One Husband

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE

ONE HUSBAND 

Luke 16:18

18 "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

NIV

Although Jesus may have been speaking to the issue in the law that was given in Deuteronomy where if a man is displeased with his wife and writes her a decree of divorce and puts her away and she marries another man who after a while becomes displeased with her writes her a degree of divorce if she goes back to her first husband after being defiled that would be detestable to God. However,  there is something else going on here that is implied against the Pharisees and the law. In some sense they profess marriage to the law, however, they do not completely live by the law perfectly, in fact, they have developed their own form of the law, adding so many rules that were not in the law, such as exactly how many steps one could take on the Sabbath. What Jesus was saying was that they had committed adultery against the law, by marrying their form of the law. This could be applied to the modern-day church as well.  Of course, most denominations want to make this strictly an issue about marriage and divorce. They use the words of God spoken through the prophet Malachi. “I hate divorce” in the context of not breaking faith with the wife of your youth. Once again, this is not about the marriage of a man and a woman, but about the people of God being the bride of Christ, and when we go out into the world looking to that system for our lives, then we have committed adultery with the world, and broken faith with our first love, Jesus. When we trust in the world, or as Jesus put it, money, we are not trusting in Jesus for we cannot serve two masters, or in this sense, be married to two husbands. According to the preacher of the book Hebrews, it is impossible once a believer goes to the world for love, he cannot come back to God for they are crucifying Christ all over again and putting Jesus to public disgrace, paraphrased. Of course, we do not turn our back completely against God just because we want to trust in the world, investing in the world system to advance our financial security. Sure, we have to work for our sustenance, however, Jesus made the point about God looking after the sparrow and whether are we not more valuable to God. Money itself may not be evil, but if we are trying to be married to it, then it is evil, for we are committing adultery against Christ.   We have to be careful not to try to be married to two husbands, for we are the bride of Christ, and he is our husband.