And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away.
The verse records the Pharisees' answer that Moses permitted a husband to write a certificate of divorce and send his wife away. It stands in the first ten chapters of Mark, where Jesus is presented as a model of perfect character, combining justice with love and respecting the rights of the least as well as the greatest. It recalls the bill of divorcement in Deuteronomy 24:1-3, called in Greek a book of apostasy. That term connects divorce with turning away from a solemn lifelong union, and illustrates apostasy as rebellion, withdrawal, despising, and unfaithfulness.
It shows Jesus identifying Moses as the one who wrote the law concerning the bill of divorce, supporting that Moses authored the Pentateuch. In context it teaches that God joins husband and wife so that the two become one flesh in a bond that no one but God can sunder. That marriage was united by God in the beginning never to be separated, as one flesh uniting two equal but differing elements. When men departed from God and forgot His law, loose ideas of marriage prevailed and woman was made a plaything, so that even in the nation with the highest moral practice a man could put his wife away for any cause. Moses suffering divorce was God suffering the blindness of the past.
Jesus puts marriage back on its original foundation, so that in the increased light of Christ men must come back to first principles. It points to the marriages of the patriarchs as types and precedents hung up as living chart lessons for admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come, proving the inviolable sanctity of the marriage relation as one whole heart in true, loyal, unselfish love. It condemns plural, mercenary, and profane unions that God did not join together as spiritual adultery bringing sorrow, disunion, jealousy, and ruin. In God's sight and in the light of primal law, no man should divorce his wife except for fornication, under a stricter New Testament standard that sets an exalted ethical rule.
Marriage is not a temporary contract to be ended at a party's whim, and disagreement over ordinary matters is not a proper ground for Christians to divorce. Divorce on unscriptural grounds does not justify remarriage. The teaching does not attempt to change the Jewish civil statute permitting divorce and putting away, but is addressed to the individual soul. The one who heeds it does not violate civil law, because men cannot be converted or saved through civil law.
Roman Catholic doctrine and practice respecting divorce keeps much closer to this New Testament law than the doctrine and practice of the Protestant churches have kept, to the shame of the Protestant churches, holding it with courage and consistency against all efforts at compromise. Earnest effort is now being made to bring Protestant practice a little nearer to the Roman Catholic standard. Protestant practice should be brought nearer to the New Testament standard, not merely nearer to the Roman Catholic standard. Departure from this law shows the tendency to belittle the authority of the Scriptures and to glorify human ideas and correct the church by human standards.
The verse records the Pharisees' answer that Moses permitted a husband to write a certificate of divorce and send his wife away. It stands in the first ten chapters of Mark, where Jesus is presented as a model of perfect character, combining justice with love and respecting the rights of the least as well as the greatest. It recalls the bill of divorcement in Deuteronomy 24:1-3, called in Greek a book of apostasy. That term connects divorce with turning away from a solemn lifelong union, and illustrates apostasy as rebellion, withdrawal, despising, and unfaithfulness.
It shows Jesus identifying Moses as the one who wrote the law concerning the bill of divorce, supporting that Moses authored the Pentateuch. In context it teaches that God joins husband and wife so that the two become one flesh in a bond that no one but God can sunder. That marriage was united by God in the beginning never to be separated, as one flesh uniting two equal but differing elements. When men departed from God and forgot His law, loose ideas of marriage prevailed and woman was made a plaything, so that even in the nation with the highest moral practice a man could put his wife away for any cause. Moses suffering divorce was God suffering the blindness of the past.
Jesus puts marriage back on its original foundation, so that in the increased light of Christ men must come back to first principles. It points to the marriages of the patriarchs as types and precedents hung up as living chart lessons for admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come, proving the inviolable sanctity of the marriage relation as one whole heart in true, loyal, unselfish love. It condemns plural, mercenary, and profane unions that God did not join together as spiritual adultery bringing sorrow, disunion, jealousy, and ruin. In God's sight and in the light of primal law, no man should divorce his wife except for fornication, under a stricter New Testament standard that sets an exalted ethical rule.
Marriage is not a temporary contract to be ended at a party's whim, and disagreement over ordinary matters is not a proper ground for Christians to divorce. Divorce on unscriptural grounds does not justify remarriage. The teaching does not attempt to change the Jewish civil statute permitting divorce and putting away, but is addressed to the individual soul. The one who heeds it does not violate civil law, because men cannot be converted or saved through civil law.
Roman Catholic doctrine and practice respecting divorce keeps much closer to this New Testament law than the doctrine and practice of the Protestant churches have kept, to the shame of the Protestant churches, holding it with courage and consistency against all efforts at compromise. Earnest effort is now being made to bring Protestant practice a little nearer to the Roman Catholic standard. Protestant practice should be brought nearer to the New Testament standard, not merely nearer to the Roman Catholic standard. Departure from this law shows the tendency to belittle the authority of the Scriptures and to glorify human ideas and correct the church by human standards.