The Desecration of Marriage: Covenants, Contracts, and Institutions
31 “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Matt 5:31–32.
In the previous passage, Jesus moved the line for adultery from sexual intercourse with another to lusting after another. Now, Jesus returns adultery to its regular legal and common understanding in order to continue this section’s focus on intensifying how the Law functions in promoting the righteousness of the kingdom. Jesus’ goal throughout this entire sermon is not creating a political movement or creating ethical citizens, but creating disciples who are fully formed in their whole lives.
To appreciate what Jesus is saying and how his words would have landed, we need some context to help us recognize the common thread he is tugging on.
Marriage in the Torah
In Exodus 21, we are told the LORD’s thoughts on covenant obedience as it relates to the treatment of slaves (bond-servants) taken as wives:
“If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.” Exodus 21:10–11
If this is the case for female slaves taken as wives, how much more love should one expect for the marriage of one who is not a slave? Later, as the people prepare to enter the Promised Land, some forty years after being redeemed out of slavery, Moses offers instruction for divorce, which Jesus is focusing on in his present sermon:
“When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house, and if she goes and becomes another man’s wife, and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies, who took her to be his wife, then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the LORD. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance.” Deuteronomy 24:1–4
Marriage in Wisdom and the Prophets
Proverbs is a book offered by a father to a son as instruction for the flourishing life. Within its verses we are given a picture of steadfast love and faithfulness directed by a husband toward his wife. It includes this oft-quoted, and hardly subtle, passage:
“Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well. Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.” Proverbs 5:15–19
It’s important to remember, however, that the person who wrote this, Solomon, did, in fact, forsake the wife of his youth and married hundreds of women who directed his heart away from the LORD.
The prophet Hosea was sent to the Northern Kingdom to call them to repentance for covenant unfaithfulness. Hosea’s message came not only in the form of words, but through the covenant of marriage.
“And the LORD said to me, ‘Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.’ So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. And I said to her, ‘You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.’” Hosea 3:1–3
Malachi was sent to the people of the Southern Kingdom who had returned from exile. In his message, the prophet is clearly connecting Exodus 21 and Proverbs 5 and placing them over Deuteronomy 24.
“And this second thing you do. You cover the LORD’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. But you say, ‘Why does he not?’ Because the LORD was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. ‘For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the LORD, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.’” Malachi 2:13–16
Marriage in the New Testament
After Malachi, Israel went 400 years without hearing from a prophet. Now, they hear from one who speaks not for God but as God, and one who has definite thoughts about marriage and covenant faithfulness. Matthew captures more of Jesus’ thoughts on marriage and divorce given in an entirely different context toward the end of his ministry.
“And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, ‘Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?’ He answered, ‘Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.’ They said to him, ‘Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?’ He said to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.’” Matthew 19:3–9
We learn from Jesus that Moses was not commanding but allowing a practice despite its corruption of YHWH’s vision of covenant faithfulness and the righteousness of the kingdom. Along with the passages from the Old Testament, we now have what we need to understand the common thread Jesus was pulling on.
Redeeming Marriage
The common thread of all these passages is that they focus on the man. While a woman initiating a divorce was possible within Jewish law, it was extremely rare and usually involved the woman appealing to the Jewish courts to pressure the husband into offering a certificate of divorce for violations of Exodus 21.
The intensification Jesus is making is rearticulating covenant faithfulness. Rather than condoning the Deuteronomy passage, Jesus is defining men’s use of the “any reason I can think of for being dissatisfied and unfulfilled” threshold for divorce as wholly immoral and sinful.
Even though no-fault divorce is legal, Christian men have a covenant obligation to love their wives fully. Exodus 21 states that even a wife taken as a slave is owed food, clothing, and love. Proverbs offers covenant instruction on the proper posture of the husband to the wife. Hosea comes straight out and places the husband loving an unfaithful wife as a picture of covenant faithfulness. Malachi offers a picture of how YHWH intended marriage.
Jesus’ words imply that, in addition to not divorcing his wife because of general dissatisfaction, the man should also treat his wife in such a way as to give her no reason to seek one. In marriage she should only experience the steadfast love and faithfulness that the covenant of marriage promises her.
One final and important note regarding marriages: neither the Old Testament nor Jesus was instructing women to stay in an abusive marriage. A husband abusing his wife would be like YHWH abusing his people or Christ abusing his church. Abuse within marriage is evil—always. My mother endured such a marriage. In 1972, two years after Iowa adopted no-fault divorce, a court ruled that her husband was entitled to remain in the house, but that if she left, it could be considered abandonment. Divorce had become more accessible, but the law still failed to protect women like her and their children. Women in those situations should have the protection of the church and the state, and abusive husbands the condemnation of both.
Marriage in the Public Square
In 1969, then-California governor Ronald Reagan signed into law the Family Law Act of 1969, which codified no-fault divorce for the first time in the United States.
“Irreconcilable differences are those grounds which are determined by the court to be substantial reasons for not continuing the marriage and which make it appear that the marriage should be dissolved.”
This was quickly mirrored in most states throughout the country. Within a few decades, the effect was also mirrored in Christian marriages. In 2008, Barna found that 33% of born-again adults who had been married had gone through a divorce, statistically identical to the 34% of other adults. Worse yet, more than 90% of those born-again adults divorced after they accepted Christ, not before. Somewhat encouragingly, that number is only for “professing Christians.” Several recent studies have shown that couples with regular church attendance are far less likely to divorce, even if only one spouse, usually the woman, attends.
The desecration of marriage has not stopped with the normalization of no-fault divorces. In the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, the God-given definition of marriage as a covenantal union between one man and one woman was corrupted to include same-sex unions. The societal valuation of marriage has also experienced corruption. Since 1975, the initial age of marriage has shifted by over seven years. During that same time the number of unmarried women who said “I do” in a given year has dropped by half, and married couples have dropped from two-thirds of households to fewer than half.
Marriage as Symptom and Prescription
Despite their partisan-critical language, when it comes to their own candidate, Democrats and Republicans have decided that marital unfaithfulness is not a disqualification for leading a nation to flourishing. This makes sense when we have moved away from the biblical definition of flourishing to one of our own making.
When marriage is no longer seen as a God-created and God-defined institution that exists not only as a legal contract, but as a covenantal union intended to express the steadfast love and faithfulness of God for his children, then commitment to a long obedience in the same direction is seen as a hindrance to flourishing. We must be careful not to place the weight of that statement upon the larger culture. Jesus was not critiquing Roman culture. He was not even critiquing Jewish culture. Jesus was making a statement about how disciples, who have been formed in their whole lives, understand marriage and covenantal faithfulness. Our legislative, executive, and judicial branches should protect and encourage the righteousness of the people of God. But there is no promise of this happening. What matters is that God’s people live in a posture of faithful presence regardless of how the public square embraces God’s law.
It should not be lost that Jesus is not just intensifying the laws on marriage and covenant faithfulness. He has come as a living example of the husband loving his wife in covenant faithfulness:
“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” Ephesians 5:25–27
Application Questions:
What is your own “any reason I can think of” threshold for walking away from a hard commitment at work, and who bears the cost when you do?
When marriage and family come up in your policy work or public conversation, rather than critiquing the culture, how might you articulate the blessings of covenant faithfulness within Christian marriage as a proper witness for culture at large?
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