May Divorced Christians Remarry? Reflections on Matthew 19:3-9
The issue of remarriage after divorce seems to continually perplex Christians. I was divorced myself a couple of years before becoming a Christian. I recall attending adult singles groups and observing other divorced Christian brothers and sisters agonizing over the question of whether or not they could "legally" remarry. In my young Christian naïve manner I kept asking, “What about grace?” And herein, I have discovered, lay the answer to the anguish.
The major problem, as I see it, is that even as New Testament Christians, we tend to approach Jesus’ teachings as if he were giving us a new system of law instead of delivering us from legalism. In order to grasp this, we need to look closely at his interaction with his opponents on the issue of divorce and remarriage in Matthew 19:3-9.In Matthew 19:3-9, Jesus is addressing a group of legalistic religious leaders who had become experts at loop-holing the law and had come to “test” Jesus’ legal understanding of divorce. They wanted sanction for casually dismissing one's wife for any reason. Jesus does not take the bait and simply closes their loophole. He refuses to give them the easy way out and instead offers them a theological basis for taking marriage seriously and living up to their marriage vows, just as God had ordained at Creation.
They ignore Jesus’ gentle persuasion and insist instead on a legal ruling. After all, didn't Moses himself certify such a practice? So Jesus, after admonishing them for their hard hearts, obliges them, saying in so many words, “OK, you want a ruling based on a legalistic interpretation of Torah, consider this, if you dismiss your spouse as casually as you would like, you risk putting yourself legally in danger of committing adultery, a capital offense (Leviticus 20:10). So stick that in your legalistic pipes and smoke it!”
The shock effect this would have had on those men cannot be overestimated. But nowhere in this exchange has Jesus locked the door on grace. Nowhere has he legally forbidden remarriage to a divorced person. It was not his intention to create another law, but to clearly demonstrate the consequences of a world without grace. And so he confronted his inquisitors with the cost of taking so lightly the relational goodness and beauty God had built into his Creation long before he gave Moses the law.It’s as if Jesus were saying, “You are religious leaders, men responsible for the spiritual condition of God’s people. Shame on you! You of all people should know better than to come to me for justification of your attempts to loophole the way of God! Now stop this nonsense and get about the business of healing your own relationships as well as those of the people God has called you to serve!” In other words, Jesus was actually challenging them to stop being legalists and to become dispensers of grace, to become healers instead of harmers, to become men of God not men of the world, because the stakes are exceedingly high.
It is only when we understand fully the things that God hates most, that we can commit ourselves to picking up our cross and doing his will. But it is only within an environment of grace that we can do so without condemnation if we fail. The religious leaders that Jesus confronted did not see divorce as a failure to meet God’s standard, but as a quick and convenient path to a greener pasture. They did not see themselves as sinners in need of grace, so Jesus gave them a not so gentle lesson about their true condition before the law and the potential consequences of their unrepentant hearts.However, to those of us truly broken by our failure, Scripture reminds us that “a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench” (Isaiah 42:3). King David also asserts that God "will not delight in sacrifice...; [He] will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, [He] will not despise" (Psalm 51:16-17). He is the God of second chances. He has been for me, and I am sure he will be for those of you who wrestle with this issue as well.
Blessings,
Arnie Gentile
Categories: Devotional
Tags: Jesus on divorce and remarriage
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