Matthew 19:3-6 ESV
“And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, ‘Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?’ He answered, ‘Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate’.”
Definitions of words related to divorce and separation:
Divorce – disconnect, distance, detach; separate or dissociate
(something) from something else. Separate – single, unconnected, independent,
divide. Also, a legal dissolution of a marriage by a court or other competent
body.
Adultery - The voluntary sexual intercourse by a married
person with someone other than the offender's spouse; marital infidelity.
Infidelity – unfaithfulness, disloyalty, betrayal, cheating. Adulterate – “to render
something poorer in quality by adding another substance.”
Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27-28 ESV).
“Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, ‘The two will become one flesh’” (1 Corinthians 6:16 ESV).
Putting it All Together
Now I want to put that all together. Yes, a divorce, in
legal terms, is the dissolution of a marriage. But it also means to separate,
as is evident in this passage in Matthew 19. So, instead of the two becoming
one flesh, they are separated. They are no longer one flesh, but two, if they
even ever became one flesh at all.
For, if one spouse or the other was never faithful to the
other, but continually committed adultery against the other, then the one
committing the adultery joined flesh to flesh with others, either in mind only
and/or in actual physical relations. So that person never became one flesh with
the other spouse. Or, if at some point in the marriage one or the other joined
sexually in person and/or in mind only with another, then the offending spouse
became one flesh with another.
Now, you may think this is a stretch, but please pay
attention to the meanings of these words. For to separate is not just a
physical parting of one spouse to another location separate from the other. If
one spouse is continually living in adultery against the other, that spouse is
living in separation from the other. The offending spouse is not one flesh with
the other because he/she is joined together with so many others (or just with
one other).
For, as Jesus pointed out, adultery is not just physical,
but it is also mental. And it can be spiritual, too, for Jesus and the apostles
spoke of the church or individual Christians living in adultery against the
Lord. And what did they do to be in adultery against the Lord? They were
unfaithful to their marriage to Christ and they went after other gods to serve
them. That says a lot.
For, becoming "one flesh" is not just about a
sexual union. If we become one with our spouse (and/or with God), we are united
in heart and mind with the other. Now, in relation to husband and wife, this
does not mean that the two will be like the same person. They will each be who
they are individually, and they aren't going to think alike in all areas,
either, but they are to work together to be united together in heart and mind,
and not work against the other.
When one spouse decides to separate from the other by
committing adultery (which includes all ways which involve lusting after
another, even after one's own self), then that breaks that bond of marriage in
two. It is separating from the other spouse in body, mind, and heart, and it is
joining to another in body, mind, and/or heart. And then when you add lies on
top of that, and willful deception, and hiding what one is doing in secret from
the other, that again is separating from one's spouse and being joined to
another.
So, you and your spouse may still be legally joined together
as husband and wife but you may be living as separate individuals because one
or the other or both are living in betrayal and adultery against the other. And
the only way that the marriage is going to be restored is if the unfaithful
spouse comes totally clean and refuses to return to the adulterous ways and
chooses now to be totally faithful and committed to the neglected spouse.
Broken
Cord
An
Original Work / August 29, 2018
Your bond is broken
With your Lord and Savior
And your testimony is
Separate from Him.
Your words not matching
Your actions today.
Repent of your sin and
Bow down and pray.
Live what you testify
In truth always.
Purity’s lacking in
Your life and witness,
For you profess one thing,
But other you do.
Not moral, spiritual.
Still of the flesh.
Not living in truth to
What you confess.
Lying about it
Puts you in a mess.
Living a lie is your practice,
‘tis true of you.
Masquerade righteousness –
None of it true.
Your heart is not given
To your Lord God.
Because of how you live,
You are a fraud.
Turn from your sin and
Give your life to God.
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