Jesus' Teaching On Divorce
Mark 10—Jesus and divorce. Tough text. Combine that with Malachi where God says, “I hate divorce.” Tough all the way around!
In today’s sermon I spoke on the Mark 10 text (it will be posted this week), and affirmed the context of grace per Deuteronomy 24, the ideal of marriage cited by Jesus from Genesis 2:24, and the sacredness of marriage as identified in his statements about divorce and adultery.
In talking about the ideal of marriage I articulated four things based on Genesis 2:24 and Jesus’ repetition of that text. Marriage is to be:
- Monogamous (not polygamous)
- Heterosexual (not homosexual/same sex)
- Permanent (not temporary)
- Exclusive (no third parties)
These four principles can be gleaned from Genesis 2:24 and Jesus citation in Mark 10.
When I talked about divorce I went to Matthew 19 and 1 Corinthians 7 and pointed to two allowed exceptions for divorce—marital unfaithfulness (adultery), and desertion.
However, one thing that I would add to what I said, namely this: The exceptions are not quick rip-cord pulls on marriage. In other words, marriage is work, and we don’t play the divorce card whimsically or quickly. Even when there is significant failure, we work hard to keep the marriage together, bring reconciliation, and maintain the relationship. The “exceptions” are not entitlements. I can tell you story after story of a spouse refusing to give up on the marriage even when there has been massive betrayal, and in the end, the marriage has been restored, healing has happened, and God has been glorified in ways we could never have imagined.
“Marriage is the foundational institution for establishing God’s will on the earth.” A teacher of mine years ago said that, and I have quoted it ever since. Marriage precedes all other institutions—government, church, Israel, economic institutions, social institutions, etc. As our marriages go, so goes our society and church. And we are seeing the cracks beginning to occur as we move away from the biblical model of marriage. The core points we can never forget or abandon are the four mentioned above.
Let’s be sure that we, the church, continue to embrace, teach, and live out the essentials of what marriage is to look like, and allow grace, reconciliation, and justice to invade when we face the realities of a fallen and broken world.