What Did (and Would) Jesus Say?

Background / Context

“The number of divorces in Malaysia has
more than doubled in just eight years
from 2004. In 2012, a whopping 56,760
divorces were recorded, which is
equivalent to a marriage breaking down
every 10 minutes.”
Boo Su-Lyn, The Malay Mail (2014)

What did Jesus say about divorce and
remarriage?
Are Christians who’ve divorced
allowed to re-marry?

Why is this important?
1. There will be many Christian couples being divorced over the next
few years (cf. Sarawak)
2. Many divorcees will re/fall in love and hope to get re/married; as
there are some Christians who long to be in a relationship with a
divorcee
3. #WWLION, there will (eventually) be many remarried people in the
church. Will there be judgment and stigmatization? E.g.
homosexuals, convict – what about remarried people? It ‘colours’
everything we see about the person

The Problem

“Anyone who divorces his wife and marries
another woman commits adultery, and the
man who marries a divorced woman
commits adultery.”
Luke 16:18

“It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his
wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But
I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife,
except for sexual immorality, causes her to
commit adultery, and anyone who marries a
divorced woman commits adultery.”
Matthew 5:31-32

It’s so “clear”
from the Bible,
isn’t it?

We Must Be Very Careful
Whenever We ‘Absolutize’
the Bible (for example…)

“Now the whole group of those who
believed were of one heart and soul,
and no one claimed private
ownership of any possessions, but
everything they owned was held in
common. ”
Acts 4:32

“If you want to be perfect, go,
sell your possessions and give
to the poor, and you will have
treasure in heaven. Then come,
follow me.”
Matthew 19:28

“It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to
us not to burden you with anything beyond
the following requirements: You are to
abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from
blood, from the meat of strangled animals
and from sexual immorality. You will do
well to avoid these things.”
Acts 15:28-29

“Be fruitful and multiply; fill
the earth and subdue it.”
Genesis 1:28

We could, in fact, already
stop here….

It’s not the Bible, It’s Us…
• We are very arbitrary in our reading of Scripture; very often, our
decisions reflect our ideology or culture
• We selectively decide which passage are more ‘relevant’ or ‘absolute’
than others;
• Some passages we have decided ‘do not apply’ today or are merely
‘symbolic’, etc.
• We are ignorant of the world ‘behind’ and ‘in front’ of the texts

Matthew 19:3-9

What was the issue/problem Jesus
was addressing?

“Jesus was dealing with the aggressiveness
of the male in the context of first-century
culture…(He) was condemning the
callousness by which a man would marry and
divorce and remarry with the same ease as
he might buy and sell cattle.”
Richard Foster

“Jesus did what the rabbis refused to do: he
recognized that a man could commit adultery
against his wife. In rabbinic Judaism a woman by
infidelity could commit adultery against her husband;
and a man, by having sexual relations with another
man's wife, could commit adultery against him. But a
man could never commit adultery against his wife,
no matter what he did.”
Walter Wessel

“By putting the husband under the
same moral obligation as the wife,
Jesus raised the status and dignity
of women.”
Wessel

It’s ironic when a verse originally
employed to liberate women from
oppressive relationships is later
used to deny them a genuine one!

Jesus on remarriage and divorce
• Jesus emphasized first principles i.e. the sacredness of marriage,
what God’s original intentions were for marriage, etc.
• Jesus was directly responding to the male chauvinistic practice of
‘casual divorce’ and was, in fact, affirming the dignity of women in
doing so
• Jesus was NOT dealing with cases whereby divorced people are
sincerely seeking to find new love/life with a new partner who loves
them; He in fact challenged the ‘rule-based’ approach towards
divorce and remarriage!

“Anyone who divorces his wife,
except for sexual immorality,
causes her to commit
adultery”??
Matt 5:31 (non-NIV)

“(In a Jewish legal context), a woman can be
divorced by her husband but cannot initiate
divorce; another man can take her as his wife,
but she is not viewed as taking a man as her
husband. The whole situation happens to her,
rather than being the result of her decisions..”
Stassen & Gushee

“Jesus was calling attention to the degraded
relationship that existed between a man and a
woman when the woman had been previously
married…it was something that kept the woman in
perpetual fear, constantly in a corner. In first-century
culture, the divorced woman was viewed as a
‘second-hand woman’, and Jesus was saying that
when a man thinks of a woman as a cheap
commodity he has her in a vicious relationship.”
Richard Foster

What does ‘makes her an adulteress’ mean??
• Jesus was highlighting how women are a victim of the vicious cycle of
adultery produced by this MCP system; in fact, many divorced women
during the time had to turn to prostitution to survive (see NIV
translation).
• Most importantly, Jesus was emphasizing the culpability of the ex-
husband i.e. “you are the one who made her an adulteress (when you
divorce her, treat her as 2nd-class, etc.)”

So WWJS about re/marriage today?
• Marriage remains a sacred covenant, a one-flesh union (Gen 2:24);
husbands are called to give their lives for their wives who are in turn called
to submit to and respect their husbands (Ephesians 5)
• Having said that, Jesus’ “prohibitions” against remarriage applied
specifically to an ABUSE of marriage laws; He was not against divorcees
who seek to start a new life with someone who loves them (‘apples and
oranges’ situation, cf. multiple re-marriages?)
• There is always hope for anyone who’s left a previous marriage, and who
finds someone new to love him/her. And a God who makes all things new
will honor and rejoice in that new relationship