FROM WEDLOCK TO DEADLOCK

1 CORINTHIANS 7:10-16

The wedding was something out of a fairy tale. The beautiful bride walked down the aisle and was met by the young man who had won her heart. Before all of their friends and family, they exchanged their vows, pledging themselves to one another for life. The celebration that followed and was joyous and only ended when the newly married couple departed upon a romantic honeymoon.

As the months passed and the couple settled down in their new life together, the problems began. Little things about her began to annoy him and she began to complain that they didn’t talk as much as they used to. She started sharing her problems with her best friend who listened sympathetically and he began going out with the boys on a regular basis. The evenings that they did have together were spent in front of the television set. Before long, the arguments began to escalate as their communication with each other grew correspondingly less and less. Finally one night during a particularly heated confrontation, he said that he wanted a divorce.

Different variations of this story have been repeated many thousands of times. Divorce has reached epidemic proportions in America today. Researchers tells us that fully half of all marriages end in divorce and that these numbers are virtually the same for those who claim to be Christians.

The problem of divorce is not unique to today. It was also a problem in the first century. Seneca, the Roman writer, said that women in the Empire counted their age, not by the number of consuls they had seen, but by how many husband they had been through.

The same thing was true for Jewish society. All that was required in Israel to divorce one’s wife was to write on a sheet of papyrus the words, "I am no longer married," and hand it to the wife. From that moment on, they were legally considered to be divorced.

The Mosaic Law had provided for the possibility of divorce in Deuteronomy 24. It was a passage that regulated divorce and remarriage.

The Jews in Christ’s day read this passage and came up with two possible interpretations.

• There were those who understood this passage to teach that it was acceptable to divorce your wife if she had committed some immoral act. This would be the "indecency in her" for which she could be divorced. This was the teaching of the Jewish teacher Shammai.
• The second interpretation, held by the followers of Hillel, said that anything of which a husband did not approve could constitute uncleanness. Therefore if your wife burnt the toast and you did not like it, you could divorce her. If your wife did not clean the house to your specifications, you could divorce her. If you found another woman to be more attractive than your wife, you could divorce her.

The interpretation of Hillel was much more popular, especially among those who wanted to get a divorce.

The gospels tell of how a group of Pharisees approached Jesus and asked Him which school of thought was the correct one.

Do you see what they wanted? They wanted Jesus to choose sides. They wanted Him to say that either the school of Shammai was right or else the school of Hillel was right. They had already assumed that it was acceptable for a man to divorce his wife. The only question was which were the legitimate terms of such a divorce. Can you divorce for any cause at all? Or must immorality be involved before a divorce can take place? Let’s look at the answer of Jesus.

Jesus did not choose between the school of Shammai and the school of Hillel. Instead He turned to a higher authority. He turned to the Bible. He quoted Genesis 2:24. This verse says that marriage involves two people becoming "one flesh."

Do you see what Jesus is saying? He says that there is no place for divorce within God’s pattern for marriage. He does not say that it is okay to divorce for any reason and He does not say that it is okay to divorce for immoral impurity. He simply says that there should be no divorce.

Marriage is two people becoming one. You cannot divide one. It is an indivisible number. You can only cut it up in pieces and thereby cause great harm.

If I walk up to you and say, "I’m going to cut you in half and make you into two people," what would be your reaction? You would be horrified! And so also, you ought to be horrified by the very idea of divorce.

The Pharisees understood what Jesus was saying. They understood He was saying that divorce is not good for any reasons. They understood Him to be declaring that marriage is permanent.

Do you see the rebuttal of the Pharisees? If it is true that marriage is supposed to be permanent, then why did Moses tell people to get divorced?

The Pharisees had missed one major point. It is that Moses did not tell people to get divorced. The question of the Pharisees was a loaded question. It was like asking someone, "Do you still beat your wife?" They asked, "Why did Moses command people to be divorced?" But Moses did not command divorce. He did not advocate divorce. Instead he regulated remarriage after a divorce had taken place. He said, "If a divorce takes place an a remarriage follows, the original couple are never permitted to marry each other again. Jesus points this out in verses 8-9.

Jesus says that Moses allowed for divorce because of the hardness of men’s hearts. When, because of such hardness, there is immorality, then Moses permitted a divorce to take place. Outside of such a case, there was to be no divorce.

As Paul writes his first epistle to the Corinthians, a number of years have passed since Jesus had that conversation with the Pharisees. Churches have been planted throughout the Roman Empire and Christianity has come to Corinth.

Within this new church are people from all sorts of social and moral backgrounds. There are Greeks who have previously worshiped at the Temple of Aphrodite atop the Acrocorinth. There are Jews who believed that it was alright to divorce one’s wife at the drop of a hat. There are married people who are having problems and who are looking for a way out. There are those who are married to pagans who aren’t sure what they ought to do. Paul writes to set the record straight on the issue of marriage and divorce.

The first case with which Paul deals is that of two believers who are married and who are not getting along.

This tells me something about Christians. It tells me that being a Christian is no guarantee that you won’t have problems. Christians have problems just like anyone else. We do harm to one another when we pretend that this isn’t so.

The church ought not to turn its back on the reality of marital problems. Rather the church ought to be a place of healing that can put broken people and broken marriages back together again.

Paul has some very real things to say about some very real people. He gives some very specific instructions:

• Remain unmarried.
• Be reconciled to her husband.

1. A Command to Husbands: And that the husband should not send his wife away (7:11).

The second case with which Paul deals is that of a mixed marriage. One of the partners is a believer and the other is not. The Bible warns against Christians marrying non-Christians.

We are not to marry unbelievers because we have nothing in common with them. We operate on a different frame of reference. It is unseemly that we should become one with someone who does not share our identity in Christ.

However, there were those in Corinth who were already married to an unbeliever when they came to Christ.

A man goes to the marketplace and meets a Jew named Aquilla who shares with him the message that Jesus died and rose again from the dead. He hears the gospel and he believes its message. He comes home all excited and tells his wife of what he has done. She listens patiently and then replies that she isn’t interested in fairytales.

What is to be his reaction? He is joined in marriage to an unbeliever. He is a child of God and he is united with one who is a child of Satan. Should he seek a divorce? He knows that Jesus spoke against divorce, but Jesus never dealt with the subject of a mixed marriage like his. Certainly these are different circumstances.

Back in Old Testament times, Ezra had commanded those who had married pagan wives to divorce those wives and abandon the children by those marriages (Ezra 10). Are believers today called to follow that same example?

• The case of Joseph in the land of Egypt illustrates this point. Joseph was sold as a slave to Potiphar. As a result of this union, we read that the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house on account of Joseph (Genesis 39:5).
• The same thing is seen in the relationship of Jacob with his uncle Laban. After Jacob had worked for Laban for 14 years, Laban bore witness, saying, "The Lord has blessed me on your account" (Genesis 30:25).
• God offered to reprieve the destruction of the wicked city of Sodom if there were only ten righteous people in the city. The presence of ten of God’s people within the city would have saved it from destruction (Genesis 18:32).

1. The Effect upon Children: For otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy (7:14).

The third case with which Paul deals is also that of a mixed marriage between a believer and an unbeliever. This is the case in which the unbelieving partner initiates the divorce proceedings.

These have been difficult teachings. It is one thing to say that marriage is to be permanent, but sometimes it is another thing to live up to such a standard when you are "in the trenches." The world certainly does not live up to such stringent standards. But we are called to be different. We are to be like Jesus Christ. This includes the honoring of God’s institution of marriage.

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