6 

The Truth about Divorce
(Mark 10:1–12) 

Getting up, He went from there to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan; crowds gathered around Him again, and, according to His custom, He once more began to teach them. Some Pharisees came up to Jesus, testing Him, and began to question Him whether it was lawful for a man to divorce a wife. And He answered and said to them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.” But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and the two shall become one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” In the house the disciples began questioning Him about this again. And He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her; and if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery.” (10:1–12)

Divorce has lost all its negative stigma and has become a widely accepted, extremely popular option in society. As the church is shaped by the culture, it has also become increasingly accepted and common there. Still, views regarding divorce run the gamut among Christians from allowing it for any reason, to forbidding it for any reason. But those who tolerate it are becoming the majority.

The church’s view of divorce, however, must not be based on the shifting sands of societal norms but on the bedrock of biblical truth. And the Bible is not unclear on the subject, nor are the correct interpretations elusive, in spite of the claims of some. The most important question is not what anyone says about divorce but what God thinks of it. The biblical answer to that question is straightforward and unambiguous. In His own words God declared the bottom line: “‘I hate divorce,’ says the Lord, the God of Israel” (Mal. 2:16).

Israel’s history provides the backdrop for that divine attitude. After centuries of rebellion and idolatry, God’s devastating judgment fell on Israel so that the nation suffered seventy years of captivity in Babylon. When the exiles returned from exile, they rebuilt Jerusalem and the temple, though their religion had degenerated into mere external ritualism. Their attitudes toward God were demeaning, unrighteous, and hard-hearted. Despite their outward show of religion, their hearts were full of sin and disobedience. Malachi’s prophecy, written after the return from exile, indicted the people for their sins in very specific terms and called them to repentance.

Writing at about the same time, Nehemiah identified the same sins that Malachi saw and denounced. One of those sins characterizing postexilic Israel was intermarriage with pagan women:

It was the divorcing of their Jewish wives to marry pagan Gentile women that the Lord condemned through Malachi. The priests were taking the lead in this violation of God’s law (Mal. 2:1), setting a corruptive example that the rest of the people readily followed (v. 8). The Lord warned them that judgment would follow unless they repented and turned from their sinful ways (vv. 2–13). They had profaned the temple by their marriages to pagan idolaters, and dealt treacherously with their Jewish wives by violating the marriage covenant (v. 14). That history led to God’s declaration, “I hate divorce” (v. 16).

As this section opened, Jesus and the Twelve left the house in Capernaum where He had taught them regarding humility and radical discipleship (9:28–50). With the Lord’s ministry in Galilee at an end, they headed for Judea, where Jesus ministered for about six months. Mark (along with Matthew) does not record His ministry in Judea (though Luke and John do) but goes directly to the Lord’s subsequent ministry in the region … beyond the Jordan to the east, known as Perea. His ultimate destination, of course, was Jerusalem and His death on the cross. Large crowds, consisting of both Jews who lived in that region and Galileans traveling through Perea to avoid Samaria gathered around Him again, and, according to His custom, He once more began to teach and heal (Matt. 19:2) them. Dogging His steps as usual, seeking an opportunity to discredit Him before the people, were His bitter and relentless enemies, the Pharisees.

The Lord’s teaching on the subject of divorce, given in the context of a discussion with the Pharisees, may be examined under four headings: the confrontation, the clarification, the contention, and the accommodation.

THE CONFRONTATION

Some Pharisees came up to Jesus, testing Him, and began to question Him whether it was lawful for a man to divorce a wife. (10:2)

The Pharisees who approached Jesus and began to question Him whether it was lawful for a man to divorce a wife were not seeking truth. They were well aware of His teaching on the subject, since He had stated it publicly (cf. Matt. 5:31–32). Instead, they were testing Him, hoping to discredit Him in the eyes of the people. Like their post-exilic ancestors, the leaders and people of Jesus’ day also viewed divorce and remarriage as acceptable. The Old Testament standard had long since been abandoned. In its place an accommodating view, championed by the prominent rabbi Hillel (110 B.C.–A.D. 10), had made divorce easy. According to that view, a man was permitted to divorce his wife for anything she did that displeased him, even such trivial matters as burning his dinner, allowing someone to see her ankles, letting her hair down, making a negative comment about her mother-in-law, or if all else failed, because he found someone else that he preferred to her.

The Pharisees planned to portray Jesus as an intolerant hard-liner, who identified both the people and their leaders as adulterers and adulteresses. That, they hoped, would turn the populace against Him. In addition, Perea was ruled by Herod Antipas, who had imprisoned and, at the behest of his wife, Herodias, executed John the Baptist for disapproving of his own immoral divorce and remarriage (Mark 6:17–18). Perhaps, they reasoned, Herod and Herodias might do the same to Jesus if He publicly opposed divorce.

THE CLARIFICATION

But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and the two shall become one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. (10:6–9)

As will be discussed later in this chapter, Jesus ignored the rabbinic teachings and traditions and went straight to the Old Testament. From it, He gave four reasons why God hates divorce and it is unlawful.

First, because marriage is an indissoluble union between one man and one woman. According to Matthew 19:4, Jesus prefaced His reply with a pointed rebuke of the Pharisees’ spiritual pride. “Have you not read?” Despite their vaunted expertise in the law of Moses, Jesus indicted them for their ignorance of it. Adam and Eve form the pattern for marriage, since at the beginning of creation, God made one male and one female. Divorce then was impossible, since there were no other people to remarry.

Second, because of the strength of the union. The Hebrew word translated “joined” in Genesis 2:24 denotes the strongest possible bond and can be translated “cling,” “fasten its grip,” “follow closely,” “hold fast,” “stay close,” “stick together,” or “stuck.” Marriage involves two people unbreakably connected together, glued and pursuing hard after each other to be united in mind, will, spirit, body, and emotion.

Third, because of the unbreakable unity of the marriage bond. So strong is the union between husband and wife that the two … become one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. That indivisible oneness is seen most clearly in the product of the two—their children. Breaking the marriage bond also breaks the family bond, inflicting further damage.

Finally, because marriage is God’s work. Every marriage is an act of God by which He bestows upon a man and a woman the common grace of a fulfilling union producing children. Since it is God who creates the partnership, breaking a marriage destroys something divinely made. Therefore, Jesus commanded, “What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”

Divine revelation on marriage and divorce was clear and unambiguous. It offered no support for the contemporary Jewish view that divorce was permissible for any reason. Several related principles may be noted. First, adultery was forbidden (Ex. 20:14) and punishable by death (Lev. 20:10). Second, premarital sex was also punished (Lev. 19:20). Third, coveting another person’s spouse was forbidden (Ex. 20:17; cf. Matt. 5:28).

It is the unavoidable conflict in marriage that may lead to divorce, hostility that stems from the fall and the resulting curse on Adam (Gen. 3:17–19) and Eve (v. 16) and their descendants. The man is cursed in relation to his work and the woman is cursed in connection with bearing children and submitting to her husband.

The curse on the woman in particular provides helpful insight on why there is conflict in marriage: “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” That is not a reference to a woman’s normal romantic, psychological, or emotional attraction to her husband, since it is part of the curse. The Hebrew word translated “desire” is only used one other time in the Pentateuch, in Genesis 4:7. There God warned Cain, “Sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” The same language is used in the curse on the woman in 3:16—she will desire to control her husband, and he will have to master her. Commenting on this verse, John H. Sailhamer writes,

Before the fall Adam and Eve were free from disagreement, working jointly to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen. 1:28). They complemented each other perfectly and lived together in harmony as co-regents over creation.

But after the temptation by Satan and their fall, that perfect harmony was shattered for them and every other married couple coming from them. Wives, by the curse, seek to be independent of their husband’s authority, to dominate the relationship and impose their will on their husbands. Husbands, on the other hand, by the same curse, seek to suppress their wives’ revolt against their authority, often in a harsh, ungracious, autocratic manner. This regular conflict between two sinners, living intimately together, can produce animosity that leads to divorce.

THE CONTENTION

And He answered and said to them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.” (10:3–4)

Not only did the Lord clarify the biblical teaching on divorce, He also challenged the Pharisees’ unbiblical view. Cutting through the rabbinic accretions, He pointed them back to the Old Testament’s teaching by asking, “What did Moses command you?” They had a ready answer, since they believed they had found a passage in the Law that supported their view that divorce was permissible for any reason. Confidently they said to Jesus, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.” The passage in question is Deuteronomy 24:1–4:

They camped on the word “indecency” and, as noted earlier in this chapter, expanded it to mean virtually anything they desired.

There is, however, no command or explicit permission given to divorce anywhere in this passage; it merely describes a situation in which a man gets married, decides he does not like his wife, divorces her, and she marries someone else. The sole command is in verse 4: In such cases “her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife.” Far from commanding or even permitting divorce, this injunction merely forbids a man to remarry a woman that he has divorced who has then been married to someone else. The passage recognizes and regulates the reality of divorce without condoning or condemning it.

The Hebrew word translated “indecency” literally means “nakedness,” not in a physical sense but in the sense of something shameful. The same word is used in Deuteronomy 23:14 to describe things in the camp of Israel that the holy God must not see. The term does not refer to adultery, the only biblical grounds for divorce, but to sinful behavior short of adultery. It describes things that violate normal social responsibility and behavior in a civilized culture and hence are disrespectful of others. The word certainly cannot be extrapolated to mean anything that a man disliked about his wife, as the Pharisees were doing.

THE ACCOMMODATION

But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.” … In the house the disciples began questioning Him about this again. And He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her; and if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery.” (10:5, 10–12)

Although the Law decreed that adulterers were to be executed, God was merciful in the application of that law. After his extramarital affair with Bathsheba, “David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’ And Nathan said to David, ‘The Lord also has taken away your sin; you shall not die’” (2 Sam. 12:13). By the time of Christ, few people were being executed for adultery. Not only were people not being executed for adultery, they also were divorcing their wives at will, all the while deluding themselves into thinking the Old Testament permitted them to do so. The Old Testament recognized divorce on the grounds of adultery and God mercifully suspended the death sentence for adulterers because of the people’s hardness of heart, which is why Moses wrote them this commandment. But the Pharisees and others in Christ’s day were so far from God’s standard for marriage that they were divorcing their wives on the slightest whim.

Back in the house in Perea where they were staying, the disciples began questioning Him about this again, seeking further clarification. In reply, Jesus succinctly summarized the divine position: “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her; and if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery.” Yet God did permit divorce in some unusual circumstances. In Deuteronomy 7:1–3 God strictly prohibited the Israelites from intermarrying with the pagan people of Canaan:

Yet that is exactly what the people did after the exile (Ezra 9:1–2). After being rebuked by Ezra

The result was mass divorce (vv. 5–44). While God hates divorce, He hates idolatry even more; divorce was a lesser evil than having Israel relapse into the idolatrous false religion that had led to the Babylonian exile.

Israel committed spiritual adultery in her relationship with God. Yet He was faithful to His covenant with David and did not divorce Judah (Isa. 50:1), though there would be a time of separation. The apostate northern kingdom (Israel), however, was not ruled by kings from the Davidic line, and after patiently waiting despite centuries of idolatry, He did divorce Israel for her spiritual infidelity (Jer. 3:8). Joseph, a righteous man, could legally have divorced Mary for her supposed infidelity (a Jewish betrothal, far more binding than a modern engagement, could only be ended by a divorce, Matt. 1:19). Those two illustrations demonstrate that, as noted above, adultery was the only grounds for divorce in the Old Testament.

The New Testament also affirms that adultery is grounds for divorce. Although Mark does not mention the so-called exception clause, Matthew does (19:9; cf. 5:32). Adultery does not have to end a marriage (cf. the story of Hosea and his adulterous wife, Gomer, in the book of Hosea). But God’s sparing the life of an unrepentant adulterer is not meant to penalize that person’s innocent spouse. The New Testament also reveals that if an unbeliever divorces a believer, the latter is free to remarry (1 Cor. 7:15).

As they realized the seriousness of the marriage relationship, “the disciples said to [Jesus], ‘If the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry’” (Matt. 19:10). That may be true in theory, but in practice, “Not all men can accept this statement, but only those to whom it has been given” (v. 11). Not everyone can be fulfilled in a single state (1 Cor. 7:9).

What makes a strong marriage; one that will stand firm against the pressures to divorce? In the inspired words of the apostle Paul,