Marriage & Divorce

Mark 10:1-12.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, February 09, 2020.

In our country, divorce and remarriage have become increasingly easier and acceptable.  Of course, I am not implying that divorce is emotionally and psychologically easy upon those who do it.  For every situation where this is a good thing (like in the case of physical abuse), there are countless others that are simply because the couple no longer love each other. 

In first century, AD Israel, there were some similar dynamics that had led to some rabbis having a very strict teaching regarding divorce and other rabbis having a very loose teaching on it.

I would encourage you today to receive this message as an attempt to clarify rather than to condemn people.  It is important for us to understand the issues clearly so that we are not adding to the overall confusion that exists in our country.  Confusion such that people who are married and not divorced yet are already committing adultery with another person.  Confusion such that people treat a casual sexual affair as if it is just a regular maintenance of a marriage that has lost any sense of true love. 

God wants us to have clarity about His purpose for marriage so that we will work towards it.  Yet, there are times when marriages fail because of the hardness of our hearts.  Regardless of your experience in this area, let’s talk about God’s desire for our marriages and how we can turn our hearts in the right direction.

Is it lawful to divorce your spouse?

A parallel account of this passage can be found in Matthew 19:1-10.  It shows us that there are some subtle details left out of Mark’s version.  In Matthew, we see that the question above is even more specific.  “Is it lawful to divorce your spouse for just any reason?”

There is some necessary background to this question.  At the time in Israel, there were two theological schools of thought on the issue of divorce.  Rabbi Shammai had a strict interpretation and taught that it was only permissible in the case of sexual immorality, i.e. infidelity.  Rabbi Hillel had a looser interpretation and taught that it was permissible for almost any reason.  In fact, it was common in this second group to say that if a man had a “bad wife,” it was his duty to divorce her.  We will come back to these conflicting interpretations of the Law of Moses, but for now let’s just recognize that the debate existed and affected many lives.

On top of this general debate, we also have a very public situation between the wife of Herod Philip and his brother Herod Antipas, which John the Baptist had openly condemned as unlawful.  Lust was at the heart of this divorce and remarriage.

We have a similar situation today where some Bible teachers teach that divorce is always wrong in every case (i.e. Christians are to be more righteous than the Pharisees) and others who are very lax to the point that divorce is no big deal before God (i.e. it is forgiven under the blood of Christ so you can do it if you want).  As we work through this passage, we will try to pull out some timeless truths so that we can better know how to please God in our day and age.

Now that we understand the question, let’s look at the response of Jesus.  Jesus may appear to be avoiding the question, but such is not the case.  Rather, he is making them work through the issue.  Just what does Moses command?  The key word in this question is “command.”  When it comes to divorce, what are the commands of the Law of Moses?  The Pharisees respond by changing the verb from “command” to “permit.”  This underlines something important.  When a divorce occurs, some tend to see it as an unfortunate, but necessary solution to their problem.  However, we should never kid ourselves how God sees it.  Divorce is always the failure of accomplishing the will and purpose of God for marriage.  It is not the solving of a problem, but rather the walking away from a problem that God desires you to work through.  Yes, it is more nuanced than that, but this is a bedrock truth from Scripture.  God hates divorce, period!  The Law of Moses never commanded anyone to divorce another even in cases of sexual immorality.  It only permitted it.

Second of all, Jesus points out why it was permitted.  It was permitted “because your hearts were hard.”  Now, there are different reasons why something may be permitted.  The permitted thing can be a good thing that simply needs to be regulated, for example, you may give a child permission to have another cookie.  However, the permitted thing can be a bad thing that becomes a lesser of two evils, which is clearly the case here.  Divorce is not a good thing.  It is something to be avoided at drastic cost to both parties in the marriage.

In cases today where both parties amiably agree and get along afterward (i.e. the “best-case scenario”), they have still hardened their hearts towards working out their differences with one another.  The hard heart may be on the part of one spouse, or both, but it is the salient point.

God has a purpose in marriage that we are going to talk about in a second.  Yet, people’s hearts can become hard towards one another and towards God’s purpose for their marriage.  It is not God’s intention to have people trapped in a marriage that is failing to accomplish his purposes.  However, many people feel trapped in a marriage because their hearts are in the wrong place.  They are living for themselves and their own fleshly desires instead of living for God.  They are looking to the hills for something better instead of weeding the garden of their own marriage.  Thus, divorce occurs when one spouse or both become hard-hearted towards the other and towards God.

Believers in Jesus should not be as concerned about lawfulness as we should be concerned about the plan and purpose of God.  In verses 6-9, Jesus takes the Pharisees back to the beginning of the book of Genesis and he reminds them of God’s purpose in the Garden.

God had made them “male and female.”  Marriage was designed by God for one man and one woman as was seen in the original couple, Adam and Eve.  Secondly, it is to be a union of a new family before God (Genesis 2:24).  This union involves the leaving of their parents and a joining to each other.  The word “joining” has the idea of being glued together.  The phrase “one flesh” becomes more than a physical description of sex, but rather something far greater with emotional, relational, and social implications.  They become a unity that is difficult to separate without tearing parts of the other away.  They are to be a new unity within society, a oneness.

Once a marriage begins, there is no question what God’s will is.  He wants us to work in order to be a unified couple.  Marriage is the holy ground upon which we are challenged in what it means to love another person.  It becomes that wrestling place in which we either mature and become something greater, or we remain immature and become something lesser.

Jesus then ends with what sounds like a categorical prohibition of divorce.  “What God has joined let not man separate.”  The Greeks had two words for “not.”  One of them is a categorical negation.  However, the one used here is the negation of the idea.  Thus, the meaning is something like this.  God has joined you together and wants you to be unified.  Therefore, you should not be working towards something that goes against it.  At this point, you can hear the protestations.  “But, he will never change!” Or, “She doesn’t love me like she used to do!”  Yes, those are no doubt the realities on the ground, but God is asking you to learn to love them, to learn who they are, and to learn how to become one with them.  So, are the things that I am doing in my marriage contributing to emotional separation, or are they helping to draw us closer?  Of course, this is not about a “perfect marriage” in which neither spouse ever does anything that stirs up emotional separation.  This is about learning to love, which involves repentance and forgiveness among each other.  If you have never repented of mistakes you made, and you have never forgiven your spouse for their faults, then you aren’t being real with each other.  As long as the endorphins of sexual desire are still pumping, we ignore all manner of sins, but sooner or later, we will come down to earth and realize that it takes work, repentance, and forgiveness, in order to have a “perfect marriage.”  Yes, the perfect marriage is one that trusts God’s purposes by living out repentance and forgiveness every day.

Jesus gives further clarification on divorce

In verses 10-12, we are told that the next discussion takes place later between Jesus and his disciples.  They are asking for further clarification on this matter.  Here, Jesus basically tells his disciples that those who divorce and remarry are committing adultery.    Matthew 19:9 adds the phrase, “except for sexual immorality.”  I do not believe that Jesus is trying to say that Moses made a mistake and that he is now correcting it.  He is not saying that previously God let Israel sin, but now it is time to throw off this antiquated law.  Rather, Jesus is teaching them the true interpretation of what the Law intended all along.  Deuteronomy 24:1 lays out how divorce should be done, and it has the phrase “because he has found some uncleanness in her.”  The rabbis’ debate centered upon what constituted uncleanness.  Jesus is stating that it meant sexual immorality, not burning dinner, or getting wrinkles.  He is giving them a warning that ties back into the original question.  If you divorce your spouse, for just any reason (i.e. other than sexual immorality), then you are committing adultery when you remarry. 

The key here is this question.  Does God recognize legitimate grounds for divorce?  It is clear that an unfaithful partner is legitimate grounds in God’s eyes.  If you divorce an unfaithful spouse and remarry then it would not be adultery.  Yet, neither does he command you to divorce.

The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:15 talks about the situation when an unbelieving spouse wants a divorce.  In a sense, they are wanting to abandon the marriage.  Paul states, “but if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases.  But God has called us to peace.”  The phrase “not under bondage” seems to imply to a moral obligation not to divorce.  He is easing the conscience of those who do not want to divorce, but their spouse is abandoning the marriage.  It seems clear from the passage that Paul would counsel them to remain single.  However, if they are no longer “under bondage” does that also mean they are free to marry?  Some teachers believe so.  They would say that the spouse who abandons the marriage would be committing adultery to remarry, but the spouse who was abandoned is free to remarry.

The Bible does not give any directive on the issue of physical abuse.  However, even more so, we could bring up the issue of God not wanting to chain people in bondage, but rather for them to have peace.  God does not demand a woman to remain in a marriage where she is being physically abused.  God recognizes that there are times when the hardness of a spouse may put you in a situation where there is nothing left to do but to admit that the marriage has failed, or even died.  This does not remove the greater purpose.  As much as is possible with me, I should be working with God to heal the marriage and grow, not working to tear it apart.  If a marriage fails then let it be over the top of my sacrificial attempts to make it work because God intends marriage to be for life.

What do I do if I have failed in this area?  What if my current marriage fits the description of Jesus and is technically adultery?  Like Adam and Eve, we cannot go back into Paradise and Innocence.  We must repent before God, draw a line in the sand, and determine to work with God to help the marriage that we have today to become what He wants it to be.  We have to carry the burden of past decisions, and the effects that they have had on us, and move forward towards the healing that only God can bring.  Only He can take that which is not holy and make it holy.  May God help us to soften our hearts towards him and our spouse, and learn to love like He loves, sacrificially and to the end.

Marriage & Divorce Audio