But he answering said [to them], Have ye not read that he who made [them], from the beginning made them male and female,
The Pharisees asked Jesus a hot question of their day: may a man divorce his wife for any reason he likes? He would not argue on their ground, but pointed back to what God did when He first made human beings.
The Pharisees were not looking for guidance. They wanted to drag Him into a fight between two rival rabbinic schools.
Here it is the Pharisees who bring up marriage, and whether it binds. Their aim, it seems, was to draw Him into the disputes between the rabbinical schools of Hillel and Shammai, who differed about divorce. Their question — is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause? — seems to point to the views of Hillel's school. It went so far as to decide that a wife spoiling her husband's dinner was cause enough. But in answer the Lord goes further than Shammai himself. He clears away everything that man had since obscured it with, and finds His argument in the institution of marriage at the beginning. That argument strikes at polygamy as well as at the loose holding of the marriage tie. It carries us past all that has come in with sin, back to the first design of the Creator for His creatures.
His first words send them to a book they claimed to teach. The answer was already there.
He points to Old Testament Scriptures with the question, "Have you not read?" Once it is, "Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female?" (Matt. 19:4). Again it is, "Have you not read what was said to you by God: I am the God of Abraham …?" (Matt. 22:31). Christ was showing that if they had studied these scriptures, they would have found the will of God. It was on those very subjects that they were questioning Him. If the Old Testament taught them on any subject, that was enough warrant for them to accept the teaching as God's. Is it not also enough warrant for you?
He does not settle the case from the law. He goes back to the act of creation.
The Lord at once defends the institution and the sanctity of marriage from Scripture: "Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female?" (ver. 4). That is, He shows it is not merely a question of what came in by the law; He goes to the sources. God had first established it. He does not dissolve the tie at man's pleasure. He made a single pair, so each was only for the other. All other relationships were light compared with this closest tie — even union.
"Male and female" means one of each. The count is the argument.
He had made them male and female, each suited to the other, each completed by the other. As to what the union meant, He had said, "the two shall become one flesh." The words speak of two, and only two. It was so with Adam and his wife at the first, where no one could even think of polygamy or divorce. And "one flesh" would make either polygamy or divorce an abomination.
The words about leaving father and mother stand in Genesis, written by Moses. Jesus assigns them to the One who made the pair.
Notice too that the Lord Jesus (Matt. 19:4-5) attributes to God the words quoted from Gen. 2:24: "He who created them … said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother," and so on. It was Moses who wrote, but it was God speaking none the less.
Marriage did not start with a law code. It started with God, before any law existed.
This was the ground the Lord Jesus stood on long afterwards. He defended the original institution and affirmed the lasting sanctity of marriage. The law of Moses did not introduce this relationship. Marriage was God's purpose for man from the very start of his history.
- Beginning. Jesus answers a legal dispute by going back past Moses to the first design of the Creator for His creatures.
- Read. "Have you not read" tells them the answer was already there. What the Old Testament teaches is warrant enough to take it as God's will.
- Two. He made one male and one female — each suited to the other, each completed by the other; two, and only two.
- One. The two became "one flesh." That phrase makes both polygamy and divorce an abomination.
- God. Moses wrote the words in Genesis, but Jesus credits them to God — so marriage rests on God's design, not on any later ruling.
and said, On account of this a man shall leave father and mother, and shall be united to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh?
The Pharisees asked Jesus whether a man may divorce his wife. He did not argue law with them. He answered with the words spoken over the first marriage, and that raises the real questions here: who said them, what leaving and holding fast require, and whether "one flesh" can ever be undone.
The sentence Jesus quotes comes from Genesis, at the close of the account of Eve's creation. Readers have long asked whether Adam or Moses said it. The way the Lord introduces the quotation settles it.
It may also be noticed that the Lord Jesus (Matt. 19:4-5) attributes to God the words quoted from Gen. 2:24: "He who made them … said, 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother,'" and so on. It was Moses who wrote it: but it was God speaking none the less.
Jesus does not answer from Moses' rule about a certificate of divorce. He reaches further back, to what God set up before any law.
The Lord goes back behind the law to God's original institution: "He who made them at the beginning … From the beginning it was not so." So Christ's authority restores God's natural order. That order is the relationship He formed, and the origin of all other human relationships. He returns to God and God's institution of man. It is not Jehovah, it is not "my Father," but God made them — a very important principle. The law takes its place as something provisional, brought in along the way.
The verse begins with a departure. Marriage changes which relationship comes first in a person's life.
Before a man marries, the chief relationship he stands in is that of a son, and his responsibility is towards his parents. But when he marries he leaves his father and mother and holds fast to his wife. From then on she becomes his chief care, for he and she are no longer two but one flesh.
The second half of the verse says what the man does after leaving. Holding fast settles several practical questions.
God's order in creation is clear. So it was right that a man should leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife. This verse settles many questions. First, when marriage takes place, the man (or woman) is no longer in the place of subjection to parents. Second, he holds fast to his wife — only one wife. So bigamy and polygamy are completely against Scripture. Holding fast to his wife means genuine love for her, faithfulness and devotion.
Being "one flesh" is why the Lord goes on to forbid separating what God has joined. One writer explains why even unfaithfulness makes no real exception to that bond.
He establishes, or rather re-establishes, the true character of marriage as a bond that cannot be dissolved. I call it that, because the exception in the case of unfaithfulness is not really one. The guilty person had already broken the bond.
God joined the two, so no one on earth may separate them. That puts this verse at odds with much modern practice.
The two are then recognised before God as being "one flesh." It is God Himself who has joined the two together. Therefore no man has authority to divorce them. Governments today of course ignore God's decree in this matter, but the word of God will not change to suit men's preferences.
Paul quotes this same sentence again when he writes to the Ephesians. There it reaches past husbands and wives.
Again, the application to Christ and the church can be made. Christ, as man, gave up what was His by relationship to His earthly people, Israel, to gain and have the church. Paul quotes this verse in Ephesians 5:31 … So the marriage bond becomes the picture of the union of the church with Christ.
Some might say a word spoken in a sinless garden cannot govern a spoiled world. The terms of the verse itself answer that.
He who made the man and the woman regulated the relationship from the first. Later things went out of course. Then the Lord, who made everything perfect, cleared the relationship of that concession which man had abused, and called it back to its original order. This is all the more striking because God ruled it so. He did not rule it only for the short-lived state of innocence in paradise, but as His mind for man on the earth at any time. The terms prove it.
- Maker speaks — the words come from the One who made them male and female; Moses wrote them, but God said them.
- Beginning rules — Jesus steps behind Moses' concession to the original order. The law was only provisional.
- Leaving first — marriage ends the parents' first claim; the wife becomes the husband's chief care.
- Holding fast — one wife, held with love, faithfulness and devotion; bigamy and polygamy have no ground here.
- One flesh — God joined them, so no man may separate them; and this same union pictures Christ and the church.
so that they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.
The Pharisees, the religious teachers of the day, asked Jesus how easily a man could divorce his wife. He answered by going back to the day God made the first man and woman, which raises the real question: who does the joining, and what may man undo?
The Pharisees framed the debate around Moses and what he permitted. Jesus refused to argue on that ground and went further back.
The Lord goes back behind the law to God's first institution: "He who created them from the beginning… from the beginning it was not so." So Christ's authority restores God's natural order. That order is the relationship He formed, and it is the source of every other human relationship. He returns to God and to God's institution for man. The name used is God — not "the Lord," not "my Father" — and that is an important point. The law came later, as a temporary measure.
Moses wrote both the permission to divorce and the account of the first marriage. The two do not carry equal weight.
The first was a provision "for the hardness of their hearts." Men no doubt often used it without the reason Moses required: "because he has found some indecency in her" (Deut. 24:1). The second (Gen. 2:24) taught the sacredness and the real character of the tie.
The verse does not say the couple joined themselves. It says God joined them, and that decides who may undo it.
The two are then recognized before God as being "one flesh." It is God Himself who has joined the two together. Therefore man has no authority to divorce them. Governments today of course ignore God's decree in this matter, but the word of God will not change to suit men's preferences. From the beginning God meant marriage to bind two people for as long as both are alive.
Because the joining is God's, no human office can perform it or claim credit for it.
A minister may pronounce a couple man and wife "on behalf of the church." That is simply wrong. Neither the true church of God nor the churches of men have any authority over marriage… When God joins, He does so without the help of any man.
The phrase is not poetry about feelings. It draws practical lines around the relationship.
God set a clear order in creation. So it was right that a man should leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife. This verse settles many questions. First, when marriage takes place, the man (or woman) is no longer in the place of subjection to parents. Second, he holds fast to his wife — one wife only, so bigamy and polygamy have no place in Scripture. Holding fast to his wife means real love for her, faithfulness and devotion.
Commentators do speak of one exception. They explain it as sin having already destroyed the "one flesh."
Where someone sinned against the relationship, it was not really an exception. By then the one man and one woman had stopped being one flesh, because a human will had cut across God's. Sin broke the bond.
Apart from that, the bond holds. What makes it hold is where it came from, not who entered it.
God's will is that marriage cannot be broken… This is true not only of marriages between believers, but of every marriage.
Marriage began in God. So the same God who started it meets the strains that push couples apart.
Why should a person's circumstances, failures, the difficulties along the way, incompatibility or anything else interfere with what came from the heart of God? … Couples will find that the love which first gave us marriage can hold them up.
- God joins. The verse names who acts: not the couple, not the state, not a minister. God Himself joined them, without any human help.
- God's order. Jesus stepped past Moses to creation. The law's permission was temporary; the beginning is the standard.
- God makes one. "One flesh" ends the child's place under parents, rules out more than one spouse, and calls for love and faithfulness.
- God binds. The union cannot be broken. Where the Lord names an exception, sin had already broken the bond — no one's decision did.
- God sustains. The love that first gave marriage carries a couple through failure, hardship and difference.