Marriage and the Church - Mark 10:1-12

Marriage and the Church

Mark 10:1-12

Introduction: Preaching through books of the Bible, from time to time, brings us face to face with Scriptures that I would probably not have chosen to speak on. Today is one of those occasions! But all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable… So, with God’s help, we will look at this passage in its context, and consider God’s design for marriage. Of all human relationships, the Lord used marriage to describe His relationship with the church. He designed marriage as a key aspect of His plan for humanity before the Fall. In the midst of His good creation, it was not good for the man to be alone. Adam was incomplete until God created a helpmate suitable for him. When we come to the New Testament, the church is described as the Bride of Christ. We look forward to celebrating with Him one day at the marriage supper of the Lamb. Paul turns that around and says husbands—as you live in this fallen world—are to love their wives as Christ loved the church.

       Throughout history, marriage and the family have been the fundamental building blocks of society. What has happened? Divorce rates have climbed dramatically since Word War 2. Some numbers may have dropped a bit over the last few years, probably because marriage is increasingly viewed as unnecessary by many today. Even by many professing Christians. “We love each other,” they say, “We don’t need society or the church giving us a label.” For those who do marry today the view tends to be easy in, easy out, so called “no-fault divorce.”  The Pharisees come to Jesus with a question about divorce. Jesus shows that rather than focusing on a way out, believers should be dedicated to pursuing God’s plan for marriage. 

Context: What does this teaching have to do with this context in Mark’s Gospel, and the emphasis we’ve been seeing on discipleship, serving, and in the immediate context, pursuing peace (9:50b)? My initial reaction was to think of it as a parenthetical teaching on a different subject. But let’s think this through. Could it be, that in this fallen world, as two different people are seeking to live life together, that God would use the give and take, the joys and the trials, the good times and the bad to teach us, to remind us about humility and the need to have the attitude of a servant, to conform us more and more to the image of Christ?

       Paul Tripp talks about marriage rooted in worship, and he illustrates it with a triangle. At the apex, God as Creator—He designed marriage, He has a plan—if we are willing to receive it. At another point of the triangle, we worship God as Sovereign. He is Lord, and in His sovereignty He has brought you and your spouse together (or, if you are single, He has either given you the gift of singleness, or at the right time He will yet bring the right person into your life as you prayerfully seek His will). Since God is good and does all things well, His will is to use your spouse to grow your relationship with Him, to mature you as a disciple, to make you more like Jesus. If you are at a bad point in your marriage you might think, Lord, have you miscalculated here? That brings us to the third point of the triangle, God as Savior. He can redeem your marriage—for you both—for your good and for His glory. It strikes me that Jesus is approaching Jerusalem, where He will soon lay down His life to redeem His bride. Marriage and discipleship?  Let’s look at…

The Maine* Idea: God’s design for marriage is evident in creation; one man, one woman, learning and growing together, until death do us part.

I. Setting: As Jesus moves toward Jerusalem the Pharisees again seek to trap him with His words, looking for a reason to accuse Him (1-2).

And he left there and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan, and crowds gathered to him again. And again, as was his custom, he taught them.  ² And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?"

      This last section of Mark shows Jesus transitioning from Galilee to ministry in Judea, leading to the final confrontation in Jerusalem. The ministry in the south now takes center stage. Jesus’ popularity is evident as, once again, as soon as He appears in public, crowds begin to gather. And, as He was accustomed to do, He taught them. It didn’t take long for word to get to some Pharisees, who came to him “to test Him” (cf. 8:11). What exactly was their plan?  R.C. Sproul suggests that it is most likely that they were wanting to lead Jesus into conflict with Herod Antipas. Remember the whole story with John the Baptist who called Herod out for marrying his brother’s wife Herodias, and John’s resulting imprisonment and eventual execution. If Jesus took a “hard line” on divorce maybe that would get Him out of the picture as well!

       Some suggest that the question might have set up a “no-win” scenario in that someone would surely take offense at Jesus’ answer! There were two prominent rabbinic schools at the time. The stricter, more conservative teachings of Rabbi Shammai, and the more liberal school of Hillel.  The stricter school allowed for divorce only in the case of adultery, whereas the more liberal school essentially allowed divorce for any reason at all – for example if a husband didn’t like his wife’s cooking. The predominant view of the time, propagated by the Pharisees, was that of the more liberal school. It may be that they reasoned that if Jesus took a hard line on marriage and divorce, His popularity would quickly fade. We are not sure of what the Pharisees’ plan was, but we know they wanted to “test Him,” to get something that would blunt His popularity with the people and his toleration by the authorities.

       Importantly, the Pharisees were not on a quest for truth. They were not asking Jesus to arrange for a marriage conference so that they could improve their marriages. They were testing Him, trying to set a trap, looking for a reason to accuse Him rather than focusing on God’s design for marriage: one man, one woman, learning and growing together until death do us part.

II. A command, or a concession to human fallenness (3-5)?

³ He answered them, "What did Moses command you?"  ⁴ They said, "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away."  ⁵ And Jesus said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.

       Jesus knew the hearts and the intentions of the Pharisees, so He answers their question with a question: What did Moses say about it? They respond with a reference to Deuteronomy 24:1-4. There Moses said,

"When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house,  ² and she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man's wife,  ³ and if the latter husband turns against her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her to be his wife,  ⁴ then her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the LORD, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance.

       Where is the commandment in those verses? The Pharisees themselves answer Jesus by saying that Moses allowed the husband to write a certificate of divorce. The NLT gets the idea when it starts Mark 10:4 with the phrase, “Well, he permitted it…” As you read the actual context in Deuteronomy, Moses is describing what was happening already, not prescribing God’s will for the situation in v.1. The only prohibition comes in v.4, seemingly to protect the wife against her husband taking an “easy-in/easy-out/ok-I’ll-take-you-back-when-it-fits-my-plan” kind of behavior. The man who divorces his wife was not allowed to take her back if she had married another.  Divorce was a concession to the hardness of human hearts.  Jesus will show in the following verses that God had no provision for divorce in the beginning—that came with the Fall. We’ll see that God’s design for marriage is evident in creation: one man, one woman, learning and growing together, until death do us part.

III. God’s Creation-Design for Marriage: One man, one woman, for life (6-9).

⁶ But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' ⁷ 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, ⁸ and they shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two but one flesh. ⁹ What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate." 

      Notice how Jesus responds – the Pharisees are trying to “test Him” with their question about divorce, and Jesus points them back to the more fundamental question, God’s design for marriage as revealed in the very first book of the Bible, Genesis (Gen 1:27: 2:24). In the pre-Fall creation everything was pronounced “good” [tov] by God. The only thing that was “not good” [lo-tov] before the fall was the man being alone. God’s design for creation was incomplete. And so, He made Eve, to complete Adam. And it was good. Now they could experience the fullness, the abundant life [shalom] for which they were created.

       Genesis describes “leaving” and “cleaving.”  A lot of problems in marriages result from our failure in one of those areas. “Leaving” speaks about a man separating from the family of His birth, and taking responsibility as the head of a new family unit. And “cleaving,” speaks of sexual intimacy yes, but also loving, leading, protecting and providing. It doesn’t mean we have no relationship with our parents of course (that was very important in first century Judaism). But it does imply independence, taking responsibility. Two people committing to one another, for a lifetime together. God’s design for marriage is evident in creation; one man, one woman, learning and growing together, until death do us part.

IV. The consequence of illegitimate divorce (10-12). The prophet Malachi said, “God hates divorce…” (Mal 2:16).

¹⁰ And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. ¹¹ And he said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her,  ¹² and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."    

       The disciples, as they often did, ask Jesus in private for some clarification of His public teaching. Let’s make something clear: none of the gospels is intended to give an exhaustive account of what Jesus said and did. They are reporting part of what Jesus spoke about, since they want to apply His teaching to the needs of a specific community.  Mark is writing to a community under persecution in Rome. And he is emphasizing God’s design, His intention for marriage in Creation: one man, one woman, learning and growing together, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, through good times and through hard times, until death parts them. He is specifically writing against any “easy in, easy out” view of marriage. God’s plan is for a lifetime commitment. Think about the church in Rome, undergoing persecution. As a husband and wife live, and one day die, as pilgrims in a fallen world, they can learn and grow together. They are stronger together than either of them could be alone. God will use your marriage, if you will allow it, to grow you to be more like Jesus. In a sense it is like a microcosm of the church, your spouse is the heart of your oikos.

       So then, is divorce always sinful? We can say that there is always sin in a divorce, but not every person involved in a divorce has necessarily sinned. The Old Testament does not actually talk about adultery as a ground for divorce—why? Under the Law, the penalty for adultery was death (Lev 20:10). If an adulterous spouse was executed, the innocent party would naturally be free to remarry! Of course, in the first century, under Roman rule, the Jews had only limited freedom to carry out such penalties. So then how should it apply in the church? Matthew gives a more complete version of Jesus’ teaching on this day in Matthew 19:8,9…

⁸ He said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.  ⁹ And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality [porneia], and marries another, commits adultery."

It seems clear that Jesus was giving an “exception” with this statement, saying that unfaithfulness, a capital crime under the Law, would be legitimate grounds for divorce. There is no command that divorce is necessary, but it would be permissible. I’ve known cases where there has been unfaithfulness, and then repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation. One public example of this was Pastor and writer Gordon MacDonald and his wife. He broke his vows, his wife could have divorced him, but God saved their marriage. So, divorce is an option for the offended party in the case of adultery. Is that the only situation?

       The Apostle Paul also addresses the matter in I Corinthians 7:13-16,

¹³ If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him.  ¹⁴ For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.  ¹⁵ But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace.  ¹⁶ Wife, how do you know whether you will save your husband? Husband, how do you know whether you will save your wife?

       You might ask, “What if my spouse doesn’t believe?” Paul says here, if they will stay with you, you should be willing to stay with them!  The situation here is probably a case where one spouse came to faith and the other was not yet ready to make that decision. Paul says you are still “one flesh,” you are married, and God would have you to be faithful to that commitment.

       Notice, the unbelieving spouse is “set apart,” as are the children – Next week in our context in Mark we’ll see how important children are to the Lord. Children are a gift from God, and we are thankful for parents who desire to raise them in the way of the Lord. They are saying their children have been set apart by God and for God. There is also a sense in which a spouse who has not yet believed is “set apart” by a believing spouse, and their children are “set apart” as well. How? They live and grow up exposed to the gospel, hearing Scripture, being prayed for, seeing the difference Jesus makes in a person’s life. That has a tremendous impact on children and often they come at an early age to faith in Christ. 

        But what if the unbelieving spouse leaves? Then the believer is “not enslaved.” This is the second circumstance where a divorce might be permissible. This seems to say that in the case of abandonment by an unbelieving spouse if the “brother or sister,” the believing spouse, the one who is who is left behind, desires to remarry he (or she) is free to do so, “he is not in bondage.” Reconciliation should be sought, staying celibate is an option, but if there is no other way, the believer is allowed to marry, “in the Lord.”   Why persevere when marriage gets difficult? Remember the triangle: we worship Him as Creator, Sovereign, and Savior. Paul says, “How do you know if you will save [your husband/wife]?”  We know that we don’t save anyone, but Paul is speaking a kind of “shorthand” here: “Save” in the sense, “used by God that our witness might win them to Christ.” We see similar language in I Peter 3:1-2,

Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives-  ² when they see your respectful and pure conduct.

That is how deeply God values the marriage relationship, that is how important it is to Him. What God has joined together, let no one separate.

What is God saying to me in this passage? God’s design for marriage is evident in creation; one man, one woman, learning and growing together, until death parts us.

What would God have me to do in response to this passage? If you are single you might think, should I have stayed home today? What does this have to do with me? If God hasn’t given you the gift to remain single, you need to understand the blessing and plan of marriage, and the need to keep worship of Him at the center of your life as you seek His will for the future. He has a plan, He is in control, and He is gracious.

       If you are divorced you may be thinking, “Did I handle things in the best way? Did I sin? What now?” There are situations where one person is the victim, the one sinned against in a divorce. Whatever happened, you can’t change the past, and even if you shared the blame, divorce is not the unpardonable sin. If you are remarried, dedicate yourself to making your current marriage what God intends it to be… a reflection of Jesus’ love for the church. Your marriage can lead you deeper in your worship of the Lord, as Creator, Sovereign, and Savior.

       Remember, in a perfect world before the fall, God said it was not good for the man to be alone… Then He created Eve. Our Creator is also our King, He is sovereign, and He has arranged the circumstances of your life for your good and for His glory. Perhaps you are at a hard point in your marriage—you are not sure if you are going to make it. Know this: with God all things are possible. He is also our Savior, and He can redeem your marriage and use it for your good, and for His glory. Commit yourself to being the best spouse you can be, that you might, together, become more like Jesus.  Let’s commit to being the men and women God intends us to be, for the glory of God. One day we’ll celebrate at the marriage supper of the Lamb! AMEN.