Mark’s gospel opens with the Messiah’s herald screaming out of the Judean wilderness that the Promised Messiah is coming. John baptized God’s people in repentance, but the Promised One, he would baptize them in the Holy Spirit, signifying the beginning of the restoration of all things that God promised his Messiah would accomplish.
Jesus then bursts into Mark’s gospel with his baptism scene, where the voice of Heaven announces “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well-pleased”. Immediately Jesus faces off with Satan in the wilderness, defeating him, and announcing that the Kingdom of God has come near with his message “repent and believe the good news!” Jesus delivers oppressed souls from the powers of darkness, heals those afflicted with various diseases, forgives sin, shows himself to be the Lord of our Sabbath rest, calms the storms, feeds the multitudes with bread, and teaches the true way of God. All of this culminates in announcing the mission of his cross — the reason he has come — and calling his disciples to embrace that mission. He then shows them in his transfiguration the vision of restoration that will be accomplished through the cross. He has come to restore all things! And this restoration is much bigger than they had ever dreamed. All they were thinking about was restoring the kingdom of Israel, but Jesus is “restoring everything.”
Jesus’ restoration begins with his disciples: they must relearn the basics of life. They will relearn what it means to “be great”. Looking forward in Mark’s gospel, Jesus calls his disciples to embrace “child-like faith”, and changes how they see things like “wealth” and “leadership”. And right in the middle of all this is Jesus’ discourse about divorce, which intends to change how his disciples think about marriage. Mark then brings this whole story-arc of restoration together in the healing of the blind man just before Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, signifying how Jesus is opening our eyes to a whole new way of life.
So, how do we bring something as painful as divorce into this vision of restoration that Jesus is giving his disciples?
There are few questions as difficult as this one. And, on a personal note, to the extent that someone who hasn’t been divorced can understand (which I know is limited), I’ve witnessed this pain up close: brothers have cried on my shoulder as their marriages were breaking apart; I’ve seen the fear dawn as the prospect of divorce looms; I’ve seen some of the most godly people I know have struggled with things that were seemingly beyond their control. My wife is the blessed first daughter of her mother’s second marriage, showing how God’s “mercies are new every morning” and how he “works all things together for good to those who love him and are called according to his purposes.”
So what do we make of all these things?
Well, my charge here is to preach Jesus, “full of grace and truth”, to show how something as painful as divorce fits into Jesus’ vision of restoration. And where some truths wound our souls, I believe his grace not only heals, but also restores!
So let’s jump into this message:
Mark 10:1 CSB — 1 He set out from there and went to the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Then crowds converged on him again, and as was his custom he taught them again.
Jesus has been traveling incognito through Galilee for a while so that he could focus exclusively on his disciples. But, after regrouping in Capernaum, they leave through Judea and across the Jordan, this time traveling openly. So Jesus is again teaching the crowds as he travels to Jerusalem.
Mark 10:2 CSB — 2 Some Pharisees came to test him, asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”
The Pharisees were a sect within Judaism who have by this time largely rejected Jesus. So these could’ve been scribes or members of the ruling Sanhedrin who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees, or, perhaps more likely, since no further details are given, they were just members of the sect who were among the crowd.
Luke’s account of this interaction tells us that Jesus’ words were quite piercing:
Luke 16:14–15 CSB — 14 The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and scoffing at him. 15 And he told them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly admired by people is revolting in God’s sight.
Jesus’ words sting all the more when we remember that their name — “Pharisees” — actually means “the righteous ones”.
So the Pharisees resent Jesus because he’s not letting their hypocrisy slide anymore. He’s calling them out and holding them accountable, which is the setting for this conflict: Jesus has made enemies by refusing to placate their hypocrisy.
Mark 10:2 CSB — 2 Some Pharisees came to test him, asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”
Some Pharisees design a trap for Jesus centered around one of the most politically and religiously controversial subjects of their day: “divorce.” And their trap intends to force Jesus to either oppose divorce, which risks Herod Antipas’ wrath (who, you’ll remember, executed John the Baptist for opposing his divorce and remarriage to Herodias), or to force Jesus to oppose John the Baptist’s views and risk discrediting himself.
Mark 10:3–9 CSB — 3 He replied to them, “What did Moses command you?” 4 They said, “Moses permitted us to write divorce papers and send her away.” 5 But Jesus told them, “He wrote this command for you because of the hardness of your hearts. 6 But from the beginning of creation God made them male and female. 7 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother 8 and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Jesus answers their question in good rabbinic form with another question: “what did Moses command you?” By doing this, he allows them to interpret Moses however they want, recognizing that there were two opposing schools of thought on this question, and then exposes their error by explaining that Moses permitted divorce because of “the hardness of their hearts”, but God’s original design was that husband and wife should be one. In one bold stroke he validates Moses’ command, upholds John the Baptist’s teaching, and exposes what’s really behind their question.
First, he says that Moses permitted divorce because of the “hardness of their heart”.
This imagery of “hardened hearts” calls forward Ezekiel’s prophecy about the restoration of God’s people, which I believe illustrates the kind of heart that God wants us to have in marriage relationships:
Ezekiel 36:25–26 CSB — 25 I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
I’ve explored this in greater detail in another post that examined some of the interpretive questions in this discourse, so you can check that out here. But the backdrop behind this prophecy is Israel’s spiritual infidelity. God uses marriage language to describe their unfaithfulness to him. He compares Israel’s idolatry to an unfaithful wife using marriage terminology. He says that their spirit of promiscuity prevented them from returning to him. He speaks about his putting them away and hiding his face from them in the moment of his anger, which he compares to writing a certificate of divorce for their faithless generation and scattering them among the nations. Yet, in all this, God promised to remain faithful to his covenant and pleads with them to return. He would not put Israel away and find another people. Instead, he would restore them whatever it takes. He was faithful in their unfaithfulness. His heart was not hard. And this compassionate heart is the living heart that Ezekiel prophesies God would put in his people.
Mark 10:5 CSB — 5 But Jesus told them, “He wrote this command for you because of the hardness of your hearts.
But Moses knew that Israel could not do this because of the limitations of their flesh. So divorce was permitted in their case.
Mark 10:6–8 CSB — 6 But from the beginning of creation God made them male and female. 7 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother 8 and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh.
However, Jesus shows them that God’s original design in creation was that husbands and wives would become “one-flesh”. But we have to ask what “one-flesh” means?
On one level, the idea of “one-flesh” has in mind the physical union of marriage:
1 Corinthians 6:16–18 CSB — 16 Don’t you know that anyone joined to a prostitute is one body with her? For Scripture says, The two will become one flesh. 17 But anyone joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. 18 Flee sexual immorality! Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the person who is sexually immoral sins against his own body.
So Paul uses this to warn against sexual immorality because doing so causes us to become one body with whomever we join together with. And this constitutes a sin against our bodies in which the Holy Spirit dwells.
However, the marriage union is also spiritual and meant to be seen in the relationship between husband and wife:
Ephesians 5:22–24 CSB — 22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, 23 because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives are to submit to their husbands in everything.
Wives are the husband’s body, which reflects how the Church is the body of Christ, and calls on wives to submit to their husbands in the same manner that the Church submits to Christ.
Ephesians 5:25–28 CSB — 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word. 27 He did this to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless. 28 In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
Husbands are the head of their wives, which reflects Christ being the head of the Church, and calls on husbands to love their wives as their own bodies in the manner that Christ loves the Church
Ephesians 5:29–33 CSB — 29 For no one ever hates his own flesh but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, 30 since we are members of his body. 31 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. 32 This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband.
So the spiritual dimensions of headship and submission in marriage are meant to illustrate the spiritual union between Christ and the Church, which explains in spiritual terms how husbands and wives become “one”. The image of God is reflected and preserved in the union of a husband who loves his wife as his own body to a wife who submits to her husband as her head.
These two teachings together show how husband and wife become one through both the sexual union and the spiritual relationship of marriage.
The error in the Pharisee’s question is that they are asking if all of this can be annulled.
Mark 10:9 CSB — 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Jesus’ base theological statement is that no one may break the holy union of the marriage body.
Mark 10:10–12 CSB — 10 When they were in the house again, the disciples questioned him about this matter. 11 He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. 12 Also, if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
After teaching the crowds and returning to their lodging, Jesus’ disciples privately question him further.
There are two broad views pertaining to how we should interpret what Jesus says here: one view is that Jesus forbids all divorce except on the grounds of sexual immorality, which Matthew’s gospel provides; another view is that Jesus forbids all divorce, but addresses in Matthew’s gospel the Jewish law allowing divorce during the engagement period if sexual immorality has occurred.
While both views have merits and challenges, we are called to interpret meaning. So, I will give my interpretation now.
When I study Jesus’ teachings, I conclude that Mark’s and Luke’s account give Jesus’ baseline teaching, and Matthew’s account addresses the question that his Jewish audience would have in mind pertaining to their engagement period: the exception clause in Matthew’s gospel applies only to the Jewish conception of marriage that begins with the engagement period (Deuteronomy 22:13ff).
I come to this conclusion for two reasons:
First, Mark’s and Luke’s accounts would seem guilty of removing Jesus’ teaching if the exception clause applies to the gentile context that they’re addressing. If Jesus means that we may divorce on grounds of sexual immorality after husband and wife have “become one“, then Mark’s and Luke’s accounts are theologically wrong since they give an absolute ban on divorce. This isn’t simply a question of “perspectives”, which is an interpretive feature we often use to synthesize different story narratives, because we are dealing instruction narratives, and you cannot have both an “unconditional prohibition” and a “conditional prohibition” on something. To see this point, just apply the teachings: suppose your spouse were cheating on you and your pastor cited Mark’s account to prohibit your divorce, so you lived with an unfaithful spouse for years until someone else showed you that Matthew’s account permits divorce in your case. Would you say your pastor just gave you an “incomplete perspective”, or you would say he was wrong? You would say your pastor was “wrong” because “unconditional prohibitions” are not contained within “conditional prohibitions”. Matthew’s account must necessarily be speaking into a narrower context than Mark’s and Luke’s accounts so that both are complete in their context. Mark’s and Luke’s accounts specifically address those who have become “one”, while Matthew’s account must cope with the question of marriages during the engagement period before the two become “one”.
And second, Jesus seems to weaken his own argument by allowing divorce on the grounds of sexual immorality since the Pharisees raised this point from Deuteronomy 24, and Jesus argued this permission was granted because of the hardness of their hearts. Jesus would essentially be siding with the Shammai school of thought on this question, which is the view most Pharisees held, and he never once took sides in any other trap set before him. So I cannot see how Jesus would provide the same exception that he has just invalidated as existing because of the hardness of their hearts.
What this means is that I don’t believe the Christian ideal allows for divorce and remarriage even in the case of sexual immorality. We might find that a spouse’s behavior requires temporary separation for a variety of reasons, for example when abuse is involved, but I believe the Christian ideal calls us to remain exclusively faithful to our spouse even during such separations… even when such separations are demarcated by the spouse’s infidelity. I believe this is the faithful love required to follow Christ.
This is supported by God’s faithfulness to his covenant during Israel’s periods of spiritual infidelity, wherein they turned their backs on God and worshipped idols, which God interpreted and “spiritual adultery”. God states plainly that he sent Israel away for a time and separated himself from them while they “played the harlot”, but he never broke his covenant with Israel.
So now I think it’s only fair that I should address some of the challenges that my view faces, which are primarily centered around how this view works in the real world. So let’s deal briefly with a few of these questions:
First, we might ask what happens if someone is married to an unbeliever and they leave? Paul addresses this question in 1 Corinthians 7:13-16, where he says we should remain married to an unbelieving spouse, but, if they leave, “we’re not bound to them”, which, within the broader context of Paul’s teaching (1 Corinthians 7:10-16), I interpret as meaning that the believing spouse is not bound to the covenant duties of their marriage to an unbelieving spouse. Faith has an impact on the union of marriage.
Second, we might ask what happens if a believer does divorce their spouse and marries another? How one answers this question from within my view seems to hinge primarily on whether or not one considers the second marriage as valid, and how one defines repentance. Some argue on the grounds that the second marriage is invalid that one would have to leave their second spouse and either be reconciled to their first spouse or remain single. But when Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well, he says that she has had “five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband” (John 4:18); he recognizes each of her five past partners as “husbands”. So, this means that divorcing their second spouse would actually incur more sin. Instead, I recommend that someone in this situation should study God’s word until they’re sincerely convicted one way or the other, and if they come to the conclusion that I’m presenting here, so that they can sincerely agree that it was wrong to divorce their first spouse, then they should acknowledge and confess their sin before God. Then, according to John’s promise in 1 John 1:9, God is faithful and righteous to forgive and cleanse them of their sin. They should then “depart from iniquity” (2 Timothy 2:19) by turning from any unfaithfulness that might’ve impacted their first marriage and exercise faithful love to their current spouse. This “turning” to God’s way is how repentance is worked out in your life.
Quite often when someone looks at their second marriage and sees that things are going well, they can be tempted to justify their decision to divorce their first spouse. We are tempted to think that because God has blessed us with good children and peace in our marriages that this means that he’s pleased with our divorce in the first case. I believe this is wrong. God is good. God is merciful. And his mercies are new every morning. But this doesn’t mean he approves of everything we’re doing while we think of ourselves as “blessed”.
Consider the purpose of God’s kindness:
Romans 2:4 CSB — 4 Or do you despise the riches of his kindness, restraint, and patience, not recognizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?
God’s kindness is meant to lead us back into his righteous way of life. His mercy is meant to provide the means by which we can change our way of life. In this case, that you have been blessed with children and a peaceful second marriage doesn’t justify your decision to divorce, but is his mercy to allow you to begin exercising “faithful love” to your covenant spouse.
However, this doesn’t mean that you should just “move on” as if everything is okay. As we grow in our understanding of God’s way, we’re meant to acknowledge our sins as they become clear in the light. Acknowledging our sins and confessing them both to God and those we have hurt are necessary steps towards healing. How many second marriages are ruined because the sins that destroyed the first were never dealt with?
And this brings us to our conclusion:
Mark 10:13–16 CSB — 13 People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. 14 When Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me. Don’t stop them, because the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 15 Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” 16 After taking them in his arms, he laid his hands on them and blessed them.
I believe that Jesus’ use of the little children here is intentional: our one goal as Christians is to abide in the love of God by following Jesus’ way of life. We are to do this like children, who are demarcated in Scripture by their singular simplicity and dependence upon their fathers. We are simply to look to our heavenly Father. And wherever we find that we’ve missed the mark and strayed from his way, we’re not to make excuses or attempt to justify ourselves (or others). Instead, we’re to humbly acknowledge our sin and come back in line with our Father’s will by whatever means we are convinced by his word is necessary.
Jesus brings such a painful question as divorce into his vision of restoration through the cross by prescribing “faithful love” to be exercised by “child-like faith”. No one has the capacity to wound us like our spouses, and yet, we’re to contend for their salvation through faithful love, even as God has ours! And this gives us a new vision of how to deal with a spouses failures: our faithful love is an instrument in the Lord’s hands that he will use to bring about their healing and salvation! Therefore, our hardened hearts of unforgiveness must give way to the Lord’s compassionate heart so that we love our spouses even to the end! This gives us hope to press on even when things in our marriages look bad. It gives us vision to navigate such pain through love and forgiveness so that we do not become bitter. And it allows us to become witnesses of his faithful love to the whole world in the most tangible way possible!
A Dedicated Faith 