Sin, Divorce, and Grace
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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.
And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” And 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.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
Trying to pick songs and illustrations and a good introduction for this passage
I told my wife I was preaching on divorce this Sunday - “why” - exactly.
This is why I like to preach consecutive expository. Nobody would choose to preach a message about divorce!
Because the whole counsel of God needs to be preached.
What the Bible teaches about a great many things is counter to our modern culture - the “wisdom” of the world and the wisdom of the Bible are two different things! - and perhaps on no topic more so than marriage
But when it comes down to it, this is not a passage just about divorce and remarriage. This needs to be considered as part of the whole of the Bible and over against everything the Bible has to say.
So this passage and my message today are about two things:
Two realities on this side of heaven
Sin and its effects
Grace and its effects
Because that is the story of the Bible, that is the story of all of our lives, and that is the Gospel.
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.
While it may seem like an insignificant word - “and” here means something. I know sometimes conjunctions are something we just pass right over, but the Holy Spirit does not use a single insignificant word!
And the point that Mark - and the Holy Spirit - are making is that this is not a new thought, as it were. What we are going to read in this passage and those that come after are not to be separated from what we have been looking at.
We have seen since the end of chapter 8 that Jesus has been intentional in spending time with His disciples to teach them because the end of His life was drawing near...
...from Jesus and His disciples retreating to Cesarea Philippi where Peter made his confession - to the transfiguration - to the lesson of the exorcism - to Jesus foretelling of His passion - to the lesson about humility when the disciples argue about who is the greatest - to what we heard last week when Dave spoke about Jesus teaching on sin and hell and how you are either for Jesus or against Him...
…these are all related to what we are considering today and what we will consider over the next few weeks and through the end of the Gospel of Mark. Though Jesus, now as He approaches Jerusalem and ultimately His atoning death, turns His attention to correcting false teaching and false ideas of true religion because of people who come to Him - these are lessons for the His disciples - those who were with Him then, and us now.
So we see that Jesus leaves Galilee and heads south towards Judea. And this time, His movements aren’t secret, and so crowds gather around Him. And Jesus did what Jesus does - as was His custom - or literally - “maintaining His custom” - Jesus teaches the crowd.
And while Jesus is teaching, we see the Pharisees come into the picture, and they maintain their custom by testing Him:
And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”
As we have seen before, the religious leaders try to test Jesus.
Now, you would think they would have learned their lesson by now. How many times have the religious elite taken on Jesus in a debate? Lots. And how many times have they come out on top? Not once.
But those who observe false religions tend to show that their pride will not allow them to acquiesce to the truth. And the more the truth is at odds with their beliefs, the more they want to prove what they believe.
And the Pharisees are a prime example of this.
So they ask Jesus a hard question. And they don’t pull any punches. They don’t ease into a tough discussion by lobbing some easy questions at Him first. They jump right into the deep end. They ask Him: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”
Now, they asked this because they thought they would be able to trap Jesus here.
In Jesus day, there were two schools of thought on divorce - literally. The famous Rabbi Hillel - and when I say famous, I mean famous. When it came to Rabbis, he was like the Beatles and Beyonce all rolled into one. To be part of his school was like going to an Ivy League school or to Oxford. He taught that divorce was only allowed on the grounds of sexual immorality.
But then there was a disciple of his named Shammai who split from Hillel and started his own school. He was a lot more liberal. His school was more like NYU. He taught that divorce was allowed for any reason as long as the man wanted it. It was his choice, no questions asked.
And they wanted to put Jesus into one of the two major schools of thought. Because then they could discredit Him with half of the people in one fell swoop.
But there’s even more here. There was an even higher upside.
They figured no matter what He answered, they’d be able to refute Him - from the Bible, no less - and prove Him to be a false teacher.
Because if He answered “yes” - “sure, a man can divorce his wife” - then He they would throw some Genesis 2 at Him and call Him a false teacher:
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
This is a mandate from God, at creation and before the Fall, that marriage is a permanent institution. Once two become one, there is no separation.
So if Jesus said divorce was allowable, He is disputing God’s mandate that marriage is forever.
But if Jesus said no - that no divorce was allowed for any reason - then He is going against Moses who detailed terms of divorce in the Torah:
“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, 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, 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. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.
The word used here for indecency means sexual indecency. In essence, it means that the woman commits adultery, or is found to not be a virgin after the marriage. Moses says that the man may divorce her, but then makes the point to say that those two cannot be remarried. And this passage could be an entire sermon on its own.
For our purposes, understand that Moses states here that divorce is allowed, at least in certain situations.
And if Jesus said divorce wasn’t allowed, He was, again, at odds with Moses. The Pharisees saw this as a win-win! Whether Jesus answered yes or no, they’d be able to refute Him.
So the Pharisees ask Jesus the question: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”
And if you’ve ever taken a class in philosophy or logic, what the Pharisees are doing is committing a logical fallacy with their question - it’s what is called the fallacy of the false dilemma - it means that you phrase a question so as to offer only two possible answers - in this case “yes” or “no” - when there are more possible answers, or more nuanced answers.
And I’m quite sure the Pharisees are carefully phrasing their question that way on purpose - in order to catch Jesus in one or both of the two ways I just described.
So Jesus, as was also His custom, turns it back on them by answering a question with a question.
He answered them, “What did Moses command you?”
Notice a couple of things here. Jesus asks them what Moses commanded them. “What did Moses command you,” He asks. Jesus is pointing out who the commands of God came through Moses to. And Jesus is showing that, even though He came and willfully submitted Himself to the law - to the whole law - He isn’t included in who Moses commanded.
In fact, He was the One Who commanded these things. Moses was a mediator - a go between - of the Mosaic covenant - but it was God Who made the covenant with the people of Israel. So Jesus asks what was commanded to them, and is excluding Himself.
And this brings God’s amazing grace into sharp focus. Because it is a reminder that Christ was not subject to the law of God, yet subjected Himself to it for our sake. So He could keep the commandments and attain a perfect righteousness that He would die to give to us.
It’s amazing!
But notice also that Jesus is pointing them to that passage in Deuteronomy we looked at a minute ago - to a passage that does, in fact, detail the terms of divorce. But as we will see in another minute, Jesus then goes on to speak against divorce right after the Pharisees tell Him what the passage He points them to says.
And this points us to the humanity of Christ. It shows us how He truly became human and shares with us the whole human experience, save for sin on His part. Because in His humanity, Jesus experienced the messiness of life as a human. The human Jesus recognized that there is not an easy answer to questions like this.
Because life is messy! And this does not end when you become a Christian, does it? There is a lot of gray areas in life, there are some very hard decisions to make and the correct path is often very difficult to discern - and even non-existent at times! Sometimes none of our choices are good.
This is another thing that separates Christianity from other religions - we are called to live out our faith in and through the messiness of life rather than consider ourselves above it - we are not called to live above the gray or pretend it doesn’t exist - we are called to live out our faith in real life in a sinful world!
In the world, but not of the world. Let’s be honest - that is not easy!
But what we know as Christians is that our God became one of us! He lowered Himself to take on flesh and live in a messy world full of gray areas - and through it all, He chose the good - He chose the right path no matter how hard it was - and His path was harder than we will ever understand!
And He did it for us.
And here, faced with a real hard question about a very hard matter, Jesus points the Pharisees to the Scriptures.
As I said, part of the Pharisees ruse was to try to get Jesus to disagree with Moses. How they would have rejoiced if Jesus would have disagreed with Moses!
But instead, Jesus asks them a question and points them right to Moses!
“Why are you asking Me?” Jesus says. “You already know. What did Moses say?”
They were hoping He would say something to contradict Moses, and He skillfully turns it around on them. Now their interpretation of Moses, and of divorce, were on trial.
And they reveal both in their response:
They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.”
We see which school of thought they were from - they said that a man can divorce His wife for any reason.
And we see that they are taking their interpretation of Deuteronomy 24 and allowing it to supersede the command of Genesis 2.
And we see that Jesus tells them they’re wrong on both counts. And He starts by correcting their ideas of why Moses - so really, God - allowed divorce at all:
And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.
As always, Jesus points them, and us, to the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law.
Jesus says that before we can rightly interpret what Moses commanded, we have to first understand why he commanded it.
And the answer, in this case, is sin. Moses, and God, allowed divorce because of sin.
“Because of your hardness of heart,” Jesus says, Moses wrote this commandment.
What do I mean by that? That divorce was allowed because of sin?
Well, here is where the reality of sin and its effects meet the reality of God’s grace.
In the Old Testament, there were laws that were commanded not as a matter of obedience, per se, but in order to protect offended parties in matters of sin.
That’s why there are laws about restitution if you damage your neighbors goods, like an animal. Because the sinful - natural - reaction to doing something wrong is hide it, deny it, or rationalize it. So God laid out laws that detailed how Israel was to make good on these types of things.
That’s also why God gave Moses commandments about things like the proper treatment of concubines. God didn’t do it because it is not sinful for a man to have a woman apart from his one wife - because it is sinful.
No, He did it because of sin. Because in a sinful world where it was the norm for a man to take other women - other women who had no rights and depending on the status of the man - no choice in the matter - God in His grace protected these women among the Israelites by giving such commandments.
Because after the Fall, life became messy! It became very messy!! Because of sin, people would hurt other people. And we don’t need to go far beyond the Fall to see this. The Fall happens in Genesis chapter 3, and Cain kills his brother Abel in chapter 4. We see the start of a pattern that continues into our day - people hurting other people because of sin.
And that is why the laws about divorce were given - to protect the offended party because of sin. In other words, God allowed men to write the certificate of divorce to their wives to protect the wives! To protect what was in that society the weak and oppressed.
And while divorce is allowed, in certain situations, to protect the offended party, it is still sin for the offending party.
But we also need to take into account the messiness of life after the Fall. The gray areas that we live in. And we need to realize that it is almost never - I said almost - it is almost never that one sided in these types of situations, is it?
Dave’s great point about the Apostles causing each other to sin! Sin begets sin. Our sin causes others to sin - their sin can cause us to sin.
And the regrettable truth is that this can happen very easily in a marriage. So in marriage, it is almost never one sided - almost never one person’s fault - when it starts to fail.
And we can get into the reasons why people stray in the marriages, and how it is usually a symptom and not the cause of problems. And we can get into the horrible abuses sometimes perpetrated by of one party to another in some cases - but every case is different and this sermon is not about the ins and outs of divorce.
It is about the reality of sin, the effects of sin, the grace of God, and its effects on us.
And Jesus is telling the Pharisees: it is because of sin - because of your sinful hearts - because of the tendencies of a fallen race of sin-sick people - that God, in His grace, makes provisions to protect the victims of others’ sins.
That is why Moses allowed divorce. Not for any reason - in Matthew’s account Jesus says that it is only for sexual immorality. And the word He uses doesn’t even mean adultery - it means fornication or prostitution. In other words, if a woman who claimed to be a virgin got married and was found to not be a virgin, the man was allowed to divorce her.
And there were also laws and punishments in the OT about men who wrongfully accused their wives of such a thing. Again, laws to protect a party that is wronged because of sin. Because that is how gracious our God is!
And that is really the principle that Jesus is setting forth - God allows certain things to protect us - as a group - from ourselves. To protect people from further harmful effects of the sins of other people. Because sin is only canceled out by His grace!
So Jesus is saying to them - because of your hardness of heart - and that is “you” in the universal sense. Not just these Pharisees - sinful humanity. Because of sinful mans hardness of heart - because of sin - Moses made provision for divorce.
But Jesus doesn’t stop there. He points again to the reality of sin and grace:
And 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.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh.
Jesus says it is because of sin that Moses allowed it - BUT - this isn’t the way God intended it. In fact, marriage is one of the greatest means of grace God offers us in life!
And Jesus quotes Genesis 2:24. Do you see, whereas the Pharisees tried to dichotomize Scripture - to make it an either or - to make Jesus disagree with one scripture or another - Jesus explains why both of these things are true.
Moses allowed divorce.
God’s original design did not include divorce.
Both are true.
Because of sin, divorce was allowed, but God designed marriage differently. He made the female for the express purpose of completing His creation, and completing the male. In the beginning of creation, Jesus tells us, God made us male, and female. One for the other.
And Jesus points to the original marriage principle - one that has existed longer than sin has. Two will come together as one. They will leave everything and everyone else as they knew them - they will make a whole life change - they will cease to be what they were - and in marriage, they will become one!
And this, of course, the Apostle Paul tells us, is meant to point us to the relationship between Jesus, and His church:
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
So you see, the joy, the unity, the new life that was created in marriage as it was designed is but a foretaste of the joy we have in Christ, the union we have with Him, and the new life we have as one of His own.
A husband and wife, in principle, cannot be truly separated back into two, because Christ and His church - in reality - cannot be separated.
That is why God made us male and female, and why, in marriage, we leave our old life and enter into new life as one with our spouse.
This was God’s design.
But then the Fall happened, and sin entered the world, and disunity became the norm among a fallen race - and God, in His grace, made provision to protect us from certain effects of sin.
So Jesus says: Moses allowed divorce.
He says that God’s original design did not include divorce.
And then Jesus adds a final word:
What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
Jesus is saying: the marriage principle still stands on this side of the Fall, and even though God provides protection in a sinful world, Jesus states very simply that we should not separate what God has joined together.
And the “let not man separate” is in the imperative. It is a command Jesus is giving here.
In other words, Jesus is looking at the whole of the matter. He is saying that God intended marriage to be permanent, that He allows for divorce because of sin - to protect us from harm because of sin - but that even though there is allowance for divorce, the command is still to not divorce.
Not really easy to understand exactly where that leaves us, is it?
And that’s why the disciples - yet again - once they were alone with Jesus, ask Him for further clarification:
And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
So Jesus clarifies for the disciples. And He shifts the focus here from divorce, to divorce and remarriage. He does this to reinforce the original marriage principle - two become one.
Because, remember, both what Genesis 2 and what Deuteronomy 24 say are true. God makes two one flesh, and yet divorce is allowed to protect the offended party.
But Jesus is saying that just because a marriage has ended - because it has ended legally - just because a civil judge has recognized the end of a marriage for both parties - it doesn’t mean that the marriage has ended for the offending party, and it certainly does not mean that the Judge of Heaven has recognized the end of their responsibility to their spouse.
In other words, in some cases, man cannot truly separate what God has joined together, no matter what they do.
So in certain cases, to try to join to someone else - to become one with another - is not marriage, it’s adultery.
And Jesus appears to apply this to the one who is active in leaving the marriage - whoever divorces his wife or whoever divorces her husband. And that is the stand that some commentators take.
Others say this is for either side in a divorce - the person leaving or the person left - because often the person leaving is leaving because they are the one sinned against.
Others would say that the one who technically leaves the marriage is the one who causes the marriage to fall apart - even if the offended party leaves.
So what is the reality of divorce and remarriage for us? What are the Biblical principles?
And this is why nobody ever chooses to preach about this topic. Because I know as I say these things, they are being heard by people who are divorced. They are being heard by people that are divorced and remarried. They are being heard by people with loved ones who are divorced and may be remarried.
What does it mean for them? Is this an attempt to convict those who may have sinned in their previous marriage? No. Is this an attempt to convince you that if you left a bad marriage or a bad spouse the fault is all theirs? No. Is it an attempt to tell you that you are currently sinning if you are divorced and remarried?
No.
Because this is only in small part about the reality of divorce. The messy, messy reality of divorce. And how, in any case, when a marriage ends, there is sin involved. It is because of sin that marriages end. Maybe particular sins of one or both, but always sin - the fact that this world after the Fall does not follow God’s original design for marriage or any number of other things.
That’s what this is about in part.
But it’s primarily about the awesome, glorious, never-ending grace of God.
Listen, there are many discussions about divorce that go on in churches.
In some churches, divorce is the kiss of death - you are almost excluded from any real church life. You are given the Spiritual equivalent of the Scarlet Letter. I’ve seen it. And I’ve also seen plenty of hypocrisy in these churches when an elder or a big donor get divorced. Rationalizations abound.
In other churches, divorce is your business, and yours alone. And who is the pastor or the elders or anyone else in the church to judge and to have anything to say about it?
In God’s church - the way Christ explains it here, and when we consider the the full revelation about it in the Bible - in the Kingdom of God, when sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.
Is there sin involved in divorce - yes. But Christ died for that sin - and every sin - of those who belong to Him!
Now, as Paul would say, are we to sin that grace may abound? By no means.
Here is the messy reality.
God hates divorce. God didn’t design men and women to get divorced. But we sinned, and we became sinners, and we continued to sin after the Fall, and we continue to sin.
So God - in His glorious grace - allowed divorce as a protection in certain cases. In other words, this is not a question about whether or not any particular divorce is a sin, it is about the fact that all divorce is the result of sin.
That is the messy reality.
But the glorious realty is that divorce is not bigger than God’s grace. No sins are. No sin is.
By His grace, God provides protection from the results of sin. He did it the moment Adam sinned - God showed grace, provided protection to Adam and his family, and made a way to be forgiven for sin.
And by His grace, God provides forgiveness for sin. The fact of the matter is that divorce is not the unpardonable sin. Remarriage is not the unpardonable sin.
Is this condoning sin? No!
Is it hard to understand where the lines are on this?
Hard to know:
When offended parties may leave a marriage
What is allowable for those who are wrongfully left by their spouse
What to do when direct sins cause a marriage to fall apart?
Yes, yes, and yes.
But thank God that Jesus paid for all that sin at the cross. And all we can do is turn to the One Who redeemed us from sin and its effects.
(The Gospel)*
By His grace, He paid for our sins - all of them - including divorce, and sexual sin, and lust, and misplaced anger. All of it!
By His grace, He redeemed us from the effects of sin - further suffering because of sin perpetrated against us, further suffering because of our own sin, and even death!
And I know, the tendency of some is to be very dogmatic about this and insist that what I do is condemn divorce in all cases lest people think it’s okay.
But, listen, if we go through the Bible and take all the texts on divorce, I can make the case that it would be better for my wife to kill me and remarry than divorce me and remarry. Think about it.
And also realize that our text today deals with two OT passages: one from before the Fall that is the ideal that we know this life is not because of sin, and one that is from after the Fall that was given to national Israel as part of the Mosaic Law.
We are not beholden to the Mosaic law - any part of it. That was for national Israel as a type of God’s true people
It reveals to us the character of God - God reveals Himself to us through the law, not a set of rules
But the law was not sufficient to save, so God sent His Son Who is the ultimate revelation of God - Who obeyed every law, then died to save us, gave us His righteousness, then sent His Spirit to enable us to live that righteousness
And that means that the principle - the Spirit of the law - is in a sense truer for us than it was for Israel. Because we are held to a higher standard than they were on this side of the cross.
SOM (true holiness)
As Dave H said, God calls His church to holiness!
What does that mean for us in the context of this passage?
We don’t react with condemnation for divorce - we don’t judge - because we don’t know the circumstances anyway. No - we offer grace. Because in Christ, God - who does know the circumstances - He does not offer judgment, in Christ, He offers only grace!
In other words, who are we to condemn who God has forgiven at the cost of His own Son?
Is there always sin where there is divorce - yes. But I know my own heart and who am I to pick up a stone in condemnation, especially when all Jesus picked up was His cross in grace?!?!?
If you are divorced, and if you haven’t already done so, repent for any sin on your part that caused the marriage to end, throw yourself on the grace of God for forgiveness. And you will be forgiven! The grace of God is so big that it covers all sin!
If you are married - God is calling you to stay married! Not as long as you’re in love. Not as long as it’s convenient. Not as long as it’s easy. Listen, life is messy - marriage can be messier! But Jesus is clear - what God has joined together, let no person separate!
And that means that if you are in a troubled marriage - if things seem like they are headed in the wrong direction - then I also encourage you to repent of any sin on your part that has contributed to the state of your marriage, throw yourself on the grace of God for forgiveness, and on His grace to sustain you and heal your marriage.
Don’t give up on your marriage!
Because God will not give up on it. And He will not give up on you! And His grace will not run out no matter how bad things seem.
He laid down His life to make it so!
And that is where I want to end - with our focus on Christ and what He has done for us. With confidence that His grace covers a multitude of sin. With faith that He is faithful and will not give up on us no matter what!
Let’s turn our eyes upon Jesus. Let’s turn our eyes to the cross.
