I’ve just uploaded four new (short) videos to our YouTube channel. They’re on the following subjects:
Mark 10:2–10, cp. Matt 5:31–32 and 19 Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? Yeshua confirms the fact that divorce wasn’t part of YHVH’s original marriage plan, but that Moses allowed divorce only for a specific reason.
In the Torah, divorce was permitted for lack of virginity at the time of marriage, and for specific sexual sins committed that violated the marriage covenant (note Deut 22:13–14 cp. Deut 24:1–4), yet eventually (by the time of Yeshua), among some of the Jews, the divorce laws had become so liberal that a man could put his wife away for any reason (Matt 19:3). To those Jews who had such a liberal interpretation of the Torah’s divorce laws, Yeshua was addressing not what the Torah specifically said, but what the religious-legal interpretations had become of those laws.
To bring the concept of marriage and divorce back to the Creator’s original design, Yeshua upheld that, according to the Torah—YHVH’s master plan, marriage between a man and a woman was inviolable and that divorce was permissible only for certain gross sexual sins (see more at Matt 19:8–9).
Matthew 19:8, Put away your wives. Most churches allow for divorce, but some do not permit remarriage under any circumstances. This is may seem like an extreme position, those who teach this can make a strong case that this is the Bible’s position.
Some churches teach that divorce and remarriage is acceptable in some instances, but not in others. This is where it gets sticky and depends on the interpretations of many clear as well as some unclear biblical passages. The truth is that each marriage and divorce case is unique. Each situation needs to be evaluated case by case based on biblical guidelines. My thoughts (below) on the subject of divorce and remarriage are only general in nature.
Some churches take the approach that all sins can be forgiven except the sin of divorce and remarriage. This would mean that divorce and remarriage is the unpardonable sin for which the blood of Yeshua is ineffective. This is a biblically untenable position.
The Scriptures say that YHVH hates divorce (Mal 2:16). Why? Because he had to divorce his own (spiritual) wife, Israel, because of her adultery against him (e.g., Jer 3:8). But he’s going to remarry her again, but this time it will be to redeemed Israel, which is a new, spiritually regenerated bride. Furthermore, Yeshua died to pay the price for Israel’s capital sin of adultery. On our website (http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/divorce.pdf), I have a teaching about the prophetic implications of divorce where I discuss this issue.
The Torah allows for divorce and remarriage following certain protocols (Deut 24:1–4). Yeshua acknowledges this in the Gospels and accepts this fact due to of the hardness of people’s hearts (Mark 10:4–5).
The issue of divorce and remarriage becomes sticky, since in Matthew 5:32 and 19:9 no one knows the exact meaning of the word “fornication.” Even the Jews of Yeshua’s time debated about its meaning, and the two Pharisaical schools of the day defined pornea (Greek) or ervah (Hebrew, see Deut 24:1, uncleanness) differently. Continue reading