The Indissoluble Knot and the Hardened Heart Text: Mark 10:1-12
Introduction: The Creational Grammar of Marriage
We live in a throwaway culture. We have throwaway phones, throwaway containers, and, tragically, throwaway marriages. The modern world treats the marriage vow like a software license agreement; nobody reads it, and everyone just clicks "I agree" hoping for the best. When the inevitable glitches and frustrations arise, the solution is simply to uninstall and look for a new program. This is not a recent innovation; it is an ancient rebellion. And it is a rebellion against the very grammar of reality, established by God at the foundation of the world.
When Jesus addresses the subject of divorce, He is not wading into a mere "social issue." He is doing fundamental theology. He is addressing the nature of God, the nature of man, and the nature of the covenant that binds them together. The Pharisees who approach Him in our text are not sincere seekers of truth. They are lawyers, looking for a loophole. They are bomb-disposal technicians, trying to see if they can get Jesus to handle the wires in a way that makes Him blow up. They want to trap Him between the strict school of Rabbi Shammai, who permitted divorce only for adultery, and the lax school of Rabbi Hillel, who permitted it for almost anything, including the wife burning the husband's dinner.
But Jesus refuses to play their game. He will not be drawn into their petty casuistry. Instead, He does what He always does. He takes them back. He takes them behind Moses, behind the Fall, behind the sin that made their question necessary, and He plants His feet firmly on the bedrock of creation. He is about to teach them, and us, that marriage is not a human contract to be negotiated, but a divine institution to be honored. It is a one-flesh union, a knot tied by God Himself, and what God has joined, man has no authority to sunder.
The Text
And standing up, He went from there to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan; crowds gathered around Him again, and, according to His custom, He once more began to teach them.
And some Pharisees came up to Jesus, testing Him, and began to question Him whether it was lawful for a man to divorce a wife. And He answered and said to them, "What did Moses command you?" And they said, "Moses permitted a man TO WRITE A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE AND SEND her AWAY." But Jesus said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart he wrote for you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, God MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE. FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate."
And in the house the disciples began questioning Him about this again. And He said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her; and if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery."
(Mark 10:1-12 LSB)
The Trap is Set (vv. 1-4)
The scene is set with Jesus teaching, as is His custom. But this teaching session is about to be interrupted by a theological ambush.
"And some Pharisees came up to Jesus, testing Him, and began to question Him whether it was lawful for a man to divorce a wife. And He answered and said to them, 'What did Moses command you?' And they said, 'Moses permitted a man TO WRITE A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE AND SEND her AWAY.'" (Mark 10:2-4)
Notice the motive: "testing Him." This is not an honest inquiry. This is a cross-examination. They want to impale Him on the horns of a dilemma. If He sides with the strict view, He alienates the people and Herod Antipas, who had illicitly divorced his wife to marry his brother's wife, Herodias. If He sides with the loose view, He undermines the law of God. Their question is about legality, "Is it lawful?" They operate in the realm of human jurisprudence, of permissions and loopholes.
Jesus's response is brilliant. He turns the question back on them, but He reframes it entirely. They ask about what is "lawful" or permitted. Jesus asks, "What did Moses command you?" He shifts the entire basis of the discussion from human permission to divine command. He is forcing them to go back to the source text, which they believe is their area of expertise.
Their answer is telling. "Moses permitted..." They go straight to Deuteronomy 24, which outlines the process for divorce in the case of some "indecency." They see this not as a reluctant concession, but as a positive right. They have taken a guardrail intended to protect women from being casually discarded and turned it into an exit ramp. They have mistaken a remedy for a right, a concession for a command. Their focus on the permission slip reveals the state of their hearts. They are looking for a way out, not a way to be faithful.
The Creational Reset (vv. 5-9)
Jesus now exposes the root of their error. He diagnoses their spiritual disease and then rewrites their entire prescription.
"But Jesus said to them, 'Because of your hardness of heart he wrote for you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, God MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE...'" (Mark 10:5-6)
The diagnosis is "hardness of heart." Sclerocardia. The Mosaic provision was not God's ideal will; it was a civil and pastoral accommodation for a stiff-necked people. It was a concession to limit the damage that sinful men would do. Because God knew that hard-hearted men would abandon their wives, this law was put in place to ensure the woman was not left destitute and shamed, but was formally and legally released. The Pharisees had taken this merciful concession to sin and elevated it to the level of a sacrament. Jesus says, in effect, "That law you are so proud of is a monument to your sin, not your righteousness."
Then He performs a great leap. He goes over the top of fifteen centuries of legal history and lands in the Garden of Eden. "But from the beginning..." This is the ultimate appeal to authority. Jesus establishes the principle that creation, not the fall, is the foundation for ethics. To understand marriage, you don't start with the problems of sin; you start with the perfection of God's design.
And what is that design? First, "God made them male and female." Marriage is grounded in the created, biological, complementary reality of two distinct sexes. It is not a social construct. It is a creational given. All modern attempts to redefine marriage are not just a quarrel with tradition; they are a quarrel with the Creator Himself.
"'FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.'" (Mark 10:7-9)
This created reality of male and female has a purpose, a "therefore." The result is a new union, the "one flesh." This is not merely physical; it is a comprehensive, covenantal fusion of two persons into a new entity. They are "no longer two, but one flesh." This is the miracle of marriage. And because God is the one doing the joining, the union has a divine seal upon it. "What therefore God has joined together..." Marriage is a divine act. Two people do not merely join themselves; God joins them. The pastor does not marry them; God does. The state does not marry them; God does.
The conclusion is therefore inescapable and thunderous: "...let no man separate." No individual, no court, no church, no state has the authority to tear asunder what God Himself has welded together. The permanence of marriage is not a suggestion; it is a direct implication of God's creative action.
The Unvarnished Application (vv. 10-12)
This teaching was so radical, so counter-cultural, that even the disciples were reeling. They needed a private debriefing.
"And in the house the disciples began questioning Him about this again. And He said to them, 'Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her; and if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery.'" (Mark 10:10-12)
In private, Jesus removes all ambiguity. He lays down the principle in the starkest possible terms. To divorce a spouse on unbiblical grounds and marry another is not to start a new, legitimate marriage. It is to commit adultery. The verb is in the present tense, indicating a continuous state. Jesus defines such a second union as an ongoing adulterous relationship. He is closing the very loophole the Pharisees were trying to pry open.
And then He does something revolutionary. He adds, "and if she herself divorces her husband." In the Greco-Roman world, a woman could initiate divorce, but in Jewish culture, it was almost exclusively a male prerogative. By placing the woman on the same plane as the man, Jesus elevates the dignity and moral agency of women. He is saying that the covenant is binding on both parties equally. The woman is not a piece of property to be disposed of; she is a co-heir of the covenant, with the same obligations to faithfulness as her husband.
Conclusion: The Covenant-Keeping God
So what are we to do with this high and holy standard? First, we must recognize that the "hardness of heart" Jesus diagnosed in the Pharisees is a universal human condition. Our sinful nature always seeks to justify itself, to find the exception, to lower the bar. The only cure for a hard heart is a new heart, which God grants through the gospel. The law shows us the standard we cannot keep, in order that we might flee to Christ who kept it for us.
Second, we must see that this high view of marriage is not a burden, but a glorious picture of the gospel. The apostle Paul tells us that marriage is a mystery that points to Christ and the Church (Eph. 5:32). The reason God insists on the permanence of marriage is that it is meant to be a living drama of Christ's unbreakable covenant love for His people. Christ is the bridegroom who will never, ever divorce His bride, the Church. Our earthly marriages are meant to put that covenant faithfulness on display in a world of broken promises.
This means that for those who are married, your task is not to pursue personal happiness, but covenant faithfulness. You are called to model the gospel to your spouse, your children, and the watching world. For those who have fallen short and have a divorce in their past, the answer is not despair, but repentance and grace. The blood of Christ is sufficient to cover every sin, including the sin of breaking a covenant. The gospel offers forgiveness and restoration. But it is a restoration to God's standard, not our own.
The world sees marriage as a temporary contract based on fleeting feelings. God presents it as a permanent covenant based on solemn vows. Jesus calls us away from the shifting sands of human opinion and plants us on the solid rock of His creative word. What God has joined together, let us, by His grace, never seek to tear apart.