OUR FATHER WHO SENT HIS SON TO DO AND TO TEACH Part 4

As the Lord Jesus continued to teach His followers, the subject of divorce and remarriage came to the forefront and Jesus, referencing the protocols written of in Deutronomy chapter 24 verses 1 - 4, tightens down what the allowances for divorce are.

31 “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

In Deutronomy chapter 24, if a husband did not like somethimg about his wife, he could write out a certificate of divorce and she was free to remarry. The only restriction was that if she married another man and that man divorced her or left her widowed, her first husband was not permitted to re-marry her.

The Lord Jesus barred divorce for His followers except in the cases of sexual immorality and barred re-marriage if divorced.

This escalation of the standards takes into consideration that those who followed the Lord Jesus would be living spiritually and because marriage is a joining of two people into one flesh, unentanglement cannot occur on the basis of a certificate written by a person whose life is in the spirit as Mark 10 verses 7 - 9 says, 7 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, 8 and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” 

In a believer's marriage, the two persons involved retain separate born-again spirits but their flesh (which is not a reference to their physical bodies but rather to their earth-bound human nature that was corrupted by the fall), is joined and that is why non-believers can be married in exactly the same way believers can be married.

However, whereas a non-regenerated person can (in the flesh) write a certificate of divorce and it would apply to the matters of the flesh, among believers, any proceedings, such as the writing of of a certificate of divorce, would be occuring by the hand of their spirits and so would not be applicable to the matters flesh and thus they would remain joined in the flesh and not free to remarry.

This implies that divorces that occur among non-believers do in fact result in the separation of the flesh while those that occur among believers do not.

As Jesus said in John chapter 3 verse 6; That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Amen.

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