New Thoughts (11/25/05-11/27/05)
The parallel verses for this passage bring in their wake an opportunity to compare what Jesus taught regarding divorce with what Paul later taught. There are those who even to this day will question whether Paul’s teaching was in line with the Gospel, just as there are those who insist that Peter’s, John’s and Paul’s teaching, such as we have them, are so very different. It is a symptom, I suppose, of that mindset that assumes that the further removed we are from events the better positioned we are to judge what really happened. Such a mindset must consider an eyewitness the least reliable source of all, yet their voices are given credence all the same.
But, let us consider this case of conflicting directions, if such they be. What Jesus taught on the subject is clear enough. He had one message: that the only acceptable cause for divorce was infidelity, adultery, for by such acts the participating partner was so wholly defiled as to be beyond reclamation. That message is not only loud and clear in this early teaching, but is repeated much later in His ministry. Continued experience of life had done nothing to water down His views of righteousness. In fact, He says, so permanent is the stain of this sin that even the one who marries this one who has been divorced becomes stained with that sin as well.
Before I turn to look at Paul’s teaching on this matter, I want to be clear about one thing here. Since Jesus speaks very strictly about such divorce as is legitimate in the eyes of God, there can be no thought of a victim of divorce. If there is any such victim, it is that one who has written out the documents. The one who has been divorced cannot be construed as victim, for in every legal case of divorce, this is the one who has been unfaithful, who has been polluted by acts of physical intimacy outside the bond of wedlock. As these are the only cases Jesus has in view, we must likewise understand that the aftermath He speaks of is restricted to the same set of cases. If one has been sent away by divorce for this only legitimate reason, the defilement that caused the divorce remains upon him or her. Remarriage to another cannot erase the record. It changes nothing on the part of the remarried, and indeed draws this new partner into the same defilement.
Can I declare with absolute confidence that this limitation of application is valid? I don’t know with absolute certainty, no. But, the flow of this teaching makes it reasonable to believe that the injunction against remarriage applies strictly to these legitimate causes of divorce. Nothing is directly taught about what is required of that one who has been divorced for any of the myriad other grounds men had devised for themselves. If they have not truly done anything in God’s sight that would justify the divorce, can they truly be held guilty of sin by Him who is Just? Have they, after all, initiated this illegal proceeding? Not at all. It would seem that a Just God, looking upon one who upheld their part of this marriage covenant and yet found the covenant broken by one over whom they have no control, must judge that party innocent of sin in the outcome. Why, then, would the injunction which Jesus places on the legitimate object of divorce be expected to apply to the innocent object?
I can well imagine that it was just such concerns and needs for clarification that led up to Paul’s message on the matter. The question then becomes whether there is anything in what he taught that can be construed as contradicting the message of Jesus, either in explicit statement or in intent. What does Paul have to say, then? He begins by clearly stating that husband and wife are not to be separated. Period, end of discussion. He removes even the cause of infidelity. There is no legitimate reason to initiate divorce. That’s pretty much the message. Has this conflicted with Jesus? Not really. While He allows for this one legitimate cause of divorce, He also makes clear, albeit on another occasion than this, that this cause was not part of God’s original intent (Mt 19:7-9). Asked why Moses made provision for divorce (doubtless in response to this teaching that there could be no cause for divorce), Jesus makes clear that divorce was not in the original package, but was something Moses permitted because of the hard hearted fallen men he had to deal with. With that, He largely reiterates the message we have here. Should a man divorce his wife for any reason other than infidelity, his remarriage becomes adultery to him. Why? Because his divorce is not legal in the sight of Him who is the only meaningful Judge.
Returning to Paul’s message (1Co 7:10-15), we find that he also allows an escape clause of sorts. Should there be a separation, then those separated ones must not enter into marriage (either by actual marriage, or by the acts which consummate the marriage), and should instead be reconciled. This particular clause would seem to answer the excusable cause often cited by the modern Church, that spousal abuse is reason for divorce. While it might certainly lead to a separation, the truth of the matter is that people can change. If they cannot then we must likewise forsake all hope for our own condition. It is possible that even that abusive partner may find salvation and be changed into a new creation. Reconciliation is never the impossibility it seems at the time. Until and unless such change and reconciliation comes, Paul leaves it as incumbent upon both partners to remain faithful to one another even in separation.
One senses one of the reasons for his message in Paul’s next turn. Here was something that was peculiar to this new Gentile congregation that had been accepted into Israel. Here was the first group that was not born into the family of God, but had been adopted, and in many cases, there were preceding marriages that now seemed questionable to the reborn. If being unequally yoked was such a great danger to faith, should not these marriages that bound believer to unbeliever be dissolved, and the new life made that much newer? No, says Paul! There has been no unfaithfulness here. Therefore, there can be no legal grounds. In fact, he offers a very noble reason to persevere: That one who has come to belief, by their belief, has sanctified the relationship. Both partner and offspring are sanctified by the presence of the believer. This certainly seems in keeping with what Jesus has said. There is no cause here for divorce, so you are not to pursue it.
What remains from Paul’s teaching is a covering of the other side of the situation. What is the Christian to do if an unbelieving partner initiates divorce proceedings? Must the Christian do all within his or her power to block those proceedings? Paul does not, in this case, draw a clear and unambiguous line to define how far the Christian ought to go, and where the Christian must stop. Rather, he makes it clear that there is no sin upon the believer in this case. The covenant has been annulled by the act of the unbeliever, and as there has been no just cause against the believing partner, no sin can accrue to that partner. This seems to be in keeping with the teaching of Jesus and the justice of God. Now, while it remains unsaid, I think it clear that neither Jesus nor Paul would condone their hearers taking this message and making of it an excuse to make their home such a living hell for their partner that they would of course seek any way out of that marriage they could find. That is not a course available to a people whose mission is to rescue those in darkness.
I think, in examining these two messages, that we must recognize that they are in no way at odds one with another. What Jesus forbids, Paul in no way condones. What Paul sees as a release from covenant, Jesus is not seen maintaining as still in force. While the specifics of the message are as different as the cultures they address, the underlying doctrine remains unified and intact.
Turning my attention back to what Jesus is saying here, it is clearly along the same theme as the surrounding portions: Righteousness is a heart matter, not an act. One could almost here an addendum to each of these ‘you have heard’ statements, saying, ‘and you have thought you were doing fine.’ It is this false belief in a false righteousness that Jesus is most concerned with. You thought you had it covered, because you have scrupulously avoided being found with another woman. Yet, this is no righteousness, it is merely cowardice and self-preservation. The truth of the matter is that great swaths of your daily thought pursue just such activities, but you are too fearful to act upon them. In that you dwell upon these things, have you not already committed your desire to having them? Have you not already put yourself on that path? Already, the law of righteousness is abandoned, and now only civility restrains you. It is no thought for God or His Law that keeps you from acting on your lusts, but only fear of what it would do to your standing with your fellow man. There is no righteousness in that.
If you would hear the thoughts of one truly righteous, you might start with Job, of whom God said there is not another to be found like him, for he was a blameless and upright man, a righteous man who thoroughly turned himself from evil (Job 1:8). This man, beset as much by the counsel of his friends as by the machinations of Satan, was able to declare something of himself that I doubt many could say today. “I have made covenant with my eyes” (Job 31:1). What a powerful statement is this! What is more, he was determined to keep that covenant. Why? Because he understood God, and he knew how important his own righteousness was to his well-being. Even in the midst of the horrible circumstance in which he found himself, even with his closest companion advising that he curse God and die rather than suffer what was his present lot, he was concerned to uphold righteousness, because he knew he could trust God in spite of all this present difficulty.
Thinking about this, I am struck by the parallel to what Jesus is saying here, yet not the parallel to verse 28, where I was referred to Job, but to what follows in verse 29: If your eye leads you to sin, remove it! Make covenant with yourself! Commit yourself on penalty of destruction to pursue the righteous way. Remember that seal of covenant, “so may it be done to me, should I break this covenant.” It was declared over the sundered bodies of the sacrifice by which the contract was sealed. “How could I allow myself to contemplate a virgin for purposes of personal pleasure?” It is a covenant relationship he has established with himself, and he is bound to its terms, either to abide by its rule, or to pay the penalty inherent in disobedience.
This is really what Jesus is driving at in the middle portions of his message to us. Make covenant with your eyes. If they cannot abide by that covenant, then destroy them. Make covenant with your limbs. If they will not abide by the Law of righteousness, do not suffer them to have further dealings with the body. Paul would put it this way, “don’t let your limbs become tools of the enemy!” For Job, it was simply, “How could I?”
As Job continues in his declaration, having accepted that God’s Justice requires that his heritage for the unrighteous be disaster to them, every bit as much as our heritage is joy everlasting. While we could view some of Job’s declarations as boastful pride, ‘let God know my integrity,’ it can as easily be construed as a straightforward acknowledgement of God’s right to judge. After all, he follows this with what amounts to an accepting of the heavenly court’s decision. “If it is found that I have walked falsely, let His judgment be upon me.” Interesting, this. In his own way, he is declaring that his present circumstance is most assuredly not a matter of God’s judgment, but something other.
What I really want to see, though, is the power of Job 31:7, when that opening verse is borne in mind. “I have made covenant with my eyes,” he says. Now, that is followed with, “If my heart has followed my eyes, let His judgment be upon me. It is just.” Here is a most appropriate boundary between righteous obedience and wooden legalism. It is not possible for the eye to avoid being drawn towards beauty. How could we even think this to be right and holy? God has created all manner of beauty and blessed us with the senses to appreciate what He has created. This ought to be especially the case in that which was created in His own image, surely!
It is not what they eyes look upon that is sinful, after all. It is what we do with that which our eyes bring to our attention. It is not sinful to appreciate the beauty of a beautiful woman, nor the features of a handsome man. It is sinful to allow what sight has shown us to lead us into thoughts of illicit union with one or the other. It is when the heart follows our eyes, when we no long gaze at beauty for beauty’s sake, but settle into lengthy contemplations of the possibilities, were we only so bold. That is where sin has entered our hearts, and whether we are bold enough to act upon our clear desire or not, the sin is, as Jesus has pointed out, already committed.
Now, at risk of rudeness, I have to say that I find the juxtaposition of this message about adultery and the following verses curious. At first glance, it seems those verses advising mutilation if necessary to keep ourselves on the path of righteousness are an odd insertion between the clearly connected concerns of adultery and divorce. However, for those whose thought life Jesus had just described in verse 28, I wonder if many of them might have found a connection in the particular items Jesus suggests disposing of.
First, He tells us that the eye, if it continually leads us into sin, is better done without. It is the eye, after all, that brings images to the attention of heart and mind, and the sinful heart and mind make of these images sources for imagined pleasures and conquest. Now, as I have noted, for the majority civility and concern for one’s own reputation will prevent those imagined activities from being realized in their fullness. But, in the hidden hours, in the darkness when none is there to witness, the mind that has dwelt upon these things must have its pleasure one way or another, and as actuating those thoughts is not an option, another must be considered. The mind, intent on satisfaction, now involves the body in its rebellion, calling upon the right hand to do its bidding. If your right hand makes you stumble…
The simple fact of the matter is that the sin that finds root in heart and mind will not stay there alone. Though it may not put into action all that it has considered, it will yet see to it that the sin that has begun to grow will flower and flourish. Sin is never content to remain in its corner, never content to rule in part. It is determined to rule the whole man, to desecrate and destroy every vestige of that image God puts in man. Sin, being the weapon of God’s enemy, is aimed at one goal: to utterly remove the image of God and the very thought of God from every last part of creation. Since mankind serves as the primary bearer of that image, Satan, through sin, is determined to make ugly all that is beautiful in man. And, because of his perverse nature, he is determined that mankind have a hand in its own destruction.
It is a war we are in, though we tend to forget that simple fact. It is a war in which we must fight, whether by choice or not. The enemy has ever been willing to work with conscript forces, has forever been pressing God’s own citizens into his rebel force, making rebellion mandatory even in those who would not have it so. But, thanks be to God, Jesus has come and taken captivity captive! He has led forth all those who were pressed into this service to the enemy of their own soul, and given them the wherewithal to decide for themselves whether they will rebel or join their King. In so doing, He has eliminated any last excuse from those who opt for rebellion. There can be no claims of ignorance. For those who are restored to their King, however, there is a new and clear understanding of how critical it is that each one in that mighty host be victorious in the war that is at present waged internally.
Every least saint of God either has or will face this internal combat, the war for primacy between the old nature ruled by lust and the new creation ruled by righteousness. It is by no means an easy victory, neither to achieve nor to hold. The old man does not simply depart never to be seen again, but he lies hidden away, waiting for us to drop our guard, that he may slip in and take the throne. In this life, we must remain ever vigilant, ever aware of that duplicitous old man, seeing through every disguise he may take on, and carefully filtering every thought by the clear Word of God, lest his whispered lies cause us to wander from our post. Victory is critical on this most personal front!
Jesus is driving home a point with this message He brings. It is a point that we almost inevitably do all we can to ignore or distort. His point is simple: we are so far removed from righteousness that we can no longer even recognize it. Here, he takes the standard, much weakened sense of what constitutes adultery, and declares that this is no more than the final stage of a longstanding sin. The sinfulness did not begin with the act of consummation, but with the thought that so festered as to lead to that act. Indeed, it is clear from His message that even if that thought should never lead to action, it is condemnation enough in itself. Already, that thought has removed us from any resemblance to righteousness. Already, we are utterly guilty and without defense before the court. Face it. We need help, because what the Law really requires of us is beyond us to comply with!
In the final two verses, Jesus turns His attention to a longstanding tradition of God’s people, a tradition that had been used to put a veneer of righteousness on an act that could in no way be construed as truly righteous. Over the centuries, the men of the nation had developed what amounted to a ‘your fault’ divorce. At any least displeasure with their wife, they could, so far as civil and religious law was concerned, simply fill out the proper legal documents, perhaps paying a scribe to do so if their grammatical skills weren’t up to the task, and have done with the marriage. The human spirit, as we know it, makes it inevitable that at least some of the excused divorces were dealt out as a convenience. Like Henry the Eighth, men tired of the wife they had, or saw a more desirable woman made unavailable to them by the inconvenience of marriage. So, they conjured up a plausible offense on the part of their current woman, and off she went.
This is a particularly vile offense in the sight of God, even when that divorce is for greater cause than the better fulfillment of lust. What man had made of it then, and has made of it now, is a cheap legal cover-up. They use it to give an air of legitimacy to what is in reality the stench of grievous sin. Jesus takes away the charade, and exposes their activities as they really are. You, who divorced your wife, he notes, have made yourself an adulterer. Notice, He does not require any further action or thought on their part to convict them of their guilt. It has been done in that act, regardless of what follows. Furthermore, He points out, you have involved anybody who might later marry that woman in your own sin. He, too, is made an adulterer for having lain with the wife you illegally set aside.
Jesus leaves open a single, legitimate cause for divorce in the sight of God: that of unfaithfulness. If one finds that his or her partner has been cheating on them, then there is a legitimate ground for divorce. It is not made mandatory, but it is made permissible. The reason for this one loophole becomes clearer as one considers the symbolic ramifications of marriage and marital fidelity.
That symbolic sense becomes manifest in the very words used to discuss adultery and divorce. Shared with these concepts so closely linked to matrimony are the concepts of idolatry and apostasy. Adultery is so closely tied to idolatry, for the crime is of a similar nature. The one is a matter of unfaithfulness to the covenant of marriage, the other is a matter of unfaithfulness to the covenant of God’s Promise. It is declaring that the covenant you swore to is not binding on your thoughts and actions. It may well be a display of that unwillingness to commit that so many joke of, when it comes to modern men.
The connection that links idolatry and adultery is found in the ways of those idolatrous religions with which God’s people were forever getting entangled. Many of these pagan sects offered the service of temple prostitutes to their adherents. Even then, sex sold. It is a lesson that has by no means been lost on the modern cults. They have learned, however, to cease from appearing to be a religious matter. The worship comes more readily, they find, when it is less obviously sought. The frog may not jump into the boiling pot, but he will quietly sit as the temperature rises. So, with the idols of this current age.
Considering the covenant relationship of Israel and God, I find a particular poignancy to the one clause Jesus leaves open. Here was the nation that God had wed Himself to in peculiar fashion. They bore in their own flesh the sign of that wedding band which represented their union with Him. Yet, history shows that they repeatedly proved unfaithful to the covenant of that wedding. History shows that repeatedly, in spite of that unfaithfulness, God had taken them back. Here, I can almost detect a warning in what Jesus is saying. It is not required that God take you back, who have been so unfaithful to Him. Your idolatry will one day soon cause Him to reject you and remarry. You have left Him legal cause, and He will find another who will be faithful to Him.
Likewise, there is the connection of divorce and apostasy. This word speaks of loosing, or severing, the bonds. In both cases, it is the bond of covenant. In the one case, it is a matter of the covenant between man and woman; in the other, between mankind and God. Yet, the seriousness of that covenant relationship is as great in the former as in the latter case. What we lose sight of is that every covenant involves God, whether it is made with Him or only in His sight, for He is the author of covenant, and the witness to every covenant that is established. Because He has also established this particular covenant of marriage, it is of great concern to Him that it be honored. He established it, after all, as a reflection of His own covenant with His people. Here, in the unfolding of marriage, is to be our best example of how His own relationship with us is unfolding. The deep care and intimacy that comes into being as a marriage matures is a reflection of the deep care He has for us, and the intimacy He seeks with us.
The idols that lead His people into adultery and unfaithfulness to Him never offer that intimacy. That which steals our attention away from our Husband never offers to give us what He has given, for it cannot. It offers us cheap imitations. It offers a seeming freedom, but that freedom turns out to be a bondage that locks us away from the One who truly loves us. It offers enticing pleasures that may gratify for a moment, but behind its back, the idol hides an eternity of regret and pain. This remains hidden until the bonds of lust have been firmly locked in place, until we have gone too far, and can no longer even envision a way back.
It may be the worst of hell’s torments that the time will come when we recognize the intimacy that we have lost. The time will come when there is nothing we desire more than that intimacy with somebody, anybody. That hunger, no longer recognizing its only real fulfillment, will draw us further away, an eternity of seeking but never finding. Until there comes that day when He is revealed, the Judge upon His throne. Then the enormity of that which we have lost will be upon us, and we will understand that the very thing we have been chasing, because of our rejection of His covenant, is forever lost to us. For an eternity, we will continue to long for that intimacy which can never be ours, for having so utterly rejected our Husband.
That unfaithfulness and breaking of vows proves to be a connecting point to what Jesus next discusses, but before I turn to studying that passage, I want to consider this one last matter. What Jesus says of divorce here makes one thing abundantly clear. Unfaithfulness is the sole legitimate cause for divorce. What follows on that, as He explains it, is that where unfaithfulness has not been the cause of divorce, it will most certainly be the effect of divorce. Why? Simply put, it is because that divorce has no legal standing in the one Court that matters. As man did not establish marriage, man has no legitimate business seeking to regulate marriage, and certainly has no legal leg to stand on when it comes to freely dissolving marriages.
Consider the very words of union: What God has joined, let no man put asunder! Men may declare the marriage null and void, but it is a meaningless declaration, for it does not involve the One who stood witness to the covenant in the first place. Unless He, too, declares the covenant non-binding, what does it matter if men uninvolved in the matter’s origin claim its end? We can pretend. We can behave as though the marriage is over, and go on our way, but in God’s sight, our status remains unchanged. Legitimate cause has not been shown, and therefore the covenant stands. It is not so lightly to be tossed aside. Thus, if those estranged partners should go their way, and seek to ‘begin a new life,’ they succeed in nothing more than adding to their burden of sin, for they now lead others to join them in their sin.
Once again, the message turns back to ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’ Even if you don’t care for your own soul, consider what you are doing to those with whom you involve yourself. Even if you think that what you have done is free yourself from some sort of unreasonable bondage, the truth is that you have not only bound yourself more completely, but have now led another into those same bonds. You have not succeeded in setting aside some unreasonable union. That union remains intact insofar as God is concerned, and it is His view of the matter that matters. You violated the covenant with divorce, and now compound your guilt by denying the legitimate claims of that covenant on yourself. This is exactly the issue Paul was addressing. Even if you have come to faith at some point after marriage, even if your partner has not come with you into faith, still you have no legal grounds for divorce. Even if the situation is so strained that you feel you must separate for a time, don’t think that physical separation has broken the legal tie that binds. Don’t think that you have been given liberty to go and be joined to another in matrimony. Such is not the case. Your obligation remains, an obligation to manifest to the world the same commitment towards that covenant relationship you entered into as God shows towards the covenant He established with His people.
I want to return, in closing this study, to that which Job said. “I have made covenant with my eyes” I need to make covenant with my own eyes, for, as Jesus declares, the eyes are the organ that most feeds our imagination. While I cannot control what passes before my eyes, not completely, I can most certainly control whether those things are forced to pass quickly, or whether I insist on dwelling upon them. The covenant is not such that I can stand no chance of complying, although even the level of compliance that is required may prove challenging in this fallen flesh. It is a covenant that declares that I will not allow my heart and my thoughts to dwell upon the things my eyes should not have seen. I will not allow imagination to take what is good and lovely and make of it an occasion for evil.
Holy Spirit, You know this world in which I live. You know how utterly impossible it is to keep these eyes from seeing so much that invites me into sin. Whole industries are aimed at entrapping me by what I see, and that industry has made certain that I cannot help but see that by which it hopes to ensnare me. But, I stand upon Your Holy Word. You will not suffer me to be caught in these traps. You have given me the way to stand free, even when the snares surround me on every side, You who prepares my table even in the midst of my enemies. Yes, Lord, I enter into covenant with myself, in Your sight, that I shall not suffer my thoughts to pursue what my eyes have seen, that I shall not entertain in my heart any contemplation of the possibilities and suggestions that these sights seek to bring to mind. Holy Spirit, be Thou my Vision and my Shield. Be Thou my strong tower! Let me ever run to You in times of trial, to be reminded of the demands of righteousness, lest my eyes lead my soul into condemnation. No, but there is no condemnation for me, for I am in You, and You in me. Holy One, be the shout of warning in my ears every time my thoughts would stray towards the forbidden fruits. Keep me holy as You are Holy, that I may come into Your presence rejoicing in the things You have done.
God, it is a solemn thing I do this evening, and it is not without fear that I declare this binding of my thoughts, for I know myself well. I know how easily the mind gets caught up in sights it ought never to pursue. I know how easily I can fail to keep this covenant, and I know the cost of failure is great beyond my ability to measure. I pray Thee, then, that You would so firmly will and work in me that I might stand even in this place of falling. Purify every thought of my mind, every desire of my heart, until all that I seek, all that I consider, all that I think upon in my most private thoughts is holy unto Your Name. Lord, I know I must ask forgiveness for those many times my imaginations have led me astray. I must ask forgiveness of You for the many excuses I’ve made for myself, trying to convince myself that it’s OK. It’s not OK. It’s not right at all, and I foreswear those lies and excuses from this moment. Come, and seal this covenant in my soul. Let it be, Lord, that by Your mighty right hand, by Your own zeal for Your bride, I may stand as never before.
