Sermon #4: The Sanctity of Marriage (The Exceptions for Annulment/Divorce and Remarriage)

Malachi 2:13–16

13 And this second thing you do. You cover the LORD’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. 14 But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the LORD was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union?¹ And what was the one God² seeking?³ Godly offspring. So guard yourselves⁴ in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. 16 “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her,⁵ says the LORD, the God of Israel, covers⁶ his garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”

Footnotes

[1] 2:15 Hebrew in it
[2] 2:15 Hebrew the one
[3] 2:15 Or And not one has done this who has a portion of the Spirit. And what was that one seeking?
[4] 2:15 Or So take care; also verse 16
[5] 2:16 Hebrew who hates and divorces
[6] 2:16 Probable meaning (compare Septuagint and Deuteronomy 24:1–4); or “The Lord, the God of Israel, says that he hates divorce, and him who covers

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.”¹

Footnotes

[1] 19:9 Some manuscripts add and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery; other manuscripts except for sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery

1 Corinthians 7:12–15

12 To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. 13 If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. 14 For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. 15 But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you¹ to peace.