Matthew 5:21-48 is a series of teachings on the new righteousness. Jesus begins to reveal what going beyond the righteousness of the Pharisees means for ordinary men and women. Jesus appears here with a claim that was reserved for divine prerogative. The framing of the series of antitheses through the first and sixth antitheses makes clear that Matthew sees the center of the Old Testament in love. Love is the fulfillment, not the abolition of law and prophets. The love commandment does not abolish the "least commandments" but relativizes them from case to case. In this sense, law and prophets "hang" on the love commandment. The twofold command of love, while a summary of the Law, stands over against tradition as a critical principle. The evidence for this in the “I say to you” in this passage over against the Law of Moses. The Law of Moses governs the people of God in how to live in this world. These statements will show what living in God’s world is like, as it focuses on the heart.[1] W. D. Davies, in his commentary on the Sermon, says that this text opening the Sermon stands as a guardian against every immoral or antinomian misunderstanding of the gospel. Using the skills of historical criticism and pop psychology, to explain it away, reassuring you that a nice person like Jesus would have never said something tough like this. Jesus is saying something like the following. I know of no way to do that with this text. Do you think I have come to help you weasel out of the law? Forget it, says Jesus. I have come to intensify, exceed, and deepen the frontal assault of the law. The peculiar brand of contemporary arrogance is that of antinomian, which says: I am the only one who knows what is right for me and my opinion is the measure of all things, for I make up the rules as I go along to suit the situation, so do not bother me with your judgments. I am doing the best I can. What right has Jesus or anyone else to tell me what I should do? Such antinomianism arises not out of an appreciation for the limits of the Law, but out of a lack of appreciation for any limits upon my own ego.
Once upon a time, a sermon on the idea that rules do not save provided interesting material. Today, the idea is conventional wisdom. Today, we need to hear the warning that antinomianism is a threat to our discipleship. We have moved from the awareness that just obeying a few rules makes you right to the conviction that no rules are right.
Rules can bind you and become a prison that keeps you from experiencing the freedom that God wants you to experience. However, some rules are there precisely because if we follow them they will make us free.
We are all familiar with rules. "No" is one of the first words a toddler learns. Mom usually says it when the child is painting the wall with strawberry jam or on the floor eating the dog's food. "No" is a word that establishes boundaries. When the child goes to elementary school and learns how to read, the rules get more extensive. The teacher usually posts them on the classroom wall. Of course, the child soon learns that there are also exceptions and loopholes in the rules, as well as various interpretations. A rule like "No chewing gum," for example, the fifth grader can interpret to mean, "I can have gum in my mouth as long as I don't chew it." By the time children get to high school, they have the legal acuity of lawyers who know the rules and all the ways to get around them. Even after graduation, when the young adult goes to the workplace, there will be rules or codes of conduct that need to be followed.
In a legal approach to rules, one is guilty when one violates the rights of others. In ethical reflection, one is guilty because one thinks of doing so.[2]
That does not mean the rules are not important; it is just that the rules alone are not enough. An ethical person not only understands and obeys the rules, he or she also knows -- and embraces -- the purpose behind the rules. When Jesus wanted to lay out the ethical agenda for God's world, he did not ditch the rules that God handed down long ago on tablets to Moses. Instead, he "fulfilled" those rules by embodying them and teaching them with authority (5:17; 7:29). For Jesus, the rules were still important, but the principles behind the rules were even more important. It was not just about what was written in stone; it was about the character and law of God written on the hearts of God's people (Jeremiah 31:33).
Jesus takes the old law and radicalizes it, shaking it down to the roots of the law's intent (that's what "radical" means -- the base word "radix" means "root"). Jesus is rooted in the law, but he calls his disciples to live a life with a much deeper rootedness than the legalism of scribes and Pharisees. The Pharisees were concerned with what people did or did not do with their hands. Jesus was more concerned about what people had in their hearts and how that would translate into their relationships with people as a sign of God's new world.
In these verses, the ethical pattern for the people of God's world emerges. It is a pattern that goes beyond the letter of the law, to the spirit of the law. It goes beyond what we do with our hands, to who we are in our hearts. It recognizes that external behavior often emerges from an internal temperament. The ethics of God's world are in some respects the same as the ethical structure of the old Israelite society. Murder is still forbidden, adultery is still forbidden, and so on.
Matthew 5:21-26 contains sayings of Jesus concerning killing. This first antithesis contains three wisdom sayings of Jesus.
21 In the format of “holy law,” "You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, "You shall not murder', the sixth commandment; and "whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.' 22 But I say to you, he will enumerate several things that will broaden the application of such statements, that if you are angry, the normal beginning of abuse,with a brother or sister, a member of the Christian community, you will be liable to human judgment.[3] And if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the human religious council; and if you say, "You fool,' you will be liable to the divine judgment of the hell of fire. In rabbinical texts, there are statements that understand wrath in extreme cases as such a grave offense that there is no human but only a divine punishment for it. The emphasis is on the community and the harm done to it. Jesus understood that the dehumanizing act of murder has its roots in the dehumanizing of another person through our anger. And not only does anger dehumanize the other, it dehumanizes us, too. Every time we decide to allow anger to smolder inside of us, we become less than fully human, less than the people God created us to be. Instead of merely avoiding murder, we should embrace reconciliation, which leads to community. Other Jewish writings contain similar widening of the interpretation of the sixth commandment.
II Enoch 44:2-3
And whoever insults a person’s face, insults the face of a king, and treats the face of the Lord with repugnance. He who treats with contempt the face of any person treats the face of the Lord with contempt. He who expresses anger to any person without provocation will reap anger in the great judgment. He who spits on any person’s face, insultingly, will reap the same at the Lord’s great judgment.
The opposition that Jesus sets up here creates a sense of newness from the prevailing sentences of law. In offering such a criticism of the Law, setting his word in opposition to it, he devalues the Law in favor of the loving disposition one is to have toward others.
For some people, anger inspires them. They can write, pray, and preach well because it quickens the attention and sharpens the understanding.[4] However, anger is a sign that something wrong is emerging within us. Something is not working right. Evil, incompetence, or stupidity is lurking within us. Anger is like a sixth sense as it senses something wrong in our souls. It does not tell us whether something is wrong outside us or inside us. We usually assume the wrong is external. If we stay with the anger, however, we usually find something wrong is within us in that we have inaccurate information, inadequate understanding, or underdeveloped heart.[5]
In a first interpretation of the antithesis, 23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, assuming the existence of temple worship with its sacrificial system, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.[6]
Sirach 34:21-22
21 If one sacrifices ill-gotten goods, the offering is blemished; 22 the gifts of the lawless are not acceptable.
The point moves away from words and toward the positive act of reconciliation, which involves actual love toward the member of the community. The one who shows mercy has the right to offer sacrifices. Important are the statements concerning the unity of ethics and cult, made particularly in wisdom tradition: Sacrifices by godless people are an abomination to God: the one who shows mercy offers sacrifices. In these texts also, the cult takes second place to ethics, without being abrogated. As often with Jesus, so we have here a categorical, hyperbolically sharpened exemplary demand that aims at a new basic attitude to the fellow human and, as such, enjoins more than its literal fulfillment. In a similar manner, Abraham Lincoln advised that the best way to destroy an enemy is to turn him into a friend, and Mahatma Gandhi said, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." All these leaders knew that punishment and revenge never succeed in breaking the cycle of violence.
In the second interpretation of the antithesis, made from material common between Matthew and Luke, 25 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. 26 Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny. It concerns reconciliation with the trial opponent before the court session, letting an exhortation that begins in everyday life take a sudden and surprising turn that lets the last judgment shine through behind the trial situation. Jesus assumes the cold and merciless quality of human courts. Do not rely upon them. Settle out of court. This text is pragmatic and finds its parallels in similar counsels of expediency in the wisdom tradition.
The word of Jesus is challenging here for a culture leaning toward anger and resentment. It is one thing to disagree with the other. It is another to stand in judgment because the other is inferior morally to you. Such distancing of oneself from the other will not lead to reconciliation. Human life, whether in our individual experience or as we become aware of our history, gives us plenty of reasons to be angry. One who is not angry when there is cause to be may well open the door to sin. Unreasonable patience nurtures many vices in that it fosters negligence in correcting what is wrong.
Anger is like a fire in that safely used we derive great benefit, but uncontrolled it can do great damage. We are not to let the sun go down on our anger, allowing resentment to simmer and endanger others. Do not hang on to anger obsessively. Those who live their lives driven by anger eventually pay a bitter personal price. Among the seven deadly sins, anger may be the most fun (Frederick Buechner Wishful Thinking, 1973). We get to lick our wounds, smack our lips over grievances long past, roll our tongues over the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, savor to the last morsel the pain someone gave you and the pain you give back. We have a feast fit for a king. Of course, the chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down so joyfully is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.
Bitterness reflects a form of sustained anger that keeps calling to mind experiences of hurt or pain. It is possible to revel in victimhood. Such bitterness can be present at a cultural level, for every nation has an imperfect past that has left wounds with which the present generation must deal. We have all known injured people who just cannot let it go. Some people go to their graves feeling bitter for the way their parents or their spouses or their children failed them. Or they castigate themselves for some missed opportunity decades in the past. Bitter talk, when it continues for an exceedingly long time without let-up, causes terrible emotional harm to the speaker — not to mention misery for everyone who must listen to their complaints. Such sustained anger blocks thinking rationally and seeking reasonable courses of action.
Anger is usually something we experience as an outburst, learn what we can from it, and move on to a flourishing human life. Anger inhibits rational thought and action. It distorts our perception of history and the world.
For some people n society, At the same time, some people, there are those for whom there will never be enough social justice, never enough equity, and never enough change, since they are in pursuit of a utopia for themselves that is impossible to achieve and that for others is not desirable. Americans already lives in a society that is more inclusive and has institutions more open to change than any society on the planet. If one persists in picking at the wounds of the past one becomes blind to the efforts that have brought America to this place. the form of argument involves gaslighting opponents.
The point here is that our past does not determine the choices we make today. Our past does not determine our destiny. Forgiveness of sin is prerequisite for a relationship with God. Even in our personal lives, a relationship cannot move toward something good if the aggrieved party does not extend forgiveness. Further, if the one asking for forgiveness has no intention of repentance, has the person even asked for forgiveness? If the person has no intention of change, asking for forgiveness becomes a cover for living life with no consequences or worse to have an abusive relationship. It takes faith, hope, and love to extend forgiveness.
Suppose a nation has at its founding a birth defect. Let us call it slavery and racism. The aggrieved party, in this case, those of African descent, cannot have a rewarding and fulfilling experience of the nation without extending forgiveness. In the same way, of course, the nation needs to repent of its sin and correct the birth defect. One cannot truly repent without faith, hope, and love. As America keeps mending its flaws in this regard, it can become a Promised Land, a bright and shining city on a hill, for all people. The combination of repentance by the wrongdoer and forgiveness from the aggrieved party is essential for the relationship to move forward.
Matthew 5:27-30 are sayings regarding adultery. The new righteousness Jesus is explaining now touches upon the most personal of relationships, that of marriage. John 8:1-11 contains the response of Jesus to one caught in the act of adultery. John 4 and the story of the woman at the well offer another story of Jesus with one who was clearly not sexually pure. Luke 7:36-50 tells the story of a woman with a bad reputation disturbing a dinner, at which Jesus offers her forgiveness.
In this case, as a sentence of holy, 27 "You have heard that it was said, "You shall not commit adultery,' the sixth commandment, 28 But I say to you, in a way that broadens the application of the commandment, that everyone who looks at a woman with lust (ἐπιθυμῆσαι) has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Such a statement is consistent with what Jews at the time taught concerning lust, as we see in the tenth commandment not to covet the wife of the neighbor. Even the ancient world in general would have agreed. Is there something special in this demand of Jesus? Jesus obviously had a very relaxed relationship to women who were at a disadvantage according to the Israelite law of God. His freedom even to turn to prostitutes, the discipleship of women, and the support of the circle of Jesus by them testify to it. Lust dehumanizes people into objects that we use for our own pleasure. We might be able to avoid the physical act of adultery and thus obey the law, but we forget that the emotional or psychological attachment of lust is just as destructive. Jesus here calls us not to merely avoid breaking the law but to avoid breaking the fidelity of marriage that supports community, trust and love. Jesus here calls us not to merely avoid breaking the law but to avoid breaking the fidelity of marriage that supports community, trust, and love -- the kind of fidelity that Christ himself has with his bride, the church. God's new world is characterized by faithfulness, and when we embrace fidelity in our hearts and in our relationships, we will learn how to embrace it forever.
Verses 29-30, from Mark 9:47 (also in Matthew 18:8-9), we find a further application of the antithesis in showing that certain parts of the body are expendable in comparison to moral choices. 29 If your right eye, symbolic of good, precious, and important, causes you to sin (σκανδαλίζει, causes you to stumble), tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body[7] to be thrown into hell (γέενναν). 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell (γέενναν). The double saying is a warning against sin, related to standing phrases. To avoid it, one is to give everything, even the most important and precious thing, away. Here, the focus is attention to the danger we can become to ourselves. Such a radical saying, suggesting a marred, incomplete body, which was abhorrent in Jesus’ day, was something a follower of Jesus was to prefer to the submission to temptation. The point is ensnaring oneself rather than others. Jesus rejects the notion that one cannot treat the symptom and still get to true repentance. He uses humor here to make absurd the notion that one can eradicate sin performed by various parts of the body by amputating that part of the body. Sin does not arise in the body. It arises in the human soul, in the spirit or in the heart. In this way, Christ’s teaching is the exact opposite of Greek philosophies, such as Gnosticism, that attributed a degenerate nature to the human body. In a true Israelite perspective, the body and the soul are one. The body does not drag the soul down into “earthly” debaucheries. A heart and mind turned in the wrong direction uses the body in sinful ways. If sin rules your life, Jesus argues, then you are not eligible to receive new birth and enter the new life of the resurrection; therefore, rooting out sin is the only way to enter into that new life. Jesus does not require his followers to make such an extreme gesture. All that Jesus asks of us is that we endeavor to rid our lives of sin that arises from human will. These verses, however, are not about maiming, but more about the blessing of life; God is more important than parts of our body. To allow hand, foot, or eye to bring one to the unquenchable fires of hell is unthinkable.[8] One could also argue that although the individual is in view in these verses, Mark weds words about the individual to his earlier words about communal offense because he wants to highlight the individual in relation to the community. Thus, the individual's sin affects the community, not only the person who commits such a sin. Therefore, the person's actions have consequences not only for self but also for others.
Matthew has referred the saying to the seduction to commit adultery and understood eye and hand as instruments for it. One might think of the context of such sayings as warnings of the final judgment and the threat of Hell.
“Gehenna” suggests spiritual destruction. The image of “hell” which appears in this passage is one adapted from ancient Israelite history to correspond with the Greek notion of Hades. Unlike the Greeks, the ancient Israelites did not have a concept of Hades, or Tartarus, namely an underworld filled with fire and brimstone in which the wicked were tortured for all eternity. Sheol, the ancient Hebrew abode of the dead, was simply a pit into which the dead disappeared, never to arise again. Gehenna, however, is the New Testament equivalent of Hades, the name of which is a graecization of the Hebrew place name ge ben Hinnom, or “valley of Ben Hinnom.” It was here, in the small valley outside the Jaffa gate, that ancient Israelite kings committed the sin of child sacrifice and constructed a tophet or child sacrifice burial ground offered by fire to the pagan gods Moloch and Baal (Jeremiah 7:30-34, 32:35). The image of gehenna then, evoked in the minds of Jewish hearers, is a place of unimaginable horror, death and depravity. After this practice ceased due to the reforms implemented by King Josiah (II Kings 23:10), the valley became a trash dump where fires continually burned in order to consume the garbage. It was a place where maggots constantly fed and multiplied. Eventually, in some strands of Jewish thought, this valley became associated with what the wicked would experience in the future, one in which "their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched" (v. 48).[9]
How do you think of hell?
Through me is the way to the sorrowful city. Through me is the way to eternal suffering. Through me is the way to join the lost people . . . Abandon all hope, you who enter![10]
Hell, Madame, is to love no more.[11]
What is hell?
Hell is oneself,
Hell is alone, the other figures in it
Merely projections.[12]
Matthew 5:31-32 is a saying of Jesus concerning divorce.
31 "It was also said, in a paraphrase of Deuteronomy 24:1-2, the intent making remarriage possible, "Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.' 32 But I say to you, in a saying from material Matthew has in common with Luke 16:18, that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity (πορνείας, sexual immorality in general, but most likely adultery here). Unchastity was an abomination that desecrates the land of Israel, a case which requires divorce. The phrase suggests a legal saying rather than the insight we expect from the wisdom tradition. If a man divorces his wife for another reason, he causes her to commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery, a statement that is not in the interest of the disadvantaged woman. The Jewish command to the husband to pay the marriage bond at a divorce, on the other hand, meant at the same time practicable and effective protection for the woman. The theological question becomes how such a demand relates to the general principle of the love of God and neighbor being in a critical relationship to the Law. The point may well be that divorce is permissible, but it is not righteous because it represents human failure and falls short of the intent of God in marriage. If our hearts are focused on maintaining the relationship, then our hands will be less apt to sign the dismissal papers.
Among exegetes, the inclination is most widespread to associate it with Jesus' kindliness to women. The prohibition of divorce would then be an expression of the love of Jesus and of God for the disadvantaged woman. However, some things puzzle us. There also was a general rejection of divorce in Qumran, but not out of love for the disadvantaged woman. In Judaism, the intent of ordinary divorce was to make a remarriage possible. This prohibition could be devastating for the divorced woman. Thus, it is probable that Jesus thinks based on the pure, unconditional will of God, rather than out of consideration for disadvantage women. Yet, the reality is the absolute rejection of divorce and remarriage of divorced persons has the potential of lovelessness. The question is how the love of God for us, the love we are to show to our neighbors, combines with the absolute demand of the indissolubility of marriage.
Jesus clearly expected his married disciples and the larger band who followed him to remain married. Mark 10:11-12 and Luke 16:18 both say that the man who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery, and the divorced woman who marries another commits adultery. Matthew in this passage and in 19:9 has the exception that if the woman has committed adultery, the man may rightfully divorce and remarry.
I would like to begin by offering some comments that stay close to the text and slowly move to application to today. The text offers me an opportunity to give proper precedence to the Bible as the primary witness to the kind of life Christians are to lead while also showing that proper biblical interpretation is a matter of carefully handling biblical materials. My perspective on this text is like when I approach a text that the disciples left everything to follow Jesus (Mark 1:16-20), that Jesus told the rich man to sell everything he had and follow him (Luke 17:22), and that the first followers of Jesus after the resurrection apparently held everything in common (Acts 4:32-37). If we were to approach such texts in a legal way, the church would unlikely have stayed in existence. They church realized that it was in a different social setting that when Jesus travelled Israel with his small band of disciples and followers. Rules applicable to the disciples and the followers of Jesus before the resurrection may need some adaptation in different social settings.
Under the supposition of many scholars that when there are multiple versions of a saying of Jesus in the gospels, the hardest saying is the saying of Jesus, we can assume that the exception clause for unchastity is an addition within the tradition. Jesus taught an absolute prohibition of remarrying after divorce for his disciples and those who follow him. Jesus applied the rule against priests marrying divorced women in the Holiness Code (Leviticus 21:7, 13-14, focusing on priests marrying a virgin) to the community he formed. The early church struggled with the pastoral application of this saying of Jesus to the new setting several decades after the death of Jesus. The early church, rather than adopt a rule oriented approach to a saying of Jesus, sought to apply the teaching of Jesus in the same spirit that Jesus understood the Torah and prophets. Out of love for God and neighbor, it considered that adultery would be an occasion when the offended party could divorce remarry. Jesus, in Matthew, reminds them of the saying that whoever divorces his wife is to give her a certificate of divorce.
(Deu 24:1-4) Suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman, but she does not please him because he finds something objectionable about her, and so he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house; she then leaves his house {2} and goes off to become another man's wife. {3} Then suppose the second man dislikes her, writes her a bill of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house (or the second man who married her dies); {4} her first husband, who sent her away, is not permitted to take her again to be his wife after she has been defiled; for that would be abhorrent to the LORD, and you shall not bring guilt on the land that the LORD your God is giving you as a possession.
The many Jewish laws concerning marriage show a careful safeguarding of this area of human life. The grounds for divorce here are finding something “objectionable,” “disgraceful,” or “scandalous,” in the woman. Note, however, that the court system has nothing to do with the divorce. Ending the marriage is between the man and the woman. Over time, Jewish law limited divorce so that it was not just at the whim of the husband. In the Code of Hammurabi, #137-140, we find no such requirement upon the husband. The only continuing debate about divorce in first‑century Judaism existed between the followers of the more conservative Shammai School and the more liberal Hillel school. Shammai taught that the "objectionable" behavior that could give a husband just cause for divorcing his wife was adulterous behavior or the wife's extreme failure to observe Jewish law. Hillel, however, allowed that any behavior that caused the husband annoyance or embarrassment was legitimate grounds for giving the wife a bill of divorcement. There also was a general rejection of divorce in Qumran. In Judaism, ordinary divorce was intended to make a remarriage possible. The Jewish command to the husband to pay the marriage bond at a divorce, meant at the same time practicable and effective protection for the woman. As we continue with the text in Matthew, Jesus then says that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity (“porneia” can only mean adultery here, a phrase that suggests a legal saying rather than the insight we expect from the wisdom tradition), causes her to commit adultery. Such a prohibition could be an expression of love toward the woman in a society that placed limits on women. However, Jesus continues, whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery, a statement that is not in the interest of the disadvantaged woman. In Romans 7:3, Paul says that people will call a woman an adulterer who lives with a man other than her husband while her husband is alive. Only if he dies does she have the right of remarriage. In I Thessalonians 4:3, Paul points his readers to the will of God as their sanctification, and therefore they are to abstain from “unchastity,” the same word Matthew uses in the exception clause, but here Paul may refer to the broader use of the word as any form of sexual immorality. However, Paul finds a reason to refuse a strict rule-oriented approach to the saying of Jesus as he considered another pastoral situation and came down on the side of love:
1 Corinthians 7:15 (NRSV)
15 But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so; in such a case the brother or sister is not bound. It is to peace that God has called you.
He suggests that if a non-Christian spouse divorces the Christian spouse, the Christian should be at peace with the decision and the implication is that remarriage is acceptable. In all of this, there was a potential element of lovelessness. The theological question becomes how such a demand relates to the general principle of the love of God and neighbor being in a critical relationship to the Law. The point may well be that divorce is permissible, but it is not righteous because it represents human failure and falls short of the intent of God in marriage. If our hearts are focused on maintaining the relationship, then our hands will be less apt to sign the dismissal papers. At the same time, the context in which both Jesus and Paul address themselves to marriage is the soon arrival of the end, so the possibility that of living an extended period without the blessing a happy marriage, even a second one, did not realistically occur to them. Further, the early centuries of the church developed increasing asceticism, to the point where celibacy became valued more so than a happy marriage. It makes sense, in such contexts, that remarriage after divorce would not find acceptance.
Commenting upon marriage, divorce, and remarriage in the Bible and church tradition carries some risks. For the one who has experienced divorce as a Christian, it can appear one is justifying after the fact an action one has taken. That is not my goal, but that will always be the suspicion. A heightened risk occurs when one takes the Bible seriously as a guide for our lives. As I have sorted through these matters, I have sought to use an approach to the Bible that is similar to what I have used to support women in ministry, the nature of the husband and wife relationship, and homosexuality. I invite you to be patient as we consider in a prayerful way the matters before us.
First, how does Jesus respond to people caught in the web of sexual confusion and sexual sin? I direct you to John 4, where Jesus has a respectful discussion with a woman who has had multiple sexual relationships. In John 8, he refuses to condemn a woman caught in the act of adultery. In Luke 7, we find another occasion in which Jesus extends forgiveness to a woman who has had a loose sexual history. In all these cases, he refuses to isolate them, or to heap upon them shame and guilt. In fact, I offer that the response of Jesus is consistently in this direction – except when it came to those in political and religious authority. Regardless of what Jesus may have expected from his followers regarding divorce and re-marriage, he clearly would not want them to adopt the harsh attitudes of the Pharisees of his day.
Second, I invite you to reflect upon the nature of the ancient household. Proper household management was a matter of crucial social and political concern. The parallel to our culture would be a reflection on family and work. To upset the household was a potential threat to the order of society. The attraction to the early Christian movement of women and slaves made it suspect. Paul may have needed to respond to the accusation. The type of guidance offered assumes that Paul respected the social order and assumed that his churches would need to live in it. The guidance of Paul here is at least consistent with other passages. For example, in I Corinthians 11:2-16, Paul urges women to wear a veil as a sign that they are under authority. God made woman from man and for the sake of man, an obvious reference to the story in Genesis 1-3, but we see their interdependence in the fact that man comes to live through woman. In any case, he respects the “custom” of the woman wearing a covering for her head, even though he finds no such custom in the churches. Yet, while he assumes in I Corinthians 11 that women will pray and prophecy in church, he says in 14:34-36 that women are to remain silent in church because they are subordinate to the husband. In I Corinthians 7:20-24, Paul offers the general advice that if one becomes a follower of Christ as a slave, one should remain a slave. In the letter to Philemon, Paul has run into a run-a-way slave, and now asks the master for the freedom of the slave Onesimus so that he can serve Paul. The point here is that Paul respects the master and slave relationship. Interestingly, the assumption is that each member of the household Paul treats as a moral agent with a choice to make. The code for the household becomes part of the apostolic wisdom. To state the obvious, in Proverbs, we find abundant advice for parents, husbands, wives, children, masters, and slaves.
If we read with open mind and heart, we will find that the nature of the household would change dramatically if Christians followed the advice of the apostles. Marriage would become more like a partnership of mutual love. Raising children would become a compassionate enterprise. The master-slave relation would dissolve in practice, if not in official structure.
Husband-wife were central to the household. It would have been normal to guide the wife to submit to the husband. The challenge the New Testament offers is that the husband love the wife, even as Christ loved the church. Here is a transformation of ordinary life. We find a reflection on the puzzling nature of romantic love in the Song of Solomon. Ephesians 5:21-33, Colossians 3:18, and I Peter 3:1-7 offer some different guidance, considering the character and virtue the Christian community seeks to develop. We see another example of life in the household in I Corinthians 5, 6:12-7:40. The point I would stress is that secular culture has changed the ordering of family and work in significant ways. While our advice regarding family and work would change, one should conduct it in a similar spirit as did Paul. A general principle (I Corinthians 7:17-24) is that they are to remain in the outward, socially acceptable setting in which they found Christ. The key point is that God has bought all of them with a price. In that sense, every member of the highly structured household is on the same footing.
Third, let us consider the unique challenge that divorce and remarriage presented to the operation of the ancient household. The issues affected the structure of the basic unit economic unit of society. We can easily see why Jesus said that a woman must not separate from her husband and a husband must not separate from his wife, and even why the divorced must remain unmarried, given the hope for reconciliation. Such counsel protected the vulnerable woman from the male who misuses his social power. We can all agree that the plan of God is life-long union. Yet, we dare not interpret as church law that which Jesus gave as ethical ideal. Paul (I Corinthians 7:10-16) considers a possibility that did not fall under the general rule he had from Jesus (Luke 16:18; Matthew 5:32, 19:9). He counseled that if an unbelieving spouse wants a divorce, the Christian should allow that happen. The believer is no longer bound to that marriage, meaning the believer is free to remarry. We see Paul taking a pastoral approach to the new situation, showing his consistency with the teaching and action of Jesus. Many churches are right to make such adjustments in our secular culture. I invite you to consider the pastoral approach of the church to the human brokenness expressed in divorce. The basis for looking at divorce and remarriage differently is the changed cultural setting and (I emphasize this) the biblical conversation we see occurring.
Fourth, church tradition has had a responsibility to keep the conversation going. Divorce and re-marriage are examples of the dialogue within the biblical tradition and within the tradition of the church. The church tradition assumes from a theological perspective that human beings cannot dissolve marriage. Yet, the direction of the Bible and the tradition on this matter, the allowance for divorce and remarriage became a pastoral necessity. In later tradition, the death of the person from one is divorced becomes another sufficient allowance for remarriage. The Orthodox Church has taken this path before the church of the west did in that it considered the possibility of two divorces as allowable. It also considered that after the second divorce, the church would not remarry, for the person ought to consider the possibility that marriage is simply not for him or her. The ecumenical councils of the church deal with second marriages in a variety of ways, all stressing the seriousness of divorce. They give guidance on what happens if a man marries a divorced woman, and then wants to become clergy. They give guidance on the procedure for penance if someone divorces. Just as the New Testament considered proper grounds for divorce, the tradition continues that discussion, as well as grounds sufficient for a second marriage. In the context of sexuality, ecumenical councils defended marriage against attacks from the growing celibate community. The growing Christianizing of European culture led to less tolerance of divorce and even more so of remarriage.
Fifth, the proper grounds or rationales for divorce and remarriage are serious matters. If one assumes that both partners of the marriage are Christian, they receive the blessing of the church, and the culture supports Christian teaching and values, one ought not to be surprised that divorce and remarriage have less tolerance. However, the church continued its struggle to identify proper grounds. This means that the church is not against divorce. Rather, from a pragmatic perspective, it seeks to give spiritual and moral guidance as to the proper occasion for it.
God takes the act of divorce seriously. Anyone who has been through a divorce knows that there is plenty of sin to go around. We also know it represents a human failure and falls short of God’s intent in marriage. Even if one is attentive to the relationship, one never knows the darkness that may reside within. The woman may have a deep anger toward men that only marriage brings to the surface. The man may have residual anger the spills toward the woman and children. In both cases, the marriage may bring out the worst rather than the best. Sexual experimentation may reside deeply within either the man or woman. None of this darkness demands divorce. Yet, the church must offer its spiritual guidance that respects scripture and tradition, while also respecting the demands of a new cultural setting. The value of commitment and fidelity, the value of raising children, and the value of entering a relationship genuinely other in terms of sexuality, helps us to experience the good that God intends. Marriage and family are the primary ethical and moral training ground for us as human beings. God treats divorce seriously. God treats it as the ethical, moral, and spiritual issue that it is, rather than as an item of law. Therefore, the Bible does not mean that divorce and remarriage are unforgivable. Whatever sin we experience in divorce, God is fully capable of forgiving that sin. Further, as God forgives, God forgets. The same needs to become true of the church. We have the obvious biblical emphasis upon our need for grace and forgiveness because of sin. Therefore, a view consistent with the dialogue the Bible began would be that divorce is permissible, even if it is not a righteous choice. In an imperfect world, people sometimes make choices that are the lesser of evils. Further, I suggest that remarriage is not an adulterous condition. Sexual relations within the second marriage are holy.
Matthew 5:33-37 are sayings around oaths. The source is Matthew but with a relationship with James 5:12 as well, where James urges his readers not to swear at all, either by heaven or earth, but rather, let your Yes be Yes and No be no.
[1] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 333.
[2] --Immanuel Kant, philosopher.
[3] Verses 21-22a mirror a time when special rules were applied to behavior within the community of believers.
[4] I never work better than when I am inspired by anger; when I am angry, I can write, pray and preach well, for then my whole temperament is quickened, my understanding sharpened and all mundane vexations and temptations depart. --Martin Luther.
[5] --Eugene Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant: An Exploration in Vocational Holiness (Eerdmans, 1992), 157.
[6] Verses 23-24, even though from a time when the sacrificial system was active, has the terminology of Matthew.
[7] Some scholars think it refers metaphorically to the body of the Christian community, at a time when it had to develop regulations for excluding members who did not conform to patterns of accepted behavior. To lop off members appeared preferable to having a contaminated body. Of course, the saying suggests that one should prefer a crippled body to the repeated ravages of temptation.
[8] (Moloney, 191).
[9] (Moloney, 191; Stephen Short, NIV Bible Commentary [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979], 1169).
[10] – Dante, The Divine Comedy, (Inscription at the entrance to Hell.)
[11] – Georges Bernanos, writer
[12] – T. S. Eliot, “The Cocktail Party,” 1950
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