We all know someone who is divorced or remarried. Perhaps it's your parents or family members of the previous generation: an uncle, aunt, a parents of your friend, a friend of your parents. Perhaps it's people in your generation: a workmate, friend, brother, sister, cousin. Perhaps it's your child, or a child of your friend, or a friend of your child.
Or maybe it’s you. I’ve been circling around a bit, skirting the issue, but it's time to land. Maybe you’ve been through a divorce. I remember a Christian man who went through a divorce saying to me that he couldn’t say the word for several years.
Not every marriage ends up this way, of course. Not even most marriages end in divorce, but many do, and a proportion of these people emerge from divorce to marry again.
So when Jesus speaks to us about divorce and remarriage, it is a live issue for us. And inevitably, all of us come to the Bible with the pain of our own experience and the mess of life as it is, not as we wish it was.
Can I ask all of us at this point to do something difficult? That is, we need to put aside our pain and experiences, and seek to listen to Jesus afresh. The hardest place to speak the truth is in the face of human pain. And it is often the hardest place to hear the truth. It is much easier to get angry, or take offence, or look for the exception.
Often it is the grace of God that enables us to listen to the truth. We must remember Jesus’ kindness to the Samaritan woman in John 4. Jesus met her at a well in the heat of the day. She had had 5 husbands, and her latest partner was not her husband, perhaps he was a de facto, perhaps someone else’s husband. Jesus knew all this, and pointed it out to her, but he also offered her living water. He clearly revealed himself to her as the long awaited Christ and Messiah—something that he did not do for anyone else in John’s Gospel, not even his disciples.
In spite of every social taboo, Jesus sought relationship with her. And so it is with every person who has been through divorce. Jesus seeks relationship with you. It was Jesus who said “All the sins and blasphemies of people will be forgiven”. (Mark 3:28).
So I say at the start that neither divorce nor remarriage is the unforgivable sin, and in some circumstances it may not be sin at all—though it does evidence hardness of human heart has somewhere been at play. But there is forgiveness to be experienced and enjoyed, for all of us who need it and ask for it. We need to remember this, if we begin to feel uncomfortable, or hurt, or angry, or guilty, or ashamed.
We pick up the story in verse 1, as Jesus moves into Judea, Jewish territory. This is probably his final journey into Judea. For Jesus is heading into Jerusalem. He is going there to die (cf. Mark 10:32-34).
Jesus continues to teach the crowds of people who came to him. He tells them what it means to be his disciple. So this passage is all about how to follow Jesus in the area of marriage and divorce.
But Jesus’ teaching is occasioned by a test. Verse 2:
Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” (NIV)
Perhaps these Pharisees want to embroil Jesus in their debates over what are the acceptable grounds for divorce. All the Jewish groups allowed men to divorce their wives. Some allowed divorce for things like burning the dinner, or not being attractive. Others allowed men to divorce their wives for moral offences. But it seems that divorce, at least for the husband, was a relatively easy matter, and the Pharisees sought to keep it so.
It is also possible that the Pharisees wanted to draw Jesus into making a statement about Herod’s marriage to Herodias, just as John the Baptist had. Ever since Mark chapter 3, Herod’s supporters and the Pharisees have been conspiring, plotting as to how they might kill Jesus (Mark 3:6). Remember what happened to John the Baptist? He told Herod that “it is unlawful for you to have your brother’s wife” (Mark 6:17ff). And John the Baptist lost his head for it. Perhaps the Pharisees hoped for the same result. Perhaps they were plotting to kill Jesus by Herod’s sword.
Well Jesus points them to the bible. Verses 3 to 4:
3“What did Moses command you?” he replied. 4They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.” (NIV)
Notice what Jesus asked. What did Moses ‘command’? Jesus asked what Moses commanded. The Pharisees didn't actually answer this question. They talked about what Moses permitted. The Pharisees knew this passage well enough, Deuteronomy 24:1-4. In this one passage, when Moses was dealing with a particular case, and Moses seemed to allow for divorce. Moses didn’t command divorce, but he seems to have given permission for divorce to occur.
If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled. That would be detestable in the eyes of the LORD. Do not bring sin upon the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance (Deut 24:1-4 NIV)
Moses commandment is not that the husband give a certificate of divorce. Moses commands that if the husband gives the certificate, and the wife remarries and again divorces, then the first husband cannot remarry his ex-wife again. That is the command. It prohibits the man from remarrying his former wife after an intervening marriage. Nowhere in this passage does Moses approve divorce. Nor does Moses even command the giving of a certificate. He simply says that if the certificate is given, and if this and this happens, then the former husband cannot take her as a wife again.
The certificate of divorce guaranteed the wife at least a little dignity, and the right to remarry if she chose. It probably also prohibited the man’s hasty decision to divorce her. So it was a just law in restraining sin. Jesus doesn’t deny the validity of this law.
But Jesus gives the purpose of the law. Verse 5:
“It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. (NIV)
This law in Deuteronomy 24:1-4 is a concession to ‘hard-heartedness’. In other words, Moses’ law is a concession to human sin, to avoid further human sin, to minimize the consequences of sin and maximize the good that can be retrieved. For divorce is always the result of human sin and sinfulness, of at least one party.
Divorce operates in the Old Testament a bit like polygamy. It is not God’s design, always the result of sin somewhere along the line, always the consequence of hardness of heart, and always having further painful consequences which reverberate out. But because some good can be retrieved from an evil situation, divorce and remarriage is tolerated in the Old Testament in certain situations, just as polygamy is.
This was the mistake of the Pharisees. They were looking at the rules for what you did after divorce to get permission to divorce and remarry. That is like trying to discern how to fly a plane from the air stewards emergency instructions of what you should do in a crash situation, head between your knees, the emergency exits are here, and how to put on your life vest.
In verses 6-9, Jesus points out what Moses commanded, and what the Pharisees avoided thinking about. He goes way back to the very beginning.
6“But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female’. 7 ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, 8and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one. 9Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” (NIV)
Here is the maker’s manual for marriage, approved by Jesus, set out by Moses, even commanded by him, and designed by God. It is God’s plan from the creation, and his intention for humanity till the new creation.
And it is this. God made the two male and female, not male and male, nor female and female. This is why both the Old and New Testament regard homosexual activity as one of those sexual behaviours which contradict God’s intention in creation. Homosexuality, along with adultery, pre-marital sex, incest, and other actions, are considered ‘un-natural’, in Romans 1:26-27. Now, ‘un-natural’ doesn’t mean ‘not naturally occurring’. Homosexuality as a phenomenon does occur out there in the wilds of the human world. But the bible considers it ‘un-natural’ because it is not what God intended for us when he made us, because God made ‘male’ and ‘female’. So no matter what the secular state says, a same sex couple can never be joined in marriage before God, and sexual expression and inclination between them is always sin.
The man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. And with that break, the leaving and cleaving, there are now a new set of loyalties. No longer do mother and father come first. He must leave them, whether they like it or not. And he must be glued to his wife, for that is what the word often rendered ‘joined’ means. And they are glued by their word of commitment and their act of sex. Their promises bind them together, and the union of their bodies ratifies their word. Sex is super-glue, if you like, which God created to stick the husband to his wife, and the wife to her husband. Super-glue is good stuff, but its hazardous, dangerous. And the glue of sex is only safely used in marriage, where it is protected by mutual promises of commitment.
God and Jesus reckons the husband and wife to be a single family unit. The man and the women are complete as a family. They don’t need children to be a complete one-flesh unit. But as if to cement their one flesh relationship, the children who in most cases join them testify to the fact that their parents are ‘one flesh’. For generally speaking, the children issuing from the marriage always seem to resemble each parent in some way—something from the mother, whether much or little, something from the father, whether obvious or only to be revealed later—observation confirming what Scripture teaches. The two have become one flesh.
So since Jesus considers that God has made them one flesh, Jesus concludes in verse 9:
Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate. (NIV)
Jesus regards God to have joined the couple—whether they acknowledge him or not. At every marriage, whether in church, temple, mosque, park, or registry office, when the parties are free according to God’s law to be married to one another, and voluntarily enter into the promises of marriage, there is always an uninvited guest officiating—or perhaps it is better to say, a guest who needs no invitation—God. For God at creation made the two one. And at every marriage that conforms to God’s law in creation ever since, he has made the two one by promise and consummation. It doesn’t matter whether the couple have faith in God or not: marriage is a creational ordinance, not a sacrament, a state of life given to all of humanity and not just the church for its good.
Let man not separate what God has bound. Let this man not separate it, by adultery, or desertion, or by failing to serve. Let other men not do it.
In fact, this teaching of Jesus to the crowd is not really that radical at all. God has always hated divorce. The essential elements are already found in the Old Testament, in Malachi 2:13-16:
Another thing you do: You flood the LORD’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, “Why?” It is because the LORD is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. Has not the LORD made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth. “I hate divorce,” says the LORD God of Israel, “and I hate a man’s covering himself with violence as well as with his garment,” says the LORD Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith. (NIV)
Dear friends, this is the way God has always been. This is the way Jesus reveals himself. God hates divorce. In particular, in this text, God hates the faithlessness of human husbands who discard the wife of their youth, who forget that God attended the wedding and made them one. Men might forget their marriage vows—“for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health” —but God doesn’t forget. He was there. He heard it all. And he considers the husbands rejection of his wife as violence.
Well, that was Jesus’ teaching for the crowds. But the disciples will soon ask for some private coaching, for the inner circle gathers around Jesus for some tough questions. Verse 10:
When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. (NIV)
And so Jesus’ draws out some stark conclusions about divorce from God’s view of marriage. Verses 11 and 12:
11He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. 12And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.” (NIV)
Notice that the consequences of the divorce are the same for husband and wife. If the wife divorces and remarries, she commits adultery. Remember that Herodias, Herod’s wife, did just that. John the Baptist told them so, and lost his head for it. If the husband divorces and remarries, he commits adultery too.
Jesus pierces through the ‘legalities’ to look at human motives and intentions. The easy divorce laws of Jesus’ day legalized adultery, and Jesus says as much. And that is true for us in modern Australia, who under the (Cth) Family Law Act 1975 have effectively turned lifelong marriage into serial monogamy for all, despite what the definition of marriage in the legislation says.
We might say that Matthew records Jesus’ exception in chapters 5 and 19 for sexual immorality. We might say that the innocent party there is given permission to divorce. We might say that Paul says that a believing spouse is not bound if deserted by an unbelieving spouse in 1 Corinthians 7—what has been called the ‘Pauline Privilege’.
But even if all this were true (and these passages say these things), Jesus is here warning us Christians to guard ourselves against the legalized adultery of divorce. Whether the divorce is permitted or not, God hates divorce. Divorce is always the result of sin, even if we are the innocent parties to it. We must strive for the ideal, even if less than that is permitted.
I have met several Christians who have been sinned against. Their marriage partners have committed adultery. And with full knowledge of the offence, these faithful Christians do not ‘exercise their rights’. They know what happened. They are not in denial. And nor are they tolerating continuing sin against them. But even if the sin has not continued, the pain may always be there. But they stand as living examples of God’s love for an adulterous and sinful people. They reflect God who has long held out his hand to an adulterous people, and who even commanded his prophet Hosea to take an adulterous wife, who would bear children who were not his, so that Israel would see how much Yahweh their God loved them. So these Christians stand as a visual aid to their marriage partners of God’s love.
Amen.
NA28 Mark 10:1-12
10:1 Καὶ ἐκεῖθεν ἀναστὰς ἔρχεται εἰς τὰ ὅρια τῆς Ἰουδαίας [καὶ] πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου, καὶ συμπορεύονται πάλιν ὄχλοι πρὸς αὐτόν, καὶ ὡς εἰώθει πάλιν ἐδίδασκεν αὐτούς.
2Καὶ προσελθόντες Φαρισαῖοι ἐπηρώτων αὐτὸν εἰ ἔξεστιν ἀνδρὶ γυναῖκα ἀπολῦσαι, πειράζοντες αὐτόν. 3ὁ δὲἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· τί ὑμῖν ἐνετείλατο Μωϋσῆς; 4οἱ δὲ εἶπαν· ἐπέτρεψεν Μωϋσῆς βιβλίον ἀποστασίου γράψαι καὶ ἀπολῦσαι.
5ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· πρὸς τὴν σκληροκαρδίαν ὑμῶν ἔγραψεν ὑμῖν τὴν ἐντολὴν ταύτην. 6ἀπὸ δὲ ἀρχῆς κτίσεως ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ ἐποίησεν* αὐτούς·7 ἕνεκεν τούτου καταλείψει ἄνθρωπος τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν μητέρα [καὶ προσκολληθήσεται πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ], 8 καὶ ἔσονται οἱ δύο εἰς σάρκα μίαν· ὥστε οὐκέτι εἰσὶν δύο ἀλλὰ μία σάρξ. 9ὃ οὖν ὁ θεὸς συνέζευξεν ἄνθρωπος μὴ χωριζέτω.
10Καὶ εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν πάλιν οἱ μαθηταὶ περὶ τούτου ἐπηρώτων αὐτόν. 11καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς· ὃς ἂν ἀπολύσῃ τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ καὶ γαμήσῃ ἄλλην μοιχᾶται ἐπ’ αὐτήν· 12καὶ ἐὰν αὐτὴ ἀπολύσασα τὸν ἄνδρα αὐτῆς γαμήσῃἄλλον μοιχᾶται.
My translation
10:1 And arising from that place, he came into the territory of the Jews also across the Jordan, and again a crowd gathered with him, and as was his custom, again he taught them.
2And Pharisees came to [him and] asked him if it is lawful for a man to divorce a woman, to test him. 3But answering, he said to them, “What did Moses command you?” 4So they said, “Moses permitted to write a certificate of divorcement and to divorce [from the bond of marriage] [Deut 24:1-4]
5But Jesus said to them, “He wrote this command for you because of your hardened heart. 6But from the beginning of creation, ‘[God] made them male and female. 7Because of this a man will leave his father and his mother and will be glued to his wife, 8and the two will be one flesh’, so that they are two no longer but one flesh. 9Therefore, that which God has joined together, let not man separate.’
10And when they were in the house, the disciples were asking him about this. 11And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. 12And if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.