command!! What Moses did was say “LET him…” He never said he MUST!
Deuteronomy.24:1. “When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some unclearness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give [it] in her hand, and send her out of his house.”
He did not say “command”! There was a reason why Moses said that under inspiration of God.
The first thing we’ve got to note is that if a man was so disposed to treat his wife like that, he has to put it in writing! Young’s Lit says “And he hath written for her a writing” Putting matters in WRITING is a practice carried out WORLD WIDE in law today! And justly so! The person who REFUSES to put his words in writing is immediately held under distrust! Very often the reflection involved in a person made to distil EXACTLY what they may have said in anger, makes them retract what they had said.
Now notice in this case of Deut.24 it is “if a MAN put away his wife..” These days of course its pretty much 50-50. Just remember that these were the days when a woman was VERY, VERY dependant upon her husband! Not like now AT ALL! In those days this was a supreme act of cruelty!! The matter of putting it in writing was a matter of protecting the wife as much as forcing the husband to think closely!! If he was prepared to deliberately bring this poor woman into this situation then he had to wrote that statement word, by word.
Deut.24:2 “And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's [wife].”
Deut.24:3 “And [if] the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and giveth [it] in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, which took her [to be] his wife;”
Deut 24:4 “Her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that [is] abomination before the LORD: and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the LORD thy God giveth thee [for] an inheritance.”
So, for the man, he may never,never,never take that woman again!! What did that mean?
It meant two things:
1) Men could not use a woman as a chattel. There was protection there for the woman who needed protection.
2) The man would have to be very, very sure that this was correct because once completed that was IT!
So the Pharisees came to him with that Law and said: “it was a commandment!” Jesus says “No it wasn’t!”
Matt.19:7 “They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?”
Matt.19:8 “He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.”
The reason WHY it was NEVER a COMMANDMENT was that it gave the man the chance all along the line to change his mind. You cannot do this with COMMANDMENTS!
So this matter of putting away is NOT a Commandment! Moses said that if a man felt so hard in his heart that he wished to pursue this then let him go away and think about it!
Come back to Mattt.19:
Matt.19:8 “He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.”
Moses makes two points:
1) It was because of the hardness of mens hearts.
2) It was to ALLOW..and NOT to COMMAND.
Lets take Point.1
1) Because of society today if a woman is put away, because of the structure of our laws, a woman can be BETTER OFF that way. This was NEVER the case in the days of Moses or even of Christ. It was a TERRIBLE thing to do to a woman!
Malachi makes the point that God hates “putting away” because of the CRUELTY of it!
Mal.2:16 “For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for [one] covereth violence with his garment, saith the LORD of hosts: therefore takeheed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously.”
THERE, plain as day, is the reason why Yahweh hates “putting away”!!
“: for [one] covereth violence with his garment,”
Or, as it is better understood…”he covers himself with violence like a garment!” And He saw these poor women drenching the altar with their tears! It is an AWFUL thing to see a man who has VOWED to care for this woman under ALL circumstances to fling her away!! God HATES that!!
This can be lost in the supposed “equality of the sexes”! There was no such equality in the days of Moses!
Matt.19: 8 He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts (cruelty) suffered you to put away your wives..”
It was never a COMMANDMENT! He SUFFERED it!!
Listen to some of the renditions in the Greek of “suffered” (2010) “Epitrepo”
“Given LEAVE”, “given LICENCE” To make a decision if so hard hearted!
So the Pharisees were not only WRONG but totally wrong from the beginning!!
And Jesus repeats the point he made at the beginning. .”from the beginning it was not so.”
The we read that contentious verse about what is called “The Exceptive Clause”. Brethren have had difficulties about that verse right from our formation. Even outside the brotherhood there are various opinions as to its meaning. We will not attempt to deal in depth with this verse in this series but suffice it to say the intention of the Lord was to emphasise the permanency and closeness of the married state to the glory of God. If we went to Marks record we wouldn’t find that clause there!!