Knowing the Word in Matthew 19:3-9

Teaching About Divorce

3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested [on an explosive topic] him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?” [We have already looked at divorce in 5:31-32. Modern divorce is not like divorce here. In Israel and its history, divorce is only initiated by the man and could be for any cause, leaving the woman without appeal. Today, either person can initiate divorce through the court system. In Mark’s Gospel the question is if divorce is permissible at all, and Jesus answers the question here in that manner.] 4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female [Genesis 1:27], 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’ [Genesis 2:24]? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” [This principle Jesus draws from Genesis, showing not only that sexual union is one of God’s creation purposes for man, but also that that union is exclusive and unbreakable. “One flesh” vividly expresses a view of marriage as something deeper than human convenience or social convention. Jesus’ pronouncement, then, sees divorce as man undoing the work of God, and puts it in a radically new perspective for the scribes and the Pharisees and us.] 7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” [Jesus has taken the bait and now they set the hook, trying to get Jesus to repudiate Moses.] 8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. [Jesus goes behind the Law to Creation. He also says that divorce was allowed (because of human sin and failure) but not commanded.] 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” [Here Jesus puts the sin squarely on the man if he remarries. In Chapter 5 it was if the woman remarried. It is interesting to note that like Moses Jesus makes an exception as well, knowing the fallenness of man keeps us from the ideal.]