MATTHEW 19:1-12
HOWARD MARSHALL is a prominent New Testament scholar. He is also, on the issues of election and predestination, an Arminian. That is, he is not a Calvinist like John Calvin was and Martin Luther and Augustine and Paul and John and Jesus. Anyway, when I was in college Dr. Marshall came to my New Testament Criticism class and gave a guest lecture on the pseudepigraphy of 2 Peter. He answered the question, “Did the Apostle Peter write 2 Peter?”
After the class, as he was walking down the hall with his scholarly entourage, I pushed through the crowd, came up to him, and asked, “Dr. Marshall, is it true you are an Arminian?” That was my question. It obviously had nothing to do with the class lecture, but everything to do with what was most important to me at the time. I don’t remember precisely how he answered my question, but he said something to the effect that he admitted his guilt. He was an Arminian of sorts. “Well,” I thought to myself, “now I’ve got him.” I had two more prepared questions. My first question was, “Have you ever read Jonathan Edwards?” Jonathan Edwards, the great American theologian, is a convicting advocate for Calvinism. I had just read Edwards and thought I’d have the advantage. He replied, “I have read Edwards.” That’s it. That’s all he said.
Okay, that was a minor setback. I couldn’t then send him home with Edwards’s Freedom of the Will and say, “Read this, you ignoramus.” Ah, but I had another loaded question. I wasn’t done. I fired away. “Have you ever read Romans 9?” Honestly, that was my got-ya question. Now remember that this guy is a prominent New Testament scholar, and also remember that Romans is in the New Testament. Startled by the question, he turned to me, smiled, and said politely in his dear British accent, “Yes, I have read Romans 9.” Then he went on to explain the whole book of Romans and how, in his view, Romans 9—11 fits into Paul’s overall argument.
I start this way, as you may have guessed, because my encounter with Howard Marshall reminds me of the Pharisees’ encounter with Jesus in 19:1-12. Not only did they ignore what he had come to say and do (they didn’t want to talk about that), but they even tried to test and trap a man who was so far their superior in everything and, as we shall see, even and especially in his knowledge of Scripture. I tried to test and trap the Professor Emeritus of New Testament Exegesis and honorary research professor at the University of Aberdeen. They tried to test and trap the Son of God.
We know how I fared (or you can guess). I made a fool of myself. Let’s see how the Pharisees shall fare, perhaps no different than I did.
Question One
The Pharisees ask Jesus two questions. The first is, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” (v. 3). Let’s talk about the nerve and the nature of their question.
First, we have the nerve of it. In verses 1, 2 Matthew gives us a concise setting. He talks about Jesus’ geographical movement and messianic miracles. After Jesus finished teaching what he taught in chapter 18 about forgiveness, he moved on from Galilee (this marks the end of his significant Galilean ministry, which began in 4:12) to “the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.” Where is he going? He is moving toward Jerusalem (16:21; cp. 20:17). He is moving toward the cross. He is moving deliberately toward the final and ultimate act of forgiveness.
But before he gets to Jerusalem he stops to heal the crowds. Don’t overlook verse 2: “And large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.” How large? We don’t know. How many were healed? We don't know. Matthew leaves his description vague. I think intentionally in order to say that Jesus didn’t just heal one crippled man or one leprous woman; rather, it was as if he healed whole “crowds,” plural. He healed this large crowd, and that large crowd, as he moved toward Jerusalem. And then, after all that healing, then came the Pharisees, these blind men with their deaf and dumb question.
Do you see the nerve of it? The setting highlights it. Instead of asking, “Where do your miraculous powers come from?” they ask about divorce. Instead of asking, “Tell us more about this death and resurrection business.
Help us to understand,” they ask about divorce. Instead of asking, “Are you the Messiah, the promised one?” they ask about divorce.
My questions to Howard Marshall were sophomoric, but their questions were audacious and devilish. I say devilish because of how Matthew says it. He speaks not only of the nerve but also of the nature of their question, and he does so in this manner: “And the Pharisees came up to him and tested him” (v. 3a) or “tempted him” (“tested” can be translated “tempted”). In the same way the serpent tempted Adam and Eve in the garden and Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness. So these super-spiritual men slither up to Jesus. They set their trap beneath his feet, step back, and ask, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” (v. 3b).
What a tricky, tricky question. If Jesus moves this way a bit (“ah, he doesn’t revere Moses”) or that way a bit (“oh, so men can indulge in any and every lust”), the trap springs, he’s caught, and down he goes. Or so they think.
What they are doing here is inviting Jesus to take a side on one of the hot debates of the day. The debate centered on the interpretation of Deuteronomy 24:1, which they will reference next in their second question (v. 7), and particularly the phrase in that verse, “some indecency” or “anything indecent.” In Judaism there was the conservative school of thought and the liberal school of thought. The conservative school, represented by Rabbi Shammai, focused on the word “indecency” in the phrase “anything indecent,” teaching that God required divorce for sexual unfaithfulness (adultery). The liberal school, represented by Rabbi Hillel, focused on the word “anything” in the phrase “anything indecent,” teaching that God required divorce for “anything” the man deemed indecent in his wife. This could include trivial offenses such as burning a meal. The famous Rabbi Akiba taught that a man can divorce his wife “even if he found someone else prettier than she.” How very modern. How very wicked! Yes, just as wicked as the Pharisees here. “Jesus, what’s your view on the matter? Are you liberal or conservative?”
I think they know he will be conservative, as he was in 5:31, 32 (where he taught that lust constitutes spiritual adultery), and that is what they want. They want that because then they’ve got him. The best case scenario is this: if he sides with the conservatives perhaps he will suffer the fate of John the Baptist. Remember what Herod did to John when he voiced his conservative views on divorce. Maybe now Herod and Pontius Pilate would like to hear what this Jesus says about divorce. The worst case scenario (which was still good for them) is that he falls into their next trap, their follow-up question about Deuteronomy. Ah, he’s a lawbreaker then! He disregards Moses. Either way they think they have him. He either angers the powerful or the pious, or both the powerful and the pious. It’s perfect. They’ve trapped the great teacher with one trick question.
Answer One
Ah, but not so fast. Jesus will silence them yet. Look below at our Lord’s reply. Here I imagine him turning toward them, smiling, and saying politely, in his Galilean accent:
Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his 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, (vv. 4-6)
This answer is brilliant and beautiful. All of Jesus’ answers to these types of trick questions in the Gospels are like inexhaustible works of art. You can look at them all day, listen to them hour after hour, and still not exhaust their brilliance and beauty. And because that is true, I have limited my 2,259 observations to just two.
First, Jesus goes to the Bible for his answer. This shouldn’t surprise us, for when tempted he answered with his threefold refrain, “It is written... it is written... it is written” (4:4, 6, 7). Here he answers their question with a question, “Have you not read... ?” (v. 4a), referring to the first book in the Bible, which is not the last word on marriage but the most foundational. Well, of course, they had read Genesis 1, 2, just as surely as Dr. Marshall had read Romans 9.
Our Lord is not mocking them with his simple question, but he’s close. He is questioning his questioners. “Are you so fluent in the language that you have somehow forgotten how to sing the alphabet song?” He challenges their basic Bible knowledge, the A of the A, B, C’s of marriage. Letter A: God intended marriage between a man and woman for life. There was no provision for divorce in paradise. Jesus can’t find it in Genesis 1:27, which he alludes to in verse 4, or Genesis 2:24, which he quotes almost verbatim (from the LXX) in verse 5.
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and “the two shall become one flesh.”
Then in verse 6 he gives his gloss—his brief commentary on those two Genesis texts, emphasizing God-ordained unity: “So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
In verses 4-6 Jesus could have emphasized the equal image of the sexes, that both man and woman are made in the image of God. That’s true, but that’s not the issue at hand. Or he could have emphasized the concept of heterosexual monogamy (one man and one woman)—that these texts teach against both polygamy and homosexuality. That’s true, but again that’s not the issue at hand here. (Homosexuality is, of course, the issue at hand in the church and culture today, so we’d better find ourselves looking in Genesis for the right answers. You don’t go to Romans first but to Genesis. Does homosexuality fit God's original intention for marriage? That is the question with which to start.)
Anyway, Jesus doesn’t emphasize those two important truths. Rather he emphasizes God-ordained unity. The unity language is most obvious. It’s everywhere. The man is to “hold fast to his wife,” and they together then “become one flesh.” That’s verse 5. Then in verse 6 Jesus speaks of the married couple being “one flesh” and “joined together,” and then he finishes with his unity warning, “let not man separate.” Unity. Unity. Unity. Unity. Unity. Jesus gives five unity phrases. That’s obvious.
What is not as obvious but will be obvious once I point it out (if you haven’t already seen it yourself) is that God is the focus here. While the text of Genesis speaks of the man’s action (“a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife”), Jesus speaks of God’s action (“what therefore God has joined together”). Jesus gives quite a high view of providence. According to him, and he should know, it is God who brings people together in the bond of holy wedlock. This is e harmony at its best; the e stands for Elohim. God brings a man and a woman together, and thus God does not then want “man”—a mere man, any mere man—to separate God’s physical and metaphysical new creation—one man/one woman/one flesh. That’s God math: one plus one also equals one (the doctrine of marriage).
So, first, Jesus goes to the Bible for his answer (there is nothing new in his view; it’s as old as creation; it’s as basic as the first book of the Book). And, second, from the Bible he answers their divorce question with a divinely inspired purpose statement on marriage. His answer is brilliant. It’s beautiful.
Question Two and Answer Two
Of course, the Pharisees see neither the brilliance nor the beauty. They only see that their trap has snapped and has grabbed hold of Jesus’ foot. Now all they have to do is push. So they push with their second (I think prepared) question: “They said to him, ‘Why then [got ya] did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?’” (v. 7).
Here they push Jesus into their Torah Trap (or maybe Pentateuch Pit is better), and they say, “Here, Jesus, while you’re down there, chew on this proof text.” They throw him Deuteronomy 24:1, where Moses wrote:
When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house... [Stop!]
They’ll need to stop there to prove their point that Jesus’ view of divorce is not Moses’.
Now, what Jesus does with this bone is quite brilliant and beautiful, of course. He carefully examines the bone, then adds some meat back to it—its surrounding context (Deuteronomy 24:2-4)—and says, “Here you go.”
Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” (vv. 8, 9)
Here Jesus offers two corrections and one command. The first correction is that Moses didn’t command divorce, but rather he allowed it. They said that Moses “commanded” (v. 7). Jesus said, “Moses allowed” (v. 8). To illustrate the crucial difference between “commanded” and “allowed”
N. T. Wright offers this helpful car illustration:
Just as a car is made to drive safely on the road, not to skid around colliding with other cars, so marriage was made to be a partnership of one woman and one man for life, not something that could be split up and reassembled whenever one person wanted it... Moses didn’t say, as it were, ‘when you drive your car, this is how to have an accident’; rather, ‘when you drive a car, take care not to have an accident; but if, tragically, an accident occurs, this is how to deal with it.’
You see, Moses didn’t command (my words now), “go wreck your car and get a new one.” Rather, he saw all the car wrecks and felt compelled to write some rules of the road. He tried to regulate the wrecks. And the specific regulation of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 goes like this: If a man divorces his wife and she marries another man and that second husband divorces her, that woman can’t then be remarried to her first husband. That’s the specific law. And I think part of its intention, the gentle genius of it, is a corrective to the first husband: “Don’t be so quick in getting rid of her in the first place because you might very well want her back.”
Jesus’ first correction is that Moses didn’t command divorce, he allowed it. His second correction is that he allowed it due to hard-heartedness: “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so” (v. 8). Do you hear the contrast there? Sometimes theologians, in a category far different than I’m talking about here, talk about the two wills of God. We can use the same language here. There are two wills—God’s ideal will (the original intention of marriage advocated in Genesis—“from the beginning”) and God’s allowed will (the necessary regulations due to human sin), due to what Jesus labels here hardheartedness — “because of your hardness of heart.”
Note in that phrase the word “your” and then later in that sentence “you” and “your” again. Jesus doesn’t say “our” like a preacher should say—“It is due to our sin.” And he doesn’t say “their” referring only to the men of Moses’ time. He says “your,” excluding himself (a subtle way of admitting his complete innocence of this sin and likely all sin) and including these Pharisees in the sins of their forefathers. Their hard-heartedness runs in the family. Marriage is not the problem. Hard-hearted men (and let’s add women, to be fair) are the problem—then, now, always. You are the problem. Take away the disease of hard-heartedness, and you can take away all divorce laws, divorce attorneys, divorce courts, and divorce settlements.
It is as if Jesus turns to us and bemoans, “Oh, if that were only the case with my people. Oh, if my people, when they think about marriage, wouldn’t think of Deuteronomy first (may we never have to go there) but rather Genesis. Go to Genesis. Go back to God’s primary plan, his ideal will for marriage—one man/one woman/one flesh... till death.”
In verses 8, 9 Jesus gives two corrections and one command. We have looked at the two corrections; now we come to the command: “And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery” (v. 9).
We are all so familiar with this command that it is easy for us to miss what is so surprising about it. I find it surprising, coming on the tail of what Jesus says in verse 8 and earlier in verses 4-6, that Jesus allows an allowance for divorce at all. He doesn’t say, “If you want to follow me, you must go back to pre-fall paradise and live there. Divorce? What’s that? As it was then, so it shall be now.
There is to be no divorce in my house, in my kingdom, in my Ecclesia.” He seems to balance here the two wills of God. He hates divorce (divorce is never desirable), but he allows for it. I’ll come back to that allowance in a minute.
The other surprise here is Jesus’ authority. What authority! Note the ordering of Jesus argument (do you see what sticks out like a blueberry stain on a wedding dress here?). The Bible says (vv. 4, 5)... the Bible says (v. 8)… I say to you” (v. 9).
Brothers and sisters, don’t ever overlook the words “I say to you” in Matthew’s Gospel. All authority in Heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus, and that authority is on display right here. Behold (we are to behold) someone greater than Moses (Deuteronomy). Behold Jesus, the Son of Man and Son of God, divine wisdom and divine authority.
Let’s return to the exception clause. First, however, let’s read the command without the exception clause: “Whoever divorces his wife... and marries another, commits adultery” (v. 9). Jesus is clear here. To divorce your spouse (for any cause you can drum up) and marry another is to commit adultery. That behavior (so common today within our culture and the Ecclesia, sadly) is clearly against Christ’s command. But—now let’s add the exception clause—if your wife (and I think it is fair to expand it to husbands as well) has been sexually immoral, you can get a divorce. That is what Jesus teaches.
Now comes the flood of a thousand questions, 996 of which I will not answer. I will answer only four and all four quite briefly.
Question 1: What is meant by “sexual immorality” (pomeia)?
Answer: Sexual intercourse that is contrary to the moral standards of Old Testament Law—e.g., incest, bestiality, homosexually, fornication, and adultery. In our context it primarily but not exclusively refers to adultery—that is, having sexual relations with someone who is not your spouse.
Question 2: Why is adultery the one exception?
Answer: Because adultery is the one sin that tears apart the “one flesh” Jesus talked about in verses 5, 6. According to Old Testament Law, the punishment for adultery was death (Deuteronomy 22:22). Death—that’s the end of the marriage. In Roman culture (and Jewish culture) at the time of Jesus, this punishment was not in place. So Jesus puts something similar in place: adultery equals (in some cases and in many cases) death, the death of the marriage via divorce.
Question 3: Is adultery the only exception?
Answer: It is here. However, in 1 Corinthian 7:15 Paul adds another exception in a very different context. He allows divorce for abandonment, often called “willful desertion.” This God-inspired addition opens the door (I say this cautiously, but with much study, thought, and prayer) for the Ecclesia, especially the local Ecclesia in each particular case, to use its head.
For example, should a woman who is physically abused repeatedly and brutally by her husband not seek a divorce? I think some Brethren have become far too Pharisaical in our application of 19:9. If he bashes your head in, you have to stay with him, but once he commits adultery, then you get God’s free ticket to divorce. Where are “the weightier matters of the law,” as Jesus would put it in 23:23 to the Pharisees—where’s the “justice and mercy” (23:23) in that? You see (it’s important to see), unlike the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus rarely gives a tightly-tied ethic. Instead he has given his Spirit to his Ecclesia—the Spirit of truth and love and holiness—and he has given us prayer, wisdom, compassion, and our own two cents.
Question 4: Does the sin of adultery (or any other grave sin) necessitate divorce?
Answer: Certainly not. Why do I say that? Well, what is the lesson of chapter 18? Forgive (seventy-times-seven forgiveness!). Do you think it’s a coincidence that chapters 18 and 19 back up to each other, rub shoulders, hold hands, kiss, become one flesh? If adultery occurs, you have two choices. Choice one is divorce. He or she has broken the “one flesh” covenant. It’s the death penalty. Choice two (and this isn’t easy) is to forgive. That is, to re-embrace the repentant, to offer anew the gospel of forgiveness—seventy-times-seven forgiveness for a zillion-dollar debt.
Have you ever seen this happen? I have on a number of occasions. This is my in-laws’ story. I have seen God’s reconstructive grace, this supernatural superglue at work. I have seen God glue the divided back together as one. And, you know, sometimes that cracked vase ends up looking more stunning than the original.
You see, just as disfellowship for the unrepentant is a real calling for the Ecclesia (we must cut off the unrepentant brother from the assembly), so divorce is a real choice for the offended party (you can cut him or her out of the marriage, especially if there is no repentance). But just as forgiveness for the repentant brother should bring full restoration within the Ecclesia, so repentance of the adulterer and adulteress should bring full restoration in a marriage as well. Put on and put out forgiveness.
Those are merely four questions answered. There are, of course, many more good questions to be asked and answered. But let me just say that when you think about all the possible questions related to marriage and divorce and remarriage, I want you to think Genesis and think gospel. Think Genesis: hold fast to one another. Think gospel: forgive one another. Think Genesis and think gospel and think the goal of both, which is the same: what God has joined together, let no one separate.
A Higher View of the Kingdom
After Jesus finishes verse 9, how do the Pharisees’ respond? We don’t know. It’s as if... poof... they have disappeared, or rather they have slithered away with their two traps in hand and their tails between their legs. They won’t catch Jesus this time. But in their place, Jesus’ disciples give voice. And they say to Jesus, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry” (v. 10).
What are they saying here? Are they being chauvinists—“If I can’t get rid of this woman whenever and for whatever, then why marry in the first place?” Perhaps. Are they being realistic—“What marriage is so great that it lasts a lifetime? Come on, Jesus, lighten up.” Perhaps. Or are they just misunderstanding Jesus’ lofty marriage ethics? I think so. I think they just don’t get it, like they won’t get why Jesus wants to bless little children in 19:13 and not bless a rich man in 19:16ff. They have a fine track record of not getting it (e.g., 14:16, 17; 16:21-23).
But that’s expected. At this point we have gotten used to their not getting it. But what is unexpected is that Jesus seemingly shifts the conversation from marriage to singleness. He doesn't reply to their “it is better not to marry” with an apologetic for marriage. He doesn’t say, “Oh, guys, you have marriage all wrong. Marriage can be so wonderful. Imagine walking hand in hand with your sweetheart, watching the waves of the Mediterranean crash against the shore of Spain as turtledoves coo in the cliffs above and the warm sun slowly sets.” For some reason Jesus doesn’t give such imaginative marriage therapy. He delivers no pep talk on nuptial bliss. Instead he gives a eulogy for eunuchs, a tribute to single-minded singles:
But he said to them, “Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men. and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs [metaphorically speaking; it’s not self-mutilation here; cp. 18:8, 9; those who have stayed single, before marriage or after the death of a spouse, and perhaps after a divorce] for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.” (vv. 11, 12)
What is Jesus getting at here? Is he talking about the gift of singleness? He is talking about singleness—a “eunuch” is certainly someone who is single, someone who is single and not sexually active for one of three reasons: natural (someone born that way), unnatural (someone made that way), or this new category Jesus has introduced, which we’ll called willfully or volitional (someone who desires to be that way or stay that way) for the gospel.
So, yes, Jesus is talking about singleness, and he is talking about the gift related to this last category of eunuch—“only those to whom it is given” (v. 11b) and perhaps “Let the one who is able to receive this receive it” (v. 12b). But his point is grander than “esteem and embrace the gift of singleness.” His point is this: The kingdom of heaven is so important that it should seem perfectly normal if someone would want to give up marriage for it.
The context here is so important. In verses 4-6 and 8, 9 Jesus teaches that you can't have too high a view of marriage. It is so high the disciples are taken aback by it. But in verses 11, 12 he adds that however high your view of marriage is, your view of the kingdom ought to be far higher.
You see, verses 4-9 are not Jesus’ treatise on marriage. That’s only one passage on that topic (a few verses). What Jesus says in chapter 18 on forgiveness is also part of the Ecclesia’s marriage manual, as is what he says about self-denial and cross bearing in chapter 16. The Ecclesia misses the point when we make marriage the point. And Jesus makes that point in verses 11, 12, which is not merely a treatise on singleness but an exhortation on single-minded devotion.
Our first focus is always to be on the gospel. It is not as though Jesus is against focusing on the family. He focused on the family in the first half of our text. But he is against focusing on the family or marriage or work or money or house or land or anything else ahead of the kingdom. Gospel first; everything else second—that’s his motto, and that’s his model. That’s how he lived. He denied himself marriage and the pleasures of marriage—companionship, physical intimacy, children—for the spread of the kingdom of heaven on earth. He was a eunuch for the kingdom.
And he calls those who can to do the same. And he calls those who can’t do the same (you’re gifted with marriage, or you’re not gifted with singleness—you want to get married) to want the same, to want to give everything “for the sake of the kingdom of heaven,” or in Paul’s language to have “undivided devotion to the Lord” (1 Corinthians 7:35) because you believe that it is the Christian’s highest calling to “seek first the kingdom of God” (6:33a).
Howard Marshall said it this way: “To all who would follow him... Jesus issues the summons to be willing to say ‘No’ to themselves and their own ambitions and to follow him, even to the point of daily readiness for martyrdom.” May God grant us such willingness and readiness, I pray. Amen.
(R. Kent Hughes. and Douglas Sean O'Donnell., 2013; edited Carl Hinton., 2020)