a deeper obedience (3) : faithfulness

(matthew 5.31-37)

Jason Procopio

Let’s start with a pop quiz. Don’t give me your answers, but think hard about them.

1. How often do you, with the best intentions, say you’ll perform some simple task…and then not do it? (Guys, if you’re not married yet, remember this one—it will come up again.)

2. Speaking of marriage, here’s one for you married people: How many of you actually remember the contents of your wedding vows—do you remember specifically what you promised to do that day?

3. When speaking to someone who is going through a difficult time, how often do you say, “I’ll pray for you,” without ever actually praying for them later?

If any of these questions hits us where we live, today’s text is for us. 

Let’s remember what we’ve seen the last few weeks we’ve been in Jesus’s sermon on the mount. Jesus commands his disciples to be salt and light in this world—to preserve and present the message and character of the kingdom of God—through a radical obedience, which seeks to not only obey God’s commands, but dig down to the root of those commands, and become new people, who reflect God’s own character. 

This is an incredibly tall order, and in last week’s text we saw just how tall. Jesus said, don’t stop at the command to not murder, but go further, and don’t allow your anger to control you. He said, don’t stop at the command to not commit adultery, but go further, and don’t allow your eyes to look on someone else with lustful intent. He’s not just going after the act, but after the heart.

And he’s continuing today. Both subjects of today’s text are linked by one common theme: faithfulness. The citizens of God’s kingdom will be people who are known for their faithfulness, their trustworthiness. And Jesus gives two examples of what this will look like: faithfulness in marriage, and faithfulness in speech. 

He chooses his examples well. The first addresses faithfulness within the confines of the home, and the second addresses faithfulness in the broader context of our life in this world. With these two examples, Jesus covers pretty much every possible base.

Faithfulness in Marriage (v. 31-32)

Now before we look at the text, let me say the obvious. In these first two verses, Jesus speaks of marriage and divorce. Statistically, in France, roughly 45% of marriages end in divorce—and I think the numbers may be a bit off here, given how many couples live as though they were married without ever going to the town hall to make it official. So statistically speaking, roughly half of you in this room have probably been touched by divorce in one way or another, and some of you may have been through one yourselves.

A broken marriage is incredibly painful—both for the couple and for those closest to them, like their children. So it might be difficult to even think about this subject without our thoughts being clouded by our own pain. I feel a great weight preparing this text because I know that a good many of you will have a hard time hearing it, simply because of the pain you’ve felt over this subject in the past.

But this is why we preach through the Bible: we believe all of the Bible is God’s Word, and we don’t want to refrain from speaking on a subject just because it would be easier not to. As is always the case, when we press through the pain to what God is actually saying, we find that the truth he’s giving us is actually better.

So I’m going to do my best to be sensitive, but we need to hear this (whether we’re married or single). V. 31-32:

31 “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. 

There are two ways to tackle this difficult passage—by answering two different questions. One of these questions is the right question, and one of them is the wrong question. But inevitably, the wrong question is almost always the one that comes to mind first.

Here’s the wrong question: According to what Jesus says here, am I allowed to get divorced?

The surface answer to that question is, yes, on one condition: if one of the spouses is guilty of sexual immorality (v. 32). Now of course there are a handful of other examples we could use as objections—like a marriage in which one spouse is abusive—and we need to be extremely careful when laying down blanket restrictions. We wholeheartedly affirm that if someone is in an abusive relationship, they should take any and all steps necessary to protect themselves and their loved ones; and as the Bible doesn’t speak about these other cases, some of these situations will be matters of conscience.

But if we’re honest, most of the time when we’re thinking about divorce, that’s not what we have in mind. We’re thinking of what happens if you get married, and then after a few years, you run into hard times with your spouse, you’re not longer on the same page, or there are (as modern law says) irreconcilable differences. Is the fact that you are no longer “in love” with your spouse sufficient grounds for divorce? Jesus says unequivocally that no, it is not. The one situation he mentions which would be acceptable grounds for divorce is marital infidelity: everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery.

Now even over this, there is some debate—some very well-respected theologians, including my buddy John Piper, hold the view that Jesus gives his so-called “exception clause” in v. 32 in order to explain how Joseph could still be a righteous man while wanting to divorce Mary, when he thought she had been unfaithful. I love and esteem John Piper to a ridiculous extent—I have on my phone not one, but four pictures of the two of us together, which is almost as many pictures as I have of Loanne and me together. But as much as I love him, I think in this particular case, his argument is incredibly tenuous—the context doesn’t suggest that at all, Joseph and Mary are never mentioned, and so we have no reason to think Jesus had them particularly in mind when he said this.

Secondly, there are doubts over the authenticity of this clause—whether or not Jesus actually said, except on the ground of sexual immorality—because those words don’t appear in parallel passages in the gospels of Mark and Luke. But this doesn’t hold water either—not a single ancient manuscript of Matthew’s gospel omits this phrase, and it is quite possible Mark and Luke left it out because it was so evident for any Jew living at the time. Under the Mosaic Law, marital infidelity was punishable by death—no one disagreed about whether or not adultery was sufficient grounds to break up a marriage.

So if we assume that Jesus did say this, and that he meant what he said (which is what I assume), why did he say it? Why would sexual immorality be the one exception he gives?

Some of you may know that the Greek word translated by “sexual immorality” is porneia. This is where we get our word pornography, and it comes from the Greek word for prostitute: pornē. It is a kind of catch-all word for any physical, sexual act which doesn’t take place in the context of the sexual union of a husband with his wife. 

And when we start to think about why this would be the one exception Jesus gives for divorce, we start to understand why all this time, we’ve been asking the wrong question: “Am I allowed to get divorced?” Even though the answer is, technically yes, if one spouse has engaged in sexual immorality, we can’t understand why sexual immorality would be grounds for divorce until we answer the right question.

So here’s the right question: What gives the institution of marriage such permanence that until death, or until Christ returns, almost nothing can break it?

We can see that this is the right question by looking at another passage in which Jesus gives this exact same teaching, but in a bit more detail. (When you have two passages which are related, especially if they are mirror images of one another, you should always interpret the unclear passage in the light of the clear one; interpret the less detailed passage in light of the more detailed one.) We find our mirror passage in Matthew 19.3-9.  

3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” 4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 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’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” 7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” 8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” 

So the first thing we notice is that Jesus was himself asked this wrong question we mentioned before. The Pharisees come to him and ask him, “Is divorce allowed?” 

The second thing we see is that rather than answering their question directly, by talking about divorce, Jesus instead brings them back to Genesis chapter 2. God creates the world, he creates the man and the woman and brings them together, and then he says, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” (v. 5 is a direct quote from Genesis 2.24). Jesus continues by saying, “So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

You can see what motivates someone when you see what preoccupies them; and while the Pharisees are preoccupied by this question of divorce, Jesus is preoccupied by the institution of marriage. The main thing in Jesus’s mind isn’t, What could break a husband and wife apart? but rather, What brings a husband and wife together? And the answer is, God does. God joins a husband to his wife. 

Young people often ask me how to know if someone is “the person” they’re supposed to be with. They ask, “How do you know that your wife is THE woman God had planned for you?” My answer is always the same: “Because I married her. Because she’s my wife.” When two people get married, it is God who joins them to one another.

The third thing we see is that in v. 8, Jesus tells them the only reason divorce was mentioned in the Law of Moses in the first place: he says that Moses gave this process for divorce as a concession to the hardness of human hearts. 

What does he mean by this? Well, it’s true that Moses provided this provision, but it’s not nearly as sweeping as the Pharisees make it seem. (As they often do, they misuse Scripture to their own ends.) We find the provision in Deuteronomy 24, in which we see that far from commanding this provision for divorce, Moses gives a similar condition to the one Jesus gives: that of indecency. It’s difficult to know what Moses meant by this, but Jesus speaks more clearly.

To put it simply, Jesus says: a marriage may be broken through divorce only if it has already been broken through adultery. Adultery is the fundamental breaking of the union between a husband and wife—the apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6.16: 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.” When adultery is committed, the union that God establishes between a husband and wife through sexual intimacy is broken and reforged with this other person. So Jesus’s point is that if this union has already been broken through adultery, it cannot become more broken through divorce. 

(This is why, by the way, he talks about adultery in v. 9 of chapter 19, and v. 32 of chapter 5. He talks about adultery because, assuming the divorced person remarries, that marriage should never have happened. God brought these two people together, so nothing should have broken this marriage.)

All of this explains why Jesus says but from the beginning it was not so. This isn’t how it was meant to be. God makes this allowance for now, because he knows that sinful men and women will sometimes break their union through sexual immorality. But the importance of marriage isn’t found in what can break it, but in what makes it. God himself brings a man and a woman together in marriage, in order for them to be a living picture of the perfect and permanent union between Christ and his church (cf. Ephesians 5.22-33). 

Christ is always faithful to his church; and even if we as individuals may be unfaithful to Christ, he will see to it that the church remains faithful to him.

So you see, the real subject here is not divorce at all, but faithfulness. Christ is, and always will be, faithful to us. We have been saved today only because he was faithful to us in the past, he is faithful to us in the present, and we rest in the promise of his continued faithfulness in the future. This is what our marriages are meant to display to the world: the enduring faithfulness of Christ to his church, and of the church to Christ.

So of course, if we are called to be living symbols of the faithfulness between Christ and the church, then we will be faithful to our spouses—just as Christ is faithful to us, and as we are called to be faithful to him. Just as Christ has no other church than the one universal church into which all the saints have been brought, we will be husbands of one wife, and wives of one husband, who will be faithful to not only preserve the physical union of marriage, but the emotional and mental intimacy of marriage. (Which is why just before this in v. 28, Jesus said that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.)

Now speaking of it like this, this kind of faithfulness sounds wonderful to a lot of us—this is what we want. But I know that some of you are feeling like this text is a club with which you’re being beaten over the head. Because you have been unfaithful; or you’ve been hurt by the unfaithfulness of someone else; or you’ve been hurt by the unfaithfulness of your parents, or of other people you’re close to. The obvious question will be, What if I’m in this situation already? What if it’s too late?

Friends, never forget that this passage comes in the wider context of the Sermon on the Mount, which comes in the wider context of the gospel of Matthew, which comes in the wider context of the rest of Scripture. And the central message of all of Scripture is one of reconciliation. In Christ, we have been reconciled to God: the separation which was between us because of our sin no longer exists; our sin died on the cross with Christ, so we who are in Christ no longer have anything standing between us and God. 

Since we have been reconciled to God in Christ, we have also been reconciled to one another. In Christ, we are brothers and we are sisters, adopted children of God, united to one another for all eternity. 

And our reconciliation with one another isn’t meant to remain only spiritual.

In other words, the forgiveness and grace we have received from Christ, which reconciles us to God and to one another in a spiritual sense, also gives us the power to be reconciled to one another in a relational sense. In Christ, reconciliation is always possible. It will be difficult, absolutely. It may even be conditional—there are some situations in which reconciliation will not mean being best friends again, or having the same relationship you used to have. 

But in every case, because we have reconciliation with God in Christ, we can have reconciliation with one another. We can have peace where once there was division. 

We can be faithful, because Christ is faithful to us.

Faithfulness in Speech (v. 33-37)

I know the last point was heavy. It's hard to talk about some subjects without opening an entire bag full of pain and side-questions.

But this last point will be quicker: now Jesus is going to open the door even wider, by speaking about overall faithfulness. A fundamental truth of God’s behavior is this: he will never, ever, mislead us. Everything he says is the truth, and he always does what he says. If we, as citizens of his kingdom, are being conformed to his image, then we will be faithful as well—we will do what we say, and we will speak the truth. V. 33:  

33 “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ 

Taking an oath was a common practice at the time; it entailed invoking God’s name (or some substitute for it) to guarantee the truth of one’s statements. It’s a way of showing the person you’re speaking to that you fully measure the importance of what you are saying, and that you really mean what you say.

This isn’t a particularly shocking practice; it’s the kind of thing we wouldn’t think twice about if it came up in regular conversation (although we might find it a bit archaic). But if you think about it, taking an oath to show someone you’re telling the truth doesn’t exactly cast you in a great light, does it? Because it suggests that the rest of the time, there’s a chance you might not be quite as honest as you’re being right now.

And that is precisely why Jesus brings it up. There were many commandments in the Law of Moses which Jesus summarizes in v. 33. And it’s clear in every case that the intent of these commandments is that God wants his people to do what they say they will do; they warn against taking a vow and breaking that vow.

But the Pharisees argued that the law wasn’t really concerned with the vow itself, but rather with the way you pronounced that vow. They had strict rules about which formulae for oaths were binding and which were not; only the formulae which contained God’s name were binding…which meant they didn’t need to be too worried about holding to a oath which didn’t contain God’s name. They could get around keeping their word by using a less specific formula in their oaths.

This of course is hypocritical and foolish, and Jesus gives several examples to show why. He says (v. 34):

34 But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36 And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 

Do you see what he’s getting at? The Pharisees thought that if they took oaths on other things besides God—heaven, or the earth, or Jerusalem, or their own heads—they could get around the obligation to keep their word. But, Jesus says, it doesn’t work! Anything you could possibly swear by, in some way or another, has its root in God, who is the Creator and King and sovereign Ruler of all things. It is by his power everything exists, and by his power all things are sustained.

So Jesus says, “Don’t take an oath at all—just be faithful to do what you say you will do, and to speak the truth when you speak.” V. 37:

37 Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil. 

In other words, if God’s disciples are citizens of God’s kingdom, being remade in his image, then they won’t need an oath; their character will be of such integrity that when they say something, they can be believed. They will be trustworthy. They will be dependable. They’ll do what they say they’ll do, and they’ll speak the truth at all times.

We mentioned one example at the very beginning of this message. We listen to someone sharing a struggle, we say, “I’ll pray for you”…and then we never do it. How refreshing would it be to speak with someone who says, “I’ll pray for you”, and to know—not just think or hope, but know—that they will do it?

Or here’s another example. You’re speaking with another Christian, you’re about to pray, and you’re really struggling with a particular area of sin in your life. But for whatever reason—because you’re afraid of what they’ll think, or because you don’t want to burden the other person—rather than sharing your struggle with your brother or your sister, you act as if everything’s fine, and you keep on going at it alone.

Now of course, we can’t share everything with everyone…but if we are to be truly faithful in our speech, we won’t hide the fact that we’re struggling either. We can easily say, “I’m not doing so well. I can’t talk about why, but if you could pray for me, that’d be great.”

This is a challenge for us; we have become so accustomed to half-truths that we don’t even realize it when we say them. So we’ll need help from the Holy Spirit here. But practically speaking, if we know that our God is always faithful and true, and if we see why this kind of faithfulness is actually good, then we won’t need to fear being transparent and vulnerable with each other. We won’t need to be afraid of saying that things aren’t going well. We won’t say we’ll do something and then not do it; we’ll just say, “I’m sorry, I don’t think I can do that.”

Jesus is calling us to think before we speak. If we know the truth, we speak the truth. If we don’t know, we say, I don’t know. But we don’t present hearsay as fact; we don’t present our opinion as truth; and we don’t say we’ll do one thing but do another. We should be the kind of people who are so faithful that we have no need of oaths, because our honesty and integrity are evident; our Yes means yes, and our No means no.

Let’s just take a moment to admit just how difficult this is. There are few areas in my life which discourage me more than this one. I don’t speak well on the fly, I’m often unable to say precisely what I mean (particularly in French, which is not my first language), and I frankly sometimes speak without thinking, so I forget what I said, and then forget to do what I said I would do. And on top of it all, it’s discouraging to think of the power our words can hold for others. It seems to me that the discipline required to obey Christ here is simply enormous, and it’s frightening.

But imagine what it was like to be Christ. He actually pulled this off every time—he is and was always truthful, always faithful to do what he said. Imagine the unbelievable discipline it required not only to always speak the truth, even if it meant getting himself killed for it, but also to decide what to say. Because at any given moment, in front of any enemy, he could have said the one thing required to break them. But he never saw his truthfulness as a licence to wield the truth against others like a weapon; he spoke the truth, but never used the truth he knew to destroy those who were broken. 

Matthew later says that in Jesus, the prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled (Matthew 12.19-21): 

19 He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets; 20 a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory; 21 and in his name the Gentiles will hope.

Jesus used the truth to bring hope to the hopeless, justice to the wounded, and life to the dying. And he did it despite the fact that at any given moment, he could have used the truth to crush the weak and to build an empire for himself on earth, rather than a kingdom for himself in heaven. As hard as this may seem to us, it was infinitely more difficult for him, because he bore so much more. 

He has gone before us in this, so when we are discouraged, we look to Jesus, and trust that what he did, he will make us able to do.

Conclusion

If the passages we saw last week, about anger and lust, focused on the desires of our heart, this passage focuses on the trustworthiness of our heart.

Christ’s disciples will be maked by faithfulness, in every area of life. 

We are called to be the type of husbands, the type of wives, who can be trusted. To be so faithful that our spouses needn’t fear they will be given a certificate of divorce simply because marriage has gotten too hard. To be so faithful that our spouses needn’t fear that we have been sexually immoral with another man or woman. We are one flesh before God, and we will be until death, or until Christ returns. We should be so faithful that this question need not be asked.

We are called to be so generally faithful that our neighbors need not question the truthfulness of our words, because we have proven ourselves to be truthful. We are called to be the type of men, the type of women, who are marked by faithfulness to what we say—who prove that when we say Yes, we mean yes, and when we say No, we mean no.

Why are we called to be this kind of people? Because we are Christ’s disciples, being remade into his image…and he is never anything but faithful. He is faithful to the church, his bride for whom he gave his life. He is faithful in his word—he speaks the truth because he is truth.

People will fail you. But Jesus will never be or do anything but what he has promised. 

We are salt and light in this world when we show people through our lives that we have been made faithful too. 

What kind of glorious shock would it be to for someone, who doesn’t know Christ, to see that our character is marked by radical faithfulness in every area of then life…and then to learn that our Jesus is even more faithful still? That is the wonderful shock we are called to give, by preserving and presenting the character and the message of the gospel to the world.