Link to Bible readings for this talk
Tonight’s text is one of those that you will never hear preached unless you’re in a church that goes through books of the Bible, beginning at the beginning of the book and reading to the end.
Who on earth wants to preach on divorce? What pastor is brace enough or foolish enough to open THAT can of emotional worms.
Unless they like condemning people, you know – “You sinners! You eviiiiile people.” Secure in the fact that because they’re still married (or never married) this doesn’t apply to them! Actually, it does. And moral superiority is NEVER the mark of a Christian!
Well, tonight I’m forced by God to tackle this question. And in his grace he’s put it in context – the context of Jesus, the Son of Man, the great and powerful King, with all power and authority throughout all of time and space – going to Jerusalem to be mocked and beaten and killed as a sinner, so that we, who are sinners, can be made right with God. This passage is not to be used as a stick to beat people over the head with, but to reveal our hardness of heart and our need for a saviour. The breakdown of our marriages reveal our sin and moral depravity and reveal how deeply we need a saviour. How deeply we need grace and forgiveness and reconciliation.
It is in the context of an Israel that is seeking to reject their King, reject their God. Did you see the Pharisees motives in v2 “in order to test him”. They don’t want to bow before the Christ, the Son of God. No. They want to turn the people against him, to get rid of him, and so they seek to test him.
But Jesus is the new Moses, the new leader of the new Exodus. There is a new Israel being formed, one of Jews and Gentiles, people from every nation, tribe and tongue – and the self-righteous religious people are not part of it.
Who is part of the kingdom?
Through Mark we’ve found out that it is those who have listened to Jesus, and come to him.
Those who recognise him as the Christ because he has opened their spiritual eyes.
Those who then give up everything else, deny themselves and pick up their cross, in order to obey him in everything, following him wherever that may lead.
Those who cry out “I believe! Help my unbelief!”. That’s prayer – and the prayer of every Christian. I love that it’s in the section of “what does it mean to follow Jesus”, not “who is Jesus”. We keep needing to cry out to Jesus “Help!”. We are saved by grace and walk by grace. This "deny yourself and pick up your cross" thing is impossible. We can only do it in his strength, no other.
And tonight's passage is exactly the same. To marry and stay truly married (one mind, one flesh, united, intimate) we need the grace of God.
I really struggled for a while with these verses because they seems so totally out of place. The big theme in this section is greatness and servanthood, and all the stories link into that – except this one. Jesus randomly talks about marriage, and then it’s back to kids and the kingdom!
So, why? It’s not random, it’s placed deliberately. It wasn’t until I read Malachi that I suddenly understood.
1. How we treat our spouse is evidence of how we treat God.
We’ve seen Malachi a few times already in Mark’s Gospel. Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament. It is a short book of prophecy, where the prophet Malachi warns of Lord’s Day of judgement, promising that he will send a Messenger who will prepare the way of the Lord (Mark 1:2). That Messenger in Malachi chapter 4 is revealed as “Elijah”. So the disciples’ question about Elijah in last week’s passage (9:11) comes from Malachi. And Jesus basically says that John the Baptist is that Elijah figure, he has prepared the way for the Lord, Jesus.
Malachi is calling the people back to God – they have abandoned his ways. He’s warning them that God will suddenly appear in his Temple (amongst them). They need to be ready for his appearing. In Malachi God has this against his people: the people are offering impure sacrifices (giving God the worst of the land, instead of the best – lip service, not heartfelt worship); the priests are leading them astray (ch2) by accepting these offerings and not rebuking the people (not giving true instruction); the people are not tithing, and thereby robbing God; and they have broken faith with the wife of their youth.
So, in this passage with heavy Malachian undercurrents, it is not strange to see an argument about marriage and divorce!
The Pharisees, like the priests in Malachi’s day, are leading the people astray. John the Baptist (“Elijah”) was beheaded because of his stand on exactly this issue (remember a few chapters back) – King Herod had married his brother’s wife, and John told him that was wrong – and so he was murdered. Jesus is taking the same stand, and he, too, will be murdered.
In Malachi we read (2:14) the LORD 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. And so God does not accept their worship. He rejects them. They are no longer counted as his people with access to the one true God.
Likewise the Pharisees come with faithless hearts, hearts coming in pride instead of humility, hearts to command the God of the universe instead of crying out “help”. And so they, too, will be cut off from the people of God. Doomed to experience the day of his wrath. For Mal 3:2 who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?
It’s worth noting the fact that there is a direct correlation between the people’s “religious” practices, and “real” life. What they are doing with God leads to destructive marital relationships (and other bad things). Or you could say that the reason for the high divorce rate in Ancient Israel was lack of fear of God. And therefore the remedy for broken interpersonal relationships is God, the Lord who comes to his Temple.
Today in Norway family life and marriage is appalling. Broken relationships everywhere. People are totally unable to keep their genitals under control. Totally unable to stay together for more than a couple of years (when the infatuation has worn off). And the solution for Norway is a wholesale repentance and turning to God. That’s the only way to save our marriages. This is not pie in the sky when you die! It affects your life now – deeply, centrally.
For example, the reason Debby and I have such a good marriage is not because we are better than everyone else – or even just “lucky”. No the reason our marriage is great is because of Jesus. Because he can deal with my sin, the root problem of marriage. Because he calls me to obey him, to love him, to follow him IN MY marriage. I love Debby because I love Jesus. You see, all of us have a selfish little record-keeper keeping ‘score’ of everything we’ve done for other people, especially our spouses. And at some point we want payback.
But if that score-keeper is keeping score against Jesus – well, I’m always indebted to him! So, whenever I have to be unselfish, or apologise, or make a difficult decision, or get off my backside to be involved with my family – I mentally remind myself that I’m doing this for Jesus, not for Debby or the kids or anyone else. Otherwise I will resent them eventually, for getting in the way of what I want to do. But Jesus? He made me. He rescued me. I belong to him. I am his slave. I am his.
The proclamation of the gospel is the most loving thing we can do. It is the solution to the heart of every problem in this world. THIS is real life. Everything else is a shadow and a lie.
Divorce reminds us of how much we need the gospel of grace.
2. Marriage: the ideal
Mk 10:4 [The Pharisees] 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.
Divorce is an indication of our sinfulness. Because we have hard hearts the law needed to make provision for divorce. But as sinful men we took the provision and elevated it to an ideal or a right. “I have the right to be happy, she’s not making me happy, let me dump her.”
Jesus’ words are a huge corrective. Divorce is an indication of sin. Circumstances don’t lead to divorce, but sinful behaviour – either from one spouse or the other, most often from both.
God made us to be married for life. Adam and Eve were naked and knew no shame. They were completely open and honest with each other, knew each other intimately, and accepted and loved each other. That’s what we all want, isn’t it. To be accepted, to be loved, completely, utterly. But Adam and Eve threw all that away, choosing to rebel against God and his good laws, and immediately the joy and intimacy they had with each other was broken. They made clothes to cover their nakedness, and their relationship was cursed with the desire to control or manipulate the other person to do what you want, what is best for you. Selfishness replaced love at the heart of our most precious human relationship. And so we need to work hard, battling our own sinfulness and the sinfulness of our spouse to even stay married!
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 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.
Marriage is God’s idea, God’s creation. It is a good thing. But sin messes it up. God’s command is for us to stay together, but we, in divorce, disobey his command. Divorce is a serious matter! It is a tearing apart of two people who have become one. It’s like a person being torn in two. It is horribly painful. It is "not good".
It’s worth also seeing that the definition of marriage here includes living together (“samboer”).
Marriage has two distinctives: sexual intercourse (one flesh) and being a couple (man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife). That is why a sexually active couple experiences such pain in break-up. It is divorce. “Samboer” who move out are experiencing divorce. The divorce rates in Norway are sky high!
And like Israel in Malachi we pay lip service to God, sitting in our churches ignoring Jesus and disobeying him in our relationships. We don’t tithe because the state takes care of that and we divorce our wives because we don’t care about God. And the ministers cry “peace, peace” where there is no peace. This is a crisis. Norway is in terrible danger. Now is not the time to cry "peace" but "beware!"
Beware the terrible Day of the Lord. Mal 4:1 For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.
If we claim to be Christians, we cannot ignore Jesus’ teaching. We are to be faithful in marriage because he is faithful to us. We are to marry one woman and hold fast to her because we love God and want to honour him, no matter what the cost. Because if we don’t, we can cause others to sin, and if we do that, it is better for us if a great millstone were hung around our neck and we were thrown into the sea (Mark 9:42).
3. Divorce in the community of God’s people
It may come as surprise to us in the West, but we are a community, not a collection of lone individuals. Western culture needs a corrective from the Majority World here! Our sin affects everyone- as we go, others go. That’s what Jesus warned us about last week (9:41-50) – we need to take sin seriously! Whatever causes us to sin, cut it off, cut it out, get rid of it. Because it is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.
And here we have an example of what Jesus was talking about: Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, 12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.
Our sin can cause others to sin. And here we have a man who divorces his wife which leads her to commit adultery. As a woman in those days being without a husband generally meant starvation. No place to stay, no protection, no income, nothing. Alternatives were find another husband, become a prostitute, or die.
The stakes may not be as high today, but as people created to be in marriage relationships it is very hard to be single. Particularly if you were previously married. The sin of unrighteous divorce leads to further sins of adultery, because in the eyes of the Lord you are still joined to your first spouse. And when you shack up with another person, by choice or out of desperation, you commit the sin of adultery against your spouse.
Marriage is to be honoured. Unrighteous divorce is a sin. What does this mean?
Well, clearly if you are married, stay married! Do whatever you can out of love for the Lord and the desire to keep others from hell to stay married. The emphasis here is not on condemning the broken, but on reminding those who are currently married, or going to be married, of the commitment that they are entering into (and this includes moving in together, or being a sexually active couple). You are committing yourselves to each other for life, and breaking that covenant vow is serious,
But what if you are previously divorced, or married to an abusive spouse, or any of the other myriad problems sinners have? Well, as the law of Moses indicates, God is a realist, and allows that sometimes divorce is justified. Even God divorces his people because of their unfaithfulness. Given other Biblical texts which we don’t have time to go into now, what Jesus is targeting here is “no-fault” divorces. That cavalier attitude to marriage / living together that has a back door if it gets inconvenient. Like I said at the beginning, this text is not a stick to beat people with, but finds itself within the context of grace. Divorce is serious, yes, but so is lying and gossiping – and we don’t ban them from church or leadership positions in the church. It is painful enough as it is.
Let us remember that the purpose of the law is knowledge of sin. We see the prohibition on divorce and realise we are adulterers. We look at people shacking up and breaking up all around us and realise that our country is crying out of the restorative grace and truth of Jesus. We look at Christian people ignoring the commands of our Lord and defiling the Gospel by getting divorced and we realise our responsibility to obey the Lord.
Let us cry to Jesus “I believe, help my unbelief!” We need his grace and mercy. We have all messed up in our lives, some more publicly than others. But we are ALL sinners, all fallen people. We are a community of forgiven sinners. Let us act like it. Let us bind up the sores of those hurt by sin, either their own or the sins of others. Let us offer the grace of our Lord Jesus who covers sins and remind each other that he is worthy to be praised!
The day of the Lord is coming. The terrible and fearful day of fire. So let us fear the name of the Lord and shelter in the sun of righteousness: Jesus, the Christ, the one who will suffer and die at the hands of sinful men in order to save sinful men and women. Praise Him!
FAQ: Can Christians remarry?
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