Job 1:1, Job 2:1-10, Psalm 26, Genesis 2:18-24, Psalm 8, Hebrews 1:1-4, Hebrews 2:5-12, Mark 10:13-16.
A). THE TRIALS OF JOB.
Job 1:1; Job 2:1-10.
Job was an upright man. There was none so righteous in the entire East. No doubt, like Lot, he vexed his righteous soul with the wickedness of those around him. He worried lest his sons might not follow him in his righteousness: lest perhaps they might have sinned in their days of feasting. We should likewise be concerned for our young people, and pray for generations yet unborn.
God had blessed Job with children. “Children are an heritage of the Lord… Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them!” (Psalm 127:3-5).
God had also blessed Job with riches.
Satan was found amongst the sons of God. “We war not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in the heavens” (Ephesians 6:12). Satan’s remit is to test God’s people: but notice it is God who issues the challenge. This is not a contest of equals - it is God who is Sovereign. It is God who sets the limits to Satan’s maliciousness. The Son of God knows that cruelty first hand, and is found at the right hand of God interceding on our behalf. We have a compassionate Saviour, tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin.
In the secret councils of heaven, into which the early part of the Book of Job gives us a privileged glance, we twice see Satan suggesting to God that Job's piety is because God has pampered him.
“Destroy his wealth and see if he will not curse God,” says Satan (Job 1:11). This God permitted, limiting Satan at first not to harm his health. Nothing happens without God's permission.
God does permit His people to suffer. Suffering, we are told, does improve the character. It is for us, however, not only to persevere in adversity, but to seek to improve our sufferings. Temptation is not sin: Jesus was tempted, but He didn’t sin. We might reverently and cautiously say that God is behind our temptations, tests and trials: and God always does what is best.
Job was tested. His prosperity disappeared in a day. We must learn to hold the things of this world with a loose hand. Worse still, he lost all his children in a horrific series of tragedies.
Job passed this first test, with the famous words so often recalled by believers at funerals, “Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there: the LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21).
In a second meeting, God reminded the accuser of the brethren that “still Job held fast his integrity, even though you move me against him, to destroy him without cause” (Job 2:3).
Okay, said Satan, he's passed the test on wealth, but let me attack his health and then he will curse God. This God now permitted, but again setting a limit. Spare his life!
Our enemy never gives up. The more we hold on to our faith, the more he attacks us. But however much Satan, like a wild animal, is let loose against us, he can still go no further than the chain which God keeps around his neck.
Job was taken ill with a plague of boils. This is when we first hear of Job's wife, her words echoing both God's judgment concerning Job, and Satan's challenge against him. “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God, and die” (Job 2:9).
Satan had destroyed all they owned, and killed all their sons and daughters. Job’s wife was suffering too! Job’s health was undermined, and the apparent loss of the support of his wife must have increased his sorrow.
It is God who sends sun, rain, and storm in this physical world, according to His set purposes and plans. Likewise in our lives, no matter what happens, it comes from God. "Shall we receive good at the hand of God and not evil?" asks Job (Job 2:10).
Job, who had so often counselled others in their distress, did not understand why he was now suffering. Neither did his friends. His “comforters” failed to understand the unequal ratio of sin and suffering. Together they grappled with the problem at length, and to no avail.
With the best will in the world, we cannot understand another's suffering from their standpoint. There is no formula to meet the felt needs of those who have endured hardship, pain and loss. Neither the sufferer nor the would-be comforter sees the whole picture as God sees it. And with that we must be content.
For an awful moment it seemed that God had fallen silent. Job cursed the day of his birth, but nevertheless persevered in his faith. We come so close to giving up, but God upholds us nevertheless. When God did at last speak, it was to call Job to account for his words. Oh friends, be careful what you say about God‘s ways, however sorely you may think you are provoked!
The Book of Job is not dealing primarily with the problem of suffering in the world, but with the problem of keeping faith with God even in the face of suffering.
The reason that both Job, and later God, rejected the theological answers offered by Job's friends is that they were answering the wrong question. One suggested that since all men sin, so Job must deserve his suffering. The second suggested that Job might even be suffering for the sins of his children of whom he had so recently been bereaved. This is cruel, because of Job's constant concern to guard his children from the consequences of any sin they may have committed. The third equated the level of Job's suffering with the level of Job's supposed guilt and hypocrisy! The young man who spoke last offered the idea that suffering is meant to teach us something.
Relations and friends can sometimes thus be reduced to mere moralists, offering nothing more than clever words when faced with incomprehensible suffering.
Yet Job held on to his integrity, despite all. The struggles within himself; between his world view and his friends' world view; and between himself and God: drew out of him the most enlightened pre-historic confession of faith:
“Oh, that my words were recorded, that they were written on a scroll, that they were inscribed with an iron tool on lead, or engraved in rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end He will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see Him with my own eyes--I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” (Job 19:23-27).
The patriarch Job was able to reach through the pain and grief of which he was so aware, towards a better day that was also very real to him.
The speeches of God in Job 38-41 don't address the question of suffering at all, but the question as to the reality of God! With this Job is satisfied: everything else pales into insignificance in the light of a personal encounter with God. We have to go down in order to go up, to be humbled before we can be exalted. It's a long journey, but with God's help we get there.
Job’s success in this trial, ultimately, lay in the fact that he was as surely justified by faith “and that not of himself, it was the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8) as any of Abraham’s spiritual seed. Even in the midst of his greatest darkness, he had wonderful flashes of faith. His repentance was true, and complete. He succeeded in disentangling his love and service of God from the purely material and physical blessings of this life.
Job got back double for all he had lost, including a new family - and in heaven he receives back even the family he lost.
Not every sufferer is restored physically; but Job’s restoration, which was physical, stands as a type of the spiritual. Even in our darkest moments, let us remember Jesus who said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).
B). AN ANSWER TO THE ACCUSER.
Psalm 26.
One of the names for the devil is, ‘the accuser of the brethren’ (Revelation 12:10). That is his job: ‘your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour’ (1 Peter 5:8). Take the case of Joshua the high priest: ‘standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him’ (Zechariah 3:1).
Now, Joshua has the same name as Jesus, and is also a type of Jesus. Jesus has defeated Satan, and all Satan’s lies and accusations. ‘There is therefore now NO CONDEMNATION to those who are in Christ Jesus’ (Romans 8:1).
This is a judicial declaration. Those who are in Christ Jesus, whatever bad they may have done, stand in HIS integrity (John 3:16). Those who are not in Christ Jesus, no matter what good they may have done, stand condemned before Him (John 3:18).
We do not know what specific trouble that David was facing in Psalm 26, but it has all the hallmarks of a man pleading his case before God based on his INTEGRITY. Unfortunately, this is sometimes translated as blamelessness, which all sounds very arrogant and self-righteous. David’s faults are an open book throughout the Bible: but his character reference is ‘the ‘man after God’s own heart’ (Acts 13:22).
So, whatever the circumstance, David could plead his case before the LORD: “I have walked in my integrity” (Psalm 26:1). How so? “I have trusted also in the LORD.”
In other words, the integrity which David owned as his own did not originate with him, but had its origins in God Himself. We are made righteous by the blood of Christ (Romans 5:9), and are therefore able to stand forensically righteous before the bar of God! David could make his appeal to the LORD: examine me, prove me, search my innermost being (Psalm 26:2).
You see, although we do sin, ‘we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous’ (1 John 2:1). In Him we have the forgiveness of sins (Colossians 1:14), and newness of life (Romans 6:4). If our inclination and our heart’s desire is set towards Him (Psalm 26:3), then what the LORD sees is not our unrighteousness, but Jesus’ righteousness; not our unworthiness but Jesus’ worthiness; not our own unlovely and unlovable selves, but the ‘altogether lovely One’ who stands in our stead (Song of Solomon 5:16).
So, like in Psalm 1, David had made his choice: that he would not sit with the scornful, nor walk with the ungodly (Psalm 26:4-5; cf. Psalm 1:1). He would congregate with those who gathered in the house of the LORD, where God’s honour dwells (Psalm 26:8). He would wash his hands in innocence (Psalm 26:6); and would tell forth his testimony of the wondrous works of the LORD, with thanksgiving (Psalm 26:7).
So, in one sense, it’s not what we have done or not done that commends us to God so much as who we run with. This is evident from Psalm 1, Psalm 15, and onwards. Here in Psalm 26, David recognised the destiny of wicked men, and shuddered lest he might be counted amongst them (Psalm 26:9-10).
And seeing this, he determined that he should continue to walk in his integrity: pleading with the LORD to redeem him, and to be merciful to him (Psalm 26:11). David’s feet were standing in an even place: amid the congregation of the LORD. And there he would bless the LORD (Psalm 26:12).
C). NOT GOOD TO BE ALONE.
Genesis 2:18-24.
Man is not just another animal. Both physically, and morally, ‘Man was made upright’ (Ecclesiastes 7:29). After all, man was made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27). God ‘breathed into his nostrils the breath of life’ (Genesis 2:7). (‘Breath’, ‘wind’, and ‘spirit’ are all the same word in Hebrew.)
Man was first made a single male, but is immediately afterwards referred to as a plurality (Genesis 1:27), much as God refers to Himself as a plurality (Genesis 1:26). Man was created with an inbuilt need for company, community, and fellowship (Genesis 2:18).
Our passage takes us back to a time before the ‘all very good’ of Genesis 1:31. It speaks of a time when it was not (yet) all good. Created in the image of God, man craves such companionship as exists within the Trinity. Even those who are called to the single life need the security of community.
Before it is ‘all very good,’ (Genesis 1:31) one thing must be resolved: “It is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). The LORD would make a help meet for man, literally a “helper like opposite him.” Man needed a helper, one like himself but different, opposite, complementary, to stand upright beside him.
Man was given dominion over all other species upon earth (Genesis 1:26; Genesis 1:28; cf. Psalm 8:6-8). Man was blessed with intelligence, and given authority and ability to name the animals (Genesis 2:19-20). But he was not going to find his helper here.
Now, the fact that woman was to be created “for” man (Genesis 2:18) does not in any sense mean that she was to be subjugated and enslaved by him. Rather, the woman was created ‘because of the man’ (1 Corinthians 11:9, my translation), because of his lack, because of his need of a helper.
The word “helper” does not suggest domination, but partnership. The word “helper” does not suggest subservience, but a certain strength and reliability. Interestingly, the word “helper” is used in the Bible more often of God than of anyone else (e.g. Psalm 54:4; Hebrews 13:6).
It is interesting to see God’s method in making/creating woman. First, we see that it was entirely the work of God: the man was passive throughout. If this was a surgical procedure, then God was the surgeon. Man was asleep (Genesis 2:21).
Second, the woman was created out of the man’s side. God took the “rib” and “built” the woman. Then, as the Father of the bride, the LORD God presented her to the man (Genesis 2:22.
Adam’s reaction bordered on the ecstatic. Perhaps we may regard this as the first ever love song: “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23). It is at least poetic.
In modern idiom, Adam was acknowledging that here at last was his own flesh and blood. Here at last, was “Woman” to stand upright beside “Man.”
The man’s calling his new partner in life “Woman, because she was taken out of Man” was not an exercise of dominion as it had been in the naming of the animals, but an expression of joy at what God had accomplished!
The ordinance of marriage was instituted (Genesis 2:24). Marriage is of a man and a woman, each leaving their parents to cleave to one another, and to become “one flesh.” All was well in the Garden, at least for the time being.
Whatever their respective responsibilities in relation to the fall of mankind, as related in Genesis 3, we can be sure that God already had it covered. The provision was there in the judgment against the serpent, which included a promise pointing directly to Jesus, as THE seed of the woman (Genesis 3:15).
Death was introduced into the world as a consequence of sin; but in faith, Adam now ‘called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living’ (Genesis 3:20). Meanwhile, God in His grace provided skins (requiring the sacrifice of animals) to cover man’s sin (Genesis 3:21).
Finally, ‘In the fulness of time, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman… that we might receive the adoption as sons’ (Galatians 4:4-5).
D). A PRAYER OF PRAISE.
Psalm 8:1-9.
This is the only praise Psalm which is addressed entirely to the LORD. No call to worship like Psalm 95:1, ‘O come let us sing unto the LORD’. No asides to the congregation like Psalm 107:2, ‘Let the redeemed of the LORD say so’.
Psalm 8:1. The vocative brings us straight into the presence of the LORD (Yahweh): “O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!” That presence is maintained throughout the meditation, right down to the repetition of the same line in the final verse (Psalm 8:9). This brackets the whole Psalm with the awareness of the One to whom our address is made. Thus we may ‘boldly approach’ (cf. Hebrews 4:16) the LORD, the Sovereign, the maker of heaven and earth.
Although bold, the very use of the vocative suggests a sense of awe in this approach to the LORD. Yet it is not cold fear, but an approach to One who we can call “our” Adonai, “our” sovereign - ultimately “our” Father! The approach celebrates the excellence, the magnificence of God’s great name “in all the earth!” and reminds us how He has set His “glory”, his ‘weight’, as it were, “above the heavens.”
Psalm 8:2. Jesus quoted “out of the mouth of babes and sucklings” as a challenge to ‘the chief priests and scribes’, who wanted to silence the children from singing ‘Hosanna to the son of David’ (Matthew 21:15-16). The babbling of “babes and sucklings” is better than the bitterness of the unbelief of ‘religious’ people! The “babes and sucklings” represent the ‘babes in Christ’, new disciples (Luke 10:21; Mark 10:15; John 3:3), or maybe even all disciples (1 Corinthians 1:27).
Such babbling “stills the enemy and the avenger”. One faltering lisping prayer from faith-filled trusting lips has more value, more weight before God than all the litanies of unbelief. The Psalm’s “thou hast ordained strength” becomes ‘thou hast ordained praise’ in Matthew 21:16. I would suggest that that is where our ‘strength’ lies - in ‘praise’!
Psalm 8:3. The glory of the LORD has already been recognised as “above the heavens” (Psalm 8:1). Now we turn to the heavens themselves, the visible heavens.
I learned this Psalm by heart, in the Scottish metrical version, under the tutelage of a Free Church Minister, the Chaplain of my High School days. This verse in particular remained with me even in my unbelieving years in my late teens and early twenties. It seemed only apt since the Apollo missions were just getting under way.
“When I look up unto the heavens,
which thine own fingers framed,
Unto the moon, and to the stars,
which were by thee ordained…”
Psalm 8:4-6. At the centre of the Psalm is a meditation on the question, “What is man?” Man in his first estate, in paradise, was given a certain dignity and authority within God’s creation. That dignity and authority, though marred by sin, is not entirely eradicated.
Psalm 8:4. “Man” is a singular noun, although it might indicate a gender inclusive collective (cf. Genesis 1:27). What can “man” be, that the LORD should be “mindful of him?”
“Son of man” - literally “ben Adam” - is also singular, but it cannot refer to the man Adam in his first estate, nor the man Adam after the fall, since the man Adam was no man’s son! We must keep the translation “son of man” in the singular to see what is ultimately meant: not ‘mere mortals’, as some would have it, but Jesus Christ, whose preferred name when referring to Himself was, ‘the Son of man’!
Psalm 8:5-6. Well, everything about “man” is significant because of what God has done: “thou hast made him…”, and “hast crowned him”. “Thou made him to have dominion…; thou hast put all under his feet.”
Psalm 8:5. The New Jewish Publication Society of America translates this verse, ‘For thou hast made him a little less than divine’. The Hebrew word is doubtless, “Elohim” which reads as God, or gods, or even ‘heavenly beings’. ‘Angels’ is the preferred translation of Psalm 8:5 in the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. This appears to be the translation quoted in the Greek New Testament (Hebrews 2:7; and Hebrews 2:9).
Psalm 8:6. There is only one way that mankind has “all things under his feet”, and that is mankind in Christ, mankind in the risen Lord Jesus, ‘the church’ (Ephesians 1:20-22). This is where ‘church’ is: ‘sitting together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus’ (Ephesians 2:6). It can be said of Christ, as it can be said of man, even redeemed man, ‘But we see not yet all things put under him’ (Hebrews 2:8). ‘For He (Jesus) must reign, till He hath put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death’ (1 Corinthians 15:25-26).
Psalm 8:7-8 lists the earthly limits of man’s original stewardship. Perhaps we should learn to look after life here before we spend our fortunes trying to find life elsewhere in this magnificent universe?
Psalm 8:9. Which brings us back full circle to the repetition of the psalmist’s adoration: “O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!”
E). (I).THE FINAL REVELATION.
Hebrews 1:1-4.
The poetry of this short passage is beautiful, and the theology is exquisite. The high Christology of these words and phrases resonates with the majesty and dignity of our Saviour. We are left in no doubt that “the Son” is the very voice of God to mankind.
One of the early church fathers suggested that ‘God alone knows who wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews.’ More importantly, the writer to the Hebrews himself leads us to understand that all Scripture, Old Testament and New, has its origin in God. “At several distinct times, and in various manners, God spoke to the fathers through the prophets: but in these last days He has spoken to us through His Son” (Hebrews 1:1-2).
In the Old Testament, God spoke through dreams and visions, through type and prophecy, and through the sacrifices and ceremonies of a complex cultic ritual. With some, like Abraham and Moses, He spoke almost ‘face to face’ - but the fathers were walking in the shadow of the promise, and not in the fullness that we now enjoy. When Jesus came, it was not to abolish all that had gone before, but to bring it to fulfilment (Matthew 5:17).
1. We see the Son as “the heir of all things” (Hebrews 1:2). He shares this inheritance with his people (cf. Romans 8:17).
He is also the One by whom the worlds were made (cf. John 1:3).
We read elsewhere that He is the image of the invisible God - “by whom and for whom all things were created” (Colossians 1:15-16). Thus He is both the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
2. The Son, we are told, is the effulgence of God’s glory (Hebrews 1:3). His is the brightness emanating from the Godhead (John 1:14). When we see Jesus, we see the very reflection of God Himself (John 10:30).
He is also the exact expression of God’s being (Hebrews 1:3). This is a perfect imprint, answering to the Father with whom He was “face to face” before Creation (John 1:1). If we would see God, we must look to Jesus, in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Colossians 2:9).
3. The Son also “upholds all things by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1:3). Not only is He before all things, but by Him all things consist (Colossians 1:17). The path of the planets answers to Him, as does the falling of the tiniest particle.
4. The Son is the perfect sacrifice for sins, and has sat down at the right hand of God (Hebrews 1:3). The blood of bulls and of goats would not suffice, but Jesus “by Himself” made the once and for all and forever sacrifice for the sins of the world (Hebrews 10:4-7).
The Old Testament priests stood ministering, making the same offerings again and again, day after day, Sabbath after Sabbath, new moon after new moon, year after year. They did not dare sit down, because their work was never done.
The work was finally done when Jesus cried upon the Cross, “It is finished” (John 19:30). That was the end of all sacrifice. He gave up the ghost, was buried, rose again, and ascended into heaven and “sat down” - His work completed - at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
5. Finally, we see that the Son is superior to the angels, because He has inherited a better name than theirs (Hebrews 1:4). The rest of our chapter establishes this superiority by quotations from the Old Testament.
Truly, His is the name which is above every other name (Philippians 2:9). The angels of God worship Him (Hebrews 1:6). How much more should we, who are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 5:9)?
(II). JESUS BORN TO DIE.
Hebrews 2:5-12.
The writer to the Hebrew Christians has been demonstrating, from Scripture, Jesus’ superiority to the angels. Of the angels he says, ‘Are they not all ministering spirits being sent forth for service on behalf of those being about to inherit salvation?’ (Hebrews 1:14). The writer picks up the thread here in Hebrews 2:5 - “For not to angels did He subject the habitable world-which-is-to-come, of which we speak.”
Having established this superiority, the emphasis shifts from Jesus as the eternal Son to Jesus as the incarnate Son; from Jesus as Son of God to Jesus as “THE Son of man” (Hebrews 2:6; cf. Psalm 8:4).
The New Jewish Publication Society of America translates Psalm 8:5, ‘For thou hast made him a little less than divine’. The Hebrew word is doubtless, ‘Elohim’ which reads as God, or gods, or even ‘heavenly beings’. “Angels” is the preferred translation of Psalm 8:5 in the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. This appears to be the translation quoted in the Greek New Testament (Hebrews 2:7; and Hebrews 2:9).
Jesus is the ultimate “Son of man” (Hebrews 2:6), and in the incarnation He is “made a little lower than” He had been. Or, in an alternative rendering of the phrase, “is for a little (while) made lower” (Hebrews 2:7; Hebrews 2:9). Either reading is consistent with the New Testament view of the incarnation (cf. Philippians 2:6-7).
In Christ, man’s dignity and authority is renewed. He is crowned; He is set over the works of God’s hands; all things are put in subjection under His feet - but we don’t see it yet (Hebrews 2:7-8).
“But we see Jesus, on account of THE suffering of THE death, crowned with glory and honour, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone” (Hebrews 2:9). And Jesus did not just “taste” the cup of His suffering (Matthew 26:39) - He drank it down to the very dregs. This is the ultimate substitutionary sacrifice for the sins of mankind.
The Father deemed it an appropriate method, and not out of character with Himself, to secure our salvation by sending His Son into this world to be one with us (Hebrews 2:10-11). This was determined from all eternity and was not some kind of afterthought (John 3:16). Jesus came willingly, knowing what must be done (Hebrews 10:5-7).
The pioneer of our salvation was “made perfect through suffering” (Hebrews 2:10). This does not imply that Jesus was ever anything other than perfectly moral: but it suggests a level of experience which we all go through (sufferings) being experienced voluntarily by the divine Son. Given the vicarious nature of His sufferings, He thereby “brings many sons into glory” (Hebrews 2:10).
Jesus sanctifies us - sets us apart for God - by becoming one with us and making us one with Him (Hebrews 2:11). ‘The Word became flesh and dwelt among us’ (John 1:14). He drew us into the family of God, counting us as brethren (Hebrews 2:11-12).
The quotation of Psalm 22:22 in Hebrews 2:12 reminds us, from its context, that we are drawn into the family of God only through the furnace of Jesus’ own sufferings.
Jesus became one with His own people. ‘He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But to all the people who received Him, He gave the right (the power, the authority) to be sons of God: to everyone who trusts in His Name’ (John 1:11-12).
F). (I). A NAUGHTY QUESTION.
Mark 10:2-12.
The Pharisees’ question about divorce was worse than mischievous in that it, like many of their questions addressed to Jesus, was asked with the intention of “tempting” Jesus into saying something that would cause offence (MARK 10:2).
I assert this on two counts:
(i). Mark locates Jesus at this time in Herod Antipas’s jurisdiction (cf. Mark 10:1). This is the same Herod who had divorced his own wife in order to take his brother’s wife, and who had arrested and beheaded John the Baptist for speaking out against them (cf. Mark 6:17-29). When this particular king Herod heard about Jesus, he declared that this was John the Baptist, risen from the dead (cf. Mark 6:14-16)!
(ii). There was a controversy within Judaism about the right interpretation and application of Deuteronomy 24:1. The school of Shammai insisted that a man may not put away his wife unless he finds unchastity in her, whilst the school of Hillel wanted to trivialise the expression ‘she find no favour in his eyes’ to include a failure in culinary skills! Hence the wording of the question in the parallel passage (cf. Matthew 19:3) is, ‘Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife FOR EVERY CAUSE?’
Jesus first met them on their own ground: “What did Moses command you” (MARK 10:3).
They boiled down the passage in dispute (cf. Deuteronomy 24:1-4) to just one thing: “Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away” (MARK 10:4).
Jesus pointed out that this precept was written on account of “the hardness of your heart!” (MARK 10:5).
Then Jesus masterfully changed the direction of the conversation to discuss marriage rather than divorce:
(i). Jesus got right down to basics: “But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female” (MARK 10:6; cf. Genesis 1:27), and
(ii). “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; and they two shall be one flesh” (MARK 10:7-8; cf. Genesis 2:24).
(iii). “What therefore God has joined together let not man put asunder” (MARK 10:9).
When Jesus and His disciples returned to the house, they asked Him privately about this matter of divorce (MARK 10:10).
Jesus’ answer was twofold:
(i). “Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her” (MARK 10:11).
In the parallel passage (cf. Matthew 19:9a), Jesus said, ‘Whosoever shall put away his wife, EXCEPT IT BE FOR FORNICATION, and shall marry another, committeth adultery.’
Similarly, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught, ‘That whosever shall put away his wife, SAVING FOR THE CAUSE OF FORNICATION, causes her to commit adultery’ (cf. Matthew 5:32a).
(ii). Jesus continued, “And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery” (MARK 10:12). In Roman law, if not in Jewish law, women could initiate legal proceedings and file for divorce.
Which brings us right back to where we started: not only did king Herod Antipas divorce his wife, Aretus, in order to marry Herodias; but Herodias divorced her husband, Herod Antipas’s brother, in order to marry Herod Antipas!
FOOTNOTE to Mark 10:2-12.
Jesus has told us that Moses wrote Deuteronomy 24:1-4 because of “the hardness of our hearts” (MARK 10:5). Divorce will, and does take place: but the burden of that passage is that a former husband may not remarry his ex-wife after she has been married to another (cf. Deuteronomy 24:4).
(II). THE TRUST OF A LITTLE CHILD.
Mark 10:13-16.
In one of our previous readings, Jesus set a little child in the midst of His disciples (Mark 9:36). Now such children, in the ancient world, had no rights: yet Jesus was happy to scoop such a one up into His holy arms and teach. We noticed then that a little child represents the least of the least; yet has a special place in the heart of Jesus: and to receive ‘one such’, as He taught, is to receive Jesus Himself; and to receive Jesus is to receive God Himself (Mark 9:37).
Yet, in today’s passage, we have the same disciples forbidding those who would bring little children to Jesus (Mark 10:13)! Sometimes people do have this strange notion that ‘Church’ is not for children. However, the Scriptures NEVER exclude children: indeed, the contrary is true.
When Israel left Egypt, they took their children with them (cf. Exodus 10:9). When they gathered for worship, it was not an ‘adults only’ preserve, but an opportunity for ALL to learn (cf. Deuteronomy 31:12-13). After all, says Peter, ‘the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call’ (Acts 2:39).
There are two strands in today’s short lesson, both arising out of Jesus’ indignant retort to His disciples.
1. The first strand is, that “the kingdom of God belongs to such as these” (Mark 10:14).
Paul has kind things to say about the Christian upbringing of Timothy (2 Timothy 3:15); and notes the positive influence of a mother’s and a grandmother’s faith upon Timothy’s own ‘sincere faith’ (2 Timothy 1:5). Asaph speaks of sharing his words (the Word!) with children, ‘showing to the generation to come’ the wonderful works of the LORD (Psalm 78:4). Isaiah sees Jesus, tending His flock as a shepherd: ‘He will gather the lambs in His arms; He will carry them in His bosom, and gently lead those that are with young’ (Isaiah 40:11).
As we saw before, Jesus seems to identify ‘these little ones who believe’ (Matthew 18:6) with His disciples (Matthew 10:40-42). And things done/ not done ‘unto one of the LEAST of these My brethren’ shall be judged accordingly (Matthew 25:40; Matthew 25:45-46). The child is the model for Christian greatness: ‘for he that is least among you all, the same shall be great’ (Luke 9:48).
2. The second strand is, that if we do not receive the kingdom of God “like as” a little child we will “in no way” enter it (Mark 10:15)!
Jesus said to Nicodemus, ‘Unless any man will be born again, he will never see God’s kingdom’ (John 3:3). Peter suggests that ‘like new born infants’ we ‘long for the sincere milk of the word’, that by it we ‘may grow’ (1 Peter 2:2).
The child is the very personification of the disciple. The child is held as of little account - but is highly valued by our Lord. The child is vulnerable, but at the same time totally trusting.
The key word in Mark 10:15 is “receive”. The kingdom of God is received by otherwise powerless persons. People who are ready and eager to be received up into the arms of Jesus.
And so, we see - despite all the misgivings of the disciples, and some church folk even now - Jesus takes the young children up in His holy arms, puts His hands on them, and blesses them (Mark 10:16). And all their parents had hoped for them was but a ‘touch’ from Him (Mark 10:13)!
In Psalm 34:11, David addresses his hearers as “children” - like disciples receiving instruction at the feet of their Rabbi. The Scottish metrical version reads:
‘O children hither do ye come,
And unto me give ear;
I will you teach to understand
how ye the Lord should fear.’
So, “Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not,” says Jesus; “for of such is the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:14).
