Marriage in Light of the Kingdom of God (Mark 10:1-12)

In Mark 10:1-12 Jesus answers some difficult questions about divorce and remarriage. Understanding the Jewish context unlocks the mystery for married couples in every generation.

Q: What does God think about divorce?

• (Pillar New Testament Commentary) Marriage and divorce were in Jesus’ day, as they are in ours, matters of great interest and controversy. In ancient Judaism, marriage was not regarded as a union of equals for the mutual benefit of both husband and wife, but rather as an institution whose chief purpose was the establishment and continuance of the family and whose chief enemy was childlessness. Mark’s placement of Jesus’ teaching on marriage at the beginning of this section signals the importance of the marital union in the kingdom of God. In Judaism the foremost responsibility of an observant Jewish male was knowledge and mastery of Torah, under which he was expected to order the necessities of life, among them marriage. Jesus, however, teaches that marriage is not a male-dominated institution but a new creation of God, to which both husband and wife are equally responsible to practice discipleship in lifelong obedience.

The Trap

The Jewish law permitted divorce (Deuteronomy 24), but the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus by asking him to clarify the boundaries. They wanted to force his interpretation of a passage that they themselves clearly misunderstood.

Mark 10:1-2 (NLT) Then Jesus left Capernaum and went down to the region of Judea and into the area east of the Jordan River. Once again crowds gathered around him, and as usual he was teaching them. Some Pharisees came and tried to trap him with this question: “Should a man be allowed to divorce his wife?”

• “…for any and every reason” is implied here (Mt 19:3), since Jewish law clearly permitted divorce (Deut 24). From the Mishnah:
  • The School of Shammai say: A man may not divorce his wife unless he has found unchastity in her, for it is written, “Because he hath found in her indecency in anything.” 
  • And the School of Hillel say: [He may divorce her] even if she spoiled a dish for him, for it is written, “Because he hath found in her indecency in anything.” 
  • R. Akiba says: Even if he found another fairer than she, for it is written, “And it shall be if she find no favour in his eyes” (m. Git. 9.10).
• (Pillar New Testament Commentary) Not even among the Essenes at Qumran, the most conservative faction of Judaism in Jesus’ day, was divorce expressly forbidden.
• How was this a trap?
  • (Pillar New Testament Commentary) If Jesus is in Perea, which was under Antipas’s jurisdiction, the question may have been put to trap him on the issue of Antipas’s marriage to Herodias, over which the Baptist had lost his head (6:18). If that is the context of the question, then Jesus is being asked whether Antipas was justified or not in divorcing the daughter of King Aretas to marry Herodias.
  • (Pillar New Testament Commentary) They intend to demolish his position by causing him to compromise the authority of Torah. Their objective is to maintain a permissive divorce policy – and the more permissive the better.

Mark 10:3-4 (NLT) Jesus answered them with a question: “What did Moses say in the law about divorce?” “Well, he permitted it,” they replied. “He said a man can give his wife a written notice of divorce and send her away.”

• Deuteronomy 24:1-2 (NLT) “Suppose a man marries a woman but she does not please him. Having discovered something wrong with her, he writes a document of divorce, hands it to her, and sends her away from his house. When she leaves his house, she is free to marry another man.”
• (Pillar New Testament Commentary) The intent of Deut 24:1-4 was manifold. Most obviously, it discouraged hasty divorces by requiring a man to stipulate a reason for divorce in writing, and also by prohibiting him from remarrying his divorced wife. The certificate of divorce guaranteed the divorce at least a modicum of dignity and the right to remarry another man if she chose. It thus safeguarded the rights of the woman as much as possible in a patriarchal culture….
• (Pillar New Testament Commentary) In the question of the Pharisees in v. 4, however, the reference to Deut 24:1-4 no longer serves to limit the ill-effects of divorce but rather as a pretext for divorce, “if a man finds anything indecent in [his wife].” As we have seen, the pretexts ranged from adultery alone to the most feeble of excuses, including a wife’s failure in simple household duties or failure to please her husband as did another woman.

God’s Intention

Jesus refused to frame marriage through the lens of Moses’ teaching on divorce. 

Instead he brought it back to God’s original intention for marriage: one man and one woman for life. In the process Jesus elevated the position of women in culture.

Mark 10:5-9 (NLT) But Jesus responded, “He wrote this commandment only as a concession to your hard hearts. But ‘God made them male and female’ from the beginning of creation. ‘This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.’ Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together.”

• (Pillar New Testament Commentary) The exceptional measures necessary when a marriage fails are of no help in discovering the meaning and intention for marriage. Jesus endeavors to recover God’s will for marriage, not to argue about possible exceptions to it. His opponents ask what is permissible, he points to what is commanded. Deuteronomy 24:1-3, he argues, is not a pretext for divorce but an attempt to limit its worst consequences for women. The divine intention for marriage cannot be determined from a text about divorce.
• (Pillar New Testament Commentary) “‘at the beginning of creation God “made them male and female.”‘” In this pronouncement Jesus again presumes a divine authority resident in himself, for he does not deduce a conclusion from Scripture (as do the scribes), but he declares the will of God as set forth in a creation text over against a legal text from Moses.
• (Pillar New Testament Commentary) As a sovereign creation, woman is not man’s subject but his equal. Appealing further to a supplementary creation text from Gen 2:24 in vv. 7-8, Jesus declares that a husband’s obligation to a wife surpasses his obligation to his own parents. In the Torah the commandment to honor parents is one of the Ten Commandments of God, and second only to the commandment to honor God (Exod 20:12). But the effect of v. 7 is to declare that a man’s allegiance to his wife in the union of marriage surpasses his allegiance to father and mother, making marriage second only to obedience to God in sacredness.
• (Pillar New Testament Commentary) The greatest difference between Jesus and the rabbis, however, is this: by giving a husband principle control over his wife, the Jewish divorce policy made the man the lord of the marital relationship. According to Jesus, however, it is neither man nor woman who controls marriage, but rather God who is the lord of marriage: “‘what God has joined together, let man not separate.'”

The Answer

Later Jesus gave his disciples a definitive answer about the question of divorce and remarriage. He equates it with adultery, and his warning applies to women as much as men. 

Mark 10:10-12 (NLT) Later, when he was alone with his disciples in the house, they brought up the subject again. He told them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband and marries someone else, she commits adultery.”

• (Pillar New Testament Commentary) Verse 11 is a startling declaration, for in rabbinic understanding a husband’s adultery was reckoned against a woman’s father or husband, not against the woman herself. Jesus’ declaration, however, imputes to women the status of sovereign moral agents.

Close

Jesus’ call to discipleship extends to our marriages, and divorce should never be taken lightly. But divorce is not the unforgivable sin, and God can work through even the most difficult failures.

• (Pillar New Testament Commentary) The essential thrust of 10:1-12 is the inviolability of the marriage bond as intended and instituted by God. Jesus does not conceive of marriage on the grounds of its dissolution, but on the grounds of its architectural design and purpose by God. Human failure does not alter that purpose (Rom 3:4).
  • Romans 3:3-4 (NLT) True, some of them were unfaithful; but just because they were unfaithful, does that mean God will be unfaithful? Of course not! Even if everyone else is a liar, God is true. As the Scriptures say about him, “You will be proved right in what you say, and you will win your case in court.”
• (Pillar New Testament Commentary) The question in our day of impermanent commitments and casual divorce is whether we as Christians will hear the unique call of Christ to discipleship in marriage. In marriage, as in other areas to which the call of Christ applies, will we seek relief in what is permitted, or commit ourselves to what is intended by God and commanded by Christ?