Sermon Tone Analysis

What God Has Joined Together, Let Not Man Separate, Part 1

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By John Piper June 24, 2007

 

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*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, 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.”

As we come to the end of our series on marriage—this week and next week—it is fitting that we think together about the implications of the meaning of marriage for divorce and remarriage.

For many of you who have walked through a divorce and are now single or remarried, or whose parents were divorced, or some other loved one, the mere mention of the word carries a huge weight of sorrow and loss and tragedy and disappointment and anger and regret and guilt.

Few things are more painful than divorce.

It cuts to the depths of personhood unlike any other relational gash.

It is emotionally more heart-wrenching than the death of a spouse.

Death is usually clean pain.

Divorce is usually dirty pain.

In other words, the enormous loss of a spouse in death is compounded in divorce by the ugliness of sin and moral outrage at being so wronged.

The Devastation of Divorce

It is often long years in coming, and long years in the settlement and in the adjustment.

The upheaval of life is immeasurable.

The sense of failure and guilt and fear can torture the soul.

Like the psalmist, night after night a spouse falls asleep with tears (Psalm 6:6).

Work performance is hindered.

People don’t know how to relate to you any more and friends start to withdraw.

You can feel like you wear a big scarlet /D/ on your chest.

The loneliness is not like the loneliness of being a widow or a widower or person who has never been married.

It is in class by itself.

(Which is one reason why so many divorced people find each other.)

A sense of devastated future can be all consuming.

Courtroom controversy compounds the personal misery.

And then there is often the agonizing place of children.

Parents hope against hope that the scars will not cripple the children or ruin their marriages some day.

Tensions over custody and financial support deepen the wounds.

And then the awkward and artificial visitation rights can lengthen the tragedy over decades.

And add to all of this that it happens in America to over four out of every ten married couples.

Responding to Divorce

There are two ways to respond lovingly and caringly to this situation.

One is to come alongside divorced persons and stand by them as they grieve and repent of any sinful part of their own.

And then to stay by them through the transitions and help them find a way to enjoy the forgiveness and the strength for new obedience that Christ obtained when he died and rose again.

The other way to respond lovingly and caringly is to articulate a hatred of divorce, and why it is against the will of God, and do all we can biblically to keep it from happening.

Compromises on the sacredness and life-long permanence of marriage—positions that weaken the solidity of the covenant-union—may feel loving in the short run, but wreak havoc over the decades.

Preserving the solid framework of the marriage covenant with high standards may feel tough in the short run, but produces ten thousand blessings for future generations.

I hope that both of these ways of loving and caring will flourish at Bethlehem.

The Covenant Remains till Christ Removes

One of the reasons that I have emphasized the ultimate meaning of marriage so much in this series is that the meaning of marriage is such that human beings cannot legitimately break it.

/The ultimate meaning of marriage is the representation of the covenant keeping love between Christ and his church/.

To live this truth and to show this truth is what it means, most deeply, to be married.

This is the ultimate reason why marriage exists.

There are other reasons, but this is the main one.

Therefore, if Christ ever abandons and discards his church, then a man may divorce his wife.

And if the blood-bought church, under the new covenant, ever ceases to be the bride of Christ, then a wife may legitimately divorce her husband.

But as long as Christ keeps his covenant with his bride, the church, and as long as the church, by the sustaining grace of God, remains the chosen people of Jesus Christ, then the very meaning of marriage will include: /What God has joined, only God can separate, not man./

Getting Serious about Sacredness

O how I pray that one of the effects of this series will be to make us as a people profoundly serious about the sacredness of marriage.

The world treats this diamond like just another stone.

But in fact, marriage is sacred beyond what most people imagine.

It is a unique creation of God, a dramatic portrayal of God’s relation to his people, and a display of the glory of God’s covenant keeping love.

Against all the diminished attitudes about marriage in the world—Jesus’ world and our world—Jesus’ words about marriage are breathtaking.

This is the work of God, not man, and it does not lie in man’s prerogative to end it.

Jesus Knows His Moses

In our text in Mark 10:1ff., the Pharisees came to Jesus and asked him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

That’s the question.

Today, people don’t even ask the question.

It is assumed.

It’s not only lawful, but easy and cheap.

Just Google the word “divorce” and see what you get (“Easy Online Divorce,” “Simple Divorce Online,” “No Fault Divorce, $28.95,” “Easy Online Divorce, $299”).

Let me say cautiously and seriously: Those who scorn the design of God and the glory of Christ, and build their lives and businesses and whole industries around making divorce cheap and easy are under the wrath of God, and need to repent and seek his forgiveness through Christ before it is too late.

Jesus knew that the Pharisees in general were an adulterous generation (Matthew 12:39).

He knew how they defended their divorces.

So he lead them to that very place and asks them in Mark 10:3, “What did Moses command you?”

He takes them to Moses.

But they should be careful here.

Moses didn’t just write Deuteronomy, which they are about to quote.

He also wrote Genesis.

Verse 4: They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.”

That’s true.

It’s a reference to Deuteronomy 24:1.

What will Jesus say in response to this defense of divorce?

Verse 5: Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.”

This is amazing.

It implies, in other words, there are laws in the Old Testament that are not expressions of God’s will for all time, but expressions of how best to manage sin in a particular people at a particular time.

Divorce is never commanded and never instituted in the Old Testament.

But it was permitted and regulated.

Like polygamy was permitted and regulated, and certain kinds of slavery were permitted and regulated.

And Jesus says here that this permission was not a reflection of God’s ideal for his people; it was a reflection of the hardness of the human heart.

“Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.”

Back to Creation

Then Jesus takes the Pharisees (and us) back to God’s will in creation and quotes Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 and shows us the way it was supposed to be.

Verses 6-8: “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’

‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’”

That’s the end of his Scripture quoting.

Now the question is: What will he do with it?

Clearly Jesus sees a tension between Deuteronomy 24 and Genesis 1 and 2. The /but/ at the beginning of verse 6 (“But from the beginning of creation . .

.) means: God’s will about divorce in Genesis 1-2 is not the same as his will expressed in Deuteronomy 24.

So the question is: Which way will Jesus go?

Will he say: Well, there is still hardness of heart today, even in my disciples, and so Deuteronomy expresses God’s will for Christians today?