Things were getting stressful for Jesus, as he would soon be turning his face toward Jerusalem and making the final trip that would culminate in his crucifixion. For now, he was in Judea, with tons of people following him, much to the consternation of the Pharisees and religious leaders. They had already tried to trap him, without success, into saying something against Caesar, so now, they would turn to their own law. Surely, if he spoke against the Law of Moses, the people would reject him and they would have recourse to bring him to trial.
The gospels of Matthew and Mark both record this encounter (Matthew 19 and Mark 10). Why they chose the topic of divorce is a puzzle. I wonder if one of the Pharisees was having trouble with his wife, so thought perhaps he could kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. Anyway, here’s the question they threw his way:
“Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife on any grounds?”
Matthew 19:3b CSB
What’s before the Law?
Like many legalistic religious types, the letter of the law often trumps the spirit or reason God gave the law in the first place. These Pharisees were no different, and Jesus’s initial answer takes them by surprise. He overlooks the Law of Moses to return to the very beginning—Creation. It is here we find our first New Testament reference to the Old.
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that he who created them in the beginning made them male and female, and he also said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Matthew 19:4-6
What the Pharisees did not realize is they were asking this question to the One who was present at Creation. The verse preceding Moses’s summary of the creation of man, says, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.” (Genesis 1:26a). Who is that us? God in Trinity.
Jesus obviously didn’t want them to stone him in that moment, so didn’t quote verse 26, but kept to the words of Moses in the Creation narrative, but they carried the same weight. God made man and woman to form a binding union. God established marriage, not man.
He affirms this with another summary phrase of Moses in the same account. This time it’s found in Genesis 2:24. Because God made man and woman to form a binding union, this is why men and women will leave their parents in order to become “one flesh.” This is marriage. It’s binding and requires separation from one’s immediate family. All this was established long before Moses and the written Law.
So why do we have the Law?
Jesus’s words just confused the Pharisees. I wonder if they asked the next question out of their desired agenda or because they really questioned what they thought they knew as true. If what Jesus had just quoted (which they knew by the way) was true, then why did Moses allow a man to get rid of his wife by giving her a paper of divorce?
To Jesus, the answer was obvious—“because of the hardness of your hearts” (Matthew 19:8a). I love the simplicity of his response. Yet, it’s not without grace. Yes, you had to have the Law because your hearts were bent on disobedience, but “it was not like that from the beginning” (Matthew 19:8b).
The beauty of the marriage relationship was given to man and woman before the Fall. In the perfect world of the Garden, men and women were meant to enjoy the loving unity of life in marriage. Sin changed everything, and it’s not a stretch to say that the relationship most deeply affected by sin is that of marriage. Jesus wanted the Pharisees to realize that the Law is grace, it is the way God provided for safe perimeters to be established for his people. All that was required was for us to follow them, but we know that didn’t work out well either. Now the idea of divorce is even far beyond that provided for in the Law of Moses.
It’s better not to marry.
Life in first-century Palestine under the rule of the evil Roman empire was not much unlike that of our twenty-first-century world. For that reason, it was the disciples who spoke up and said the obvious: “If the relationship of a man with his wife is like this, it’s better not to marry” (Matthew 19:10).
True. Sin destroyed what God established in the Garden, and the hardness of man’s heart hindered him from following the provision of the Law, so what’s the point? Is there any hope?
Jesus said there will be some who, because they can’t live by these guidelines, will choose not to marry. That will be their choice. But there will be others who can, and those who do will have the grace enough to live by it.
Take marriage back to God.
Without Jesus in the center of our marriages, none of us can live up to the ideal God established. Jesus is clearly showing the Pharisees that without him, no one can conform to the Law and perfect plan of God. I would have loved being a fly on the wall, listening to the Pharisees discuss that conversation. This is one of the few times they didn’t accuse him of anything or try to kill him. I have the feeling he simply left them standing in their contemplation.
How does he leave you?
Grace and Peace
If you missed the introduction to this series, click HERE.
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