Thursday, September 3, 2020

PT-3 "The Teaching of Jesus" (Matt. 5:31-32)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/3/2020 9:49 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                 Focus: PT-3 “The Teaching of Jesus”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matt. 5:31-32

 

            Message of the verses:  31 “You have heard the law that says, ’A man can divorce his wife by merely giving her a written notice of divorce.’ 32 But I say that a man who divorces his wife, unless she has been unfaithful, causes her to commit adultery. And anyone who marries a divorced woman also commits adultery” (NLT).

 

            We continue to talk about divorce and remarriage in this section.  If a man divorces his wife for any other reason than adultery he is then the husband makes his innocent wife commit adultery if she remarries, and we can assume that she will remarry, especially if she is young.  Jesus makes the following explicit statement in Mark 10:11-12 “11 And He said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her; 12 and if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery.’”  Jesus’ statement that ‘whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery and this can also be seen in Luke 16:18 “"Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries one who is divorced from a husband commits adultery.”  So we see in these verses a complete picture from the lips of our Lord.  John MacArthur adds to this by writing “”To do so initiates a whole chain of adultery, because remarriage after illegitimate divorce results in illegitimate and adulterous relationships for all parties involved.”

 

            Now if everyone would practice what the Bible teaches about marriage then there would not be such awful problems in our world and in our nation today, especially on the children of divorced parents.  Divorce is a very big problem as it lies in the beginning of problems that stem from it as one goes from generation to generation, the problems can surely get bigger.

 

            We now want to move to what Jesus stated in Matthew 19:5 as He is quoting Genesis 2:24 in that verse:  "and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?”  We want to continue looking in Matthew 19 as we quote all the way down to verse eight.  “6 “So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate." 7 They said to Him, "Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?" 8 He said to them, "Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.  God never commanded divorce, but only permitted divorce as a concession to sinful, self-willed mankind.  MacArthur adds “It is true that in Mark 10:5 Jesus speaks of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 as a commandment.  But the teaching there is not a command to divorce but a command not to remarry the defiled person who has been divorced.”

 

            Now we want to look at the condition “except for unchastity” as it is not a way out that God provides, but is the only grounds for divorce that God will recognize.  MacArthur writes “Some say that this ‘exception clause’ allows divorce for Jews only, and only in the case of the sin of consanguinity (marrying a near relative, a practice forbidden in Lev. 18).  This view is propounded by those who wish to believe that there are no biblical grounds at all for divorce by Christians.  They point out that the exception clause appears only in Matthew and maintain that to interpret it otherwise would be to contradict or add to the law governing the sin of adultery.”

 

            We see that the exception clause is only in Matthew and God only has to say something once for it to be true, and so the fact that the exception clause appears only here in Matthew has no bearing on the proper interaction.  The fact is that this exception clause would have not been appropriate in the contexts of Mark 10 and also in Luke 16.  As we look at Matthew 5 and 19 we can see that the clause is included in order to correct the Pharisees’ misrepresentation of God’s law regarding adultery.  “The exception clause in those passages amplifies Jesus’ teaching on divorce in Mark 10 and Luke 16—it does not contradict it.”   

 

            Now I want to move on to continue to look at “The Battle of the Ages” as we continue looking at the third point in this little booklet entitled “The Third Battle is the Battle of the Promised Seed.”  We will be looking at point two under this third section for today.

 

“The second attempt to break the Edenic promise was The Attempt Destruction of the Antediluvian Race.

 

“This was an effort on the part of Satan to introduce such moral corruption and degeneracy into the civilization of the old world as to force God’s hand to destroy the entire human race and thus break the promise of the Coming One.  And so great became the moral degeneracy of the earth that God indeed was compelled to destroy that adulterous generation from the face of the earth, sparing only Noah and his household, for Noah walked with God.  And thus upon the rock of Noah’s godly life the devilish purpose of the Destroyer was dashed to pieces, and the promise runs through Abel’s substitute and Noah.”  (Lord willing we will look at point three in our next SD.)

 

9/3/2020 10:32 AM

 

 

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