Obduracy

[DaPastor]

I hold a rather unique view concerning the phrase "hardness of heart" the way Jesus used it. The only way I can wrap my head around it is to think in terms of Scripture not contradicting Scripture. i.e. "The Law of the Lord is PERFECT (Psalm 19:7)"; "Blessed are the UNDEFILED in the way, WHO WALK in the Law of the Lord (Psalm 119:1);" "Wherefore the Law is HOLY, and the commandment HOLY, and JUST, and GOOD (Romans 7:1); What shall we say then? IS THE LAW SIN? GOD FORBID.. (Romans 7:7)." Morever, Jesus Himself made it clear that teaching one to break the Law would be considered least in the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 5:19).

With those passages in mind, I lean toward the idea that what Jesus was doing in Matthew 19 when discussing divorce was comparing the perfect world at the time of creation (i.e. "from the beginning") with the Mosaic Law. He was not dismissing the Mosaic Law. The Law "was added because of transgressions... (Galatians 3:19)," that is, in my way of thinking suggests that the Law was God's perfect response to our sinful nature. We all have hard hearts in varying degrees. IMHO, Moses was speaking on behalf of God! We do not live in a perfect creation!

I do not pretend to believe that I am absolutely correct regarding this, so please chime in. Disussing these things can be beneficial.

 

[welltan]

Sounds like a good handle on the scripture. I also look at it from the point that Christ was looking at the hardness of the heart for the man as an action cause, and with a possibly negative result. It really does not exclude the wife by sin causing a divorce also, where the man is not 'putting away' or taking really any action to cause a divorce, but the lady does and those action/ideas might be mentioned elsewhere in scripture. I am not saying anything of course that you do not already know, it is just hard to read a scripture where Christ himself is talking and remember that Christ did not necessarily finish the subject of divorce at that time, and did not leave man as the only instigator. As Christian men, when Christ talks we listen, and application is made of our hearts towards conforming to Christ’s view on a hardness of our hearts. I do not think it means to burden us with, if divorce happensthen always a man has a hard heart, but rather if man has a hard heart it is wrong to divorce quickly for that reason before inventorying one's heart, and her heart.

 

[DaPastor]

Sounds like a good handle on the scripture. I also look at it from the point that Christ was looking at the hardness of the heart for the man as an action cause, though with the man’s negative purpose. It really does not exclude the wife by sin causing a divorce also, where the man is not 'putting away' or taking really any action to cause a divorce, but the lady does and those actions are mentioned elsewhere in scripture. I am not saying anything of course that you do not already know, it is just hard to read a scripture where Christ himself is talking and remember that Christ did not necessarily finish the subject of divorce at that time, leaving man as the only instigator. As Christian men, when Christ talks we listen, and application is made of our hearts towards conforming to Christ’s view on a hardness of our hearts. I do not think it means to burden us with, if divorce happens, man has a hard heart, but rather if man has a hard heart it is wrong it is wrong to divorce.

I agree brother, allow me to add a thought to it. We should not forget that the Father wrote a certificate of divorce too. Yet, we know that it was not because of the hardness of His heart. It is bigger than the idea of a husband having the hardness of heart because he chooses to divorce his wife. He may actually have a pure and holy heart, and still divorce his wife. In the case of the Father, it was the wife (by analogy) who had the hardness of heart. Was what Jesus said a condemnation of any divorce being an act of hardness by both sides of the marriage? I think not! In some cases, like that of our Father, it was a forced divorce because of the hardness of heart of the other partner, if you will - because of the actions of his wife.

 

[Scarecrow]

I had always assumed that "but from the beginning it was not so" was an indication that since God created man and woman "it" (divorce) "was not so" (not allowed). I paired this with another verse where Jesus states that if a man marries a divorced woman he commits adultery. Also the Apostle Paul stated that a covenant could not be changed or annulled. These and other verses led me to come to the conclusion that God simply did not recognize a man made divorce between two believers. As I have mentioned this to others the problem arises of how do we know if someone is actually a believer or not? Then if one of the two is not actually a believer Paul states that the believer is not bound to the unbeliever if they choose to leave (I assume divorce). So...now that I understand your perspective I need to look at things again and see if I can make sense of it along with other scriptures...very interesting perspective.

 

[The Duke Of Marshall]

The only way I can wrap my head around it is to think in terms of Scripture not contradicting Scripture. i.e. "The Law of the Lord is PERFECT (Psalm 19:7)"; "Blessed are the UNDEFILED in the way, WHO WALK in the Law of the Lord (Psalm 119:1);" "Wherefore the Law is HOLY, and the commandment HOLY, and JUST, and GOOD (Romans 7:1); What shall we say then? IS THE LAW SIN? GOD FORBID.. (Romans 7:7)." Morever, Jesus Himself made it clear that teaching one to break the Law would be considered least in the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 5:19).

Uh oh!! I think someone's starting to lean Messianic now!! lol, jk

My thinking on the subject kinda goes along the same line as Scarecrow. Marriage was from the beginning, but not divorce. Bill Luck gave a pretty good explanation at the last retreat as to what the bill of divorcement was all about and why it was implemented. Hopefully I can get what he said right: "A man could divorce his wife for any reason because of the hardness of his heart. Even if she burnt the biscuits per se. The bill of divorcement in the Tanakh was to protect the woman so that she could then go on to find another man. That second man would know that she was unfairly divorced instead of justifiably divorced and could therefore go ahead and marry her. It was a protection for the lady in question." He then went on to make a point between slaves and wives and divorce, but I think he's wrong on that point. Anyways, after taking that into consideration it would seem to me as though Yahushua our Messiah was in fact talking about the fact that rampant, for any reason, divorce was not the way it was supposed to be and because of the hardness of men's hearts that Mosheh commanded men to give women the bill of divorcement so as to protect the women. But that Yahushua was making the point that it would be better to stay together. Thoughts?

 

[Scarecrow]

"a point between slaves and wives and divorce"

I remember reading a rather lengthy document about marriage and divorce. The crux of the argument allowing divorce was that a passage in the Old Testament stated that if a man no longer delighted in her (a slave in this case) she could leave. I looked into it and it seemed to me that she was simply allowed to leave, it didn't indicate divorce. This matched up with Paul saying that a woman should not leave her husband, but that if she does she should remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband.

Deuteronomy 21:11-14 and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you desire to take her to be your wife...But if you no longer delight in her, you shall let her go where she wants. But you shall not sell her for money, nor shall you treat her as a slave, since you have humiliated her.

I sent the author an email, and he did not address the things I pointed out other than to say he had thoroughly looked into them previously and then copied and pasted some of his stuff that I had already read...I was rather disappointed with his response.

 

[steve]

you shall let her go where she wants

maybe "letting her go" would include a writ of divorce, because w/out one she would not be able to marry into another family.
other than marriage, a girl had few options in those days.

 

[Scarecrow]

We do know that in an earlier passage Abraham "sends away" Hagar...using the same root word that is used in Deuteronomy 21:14. And then there is...

Deuteronomy 24:1 "When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house,

The only difference being that we are told about the certificate and that he put it in her hand then sends her out...

You may be right...21:14 may be an abbreviated version of 24:1...hmmm...more to study...

 

[DaPastor]

The only way I can wrap my head around it is to think in terms of Scripture not contradicting Scripture. i.e. "The Law of the Lord is PERFECT (Psalm 19:7)"; "Blessed are the UNDEFILED in the way, WHO WALK in the Law of the Lord (Psalm 119:1);" "Wherefore the Law is HOLY, and the commandment HOLY, and JUST, and GOOD (Romans 7:1); What shall we say then? IS THE LAW SIN? GOD FORBID.. (Romans 7:7)." Morever, Jesus Himself made it clear that teaching one to break the Law would be considered least in the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 5:19).

Uh oh!! I think someone's starting to lean Messianic now!! lol, jk

If I had a choice, I would probably lean more towards theonomy...lol

 

[DaPastor]

Bill Luck gave a pretty good explanation at the last retreat as to what the bill of divorcement was all about and why it was implemented. Hopefully I can get what he said right: "A man could divorce his wife for any reason because of the hardness of his heart. Even if she burnt the biscuits per se. The bill of divorcement in the Tanakh was to protect the woman so that she could then go on to find another man. That second man would know that she was unfairly divorced instead of justifiably divorced and could therefore go ahead and marry her. It was a protection for the lady in question." Thoughts?

I would agree that it was about protection of women. Along the same lines I would suggest that the Bill of Divorcement was a total and complete dissolution of the marriage covenant, freeing the woman to marry again, and not leaving to beg the rest of her life. However, I do not think that every divorce is an act of hardness on all the marriage partners involved. Again, we must understand that the Law of the Lord is PERFECT. The act of divorce then can be a PERFECT act, rightly understood. Some men attempted to use loop holes because they were already hardened by sin to divorce for the most minor reasons available. So, I guess I go back to my original thought that since God's Law is God's perfect answer for that day, then the act of divorce was given because sin overwhelmed all partners. However, if man would not have fallen into sin, there would have never been any divorces.

 

[DaPastor]

you shall let her go where she wants

maybe "letting her go" would include a writ of divorce, because w/out one she would not be able to marry into another family.
other than marriage, a girl had few options in those days.

I agree Steve