Dear Mr. Yeager:
I want to thank you so much for taking the time to respond to some of the things posted on the NewCovenantPatriarchy.com website, and apologize for taking so long to respond; I’ve been quite absorbed in other responsibilities for the last month or so.
In any event, it may be apparent or, perhaps not, that my book is quite focused on commenting upon the same assertions and contentions you have raised as well as many other issues. I would urge you to order a copy of my book, Man & Woman in Biblical Law, since obviously these issues seemed important enough to you to respond to them. My whole thesis is laid out systematically in the book and a piecemeal response in an e-mail does run the risk of not giving the issue due diligence and consideration. The issues I am writing about are important enough to deserve diligent book-length answers and not merely ad hoc, cursory response. Be that as it may, let me answer the points you have raised. First, responding to the article, “New Covenant Patriarchy & Divorce as Punishment,” you say…
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Mr. Yeager: If that were the case, why did Jesus say “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.” (Matthew 5:31-32)?
That verse implies that men divorced their wives for reasons other than adultery.
Tom: I don’t know your level of biblical knowledge, so please, bear with me if I seem overly didactic. Whatever may be implied by Matthew 5:31-32 about the practices of the Jews in Jesus’ day, the empirical and demonstrable fact of the matter is, Deuteronomy 24:1 (the law being commented upon) establishes a requirement of a basis for divorce: the KJV uses the word “uncleanness,” as the requirement, other translations variously as “something indecent,” “immodesty,” etc. The literal Hebrew is not a word but the phrase, “nakedness of a thing.” I ask the same question I posed in my book: what else can “nakedness of a thing” refer to other than the things people do when they are naked, that is, engage in sexual relations? It certainly does not refer to taking a shower or going to the bathroom. This is the first and most important foundational issue that must be understood in order to properly understand Jesus’ interchange with the Pharisees.
Deuteronomy 24:1 is thus to be translated:
When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some nakedness of a thing {fornication} in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.
Thus, we see very clearly from a better understanding of the nature of the offense giving rise to the allowance of divorce, that divorce is, indeed, in the nature of a punishment. What is not so immediately obvious to most of us from a modern, Western mindset, is that the woman is sent away from all that pertains to the man’s house including the children. Divorce is, indeed, punitive in nature. It is a familial form of excommunication. It is a disinheritance.
A second elementary consideration here is the phrase, “It hath been said…” This statement stands in contrast to, “It is written…” which refers to Scripture. When Jesus says, “It hath been said,” as opposed to, “It is written,” he is referring to the oral tradition of the Pharisees and scribes. In other words, Jesus is bringing the Pharisees and the scribes back to the true source of authority, the Scriptures; this is apparent on its face because the rule he propounds as authoritative is precisely the same requirement of Deuteronomy 24:1, requiring “nakedness of a thing,” fornication, as a basis of divorce. Jesus was not altering Scripture but reaffirming it. He was not making a new rule but absolutely insisting upon the old Scriptural rule.
A third aspect of Jesus’ words to note is that when he says, “It hath been said,” he quotes what has been said, and what has been said censors and excludes and omits any reference to “nakedness of a thing,” fornication, as a basis of requirement of divorce. In other words the scribes and Pharisees were taking the smorgasbord approach to Scripture, accepting the part they liked (divorce and the certificate) and rejecting the part they did not like (the underlying requirement of fornication). They wanted a whimsical divorce-on-demand rule in defiance of Deuteronomy 24:1.
The following quotation from scholar Greg Bahnsen, commenting upon the word “allowed” or “suffered” in Matthew 19:8, provides further light upon what Jesus is talking about when he says that divorce was “allowed:”
“Some commentators have mistakenly viewed this word as indicating deprecated toleration of a positive evil (i.e., reluctantly forbearing something against which you have strong scruples or detest). Such a connotation must be read into the word. It is used quite simply for the giving of candid permission (without overtones of disapprobation). When ‘epitrepo’ is used elsewhere in the NT there is no reason to think that the person using it intends to approve of something that he considers definitely improper. It is primarily used for the gaining of authorization from a superior…Jn. 19:43…Acts 21:39-40…Acts 26:1…Acts 27:3…Acts 28:16…Mat. 8:21…I Cor. 16:7…Heb. 6:3…Gen 39:6 (LXX)…Est. 9:14…Job 32:14…
Therefore, it is unwarranted to maintain that, in Matt. 19:8, Jesus represents the Mosaic law as ‘tolerating with disapproval’ an immoral activity, viz. divorce. The verse simply reports that Moses authorized the use of divorce. One should note, in passing, that the commentators who read the connotation of disapproval-of-an-immoral-activity into the word ‘epitrepo’ fail to justify their view that an all holy God could enact an immoral law. How, one must ask in astonishment, could the God who is ‘of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look on iniquity’ (Hab. 1:13), the just Lord who ‘will do no iniquity’ (Zeph. 3:5), tolerate the legislation of immorality in His law, which is itself perfect, right, pure, and righteous altogether (Ps. 19:7-9)? Even leaving linguistic considerations aside this theological difficulty with the view is insurmountable.” — (“Theonomy in Christian Ethics,” n. pg. 102)
The idea that God allows or tolerates sin (!!!) via the provisions of His self-described “pure,” and “perfect” and “righteous altogether” Law, is a seriously defective view which the Evangelical church needs to disabuse itself of. This is a wholly unbiblical belief. Indeed, it is positively antibiblical.