Sermon On Marriage And Divorce

What God Has Joined: Covenant, Hardness, And Grace In Marriage

There are few topics in Scripture that carry more weight in a congregation like this one than the topic of marriage. Some of you sitting here today are in a strong, flourishing marriage. Some of you are in a season of real strain, wondering whether you have the strength to keep going. Some of you carry the grief of a marriage that has already ended. And some of you are single, watching all of this from a distance and wondering what God actually intends for the covenant of marriage. Wherever you are this morning, the Word of God has something honest and something hopeful to say to you. That is why we open it together.

We are going to look at two passages this morning. The first is Matthew 19, beginning at verse 3. The second is 1 Corinthians 7, beginning at verse 10. These two texts together give us the full pastoral picture that Scripture paints on this subject. They do not give us easy answers, but they give us true ones. And true answers, even hard ones, are more merciful in the long run than comfortable ones that fail us when the pressure comes.

The Question Behind The Question

Matthew 19:3 reads this way in the CSB: "Some Pharisees approached him to test him. They asked, 'Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife on any grounds?'"

Notice that the Pharisees are not asking because they want to protect marriage. They are testing Jesus. The debate in their day was between two rabbinic schools. One said a man could divorce his wife for almost any reason. The other required serious moral cause. They want Jesus to pick a side so they can use his answer against him. Jesus does something far more important than picking a side. He goes back to creation.

Verses 4 through 6: "Haven't you read that he who created them in the beginning made them male and female, and he also said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate."

Jesus anchors marriage in the act of God, not in human custom or legal convenience. The phrase "what God has joined together" is not a sentimental line for a ceremony. It is a theological statement about the nature of the covenant. God is the one who joins. That means marriage is not primarily a social arrangement that two people construct and can deconstruct at will. It is a covenant that God himself initiates and witnesses. The two become one flesh. That union is not merely physical. It is spiritual, relational, and covenantal in its depth.

This is why marriage matters so much. And this is why its breaking carries such weight.

The Honest Word About Hardness

The Pharisees push back in verse 7: "Why then did Moses command us to give divorce papers and send her away?" Jesus answers in verses 8 and 9: "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of the hardness of your hearts, but it was not like that from the beginning. I tell you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another commits adultery."

This is one of the most important sentences in the entire New Testament on this subject. Jesus does not pretend that Moses was wrong to permit divorce. He explains why Moses permitted it. Hardness of heart. The Greek word is sklerokardia. It means a heart that has become rigid, closed, and resistant to God's shaping. Moses did not institute divorce because God approved of it as a good thing. Moses regulated it because human hearts in a fallen world are capable of profound cruelty, and a certificate of divorce gave a woman legal standing in a society where she had almost none without it.

Jesus is being honest about the human condition. We are capable of hardness. We are capable of shutting our hearts to the person we once promised to love. That is not a comfortable word, but it is a truthful one. And it applies not only to dramatic moral failures. It applies to the slow, quiet hardening that happens when we stop choosing to be present, when we stop extending grace, when we let bitterness take root and grow.

The exception Jesus names, sexual immorality, is not a loophole designed to make divorce easy. It is a recognition that covenant faithfulness has been fundamentally broken when one partner pursues sexual intimacy outside the marriage bond. Even here, Jesus does not command divorce. He permits it. The door of repentance and restoration is never closed by Jesus in this passage.

Paul's Pastoral Word To The Congregation

Now we move to 1 Corinthians 7, beginning at verse 10. Paul is writing to a congregation in Corinth that has real, complicated marriages. Some believers are married to other believers. Some are married to unbelievers. Some are wondering whether they should leave their marriages now that they have come to faith in Christ. Paul addresses all of this with pastoral care.

Verses 10 and 11: "I command the married, not I but the Lord, a wife is not to leave her husband. But if she does leave, she must remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife."

Paul is clear. The default posture for a Christian marriage is covenant faithfulness. Stay. Work. Reconcile. This is not Paul being naive about how hard marriages can become. This is Paul holding up the ideal that Jesus established and calling the church to pursue it with everything it has.

But then Paul turns to a more complicated situation in verses 12 through 16. What about a believer who is married to an unbeliever? His counsel is this: if the unbelieving spouse is willing to remain, the believer should not initiate separation. The presence of a believing spouse in a home is a sanctifying influence. God is at work even in that mixed household. But if the unbelieving spouse chooses to leave, Paul says in verse 15, "let him leave. A brother or a sister is not bound in such cases. God has called you to live in peace."

That phrase, "not bound," is significant. Paul is acknowledging that there are situations where a marriage ends not because the believer chose to abandon the covenant, but because the other party walked away. In those cases, Paul does not heap condemnation on the one left behind. He says God has called you to peace.

Pastoral Truth For This Congregation

Let me speak plainly now to where many of you actually live.

If your marriage is struggling, the first and best word Scripture gives you is this: do not give up yet. Hardness of heart is real, but hearts can be softened. God does that work. Counseling, honest conversation, pastoral support, and the discipline of choosing your spouse again are not signs of weakness. They are acts of covenant faithfulness. Many marriages that felt finished have been rebuilt, not because the pain was not real, but because both people were willing to let God do what only he can do.

At the same time, Scripture does not call you to remain in a situation of abuse, coercion, or danger. Protecting yourself and your children from harm is not a failure of faith. It is wisdom. If you are in a dangerous situation, please speak to a pastor, a counselor, or a trusted authority who can help you find safety. The church is not a place where suffering should be hidden or minimized. It is a place where the wounded are supposed to find real help.

And if your marriage has already ended, hear this clearly: the grace of Jesus Christ is not withheld from the divorced. The same Jesus who spoke these hard words about covenant is the one who sat with the woman at the well, a woman who had been married five times, and offered her living water. He did not shame her. He saw her. He called her. He sent her to tell others about him. Divorce is not the unforgivable sin. It is a wound that the God of all comfort knows how to tend.

The Covenant Behind The Covenant

Here is the deepest thing Scripture wants us to see about marriage. In Ephesians 5, Paul tells us that the marriage covenant is a picture of the covenant between Christ and his church. Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. That is the model. That is the power source. The reason we pursue covenant faithfulness in marriage is not simply because it is a social good, though it is. It is because our marriages are meant to display the faithful, self-giving love of a Savior who never abandons his people.

That means the strength for your marriage does not come from your own willpower. It comes from the one who kept his covenant with you even when you were faithless. You love because he first loved you. You forgive because you have been forgiven. You stay because you have been held.

If you have never placed your faith in that Savior, this is the most important decision in front of you, more important than any decision about your marriage. Come to Christ. Receive his grace. Let him be the foundation beneath everything else.

And if you are a believer, let the covenant love of Jesus be the pattern and the power for the covenant love you offer your spouse, today, and in every hard day that follows.

Sources Consulted

France, R. T. The Gospel of Matthew. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Eerdmans, 2007.

Garland, David E. 1 Corinthians. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Baker Academic, 2003.

Keener, Craig S. And Marries Another: Divorce and Remarriage in the Teaching of the New Testament. Hendrickson, 1991.

Thiselton, Anthony C. The First Epistle to the Corinthians. New International Greek Testament Commentary. Eerdmans, 2000.

Blomberg, Craig L. Matthew. New American Commentary. Broadman and Holman, 1992.