Jesus & Divorce, pt.2 (Mark 10:1-12) | 10/13/19
Mark 10:1-12 10/13/19 | Will DuVal
This morning we wrap up our TOPICAL study of DIVORCE in Mark 10:1-12, within our overarching study through the Gospel of Mark this year. As I said last week, I recognize this is a very sensitive, personal topic for many of us. I’ve got plenty of personal baggage: I’m the only person in my family of origin who isn’t divorced. And the only reason WE’RE still married today, is that I have an amazing, faithful, godly wife. Divorce ruined my family, growing up. I HATE it. But it doesn’t MATTER what I think. What MATTERS is that GOD hates it. Malachi 2:16 – “I hate divorce”, says the Lord.
So quick recap: last week, we recognized that before we do ANYTHING, we need to ask ourselves: what is the posture of my heart? If we’re like the Pharisees in Mark 10, and we’re just coming to Jesus, coming to God’s word, looking for validation of what we already believe, if our motive is to twist Scripture into whatever we WANT it to say, in order to self-justify and self-condone, then according to Jesus, we already stand self-CONDEMNED. We MUST start with HUMILITY – acknowledging that HE is God, and I am NOT, so I’m going to humbly submit myself under the authority of HIS inspired, inerrant word. After all, friends: if it’s really GOD’S word, shouldn’t we EXPECT to be challenged by it? If the Bible NEVER confronts you, if you never find yourself OPPOSED by what you read in Scripture, at some point you’ve got to ask yourself: “Is this really God’s word, or is it mine? Am I just reading my own beliefs and presuppositions into Scripture?” Sinners should expect to be defied by a holy God.
Secondly, we noted that in order to understand why God hates divorce so much, we first have to appreciate why God LOVES marriage so much. He loves marriage, because it is the closest analogy, the most powerful representation, dare I say SACRAMENT – a SACRED, outward, visible symbol of an internal, spiritual reality – marriage is a picture, THE picture, of God’s unbreakable covenant of loving faithfulness to His people. Marriage is SUPPOSED to be, Ephesians 5:32 – a “profound mystery” that powerfully points people to CHRIST. His unconditional love and unfailing commitment to HIS Bride, the Church. So God hates divorce because it MIS-represents his relationship with His people; it tells the world a LIE about God. He also hates divorce because it kills a marriage: a living, spiritual, invisible-yet-no-less-valuable, God-ordained, God-blessed and God-BIRTHED 2-become-1-flesh sacred UNION between a couple. Jesus says: “What God has joined together, let no man separate”.
And lastly before we pick back up today, I just want to reiterate that the Enemy, Satan, would love nothing more than to use this message to harden someone’s heart against the gospel this morning. The good news that there is now NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus; Romans 8:1. Divorce is NOT the unforgiveable sin of Mark 3; divorce does NOT “separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord;” Romans 8:39. Regardless of whether we’ve kept OUR promises or not; 2 Timothy 2:13 – if we are faithless, God REMAINS faithful – and our hope is secure in HIS faithfulness, NOT our own; Amen?
I was reflecting this past week and STRUCK by the realization that the Sunday after my father left my mother for another woman, and after the elders of our church confronted him, and ended up disciplining him OUT of our church, in accordance with Scripture – Matthew 18, 1 Corinthians 5... – my father was back in church, a DIFFERENT church, the very next Sunday. And guess what: so was my mom. And I asked myself this past week: if a Bill DuVal, circa 1997, was visiting West Hills, and sitting under MY preaching, would he leave feeling convicted by the TRUTH of God’s word, confronting him in his sin? And at the SAME TIME, if a Jill DuVal was here, would she leave feeling incredibly LOVED, and COMFORTED, and RESTORED in her SOUL. That’s really tough balance to strike, as a preacher. 2 Timothy 4:2 says “preach the word... reprove, rebuke, and encourage, with complete patience and teaching.” Rebuke AND encourage?! Convict AND comfort?! That’s why we’re here, friends.
Would you stand with me as you’re able, for the reading (the RE-reading) of God’s word, from Mark 10:1-12
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?” 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. 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,[a] 8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. 9 What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
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.” This is the word of the Lord...
Question #3 to ask in light of Mark 10 is: If everything we just recapped is true, about how much God HATES divorce, then why did He SEEM to allow for it in the OT? Jesus asks in v3: “What did Moses command you?” And the Pharisees admit: he never COMMANDED divorce – the only COMMAND was Genesis 2:24 “What God has joined together, LET NOT man separate”. And yet, v4: Moses ALLOWED for divorce, specifically, back in Deuteronomy 24:1-4 “When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then 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 of his house, and she departs out of his house, and if she goes and becomes another man's wife, 3 and the latter man hates 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 man dies, who took her to be his wife, 4 then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord.”. Now, if God hates divorce so much, why even RECOGNIZE it as a POSSIBILITY in the OT? We know God doesn’t change – Malachi 3:6 “I the Lord do not change” – so it’s NOT the case that 3,500 years ago with Moses, he was OKAY with divorce, but then ~2,000 years ago, he changed his MIND with Jesus. No, He’s ALWAYS hated divorce, so how do you explain Deuteronomy 24? I’ll offer you TWO explanations:
“The Law was a Temporary Guardian”. That’s how the apostle Paul puts it in Galatians 3. Paul, a former Pharisee himself, saved by the gospel of grace alone, through FAITH alone, in CHRIST alone, now argues that “All who rely on works of the law are under a curse... It is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.”” (vv10-12) But then He’s got to explain why God gave us the Law AT ALL?! So he reasons: “Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made... So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.” (vv19-24) So the OT Law was TEMPORARILY given, 1,500 years - “until Christ came” - to be a stop-gap, for sin; it was added “because of transgressions”, or as Jesus explains in Mark 10:5, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses wrote you this commandment” about divorce. There’s a real sense in which we can understand God’s relationship with His people throughout history as EVOLVING, much like ANY loving parent’s relationship with their children does.
Take something like SPANKING for instance. I’m gonna try and hit EVERY controversial topic this morning. But we’ve all heard the Bible’s wisdom on spanking: Proverbs 13:24 “Spare the rod... [spoil the child]; but he who loves his child is diligent to discipline him.” When used APPROPRIATELY, spanking your toddler can be a LOVING disciplinary measure. But if you’re still beating your TEENAGER, then we need to talk. Similarly, God’s CHARACTER never changes, but the way in which he PARENTS His children DOES change over time, because WE change. His children grow up. So the relationship changes. THAT’s the reason for many of the differences we see in the Old and New Testaments. And God instituted these laws surrounding things like divorce, slavery, polygamy, NOT because He was EVER in favor of those practices, but for the same reason YOU have a rule at home about what you expect your child to do when he tinkles on the toilet seat; you’re not in FAVOR of him doing it; but you accommodate your parenting to the REALITIES of where your kid’s AT, developmentally. Right?
And the SECOND, related reason we find divorce in the OT, is that God is omniscient. Look with me BRIEFLY at Deuteronomy ch.7, vv1-4 ““When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites... You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, 4 for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods.” Now, God gave this command to the Israelites long before they entered the Promised Land, but remember, before He’s even done DELIVERING the Law to Moses on Mt. Sinai, the people were already building a golden calf to worship. So Israel’s idolatry doesn’t catch God by surprise. In fact, at the very END of the Law, in Deuteronomy 30, God says: “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil”; blessings if you OBEY me, curses if you REJECT me: the choice is yours. And then the very NEXT chapter, ch.31, God tells Moses: “[And the Lord said to Moses, ] “Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers. Then this people will rise and whore after the foreign gods among them in the land that they are entering, and they will forsake me and break my covenant that I have made with them.” (v16) God PREDICTS their apostasy. God knew when he WROTE Deuteronomy 7 that they’d end up marrying foreign women, whoring after false gods. So what’d He do? He wrote Deuteronomy 24 as well. To allow for divorce in those extreme cases. Because He likes divorce? No, because He hates it a little LESS than he hates idolatry. All sins against a holy God deserve eternal punishment, but that DOESN’T mean all sins are EQUAL in God’s eyes. That’s a common, UN-biblical idea. Of COURSE all sins aren’t equal. We’ve already STUDIED the “unforgivable sin” – CLEARLY all sins are NOT judged equally by God. And God HATES adultery. It’s #7 on His top 10 list. But He hates IDOLATRY even more; it’s #1: “You shall have no other gods before[a] me.” (Ex 20:3). But even when God made a provision for divorce in extreme cases in the OT, He still clearly treats it as the lesser of two HORRIBLE evils. Listen to how Malachi describes it: “The Lord no longer regards your offerings... You say, “Why does he not?” Because He was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union?[f [THAT’S significant; it’s not even just TWO become one flesh; according to Malachi, God blesses your marital union with a portion of His SPIRIT – it’s you + your spouse + the Holy SPIRIT!] ...So guard yourselves[i] in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. 16 “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her,[j] says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers[k] his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts.” (2:13-16) The Hebrew literally translates: “the man who divorces his wife DOES VIOLENCE to the one he should protect”. Don’t believe the lies, friends: divorce isn’t something that “just happens” to you; it is a VIOLENCE that is COMMITTED. There’s nothing PASSIVE about it. Divorce papers don’t serve themselves. Someone makes a choice; divorce is a CHOICE.
Which leads us back to Mark 10 and Question #4: What does God think about divorce and remarriage TODAY? And Jesus is unequivocally clear in vv10-12: “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, 12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” And I want to go ahead and get the REST of the relevant biblical texts in front of us, and start to piece together some practical applications for today:
Luke 16:18, the parallel passage to Mark 10, from Luke’s gospel: “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.” Notice: the FIRST half of the verses are virtually identical, but the second half is different: in MARK, Jesus said - if she divorces HIM and gets remarried, then she commits adultery; in LUKE, Jesus says – if a man marries a woman who has previously divorced her husband, then he commits adultery. So according to Jesus, BOTH are guilty of adultery: the man AND the woman, IF they were the ones who divorced. In BOTH cases, the verb “divorce” is an ACTIVE participle. Again, divorce doesn’t just HAPPEN; it’s an ACTION, a DECISION. And Jesus emphasizes here that it really matters WHO does the divorcing. LEGALLY, today, maybe not. Practically, I guess you end up divorced either way. But in GOD’S eyes, it really matters, who gave up on the marriage. And if you’re the one who does the divorcing, UNLESS YOU MEET 1 of the 3 criteria God is about to give us that JUSTIFY divorce, then Jesus says the divorce was SINFUL, and any remarriage equals ADULTERY.
So: the exception clauses. Let’s take them in order of difficulty.
The EASIEST is the DEATH of a spouse. It doesn’t even really APPLY, because there IS no divorce in this case. But here are the 2 NT texts:
1 Cor 7:39 “A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. If the husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.”
And Romans 7:2-3 “A married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies she is discharged from the law concerning her husband. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies she is free from that law, if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.”
Pretty straightforward. Now we come to the TRICKIER cases. I’ve heard these exception clauses categorized as the 3 “A’s”: Abuse, Abandonment, and Adultery. Let’s take ABUSE first:
1 Corinthians 7:10-11 “To the married I give charge, not I but the Lord, that the wife should not separate from her husband 11 (but if she does, let her remain single or else be reconciled to her husband)—and that the husband should not divorce his wife.” So Scripture commands again: don’t give up on your marriage. But, interestingly, Paul DOES open the door in v11 to the idea that separation might be NECESSARY in certain cases: He says, “if she DOES separate, let her remain single or else be reconciled to her husband”. And I think it’s especially significant that Paul addresses the WIFE here, although EITHER spouse can be guilty of abuse. But this appears to be God’s way of accounting for cases like ABUSE. People have asked me: if one of your congregants came to you and disclosed that she’d been ABUSED by her husband, would you tell her to stay in the marriage? And the honest answer is: it depends. I would take that EXTREMELY seriously, and there are all SORTS of questions to ask; the first, of course, being: are you and the kids safe right now? But then you’ve got to ask: Is this an ongoing issue, or past-tense thing? Was it a one-time offense or a pattern of behavior? What TYPE of abuse, and what SEVERITY? Is he repentant of his sin, or is he unapologetic? Is there even a POSSIBILITY of trust being rebuilt between you? But depending on the ANSWERS, I think 1 Corinthians 7 makes room for the possibility that there may be cases where what it best for her, and frankly, for him and for their MARRIAGE, is at the VERY least, an extended period of separation.
The 2nd “A” is ABANDONMENT. We stay in 1 Corinthians 7. vv12-16 this time: “if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. 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... 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[b] to peace. 16 For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?”
Now let’s first note: Paul instructs us elsewhere in 2 Cor 6:14 not to be unequally yoked, so his working assumption is that a believer would never KNOWINGLY marry an unbeliever. That is a TERRIBLE life choice. No matter how much you love them, if you’re a believer and you are dating or engaged to an unbeliever, you end it. Period. But marriage is a whole different ballgame. So what about, when one spouse comes to faith AFTER marriage, and the other is still unconverted? This was PARTICULARLY common in Paul’s day, when Christianity is just coming on the scene. You’ve got TONS of new, adult Christians converts in marriages. What should they DO? Leave their unconverted spouse? NO! Paul is clear: if your spouse still consents to live with you, you STAY MARRIED. Being married to a non-Christian is NOT grounds for divorce. v16: “Who knows; maybe you’ll SAVE your spouse?” You’re a MISSIONARY in your own home! Missional dating: HORRIBLE idea. Missional marriage – if you’ve already made a covenant in God’s eyes, then you PRAY that God would make lemonade out of the situation. And please know too: I’m praying WITH you. Your pastor is praying FOR you, in that. I know a few of you who ARE in unequally yoked marriages; I can’t imagine what it’s like to know that the person closest to you, who you SLEEP beside, share your LIFE with, your other HALF, if they died today would spend eternity in Hell. I can’t even imagine all the SMALLER issues you deal with on a daily basis, approaching all of LIFE from fundamentally different worldviews. I PRAY for you. But I also plead with you this morning: stay married.
BUT in v15, Paul says “if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved.” Paul doesn’t even entertain the idea that the BELIEVING spouse would be the one to give up on the marriage, no matter HOW hard it gets, because of the Lord’s command in vv10-11 NOT to divorce. But Paul realizes that Scripture isn’t going to be binding on the conscience of the UNBELIEVER, so if your lost husband separates, if your non-Christian wife leaves you, then that brother or sister, the believer, is no longer “enslaved”, or some translations say “bound”. That’s a strong word. Marriage is a BINDING COVENANT. It’s not a social contract, not a firm commitment; it’s a “til death do us part” COVENANT before God and these witnesses. You are BOUND. Unless your unbelieving spouse walks away from the marriage, and then you are free.
Which leaves us with the third, and the trickiest of the “As”: ADULTERY. Two relevant texts:
Matthew 5:31-32, from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: ““It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of porneia, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”
And Matthew 19:9; which is Matthew’s version of Jesus’ interaction with the same Pharisees from Mark 10: “And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for porneia, and marries another, commits adultery.”
I left the Greek word “porneia” untranslated for us, because we often hear pastors reduce this exception clause down to “adultery”, but interestingly, there was another word in Greek for “adultery”, and Matthew GIVES it to us right there in 5:32 and 19:9 – moi-CHA-o-mai. So if it’s not “adultery”, then what IS porneia? Well, biblically, porneia refers generally to “sexual out-of-boundedness”. Sexual immorality, in the ESV, is a pretty good translation: porneia can refer to anything that violates God’s design for sex. MOST commonly, it can simply mean fornication. ANY and all sex OUTSIDE of the context of marriage. But it was used more specifically in Jesus’ world to refer to adultery, homosexuality, incest, bestiality, prostitution, and a whole HOST of other sexual deviancies.
So why do I say this 3rd A is the trickiest for us? Some of you will notice the word “porneia” sounds familiar: it’s where we get our word PORNOGRAPHY. Pornography clearly meets the Bible’s definition of “sexual out-of-boundedness”, it falls WAY short of God’s glorious design for sex, and it is RUINING marriages today. So I ask you: is Jesus saying here, that a wife is justified in seeking divorce if her husband has ever looked at porn? If so, and the statistics, the CHURCH statistics, hold true for us here at West Hills, then look around the room: 70% of the guys sitting here are at risk of divorce. Actually, it’s higher than that; the statistics say that 70% of church-going men are ACTIVELY using pornography; if we’re including everyone, myself included, who has EVER used porn, at ANY point in my 11 years of marriage, at ANY point in your 25 years of marriage, your 60 years of marriage, then we’re talking well over 90% of Christian men today. 90+% of us ought to be at the Intimacy seminar next weekend.
Would my wife be justified in divorcing me? Is yours justified in leaving you, brother? I don’t want to try and answer that question for anyone else this morning. But I will use this opportunity to remind you that my door is always open. I’m not just your preacher; I’m your pastor. This is what I’m here for. To offer you biblical counsel on the REAL stuff of life. And oh by the way: I’m a REAL person too. But I’ll just speak from personal experience here and say I am BEYOND grateful that my wife has never asked the question: “Would I be justified in leaving him?” I’m grateful for my MOM, who after discovering that my father had been cheating on her and lying to her for YEARS, was ready to roll up her sleeves in marriage counseling and try to make it work.
Jesus PERMITS divorce in some cases; but he never COMMANDS it. And I’m afraid that some Christians today are following in the Pharisees’ footsteps, and we’ve taken these 3 small exceptions for divorce and BLOWN THEM UP into a whole system of loopholes, because frankly, some people just want out. So making me feel unhappy and unfulfilled gets equated to “abuse”. If she’s not meeting my needs, she’s effectively “abandoned” me. Please be careful. Yes, your spouse is a sinner, and guess what: you are too. Don’t underestimate your OWN heart’s ability to justify a SINFUL divorce.
So let’s conclude with Question #5 – How should I approach marriage, divorce, & remarriage today? I’ll leave you with some practical quick-hitters:
First of all, IF YOU’RE SINGLE: praise God for it. Singleness is a GIFT, 1 Corinthians 7: Paul says he wishes EVERYONE was cut out for the single life, like He and Jesus were – you can devote SO much more of your time to the Lord. But he also recognizes that it’s NOT for everyone, and it’s better to be married than to “burn with sexual passion”. In Matthew 19:10, right AFTER this exchange on divorce, Jesus’ disciples exclaim: “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” If remarriage is really adultery; Jesus, then we think it’s better to just stay single! And Jesus’ responds: Yes, but “Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given.” So if God has given singleness to YOU, as a GIFT, from your heavenly Father who is perfect and knows best what you need, whether it is just for this season of your life, or whether He intends for you to be single ALL of your life, then praise Him for it. And use it as an opportunity to devote even more time to serving and enjoying Him.
But secondly, Marriage is ALSO a gift. One of God’s GREATEST gifts. So if you’re single and you know in your heart: this is NOT God’s life-long calling for me, then I’d encourage you to get married! I love this quote from John MacArthur: “Find somebody. Don’t look for the Messiah, just find somebody. I keep saying that to girls, you know, the Messiah came and went, you’ve got to settle for somebody else... Some of you are hanging around, waiting for the perfect person to come up. Look, just find somebody in whom Christ lives who desires to serve Christ and don’t postpone marriage needlessly. Get married. This is the grace of life. We need more kids in the nursery. The kingdom grows that way. You know, hanging around until you’re 30 years of age, just checking everybody out, guess what - they’re checking you out, and they’re not thrilled, either, so just find somebody... If I could wish anything for myself, I wish that I had gotten married younger because it’s such a wonderful thing, a blessed thing, God-honoring thing.” (John MacArthur, “The Truth About Divorce, pt.2”, Nov 21, 2010)
God love John MacArthur.That leads us, THIRDLY, to those of us who are MARRIED in the room. And to you: I CHARGE and encourage and commend you to STAY married, no matter HOW hard it gets: honor, love, serve and support one another for your mutual edification and for God’s glory.
FOURTH, If you are DIVORCED: if you unjustifiably gave up on your marriage, or worse, if you VIOLATED your covenant vows and tore asunder your sacred bond, know that forgiveness can be found at the foot of the cross. Conversely, if your SPOUSE committed the violent act of divorce AGAINST you, and abused, abandoned, or committed adultery against you, know that God sees you, he hears your cries, and he CARES for you. God is still Good. Trust Him today. We don’t always see His plan in the moment, but it will become clearer. Perhaps He WILL call you to remarriage, IF your divorce was on biblical grounds. If not, then stay divorced. Do NOT be unjustly remarried and commit adultery in Jesus’ eyes.
Which brings us, lastly, to those who were divorced, and who are ALREADY remarried on UN-biblical grounds I want to offer you the OTHER John’s advice; John Piper: this time. He charges: You
“Should acknowledge that the choice to remarry and the act of entering a second marriage was sin, and confess it as such and seek forgiveness
Should not attempt to return to the first partner after entering a second union (see [Deuteronomy 24:1-4])
Should not separate and live as single people thinking that this would result in less sin because all their sexual relations are acts of adultery. The Bible does not give prescriptions for this particular case, but it does treat second marriages as having significant standing in God's eyes. That is, there were promises made and there has been a union formed. It should not have been formed, but it was. It is not to be taken lightly. Promises are to be kept, and the union is to be sanctified to God. While not the ideal state, staying in a second marriage is God's will for a couple and their ongoing relations should not be looked on as adulterous.” (John Piper, “Divorce & Remarriage: A Position Paper,” July 21, 1986)
Lastly, for ALL of us... (grace of Christ / gospel)