Marriage 03- Divorce 01- விவாகரத்து 01 #AbrahamDavidJohn

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Divorce - 01

God made man, and woman, for the purpose of a singular intimate union. One man, one woman clinging together, becoming one flesh! There weren't any provisions for

• Polygamy,
• Homosexuality, and
• Fornication.

One mand and one woman in Marriage is God design. There was not provision for divorce. Adam and Eve were created for each other and nobody else. Their union was complete, unbreakable, indivisible and for life. The Jewish word for marriage is ‘kiddushin’ means sanctification or consecration, means set apart.

Generally, in the bible it used for,

• Devoted to God,
• Dedicated to God, and

• God’s exclusive personal possession.

It was a total commitment of a person to another person. Marriage then, in Genesis and by affirmation by Jesus, is an indissoluble union. God's original intention never changes. From Genesis to Malachi we will find the word Divorce.

Malachi 2:13-16,

When you divorce you have a sin-splattered garment with the blood of the wife you violated. So, there's no question about how God feels about divorce. No matter what adultery had been committed, you dealt treacherously against her, but she is still your wife.

Because she is the wife of your covenant. It is the coming together of two people who pledge lifelong covenant of companionship. The Bible affirms that the covenant makes a marriage. Marriage is a covenantal arrangement for lifelong companionship. So, it is the binding covenant of lifelong pledge of companionship that constitutes a marriage.

Anytime two people make that covenant, whether they are saved people or not, they come together in a God-ordained

and God-created union which therefore should never be divorced. That’s the essence of what our Lord is saying. Matthew 19, when the Pharisees in the New Testament asked Jesus about divorce for any cause at all?

Matthew 19:3-9, Jesus gave four reasons why you should not divorce: 1. God created one man for one woman. 2. God created a strong bond by cleave. 3. God made them one flesh.

4. Marriage is a work of God and so what God has joined

together, let not man divorce. So, four good reasons why divorce is not lawful for any reason. In saying that, Jesus really reaffirmed the Old Testament standard for marriage. Jesus affirmed that God desired marriage to be a lifelong monogamous relationship between two people.

The Pharisee said to Jesus, 'Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate and divorce her?'" Moses is God's spokesman. Moses is the author of the five books of the law, the Pentateuch.

We can see that these Pharisees were not at all attracted by the Divine ideal but were only attracted by the exceptions that accommodated their sin. We will find out that Moses never commanded anybody to give a divorce certificate to anyone.

Moses never commanded anyone to get a divorce. They were quoting from Deuteronomy 24.

Deuteronomy 24:1-4, One of the interesting prescriptions in the Mosaic Law, it had to do with the matter of divorce. There's no command here. All it says is when a man takes a wife, marries her and it happens she finds no favour in his eyes because he's found some indecency in her, he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, send her out of the house. There's no command to do it. There's no prescription for doing it. Rabbis needed a command for divorce, and they used this one because it didn't require adultery.

It was just indecency.

What does this passage do?

• It recognizes divorce.
• It recognizes remarriage.
• It regulates remarriage.
• It doesn't really say whether it's right or wrong to divorce.
• It doesn't say anything about the morality of divorce.

From the Genesis to Malachi we already know how God feels about divorce. But this passage does regulate some elements of remarriage. What happens is you send this woman away, she marries someone else, he sends her out or he dies, she can't come back and marry you again. That's all that passage says. There's no command here at all. God is simply acknowledging the existence of divorce not approving divorce, not condoning it, certainly not commanding it.

V 1, he didn't like her anymore because he found some ‘indecency’ in her.

What is that? Literal translation of the Hebrew word ‘ervah’ is "the nakedness of a thing"

Jewish Social Life said this, "That it refers to habitual indecent exposure."

Adultery demands death penalty

Deuteronomy 22:22-24, So, what happened to a woman who committed adultery under Mosaic Law? Executed.

Leviticus 20:10-12, So, indecency is not adultery, right?

This indecency is not something that requires death. "the nakedness of a thing", "indecent exposure"probably suggests that what would happen was women knew the price of adultery, so they stopped short of that. But they engaged themselves in some kind of nakedness, some kind of indecency short of adultery, which would cause them to be executed.

When a husband found his wife, living on the edge, getting as close to the death sentence as possible, and could not tolerate that because it was shameless, indecent, habitual indulgence in sinful acts that stopped short of adultery he would send her

away. There's no command to do that but that's apparently what would cause that to be done. The same word used here in Deuteronomy 24 is also used in the previous chapter.

Deuteronomy 23:13-14

This is very clear that it's something shameful, improper, indecent, shaming, embarrassing conduct and the husband says I can't deal with this woman. So, he sends her away. When he sends her out, she leaves his house, she goes and becomes another man's wife. She consummates a new union.

She never had a right to do that, because she never had legitimate grounds to break the first union, he shouldn't have sent her away. There really was no real provision for divorce. What he should have done was to deal with her indecencies, to work to restore her. But the fact that he sent her away caused her to enter into a relationship that was defiling.

Matthew 5:32, So, the second marriage is adulterous. She is become, now, an adulteress by marrying without legitimate grounds for marriage.

If that second husband divorces her or he dies, the first one can't take her back because she is now defiled by that second illegitimate marriage. He literally by sending her out caused that defilement when she remarried. Now she didn't have to remarry. She participates in the defilement. But because she is defiled, because it was never God's design that that first union would be broken except by death. So, she has become defiled.

Should she be freed from that marriage because of death or divorce, he cannot take her back.

Deuteronomy 24

Doesn't authorize divorce. Doesn't command anything. All it says is there is no remarriage for somebody who should never have been divorced to start with. If you get a divorce, even for something indecent, even for somebody walking on the thin edge, another marriage constitutes an adulterous relationship which defiles a person to the degree that you can never take them back; that would be an abomination to the Lord.

What that does is reinforce the commitment of God to the matter of the marriage. You never should have sent her away in the first place. Maybe you should have been a Hosea to her.

Deuteronomy 22:19,

Deuteronomy 22:29,

Leviticus 21:7,

Leviticus 21:14, All these passages mention about divorce, but they do not condone it, they do not commend it.

It just acknowledges the existence of divorce. It is not commanded, it is not even approved. But in the passage, we find there was a cause for this divorce. The Old Testament doesn't record any authorization for divorce on any grounds.

You can't find it there. People are surprised to hear that. You can't. You can go through the Old Testament, and you will not find anything that says if a person does this, you can divorce them. Because anybody who violated a marriage by adultery was to be… Executed.

So, you will not find any authorized, specific grounds for divorce in the Old Testament. And again, that reinforces God's will for marriage.

There is no written Old Testament text that prescribes a just cause for divorce.

Why do we allow it today? God is no longer exacting the death penalty for adultery. Because God is a gracious God, He did not always enact the death penalty.

For example

Did David commit adultery? Yes, many times.

Did he die? No. God was gracious.

Did Solomon commit adultery? Yes, thousands! Heaven only can record!

Did Solomon die? No. Many others committed adultery in the Old Testament, but did they die? No. There is the grace of God manifest in the Old Testament. God in His tolerance, spared life and allowed divorce.

Why did God stop exacting the death penalty? That's a good question wait for two weeks as I am travelling will answer when I am back! If marriage could only be severed by adultery through death, then I’m convinced that God would have only allowed marriage to be severed by divorce in the case of adultery.