Mark 10:2-12

A. JESUS IS QUESTIONED ABOUT MARRIAGE 10:2-12

TEXT 10:2-12

And there came unto him Pharisees, and asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? tempting him. And he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement and to put her away. But Jesus said unto them, For your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of the creation, Male and female made he them. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the twain shall become one flesh: so that they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. And in the house the disciples asked him again of this matter. And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her: and if she herself shall put away her husband, and marry another, she committeth adultery.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS 10:2-12

500.

Where was Jesus when the Pharisees approached Him?

501.

Read the parallel account in Matthew to understand the question was not only a matter of divorce but of the cause for divorce.

502.

In what sense was this a trial question?

503.

Read Deuteronomy 24:1Tell what relation this text has to the question.

504.

Both Jesus and the Pharisees referred to Moses but with very different resultsshow why.

505.

What is meant in Mark 10:5 by the statement hardness of heart?

506.

Wasn-'t Moses compromising the law of God by writing the commandment of Deuteronomy 24:1?

507.

Why refer back to the conditions existing at the time of creation?

508.

For what cause will a man leave his father and mother?

509.

What is the meaning of the word cleave as here used?

510.

Just how is the relationship of one flesh effected? In what sense are the two one?

511.

When, where and how does God join the husband and wife together?

512.

Is Jesus forbidding all divorce?

513.

Discuss the force of the expression put asunder.

514.

Why did the disciples continue the question of the Pharisees?

515.

Please show how completely and finally the words of Jesus answered the question.

516.

Can marriage ever become adultery? When?

517.

Are there any innocent persons in these acts of adultery? Discuss.

COMMENT 10:2-12

TIMEA.D. 30Probably the month of March.
PLACEOn the farther side of the Jordan, near the borders of Judea.

PARALLEL ACCOUNTSMatthew 19:3-12.

OUTLINE1. The trial question, Mark 10:2. Mark 10:2. The answer of Jesus, Mark 10:3-9. Mark 10:3. The disciples ask further questions, Mark 10:10-12.

ANALYSIS.

I.

THE TRIAL QUESTION, Mark 10:2.

1.

Posed by Pharisees.

2.

Asked as a snare.

3.

Can a man divorce his wife? (for every cause)

II.

THE ANSWER OF JESUS, Mark 10:3-9.

1.

What did Moses command you?

2.

Moses was very lenient as recorded in Deuteronomy 24:1.

3.

This commandment was a concession for your weaknessand hardness of heart.

4.

From the beginning God created two to become one.

5.

What God has joined together man can not and should not divide.

III.

THE DISCIPLES ASK FURTHER QUESTIONS, Mark 10:10-12.

1.

This occurred in a house.

2.

The reason a man should not divorce his wife (except for fornication) is because when he marries again he commits adultery against his wife.

3.

The same principle applies to the wife in regard to her husband.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

I.

THE TRIAL QUESTION.

Mark 10:2. The questioners are the Phariseesomnipresent tempters!and the old practice of trying to catch him by questions still survives.Is it lawful. Perhaps not asked in the narrowest technical sense, as if calling for an interpretation of the Mosaic law, but more generally, asking the judgment of the Rabbi: May a man put away his wife? The law of divorce in Deuteronomy 24:1 was not entirely plain in the statement of the admissible grounds of complaint against a wife, and the ambiguity had occasioned endless discussion. The schools of Shammai, the stricter, and Hillel, the more lax, contended about it, and the people were divided. Therefore, however Jesus might reply, his answer could be trusted to make him enemies. Moreover, he was in the territory of Herod, under whom the Baptist had suffered for his boldness in the matter of an adulterous marriage, Matthew's addition, for every cause, was as nearly as possible the translation of the current phrase justified by the lax school of Hillel; and so the question meant, Is the lax school right?

II.

THE ANSWER OF JESUS.

Mark 10:3-4. His answer drove them back to their own authorities. The law under which all their discussions were, and ought to be, conducted was the law of Moses, and what he said must be first considered. What did Moses command you? was the first legitimate question. But their answer was evasive. They stated the permission as if it were unlimited, omitting all references to the occasions of divorce which the law recognized.

Mark 10:5-9. Yet he accepted their report of the law, imperfect as it was, without criticism. They had omitted the crucial point, the determination of occasions for divorce, and so would he. They had spoken of permission; of permission he would speak. Divorce was a permitted thing, and the permission was so vague that there might be difficulty in defining its limits. It was permitted, but why? For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. The preposition means on account of, or out of regard for. The noun means hard-heartedness; spiritual dullness and incapacity; unresponsiveness to God, amounting to inability to accept high motives. Moses wrote you this precept, said Jesus (in Matthew, he suffered you to put away your wives), because you were not up to the level of a better precept. He said that Moses wrote the precept; but, according to their view of the matter and according to his (see Mark 7:13), the legislation of Moses expressed the appointment of God. It was Jehovah himself who permitted them to put away their wives.But this precept was not given because there was not a better one at hand, A better was provided in the constitution of man. From the beginning of the creationfrom the very origin of thingsGod, the Creator, made them male and female. An exact quotation from Genesis 1:27, Septuagint. Mark 10:7 and half of Mark 10:8 are exactly quoted from Genesis 2:24, Septuagint, though in Mark some manuscripts (and Tischendorf) omit and cleave to his wife.

This passage from the narrative of the Creation was cited to show that the distinction of sexes was originally constituted the ground of marriage. By this law marriage is the union of a male and a female of the human race; and it is such a union as shall form a new centre of life to both. For this causei.e. because he created them male and femalea man shall leave the parents, into natural unity with whom he was born, and find the centre for a new unity in his union with a fellow-being of the opposite sex. Thus the distinction of the sexes was given as the foundation of the family.Now, the duration for which God intended this union may be inferred from his own testimony as to its closeness and completeness. This testimony Jesus now quotesand they twain shall be one fleshand then he adds his own emphatic restatement of the fact: so then they are no more twain, but one fleshthat is, the union that is founded on the relation of the sexes makes the two to be one flesh, makes each to be, physically, part and property of the other. Marriage has wrought an actual unity which is not to be broken. It is the union of one man and one woman, and the blending of life in sexual union establishes between that one man and that one woman a real unity. By establishing such a relation the Creator showed his intention that a union thus formed should be irrevocable and inviolable, to be legitimately terminated only by death.

In Mark 10:9 is given the better precept that springs from this original order. The verb is in the aorist, not in the perfect; and the reference is not to special cases in which God hath joined together two given individuals, but to the original constitution of the race, in establishing which he joined together in permanent unity every pair who should ever come together in the union of sex with sex.What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. That one flesh or one body (see 1 Corinthians 6:16, where Paul expressly recognizes the truth that physical union establishes true and permanent unity) which has been formed in accordance with God's appointment in the creation of man, let not man put asunder.Note the contrast between God and man: man may not break what God has made. Man may break this unity, either by personal unfaithfulness to the obligation of marriage or by contradictory enactments permitting dissolutions that God does not permit. Of the possible dissolution, for one cause, he speaks below.

This law of exclusive and permanent union was the original law of marriage; and this law Jesus reaffirms. But a lower law was given in that legislation which Jesus distinctly recognized as the work of God. Now, Jesus declares that that law was given because of the incapacity of men for this. He thus announces the imperfection of the Mosaic lawnot only its incompleteness, but its imperfectionand asserts also its educational purpose. It was meant to train men for a better life than they could then accept. Accordingly, there was in the law a certain amount of what is called accommodation. God often speaks and gives law, not as he himself is able to do, but as we are able to hear (Chrysostom, on Psalms 95)a sound principle, but always to be accompanied by this: When God thus speaks and gives law, it is in order that he may make us able to hear all that he is able to say to us. We need have no difficulty in admitting that God has dealt in rudimentary instruction, and, so far, in inferior instruction, if only we keep steadily in view his purpose of moral education for men.

III. THE DISCIPLES ASK FURTHER QUESTIONS.

Mark 10:10-12. Mark alone tells of the later inquiry of the disciples. In Matthew the address to the Pharisees is continued, with the solemn assertion that he who puts away his wife, except for fornication, and marries another commits adultery. In Mark except for fornication is omitted; but it is sufficiently implied. The statement in both Gospels is that a man is charged with adultery when he enters into a new sexual union while the first is still unbrokeni.e. when he breaks the exclusive unity of flesh with his wife by an act of union with another. Of course an equal union of sexes can be broken by either member; and so the except for fornication is implied clearly enough in principle in Mark. Mark 10:12, indeed, distinctly enforces the principle of equal responsibility. The custom to which it alludes, of the wife putting away the husband, was a custom, not of Jews, but of Romans and of other Gentiles. Possibly Jesus saw that there was danger, under Roman influence, of its coming in among the Jews.Here, in Mark 10:11-12, is our Lord's own answer to the original question, whether a man might put away his wife. It is, No, unless she has already broken her unity with him. Sexual unfaithfulness forfeits the bond, but nothing else does.

The teaching of this passage is strong and conclusive for all who acknowledge the authority of Jesus Christ. The inviolability of marriage is grounded, not in any principles of expediency or advantage, right as these might be, but in its correspondence to the constitution of man as male and female. The sexual element in marriage makes of the two one fleshi.e. it was meant that sexual union should be inseparable from permanent personal unityand only by sexual unfaithfulness can the unity, once established, be broken. This is not to affirm that sexual unfaithfulness is necessarily more guilty than any other sina life-long course of drunkenness and abuse may be as guiltybut the sexual relation is the groundwork of the family, and its purity is absolutely essential to the physical and moral welfare of mankind. With good reason, therefore, God has made faithfulness in this relation the determining element in the perpetuity of marriage. To this divine appointment human laws should be made to correspond, Separations for other causes than adultery there may be, but dissolution of marriage, never. If it is said that such a law works hardship in many cases, the answer is that all laws that are for the general good sometimes work hardship while sin continues. But the purity and the permanency of the family are worth so much to mankind that individuals may well afford to suffer hardship rather than contribute to the overthrow of so precious an institution.

FACT QUESTIONS 10:2-12

545.

Is the attitude of the Pharisees the same throughout the ministry of our Lord? Why?

546.

Who was Shammai and Hillelwhat school of thoughts did they represent? What reference in the Old Testament was of particular concern on the matter of divorce?

547.

How was the question of the Pharisees framed in such a way to put Jesus in an undefendable position?

548.

Why raise the question about Moses? Who raised itsee Matthew 19:7.

549.

What is meant by hardness of heart?

550.

What was originally constituted the ground for marriage?

551.

Why mention the thought of the two becoming one? When does this occur?

552.

How is the imperfection and incompleteness of the Mosaic law shown?

553.

What is meant by saying that in the law of God a certain amount of accommodation is found?

554.

How can it be said that the exception of divorce for fornication is inferred by Mark? Explain.

555.

Does Jesus say a person guilty of sexual unfaithfulness is necessarily more guilty than any other sinner? Discuss.

556.

Does Jesus add anything to the Mosaic law by saying a wife could put away her husband?

557.

Why is the home the most precious institution in the world?