Cleaning Up the Mosaic Law?

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.” They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” 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. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another… commits adultery: and he that marries her when she is put away also commits adultery” Mt 19:3-9.

I was thinking about these verses the other day and wondered to myself if Jesus was teaching new law for the sake of Christians or just cleaning up the Mosaic Law for the people living under it in that day and age. I’m really not sure which. Certainly he says Moses allowing them a “certificate of divorcement” was taken away.

So I decided to take a look at these verses only through the lens of the Mosaic Law.

“I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another… commits adultery”

Why was the exception given for a man to remarry if his wife committed adultery? My guess is because under the Mosaic Law she would be punished for that sin (adultery) with the death penalty. Since she is “dead” the man is free to remarry. Even if the penalty was unlawfully not applied she was still under the sentence of death under the Law of Moses.

In addition, the husband who divorces his wife (except if she is guilty of adultery) and marries another is committing adultery. Why? Because Jesus does not allow a “certificate of Divorce” and the man is still lawfully bound to his original wife. He risks the Mosaic death penalty.

What about the situation if a wife is divorced for a reason other than adultery and remarries?

She cannot remarry because she is still legally bound to her first husband and therefore not eligible to remarry and if she does remarry she makes her new so-called husband an adulterer… and they are both eligible for the death penalty under the provisions of the Law of Moses.

Of course Jesus may not just be cleaning up the Law of Moses he may in fact be instituting new law and so we have to be very careful about the modern application of these verses. I’m continuing to think about these things and hope you are too. There are certainly other verses that need to be considered as well.

Events from God... Local, City-wide and the Whole Earth

When Jesus was born God sent an Angel to some shepherds to inform them of what happened. Other Angels and the “Heavenly host” appeared and with their voices praised God. He also sent a star that could be seen from the east so that wise men could follow it and find Jesus and when they found him they identified him as The “King of the Jews” and they worshipped that little baby Jesus.

When Jesus was crucified and killed God put out the sun so that all was in darkness. God also caused an earthquake and rocks were split open and many of God’s holy people who had died became alive again and walked out of their tombs.

The things that God did at the birth of Jesus were different than the things he did at the death of his son. The things God did in the small town of Bethlehem were smaller and to a select group than the things he did in the capital city of Jerusalem where everyone in the city could see what was happening.

When Jesus comes in his glory it will be on an even more massive scale… not just small groups of people like at his birth or even a whole city like Jerusalem at his death.

Jesus will descend from Heaven on the clouds with his mighty Angels and every eye on the earth will be able to see him. There will be noise… “a cry of command”, “voices of the arch angels” and “the sound of the trumpet of God.” There will also be a great “wailing from all the tribes of the earth”

And at his judgment “the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.”

The first two miraculous events have already occurred and were seen by witnesses and written about for our benefit. Let me suggest that the third promised event will be just as real.

Don’t be among all the “wailing tribes of the earth”. Be saved from that wondrous and terrible event by believing in Jesus and by being washed in his blood so that you can be among all the rejoicing tribes of the earth gathered around the throne of God.

Singing Like Little Birds

Marc was talking this morning about singing to God in Heaven and mentioned that we should enjoy it on earth as well. I heard about a family one time where the dad made the comment that he didn’t want to go to Wednesday Singing night because he didn’t really like to sing. His child said… what? You don’t like to sing to our God?

Not everyone likes to sing but I’ve got a feeling in Heaven it will be different. Remember the first 6 months of this year when we didn’t get any rain and then finally it started raining. Do you remember what happened? Everything turned green and the birds started singing their heads off. It’s like they couldn’t help themselves. I’ve got a feeling that when we’re finished with this life and we come face to face to God we’re going to start singing too. Just like those little birds.

New Book

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Martha, Mary and Lazarus

In John 11 we read the account of Jesus raising Lazarus the brother of Martha and Mary from the dead.

Martha and Mary are no strangers to us. In Luke 10 we find Martha opening “her home” to Jesus for a meal and a teaching opportunity. It seems then that Martha must have been the oldest of the three siblings and my guess is that Lazarus was the youngest making Mary the middle child. Martha was more concerned for the practical matters of hospitality which demonstrates her maturity.

Of course all three of them were orphans… there is no mention of any parents and none of the three had any spouses. All they had in the world was each other.

There’s a closeness that occurs between siblings when they lose a parent and I suppose an even greater closeness when you lose both parents.

Undoubtedly they were familiar not only with sickness but also sickness that leads to death. When Martha and Mary’s little brother Lazarus got sick and every day got sicker the two sisters knew what the end would be.

The difference was of course that they believed in Jesus and had seen or heard of Jesus healing even the most gravely ill and even restoring life to the freshly dead.

So the sisters who only had one hope of saving their brother sent a tremendously understated message to Jesus that didn’t even mention their brother’s name… “the one that you love is ill.”

Of course Jesus had known Martha, Mary and Lazarus since the day he was born and the role they were destined to play in the proving of his deity. So he waited and waited until just the right time.

In the mean time the two sisters were agonizingly watching their little brother continue to slip into the arms of death… and still no Jesus. They bury Lazarus and still no Jesus. Could it be that Jesus didn’t even care?

Finally with Lazarus dead and buried Jesus arrives on the scene but it’s too late for Lazarus because four days into death all animal live has already begun to decompose and rot. The sisters meet individually with Jesus and professed their belief in him with the same words… “if you had only been here our brother would still be alive” and when Mary finished those words she broke into tears. And Jesus seeing those tears and knowing that he was going to give the sisters their brother back to them alive cried himself.

Here are a few things we need to remember…

Martha and Mary believed in Jesus but failed to understand just what all he could do. Sometimes that’s the case with us as well. Things happen to us in life and we just can’t understand why God would let those things happen or why he didn’t answer our prayers and we just want to give up because we feel that God has given up on us.

I love that Jesus was overcome with emotion and cried. It’s generally not easy for men to cry and the idea that our Lord, Savior and God could cry is very reassuring for me. Jesus could have responded to the two sisters in a very condescending way and with spiritual superiority to ridicule them for their weak faith but he didn’t.

I wish I could have been there to see the shock and joy in their faces and to see them turn from their brother Lazarus and fall at Jesus feet and just cry for happiness.

Jesus knows that maybe our faith isn’t what it should be yet but remember Jesus loves us and is patient with us and whatever struggles we have in this life will be quickly forgotten when we see him face to face in eternity.

And maybe on that day we’ll all cry for happiness together.