What does "what God has joined together, let no one separate" mean?

The law fell below the height of God's thought, but Christ did not: He fully maintained it. Verse 9 lifts the whole matter of marriage from the level of man and human expediency to the level of God and His action. It is a divine institution and not a human arrangement, and therefore is not to be tampered with by men. If God joins, man is not to put asunder.

286 The Pharisees, drawing near, ask Jesus if it is permitted that a husband should put away his wife. The Lord takes the occasion to insist upon this truth, that that which God had established from the beginning of the creation was always valid in itself. Moses had allowed a man to put away his wife in the law; but this was only the patience of God with the hardness of man's heart; but it was not according to God's own heart and will. In the creation at the beginning God made that which was good - weak, but good. He allowed other things when He ordered provisionally the state of His people, of fallen man; but He had made things differently when He created them. God had united husband and wife, and man had no right to separate them. The bond is not to be broken.

According to God's will marriage is indissoluble. The Lord Jesus says this clearly in Matthew 19:6: "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." This not only applies to marriages made "in the Lord," but to every marriage. Already in the Old Testament God had said to the Jews who were divorced from their wives, "For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that He hateth putting away" (Mal. 2:16).

In the question as to marriage we are taught by Christ to respect absolutely the Creator's ordinance at the beginning. According to that, man and wife are one flesh, and this is founded on the creative work itself which made them male and female, one man and one woman. God has joined them together: man must not put them asunder. Mark does not even notice the exceptional allowance of divorce, when the marriage tie has in fact been broken through.

This case is one of governmental forgiveness, for it is dependent on some fitting response on the part of the one forgiven. Many have been baptized, professing some acceptance of the faith of Christianity, and thereby entering the kingdom. But later they expose the emptiness of their profession by their evident despising of grace. Simon the sorcerer is a case in point. Though publicly forgiven through baptism, he had not been born again, and later exposed his actual unbelief. Peter then publicly rescinded his forgiveness (Acts 8:9-24).The setting now is changed from Galilee to Judea, with great crowds following Him, finding healing from their illnesses. But since the Lord Jesus has been announcing a kingdom of a different character than anything preceding it, then matters of fundamental character arise. He has frequently said, "But I say unto you," thereby setting aside what others have said or inferred. What of the question of marriage? The Pharisees raise this with ulterior motives, for they think they can trap Him. They ask, "Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?" Evidently this was a matter of controversy between Israel's religious leaders, some even considering it permissible to divorce a wife if she spoiled a meal.

But the Lord makes it transparently clear that the basic, original order in creation is not to be changed, but affirmed by the truth of the kingdom of heaven. God, in creating both male and female, made a marked distinction between them, but in marriage indicated a unity of vital character. Because of God's manifest order in creation it was right that a man should leave his father and mother and cleave 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. Secondly, he cleaves to his wife:--only one wife, so that bigamy and polygamy are absolutely unscriptural. Cleaving to his wife involves genuine love for her, and faithfulness and devotedness.

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 accommodate men's preferences. Marriage was from the beginning intended to be a binding agreement so long as both individuals remain alive.

Yet we know that throughout the Old Testament these things were ignored. Many (even believers) had more then one wife. The Pharisees too thought they could prove the Lord wrong by referring to Deut.24:1, which speaks of Moses, the lawgiver, instructing that if a man had found some uncleanness in his wife, he could give her a bill of divorcement and send her away. This bill of divorce was to guard against a man's cruel treatment of a wife by discarding her while not leaving her free to be married to any other.

Now the same lawgiver who sanctioned divorces had, in a previous part of the Pentateuch, made known the original institution of marriage, in which there was no clause permitting divorce. Both portions (Deut. 24:1; Gen. 2:23-24) were God's Word. The former was a provision "for the hardness of their hearts," and doubtless often made use of without the qualifying ground therein stated, "Because he has found some uncleanness in her" (Deut. 24:1). The latter (Gen. 2:24) taught the sacredness and the real character of the tie. This latter was God's original institution. The tie, except for fornication (Matt. 19:9), should be held inviolable. "What God has joined together let not man put asunder" (Mark 10:9) is the Lord's declaration about matrimony. We are thus taken back to its original institution, and are reminded of the light in which God regards it — two made one flesh, whom He has joined, and whom therefore man should not sever.

This chapter, then, surveys the relationships of nature in the light of the kingdom. The first and most fundamental is that of marriage. "The Pharisees also came unto Him, tempting Him, and saying unto Him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?" (ver. 3). There you have the conduct of such as are on legal ground. There is really no respect for God, no genuine regard for His law. The Lord at once vindicates from Scripture the institution and the sanctity of marriage: "Have ye not read that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female?" (ver. 4). That is, He shows it is not a mere question of what came in by the law, but He goes to the sources. God had first established it; and, far from dissolving the tie as men list, He made a single pair, and therefore only to be the one for the other. All other relationships were light in comparison of this closest tie — even union. "For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and cleave unto his wife; and the twain shall be one flesh." Next to the relationship of marriage is the tie of a child to its parents. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of marriage as a natural institution. Who would talk of a child leaving his father and mother for any cause? The Pharisees even would not think of such a thing. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." They were ready with an answer: "Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?" (ver. 7). There was really no such command: a divorce was simply allowed.

Our Lord draws the distinction perfectly. Moses suffered certain things not according to the original archetypal intention of God. Nor should this be matter of wonder, for the law made nothing perfect. It was good in itself, but it could not impart goodness. The law might be perfect for its own object, but it perfected nothing, nor was it ever the intention of God that it should. But more than this: there were certain concessions contained in the law which did not at all express the divine mind; for God therein was dealing with a people after the flesh. The law does not contemplate a man as born of God; Christianity does. Men of faith during the law were of course born of God. But the law itself drew no line between regenerate and unregenerate; it addressed all Israel, and not believers only; hence suffered certain things in view of the hardness of their hearts. So that our Lord, while intimating a certain consideration of Israel's condition in the flesh, at the same time vindicated God's law from the corrupt deductions of these selfish Pharisees. "From the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery. And whosoever marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery" (vers. 8, 9). Our Lord adds here what was not in the law, and brings out the full mind of God touching this relationship. There is but one just cause for which it may be dissolved; or rather, marriage must be dissolved morally in order to terminate as a matter of fact. In case of fornication, the tie is all gone before God; and the putting away merely proclaims before man what has already taken place in God's sight. All is made perfectly clear. The righteousness of the law is established as far as it went, but it stops short of perfection by admitting in certain cases a less evil to avoid a greater. Our Lord supplies the needed truth — going up to the very beginning, and on to the end also.

Matthew 19. The Lord continues to teach what is suited to the Kingdom of Heaven. Where it is a question of marriage, it is remarkable how the Lord goes back from the law, treated as provisional, to what God established at the beginning. It was God's institution that when a man left father and mother and took a wife they were no more two persons but one flesh, and the bond was indissoluble. In the case of sin against the relationship it was not really an exception, for then the one man and one woman had ceased to be one flesh by man's will coming in: the bond was broken by sin. But while recognizing thus God's original order in creation as to marriage, there was a path outside it by the power of the new things the Lord was introducing, not for all, but according to gift: one who was able to receive it might keep himself outside the relationship for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake — to serve the Lord with less distraction; but this was exceptional and a question of power of the Spirit given for it. It is evidently in the same connection of thought that the Lord receives the little children as representing the spirit suited to the Kingdom of Heaven, in their simplicity, lowliness, absence of self-consciousness, and self-seeking — the opposite of what obtains in the world — though grace alone could form this in any of us; and all that is fairest in nature is found to fail under the test of the Cross.

On the other hand, according to 1 Corinthians 7, I cannot doubt that the Christian, deliberately deserted by the unchristian partner, was in every way free, free that is to marry; but it assumes deliberate forsaking by the one who went away. The Christian was never to do it, and if obliged to leave, to remain unmarried or return. Romans 7:3 has nothing, I think, to do with it; the case supposed is of being (not "married") to another man while the tie subsists; then she is guilty of adultery - not, if the husband be dead. Divorce is not in question, but acts of sin while the marriage subsists. This is evident. Mark 10 does not annul Matthew 19: a man putting away his wife is looked at as his act or will. If he puts away, he has broken a tie God formed, by his own will; then marrying another is adultery. By act of sin the tie was broken already, and judicial divorce allowed.

He now takes up the question of separation and divorce; and here, as most naturally having to do with this, the case of a believer united to an unbeliever. In those days there must have been necessarily from such a cause oftentimes the greatest perplexity. He decides that in such a case the wife is not to separate herself of her own will from her husband, as in the case of Christians also be is wholly against separation; and if the wife has been separated she is to remain unmarried or to be reconciled to her husband, the husband not to leave his wife. In the case of an unbeliever there is, of course, a difference. On the side of the Christian, if the unbelieving wife be content to dwell with him, he is not to leave her; so, on the other hand, if it be the husband that is the unbeliever and not the wife. The reason of this he gives as to be found in the sanctification of the unbelieving husband in the wife, or of the unbelieving wife in the Christian to whom she is married, and he adduces as the proof of this the known position of the children of the married in such a case. The children, he says, are holy. This, of course, as it is the basis of his argument, must have been an acknowledged fact for Christians. The working of Israelitish law was quite in the other direction. If a man had married outside of Israel, the children were unclean, and were disowned as belonging to the congregation of the Lord. The holiness of the children here is not a necessarily spiritual condition, but that of external relationship, as we may say, but which of course manifests the mind of God for blessing to those who are in such a relationship.

The baptism of the household is not intimated, but it is evident that this would naturally result from the position here. The token of discipleship could hardly be denied to those who as holy were to be brought up as disciples. They are thus addressed throughout the epistles, and they could not be so addressed if outside the Kingdom of that in which the claims of Christ as Lord were owned. It has sometimes been argued that the unbelieving wife or husband is, according to this, as much holy as are the children; but this is an oversight as to what is really expressed. The unbelieving husband or wife is only sanctified in the believing partner, not otherwise: sanctified, therefore, in that relationship in which he or she stood to the other, and not in himself, so as to be himself acknowledged in any relationship to the Church of God. The relationship was clean and owned of God, so that the believer could continue in it, and is urged to do so. But, on the other hand, if, on the side of the unbeliever, he departed, then, in such cases, the brother or the sister, says the apostle, is not bound. He or she is not obliged to recognize any more the relationship as existing. Yet the apostle does not mean by this anything equivalent to divorce, or that which would set absolutely free the one separated from. The Lord Himself has decided in the plainest possible way in the Gospels that there is but one ground for divorce, and we have no right from the apostle's words here to suppose, as many do suppose now, that they declare another. Whatever trial there may be in such circumstances of separation, yet if there be no more, it is a trial to which God has called the person in question, and for which He must be counted upon; but to continue in the relationship as far as possible is that which he encourages. Christianity, with its all-embracing desire for the salvation of souls, would rather use such a relation for the salvation of the unbeliever than cast out one who might be thus rescued from his natural, lost condition.