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Matthew 19:1-15
00:30:12
This week Dr. Tim Gray and Dr. Michael Barber, professor of Sacred Scripture at the Augustine Institute Graduate School, continue their study of the Gospel of Matthew by diving into 19:1-15.
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to form. Now, I'm Tim Gray, president of the Augustine Institute. And Joining me is Dr. Michael Barber, professor of Scripture here at the Augusta Institute. And we're going to continue our ongoing Bible study in the Gospel of Matthew. So whether this is your first time or you've been with us through the long journey, open up your Bibles to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 19. We're getting close to Jerusalem. So we've been slowly moving our way closer and closer to Jerusalem. And we're on the cusp and on the gates of Jerusalem here as we enter into chapter 19, Jesus is getting close. He's going to be coming from Galilee into the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. So we're getting closer and closer to Jerusalem. And then the Pharisees are going to come up to Jesus and they put him to the test. So, Michael, you want to take up the text there, where they're putting Jesus to the test. They're seeking to entrap our Lord. And they think they've got a good question to do that.
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B
That's right. And in fact, they know they've got a winning strategy. So they come down. We see when Jesus had finished these sayings, he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. We've been here before, folks. We've been in the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. In Matthew 3, verse 1, this is where John the Baptist preached, if you'll remember. And you know John the Baptist is now dead. Remember how he died? He died because he got in trouble for his teaching on divorce and remarriage. Right. He was rankling the king and the queen by explaining that Herod should not have this woman as his wife. This is his brother's wife. Right. And so the Pharisees certainly remember that. And so we read that large crowds follow Jesus down from Galilee. They're probably all going up to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover. And Pharisees came. And what do they do? They test him. So the Pharisees aren't interested in a genuine question. They don't have a genuine theological inquiry here. They're coming to Jesus to entrap him. And how do they entrap him? Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? Aha. If he says it's ever lawful to divorce someone's wife, we've got him. We're gonna use this and say, look at. Jesus is saying the same thing John the Baptist is saying. He's got real issues with divorce and remarriage. Just like you, Herod. So that's the strategy. And it's really funny that Jesus is actually in this area being questioned about this because it's also the place where Moses allowed for divorce in the book of Deuteronomy. So the book of Deuteronomy is one long speech, basically. Basically, that's what Deuteronomy is, one long sermon of Moses that goes on and on and on. And where is Moses when he delivers his speech? And in the Greek version of the Old Testament, it's the exact same language. He is in the region beyond the Jordan Paran to Yordanu in the Greek, the same language that we use in Matthew 19. And that's significant because in Genesis, divorce isn't permitted. Divorce and remarriage isn't permitted in Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers. Divorce and remarriage isn't permitted in those books. It's only permissible in the book of Deuteronomy. So there's kind of a double meaning to the location here, right? On the one hand it reminds us of John the Baptist. On the other hand, it reminds us of the place where Moses made the concession for divorce and remarriage. Now, one more thing just to add. A lot of people imagine that the Pharisees were like these, these real strict legalistic fundamentalists, something like that. But, you know, that's actually not the case today. There are lots of people who don't like the Catholic Church's teaching on divorce and remarriage. And there are lots of people who say, oh, the Catholics, they should change that teaching. Catholics are being too pharisaical. Right? They'll say that kind of thing. They're too pharisaical and they're teaching on divorce and remarriage. I'd like to just read to you a section from the Mishnah 2nd century collection of the sayings of teachers in Jesus's day. This is what they thought about divorce in the first century. The school of Semi, it says, says a man may not divorce his wife unless he has found unchastity in her, unless she's committed adultery. The school of Hillel says he may divorce her even if she spoiled a dish. So even if she didn't make a nice meal for you, divorce, that's permitted. And Rabbi Akiba says even if he found another fairer than she, you could get a divorce. Right. So it's not like the Pharisees were like these really strict, rigorous. No, the Pharisees were actually the ones who thought there were Lots of good reasons. You could have divorces, right? Sort of an interesting thing to go back and think about. Jesus teaching on divorce and remarriage shocks them. He says, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female? And therefore he 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. Where therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. And they said to Jesus, why then did Moses allow one to divorce their wives? Why did Moses say, here's a certificate of divorce. And Jesus said, because of your hardness of hearts, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives. But from the beginning it was not so. So this is a really important teaching, right? What Jesus wants to underscore is, is that his teaching does not contradict the Torah. Matthew 5. I've come not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. Jesus wants the Pharisees to understand divorce and remarriage was only permitted because of Israel's sinfulness. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologiae, explains that Moses had to permit divorce because, as Thomas, he was quoting Rabbi Maimonides, who's a famous Jewish rabbi, points out that if the Israelites discovered can only end your marriage in divorce, if you don't like your wife, what might you do? You might knock her off. You might kill your wife. And so Maimonides and other ancient Jewish interpreters. And so Thomas Aquinas, following this, says, no. Moses permitted divorce because of the hardness of the people's hearts. And that's precisely what Jesus says. And in fact, we know that there are other laws in the Old Testament that are added because of Israel's sins. So we don't keep all of the Torah's commandments in the New Covenant. They're not all equally binding on us in the New Covenant. For example, I can eat bacon now, right? And that early church fathers would use this passage to explain that. That certain laws were added because of Israel's sclerocardia, right? Sclerosis. What is that? It's the hardening of your heart. You have your veins, right? Sclera, hardened hearts. Your sclerocardia, your hardened hearts. And that's what Jesus says here, that from the beginning it was not so. God said, let the two become one, and that one is real. And so maybe some civic person, some civic figure can come along and declare a divorce. Okay? Whatever they think, God has already brought them together. And so what? God Has. How strong do you think you are? Right. God has brought these two together. You think you're strong enough to take them, tear them apart? So now it's really important just to emphasize here that, well, let's just go. I think we should finish it. So Jesus says, I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual morality, immorality. In Greek, the term is porneia. That's where we get the word pornography. I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality and immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.
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And of course, porneia, by the way, as you know, Michael, it was a term, especially in the first century for the Jews that related to Leviticus 18 and the holiness Code. And, you know, marriage within consanguinity. Right. Would count as porneia in the first century for the Jews. So the exception clause here that Jesus has is you can't divorce for any reason unless for porneia, which means unless there was a marriage within consanguinity. And marrying your brother's wife is marriage within consanguinity. Right.
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So, Herod, this is fun. Okay, so this is fun. Okay, so marriage like that would be an invalid marriage.
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Right?
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Right. Okay. So just. That's one view. This is fun. Doing this live. We don't prepare beforehand.
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Exactly.
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That's one view that has received a lot of support. And actually, the new American Bible, the Bible that we read in the liturgy, actually takes that view and says that porneia means incest here.
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Right.
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That's certainly.
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Frank Zhignac, who was my mentor at Catholic U, translated that Right. And taught me that. Go ahead.
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That's a widely held view. The thing is, no one believed that was what Jesus meant until the 1840s. So up until before the 1840s, the view that widely was understood by the church fathers is that what Jesus is saying here is that it's important where he puts the porneia clause. Right. So what Jesus says is whoever marries his. Whoever divorces his wife, except for porn air and remarries, another commits adultery, whoever divorces his wife, except for this, and then whoever remarries, commits adultery. The way the early church fathers, the Greek Fathers, read this. Really interesting to me, because the Greek fathers, what they say is what Jesus means here is there is an exception. You can actually get a civil divorce in some instances, which actually the Catholic Church does recognize in it's not a sin to get a civil divorce. There are extreme circumstances, for example, where maybe the safety of the wife is in view. There are cases where divorce is permitted. What is not ever permitted is divorce and remarriage. Right. Because the idea is there can be legal separation in some instances, but that doesn't allow you to then get remarried to someone else because once you do that, you're committing adultery. Because whatever the laws say, in God's eyes, you're still married to that first person. Right. And so a number of Bible scholars, we normally don't name Bible scholars here, try to get lots of names, but I got to do this one. Ulrich Luz, or Luz, is a pretty famous Protestant Bible scholar. And he's Protestant. And so he doesn't always say he's not always sympathetic to Catholic interpretations of the Gospel. In his massive three volume commentary on Matthew, he looks at this and he points out, if you look at the church fathers, this is how they all interpret it. This is kind of how the Catholic Church interprets it, that Catholics allow people in some instances to get a divorce, but remarriage is never a viable option. And he says, in my judgment, no solution is as faithful to Matthews as the Catholic solution. Which is really amazing. Right. So there are different views and consanguinity, the idea that Jesus is talking about incest, that may be right. Just because it's a new idea doesn't mean it's not true.
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A
Well, that's just to give you the other. Why I found Zhiniak's argument convincing is that he had Several texts from 1st century Jewish texts that talked about porneia as referring back to Leviticus 18 and to the Gentiles who had a tendency to marry within consanguinity to keep material possessions. So marrying a first cousin, marrying even a brother and a sister, you know, for the pagans, they didn't see that as a problem. The Jews did. So the idea that, and I think that the idea that the idea that you have that and that the church fathers had that you could divorce as long as you didn't remarry, it was just a civil divorce, as you were referred to.
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That's right.
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It wasn't separate and what God had joined together. So you were still reciting that bond. So even interpreting porneia here as marriage within consanguinity doesn't change that teaching at all. So it's not an either or.
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It lands in the same place and both views land in the place the that regardless of whatever civil arrangements might be made in terms of a legal divorce, that doesn't mean that in God's eyes a valid marriage can be dissolved and a new one created while the other spouse is still alive. Both positions would recognize that as true.
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Yeah. And for me, and again, I agree with what you just said. For me, though, what's interesting is that they set up a trap because they want him to say, you know, you could divorce for any reason and then that makes it look like he's endorsing Herod's divorce. His wife Herodias being divorced and remarried, divorcing her, Herod's brother Philip, or. But Jesus comes in much stronger than they expected. He didn't come on either the Hillel side or the Shammai side.
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That's right.
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He came down and said there's no divorce. And then the way I look at it is, except for porneia marriage with inconsanguinity as a shot across the bow at Herod, that Herod should have done what John the Baptist said. Because John the Baptist was calling Herod to put away his wife because it's unlawful for him to be married to her. So the interesting thing is John the Baptist gets beheaded because he called on Herod to divorce his wife Herodias because it was an unlawful marriage. And Jesus seems to be supporting that right here in the place where John the Baptist gets arrested. Right. Because this is the very location where he's going to be arrest. You know, John the Baptist will be seized from Herod. So it's kind of an interesting thing, but we should probably move on.
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Yeah, let's move on now. That's fine. Yeah, I could say a lot more about this. Other people have different views and we don't need to talk about all the different views. Those are the two major views out there. But either way, it comes down to the same thing. And that is what God has brought together. Let no man put asunder. Right. That's the key idea, is that the marriage bond is a sacred bond. And that even if you get a legal divorce, that doesn't mean that you can now marry another. Because. And you know, this has practical implications. I had a really good friend in San Diego. I don't want to say too much because it'll expose who she is, but let's just say she worked for the church. She was an elderly woman. She worked for the church for much of her life and she had been married when she was really young, married to a man who ended up becoming very violent. It was a very dangerous situation for her children. And so she ended up getting a civil divorce because back then she couldn't leave the state she was in unless she got a civil divorce and she couldn't own her own Home or something like that. I forget all the details, but she had to leave. And she was a young woman when this happened and packed up her little kids, moved out to the other side of the country, raised her family, never married again, never dated again. Because she said, whatever happens, he's still my husband. Like in the eyes of God, he's still my. And she prayed for him every day of her life and she still saw him as her spouse even though she was civilly divorced. And you know, it was a very, it was a heartbreaking situation. But it just goes to show you how serious the marriage bond is. Right? You know, we really believe that when you say I do, you are giving yourself away in an irrevocable way. And you know, you might say there's nothing more romantic than that. Right. It's either that big of a gift or it's not that significant at all.
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A
It's a double edged sword as the disciples will say, yes, yes, yes, in response to Jesus teaching. But you know, the positive side that I want to highlight, because the beautiful example of this woman who is so faithful and her sacrifice, which God has to just bless and reward for all eternity, you know, because marriage is a covenant and therefore is irrevocable, as you say. It's important for us to understand that because if we just say no, well, marriage is a deal for a while. But you know, if one party, you know, acts poorly, it's done, it's null and void. And that's not what we teach in the Catholic Church because our teaching comes from scripture and it's a biblical idea of covenant. But that's important for our own salvation because Israel is in a covenant with Yahweh and Israel is unfaithful. She sins, she leaves, she forsakes God, she betrays God. And yet because God is bonded to Israel in a covenant, God is always unconditionally loving Israel and willing to bring Israel back. And that's really the fact that a covenant could be binded is the very hope of our salvation. Because we've been unfaithful to God, but he is always willing to take us back. And so that's just an important teaching for us to understand that there is a silver lining to these arduous requirements of marriage and covenant.
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Right. I know people are going to ask about this, so we just better address this.
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Sure.
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There is such a thing as an annulment. Right. And an annulment is literally a declaration of nullity, in other words, that there was no marriage in the first place. So Annulments are not the same thing as divorce. Right. A divorce says, oh, yeah, here's a marriage, and now we're separating from the marriage. Annulment says there was never a valid marriage in the first place.
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Yeah.
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And so in that case, you get an annulment. If you're divorced and you get an annulment, then you can't get married because you're actually not getting remarried. Right. You're getting married for the first time.
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That's an important point, Michael. And I just want to emphasize one other aspect to that, and that is that the annulment is the Church making a moral judgment and looking at the evidence that you present. And if you could present not all the evidence or false evidence, the church may make a mistake in giving a decision annullity. But the church is not saying that she's inerrant when it comes to annulments. She's saying that according to the data we have, we judge that your previous marriage was not a sacramental marriage, and therefore we're saying it is annulled because we never think it was legitimate. And therefore, in our eyes, you're free to get remarried. But it's clear that if you know in your heart that it was a real marriage and you present some of the evidence, but not all of it faithfully, and the church gives you an annulment, that church cannot. The Church does not have the authority to annul what God has bound together, if it was bound together by God and it was a legitimate marriage. And that's an important point for people to know. That is the annulment is not this powerful trump card that undoes things, that changes what God has done. And the Church is humble in its estimation. It's saying, okay, given the data, we can say publicly, you're free to remarry and receive communion because we believe that the evidence is such that this wasn't a sacramental marriage.
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And sometimes the case is pretty obvious, right? Fraud or something like that. There's, you know, other times it's, It's. It's much more complex.
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Right.
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But the, you know, the key thing to understand is if you're a Catholic and you're hearing this and, okay, Jesus said, offered this teaching about divorce. It doesn't mean that if you are divorced, oh, well, that's it, you're going to hell or, you know, or something like that. No, there's. There's a lot more to it here. And in cases where people have been divorced and then they get into a second marriage, oftentimes what happens is that happened because that occurred because they didn't realize what they were doing even in their first marriage. And so if you find yourself in that kind of situation, it would really behoove you to start talking to your priest about what is the annulment process, you know, because I want to make sure I'm receiving the sacraments and I'm doing all the things that I can do to, you know, to make sure that my life is in accordance with Catholic teaching so that I can. I can really be all that Christ wants me to be.
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A
It's so important. And this is such a complex issue. I think that, you know, I know of people who, you know, their husband left them, and they felt like that was my true husband. I was married, I gave my vows, and. And they refused to remarry. And then that person was able to get an annulment from the Church, and they feel like the Church betrayed them. That was first, the betrayal was their husband. Then the second betrayal was the church that then legitimized what their husband did. But they knew in their heart that it wasn't. So they didn't remarry. And God bless them. I mean, at the end of the day, all wrongs will be made right by God and justice will be carried out. And it's important here what Jesus says. In the beginning, it was not so. This is not God's plan A for us. And I think everybody who even knows if they didn't have a legitimate marriage the first time and found a legitimate marriage through annulment and everything else the second time, I think that everybody knows that divorce is always a painful thing. It is always a bad thing that you don't want to have to endure or go through. And that's, you know, I just think that what God wants for us is to be free and to be happy. And it's a difficult thing. Now, the disciples are going to say to him, look, if such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry, you know. But he said to them, not everyone can receive the same, but only those for whom it is given. So Jesus doesn't usually say that for his teachings. He acknowledges that this is, you know, a hard teaching. And not everybody can accept it and live by it, you know, but it's about living for the kingdom, right? And that's going to be what Jesus is going to say here.
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B
And marriage is a calling, right? And so not everyone can receive it except to those it's been given, right? So if Christ gives you the vocation for marriage, then he also gives you the grace to be able to live it out. Now, sometimes that may seem impossible, sometimes we may forget about that, but his promise is our sure. And so we know that if we go to him and we ask him for the grace, he will enable us to do things that we never thought were even humanly possible. And this is why it's so important to Marriage is a two way street for both spouses to depend on Christ and depend on the grace that's given in Christ to be able to live out their marriage promises. Of course, Jesus also follows this by then talking about eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom. Eunuchs were those in the ancient world, men who were castrated. Usually, usually if one nation conquered another nation, some men would be taken and castrated so that they could be entrusted with the royal harem. And you actually see this in biblical books like Esther, where the eunuchs care for the royal harem. And what Jesus says is there are eunuchs who are from birth, people have been born with some kind of defect, those who are made eunuchs by other men. And then there are eunuchs who make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom. And here we have the idea of celibacy. We have the idea of those who commit themselves to a different vocation, not marriage, but they commit themselves to remain single for the sake of the kingdom, to not have children. And what's fascinating about that is Jesus says the same thing there. He says, let the one who is able to receive this receive it. In other words, not everyone is given that vocation either. So, you know, no one has a right to be a priest. No one has a right even to marriage, Right? What we need to do is ask the Lord, what is it that you are calling me to do, Lord? Right? And then God gives us the grace to realize the vocation that he's given each one of us. And one of the besetting sins of spiritual immaturity is wishing that you would receive the different vocation. Oh, it would have been so much easier if I'd been married. So much easier if I'd been a priest. No matter what your state in life, at some point you're going to see advantages in another state in life. But the state that we are called to is the one that Christ gives us the grace to live. And let the one who receives that vocation, the person who receives a giving vocation, let them live out that vocation. That's, I think, the Key lesson there. And I do think it's funny, Tim, Jesus goes from talking about marriage and divorce to then talking about children.
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Exactly.
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The children come to him and the disciples rebuke the people for bringing children to Jesus. And he says, let the children come to me. And that's the way it works, isn't it? Now we have marriage and then children, and then the next thing Jesus is going to teach about is poverty.
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Exactly.
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It all kind of fits together.
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Yeah, exactly. I was just going to say that. Yep. Then the next one is the poverty. I was just going to say that. Yeah, it's if we're open. And marriage is not an escape from the cross, it's an embracing of a cross in a particular way. And to be open to that cross, then you have to be open to children. And then to be open to children is to open to be dispossessed of your possessions. And that's the way of the kingdom of heaven. And we're not seeking a kingdom on earth. And Jesus is clear about that. We are as disciples to be pursuing the kingdom that's in heaven, not the kingdom that's on this earth. That's going to be important. And of course, you know, since we've already talked about divorce and we couldn't be more politically incorrect here in this episode, Michael, we've talked about divorce, we've talked about annulments, and let the children come to me, we might as well say contraception. That is the biggest contradiction to what Jesus said here. Jesus wants children to come to us in Genesis, he says to Adam and Eve, the very first commandment in the Bible is be fruitful and multiply. So contraception is a way of contravening God's plan for love to be fruitful and for love to give and make a gift of self right and to pour oneself out on others. And there's no doubt that the world understands that contraception makes it easier for you to save money and to have less commitments and to be more on me. But the world is. After the sexual revolution in the 1960s, the world has exercised that privilege and that possibility in spades. And the world is not happier for it. There's a lot less happiness. And so we can see that there's a paradox to the cross, that when we sacrifice for Christ, we actually find happiness. When we deny ourselves, that's when we discover the true meaning of love and of our life. And our life becomes more meaningful than our own self gratification. It's part of a mission for the kingdom of heaven. It's part of living out the Father's love for us and the call that Jesus gave us. Well, it's hard to believe right now.
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B
If you see sexual activity. Let me just say, if you see sexual activity as just a means of pleasure and not as a gift of self to your wife and the children, then it's really not an act of love. It's only an act of selfishness. Right? And so in Jesus's teaching, we find what leads us to love. And as he is going to say later in the Gospel, all the commandments are summed up in love God and love your neighbor.
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A
Exactly. And it's love that ultimately fulfills our hearts. That's what our hearts are made for. Not gratification, not for comfort, but for a love that moves the sun, the moon and the stars and is the purpose of our lives. Well, we're out of time already, so I want to thank everybody for joining us. And we'll pick up next time at the end of Matthew, chapter 19. God bless you and thank you very much.