Some Pharisees approached Jesus, and tested him, saying,
"Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause whatever?"
There were various interpretations about when divorce was permissible, although it was generally agreed that there were such circumstances. Jesus, however, had already made statements that indicated his belief in the radical indissolubility of marriage that would apparently contradict the traditional viewpoints. Now some Pharisees thought that they could use that as an exploitable weakness to demonstrate that the teachings of Jesus contradicted the teachings of Moses. After all of the instances of "You have heard it said" in the Sermon on the Mount it must have become common practice to hunt for such inconsistencies. Even if the answer of Jesus seemed good on its own merit there would still be the question of why a prophet like Moses would have said something different. Any sort of argument from circumstances would seem to weaken the force of the law at all points in history. If circumstances changed once could they not change again? Had they perhaps not already changed? Ought not this be arbitrated on an individual basis, and not with a one time pronouncement applicable to all? It would seem to lead toward a relativism where, even if there was objectively some abstract 'best' answer, the circumstances could always be sufficiently fudged in order to allow the answer one preferred. And the answer humans were wont to prefer did not often overlap with what God would judge. Safer, the Pharisees probably assumed, to stick closely to the words of Moses and work out only details that did not contradict it.
He said in reply, "Have you not read that from the beginning
the Creator made them male and female and said
Jesus avoided all the possible prongs of his opponents argument. He preempted their argument about what Moses said by citing something Moses said earlier (as the traditional author of Genesis). He avoided the criticism of relativism or circumstantial morality by tying his statement directly to the original purpose of marriage. Looking at the nature of women and men and the purpose of God in bringing them together as one would reveal all of the morality essential to govern such a union as corollaries.
They said to him, "Then why did Moses command
that the man give the woman a bill of divorce and dismiss her?"
We can imagine these Pharisees already felt off balance since the point they were only now making had already been undermined. Yet it still remained for Jesus to clarify just what Moses had intended in his stipulations about a bill of divorce. It was clear that Moses did not promote divorce because it was good or necessary. He didn't give it divine approval. Rather, it was tolerated in his time because to challenge it wouldn't have yielded any meaningful results.
He said to them, "Because of the hardness of your hearts
Moses allowed you to divorce your wives,
but from the beginning it was not so.
If it was the hardness of the hearts of the people in the time of Moses that caused divorce to be permitted then it would take the coming of Jesus to create the conditions in which it could finally be done away with. He was the one who would replace the stone hearts of the people with hearts of flesh (see Ezekiel 36:26). He was the one who gave the grace that made meaningful change possible. It did not necessarily mean it would be easy. His disciples correctly understood that such a lifelong unbreakable bond was in some way a frightful thing.
His disciples said to him,
"If that is the case of a man with his wife,
it is better not to marry."
His disciples were worried about entering into a lifelong commitment with no exit clause. But the genuine goods Jesus intended to protect, the one flesh union of women and men, and the propagation of the species, were too good to leave subject to the whims and caprice of sinners as yet imperfectly sanctified. Additionally, the reality of marriage was important not only for its own sake but also for the way that it served as an icon of the relationship between God and his people.
Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you when you were a girl,
and I will set up an everlasting covenant with you
No comments:
Post a Comment