A Word on Divorce
A Word on Divorce
Several months ago, a viral video featured Camille, a woman who expressed her desire to divorce her “perfect husband” because her relationship expectations were unfulfilled. In the video, shared with her TikTok followers, she sought advice, explaining her feelings. Here’s a refined version of her quoted statements:
Camille said:
“For the entire 10 years of our marriage, I’ve felt like I’m searching for something in our relationship that we don’t have. I want to be clear: there’s nothing about my husband, as an individual, that I don’t love. He’s the most self-disciplined, loyal, hardworking, and genuinely good person you could meet. That’s why I haven’t left. But my expectations for our marriage, which I’ve always held, aren’t being met—and I’m not sure if anyone’s truly are.
The reason I’m even considering divorce is that I feel I can’t be myself with him.”
The question I want to ask this morning is this: What drives a 32-year-old woman to say, “I have the perfect husband, but I think I need a divorce”? Why would she feel this way?
If you were sitting across from Camille, what would you say to her? Would you approve or disapprove? Why?
For the next several moments I want us to consider what God’s word would have to say about Camille and about the broader understanding of divorce in our culture.
Main Idea: God Opposes Divorce, so should we!
Now before we proceed further, I want to say that this sermon is not aimed at anyone in particular I am not trying to single out anyone who has either been affected by divorce personally or knows someone who has been affected by divorce what we are going to do is consider what God’s word tells us about divorce.
I also want to say that if you are here and you’ve never been married I don’t want you to say well this sermon is not about me rather what I want us to do is consider what God’s word says about divorce and observe how that’s even applicable to our lives in general.
As we heard a little bit ago, the book of Malachi 2 explicitly says that God disapproves of divorce: “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the LORD, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts…” (Malachi 2:16, ESV). And in the passage we are considering, in the gospel of Matthew, Jesus confirms that divorce is not the desired outcome of a marriage.
So, let’s explore this idea of divorce from Matthew 5:31-32, where Jesus introduces a third rebuttal to the common teaching, and it focuses on how one treats a fellow neighbor, and is an extension of the previous discussion on adultery…
In the passage we have read we see three ideas emerge in stages, each building on each other…
The first idea we learn from this passage is this:
God Opposes Divorce: first, because it mocks His creation order
To understand this passage, I think that we need to zoom out and look at the bigger picture of what Jesus is saying. To do that, we have to turn to other biblical passages that highlight and clarify what He is communicating here in Matthew 5. I think the place we must go first is Matthew 19, where Jesus also addresses the topic of marriage and divorce, and expands what he says here.
In Matthew 19, Jesus is presented with a situation. The situation comes in the form of a test. That means those who are asking are not amicable to Jesus. They are not looking for clarification; rather, they are looking to trap Him in a misstatement.
Look at verse 3 of chapter 19: “And Pharisees came up to Him and tested Him by asking, ‘Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?’” The question before Jesus is this: can any reason—whatever that reason may be—serve as grounds for a husband to give his wife a certificate of divorce?
Now, the reason the Pharisees ask this question is because it was a polemical issue in Jesus’ day. It was one of those hot-button questions where, no matter what side you landed on, you were placed in a particular camp. Think of it like our modern-day equivalent of the question, “Do Black Lives Matter or do All Lives Matter?” However you answer, you have to phrase it carefully. You cannot deny that all lives matter, but at the same time you must acknowledge that Black lives in particular matter.
This is the kind of conundrum Jesus is presented with: “Can I divorce my wife for any cause?”
So, I want us to look at this carefully.
Divorce Debate in Matthew 19: A First-Century Jewish Controversy
Let’s allow this to shed some light on what Jesus says earlier…
Context of the Debate
First, in that day and age, divorce could only be initiated by men. And if you weren’t a woman of means it could potentially put you in a situation where you’re at a disadvantage.
Second, in Matthew 19, the Pharisees test Jesus with a question: Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason whatsoever? This question reflects a significant first-century Jewish debate rooted in the interpretation of Deuteronomy 24:1, which states, “If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her…” The Hebrew phrase “something indecent” is at the heart of the controversy.
Two Schools of Thought
The debate centers on two prominent Jewish schools of thought:
- School of Hillel: Advocated a broad interpretation of “something indecent.” They emphasized “something indecent” to argue that divorce was permissible for any reason—a lenient stance that became more widely accepted in first-century Judaism.
- School of Shammai: Took a stricter view, interpreting “something indecent” as referring to something extremely indecent, but not necessarily adultery.
Jesus’ Response
Jesus answers by going back to Genesis, saying:
“He who created them from the beginning made them male and female…Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife.” – emphasize male and female
As one New Testament scholar noted: Genesis gives the covenant and the original intention; Deuteronomy gives the concession.
Jesus insists that the covenantal design of marriage is the starting point, not the concession.
If we analyze Jesus’ words in light of the two schools of thought regarding divorce in Second Temple Judaism, we see that He is restricting divorce in a fashion that is much more narrower that the interpretation by Shammai. And that is significant because it shows that God opposes divorce.
Why? Divorce Mocks Creation Order
God created marriage to be a lifelong covenant between one man and one woman, as they become one.
The only reason God allowed for the concession in Deuteronomy, Jesus says, is because of the hardness of heart. That means, divorce is always evidence of the presence of sin! As one commentator says, “If God has joined them together, according to the structure of his own creation, divorce is not only “unnatural” but rebellion against God. God and man are so far apart on this issue that what God unites, man divides.”
Divorce Mocks Creation Order
I want you to observe that if the broader interpretation was permissible, the one that allows a woman to be divorced for any reason, it places women in an incredibly vulnerable position. If men are allowed to divorce their wives for any reason—whatever whim or dissatisfaction they might have—then women are left exposed, disadvantaged, and dishonored.
But Jesus says (v. 32) that if man divorces his wife for any other reason than sexual immorality, then he makes her commit adultery, because she would most likely remarry since it was one of the ways women were primarily sustained…
So, in love for women, Jesus restricts the citizens of His Kingdom—those who mourn their sin, who hunger and thirst for righteousness, who embody the ideals of the Kingdom of heaven—from engaging in divorce, except in cases of sexual immorality.
Put simply: Jesus was presented with the no-fault divorce option, and He said to His followers, “That is not how we operate.” We do not operate on the principle of no-fault divorce. We do not allow divorce simply because a couple does not get along. We do not dissolve a marriage because of irreconcilable differences. Instead, Jesus tells His disciples that citizens of the Kingdom of heaven must live differently.
At this point, it is helpful to ask: Why is God so opposed to divorce? Why is it that He allows only one exception? Why do we read in Malachi that God is so deeply frustrated with His people and with the way the priests treated their wives?
Jesus restricts divorce to the most serious offense: sexual immorality.
The answer is this and leads to my second idea: God opposes divorce because God opposes covenant breaking.
God Opposes Divorce: second, because it fractures Covenants
When we look at Scripture, it is very important to understand that God deals with His people through covenants. The way God relates to humanity is always covenantal—there is no other way. God related to Adam through a covenant, what we call the covenant of works: “Do this, and you will live.” But Adam disobeyed, and in doing so he was introduced to what is now known as the covenant of grace. From that covenant of grace flow all other covenants.
There is, therefore, no relationship with God apart from covenant. This is why Paul can say you are either “in Christ” under the covenant of grace, or “in Adam” under the covenant of works—where you must perfectly keep the law in your own strength, which inevitably leads to condemnation. To be in Adam is to be dead in trespasses and sins.
The reason I emphasize this is because when God makes covenants with His people, He is not being casual or flippant. He does not take his covenants lightly and he binds himself to uphold the covenants in faithfulness and truth.
Deuteronomy 7:9 –
“Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations.”
That means, God’s covenants are not to be trifled with. He shows again and again in Scripture that He is willing to endure with patience, the disobedience and hard-heartedness of His people—for the sake of His covenant. And so, when we treat marriage lightly, when we treat it as disposable, we send a message that God’s covenant with us can also be treated lightly. That is why God opposes divorce, except in the case of sexual immorality. He opposes it because He opposes covenant breaking.
Extreme Individualism
We must understand that we live and breathe extreme individualism. It is the air we inhale, the water we drink, the way we instinctively process life. Most of the time, we operate not on carefully reasoned thought but on intuition shaped by our culture.
What you eat, what you drink, what phone you buy—these are often determined by the commercial you saw or the influence of a friend. And that same cultural pull shapes how we think about marriage and divorce. Because we live in a culture of expressive individualism, we must guard ourselves against the tendency to break covenant commitments for the sake of self-fulfillment.
How do we get to this place where we worship self-fulfillment? Let me briefly sketch the historical development of how we have viewed ourselves as humans…
Philip Rieff, who was an American sociologist, has a cultural analysis that helps explain how we arrived at this point.
Summary of Rieff’s Framework
- Political Man
- In the classical world (Plato, Aristotle), human identity was rooted in participation in public, civic life.
- The idiotēs (private man) was contrasted with the political man, who found meaning in the polis.
- Activities like attending the assembly or serving in civic institutions defined who one was.
- The self was outwardly directed, tied to communal and political life.
- Religious Man
- In the Middle Ages, the dominant cultural type shifted to “religious man.”
- Identity was rooted in religious practices: attending Mass, observing feast days, joining pilgrimages, etc.
- Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales illustrates this: diverse individuals share a common identity as pilgrims.
- Society itself reinforced this orientation—churches dominated the landscape, and time was structured by the liturgical calendar.
- Selfhood was again communal and outward, but now defined by the sacred.
- Economic Man
- With the rise of modernity, religious identity gave way to “economic man.”
- Here, a person’s sense of self was tied to economic activity: trade, labor, production, accumulation of wealth.
- Rieff viewed this as unstable and transitional, and Marx’s insights into capitalism’s disruptive power support that suspicion.
- Psychological Man
- In the contemporary West, “psychological man” has become dominant.
- Unlike the outward orientation of previous types, psychological man seeks identity inwardly, through personal feelings and psychological well-being.
- The goal of life is no longer civic duty, religious devotion, or economic productivity, but personal happiness, authenticity, and inner satisfaction.
Now, we might disagree with Rieff on his analysis, which is a bit simplistic, but his description of Psychological man is spot on. We live for self-fulfillment, self-expression.
This brings us back to Camille. The reason Camille wants to divorce her perfect husband is because she has bought into the cultural lie that her greatest purpose is found in her individual self-expression—maximizing her desires to the smallest detail. When personal happiness is the supreme value in a marriage, divorce is the inevitable result.
Now, it is true that statistically divorce rates are lower among Millennials and Gen Z than they were among the Boomer generation. But that does not mean divorce is less common in reality. It is, in some ways, more sinister. Many in the younger generations are so enamored with themselves that they have chosen to avoid marriage altogether. They crave freedom, flexibility, and opportunity without the constraints of covenantal commitment. In essence, they are abandoning the covenant of marriage before it even begins.
Why has divorce, covenant breaking become so pervasive in our society? Because we live in a world dominated by Psychological man.
God Opposes Divorce: second, because it fractures Covenants
This idea of covenant breaking brings me to the third reason God opposes divorce, and that is…
God opposes divorce: third, because it dims the gospel’s glory
God opposes divorce because marriage is ultimately about Christ and the Church. Since marriage points to that union, it bears witness to a bond that cannot be torn asunder. This truth should bring deep confidence to our souls. Why? Because we know that God will not seize upon any weakness or sin in us as a reason to cast us off. Imagine if every time we stumbled, God decided to “unelect” us, unchoose us, abandon us, or unadopt us. But that is not His way. God hates divorce because it dims the gospel’s glory, and the glory of the gospel is that when He chose us in Christ, He bound Himself to fully and finally save us to the end.
The Westminster Confession of Faith captures this beautifully in 12.1:
“All those that are justified, God (secures), in and for his only Son Jesus Christ, to make partakers of the grace of adoption, by which they are taken into the number, and enjoy the liberties and privileges of the children of God, have his name put upon them, receive the Spirit of adoption, have access to the throne of grace with boldness, are enabled to cry, Abba, Father, are pitied, protected, provided for, and chastened by him, as by a father: yet never cast off, but sealed to the day of redemption; and inherit the promises, as heirs of eternal salvation.”
And Jesus Himself confirms this covenant faithfulness in John 13: “Those whom you have given to me, I have loved them to the end.” That is the unbreakable promise of the gospel.
If God doesn’t abandon you in your weakness, we should not abandon a husband or a wife in their weakness.
Hear this: God opposes divorce for his glory, and for your sake, because he could have divorced you a long time ago!
God opposes divorce: third, because it dims the gospel’s glory
Main Idea: God Opposes Divorce, so should we!
Excursus: Abuse and Reconciliation after Adultery
Abuse
But we must also address the difficult question of abuse in marriage. How do we square the reality of abuse with Jesus’ teaching that only sexual immorality is grounds for divorce? I believe the answer lies in this: sexual immorality is the highest degree of covenant breaking. By its very nature, it shatters the one-flesh bond. So when Jesus says, “except for sexual immorality,” He is pointing to the most extreme example of covenant unfaithfulness.
Think of it like a continuum. On one side are smaller offenses that harm but do not dissolve the covenant; on the other side is sexual immorality, which represents the fullest form of covenant breaking. Along that continuum are other violations that approximate covenant breaking—even if they are not technically sexual sin. Abuse belongs in this category.
Although abuse can be initiated by both man and woman, I will focus on the men because it is more common. So, a husband who abuses his wife has failed to live with her in an understanding way (1 Pet. 3:7). He has failed to love her as Christ loved the church (Eph. 5:25). He has failed even to love her as his own body (Eph. 5:28). In violating these explicit commands, he has committed covenant unfaithfulness. Abuse is, therefore, in league with sexual immorality—it constitutes covenant breaking.
Reconciliation after Adultery
I must also add this: too often I have seen the church pressure men and women to stay in marriages where sexual immorality or abuse is present. The reasoning is usually that “divorce is undesirable” or “divorce must be avoided at all costs.” But that is not what Jesus says. In fact, Jesus explicitly gives both women and men permission to divorce on the grounds of sexual immorality. The role of the church, then, is not to coerce someone into staying, but to walk with them wisely as they discern the way forward with family, trusted friends, and under God’s Word.
While it is the hope of the church to see reconciliation, the truth is that some sins are so destructive that they disqualify a person from the covenant responsibilities of marriage. And in such cases, it may very well be that the consequence of sin is that a man or woman is left to live alone.
Application – For Marriages and for All of Us
For Marriages
The takeaway I want marriages in this room to leave with this morning is this: because God hates divorce, you and your spouse must work so that your marriage thrives.
When we read a prohibition in Scripture, we often only see the negative. For example, when God says, “You shall not kill,” we assume the mandate is simply to avoid killing. But when a commandment is given in the negative, there is also a positive aspect. If you shall not kill, then you must do everything in your power to promote the flourishing of life.
In the same way, if the command is to avoid divorce, then the application is this: make sure that your marriage thrives. That requires work. You must devote time and intentional effort to your marriage, because marriage will wither if it is neglected.
There are two primary ways marriages crumble.
- Open assault – such as sexual immorality. That is like throwing a bomb in the middle of your family. It detonates, and everyone is affected.
- Neglect – whether willful or unintentional.
This morning I want to focus especially on the danger of neglect. Do not neglect your marriage; pour into it so that it flourishes.
There are two ways husbands and wives can pursue a thriving marriage, and I want to give a word first to the husbands. Husbands, you are called by God to set the spiritual temperature of your home. You are to be the priests and prophets of your household. You are to lead in such a way that your leadership blesses your wife and your family. Men, you are being called to help your marriage thrive. If you are not actively working toward a flourishing marriage, you are unintentionally working toward a languishing marriage—perhaps even toward divorce itself.
How? Lead, especially in the spiritual sense!
Read Scripture together and pray together.
Work and Keep – Masculine Mandate
Woman
Champion your husband’s godly leadership. If you husband is leading you spiritually, don’t fight against that leadership.
Eden
If you go back to the garden, you find these to very things being neglected. Eve failed to champion her husband’s leadership by getting him involved in the conversation, and Adam failed to lead and protect his wife.
For All of Us
But this word is not only for marriages—it is for all of us.
So here is the broader point: the culture around us will constantly push us toward self-expression and self-fulfillment. That pressure will tempt us to forsake covenantal commitments—commitments in marriage, commitments in family, commitments in the church, commitments to God Himself.
The tragic result is that we now live in the most depressed, the loneliest, and the most suicidal age in history. Why? Because when you make self-expression and self-fulfillment the ultimate goal, you cut yourself off from the life-giving covenant commitments that God designed to sustain your soul.
But when we die to self and embrace God’s covenant purposes—when we empty ourselves of selfish desires so that His desires can flourish in us—we find true life, true joy, and true flourishing in Christ.
So, make your relationships thrive. Make your relationship with family thrive. Make your relationship to the church thrive. Do you remember your membership vows?
The Vows*
(name), will you stand now, and in the presence of God and his people respond to the following questions:
- Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God sent to redeem the world, do you love and trust him as the one who saves you from your sin, and do you with repentance and joy embrace him as Lord of your life?
Answer: I do.
- Do you believe that the Bible is the Word of God revealing Christ and his redemption, and that the confessions of this church faithfully reflect this revelation?
Answer: I do.
- Do you accept the gracious promises of God sealed to you in your baptism and do you affirm your union with Christ and his church which your baptism signifies?
Answer: I do.
- Do you promise to do all you can, (not all that you feel like) with the help of the Holy Spirit, to strengthen your love and commitment to Christ by sharing faithfully in the life of the church, honoring and submitting to its authority; and do you join with the people of God in doing the work of the Lord everywhere?
How? Engage in the spiritual life of the church, and by that I mean the prayer life of the church and the Bible studies.
Conclusion
You live in a world that pushes you to be a serial covenant breaker in order to focus on yourself. Your goals, your plans, your ideas. Whether that is in marriage or other covenantal realtionships. What God is telling us this morning is that we should oppose breaking the covenantal responsibilities that we are obligated to fulfill. First, in our marriages. Second, in all covenantal relationships, especially with your church family. So, live counter-culturally by not only remaining married, but focus on your covenantal relationships thriving. Let’s not do what many couples do that they stay together because it hard or more expensive to get divorce. Let’s not just do the minimal in our covenantal relationships here at church. Let’s make it thrive, overflow. Let’s go all out.
Many of you have heard of the death of Charlie Kirk, and I know that there might be some mixed views on his ideas. But, I just want you to consider this, he died for what he believed in. Let’s us die for what we believe in, striving so that our covenantal relationships flourish.