Marriage: An Answer to a New Believer Studying Mark
by Jim Ratzlaff(6)In this article, I share with you another question our new believer friend had regarding a subject that came up in her bible study of Mark.
Christa's Question: In Mark 10:10-12 Divorce is mentioned and the sin of adultery when a divorced man remarries or a divorced woman remarries. In today's society, this happens often. What about when a person that has not been married before marries a divorced person. Will the 1st time married still be considered living in sin by allowing the other to commit adultery? Clarity here would be nice, since today's world is much different how can this idea of sin be avoided? Does one have to eliminate the possibility of finding life partnership with someone that had a failed marriage?
Pastor Jim's Answer: You are being good Bible Students. Reading a passage like this helps us to see how far we as a society have moved from the One who said that all authority and power belonged to Him. So when He spoke, He spoke the mind of God. This dilemma is present not only in the world, but also in the Body of Christ. Of one thing we can be sure, the Lord Jesus the Messiah never has to revise His words. He meant it then and He means it now. So now it’s for us to adjust ourselves to His Words. And that is at times really tough. But we call Him Lord, and that means that we have made the choice that we will obey Him.
First of all, isn’t it interesting that Mark reveals their motive: they wanted to trap Him and create a crisis. And guess what they chose: a very controversial issue(way back then!) Nothin’ new!
Forgive me if I draw this out a bit, but I think it will help. When Jesus begins His answer, notice that He upholds the Scriptures(O.T.)by going right back to Moses. He gives the reason that Moses permitted divorce: Jesus says it was because of the ‘hardness of men’s hearts.’ It wasn’t God’s will to begin with. But the permission doesn’t change who’s right on this issue. God hasn’t changed His mind.
What’s behind this? God permitted divorce not to accommodate society, which has always been wrong in its thinking about this, but to reveal publicly what had been going on in private: hard hearted people. And that’s what the Law does: as the Bible says, the Law reveals sin.(Romans 3:20: “….because what the Torah(God’s Law)really does is show people how sinful they are.”
A hard heart is the opposite of a soft, mellow, gentle heart. It’s the heart that says, ‘I’m going to handle this my own way, regardless of God’s good plans and ways.’ Instead of yielding to God’s way and love.
It’s always amazing at how wise divorced folks become after they decide to break up the marriage. They see things they didn’t see while still married.
Statistically, second marriages are often more fragile than the first. But the tragedy we seemingly don’t see is that when we choose a plan of our own, rather than following the plan of the smartest and wisest One in the universe, we begin to add to the destruction of our society.
Notice how Jesus goes farther back than Moses. He goes to the dawn of creation and the beginning of civilization. He lays out the grand, divine design. Marriage as God designed it is not for those who want to leave the back door open in case it doesn’t work out. That’s always a sign of future trouble. If one doesn’t hack the difficulties of one marriage, who is to say that the same person will hang in there come hell or high water. And most real marriages have both.
There’s another matter of extreme importance. Look at Paul’s teaching in Ephesians 5 where he sounds like Jesus. Here Paul points out that in a marriage that pleases God, the husband reflects the Lord Jesus in His relationship to His bride, the one body of true believers, and the wife reflects the Body of Christ in her response to Him, enacted in real life by a wife’s role in the marriage.
And is this written to those who know the Lord? Well, primarily because one must have the Holy Spirit in their life in order to do that. That’s not to say that non-Christians don’t have good marriages. I know many who do. But we always shoot for the best, not just the good. At least the Lord would want us to, because we are created for His best, and to express in our marriages the relationship between Christ and His Body, the Church.
Adultery, defined, is sexual unfaithfulness, and always destroys the work that God is doing to blend two people’s lives. In fact, to our amazement, Paul teaches us that in a Christian marriage, the Lord Jesus is involved in the sexual enjoyment of a couple. And when adultery is occurring, it’s a painful experience for our Lord because He is united with the struggling couple.
I’ll quote what a friend of mine said about this passage years ago: “I know that when I am addressing an audience this large, some in it will have gone through divorce, perhaps with adultery involved. I do not intend to impose a sense of condemnation on anyone. But I do want to make clear what Jesus said -- that divorce is sin -- no if's, and's, or but's about it. Divorce is a violation of God's intention for marriage. It always is, and it always involves some form of sin. But thank God, although that is what the Law says, grace comes in to tell us that sin can be forgiven. There is the possibility of restoration, of healing, of God's beginning again the work of creating oneness -- either with the same couple, or perhaps as each goes on to a different union, they will have learned lessons which will facilitate the beauty of relationship that God has in mind. But
I also want to make clear that though there is this way for forgiveness and restoration, we ought to understand that God's way of restoration involves repentance. I have heard Christians say, "If you do not like your present mate, divorce him or her, and get married again. Even if it is wrong, God will forgive you if you ask him to, and you can just go on and enjoy the new union." Well, that bothers me greatly -- first, because it takes lightly what God takes very seriously, and second, because it is not true that Scripture teaches that all you need to do is ask God for forgiveness, and you are forgiven. What the Scriptures say is that when you come to the place of repentance, you are forgiven. Repentance means the understanding of the awful danger you have put others in, the injury you have caused others and yourself, a sense of shame for that, and a willingness to let it come to an end and exist no more in your life, to turn your back on it and walk with God in his forgiveness and restoration into a new life which leads in a new direction. That is repentance, and only then is the forgiveness of God available to us.”
Well, my dear Christa, who is fortunate to have a name that incorporates the Name above all names, Christ, I hope this helps in shedding light on words that come out of the mouth of One who knows us inside out. He won’t condemn us, but as we say at times, He accepts us the way He finds us, but He loves us too much to leave us that way. His way never destroys or sucks the life out of us. He came so that we can have abundant life—His life. As has been said, first He catches the fish, and then He cleans them up.
Let me know whether this long epistle clarifies. If not, I’ll try again!
Sincerely, Jim
Article submitted Friday, January 22, 2010 & read 479 times.
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» left by Teresa(1,457)(188 days 16 hours ago.)
Jim, another wonderful and bibically complete explanation. The key is repentance. and even better, dealing with the sin of self-centeredness that leads to disunity in the marriage in the first place. I heard that sameexplanation from a pastor as well, I wonder if it was the same one. Keep sharing the goodness of God's grace and truth. TeresaRespond to this comment
