Mark 10:1-12 — Pop Quiz on a Tough Subject

Mark 10:1-12
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.”

 

Comments:

The people gathered to him, and he taught them as was his custom. This probably irritated the Pharisees who weren’t getting have such an enthusiastic turnout for their teaching sessions. They came and asked him regarding the hot-button issue of divorce in order to test him. I marvel at how often they tried to trap Jesus unsuccessfully—I would think that they would have wanted to stop trying. Jesus was always ready and more than up to the test. This case was no exception. What irony! What masterful logic Jesus used to make his point!

Let’s look at the question and the answering question (given in proper Rabbinic style).

Pharisees:     “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

Jesus:            “What did Moses command you?”

The Pharisees probably thought that Jesus was teaching some new liberal and licentious doctrine since he hung around sinners. However, it was the Pharisees who were sinning in the issue of divorce. Jesus was the one who appealed to the commands of Moses. They cite Moses "permitting them to divorce in Deut. 24:1-4. However, this is not an answer to his question since what they cited was not a command, it was merely a provision allowing that divorce would occur and was made to protect the rights of the spurned woman, as well as prevent such abominations as wife swapping and the confusion of family line, etc. They failed the test and gave the wrong answer.

Jesus then answered the question correctly, from the book of Genesis chapter two,

v. 6-9 "But from the beginning of the creation, God 'made them male and female.' 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 'and the two shall become one flesh'; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. "Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate."

This was Moses' command regarding divorce. Jesus made it all the more clear in that final sentence. In fact, the divorcing of a wife or the divorcing of a husband and marrying another were both adultery. Oh, how the Pharisees must have hated being called adulterers in front of all the "common" people whom they considered miserable sinners.

It reminds me of the verse in Obadiah 1:4 "Though you ascend as high as the eagle, And though you set your nest among the stars, From there I will bring you down," says the LORD." And also, Matthew 5:20, “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

The point really is that we can never enter the kingdom of heaven in our own righteousness…we need Jesus' righteousness imputed to us by faith.

“But when the goodness and loving-kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life." (Titus 4:4-7)