Applauding Biblical Marriage

If you are considering marriage in the future, or you are married, just remember, when you say “I do” before a human officiant, God says “Amen” from heaven.  And Jesus adds, “What God has joined together, let man not separate.” This simply means that the dissolution of the marriage covenant was never part of God’s original design. God didn’t think up divorce, we did that all by ourselves. God instituted marriage before the Fall; man devised divorce after the Fall.  So, in light of how God feels, when you choose your love, choose carefully, then commit to loving your choice for the rest of your life.

The Journey: Mark 10:2-9

Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” ”What did Moses command you?” he replied. They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.” “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united 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.”

Now here is a passage that rubs against the cultural fur these days. So a little background information will helps to understand what’s going on here. In the first century, the Pharisees were divided into two groups led by two great rabbis—Hillel and Shammai.

With regard to divorce, Hillel was a liberal. He taught that a Jewish man could divorce for any reason whatsoever…no matter how flimsy. If a wife burned the toast, the husband could divorce her. If she insulted his mother, he could divorce her. If he found a woman he liked better, he could divorce his wife and marry that one. If his wife rented one too many chick-flicks at Blockbuster, out she goes. By contrast Shammai was a conservative. He said that divorce could only be obtained on the grounds of sexual immorality.

As you can imagine, a lively debate raged between those two groups. Now when the Bible says they came to test him, it really means they came to trap him by forcing him to choose sides. If he sided with Hillel, that would be popular with the liberals; if he sided with Shammai, the conservatives would love him. They weren’t seeking the truth, just trying to force Jesus into a corner.

But Jesus wouldn’t be drawn into their little debating game. Its interesting that the Pharisees asked about divorce )Mark 10:2), but Jesus replied by talking about marriage. In fact, he set a trap of his own by asking, “What did Moses command you?” (Mark 10:3) He didn’t ask them what God had willed, but what the law had given as a concession. We will get to that later.

Then he quotes the book of Genesis 1:27 and 2:24, “at the beginning the Creator made them “male and female,” and said, “for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” Now in this statement, Jesus makes points about marriage that we need to hear:

First, marriage between a man and a woman was God’s idea. This is very important for the many social issues in our day. Marriage from God’s point of view is always one man with one woman joined in a legal union. This rules all the iterations of alternative marriages we now embrace in our society. No matter how you slice it or make it sound politically correct, that is always outside the will of God.

It also means that those who choose to ignore the formality and spirituality of a marriage ceremony to “live together” are in violation of God’s expressed will. Any time we treat marriage other than one man, one woman for life…it’s wrong, because it perverts God’s divine design given in the Garden of Eden.

Here is a second things Jesus is saying: Marriage is meant to be a lifetime commitment. This passage establishes the permanency of marriage in the strongest possible terms when it says in Mark 10:9, “What God has joined together, let man not separate.” This simply means that divorce was never part of God’s original design. God didn’t think up divorce, we did that all by ourselves. God instituted marriage before the Fall; man devised divorce after the Fall. This means that divorce always represents human failure at some point in the marriage relationship.

But the Pharisees had asked a second question: “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” (Mark 10:4). The background of this question comes from Deuteronomy 24:1-4 where Moses laid down some basic principles regarding divorce and remarriage. The key word is the word “command.” Why did Moses command a man to give his wife a certificate of divorce? Good question. There’s only one problem: God never commanded a man to do that. That is not in Deuteronomy 24. So it is a bogus question based on a deliberate distortion of the Bible.

That leads to the third thing Jesus is teaching: There is a difference between what God commands and what he permits. Jesus corrects their distortion by reminding them that “Moses … permitted you to divorce your wives” (Mark 10:5). Do you see the difference? The Pharisees used the word “command” and Jesus used the word “permission.”

God’s permission does not equal God’s approval. They said God commanded divorce. Jesus said, no, God permitted it, but he never commanded it. God’s original plan was that married couples would never divorce. And that leads to another point: The real reason behind every divorce is a hard heart. Jesus goes to the heart of the issue when he reveals the reason behind Moses’ instruction: “Because your hearts were hard.” In one phrase Jesus swept aside all their cheap, selfish excuses and exposed the real reason behind every divorce–a hard heart.

Once again Jesus reminds them of God’s original design: “But it was not this way from the beginning” (Mark 10:6). The breakup of a marriage was never a part of God’s original design for humanity.

Now look at verses in Mark 10:11-12, because here’s a final truth: “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.” What’s he saying? Anyone who pursues divorce and remarriage improperly violates God’s expressed will.

This means that God takes our wedding vows seriously. When you stand before a minister and pledge to be faithful “till death do us part,” God says Amen from heaven. And if you divorce on unbiblical grounds and then marry someone else, in God’s eyes you have violated his expressed will.

While God never commands divorce, he does permit it when one partner has flagrantly violates the sanctity of their marriage vows. Now please hear me on this: Divorce is not the unpardonable sin to God and it shouldn’t be to us. We should be quick to forgive and slow to judge. Remember, we’re all sinners saved by the grace of God. Who are we to stand in self-righteous judgment over others because their sin is different than ours? That doesn’t mean lowering the standard, but it does mean having the heart of a forgiving God. If divorced and remarried people don’t feel comfortable in the church, perhaps that says more about us than it does about them. So we should make every effort to be loving, accepting, forgiving and gracious!

Now just as Jesus did, rather than focusing of the failure of a marriage, let’s take a look at what it takes to live out God’s desire of a one man to be wed to one woman for life marriage. Among the many things we could say about nurturing a healthy marriage over a lifetime, here is the one thing it must be built upon:

Commitment! Marriages that make it are not marriages that are problem free; they are marriages where both spouses have a high level of commitment to make that marriage work, even when they don’t feel like it. Notice what God says to us in Malachi 2:15, “Didn’t the Lord make you one with your wife? In body and spirit you are his. And what does he want? Godly children from your union. So guard yourself, remain loyal to the [spouse] of your youth.”

Never under-estimate the power of commitment! There was a study done of 6,000 marriages and 3,000 divorces that conclude this: “There may be nothing more important in a marriage than a determination that it shall persist. With such a determination to make the marriage work, individuals force themselves to adjust, to accept situations, which would seem to be sufficient grounds for a breakup, if continuation of a marriage were not the primary objective.”

So if you want to have a healthy marriage, you must honor your marriage covenant at all cost. And if you want to please God, with his help and through his grace, carefully choose the one you are going to love, then committedly love the one you have chosen—for a lifetime.

A Simple Prayer To Be More Like Jesus: