Mark 10:1

Our Lord Jesus was an itinerant Preacher, did not continue long in a place, for the whole land of Canaan was his parish, or diocese, and therefore he would visit every part of it, and give instructions to those in the remotest corners of it. Here we have him in the coasts of Judea, by the further side of Jordan eastward, as we found him, not long since, in the utmost borders westward, near Tyre and Sidon. Thus was his circuit like that of the sun, from whose light and heat nothing is hid. Now here we have him,

I. Resorted to by the people, Mar 10:1. Wherever he was, they flocked after him in crowds; they came to him again, as they had done when he had formerly been in these parts, and, as he was wont, he taught them again. Note, Preaching was Christ's constant practice; it was what he was used to, and, wherever he came, he did as he was wont. In Matthew it is said, He healed them; here it is said, He taught them: his cures were to confirm his doctrine, and to recommend it, and his doctrine was to explain his cures, and illustrate them. He taught them again. Note, Even those whom Christ hath taught, have need to be taught again. Such is the fulness of the Christian doctrine, that there is still more to be learned; and such our forgetfulness, that we need to be reminded of what we do know.

II. We have him disputed with by the Pharisees, who envied the progress of his spiritual arms, and did all they could to obstruct and oppose it; to divert him, to perplex him, and to prejudice the people against him.

Here is, 1. A question they started concerning divorce (Mar 10:2); Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? This was a good question, if it had been well put, and with a humble desire to know the mind of God in this matter; but they proposed it, tempting him, seeking an occasion against him, and an opportunity to expose him, which side soever he should take of the question. Ministers must stand upon their guard, lest, under pretence of being advised with, they be ensnared.

2. Christ's reply to them with a question (Mar 10:3); What did Moses command you? This he asked them, to testify his respect to the law of Moses, and to show that he came not to destroy it; and to engage them to a universal impartial respect for Moses's writings and to compare one part of them with another.

3. The fair account they gave of what they found in the law of Moses, expressly concerning divorce, Mar 10:4. Christ asked, What did Moses command you? They own that Moses only suffered, or permitted, a man to write his wife a bill of divorce, and to put her away, Deu 24:1. "If you will do it, you must do it in writing, delivered into her own hand, and so put her away, and never return to her again."

4. The answer that Christ gave to their question, in which he abides by the doctrine he had formerly laid down in this case (Mat 5:32), That whosoever puts away his wife, except for fornication, causeth her to commit adultery. And to clear this he here shows,

(1.) That the reason why Moses, in his law, permitted divorce, was such, as that they ought not to make use of that permission; for it was only for the hardness of their hearts (Mar 10:5), lest, if they were not permitted to divorce their wives, they should murder them; so that none must put away their wives but such as are willing to own that their hearts were so hard as to need this permission.

(2.) That the account which Moses, in this history, gives of the institution of marriage, affords such a reason against divorce, as amounts to a prohibition of it. So that if the question be, What did Moses command? (Mar 10:3), it must be answered, "Though by a temporary proviso he allowed divorce to the Jews, yet by an eternal reason he forbade it to all the children of Adam and Eve, and that is it which we must abide by."

Moses tells us, [1.] That God made man male and female, one male, and one female; so that Adam could not put away his wife and take another, for there was no other to take, which was an intimation to all his sons, that they must not. [2.] When this male and this female were, by the ordinance of God, joined together in holy marriage, the law was, That a man must leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife (Mar 10:7); which intimates not only the nearness of the relation, but the perpetuity of it; he shall so cleave to his wife as not to be separated from her. [3.] The result of the relation is, That, though they are two, yet they are one, they are one flesh, Mar 10:8. The union between them is the most intimate that can be, and, as Dr. Hammond expresses it, a sacred thing that must not be violated. [4.] God himself was joined them together; he has not only, as Creator, fitted them to be comforts and helps meet for each other, but he has, in wisdom and goodness, appointed them who are thus joined together, to live together in love till death parts them. Marriage is not an invention of men, but a divine institution, and therefore is to be religiously observed, and the more, because it is a figure of the mystical inseparable union between Christ and his church.

Now from all this he infers, that men ought not to put their wives asunder from them, whom God has put so near them. The bond which God himself has tied, is not to be lightly untied. They who are divorcing their wives for every offence, would do well to consider what would become of them, if God should in like manner deal with them. See Isa 50:1; Jer 3:1.

5. Christ's discourse with his disciples, in private, about this matter, Mar 10:10-12. It was an advantage to them, that they had opportunity of personal converse with Christ, not only about gospel mysteries, but about moral duties, for further satisfaction. No more is here related of this private conference, that the law Christ laid down in this case - That it is adultery for a man to put away his wife, and marry another; it is adultery against the wife he puts away, it is a wrong to her, a breach of his contract with her, Mar 10:11. He adds, If a woman shall put away her husband, that is, elope from him, leave him by consent, and be married to another, she commits adultery (Mar 10:12), and it will be no excuse at all for her to say that it was with the consent of her husband. Wisdom and grace, holiness and love, reigning in the heart, will make those commands easy which to the carnal mind may be as a heavy yoke.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

X.

(1) And he arose from thence.—We may note, as some help to a right study of the Gospel narrative, that the best harmonists place Mat_18:15-35, Luk_10:1 to Luk_17:10 (with the exception of Mar_15:3-7), and Joh_7:1 to Joh_11:54, between the 9th and 10th chapters of this Gospel. The “farther side of Jordan” implies what is known as the Peræan ministry of our Lord, and which is related only by St. Luke.

Resort unto him.—Literally, come together, or journey together.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ch. Mar_10:1-12. Marriage Legislation of the Pharisees

1. And] Between the events just recorded and those of which the Evangelist now proceeds to treat, many others had occurred, which he has passed over. The most important of these were

(α) The visit of our Lord to Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles (Joh_7:8-10), which was marked by

(a) The rebuke of the “Sons of Thunder” at the churlish conduct of the inhabitants of a Samaritan village on their way to the Holy City (Luk_9:51-56);

(b) Solemn discourses during the Feast, and an attempt of the Sanhedrim to apprehend Him (Joh_7:11-51; Joh_8:12-59);

(c) The opening of the eyes of one born blind (Joh_9:1-41), the revelation of Himself as the Good Shepherd (Joh_10:1-18);

(β) Ministrations in Judæa and Mission of the Seventy (Luk_10:1 to Luk_13:17.);

(γ) Visit to Jerusalem at the Feast of Dedication (Joh_10:22-39);

(δ) Tour in Peræa (Luk_13:22 to Luk_17:10);

(ε) The raising of Lazarus (Joh_11:1-46);

(ζ) Resolve of the Sanhedrim to put Him to death, and His retirement to Ephraim (Joh_11:47-54).

he arose] The place, whither He now retired, has been identified with Ophrah, and was situated in the wide desert country north-east of Jerusalem, not far from Bethel, and on the confines of Samaria. Caspari would identify it with a place now called El-Faria, or El-Farah, about 2 hours N. E. of Nablous. Chron. and Geog. Introd. p. 185. Here in quiet and seclusion He remained till the approach of the last Passover, and then commenced a farewell journey along the border-line of Samaria and Galilee (Luk_17:11) and so by the further side of Jordan towards Judæa (Mar_10:1).

he taught them again] Portions of His teaching are recorded by St Luke, and include the Parables of (a) the Unjust Judge, and (b) the Pharisee and the Publican (Luk_18:1-14). On the frontier of the region now traversed occurred in all probability the Healing of the ten lepers (Luk_17:12-19).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mar_10:1

He taught them again.

He taught them again

How thick and close does this Heavenly Sower scatter His seed! Every line is a new lesson, and every lessen a rule of perfection. Oh, the magnificent bounty of our God! He gives not barely the measure we give others; but pressed down, and shaken together, and running over into our bosoms. Why are we then so slow and dull to learn these Divine instructions? Why so remiss to practise them? Are they not sweet and excellent in themselves? Are they not infinitely profitable to us? Oh, make us greedy to learn what Thy love makes Thee so eager to teach! (W. Austin.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mar 10:1-12. He cometh into the coasts of Judea, &c. — This paragraph is explained at large in the notes on Mat 19:1-11. From the beginning of the creation — Therefore Moses, in the first chapter of Genesis, gives us an account of things from the beginning of the creation of this lower world. Does it not clearly follow from hence, that there was no creation here below, previous to that which Moses describes? Whosoever shall put away his wife, &c. — Though this discourse of Christ be originally about divorce, yet all polygamy is also condemned by it, as the reader may see in the note on Mat 19:4-6. And if a woman shall put away her husband, &c. — “This practice of divorcing the husband, unwarranted by the law, had been (as Josephus informs us) introduced by Salome, sister of Herod the Great, who sent a bill of divorce to her husband Costobarus; which bad example was afterward followed by Herodias and others. By law, it was the husband’s prerogative to dissolve the marriage. The wife could do nothing by herself. When he thought fit to dissolve it, her consent was not necessary. The bill of divorce which she received was to serve as evidence for her, that she had not deserted her husband, but was dismissed by him, and consequently free.” — Campbell.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES

Mar_10:1. He arose from thence.—Between the events just recorded and those of which the Evangelist now proceeds to treat many others had occurred, which he passes over. The most important of these were:

1. The visit of Christ to Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles (Joh_7:8-10), which was marked by—

(1) The rebuke to the “Sons of Thunder” at the churlish conduct of the inhabitants of a Samaritan village on their way to the Holy City (Luk_9:51-56);

(2) Solemn discourses during the feast, and an attempt of the Sanhedrin to apprehend Him (Joh_7:11-52; Joh_8:12-59);

(3) The opening of the eyes of one born blind (Joh_9:1-41), the revelation of Himself as the Good Shepherd (Joh_10:1-18).

2. Ministrations in Judea and mission of the seventy (Luk_10:13-17).

3. Visit to Jerusalem at the Feast of Dedication (Joh_10:22-39).

4. Tour in Peræa (Luk_13:22 to Luk_17:10).

5. The raising of Lazarus (Joh_11:1-46).

6. Resolve of the Sanhedrin to put Him to death, and His retirement to Ephraim (Joh_11:47-54). The coasts of Judea.—The place whither He now retired has been identified with Ophrah, and was situated in the wide desert country north-east of Jerusalem, not far from Bethel, and on the confines of Samaria. Caspari would identify it with a place now called El-Faria, or El-Farrah, about two hours north-east of Nablous.—G. F. Maclear, D.D.

Mar_10:5. For the hardness.—To meet—in the way of concession or compromise.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Mar_10:1-12

(PARALLEL: Mat_19:1-12.)

Lessons for preachers.—This passage, which will hardly ever be required for public use, suggests some points which ought not to be neglected by the preacher.

I. Jesus Christ taught.—Ignorance was never approved by the Saviour. He saved through light, never through darkness. He conducted specific intellectual processes as well as processes distinctively moral. It was His delight to simplify truth.

II. Jesus Christ taught the people.—Not a particular class, but the people as a whole. His teaching was as impartial as the sunshine. This is the glory of Christian truth. It challenges all hearts in all ages and in all lands. It is a heavenly rain, not a local fountain.

III. Jesus Christ honoured the holy teachers who had gone before Him (Mar_10:3).—Truth is one. We find new phases, new applications, and the like; but truth is one, because God is one. This is our security amid all changes of ministers and teachers. In so far as the men have been true to God each can say, “What did my predecessor tell you?”

IV. Jesus Christ honoured the tenderest relations of the present life (Mar_10:7-9).—He did not ignore the present because of the future. He treated no vow with levity. He taught the whole law—the law of home, the law of society, the law of the Church: “There is one Lawgiver.”—J. Parker, D.D.

Marriage.—

1. That society is necessary to the happiness of human nature, that the gloom of solitude and the stillness of retirement, however they may flatter at a distance with pleasing views of independence and serenity, neither extinguish the passions nor enlighten the understanding, that discontent will intrude upon privacy and temptations follow us to the desert, every one may be easily convinced, either by his own experience or that of others.

2. It is a proof of the regard of God for the happiness of mankind that the means by which it must be attained are obvious and evident; that we are not left to discover them by difficult speculations, intricate disquisitions, or long experience, but are led to them equally by our passions and our reason, in prosperity and distress.

3. As a general relation to the rest of the species is not sufficient to procure gratifications for the private desires of particular persons, as closer ties of union are necessary to promote the separate interests of individuals, the great society of the world is divided into different communities, which are again subdivided into smaller bodies and more contracted associations, which pursue, or ought to pursue, a particular interest, in subordination to the public good, and consistently with the general happiness of mankind.

4. The lowest subdivision of society is that by which it is broken into private families; nor do any duties demand more to be explained and enforced than those which this relation produces, because none is more universally obligatory, and perhaps very few are more frequently neglected.

5. That marriage itself, an institution designed only for the promotion of happiness, and for the relief of the disappointments, anxieties, and distresses, to which we are subject in our present state, does not always produce the effects for which it was appointed, that it sometimes condenses the gloom which it was intended to dispel, and increases the weight which was expected to be made lighter by it, must, however unwillingly, be yet acknowledged.

6. It is to be considered to what causes effects so unexpected and unpleasing, so contrary to the end of the institution, and so unlikely to arise from it, are to be attributed; it is necessary to inquire whether those that are thus unhappy are to impute their misery to any other cause than their own folly, and to the neglect of those duties which prudence and religion equally require.

I. The nature and end of marriage.—The vow of marriage, which the wisdom of most civilised nations has enjoined, and which the rules of the Christian Church enjoin, may be properly considered as a vow of perpetual and indissoluble friendship—friendship which no change of fortune nor any alteration of external circumstances can be allowed to interrupt or weaken. After the commencement of this state there remain no longer any separate interests; the two individuals become united, and are therefore to enjoy the same felicity and suffer the same misfortunes—to have the same friends and the same enemies, the same success and the same disappointments.

1. It is remarked that “friendship amongst equals is the most lasting,” and perhaps there are few causes to which more unhappy marriages are to be ascribed than a disproportion between the original condition of the two persons. Difference of condition makes difference of education, and difference of education produces differences of habits, sentiments, and inclinations.

2. Strict friendship is “to have the same desires and the same aversions.” Whoever is to choose a friend is to consider first the resemblance or the dissimilitude of tempers. How necessary this caution is to be urged as preparatory to marriage the misery of those who neglect it sufficiently evinces. To enumerate all the varieties of disposition to which it may on this occasion be convenient to attend would be a tedious task; but it is at least proper to enforce one precept on this head—a precept which was never yet broken without fatal consequences: “Let the religion of the man and woman be the same.”

3. “Friends,” says the proverbial observation, “have everything in common.’ This is likewise implied in the marriage covenant. Matrimony admits of no separate possessions, no incommunicable interests.

4. There is yet another precept equally relating to friendship and to marriage—a precept which in either case can never be too strongly inculcated or too scrupulously observed: “Contract friendship only with the good.” Virtue is the first quality to be considered in the choice of a friend, and yet more in a fixed and irrevocable choice. This maxim surely requires no comment nor any vindication; it is equally clear and certain, obvious to the superficial, and incontestable by the most accurate examiner. To dwell upon it is therefore superfluous; for though often neglected, it never was denied.

II. By what means the end of marriage is to be attained.—As it appears by examining the natural system of the universe that the greatest and smallest bodies are invested with the same properties and moved by the same laws, so a survey of the moral world will inform us that greater or less societies are to be made happy by the same means, and that, however relations may be varied or circumstances changed, virtue, and virtue alone, is the parent of felicity. If passion be suffered to prevail over right, and the duties of our state be broken through or neglected for the sake of gratifying our anger, our pride, or our revenge, the union of hearts will quickly be dissolved, and kindness will give way to resentment and aversion.

1. The duties by the practice of which a married life is to be made happy are the same with those of friendship, but exalted to higher perfection. Love must be more ardent, and confidence without limits. It is therefore necessary on each part to deserve that confidence by the most unshaken fidelity, and to preserve their love unextinguished by continual acts of tenderness, not only to detest all real but seeming offences, and to avoid suspicion and guilt with almost equal solicitude.

2. But since the frailty of our nature is such that we cannot hope from each other an unvaried rectitude of conduct or an uninterrupted course of wisdom or virtue, as folly will sometimes intrude upon an unguarded hour, and temptations by frequent attacks will sometimes prevail, one of the chief acts of love is readily to forgive errors and overlook defects. Neglect is to be reclaimed by kindness, and perverseness softened by complaisance.

3. Marriage, however in general it resembles friendship, differs from it in this: that all its duties are not reciprocal. Friends are equal in every respect, but the relation of marriage produces authority on one side and exacts obedience on the other. But though obedience may be justly required, servility is not to be exacted; and though it may be lawful to exert authority, it must be remembered that to govern and to tyrannise are very different, and that oppression will naturally provoke rebellion.

4. The great rule both of authority and obedience is the law of God—a law which is not to be broken for the promotion of any ends or in compliance with any commands, and which indeed never can be violated without destroying that confidence which is the great source of mutual happiness: for how can that person be trusted whom no principle obliges to fidelity?—S. Johnson, LL.D.

OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES

Mar_10:1. A true pastor is never weary of instructing his people.—He is always ready to communicate himself, because the treasure of his heart is always full of the truths of salvation. His known charity causes people to seek and apply themselves to him, and this search and concourse invite and solicit his charity. Kindle, O Lord, this double zeal, both in the pastors and in the sheep!—P. Quesnel.

Mar_10:4. A loose casuist generally wants either knowledge or sincerity.—This conduct of the Pharisees is but too frequently imitated, who, being called upon to produce the primitive law published by Moses, “He shall cleave to his wife,” suppress it, to insist upon a doctrine which was only tolerated, and to fix upon a dispensation of this law which had been extorted, as it were, by force. Men often substitute, in the room of the holy law of the gospel, a toleration of some things which corruption of manners has introduced contrary to the gospel itself.—Ibid.

Mar_10:5-9. The doctrine of Christ concerning marriage.—

1.Its binding character as instituted by God.

2. Its decay in the progress of history.

3. Its prepared restoration under the law.

4. Its transformation by the gospel.—J. P. Lange, D.D.

Mar_10:5. God does by no means authorise everything which He tolerates; and He frequently permits a less evil that a greater may be avoided. It is absolutely necessary to distinguish in the Scripture that which God commands, that which He counsels, that which He expressly permits, and that which, out of His infinite patience, He only tolerates or suffers.—P. Quesnel.

Mar_10:7-8. Marriage may be regarded in three lights.

1. It is a natural contract, designed for “the propagation and perpetuation” of the human race.

2. It is a civil contract, entered into according to the laws of the state, for the preservation of peace and prosperity in the kingdom.

3. It is a sacred contract, raised by the new law of Christ into something higher than the natural sphere—a rite through which grace is conferred upon two human beings for the fulfilment of the duties of the married state, an image of the union between Christ and His Church.

Mar_10:7. Husband and wife complete and strengthen each other. A husband’s love will not deaden but develop what is strong and individual in a wife’s character; and a wife’s love will give edge to her husband’s individuality and heighten the worth of his work. This is not bondage, unless it be bondage for a child to be moulded by a mother’s love, or for a friend to be influenced by the nobler character of his friend. That is the true freedom when what is best in me is free to grow because it is surrounded by the conditions of growth. And that is the freedom of marriage where two souls are joined in a life-union by love and reverence, and help each other to be their true selves, enhance each other’s moral influence, and heighten each other’s joys.—D. M. Ross.

Mar_10:9. Marriage in the time of Christ.—If we bear in mind that great laxity existed with regard to marriage even amongst the Jews in the time of our Lord, we shall see that His purpose was to bring marriage back to its original foundation, and so “give perpetual security to His followers for the sanctity of home.” There were two schools amongst the Jews, those of Hillel and Shammai; the former allowed divorce for slight reasons, the latter only for grave offences. Both, though in very different degrees, fell short of the doctrine of the permanency which, according to Divine appointment, belonged to the marriage bond. When the Pharisees twitted Christ with the Mosaic “command to give a writing of divorcement,” He reminded them that it was not a “a command,” but a matter of sufferance, because the standard of their fathers was so low; and that it was not so from the beginning, but that He came to restore the institution of marriage to its original condition, and to add to it new grace.

The marriage bond.—Not only our religious but our social and national well-being demands the permanency of the marriage bond. Without it, marriage degenerates into a form of selfish and sensual gratification; with it, it is a state of complete and unreserved mutual self-surrender. Without it, home rests upon the sands; with it, it is founded on a rock. If marriages and homes are to be ruled by mere selfishness, and not by pure love, we know from history that national greatness is too closely bound up with home life to continue when domestic happiness is gone.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 10

Mar_10:1. “As He was wont.”—Wondrously expressive words. Like a tiny straw, they shew the steady movement of a mighty current. Constancy is there, never-failing and inseparably allied to the good. Christ’s whole being was but one great undivided habit of holiness. We have to “grow up unto Him in all things.” In this upward growth we are forming habits which make for righteousness and holiness with increasing certainty. They have a mutual influence. Habits make acts surer. Acts confirm habit. Our Christlikeness is not to be measured by the goodness of a particular act; neither by that of a series fitfully performed. It is rather to be gauged by such a steady trend of spirit and deed toward all goodness as will lead men abidingly to expect and confidently to affirm that we are acting thus and so wherever we are. A young man was leaving for a distant part of the country. A friend in bidding him good-bye remarked, “We need not tell you to work for God wherever your lot may be. We know you will.” A mother was being told of a certain notable example of resistance to temptation on the part of a young officer in the army. While expressing her admiration thereat, she was informed that he who thus nobly lived was her boy. Amid grateful tears she exclaimed, “Is that my boy? Is that my Will? It’s just like him. I knew he would do so—as he was wont.”

Mar_10:8. “They twain shall he one flesh.”—The parting of man and wife in the sight of God is like the rending of limb from limb. Imagine some dungeon: the smoking torch gives a fitful flame; the air is foul; the prisoner is brought. Tie his feet and hands; stretch him on the rack. Turn your wheels, ye unfeeling executioners, until the great beads stand on his forehead, until the eyeballs seem ready to start from their sockets; turn them; what matter though he yell and scream; turn them; turn them till the cracking bones and quivering sinews can hold no longer! Turn them till limb from limb the poor, quivering, feeling mass settles still in death. Horrible! Yet it is only rending “one flesh.” That ghastly, terrible, soul-revolting tragedy is a parable. It, in the physical world, is like divorce in the spiritual. Some sickening accident, when groans and shrieks and cries tell of anguish, shadows forth for us what divorce is like in God’s sight. God’s Word thus likens divorce and murder—murder cruel and barbarous.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

PART THIRD

The Lord’s Conflicts and Victories in Peræa. Transition from the Old Church to the New. The Disciples gathered together for the Passion

________

FIRST SECTION

CARNAL MARRIAGE LEGISLATION OF THE PHARISEES, AND THE SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE LEGISLATION OF THE LORD

Mar_10:1-12

(Parallel: Mat_19:1-12.)

1And he arose from thence, and cometh into the coasts of Judea, by [through]1 the farther side of Jordan: and the people resort unto him again; and, as he was wont, he taught them again. 2And the Pharisees came to him,2 and asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? tempting him. 3And he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you? 4And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away. 5And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept:3 6But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. 7For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; 8And they twain shall be one flesh:4 so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. 9What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. 10And in the house his disciples asked him again of the same matter. 11And he saith unto them,5 Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. 12And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

See the notes on the parallel in Matthew , 19—Christ’s abode in Peræa embraces three occurrences: the treatment of the subject of divorce, the bringing of the little children to Jesus, and the rich young man. These transactions all belong, doubtless, to the second abode of Christ in Peræa. We must, according to the connection of the evangelical narratives, assume two residences in Peræa; for we know that Jesus, after the Feast of Tabernacles in the year of persecution 782, returning into Galilee, assembled His disciples there; that with them He journeyed through the boundaries of Galilee and Samaria to Peræa (see Luk_9:51-52; Luk_17:11-19; comp. Leben Jesu, ii. 2, 1058), appeared then in Jerusalem at the Feast of the dedication, and afterwards returned back to Peræa, Joh_10:42. That the circumstances related by the Evangelists Matthew and Mark belong to the close of the second abode in Peræa, is manifest from the intimation that the rich young man came to Him as He was on the point of journeying; and the same applies to Matthew’s account of the mothers bringing their children. But with this last transaction that concerning divorce was closely connected.—Concerning Peræa, see the Critical Notes on Matthew, as also concerning the double residence in Peræa, and the significance of the Peræan narrative in relation to the founding and preparation of the new congregation, the Christian Church.—Christian ecclesiastical regulations begin with regulations for the house: with the Christian legislation, 1. for marriage; 2. for children; 3. for property.

As to the relation of Mark to the Synoptists in the Peræan sections, he and Matthew alone record the matter concerning divorce. Mark states more precisely than Matthew that Jesus penetrated through Peræa to the borders of the land, Mar_10:1. In Matthew, on the other hand, there is a more definite account given of the first journey of Jesus to Peræa, accompanied by a great train. Matthew says that great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them there. Mark says that the people resorted to Him again (πάλιν, again in Peræa), and that, as He was wont, He taught them again. In the Lord’s answer to the tempting question concerning divorce, Mark places first the reference to the Mosaic law of marriage, and brings in the paradisaical law afterwards: Matthew inverts that order. But it is in harmony with the character of Mark, that he introduces all by the piercing word of decision. The rebuke of the Pharisees is, moreover, made more keen by the fact that he assigns the saying concerning the Christian marriage law (Mar_10:10-12, compare Matthew Mar_10:9, Mar_5:32) to the house in which Jesus continued His discourse with the disciples on this question. Here also, as often elsewhere, Mark shows that the Lord, after His intercourse with the people, retreated to the house, that is, the inn, where He had been received, for the sake of confidentially continuing His words to the disciples. These are the lesser images of the Lord’s greater retreats.—The words that follow were not for the Pharisees. Mark gives the addition, “If a woman shall put away her husband;” but then he omits the conversation between the disciples and the Lord concerning the difficulty of true marriage, “If the case of the man,” etc. (Mat_19:10-12). In the section about the children (which Luke also has), Mark alone makes it prominent that Jesus was displeased with the disciples. He records, in common with Luke, the saying about not receiving the kingdom of God as a little child. That Jesus here again took the children in His arms and embraced them, as He had done the child in Capernaum, Mark alone mentions. He also makes it more distinctly prominent than Mathew does, Mar_10:15, that the rich young man came to the Lord on the occasion of His leaving Peræa. Luke alone tells us that the young man was a ruler, probably a ruler of the synagogue. But Mark alone records that, after the declaration “All these have I kept from my youth up,” Jesus looked upon him and loved him; as he also later inserts the Lord’s approbation of the questioning scribe, Mar_12:28 seq. To him also we owe the striking and vivid trait, that the rich young man put on a gloomy and fallen countenance (στυγνάσας) after the Lord’s answer. The amazement of the disciples at the word, “How hardly shall the rich,” etc., Mark exhibits as continued and increased, even after the Lord’s explanation, “How hard is it for them that trust in riches.” In the transaction that followed, between Peter and the Lord, Mark is more express than Luke in recording that Peter only began in his confusion to inquire about the reward, and that he did not give full expression to his words. He omits the clause, “What shall we have therefore?” which Matthew inserts. It is very remarkable that Mark omits here again the saying of Jesus concerning the twelve thrones of the Apostles (Matt. Mar_10:28), even as he had omitted the special prerogatives of Peter. It is obvious to suggest on this point, that the saying about “judging the twelve tribes of Israel” was not so easily intelligible to Gentile Christians (although Luke also has it, Luk_22:30). On the other hand, Mark gives the broad and comprehensive promise of the Lord to the disciples who renounce all, and in the most full detail: Mar_10:30, there is the hundred-fold compensation, houses, and brethren, etc., already in the present life, although amidst persecutions.

Mar_10:1. And He arose from thence.—In the wider sense, from Galilee; in the narrower sense, from Capernaum, where He gathered together His disciples.—By the farther side of Jordan.—That Jesus did not merely come to Persia, but travelled through Peræa to the borders of Judæa, that is, to the most eastern limits of Peræa, is plain even from the words of Matthew; but is still more plainly declared in the expression here used by Mark. For the whole of Peræa could hardly be described as the borders of Judæa in the wider sense. A whole province of a land can never be merely regarded as its border. On the immediate occasion of this journey to Peræa, see on Matthew, Critical Notes.—Again.—The repeated πάλιν seems to have been employed in consequence of the distinct remembrance of a double abode of Jesus in Peræa. At any rate, the events that follow belong to the second residence.

Mar_10:2. Asked Him.—Meyer: “Mark omits, what Matthew gives, the properly tempting element in the question, κατὰ πᾶσαν αἰτίαν.” But, according to the explanation of Ewald (see Critical Notes on Matthew), the question was a critical and tempting one, even without that addition, because it was dangerous in the territory of Herod Antipas to say anything against divorce. De Wette supposes that the Pharisees may have been aware of the Saviour’s earlier declaration concerning divorce. That may be true; in any case they might very well guess that, on this question, His utterance would perfectly coincide with that of the Baptist. Either, thought they, He must in His answer touch Herod too closely, or the Baptist; that is, He must fall under the condemnation either of worldly power, or of the pious.

Mar_10:3. What did Moses command you?—The order of the main points is not the same in Mark as in Matthew. Matthew comes down from the paradisaical institute to the Mosaic; Mark, on the contrary, rises from the latter to the former, and moreover makes Jesus Himself put the question concerning the law of Moses, and the tempter give the reply. This seems to have been the natural order. Elsewhere we have it as the first counter-question of Jesus: What is written in the law? (See Mar_10:19, and Luk_10:26.)

Mar_10:4. Moses suffered to write (see Deu_24:1).—In Matthew we read, Why then did Moses command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away? and the answer of Jesus: Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives. And in Mark’s account of the Pharisees’ words, they give, as in Matthew, a distorted view of the Mosaic law. Moses had suffered to divorce, and restrictingly commanded that a letter of divorce be given in addition. In Matthew, it is true, the opposition between the design of the Pharisees and the mind of Moses is made more expressly prominent. But in Mark, the opposition is found in the emphatic statement, that Moses wrote this commandment on account of the hardness of their hearts; that is, not in order to divorce, but, with the divorce, to give a bill of divorce therewith. The two accounts, in fact, are, as to their results, one and the same. The bill of divorce found divorce existing; it was intended to limit and restrain it, and make it more moral. The man who put away his wife, required the services of a learned scribe in order to construct the bill of divorce; it was necessary that he should give the grounds of the separation, and the ordinance of the lawgiver required those grounds never to be light or trivial. Moreover, there were two cases in which the marriage was indissoluble,—viz., when a man dishonored a virgin, and when he slanderously denied the virginity of his young wife (Deu_22:19; Deu_22:29). In Mark, also, more weight is attached to the other point of opposition which our Lord brings out: His appealing to the paradisaical ordinance. We must also notice the expression, wrote this precept. It refers to a written, restricting law for hardness of heart, in contradistinction to the everlasting and original commandments of paradise: hence the written word is to be interpreted in harmony with these last.

Mar_10:7. For this cause shall a man.—The words of Adam (Gen_2:24) are in Matthew words of God; in Mark, words of Christ. It is all the same; for Adam uttered those words prophetically as a paradisaical, divine, fundamental ordinance. They are words of God, as being eternally valid; and words of Christ, as rules for life to be reëstablished and sanctified. The Futures indicate the necessary realization of the original relation and condition of the sexes in marriage. As it is in reality and principle, it must be in development. See Critical Notes on Matthew.

Mar_10:10. And in the house His disciples asked Him.—Here, as often elsewhere, our Lord, according to Mark’s account, retreated, after a public transaction with the people, into the house, where He followed up His public teaching by more confidential instruction. Meyer: “The two Evangelists here differ, as it respects the place, the persons to whom our Lord speaks, and the substance of what He says.” He then gives the account of Matthew the preference. But the thought of Mar_10:11 is already found in the words of Mar_10:9 : What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Divorce was by that word forbidden. It is an error to speak of any difference here; all we can say is, that Mark gave a more specific account. And this is strictly in harmony with the circumstances of the case; it was fit that Christ should give His fullest utterance concerning the New Testament law of marriage within the more confidential circle of His disciples.

Mar_10:11. Committeth adultery.—The marriage contracted with the one is adultery towards the other. Meyer supposes that ἐπ ̓ αὐτήν must mean, “in reference to her,” that is, the forsaken woman. But, literally, ἐπ ̓ αὐτήν refers back to the last mentioned. The great point is, that the adultery against the first woman is consummated by marriage with the second, and thus the second marriage is made into adultery. “The μὴ ἐπὶ πορνείᾳ (Matthew) is omitted by Mark. But it makes no difference, as this reason for divorce is self-understood.” (Meyer.)

Mar_10:12. And if a woman.—Meyer denies the genuineness of this added clause. Among the Greeks and Romans it certainly was customary for the woman to be the abandoned party; but not among the Jews, since the examples they furnish—Michal (1Sa_25:44), Herodias (Mat_14:4), Salome (Joseph. Antiq. 15, 7, 10)—were preëminent enormities. But he overlooks the fact, that Jesus, according to Mark, here gives His disciples a confidential decree for His new Church, and appoints a new custom which, as did the primitive paradisaical ordinance, goes far beyond the good and ill customs of the Greeks and Romans. It is to be observed that the Herodians introduced amongst the Jewish people laxer customs as it respects woman.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. See on Matthew.

2. For the hardness of your heart.—This word is in sharp contrast with the sentimental excuses made for breaches of the marriage-vow—such as rest upon the softness of the heart, the overpowering emotions of love, etc.

3. And in the house.—Confidential household words of Jesus to His disciples, according to Mark: concerning the power of casting out demons, Mar_9:28; the great in the kingdom of heaven, Mar_9:33; and here concerning New Testament marriage. In other passages it is solitude generally, or solitude on a mountain, in which Jesus imparts to His disciples the confidential utterances that belong to the future of His new Church, Mar_4:10, etc. On the other hand, the house of Jesus is often the centre of great assemblages of the people, Mar_2:1; Mar_3:20; even the house which Jesus chose for His rest and retirement cannot continue hidden, Mar_7:24. In the most important crises of His conflict, Jesus turns from official encounters with His opponents to a free exposition of His doctrine to the whole people. So in Mar_7:14; Mar_12:36 seq. Thus the house of the Redeemer is, on the one hand, the most private, and on the other, the most public, place; always, however, in its most hidden privacy opened and known. And as the Lord, in His method of teaching, passes over from the general announcement of the word into confidential communications to His chosen disciples, so also we perceive that He passes over from dealing with the priests and the officials to a freer application of His words to all the people. In the former case He regulates His teaching according to their being able to hear His words; in the latter, according to their being willing. The doctrine of Christ is the most secret and the most public: the great and utterable mystery.

4. Not only does monogamy generally lie at the foundation of this passage, but also the idea of the true ideal monogamy, which is constituted not so much by the union of two human “exemplars” as rather by the blending of two human personalities (ἅρσεν καὶ θῆλυ), which are to each other similar to what (we do not say the same that) Adam and Eve were created to be to each other.

5. 1 Corinthians 7 : The Pauline development of the Christian marriage-law with reference to mixed marriages.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

See on Matthew.—Jesus pressed on all sides to the limits of His land; or, Jesus within the limitations of His earthly vocation: 1. Sacredly observing the legal restrictions; 2. extending to them, touching them; 3. going beyond them in His spiritual life and work (endlessly towards north, east, south, west).—The Lord in Peræa provides beforehand for His Church: 1. He confirms and establishes that which is the fundamental condition of its establishment (the Christian household); 2. in this place He prepares a refuge and hiding-place for the future of His persecuted people.—Peræa the last refuge of the Redeemer; the first refuge of His Church.—The pilgrimages of Christians to Christ: 1. As they spring from impulse of heart, not human traditions; 2. the life of the Spirit, and not spiritual chains; 3. movements towards the true rest, and the true rest in movement (that is, on the one hand, not the running without an object, and, on the other hand, not frigid form).—How the Lord for ever refers the tempters to the word of God:—How He glorifies Moses: 1. As an expositor of the creation; 2. as a prophet of redemption.—How Christ confirms the unison between the old and the new covenants.—Moses wrote his law for sinners; or, the finite side of the written law of God in its changeableness, explained by the finite nature of the fallen child of God.—God, even in the external changeableness of His revelations, confirms His own unchangeable character.—The dignity of marriage measured by the dignity of filial piety (of the relation to father and mother).—In order to true marriage according to the mind of Christ, more than a man and a woman is wanting.—From the right of the husband follows necessarily the right of the wife; as from the obligation of the one follows the obligation of the other.—Concerning the contrast and the reconciliation between the laws of the State and the eternal, fundamental laws of the Church of Christ.—The reciprocal influence of the punishment of death and the divorce appointed in the Jewish law: 1. Ecclesiastically: an actual adultery is spiritual death, and death as to moral fellowship; 2. an inexorable prohibition of all divorce, on civil or ecclesiastical grounds, leads to death in many ways, even to the death of the higher moral family life (see the South American and other Catholic states); 3. the reference to spiritual death in adulterous sin must remove and heal the deadly influences of both lax and over-severe marriage ordinances.

The three sections together.—The Christian household 1. in relation to marriage, 2. the children, 3. the property, 4. the vocation of the members to walk according to God’s will, and to deny themselves.

Starke:—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—Envy is soon found in the track of a teacher who has a large body of dependants.—Quesnel:—A true preacher is not soon weary.—Every age has its Pharisees, whom the devil often uses for the temptation of pastors, and whom God permits to test His people.—Osiander:—We must take care what answers we make when questions are put to us on doubtful matters; for many ask questions, not that they may learn, but that they may have something to blaspheme or except against.—Quesnel:—The bond of marriage is a figure of the union of Christ with His bride, the Church; which He will never renounce, even as she will never be separated from Christ, Eph_5:32.

Schleiermacher:—And thus we have here an example of the manner in which the Lord administered discipline in relation to the high and mighty ones of the earth. He was not moved by the fact that Herod was an example of the sin; nor did He present the matter in the slightest degree otherwise than it was, because a person was affected in whose land and in whose power He Himself then stood.—It was of the essence of the old covenant, if we go back to the legislation and lawgiver of the Jewish Church, that the divine law and the civil law were one and the same. The civil and political ordinances must be regulated by the condition of men at the time.—The civil law in relation to the actions of men, and the divine law, which utters the laws of conscience (in Christendom), distinguished.—The levity and impure motives which too often enter into marriage contracts.—Therefore we should regard it as a public evil, that such marriages are often contracted as should never be contracted.—Marriages are matters of public concernment.

Brieger:—Man must take his right place in the sight of God before he can take his right place in respect to his fellow-men, whether as husband, father, etc.—Gossner:—Alas! when we look round upon the condition of Christendom, and observe all the laws, usages, and customs which prevail, touching how many things must we say, In the beginning it was not so!—Bauer:—We may here again see how surely the man who stands firm to God’s word shall escape the most cunning snares that his most cunning enemies may lay for him.

Footnotes:

[1]Mar_10:1.—The reading of Cod. A. (διὰ τοῦ πέραν &c.) must not be given up, with Lachmann and Tischendorf (who read καὶ πέραν), on account of B., C.*, L.

[2]Mar_10:2.—Elzevir reads οὶ Φαρισαῖοι; but the article is not supported.

[3]Mar_10:6.—The ὁ Θεός is wanting in B., C., L., Δ., &c., and omitted by Tischendorf [and Meyer, and bracketed by Lachmann].

[4]Mar_10:10.—Περὶ τούτου. Lachmann, Tischendorf, Meyer, following A., B., C.

[5]Mar_10:12.—Lachmann and Tischendorf read γαμήσῃ ἄλλον instead of γαμηθῇ ᾶλλῳ, following B., C., D., L., Δ.

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Chapter 10.

In Judea

1. The question concerning Divorce. (Mar 10:1-12. Mat 19:1-9.

2. Children are blessed by Him. (Mar 10:13-16. Mat 19:13-15; Luk 18:15-17.

3. The rich young Ruler and Warning against Riches. (Mar 10:17-27. Mat 19:16-26; Luk 18:18-27.

4. Concerning Rewards. (Mar 10:28-31. Mat 19:27-30; Luk 18:28-30.

5. On to Jerusalem. The third announcement of His death and Resurrection. (Mar 10:32-34. Mat 20:17-19; Luk 18:31-34.

6. The Desire of James and John. (Mar 10:35-45. Mat 20:20-28; Luk 22:24-27.

7. At Jericho. The Healing of Bartimaeus. (Mar 10:46-52. Mat 20:29-34; Luk 18:35-43.

1. The Question concerning Divorce. Mar 10:1-12

The Lord restores in teaching the original meaning of marriage and speaks against divorce Moses had permitted on account of the hardness of their hearts. Thus He restored the original institution of marriage. His ministry is now almost ended and He is on His way to Jerusalem to go to the cross.

2. Children are blest by Him. Mar 10:13-16

Again the disciples failed. They showed a kind of self-importance and dignity in rebuking those who brought the little children. He was indignant. They had no right whatever to rebuke and to shut out from His presence. They usurped His place and by their domineering attitude misrepresented Him. And priestcraft has brought this to perfection. But oh! the contrast. He received them and tenderly took them into His arms to bless them. Such is the Kingdom of God. Sin is in them. But the little children present some characteristics of uncorrupted nature. The way into the Kingdom is the new birth; and that must be received as a little child.

3. The rich young ruler and warnings against Riches. Mar 10:17-27

Here is one, who would inherit eternal life by doing. He “kneeled” (mentioned only by Mark) and showed reverence, and yet he called Him only “Good Master.” He was a moral Young man but unsaved. The reply of the Lord is significant, He refuses the address “Good Master.” The young man did not believe on Him as Son of God. The logic is perfect. If He is not God, He could not be good, and if He is good, then He is God. Yet “Jesus, beholding him, loved him;” a statement found only in Mark. He did not see the truth that man is not good, but a sinner, and salvation cannot be by works but is by Grace. Note the beautiful answer the Lord gave to His disciples. “Who then can be saved?” And Jesus looking upon them saith, “With men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible.” Man cannot be saved by what he is or does. Blessed truth. But God has accomplished salvation by the gift of His Son and this salvation is received by faith in Him.

4. Concerning Rewards. Mar 10:28-31

It was a selfish question, which Peter asked. Somehow he would remind the Lord that while the young man refused to part with his riches, they had left all. And the meek and lowly One answers graciously and gives the promise of reward in this life and in the age to come. But it is reward only if it is done for His sake and the Gospel’s. It is a blessed thing to leave the rewards with Him.

5. On to Jerusalem. Third announcement of His death and Resurrection. Mar 10:32-34

But were they willing to leave all for His sake? As the Servant now at the close of His ministry went up to Jerusalem they were amazed at His calmness and determination to go to the place, where death awaited Him, according to His own predictions. They were afraid of their own lives as they followed Him. The Servant went before them in the lead; the frightened group came behind. The third prediction of His death is the completest.

6. The Desire of James and John. Mar 10:35-45

Their fear was short-lived. They did not grasp the solemn announcement that the Son of Man would have to die and did not understand that all the promised blessings could only be realized through His death on the cross. They had faith in a coming Kingdom of Glory, faith in the Servant so lowly to be the King and that they were to reign with Him. The request is stated and answered graciously by the Lord. And the two who were afraid when He turned towards Jerusalem now say that they are able to drink the cup with Him and be baptized with the baptism, which awaited Him, the inward and outward sufferings of the cross. But these two forsook Him a few days later and fled. The others were much displeased, no doubt for selfish reasons, and then still other words of instruction came from His lips.

7. At Jericho. The Healing of Bartimaeus. Mar 10:46-52

This healing stands at the beginning of the end of that blessed life lived on the earth. Up to Mar 10:45 He speaks of Himself as “Son of Man. “ The phrase “Son of David” appears only once in Mark’s Gospel. Bartimaeus calls upon Him by that name and is healed. It is the prelude to the great events in Jerusalem, His presentation as King, rejection, suffering and death. The miracle of Jericho holds the same place in the three Gospels. Israel ‘s condition is easily seen in Bartimaeus’ blindness. The Son of David had come to give sight to the blind and in Jericho (the place of curse) He shows His gracious Power. Bartimaeus followed Him as the blessed witness of His power.

Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CHAPTER 10

JESUS IN PEREA

Mat 19:1-2, and Mar 10:1. “Rising up from thence, He comes into the boundaries of Judea, through the country which is beyond the Jordan and again multitudes come to Him, and, as was His custom, He again taught them.” Matthew says, “Many multitudes followed Him, and He healed them there.” As above specified, when, in consequence of the tremendous popular sensation arising from the resurrection of Lazarus, the Sanhedrin had passed the condemnatory verdict against Him, unanimously assigning His death-warrant, in order to prolong His life and finish His work, He goes away to the city of Ephraim, about forty miles north of Jerusalem; thence: after a short interval, journeying on toward the northeast, crossing the Jordan over into Perea, the land which had been given to Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh for their inheritance, at their own request, when Joshua divided the land of Canaan among the twelve tribes. Now He spends perhaps a dozen days in that country east of the Jordan, in the days of Joshua ruled by Og, the king of Bashan, and Sihon, the king of Heshbon; but in the days of our Savior known as Perea. It is superfluous to say that Jesus utilized all of His opportunities while in that country, as everywhere else, teaching the people the wonderful truths of the kingdom and healing the sick.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Subdivision 5. (Mar 10:1-45.)

Results: Nature in its relation to God.

We have now, as again in Matthew, nature in its relation to God, a matter of great moment in the path of service: the institution of marriage, the relationship to Him of children, the state of man in his best naturally, sin having thrown its dark shadow over all; finally, we see nature thus deformed working in the servant of God himself and tending to destroy the whole character of service; but then the victory of God over it, and the perfect Servant setting the pattern for His people and moulding them after His own likeness.

As we have gone through this in Matthew, we shall add but little to it here; seeking mainly to note any points of difference, with a conviction at the same time of how slight and superficial our knowledge of these differences is, and how the word of God must suffer from our scanty knowledge of it.

1. 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.

2. As to the children, Mark notices the Lord’s displeasure at the disciples’ conduct, and gives here substantially what in Matthew is found elsewhere, that only those who received the Kingdom of God as a little child could enter therein (Mat 18:3). Mark also shows a fuller answer on the Lord’s part to a slighter request. He is asked to "touch" them; He takes them up in His arms, puts His hands on them, and blesses them.

3. In the ruler’s case which follows, we find the heart manifested of one who is, as Paul says of himself when unconverted, "touching the righteousness which is of the law, blameless." There is really that on account of which it is said, (and in direct connection with his "Teacher, all these things have I kept from my youth,") that "Jesus looking upon him, loved him." There was that in him which was lovable. What he says of himself, he says with an honest conscience and conviction of its truth. Nor is he, as his question shows, merely engrossed with the present and without thought of God. He desires and seeks eternal life; and, attracted by what he hears or sees in Jesus, he comes to Him to learn the way to find this.

Mark emphasizes his running and kneeling to the Lord, his "Good Teacher," which from that mere human standpoint the Lord cannot accept. Goodness is in God alone: would that he had sought it only there! Nature is fully judged in the sweep of that assertion; and presently in his aching heart, as he turns, alas, from the One in whom his hope had been, he has to realize at least the bond that (one would fain hope, only for the present) holds him from the blessing that he seeks. But this bond a more than human power must sever. Nature in its fairest form is fallen away from God. Man’s need is of a Saviour.

4. This is what the Lord now affirms. To the amazement of His disciples, He declares that it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God. Those who, to make this less absolute than it seems, would apply it to an eastern city gate, should remember that the Lord affirms directly that that of which He is speaking is "to man impossible." On the other hand, Mark records for us the explanation that a rich man stands here for one that trusts in riches, which at the same time prevents the obvious mistake of a gross literalism, and extends the principle to the poorest in actual possessions. Really he only is in the sense intended "rich," who trusts in riches: and he may do that who never acquires them. In the divinely wrought hunger of soul, the things to which the worldling turns for help become as little valuable as gold to meet desert-thirst.

The disciples in their astonishment say one to another, "Who then can be saved?" But salvation is of God wholly. When men have learned their need of this, there is then no difficulty.

5. Nature in itself is then hopeless; and in the child of God still there abides that which because of its tendencies Scripture calls the flesh. "In me, that is in my flesh," says the man in the experience of the seventh of Romans, "dwelleth no good thing," Of the flesh self is the centre; and into the sphere of spiritual things the flesh will intrude, how easily. Self may claim that in which (in the sense in which we are speaking) it can have no part, and take pleasure in the thought of a foremost place there. Peter’s "We have left all and followed Thee," is just such a claim, which the Lord meets in grace with a full assurance that nothing can be left for His sake without abundant recompense, both here and hereafter. But He guards this doubly from abuse such as the carnal mind might make of it: first, by the reminder that it must be done for His sake to be rewarded: not for self, to gain the reward. Secondly, and springing out of this, "many first shall be last, and the last first," which effectually forbids self-placing anywhere.

6. But we go on beyond this, to see the victory of God over all this spirit of strife and emulation. Again He begins to warn them of His coming death and comfort them with the thought of His speedy resurrection. There is no response: fear has already fallen upon them. But presently it is seen of how contrary a spirit they are by the request of the sons of Zebedee for the two places nearest Himself in the coming Kingdom. The Lord points out to them the way by which He reaches this. Can they drink of His cup and be baptized with His baptism? And immediately they assure Him that they can. He tells them that in these they shall in fact partake; but the places that they seek are only His to give to those for whom it is prepared of His Father.

This awakes the indignation of the other disciples, and shows a similar spirit to be in them all. And now He shows them their great and fundamental mistake. Heaven is to be no place for the ambition of men. The Son of man came not to be ministered to but to minister: love’s mission among them sought only what love alone could count a recompense. And if, "beyond all controversy, the less is blessed of the better," our dependence on Him insures that this ministry of His to us will go on for ever. If love made Him take it up, love will make Him keep it too, as surely as He is Son of man for ever, although the toil and sorrow of His work be past.

If then with Him service is but the sign of a love unending, and so can never cease, can it be different with those whom He is bringing into the glory of likeness to Himself? Can they take up service to win lordship by it, and state and authority? That were surely impossible: nay, the greatest in heaven’s Kingdom is he that humbleth himself as a little child (Mat 18:4). In heaven’s rule, Love rules; and therefore rule is service still, most valued because it is so.

F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mark Chapter 10

It is a striking principle which meets us here-the relationships of nature (as God has Himself created them at the beginning) re-established in their original authority, while the heart is judged, and the cross the sole means of drawing nigh to the God who was their creative source. On earth Christ could offer nothing but the cross to those who followed Him. The glory to which the cross would lead has been shewn to some of them; but as to Himself He took the place of servant. It was the knowledge of God by Him that should form them for this glory and lead them to it; for in fact that was life eternal. All other intermediate ways had, in the hands of men, become hostile to the God who had granted them, and therefore to His manifestation in the Person of Christ.

We find then (Mar 10:1-12), the original relationship of man and wife as formed by the creative hand of God; in Mar 10:13-16 the interest which Jesus took in young children, their place in the compassionate eye of God, the moral value of that which they represented before men. In Mar 10:17 we come to the law, to the world, and to the heart of man in presence of the two. But at the same time we see that Jesus takes pleasure in that which is amiable in the creature as a creature-a principle of deep interest unfolded in this chapter-while still applying the touchstone morally to his heart. With respect to the law, as the natural heart can see it (that is, the outward action it requires), the young man had kept it; and with a natural sincerity, and uprightness, that Jesus could appreciate as a creature quality, and which we ought always to recognise where it exists. It is important to remember, that He who as man was perfectly separated unto God-and that, because He had the thoughts of God-could recognise the unchangeable obligations of the relationships established by God Himself; and also, whatever there was amiable and attractive in the creature of God as such. Having the thoughts of God-being God manifest in the flesh, how could He but recognise that which was of God in His creature? And while doing this, He must establish the obligations of the relationships in which He has placed him, and exhibit the tenderness He felt for the infant representatives of the spirit which He prized. He must love the natural uprightness that may be developed in the creature. But He must judge the true condition of man fully brought out, and the affections that rested on objects raised up by Satan, and the will that rejected and turned away from the manifestation of God that called him to forsake these vanities and follow Him, thus putting his heart morally to the proof.

Jesus exhibits the absolute perfection of God in yet another manner. The young man saw the exterior of Christ’s perfection, and, trusting to the power of man to perform that which is good, and seeing its practical fulfilment in Jesus, applies to Him-and, humanly speaking, with sincerity-to learn, from One in whom he saw so much perfection, though viewing Him merely as a Rabbi, the rule of eternal life. This thought is expressed in his sincere and cordial salutation. He runs, he kneels, to the Teacher who, morally, stood so high in his estimation, saying, “Good Master.” The human limit of his ideas of this goodness, and his confidence in the powers of man, are manifested by the words, “What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?” The Lord, taking up the whole import of his word, replies, “Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is God.” What God has created he who knows God will respect, when it presents itself as such in its true place. But God alone is good. Man, if intelligent, will not make himself out good before God, nor dream of human goodness. This young man had at least the hope of becoming good by the law, [11] and he believed that Jesus was so as a man. But the greatest advantages which the flesh could recognise, and which answered to its nature, did but the more effectually shut the door of life and heaven to man. The flesh used the law for self-righteousness, man being not good but a sinner. And, in fact, if we have to seek for righteousness, it is because we have it not (that is to say, because we are sinners and cannot attain this righteousness in ourselves). Moreover worldly advantages, which appeared to render man more capable of doing good, bound his heart to perishing things, and strengthened selfishness, and made him attach little value to the image of God.

But the instructions of this chapter carry on still farther the subject of man’s condition before God. The ideas of the flesh accompany and give their form to the heart’s affections, in one who is already quickened by the Spirit of grace acting through the attraction of Christ, until the Holy Ghost Himself communicates to those affections the strength of His presence, by giving them the glory of Christ in heaven for their object; and at the same time causing the light of that glory to shine (for the believer’s heart) upon the cross, investing it with all the value of the redemption it accomplished, and of the divine grace that was its source, and producing conformity to Christ in every one that bears it with Him. Peter did not understand how any one could be saved, if such advantages as the Jews possessed in their relationship to God (and which were specially present in the case of this young man) only barred up the way to the kingdom of God. The Lord meets him upon this very ground; for man in the presence of God was now the question As far as man was concerned, it was impossible-a second profound truth-with respect to his condition. Not only was there none good excepting God, but no one could be saved, according to what man was. Whatever advantages he might have as means, they would avail him nothing in his state of sin. But the Lord introduces another source of hope-”with God all things are possible.” The whole of this, indeed all this part of the Gospel, while it sets aside the Jewish system, does so, because, while that was founded on testing the possibility by the possession of divinely given ordinances of acquiring righteousness, and a standing before God as yet unrevealed, this revealed God and brought man and man’s heart face to face, as a present thing, with Him; in grace, but still face to face as he was. The disciples, not having yet received the Holy Ghost, are still under the influence of the old system, and only see men as trees walking; and this is fully developed in this chapter. The kingdom indeed they could think of, but still with fleshly thoughts.

But the flesh, the carnal mind, enters yet farther into the career of the life of grace. Peter reminds the Lord that the disciples had forsaken all to follow Him. The Lord replies, that every one [12] who had done so should have everything that would make him happy in his social affections, as God had formed him, and all this world could give as to the real enjoyment of it and a hundredfold, together with the opposition that He Himself met with in this world; but in the world to come (Peter was not thinking of that) not some private individual advantage, but everlasting life. He went beyond the sphere of promise connected with the Messiah on earth, to enter, and to make others enter, into that which was eternal. As to individual reward, that could not be judged of according to appearances.

We have seen what the flesh was in an upright young man whom Jesus loved, and in His disciples who knew not how to take the true position of Christ. The contrast of this with the full triumph of the Holy Ghost is remarkable, as we find it in the comparison of this chapter with Php 3:1-21.

We have in Saul a man outwardly blameless, according to the law, like the young man in the gospel; but he has seen Christ in glory, and, by the teaching of the Holy Ghost, the righteousness according to which Christ entered into the glory in which He revealed Himself to Saul. All that had been gain to him was loss for Christ. Would he have a carnal righteousness, a human righteousness, even if he could have accomplished it, when he had seen a righteousness bright with the glory of Christ? He possessed the righteousness which was of God by faith. What was that righteousness worth for which he had laboured, now that he possessed the all-perfect righteousness which God gave by faith? Not sins alone were put away: human righteousness was made worthless by it. But his eyes had been opened to this by the Holy Ghost, and by seeing Christ. The things that engaged the heart of the young man and retained him in the world which Christ forsook, and which in Him had rejected God-could these things retain one who had seen Christ in the other world? They were but as dung to him. He had forsaken everything in order to possess this Christ. He considered them as utterly worthless. The Holy Ghost, in revealing Christ, had completely delivered him.

But this manifestation to the heart of Christ glorified goes yet farther. He who thus breaks with the world must follow the One whose glory he would reach; and this is to put himself under the cross. The disciples had forsaken all to follow Him. Grace had attached them to Christ that they might follow Him. The Holy Ghost had not yet linked them with His glory. He goes up to Jerusalem. They are amazed at it; and, in following Him (although He goes before them, and they have His guidance and His presence), they are afraid. Paul seeks to know the power of His resurrection: he desires to have fellowship with His sufferings, and to be conformed unto His death. Instead of amazement and fear, there is full spiritual intelligence and the desire of conformity to that death which the disciples feared; because he found Christ morally in it, and it was the pathway to the glory he had seen.

Moreover this sight of Christ purifies the desires of the heart with respect even to the glory. John and James desire for themselves the best place in the kingdom-a desire that availed itself (with a carnal and selfish object) of the intelligence of faith-a half-sighted intelligence that sought the kingdom at once, and not the glory and the world to come. Paul had seen Christ: his only desire in the glory was to possess Him-”that I may win Christ,” and a new state conformed to it; not a good place near Him in the kingdom, but Himself. This is deliverance-the effect of the presence of the Holy Ghost revealing a glorified Christ.

We may remark, that in every case the Lord brings in the cross. It was the only passage from this world of nature, to the world of glory and of eternal life. [13] To the young man He exhibits the cross; to the disciples that follow Him He exhibits the cross; to John and James, who sought a good place in the kingdom, He exhibits the cup they would have to drink in following Him. Eternal life, although received now, was, in possession and enjoyment according to God’s purpose, on the other side of the cross.

Observe also, that the Lord was so perfectly, divinely, above the sin in which nature lay, that He could recognise all that was of God in nature, and shew at the same time the impossibility of any relation between God and man on the ground of what man is. Advantages were but hindrances. That which is death to the flesh must be gone through: we must have divine righteousness, and enter in spirit (hereafter in fact) into another world, in order to follow Him and to be with Him-to “win Christ.” Solemn lesson!

In result, God alone is good, and-sin having come in-it is impossible, if He be manifested, that man can be in relationship with God; but with Him all is possible. The cross is the only path to God. Christ leads to it, and we must follow Him in this path, which is that of eternal life. A child-like spirit enters into it by grace; the spirit of service and of self-renunciation walks in it. Christ walked in it, giving His life a ransom for many. This part of the Lord’s instruction ends here. Lowliness of service is the place into which Christ brings us; in such He had walked. This chapter is worthy of all the attention which the Christian through grace can devote to it. It speaks of the ground man can stand upon, how far God owns what is natural, and the disciples’ path down here.

At Mar 10:46 another subject begins. The Lord enters on the path of His final relationship with Israel, presenting Himself as King, Emmanuel, rather than as the prophet who was to be sent. As the Prophet, His ministry had been accomplished. He had been sent (He told His disciples) to preach. This had led Him to the cross, as we have seen. He must needs announce it as the result to those that followed Him. He now resumes His connection with Israel, but as the Son of David. He draws near to Jerusalem, from which He had departed and where He was to be rejected, and the power of God manifests itself in Him. By the way of Jericho, the city of the curse, enters the One who brings blessing at the price of the gift of Himself. The poor blind man [14] (and such indeed was the nation of itself) acknowledges Jesus of Nazareth to be the Son of David. The grace of Jesus replies in power to the need of His people, that expressed itself by faith, and that persevered in, in spite of the obstacles put in its way by the multitude who did not feel this need, and who followed Jesus, attracted by the manifestation of His power, without being attached to Him by the faith of the heart. That faith has the sense of need. Jesus stands still and calls him, and before all the people manifests the divine power which responded in the midst of Israel to the faith that recognised in Jesus of Nazareth the true Son of David, the Messiah. The poor man’s faith had healed him, and he followed Jesus in the way without dissimulation or fear. For the faith which then confessed Jesus to be the Christ was divine faith, although it might perhaps know nothing of the cross which He had just announced to His disciples as the result of His faithfulness and service, and in which faith must follow when genuine.

Footnotes for Mark Chapter 10

11: He does not ask, What must I do to be saved? He assumed that by the law he was to get life.

12: This went beyond even the disciples’ connection with the Jews, and in principle admitted the Gentiles.

13: From the transfiguration until His rights as Son of David are in question, it is the cross that is presented. Prophet and preacher until then, that ministry ended with the transfiguration, in which His future glory shone in this world upon the cross that was to close His service here below. But before He reached the cross, He presented Himself as King. Matthew begins with the King, but Mark is essentially the Prophet.

14: I have already noticed that the blind man of Jericho is, in all the first three Gospels, the point where the history of the last dealings of Christ with the Jews and His final sufferings begin, His general ministry and service being closed.

John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10:1-12 (Mar_10:1-12)

DIVORCE

"And He arose from thence, and cometh into the borders of Judea and beyond Jordan: and multitudes come together unto Him again; and, as He was wont, He taught them again. And there came unto Him Pharisees, and asked Him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? tempting Him. And He answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away. But Jesus said unto them, For your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of the creation, Male and female made He them. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the twain shall become one flesh: so that they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. And in the house the disciples asked Him again of this matter. And He saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her: and if she herself shall put away her husband, and marry another, she committeth adultery." Mar_10:1-12 (R.V.).

IT is easy to read without emotion that Jesus arose from the scene of His last discourse, and came into the borders of Judea beyond Jordan. But not without emotion did Jesus bid farewell to Galilee, to the home of His childhood and sequestered youth, the cradle of His Church, the center of nearly all the love and faith He had awakened. When closer still to death, His heart reverted to Galilee, and He promised that when He was risen He would go thither before His disciples. Now He had to leave it. And we must not forget that every step He took towards Jerusalem was a deliberate approach to His assured and anticipated cross. He was not like other brave men, who endure death when it arrives, but are sustained until the crisis by a thousand flattering hopes and undefined possibilities. Jesus knew precisely where and how He should suffer. And now, as He arose from Galilee, every step said, Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God.

As soon as He entered Perea beyond Jordan, multitudes came to Him again. Nor did His burdened heart repress His zeal: rather He found relief in their importunity and in His Father's business, and so, "as He was wont, He taught them again." These simple words express the rule He lived by, the patient continuance in well-doing which neither hostilities nor anxieties could chill.

Not long was He left undisturbed. The Pharisees come to Him with a question dangerous in itself, because there is no conceivable answer which will not estrange many, and especially dangerous for Jesus, because already, on the Mount, He has spoken upon this subject words at seeming variance with His free views concerning sabbath observance, fasting, and ceremonial purity. Most perilous of all was the decision they expected when given by a teacher already under suspicion, and now within reach of that Herod who had, during the lifetime of his first wife, married the wife of a living man. "Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?" It was a decision upon this very subject which had proved fatal to the forerunner.

But Jesus spoke out plainly. In a question and answer which are variously reported, what is clear is that He carefully distinguished between a command and a permission of Moses. Divorce had been allowed; yes, but some reason had been exacted, whatever disputes might exist about its needful gravity, and deliberation had been enforced by demanding a legal document, a writing of divorcement. Thus conscience was bidden to examine its motives, and time was gained for natural relentings. But after all, Jesus declared that divorce was only a concession to their hardness of heart. Thus we learn that Old Testament institutions were not all and of necessity an expression of the Divine ideal. They were sometimes a temporary concession, meant to lead to better things; and expedient rather than a revelation.

These words contain the germ of St. Paul's doctrine that the law itself was a schoolmaster, and its function temporary.

To whatever concessions Moses had been driven, the original and unshaken design of God was that man and woman should find the permanent completion of their lives each in the other. And this is shown by three separate considerations. The first is the plan of the creation, making them male and female, and such that body and soul alike are only perfect when to each its complement is added, when the masculine element and the feminine "each fulfills defect in each . . . the two-celled heart beating with one full stroke life." Thus by anticipation Jesus condemned the tame-spirited verdict of His disciples, that since a man cannot relieve himself from a union when it proves galling, "it is not good" to marry at all. To this He distinctly answered that such an inference could not prove even tolerable, except when nature itself, or else come social wrong, or else absorbing devotion to the cause of God, virtually canceled the original design. But already He had here shown that such prudential calculation degrades man, leaves him incomplete, traverses the design of God Who from the beginning of the creation made them male and female. In our own days, the relation between the sexes is undergoing a social and legislative revolution. Now Christ says not a word against the equal rights of the sexes, and in more than one passage St. Paul goes near to assert it. But equality is not identity, either of vocation or capacity. This text asserts the separate and reciprocal vocation of each, and it is worthy of consideration, how far the special vocation of womanhood is consistent with loud assertion of her "separate rights."

Christ's second proof that marriage cannot be dissolved without sin is that glow of heart, that noble abandonment, in which a man leaves even father and mother for the joy of his youth and the love of his espousals. In that sacred hour, how hideous and base a wanton divorce would be felt to be. Now man is not free to live by the mean, calculating, selfish afterthought, which breathes like a frost on the bloom of his noblest impulses and aspirations. He should guide himself by the light of his highest and most generous intuitions.

And the third reason is that no man, by any possibility, can undo what marriage does. They two are one flesh; each has become part of the existence of the other; and it is simply incredible that a union so profound, so interwoven with the very tissue of their being, should lie at the mercy of the caprice or the calculations of one or other, or of both. Such a union arises from the profoundest depths of the nature God created, not from mean cravings of that nature in its degradation; and like waters springing up from the granite underneath the soil, it may suffer stain, but it is in itself free from the contamination of the fall. Despite of monkish and of Manichean slanders, impure dreams pretending to especial purity, God is He Who joins together man and woman in a bond which "no man," king or prelate, may without guilt dissolve.

Of what followed, St. Mark is content to tell us that in the house, the disciples pressed the question further. How far did the relaxation which Moses granted over-rule the original design? To what extent was every individual bound in actual life? And the answer, given by Jesus to guide His own people through all time, is clear and unmistakable. The tie cannot be torn asunder without sin. The first marriage holds, until actual adultery poisons the pure life in it, and man or woman who breaks through its barriers commits adultery. The Baptist's judgment of Herod was confirmed.

So Jesus taught. Ponder well that honest unshrinking grasp of solid detail, which did not overlook the physical union whereof is one flesh, that sympathy with high and chivalrous devotion forsaking all else for its beloved one, that still more spiritual penetration which discerned a Divine purpose and a destiny in the correlation of masculine and feminine gifts, of strength and grace, of energy and gentleness, of courage and longsuffering -- observe with how easy and yet firm a grasp He combines all these into one overmastering argument -- remember that when He spoke, the marriage tie was being relaxed all over the ancient world, even as godless legislation is today relaxing it -- reflect that with such relaxation came inevitably a blight upon the family, resulting in degeneracy and ruin for the nation, while every race which learned the lesson of Jesus grew strong and pure and happy -- and then say whether this was only a Judean peasant, or the Light of the World indeed.

William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.

10:1-2 The Pharisees’ question about divorce was much debated in Judaism, but it had a hostile purpose as they tried to trap Jesus (see 2:16, 18, 24; 7:5; 8:11; 12:13). John the Baptist was beheaded over his teaching that Herod Antipas’s divorce and remarriage was unlawful (6:18-19), and according to the Jewish historian Josephus, John was martyred close to Jesus’ current location east of the Jordan River, at Herod Antipas’s fortress at Machaerus (see 6:28; Josephus, Antiquities 18.5.2). If Jesus answered in agreement with John the Baptist, the Pharisees could indict him before Herod. But if Jesus said that divorce was lawful, he would be contradicting a prophet.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Mar 10:1. Καὶ ἐκεῖθεν ἀναστὰς, and having arisen from thence) The antithesis is not so much to Capernaum, where He had taught sitting, ch. Mar 9:33; Mar 9:35, as to Galilee, Mar 9:30.—διὰ τοῦ) See App. Crit. Ed. ii. on this passage.[10]—ὡς εἰώθει, as He had been wont) The habitual acts of Jesus are well worthy of observation: Luk 4:16.

[10] Καὶ πέραν is the reading of BC corrected later, L, Memph. But DGΔ bc Vulg. omit the καὶ. Rec. Text with A reads, διὰ τοῦ πέραν.—ED. and TRANSL.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mar_10:1-9. See on Mat_19:1-8.

κἀκεῖθεν] points back to Mar_9:33.

καὶ πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου] see the critical remarks. He came to the borders of Judaea, and that (see Fritzsche, Quaest. Luc. p. 9 ff.; Hartung, Partikell. I. p. 145) on the further side of Jordan, ipsa Samaria ad dextram relicta (Beza). At Jericho He came again to this side, Mar_10:46. See, moreover, on Mat_19:1.

καὶ συμπορ. κ.τ.λ.] And there gather together to Him again crowds of people. πάλιν, for previously, at Mar_9:30 ff., He had withdrawn Himself from the people.

Mar_10:2. Mark has not the properly tempting element in the question, but it is found in Matt.: κατὰ πᾶσαν αἰτίαν (see on Mat_19:3). That this element was not also preserved in the tradition which Mark here follows, may very naturally be explained from the reply of Jesus, which ran unconditionally (even according to Matt. Mar_10:4-6). Mark therefore has not the original form of the question (Bleek, Weiss, Holtzmann, Schenkel, Harless, Ehescheid. p. 30), nor does he make the question be put more captiously (Fritzsche), nor has he made use of Matthew incorrectly, or with alterations consonant to his own reflection (Saunier, Baur), because the Jewish points of dispute as to divorce were to him indifferent (Köstlin); but he follows a defective tradition, which in this particular is completed and corrected in Matthew. De Wettes conjecture is arbitrary, that Mark presupposes that the Pharisees had already heard of the view of Jesus on divorce, and wished to induce Him to a renewed declaration on the subject. The perilous element of the question does not turn on the divorce of Herod (Ewald, Lange). See on Matthew.

Mar_10:3. Here also the tradition, which Mark follows, deviates from Matthew, who represents that the commandment of Moses is brought into question not by Jesus, but by the Pharisees, and that as an objection against the answer of Jesus. But it is more natural and more forcible that the reply of Jesus should start immediately from Deu_24:1, and should first elicit this Mosaic ἐντολήon the right estimation of which depended the point at issuefrom the mouth of the questioners themselves, in order thereupon to attach to it what follows.

Mar_10:4. ἐπέτρεψε] emphatically prefixed (see the critical remarks): Moses permitted, in saying which their ἔξεστιν, Mar_10:2, is present to their minds. See, moreover, on Mat_5:31. They prudently refrain from saying ἐνετείλατο.

Mar_10:5. τ. ἐντολὴν ταύτ.] the commandment of the putting forth a writing of divorcement.

Mar_10:6. The subject (as ὁ Θεός is not genuine) is to be taken out of κτίσεως (ὁ κτιστής). See Kühner, II. p. 36, 4.

Mar_10:7. Christ makes Adams words at Gen_2:24 His own. It is otherwise, but less directly and concisely, given in Matthew.

ἕνεκεν τούτου] because God created men as male and femalein order to correspond with this arrangement of the Creator.

The futures indicate what will happen in cases of marrying according to Gods ordinance.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mar 10:1 . The departure from Galilee (Mat 19:1 ). ἐκεῖθεν ἀναστὰς , as in Mar 7:24 , q.v. ; there, of a departure from Galilee which was followed by a return (Mar 9:33 ), here, of a final departure, so far as we know. Beza finds in the expression a Hebraism to sit is to remain in a place, to rise is to depart from it. Kypke renders, et inde discedens , and gives classic examples of the usage. εἰς τὰ ὅριατ . Ἰ . καὶ πέραν , etc., into the borders of Judaea and of Peraea; how reached not indicated. The reading of T. R. διὰ τοῦ πέραν τ . Ἰ . gives the route. Vide on Mt., ad loc. , where the καὶ (of [85] [86] [87] [88] ) is omitted. συμπορεύονται πάλιν , crowds again gather. ὄχλοι , plural; here only, with reference to the different places passed through. ὡς εἰώθει , as He was wont; remarked on, because the habit had been suspended for a season during which the whole attention of Jesus had been devoted to the Twelve. That continues to be the case mainly still. In every incident the Master has an eye to the lesson for the disciples. And the evangelist takes pains to make the lesson prominent. Possibly his incidents are selected and grouped with that in view: marriage, children, money, etc. (so Weiss in Meyer). ἐδίδασκεν , He continued teaching , so also in Mar 6:34 . In both places Mt. (Mat 14:14 , Mat 19:2 ) speaks of healing . Yet Mk.’s Gospel is a gospel of acts , Mt.’s of words . Each is careful to make prominent, in general notices, what he comparatively neglects in detail.

[85] Codex Sinaiticus (sæc. iv.), now at St. Petersburg, published in facsimile type by its discoverer, Tischendorf, in 1862.

[86] Codex Vaticanus (sæc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.

[87] Codex Ephraemi

[88] Codex Regius--eighth century, represents an ancient text, and is often in agreement with א and B.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Chap.

10:1-12.] Reply to the Pharisees’ question concerning divorce. Mat 19:1-12.

1. καὶ πέραν] Our Lord retired, after His discourses to the Jews in Joh_10 and before the raising of Lazarus, to Bethany (Joh 1:28; Joh 10:40) beyond Jordan, and thence made his last journey to Jerusalem; so that in the strictest sense of the words He did come into the borders of Judæa and beyond Jordan.

Matt. has πέραν τ. Ἰορ. without the copula. See Luk 17:11. Here a large portion of the sayings and doings of Jesus is omitted: cf. Mat 18:10; Mat 19:3: Luk 9:51-15: Joh 7:1 ff.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

JUDÆA. MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE

10:1-12. Jesus departs from Galilee, and comes to Judœa and Perœa. The Pharisees try him with one of their test-questions, in regard to divorce. Jesus’ answer.

Jesus’ ministry in Galilee is at an end, and he goes into the region of Southern Palestine. Between this beginning and the controversy about divorce which Mk. introduces immediately, there is a gap, which Lk. fills in with his most characteristic matter. This question of divorce was one of the puzzles of the schools, arising from the ambiguity of the law. Jesus, in his answer, interprets the law in accordance with the liberal school, which allowed laxness of divorce; but says that this license was due to their spiritual dulness. From the beginning, i.e., originally and essentially, marriage, being based on the sexual distinction and act, and therefore a Divine institution, is indissoluble, and divorce involves adultery.

1. Καὶ ἐκεῖθεν—And from this place. The place meant is Capernaum. See 9:33. καὶ πέραν τ. Ἰορδάνου—and across the Jordan. The general district, τὰ ὄρια, into which he came was Southern Palestine, including the region on both sides of the river. πάλιν ὄχλοι—multitudes again. During the last part of the time in Galilee, he was alone with his disciples. See 9:30-32 But now, in Judæa, he is entering on a new phase of his general mission, the multitudes gather around him again, and he is teaching them as usual. The Impf. ἐδίδασκεν denotes not a single act, but a course of action, and should be translated, was teaching.

Καὶ, instead of διὰ τοῦ, before πέραν, Tisch. Treg. WH. RV. א BC* L Memph.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

That is to say, departed and went from thence: for in the Hebrew tongue, sitting and dwelling are all one, and so are rising and going forth.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

CHAPTER X.

The Pharisees question our Lord concerning divorce, 1-12.

Little children are brought to him, 13-16.

The person who inquired how he might inherit eternal life,

17-22.

How difficult it is for a rich man to be saved, 23-27.

What they shall receive who have left all for Christ and his

Gospel, 28-31.

He foretells his death, 32-34.

James and John desire places of pre-eminence in Christ's

kingdom, 35-41.

Christ shows them the necessity of humility, 42-46.

Blind Bartimeus healed, 46-52.

NOTES ON CHAP. X.

Verse 1. He arose] κακειθεν αναστας may be translated, he departed thence. The verb ανιστημι has this sense in some of the purest Greek writers. See Kypke. Many transactions took place between those mentioned in the preceding chapter, and these that follow, which are omitted by Matthew and Mark; but they are related both by Luke and John. See Lightfoot, and Bishop Newcome.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

1 And he arose from thence, and cometh into the coasts of Judaea by the farther side of Jordan: and the people resort unto him again; and, as he was wont, he taught them again.

Ver. 1. And as he was wont, he taught] Praedicationis officium suscipit quisquis ad sacerdotium accedit. (Greg. in Pastoral.) It was death for the high priest to enter the holy place, or to come abroad, without his bells and pomegranates. St Mark is much in setting forth Christ’s forwardness to teach.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

See this question about divorce explained in the notes at Mat 19:1-12.

Mar 10:12

And if a woman shall put away her husband - It would seem, from this, that a woman, among the Jews, had the power of separating herself from her husband, yet this right is not given her by the law of Moses. There is not, however, any positive evidence that females often claimed or exercised this right. Cases had occurred, indeed, in which it had been done. The wife of Herod had rejected her former husband and married Herod. And though instances of this kind “might” have been attempted to be defended by the example of Pagans, yet our Saviour was desirous of showing them that it did not free them from the charge of adultery. The apostles were going forth to teach Pagan nations, and it was proper for Christ to teach them how to act in such cases, and to show them that they were cases of real adultery.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

We have nothing in this whole chapter but what we found before in Mat 19:1-20:34. When Christ had the discourses mentioned in the former chapter, he was in Galilee; now he departeth from Galilee, passes through Samaria, and comes into the province of Judea, which being the chiefest, and that in which Jerusalem was, he was there more than before troubled with the scribes and Pharisees; who were now watching him in all his words and actions, that they might have somewhat whereof to accuse him.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Question of Divorce. The Rich Young Man. Blind Bartimæus

1-12. The question of divorce (Mat_19:3). See on that passage, and on Mat_5:32. St. Mark represents our Lord as prohibiting divorce absolutely, without mentioning any exception.

1. See on Mat_19:1 : cp. Luk_17:11.

13-16. The blessing of little children (Mat_19:13; Luk_18:15). See on Mt.

17-22. The rich young man (Mat_19:16; Luk_18:8). See on Mt.

17. Good Master] Mk and Lk represent the young man as saying, 'Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?' and Jesus as replying, 'Why callest thou me good?' etc.; whereas Mt represents the young man as saying, 'Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?' and Jesus as replying, 'Why askest thou me concerning that which is good?' etc. (RV). The true version is clearly that of Mk and Lk. The author of Mt (or perhaps an early scribe, for there is considerable reason for thinking that the original text of Mt agreed with Mk and Lk) altered the text slightly, to prevent the reader from supposing that Christ denied that He was good.

18. Why callest, etc.] RV 'Why callest thou me good? None is good save one, even God.' Since Jesus declares Himself, and is repeatedly declared by others to be sinless (Joh_6:61; Joh_8:46; Joh_14:30; 1Pe_2:22; 1Jn_3:5, etc.), this cannot mean that He was not good, but that for some reason or other on the present occasion He refused the title. (1) According to some He refused it, because in the sense in which it was offered, it was unequal to His merits and His claims. The young man, they think, called Him good, in the sense in which he would have called any eminent Rabbi good, whereupon our Lord pointedly remarked that only God is good, meaning, 'If you call me good in the same sense in which God is good, I am willing to accept it, but if you call me good in a merely human sense I reject it as insufficient.' (2) The other view is that the human nature of Christ, although 'sinless' during the whole of His earthly life, was not 'good' in the absolute sense. He advanced in 'goodness.' Passing through the different stages of a truly human experience, He acquired by conscious effort the virtues proper to each. He learned obedience (Heb_5:8), and was perfected through sufferings (Heb_2:10). He was truly tempted as we are, yet without sin (Heb_2:18; Heb_4:15), and maintained His virtue by prayer and constant watchfulness (Heb_5:7; Mat_14:23.). God, however, is 'good' absolutely. He can neither be tempted of evil nor advance in goodness. It is only as God, not as man, that Christ is 'good' in the absolute sense.

23-31. The perils of riches. The reward of those who despise them (Mat_19:24; Luk_18:24). See on Mt.

30. For their temporal losses they will have a hundredfold return in spiritual blessings, including holy fellowship with saints and angels. 'Houses' and 'lands' perhaps stand for rich spiritual possessions. If their literal meaning is to be pressed, our Lord indicates that, owing to the prevailing spirit of brotherly love, which issued in the apostolic communism, Christians would enjoy their houses and lands in common, as members of one family.

Persecutions] A startling word in the midst of a shower of blessings. Yet persecutions are often, to a Christian, the greatest blessing of all.

32-34. The passion predicted (Mat_20:17; Luk_18:31). See on Mt.

35-45. The ambition of James and John (Mat_20:20). See on Mt.

46-52. Blind Bartimæus (Mat_20:29; Luk_18:35). See on Mt. The name of the blind man (Bartimæus lit. 'son of Timæs') is given only by Mk.

J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Instead of the words, into the coasts of Judea by the farther side of Jordan, the passage, by a change of reading from dia tou to kai . He will run thus: into the coasts (borders) of Judaea and beyond Jordan. Our Lord was now on his last progress towards Jerusalem. It would appear from St. Luke (Luk_9:51) that in the earlier part of his journey he touched the frontier of Samaria. Putting the accounts together, we conclude that, being refused by the Samaritans, he passed eastwards along their frontier, having Galilee on his left, and Samaria on his right; and then crossed the Jordan, perhaps at Scythopolis, where was a bridge, and so entered Peraea. As Judaea and Galilee both lay west of the Jordan, this route above described would be literally coming "to the borders of Judaea and beyond Jordan." Again multitudes flocked together to him, and again he taught them. St. Matthew (Mat_21:1) says that "he healed them." His miracles of healing and his teaching went hand in hand.

Vers. 1-12. Marriage and divorce.

Our Lord Jesus is the great moral Legislator of humanity. His authoritative teaching applies to all classes and to all relationships of mankind. And it is to be noticed that he bases his commands and counsels both upon grounds of natural right and reason, and also upon the revealed Mosaic Law. With regard to the latter, it is observable that he professes not to destroy it, but to fulfill it to inspire it with a new motive, and to give it a wider range; whilst he allows no authority to mere traditions and usages, but treats them simply upon their own merits.

I UPON WHAT OUR LORD BASES THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE. It is to be observed that Jesus goes back behind the old Mosaic Law, which was universally accepted among the Jews as the authoritative standard of conduct.

1. There is reference to what we should call natural adaptation. If there is design in any arrangement or provision of nature, there is certainly design in the division of mankind (as, indeed, of other races of living beings)into two corresponding and complementary sexes. Man was made for woman, and woman for man; and the equality in numbers of male and female is evidently a natural reason both for marriage and for monogamy.

2. There is reference to the creative, historical basis of marriage. The record of Genesis is adduced, and Jesus reminds the Pharisees that marriage dated, as a matter of fact, from the beginning of the creation that our first parents lived together in this relationship from their first introduction to each other until the close of life.

3. Jesus asserts marriage to be a Divine ordinance. "God hath joined together" husband and wife. The Law of Moses came in with its additional provisions and sanctions; but it presumed the existence of the marriage state. God, who orders all things well, had seen that it would not be good for the man to be alone; accordingly he instituted wedded life, and hallowed it.

II WHAT OUR LORD DEDUCES FROM THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE,

1. A condemnation of the custom of facile divorce. It was a common practice for the Jews, when dissatisfied with their wives, to put them away for very trivial reasons even because they were not pleased with them, without any offense having been committed. They were wont to appeal to a permissive provision in their law as a warrant for acting thus. In our own times, in many countries even professedly Christian, it is too common for regulations of great laxity to be made regarding divorce. In some countries even incompatibility of temper is a sufficient ground for permanent separation. Such practices are condemned by Jesus as contrary to the Divine intention regarding marriage, and as subversive of all sound morality. As the family is the unit and the basis of all communities, and of all moral unity and welfare, it is of the highest importance that the sacredness of this Divine institution should be upheld, and that all practices and sentiments which undermine it should be discountenanced and opposed. Lax views upon divorce are to be repressed, as inimical to all social welfare as well as to domestic concord.

2. A declaration that such divorce is conducive to adultery. Our Lord does not say that the remarriage of divorced persons is in all cases adulterous; but, speaking of these who are separated for trivial offenses, and for any offense short of the most serious, he declares that for such persons to marry again is nothing less than adultery. They are not really and in God"s sight released from one another, and a second union is therefore unlawful. "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

APPLICATION.

1. Learn our Lord"s independence as an ethical and spiritual Teacher, and his superiority to traditional and even Mosaic authority.

2. Learn his interest in all our human relationships; he consecrates them by the regard of his grace and by the imposition of his Law.

3. Let Christians discountenance lax opinions and practices upon a question so vital to social and national well-being as the ordinance of marriage.

HOMILIES BY A.F. MUIR Vers. 1-12. Christ"s statement of the Divine law of marriage.

It is well to note his locality at this time. He was approaching the center of the Judaean party, outlying members of which encountered him as he was entering Judaea from beyond Jordan. Nevertheless he no longer observes counsels of prudence." He freely addresses the crowds that throng to his ministry, and confronts the attempts of his enemies to catch him in his words. This Divine abandonment is very noble and beautiful, and argues that he now clearly foresaw all that was to take place. There are two intentions in the reply of Jesus which it is necessary to distinguish, viz. that of defense, and that of teaching. His words are to be studied, therefore, as

I A MEASURE OF DEFENCE. That his questioners meant him mischief there can be no doubt. The word "tempting" is used for "trying," "proving," and that in an evil sense.

1. What, then, was the danger that lay in such a question? According to his reply they hoped:

(1) To discredit him with the respectable classes, and to found a charge against him of overturning the social and religious institutions of the land. It is the reproach and shame of nearly all "heresies" in religion that they sooner or later attempt to abolish the safeguards of society, and the time-honored customs of the social order. Marriage is a touchstone that betrays the inherent unrighteousness and impracticability of a large proportion of them. His enemies hoped on this point to array him against Moses.

(2) To discredit him with the common people. It was a vexed question at the time in the rival schools of Hillel and Shammai, the latter being stricter, the former laxer, in their view of the lawfulness of divorce. Probably convinced of their own view of the case, they relied upon easily confuting his arguments, and thereby "showing him up" as a pretender and imposter.

2. But in this twofold scheme they were defeated, Jesus making his interrogators themselves the declarers of the Law which he accepted and simply interpreted. He appeared, therefore, as a defender and not an assailant of the Law. And then he showed how deep the basis of obligation really was, and how much less strict the "precept" of Moses was than it might have been, and the cause of this.

II A PERMANENT DOCTRINE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. The historical circumstances of the time when the precept was formulated were probably considered at greater length than could be represented in Mark"s account, and the position justified that it was a compromise or provisional measure necessitated by "the hardness of heart" of the Jews the drawing up of a formal document being a check upon hasty and passionate ruptures of the marriage tie. He thus proved that moral obligation is deeper and more permanent than convention or external law. He next considered marriage as a law of nature anterior to the social sanction, which does not therefore create the institution, but ought only to recognize and enforce it. To this end he traces it to the original purpose of God in creation, quoting Gen_1:27; and strengthening the inference from this by the positive command of Gen_2:24, long anterior to the time of Moses. It is not for man to interfere with or modify an arrangement so manifestly Divine.

The only ground upon which marriage can be set aside is therefore that of one or other party to the marriage bond having already broken it by sinful action, and thus destroyed it as an actual thing. The Law then simply steps in to defend the rights of the party who has been injured, setting that party free from further possibility of like injury. This transgression of the marriage bond which amounts to its annulment is not stated, but is clearly implied, viz. adultery. The Savior thereby proves his teaching in harmony with the teaching of nature and previous revelation. But the gospel which is proclaimed in his Name does more than this. It seeks to fit man for the highest social and religious duties, by purifying and strengthening his moral being. M.

HOMILIES BY R. GREEN Vers. 1-12. Divorce.

Again with low motives, "tempting him," the Pharisees propound a question as to whether it was "lawful for a man to put away his wife." Opinions were divided, and the Teacher was in danger of offending one or other party by his reply. This was the trap "to involve him with the adulterous tetrarch, in whose territory he was." But he wisely referred them to Moses, and their thought, which was for evil, he tamed to good; for he took occasion by it to show the grounds of Moses" "commandment" to have been to their condemnation, their "hardness of heart;" and he further took occasion to lay down for all Christian times, for the blessedness of the Christian home and for the preservation of Christian morals, the true, the wise, the beneficial law of marriage, founded upon the conditions of the original creation; and he defined with authority and precision what constituted "adultery." These words remained to condemn the disobedient, and will remain to "judge him in the last day." The indissoluble bond of the marriage relation Jesus here affirms, and in the old words, spoken at "the beginning," "the twain shall become one flesh." To the propriety, the goodness, the blessedness of this law many Christian centuries bear their unequivocal testimony. The purest institution and the best, so hallowed, so beneficent, promoting in the highest degree individual happiness, the peace and sanctity of family life, the purity of public morals; preserving national health, stability, and greatness; guarding against wild lust, and a long train of envy, jealousy, revenge, and other passionate crimes; preserving the honor and dignity of women, the love and careful training of children; imposing responsibilities, but cherishing virtue and peace and joy. The family life is the symbol of the heavenly community; the marriage bond the type of the Redeemer"s relation to his people, who are "the bride, the wife of the Lamb." It is God"s ordination, and is very sacred; nor may it be set aside, but "for the kingdom of heaven"s sake;" nor may its bond be broken, but for the one cause of fornication, from which it is the most efficient guard. Its rites were honored by Jesus, and its "holy estate adorned and beautified with his presence and first miracle." The wisest legislation tends to the conservation of the family, whose multiplied relations, whose sweet fellowship, whose united interest, and whose common possessions give rise to the lofty idea of the home. Conjugal, parental, filial, fraternal affection are cherished. Obedience on the one hand, care and providence on the other; discipline and wise authority; the sense of dependence arising from want; responsibility arising from the power to meet that want; common interests and common aims, go to make each home a miniature kingdom. Teaching to those in authority the beneficence of rule, and to those under authority the lessons of submission, the home lays the foundation for stable national life; while mutual interests and obligations teach all to respect the rights and just claims of the entire community; whilst each learns his responsibility to the whole, and his deep interest in the general welfare. The nation that honors the home and the sanctities of family life is honored of God. The Christian teaching, reverting to the condition of things as it was "from the beginning of the creation," shows how truly it is in harmony with natural law, which is the expression of the Divine will. G.

HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 1-12. The law of marriage.

I THE DIRECTIONS OF SCRIPTURE FOLLOW THE OLDER LAW OF NATURE.

II THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE IS FOUNDED ON NATURE.

III IN ITS IDEAL, MARRIAGE IS FOR LIFE, AND INDISSOLUBLE.

IV YET THE ACTUAL CONDITION OF HUMAN NATURE COMPELS SOME RELAXATION.

V BUT WHAT IS PERMITTED IS NOT, THEREFORE, TO BE APPROVED OR FOLLOWED PRACTICALLY. Christianity is throughout ideal. It makes appeal to our higher nature. At the same time, it admits the difficulty of carrying our ideals unexceptionably into practice. J.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He cometh thence - From Galilee. Matt. xix, 1.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

A Question concerning Divorce.

The journey to Judea:

v. 1. And He arose from thence, and cometh into the coasts of Judea by the farther side of Jordan; and the people resort unto Him again; and, as He was wont, He taught them again.

Jesus now, definitely and finally, left Galilee. He went out from Capernaum, after the last discourse to His disciples, journeyed southward along the shores of the Sea of Galilee, and then crossed the Jordan into Perea, on the far side of the Jordan, on His way into Judea. But as He went along His way, probably even in Galilee, but especially in Perea, people crowded about Him, His identity being known, and they went with Him, they accompanied Him. With His usual Savior’s mercy, He saw these people in their great spiritual need, and therefore He again followed His custom of teaching them the one thing needful.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mar 10:13-16

Children welcomed to Christ.

You will observe, that the attitude and the act were at one and the same moment, paternal and priestly. He took the children up in His arms as a father; while, as a high priest, "He put His hands upon them and blessed them." And so, we may say, is every act of Christ. There is a human affection and sympathy, a fondness as a man; and there is a grace, an actual grace imparted, by virtue of His divine and holy office.

Note:—

I. The danger of sin standing in the way of children coming to Christ. Is not much that calls itself "religious education" really an imbuing a child’s mind with a dislike and dread of the whole subject? Look well to it, lest you be found with one hand to have brought your children to baptism, and with the other really to have frightened them away from that very Christ, with whom you think you have left them.

II. The duty of bringing children to Christ. It is an oft told tale, how the impressions made in childhood are sure to creep out in after-life. How the ship, which would ride well upon the waves, must have the ballast laid in before she is launched upon the deep waters, and how a useful manhood, and a happy old age, are almost always the sequence of a pious childhood.

III. The necessity laid upon us all, of ourselves becoming like little children. If it were only that we might influence children, we should cultivate a childlike spirit, for none can do good, especially to the young, but those who are very simple in their thoughts, and very lowly in their ways. But in what are we to become like a little child? In many things; but I will just mention one or two. (1) When those little children lay in Jesus’ arms, His act came before any of their acts. Freely as He bestowed the grace, so freely the little children took it. This is just the way to get to the Kingdom. (2) The credulity of the child is the faith of the Christian. My Saviour, my Lord has said it. He has said it, and I will believe it; and I will ask no questions. (3) And a very little child is necessarily led. So we must be content to be borne and carried every step.

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 1874, p. 271.

The Children’s Charter.

I. It throws the tender lovingkindness of Jesus into bold relief if we compare it with the unloving, inconsiderate behaviour of His disciples. For they rebuked the women, and even laid their strong hands on the little ones who came running round Christ, and pushed them back. They seem, indeed, to have been quite unusually rude and rough in their bearing. For when we read that they rebuked the women, we are not to understand that they used dignified and polite language. What the word means is that they chid, that they scolded them, rating them for their forwardness and presumption in intruding themselves upon the Master’s notice. The disciples only made a mistake such as we all make sometimes. It was love, rising to zeal, for their Lord which led them to push back the children, though it was not a zeal according to knowledge. They meant no harm, and yet they might have done great harm. They might not only have robbed you of your charter, and the women and children of the blessing they craved; they might also have deprived themselves and the Pharisees of the lesson they both so much needed to learn: viz., "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, shall not enter therein."

II. Even the best men, then, even those who stand nearest Christ, sin against Him and provoke Him to anger if they treat children as though they did not belong to Him, and had no right to come to Him. And yet this is just what many good men are doing unto this day. But never mind them. Look to Christ; listen to what He says. He says that you children, and those who resemble you, are in His kingdom; and that, therefore, you may go to Him when you will, sure that He loves you, and that He will bless you.

S. Cox, The Bird’s Nest, p. 83.

The passage which I have taken as a text has a meaning as regards the spiritual influence attaching to infant baptism, beyond that which the exhortation in the Baptismal Service seems to assign to it. If we find it necessary to admit that infants were benefited by being brought to Christ, and that every difficulty which belongs to infant baptism belongs in an equal degree to the case of the infants received and blessed by Christ, then we shall feel that it is far from incredible, rather that it is in the highest degree probable, that infants brought into Christ’s spiritual presence in His ordinance do receive a real spiritual benefit thereby.

I. In the first place, then, did the children who were brought to Christ receive any benefit? It is clear that the parents thought they would; and when we read that "He took them up in His arms, put His hands upon them, and blessed them," I should deem it impiety to suppose that they received no benefit. Let us admit then, that through the faith of their parents or friends these children received an advantage which other children, not blessed by Christ, did not receive; so much, I think, it is easy to grant, but when we come to inquire what this advantage was, the answer is not so easy.

II. Was it, for instance, a certainty of salvation that these infants received? Surely not; it would be impiety to imagine it even for a moment. Adam and Eve were blessed by God, and pronounced very good; yet Adam and Eve fell: and Judas must, I suppose, have often received the blessing of his Master, although he turned out a traitor. Again, was it security from temptation? Surely not; in this world of trial and temptation it has never been granted to any to have exemption; on the other hand, those have usually been the best and holiest, who have been most subject to temptations.

III. The blessing was, after all, a blessing without price, one which these children doubtless felt themselves in after years that they would not exchange for the wealth of worlds. And if this be so, then we come to this important result, that it is possible to predicate of children that they have received a great spiritual benefit, a benefit which no human words can exaggerate, and yet not to assert anything absurd or anything dangerous. Now let us see how this bears upon the Sacrament of Baptism; in this case we have children presented to Christ, and if the sacrament be of His own appointment, and the children come to it by His own invitation, then it seems quite necessary to believe that they receive a blessing from the Lord, a blessing which we need not fear to exaggerate by any such language as we can frame.

Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, 2nd series, p. 116.

References: Mar 10:13-16.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. x., No. 581; vol. xxxii., No. 1925; H. M. Luckock, Footprints of the Son of Man, p. 216; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 50; H.W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxv., p. 344; J. Sherman, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 325. Mar 10:14.—C. Girdlestone, Twenty Parochial Sermons, 3rd series, p. 187; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 130; J. Aldis, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxiv., p. 154; W. C. E. Newbolt, Counsels of Faith and Practice, p. 97.

Mar 10:16

The Child-like Mind.

I. The childlike temper is nowise inconsistent with true manliness—manliness both of the intellect and of the will and feelings. Well-meaning persons sometimes fall into the mistake of contrasting the heroic with the Christian character, as if the highest heroism were not that which is distinctly Christian. The difference between mere heathen or worldly manliness and the manliness of the Christian is, that the first is entirely self-dependent, while the other ever numbly depends on God. The Christian martyr, as much as the hero of this world, has overcome the natural weakness which would make us always to be timidly looking out for support from our fellow-men; he has learned, in one sense, to stand alone; but then, in another sense, he knows that he is not alone. The humility of the childlike character, given by the Holy Spirit of God to Christians, makes them more, instead of less, brave in all dangers.

II. Again, the childlike temper of the Christian has nothing in it of the folly of childhood. As a general statement every one assents to this. No one maintains directly that a humble and simple mind, wrought in us by the Spirit of God, will attach us to trivial matters, or incapacitate us for feeling an interest in all events of really deep moment. Sometimes well-meaning men mistake in this—teaching that a humble, simple-minded Christian takes no interest in public matters. What ought to be said is, that his interest in these will be purified, and that he will estimate them at their real value.

III. Again, it is a mistake to suppose that the childlike mind does not appreciate the great worth of human learning. Human learning, it is true, is but foolishness compared with the wisdom of the all-knowing God. But to cultivate our intellects is a duty which He has laid upon us. Indeed, there is nothing more characteristic of the simplicity of the child, than its desire to acquire knowledge; the simple child is always learning; only observe, that he learns the more because he is so fully aware of his own ignorance. And thus the Christian childlike temper in mature years will be quite opposed to that conceit of knowledge which genders pride.

IV. Our religion is not to be childish because Christians must be childlike. The true Christian is ever growing in the knowledge and love of God in Christ. The very test to which we are required to bring the reality of our Christianity is this: whether we be growing—whether we be becoming more able to restrain ourselves, more devout, more able to realise the presence of Christ and hold communion with Him, as years advance.

A. C. Tait, Lessons for School Life, p. 283.

References: Mar 10:15.—B. Jowett, Church Sermons, vol. ii., p. 193; Homilist, vol. v., p. 198.

Mar 10:15-16

I. The Holy Spirit, in this well-known passage of St. Mark’s Gospel, offers to the minds of serious persons a very affecting instance of the Divine love and condescension. We are here taught, among other things, that our gracious Master regards with approbation any attempts, made in faith and humility, to bring the young ones of His flock to the privileges and knowledge of His Gospel. He wishes children to be brought to Him from their earliest infancy. As they grow older, He would have them taught to worship the God of their fathers, not as fulfilling a questionable or irksome obligation, but with a perfect heart and with a willing mind.

II. When in former days, in the spirit of true devotion, the Jewish mothers brought their children to the holy Jesus, that He might lay His hands on their heads and bless them, some who were present were greatly offended at this, which they at once condemned as a vain, idle, and useless superstition. But the Lord seeth not as man seeth. What man pronounces to be weakness and folly, or even worse, the Lord Jesus Christ took even pains to show His approbation of. What man, in the confidence of carnal wisdom, pronounces to be mere superstition and formality; that, when practised by a heart filled with penitence, lowliness and obedience, and a mere desire to do only what God commands, and to love only what He promises,—that, however meanly thought of in this miserable world, He, the Great Almighty Father will, we doubt not, pour down His choicest blessings on. To seek God in the way of His ordinances, and not in ways of our own choosing, must always be the safest course. To do this can never be dangerous; to do other than this, can never be safe.

Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. x., p. 275.

Reference: Mar 10:16.—Outline Sermons to Children, p. 149.

Mar 10:17-18

Supremacy of Goodness.

I. Consider the thought suggested by our Lord’s remarkable address in the text. To the courteous and reverential words of the inquirer, His rejoinder sounds at once harsh and paradoxical. "Good Master"—"Why callest thou Me good?" But it is only at first sight that there is anything difficult or surprising in the answer, "Why callest thou Me good?" We need not think of an impossible disclaimer of goodness in Himself, of an inconceivable denial of goodness, in some sense and measure, to men. Our Lord saw before Him one who had lightly and with a thin share of thought and self-knowledge asked his momentous question, and whose good intentions far outran his grasp of its meaning, and his power to face the answer. Our Lord did what we have often seen done. "Good Master,—do you know what you are speaking about? have you thought of the meaning of your words? Why callest thou Me good? There is none good but one, that is God. You, who use the word so freely, you are wasting, as a mere title of courtesy, what is the highest attribute of God." The answer was addressed to two great deficiencies in the inquirer’s character and mind. (1) His standard and level of goodness was too low and too conventional—of what was good in himself, of the good to be aimed at, of the distance at which he stood from the fountain and model of goodness. And (2) his sluggishness of will and effort was unequal to the task on which he had entered, and the race which he professed to be running; and his mind and conscience had to be disturbed and alarmed by presenting before it the call that a real estimate and sense of what goodness means, would make upon it. To be what he proposed to be, to be what he asked about, to have that which he supposed he saw in our Lord, was nothing less than to aim at being perfect, as the Father in heaven is perfect.

II. But the Lord’s words have a more general interest, and it lies, I suppose in this: that they are one of the numberless ways in which he enforced the same great lesson, of the supreme value in His eyes, of goodness, above everything else that man can aim at, or know, or have; above every other principle or endowment of our human nature. We see in these words the characteristic of his teaching, the broad, unqualified, unvarying assumption, that the measure and standard of everything in man’s life and actions is that goodness by which, at however great a distance, he approaches the moral nature, his God and Father in heaven. And as with our Lord’s own teaching, so with those great ideas and ruling principles which He implanted in the society which He set up to carry on His work in the world, and which that society was to develop and apply. As far as they relate to the estimate and conduct of human life, they revolve, so to say, about the idea of goodness, of sanctity. The idea of goodness had in Christianity a clear, sharp, decisive primacy, which it never had in any other system, and which surprised and perplexed the world. It had a very strongly marked pattern and standard, the life and mind and self-sacrificing love of the Son of God.

III. "Why callest thou Me good?" is the strange word by which our Lord awakens our attention to what we are too ready to think a truism. He who—amid all that He was not of what men admire in this world—was the unique and unapproachable example of goodness, speaks to us in it still, amid the absorbing interests of our busy and eager times. Our safeguard in the dazzling and amazing world of discovery in which we live is loyalty to goodness, loyalty to its supreme claims, loyalty to its Lord. Never let us allow ourselves in the thought that being clever and having knowledge makes up for not caring to be good. And let us remember, too, that the pursuit of goodness, the building up of character and life in that goodness which our Master meant, is as hard a thing as true intellectual discipline. It is as much a thing of patience and time. It is as much a thing which costs trouble and tries resolution. If goodness were merely the qualities which men are born with, brilliant and lovely, the qualities which each man without trouble and with pleasure exercises—gentleness, love of truth, courage—goodness would not be a thing which rises, by mistakes and falls and painful self-correction, to whatever may be its degree of attainment. But if it be the direction of the will to whatever we are sure is right and good, whether congenial or not, whether we like it or no, the student who means to be a master of knowledge may as well take his task easy, as the servant and soldier of the Crucified, in following his Master.

R. W. Church, Human Life and its Conditions, p. 1.

References: Mar 10:17.—Expository Sermons on the New Testament, p. 57; J. H. Thom, Laws of Life after the Mind of Christ, p. 164. Mar 10:17-22.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 558. Mar 10:17-25.—Good Words, vol. i., p. 92. Mar 10:17-27.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvii., p. 124. Mar 10:17-31.—H. M. Luckock, Footprints of the Son of Man, p. 220. Mar 10:20-22.—J. Martineau, Endeavours after the Christian Life, p. 265.

Mar 10:21

The text teaches:

I. How important one thing may be. It not unfrequently happens that the want of one thing vitiates and makes void the presence of all things else. Lacking its main-spring—which is but one thing—a watch with its jewels, wheels, pinions and beautiful mechanism, the finest watch that was ever made, is of no more use than a dead stone. A ship may be built of the stoutest oak, and manned by the ablest officers and stoutest crew, but I sail not in her if she lacks one thing, that trembling needle which a child might mistake for a toy, but on which, insignificant as it seems, the safety of all depends—lacking that one thing the ship shall be their coffin, and the deep sea their grave. It is thus with true piety, living faith—that one thing wanting, the greatest works, the costliest sacrifices and the purest life, are of no value in the sight of God, are null and void.

II. That we may be amiable without being truly religious. It is sad to find the grace of God associated in some people with an unkindly, uncharitable, sour, severe, stern, sullen temper. It should not be so. It is a most incongruous conjunction. On the other hand, let it not be forgotten that natural graces have adorned many who were entire strangers to the grace of God. They are not to be confounded with one another; nor is it to be imagined that natural graces ever can compensate for the grace that is to salvation. There may be much that is beautiful in us, without anything holy—presenting circumstances more or less analogous to those in nature. Uncultivated wilds have beautiful flowers, and our unsanctified nature has beautiful specimens of humanity.

III. There may be much moral correctness without true religion. Much of our morality—of that unblemished character and decent life in which many trust, who say to some poor guilty thing, "Stand aside, I am holier than thou," and plume themselves on this, that they have not sinned as others have done—is due, not to their superior virtue, but more favourable circumstances. Therefore let us be clothed with humility, and ever praying, "Lead us not into temptation"; "let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall."

IV. We may feel some interest and anxiety about good things without true religion. I look upon this as one of the most alarming cases in the sacred record. It calls on the best of men to try the foundations on which their hopes are resting. If this man did not get to heaven, how are they to get there? If the righteous, the really righteous, those who have been washed in the blood of the Son, and sanctified by the Spirit of God, are scarcely saved, where shall the wicked and the ungodly appear? If a man, clinging to the world, will stay in it, he shall go down with it, sink with the sinking ship. But accept the offer Christ makes of peace by the blood of His Cross, and you are saved—saved in spite of your riches as well as of your sins.

T. Guthrie, Family Treasury, July, 1861.

Mar 10:21

The Power of Life.

Few can have lived long without feeling that solemn blank which is left at times by one whom, perchance, they little thought filled so large a space, in so powerful a way, by his or her great goodness; what a great emptiness there can be when the presence is no more—the presence which, when it is gone, seems to have been everywhere about us in its silent strength. So living is the power of life.

I. And this is true of Christ’s life. It is the truth of truths, whether we speak of His life as narrated in the Gospels, or of His life as it may be seen working in the world now. Jesus Christ came with nothing but His life into the world. He came into the midst of the greatest empire that the earth had ever known, into the midst of its force, its armies, its wealth, its learning, its splendour, and brought with Him nothing, nothing but His life. And He left behind Him as a man nothing but the record of that life, written by others, and as God His Holy Spirit working in the world. Jesus Christ brought His own life as His only power, and we are to follow Him. Life alone deals with life. Life alone unlocks the secrets of life.

II. Everywhere Jesus made His own life go in amongst the living men, walking on crowded highways, living in public, in the midst of the people, with multitudes pressing on Him, sought out by publicans and sinners, known in cottages and poor men’s homes. There is nothing second-hand in Christ’s work. He gave Himself, He Himself and His own life act are all in all. The Incarnation itself is nothing else but this—Immanuel, God with us. Christ on earth is nothing else but a continual putting of Divine life into human life. To follow Christ then in any true sense must be the doing this, whatever else it may be. No man follows Christ who leads a separate life. No worker from above, no giver of gifts from above, no sender down of bounty follows Christ. Mind, power, rank, writing, however freely showered down, are mere machine-work, dead, and not the following of Christ, not life moving amongst the living, learning to feel with them and being felt by them as one who can feel, because one of themselves. Christ moved amongst men in this way, life to life, and none follow Him who do not do so likewise.

E. Thring, Christian World Pulpit, vol. i., p. 137.

Mar 10:21

The dawn of manhood.

I. The facts which form the historical setting of the text are, the birth of hope and the guarantee of a large expectation of success, since they prove that Jesus has a kind and throbbing interest in, and a quick enduring sympathy with, men in the dawning of their manhood. "Jesus, looking upon the young man, loved him." That graphic touch of the artist biographer is a revelation. Jesus loves this young man. It was likely that He should. (1) He Himself is young; in the very fulness and freshness of His force, rejoicing in the unimpaired vigour of His life. Young souls are always social, averse to solitude, fresh in their sympathies, and intense in their zest of life. Christ and young manhood are as magnet and steel. They come together like drops of water that touch and hasten to coalesce. (2) Again, a common conflict knits heart to heart, quickens mutual interest and fosters brotherhood amongst the young. Our Master was in all points tempted as young men are. (3) His purpose and methods, too, fed His interest in, and increased His regard for young men. Jesus Christ came to create a new world, and therefore, as soon as He had given Himself to His transcendent task in that baptismal act in the river Jordan, He drew young men to Him by the magnetism of His own nature and sympathies, made them the recipients of His spirit, the exponents of His thoughts, and the messengers of His redeeming Gospel to the world.

II. Jesus demonstrates the old-world fact that a manhood, self-centred and self-contented, is a poor, withered, shrunken, and miserable thing. It is this patent fact that imparts such pungency to the direction Christ gives to this wealthy young ruler.

III. The Lord Jesus reveals the fact that the one infallible requisite for making the right start for a true manhood is the definite and thorough acceptance of the one perfect ideal of the manly life. "One thing thou lackest." What is the one lacking thing is revealed in the words, "follow Me." The supreme need of the soul is the Christ of God.

J. Clifford, The Dawn of Manhood, p. 1.

This young man presented some of the best and some of the. worst aspects of human nature; he may be regarded, therefore, as a representative man. (1) He displayed a degree of moral earnestness; (2) he employed the language of veneration; (3) he was well-instructed in Biblical ethics; (4) he was inordinately attached to worldly possessions. Christ’s conduct in the case showed, (1) that He compels men to look at the logical consequences of their own admissions. (2) That personal regard may be entertained where full moral approbation cannot be expressed. Looked at as a whole the text shows:—

I. The necessary limitations of the most careful religious training. The young man was no barbarian; the voices of the lawgivers and the prophets had resounded in his hearing, and he was familiar with the harp of the holy minstrels who had turned duty and sorrow, victory and defeat, into music; with practical theology, as pronounced in statutes and commandments, he was perfectly familiar, and even to practical religion in the life he declared himself no stranger. "All these have I observed from my youth." There may be the most careful training of the memory and most jealous watchfulness over the conduct among men, and yet the heart may not be the temple of God.

II. That the final attainment of education is the conquest of the heart. The young man knew enough; he was not perishing for lack of knowledge; light shone upon his intelligence; but his affections were self-enclosed and self-encoiled. There was one cross he could not lift, one surrender he could not make. Only one, but that was all. The conditions which Christ thus imposed show: (1) that Christ-following involves self-abnegation. Men cannot have a little of Christ and a little of self—in other words, true men cannot combine public profession and private self-gratification. (2) That Christ-following must be the expression of the soul’s supreme love. Men are not permitted to make a mere convenience of Christ. The young man loved his possessions more than Christ’s word. There are men who are prepared to observe any number of commandments provided they can also hoard wealth and indulge passion. (3) That Christ-following means self-giving. Christ was the Giver, and men are like Him in proportion as they give. Giving is not yet understood as a test of discipleship. Giving is understood as a patronage, but not as a self-sacrifice.

III. That lack of one thing may be lack of everything. Conduct may be regulated in two ways: (1) by the brain; (2) by the heart. As with a watch so with the life. The face of the watch may be made to represent the truth by simply altering the hands, or it may be corrected by touching the interior works. So it is with human life: many seek to correct it by the outside; they seek for models, they inquire for footprints; but they neglect the life and spring within, and consequently never get beyond the affectation and artificialism, or the stiffness of Pharisaic conceit. These reflections may serve to show the tremendous danger of the fallacy, that if a man is right in the main he will be admitted into heaven.

IV. That the sincerity of men must be tested according to their peculiar circumstances. The young man had great possessions; consequently the test had relation to the worldliness of his spirit. What is a test to one man may be no test to another; hence the difficulty of one man appreciating the "cross" of another, and expressing intelligent sympathy. No other test would have met the peculiarity of this young man’s case; he might have fasted long and prayed much, or even given liberally to the poor, but to sell all that he had was a test that shook his soul. The personal cross must be determined by the personal constitution. To one man it is no cross whatever to address a thousand hearers, yet to that very man it may be a heavy cross to speak a word for Christ to one individual. He is not, then, taking up a cross in addressing a multitude; his cross lies in another direction, and Christ points him to it.

Parker, Pulpit Analyst, vol. i., p. 181.

References: Mar 10:21.—J. Keble, Sermons from Septuagesima to Ash Wednesday, pp. 293, 303; E. Thring, Christian World Pulpit, vol. i., p. 137; H. Burrows, Church of England Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 353; Homilist, vol. vi., p. 333; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 54; Homiletic Magazine, vol. xiii., p. 341; New Manual of Sunday School Addresses, p. 181; J. Vaughan, Sermons, 10th series, p. 69.

Mar 10:21-22

One thing thou lackest.

I. This young man, immortalised in the everlasting word, was not a phenomenon, he was a type. We see him so distinctly in his own question, "What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" Yes, here is enquiry,—anxiety therefore, desire to be right, admission that there may be a higher height, a loftier attainment, than the life has yet reached; respect too, and reverence for one who is neither priest nor Rabbi nor ruler, who has neither rank, nor office, nor philosophy, nor oratory, but only the two things, sincerity and sanctity, to recommend him. This there is in the young man, and it brings him where all are welcome who would know and do; brings him running, brings him worshipping, and sets him face to face with Jesus Christ. Besides the spirit of enquiry and the spirit of reverence, there was a third thing in that character; a memory of morality, a habit of virtue. At the very moment that he is asking, What shall I do? his heart is saying within him, What lack I yet? He thinks, perhaps, when he asks that question, of some little finishing stroke, some last ornament and embellishment of perfectness, which may cost him an effort, but which at least need not undo nor unmake anything.

II. When Christ says to this moral young man, "Yet lackest thou one thing," we understand Him to say, "And that one thing is needful." He who puts it away from him, as either unnecessary for him or unattainable, counts himself unworthy of everlasting life. That which was lacking in the young man was, in one word, devotion; not devotion in the sense of devoutness, but devotion in the sense of self-surrender. The love of Christ stops not with gilding or refurbishing men, it sets open eternity. One thing thou lackest—thy soul must be athirst till she has it—union with the alone good One, the having Him in thee, the being at one with Him now and world without end. To have this thou must part with all else: in act, if Christ bids thee; in will, at all events, because Christ calls thee. The young ruler went away sorrowful. The love of Jesus was wasted upon him for this time, and the Gospels which tell of the going tell of no return. The moral, at all events, is thus written. It is not the second chance, it is not the late hope, it is not the last first, which is here recorded for our learning; it is the peril of refusing Christ’s call, of saying to Him, "I will not," when He bids us follow, of preferring earth when He offers heaven.

C. J. Vaughan, University Sermons, p. 354.

I. The one thing which Christ sees wanting in so many of us is expressed clearly in the latter part of His words to the young man in the Gospel. He tells us, "Come, take up the cross, and follow Me." The words are figurative, we see, when He says, Take up the cross, and we may ask what the figure means. But we know that in the Latin language, the term crux or cross had been long used to express generally any great pain or evil; and the words crucio and cruciatus derived from it are yet used only generally; they do not express literally the pain or suffering of crucifixion, but pain and torment simply. And this manner of speaking has come into use, because the Romans used the punishment of crucifixion commonly, not only towards slaves, but towards criminals generally of the subject nations, unless they were persons of high condition. So that when our Lord tells the young man to take up his cross, it means exactly, "Bear thy pain or thy suffering, whatever it may be, and follow Me."

II. Christ calls us to take up our cross and follow Him. We were following Him, not taking up our cross; we were following Him where to follow Him was easy, and it is many times very easy. Do not go away grieving, when you hear Christ’s call, because you are young, and faithful steady service of Christ will cost you many a sacrifice. Turn not from Him, but to Him much rather, with earnest prayer that He who bore His most painful cross for you, will enable you to bear your light one for His love; that He will help you daily, as your trial will come daily; that His strength may be made perfect in your weakness. And then, though the thing be harder than that a camel should pass through a needle’s eye, yet it shall be done. The young, with all their carelessness, with all their difficulties from without as well as from within, shall enter into the kingdom of God; for so some have entered, and so shall some enter again, and so may all enter who do not turn away from the cross, but ask Christ’s grace to help them to bear it.

T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. v., p. 246.

References: Mar 10:21, Mar 10:22.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 50; R. Duckworth, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxii., p. 168. Mar 10:23—G. Huntington, Sermons for Holy Seasons, 1st series, p. 237.

Mar 10:23-27

The Perils of Wealth.

I. Note the hardness of Christian self-denial to the rich. Self-denial lies at the foundation of the Christian character. The influence of great possessions unfits men for any self-denial whatever. Few can resist the temptation of wealth to luxurious habits, modes of life that become more and more exacting. Pleasure is a tyrannous master; indolence is begotten of easy circumstances; reflection languishes while desire is nursed. It is so easy, too, to purchase Christian labour: "We will give and others will work;" thus many men seek relief from the call of Christian duty. This is the reason why many a man trained up in a godly home, and familiar with Christ’s teaching, is yet not one of Christ’s followers. He knows the Christian life to be a self-denying life, and he has wholly unfitted himself for self-denial; sadly, drearily, hopelessly he turns away. He cannot follow Christ; he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

II. Self-knowledge, again, is especially hard to the rich. The question of the disciples, "Who then can be saved?" expresses the common wonder. The glamour of wealth is upon us all, and we cannot see eternal truth. So easily do we flatter ourselves that where there is no uncomeliness of manners the heart must be right; and the rich are surrounded by flatterers. A man may go through life never knowing what is in him, if all his desires are gratified, and every one about him echoes his fond self-complacency. "Who then can be saved?" Well may the disciples wonder. Christ’s latter words have only enlarged the circle of those who find it hard to enter the kingdom of God. Trust in riches is not confined to the rich. "If only I had a little more," say one and another, say almost all, "If I had a little more, what a different man I should be. My piety would so gain if I were delivered from my cares, I could serve God so fully if I had but a competency." It is the common feeling, the almost universal search. Since all are seeking to be wealthy, since all are showing their trust in riches, who then can be saved? Men are seeking possessions as if these could ensure everything; as if possessions were the highest end of life. And Christ looks round with tender, awful eyes and says, "How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God."

A. Mackennal, The Life of Christian Consecration, p. 212.

References: Mar 10:24.—G. Macdonald, Unspoken Sermons, 2nd series, p. 26. Mar 10:26.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 129; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 302. Mar 10:28-30.—A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 262.

Mar 10:29-30

I. A reflection upon the terrible danger of riches is the first moral of this incident. The disciples, indeed, more experienced some of them in the opposite perils of poverty, with its mean, foils and down-dragging cares and ready envyings, exclaim in astonishment, "Who then can be saved?" If the rich, with their tranquil days and easy fortunes, with every facility for the two virtues of honesty and of thankfulness, can hardly enter God’s kingdom, how much less, surely, they whose whole life is trial—trial of patience, trial of rectitude, trial of faith. Thus it is that each rank and each age and each character regards its own as the very chief of all difficulties and all hindrances, thinks any other class or condition better off for salvation, and asks in despondency, if not in recrimination, If that other, that opposite, can scarcely be saved, how can I?

II. But there was one disciple who, in those days of his ignorance and self-reliance, was ever ready to compare himself advantageously with other men, and who saw, in the example of this young ruler going away sorrowful, an opportunity of vaunting the opposite conduct of those who, like himself, had counted all things loss for Christ. "Peter began to say unto Him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed Thee." Our Lord begins His reply to this boast by a warm and generous recognition of the greatness and blessedness of their self-sacrifice. There is no man who has done what he has done, who shall not here and hereafter have his reward. "Now in this time a hundredfold—in the world to come eternal life." We have here then, before us, as the principal subject, a magnificent view of the compensation of discipleship. Work done for Jesus Christ—done in sincerity, done in simplicity, done in love—shall not lack its reward. "A hundredfold now in this life, and in the world to come"—who shall speak it?

C. J. Vaughan, Oxford Undergraduates’ Journal, Nov. 1st, 1877.

An Hundredfold now in this time. We have here, as the principal subject, a magnificent view of the compensations of discipleship.

I. Some have talked slightingly of the sacrifices made by Peter and his companions. They are supposed to have had little to give up. A crazy boat or two, a few tattered nets—that was their all. On the other hand, it does not appear that, at the time of this occurrence, their abandonment of home or employment was either final or absolute. After the resurrection the disciples are found in Galilee, resuming, at least occasionally, their old occupations. Nevertheless, they rightly regarded the call to follow Jesus as a call to give up everything for it. Never, again, would they be their own for a single hour. It was a true instinct which made Peter combine, in consecutive clauses and as equivalent phrases, the "left all," and the "followed Thee." An entire detachment from all that had made and been the old life was the very condition and meaning of the new.

II. This is the discipleship. Now for its compensations our Lord divides them. There is a compensation in the present, "now in this time." The nature of it is remarkable, "He shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands." The very language shows the promise figurative. We have read it, perhaps, as quite vague—"Shall receive something instead, something which shall reconcile him to the loss of all these." An inward peace, suppose—a sense of God reconciled—an appreciation of the littleness of things temporal—a growing, deepening apprehension of things invisible and eternal. Is there not something besides—something more precise and more peculiar—in this promise? Brothers, sisters, mothers, children—an hundredfold each and all of these, now, in this time—no mere equivalent, in the dim shadowy future, for the sacrifice of them here. There is a family—no man can number it—in earth and heaven, of which a man becomes a member when he becomes a Christian. God is its Father, Christ is its Head; holy angels are its elder brothers; saints, martyrs and apostles, all good men, dead or living, are its intimates and its kinsfolk; earth is its compass, heaven is its home; and whosoever believes in Christ, whosoever has the Holy Spirit in him, enters at once upon the affections and the sympathies of all these; extend, expand this kinsmanship through all time and all space, and you will see why Jesus Christ should say that the man who gives up, or is willing to give up, the natural wins a hundredfold in the spiritual.

C. J. Vaughan, University Sermons, p. 371.

References: Mar 10:29, Mar 10:30.—Homilist, 3rd series, vol. i., p. 321; Expositor, 1st series, vol. ii., p. 245. Mar 10:30.—Ibid., vol. iv., p. 256.

Mar 10:31

The Great Refusal.

I. The gracious Lord loved the young man, but was not met with trustful, entire response. Why did He love him? Because He saw him as he was—pure, enthusiastic, unspoiled, though unproved. It is a false and forlorn view to take of man, that there is nothing beautiful in him before he becomes saintly. The very attractiveness of an unredeemed soul makes us the more keenly desirous to redeem it. God may love a man whom He cannot yet trust; He may love a man who does not yet truly know, and cannot yet deeply love, Himself.

II. This rich young ruler was no selfish, corrupt worldling. He sought to have, perhaps to merit, eternal life. If we cannot merit heaven we cannot have heaven without merit. The youth would like to do something gloriously good, which he might wear as a rose at his breast, or carry as a heavenly decoration granted to him, an honourable courtier of the King of kings. He knew not that he lacked more than he had to give. He lacked the giving heart. He sincerely sought to be good; he admired, he revered goodness; but he thought to be good in a brilliant, easy manner. He had not strength to be good at the proposed cost.

III. Was he, therefore, excluded from the kingdom of heaven? It is sufficient to say that he was unable to follow Christ fully. Goodness has work to do, quite necessary, for which he was quite incompetent. But God does not reject what we can do because of what we cannot. Only, in the gradations of the spiritual realm, they who have borne the most, and been the bravest, will hold the highest places.

IV. As the test may not come to us, being rulers and being rich, so neither may it come in one hour, but may rather be applied through many a weary day. "Wilt thou be perfect?" is the question put to us. Having been invited by thy God, by His word that speaketh day by day, by thine own soul that has listened with delighted awe, to give thyself wholly to what will cost thee friends, and fame, and ease, and gain thee only an honoured grave and a heavenly home—hast thou refused "Him that speaketh"? It is the Great Refusal.

T. T. Lynch, Sermons for my Curates, p. 175.

Mar 10:32

Christ on the Road to the Cross.

We learn from John’s Gospel that the resurrection of Lazarus precipitated the determination of the Jewish authorities to put Christ to death; and that immediately thereafter there was held the council, at which, by the advice of Caiaphas, the formal decision was come to. Thereupon our Lord withdrew himself into the wilderness which stretches south and east of Jerusalem, and remained there for an unknown period, preparing Himself for the cross. Then, full of calm resolve, He came forth to die. This is the crisis in our Lord’s history to which my text refers. The picture has not attracted the attention that it deserves. I think, if we ponder it with sympathetic imagination helping us, we may get from it some very great lessons and glimpses of our Lord’s inmost heart in the prospect of His cross.

I. We have here what, for the want of a better name, I would call the heroic Christ. I use the word to express simply strength of will brought to bear in the resistance of antagonism; and although that be a side of the Lord’s character which is not often made prominent, it is there and ought to have its due importance. We speak of Him, and delight to think of Him, as the embodiment of all loving, gracious, gentle virtues, but Jesus Christ as the ideal man unites in Himself what men are in the habit, somewhat superciliously, of calling the masculine virtues, as well as those which they somewhat contemptuously designate the feminine. We are to look to Jesus Christ as presenting before us the very type of all which which men call heroism, in the sense of an iron will, incapable of deflection by any antagonism, and which coerces the whole nature to obedience to its behests. Christ is the pattern of heroic endurance, and reads to us the lesson, resist and persist, whatever stands between us and our goal,

II. We see here not only the heroic, but what I may call the self-sacrificing Christ. We have not only to consider the fixed will which this incident reveals, but to remember the purpose on which it was fixed, and that He was hastening to His cross. The very fact of our Lord’s going back to Jerusalem with that decree of the Sanhedrim still in force was tantamount to His surrender of Himself to death. He recognised that now that hour of which He spoke so much had come, and of His own loving will offered Himself as our Sacrifice.

III. This incident gives us a glimpse of what I may call the shrinking Christ. Do we not see here a trace of something that we all know? May not part of the reason for Christ’s haste have been that desire which we all have, when some inevitable grief or pain lies before us, to get it over soon and to abbreviate the moments that lie between us and it. Was there not something of that feeling in our Lord’s sensitive nature when He said, for instance, "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened until it be accomplished"? And may we not see in that swift advance in front of the lagging disciples, some trace of the same feeling which we recognise to be so truly human? Christ did shrink from His cross. There was shrinking which was instinctive and human, but it never disturbed the fixed purpose to die. It had so much power over Him as to make Him march a little faster to the cross, but it never made Him turn from it. And so He stands before us the Conqueror in a real conflict, as having yielded Himself up by a real surrender, as overcoming a real difficulty, "for the joy that was set before Him, having endured the cross, despising the shame."

IV. So, lastly, I would see here the lonely Christ. In front of His followers, absorbed in the thought of what was drawing so near, gathering together His powers in order to be ready for the struggle, with His heart full of the love and the pity which impelled Him, He is surrounded as with a cloud which shuts Him out of their sight as afterwards the cloud of glory received Him. There never was such a lonely man in the world as Jesus Christ. Never one that carried so deep in His heart so great a purpose and so great a love which nobody cared a rush about. And those that were nearest Him and loved Him best, loved Him so blunderingly and so blindly that their love must have been often quite as much of a pain as of a joy. And all this solitude, the solitude of unappreciated aims, and unshared purposes, and misunderstood sorrow during life, and the solitude of death with all its elements ineffable of atonement, all this solitude was borne that no human soul, living or dying, might ever be lonely any more. "Lo I," whom you all left alone, "am with you," who left Me alone, "even till the end of the world."

A. Maclaren, Christian Commonwealth, Nov. 11th, 1886.

I. There was something in the aspect of Christ, in the emanation of His spirit, which struck His disciples with a great awe. He had not yet spoken to them, but they felt what He had to say. But they were less than ever able to leave Him. Such awe was a magnetic spell which kept them within His circle. As they followed Him they were afraid, but if they forsook Him they were dead. "Lord, to whom shall we go but unto Thee? Thou hast the words of eternal life." Awful as the words sometimes seem, fearful as is the vision they open, let us hear them, let us enter into life by them. To turn from them is to enter into death—the death which is eternal.

II. There are moments when we are amazed as we listen to Jesus, and as we follow we are afraid. I think that it is with us in our Christian lives much as it was with Christ; there are great broad tracts of serenity and sunlight, crossed by shadows of awe and dread. Remember, the life of Jesus Christ must have presented the reverse of a gloomy or repellant aspect. The Shepherd is His chosen character. "I am the Good Shepherd"—uttered perhaps the deepest thought of His heart as to His relations to mankind. His words, His work, the spirit He breathed, were sweet and fresh as the fragrant meadows to the hot and dusty wayfarer of life. The main experience of a true Christian life should be joyful and hopeful, as things are glad that live in the sun. The elements of joy in our lot are abounding. The certainty of blessing is absolute. Nothing can harm us, nothing can daunt us, nothing can drive us to despair. But there are moments when thoughts and visions rise from deep springs within us and chase the joys. They may bury us in a gloom which yet is not chill and drear; which has a golden gleam of sunlight through it, chasing all its terrors away. There are moments when life in any form seems very solemn, very terrible, when we tremble before the vision of an undying existence, an infinite capacity of suffering or of being blessed; while we are conscious inwardly of fatal weakness, a deadly proneness to sin. Blessed, thrice blessed they, who in this dread crisis see the form and clasp the hand of Him who has trodden the path before them, and trodden it till it issued in glory.

J. Baldwin Brown, The Sunday Afternoon, p. 53.

I. Notice here the singular combination of the compatibility and the union of two apparently contradictory things; though they feared they followed, and though they followed they feared. The fear was not enough to stop the following, nor the following sufficient to arrest the fear. There was a love in the fear which kept them following, and yet a nature in the following which still left them fearing. It was the fact of the following which originated the fear. And fear is the strongest fascination. There is always a tendency to go to what we greatly fear. It is a principle true in love. There is fear in all true love. And the fear in the love makes a part of the fascination of the love. So the following led up to the fear, and the fear led up to the following.

II. That walk to Jerusalem appears to me strangely illustrative of the path by which many of you are going to heaven; Going to heaven!—yes, you are going to heaven, but not enjoying all you might, or glorifying all you ought by the way. We come to the question, How is it that a real follower may be a real fearer? And I will find the answer on that road up to Jerusalem. Why did the disciples fear? (1) They had not adequate ideas of Him whom they followed. They did not know—what they learnt afterwards—what exceeding care He takes of His own, how by His suffering He was going to prevent their suffering, and by His own death to prevent their dying; they had not read the full character of Christ, therefore they misread their own future. (2) Though the disciples loved Christ, they did not love Him as He deserved. If they had done so, the love would have absorbed the fear; they would have rejoiced to endure with Him, even to the death. (3) They had not what their Master had—one great, fixed, sustaining aim. It was that which bore Him so bravely, and that would have borne them. (4) The disciples had their fears undefined. It was the indefinite which terrified them. Take, then, four rules. (1) You that follow and are afraid, fortify yourself in the thought of what Christ is—His person, His work, His covenant, and what He is to you. (2) Love Him very much, and realize your union with Him. (3) Set a high mark, and carry your life in your hand, so you may reach that mark, and do something for God. (4)

Often stop and say deliberately to yourself, "Why art thou cast down, O my soul?" and do not go on till you have got an answer.

J. Vaughan, Sermons, 1867, p. 53.

References: Mar 10:32-45.—A. H. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 282; H. M. Luckock, Footprints of the Son of Man, p. 225. Mar 10:33, Mar 10:34.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 52. Mar 10:35-38.—Homilist, 3rd series, vol. i., p. 177. Mar 10:35-40.—W. Romanis, Church of England Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 111. Mar 10:36.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 12.

Mar 10:38

Prayers offered in Ignorance answered in Love.

I. Let it be admitted that the prayer of James and John was rooted in ambition, still we may not forget that their ambition was to be nearest Christ; nor can we fail to observe that there are some things in their conduct which are worthy of our praise, and may be imitated by us with advantage. (1) In the first place they did ask. Now that was a great thing. How many are there from whose lips no prayer ever ascends into the ear of God! It is a great matter when one goes to Jesus for anything, since, by and by, no matter what he begins with, he will be found going to Him for everything. Whatever be thy desire, therefore, go to Him. (2) These brothers had a definite purpose in coming to Him. When He said to them, "What would ye that I should do for you?" they were not taken aback, but they set before Him a distinct request. Herein, again, they were greatly in advance of multitudes who presume to be their censors; for is it not too true that our prayers are frequently most vague and indefinite? Men confess sins of which they do not feel the guilt, utter adorations which they cannot appropriate, and offer prayers so general that they may mean anything or nothing. We ask things which we do not want, and omit many which we really do desire. (3) These brothers were honest and sincere in their request? (4) They did not pretend to ask this in order to keep up the appearance of faith in Jesus and attachment to Him. They actually desired to have the positions for which they made request. It is a thousand times better to pray sincerely about matters which, though they be secular and small, are real to us, than to pretend to pray about spiritual things, which are at the time no better to us than myths; and it would be a good rule to lay down for our observance, never to ask for anything unless we feel that we truly need it.

II. But we are ready to ask, If all this be true, what was there to be blamed in the petition? And to this I answer that, apart from the earthly ambition to be above the other disciples, I cannot find much that was wrong about their prayer. (1) They wished to be beside Him in His glory, but they had a very false conception of what that glory was. (2) They did not understand what was involved in the granting of their request. If we will but remember these two particulars, we shall begin to comprehend why so many of our prayers are apparently unanswered, and why so frequently we fail to recognise answers to our prayers when they do come.

W. M. Taylor, Limitations of Life, p. 160.

References: Mar 10:38.—H. N. Grimley, Temple of Humanity, p. 30. Mar 10:39.—Christian World Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 93.

Mar 10:40

We learn from the text two great and important truths:—

I. That the followers of Christ are not necessarily His friends or true disciples. In the multitudes who accompanied Jesus out of Jericho: (1) Some, doubtless, followed Him out of mere curiosity. (2) Some followed because it was just then somewhat fashionable to do so. (3) Some followed with a view to worldly advantage. (4) Such following of Christ is of no real or lasting advantage to these followers themselves.

II. The text suggests to us that among a multitude of Christ’s followers you may generally expect to find some friends. Jesus went out of Jericho with His disciples and a great number of people. (1) This should encourage us to persevere in our own following. (2) It should encourage us in relation to other followers as well as ourselves, and lead us to do and say all we can to encourage them.

J. Morgan, Christian World Pulpit, vol. x., p. 389.

References: Mar 10:40.—Church of England Pulpit, vol. xviii., p. 145. Mar 10:46.—Homilist, vol. v., p. 52. Mar 10:46-52.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. v., No. 266; H. W. Beecher, Sermons, 1870, p. 172; G. Macdonald, Miracles of our Lord, p. 103; H. M. Luckock, Footprints of the Son of Man, p. 230. Mar 10:46-52.—Christian World Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 364. Mar 10:47.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 53. Mar 10:47, Mar 10:48.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xi., No. 645. Mar 10:49.—T. Keane, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 81; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiii., No. 1389; R. W. Evans, Parochial Sermons, vol. i., p. 172. Mar 10:49-50.—Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Gospels and Acts, p. 74. Mar 10:51.—Ibid., Three Hundred Outlines on the New Testament, p. 38; A. Murray, With Christ in the School of Prayer, p. 71.

Mar 10:52

I. To see spiritually is to see Christ, the light of the world, and to be penetrated with the sense of the beauty and fulness which are in Him.

II. A soul enlightened sees in Jesus that which is all its salvation and all its hope.

J. Baldwin Brown, The Sunday Afternoon, p. 79.

References: Mar 10:52.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 415; B. F. Westcott, Expositor, 3rd series, vol. v., p. 456. Mar 11:1.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 136. Mar 11:1-11.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. i., p. 26; H. M. Luckock, Footprints of the Son of Man, p. 235; W. Hanna, Our Lord’s Life on Earth, p. 372. Mar 11:3.—J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 10th series, p. 82. Mar 11:4-6.—S. Baring-Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches, p. 146. Mar 11:6.—A. Scott, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xx., p. 322. Mar 11:8-10.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ix., p. 177.

The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The first verse of this chapter acquaints us with the great labour and pains our Saviour took in the exercise of his ministry, traveling from place to place, in an hot country, and on foot, to preach the gospel, when he was here upon earth; Teaching all persons, but especially ministers, by his example, to be willing to undergo pains and labour, even unto much weariness, in the service of God, and in the duties of their calling. For this is God’s ordinance, that everyone should feel the burden of his calling, and painfulness of it.

But, Lord, how nice and delicate are some labourers in thy vineyard, who are willing to do nothing but what they can do with ease; they cannot endure to think of labouring unto weariness, but are sparing of their pains, for fear of shortening their days and hastening their ends! Whereas the lamp of our lives can never be better spent, or burnt out, than by the lighting others to heaven.

The following verses acquaints us with and ensnaring question which the Pharisees put to our Saviour concerning the matter of divorce; concluding, that they should entrap him in his answer, whatever it was; if he denied the lawfulness of divorce, then they would charge him with contradicting Moses who allowed it. If he affirmed it, then they would condemn him for contradicting his own doctrine Mat 5:32 for favouring men’s lusts, and complying with the Jews, who, upon every slight and frivolous occasion, put away their wives from them. But such was the wisdom of our Saviour in all his answers to the ensnaring Pharisees: that neither their wit nor malice could lay hold on anything to entangle him in his talk.

Observe therefore, the piety and prudence of our Saviour’s answer to the Pharisees; he refers them to the first institution of marriage, when God made husband and wife one flesh to the intent that matrimonial love might be both incommunicable and indissoluble; and accordingly asks them, What did Moses command you?

Thereby teaching us, That the best means for deciding all doubts, and resolving all controversies, about matters of religion, is to have recourse unto the scripture, or the written word of God: What did Moses command you?

Observe farther, How our Saviour, to confute the Pharisees and convince them of the unlawfulness of divorce, used by the Jews, lays down the first institution of marriage, and shews them, first the author, next the time, then the end of the institution. The author, God, What God has joined together &c.

Marriage is an ordinance of God’s own appointment, as the ground and foundation of all sacred and civil society. The time of the institution was, in the beginning.

Marriage is almost as old as the world, as old as nature itself; there was no sooner one person, but God divided him into two; and no sooner were there two, but he united them in one. And the end of the institution of marriage, Christ declares was this, That there might be not only an intimacy and nearness, but also an inseparable union and oneness, by means of this endearing relation: the conjugal knot is tied so close, that the bonds of matrimonial love are stronger than those of nature. Stricter is the tie betwixt husband and wife, than that betwixt parent and child, according to God’s own appointment. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh. And whereas our Saviour adds, what God hath joined together let no man put asunder.

Two things are hereby intimated to us,

1. That God is the author of the close and intimate union which is betwixt man and wife in the married condition.

2. That it is not in the power of man to untie or dissolve the union which God has mad betwixt man and his wife in the married state; yea, it is a great sin to advise unto, or endeavour after, the separation of them.

Observe, lastly, Our Saviour’s private conference with the disciples, after his public disputation with the Pharisees, about this matter of divorce. He tells his disciples, and in them he tells all Christians to the end of the world, that it is utterly unlawful for man and wife to be separated by divorcement one from another, for any cause whatsoever, except only for the sin of adultery committed by either of them after the marriage.

Learn hence, That according to the word and will of God, nothing can violate the bonds of marriage, and justify a divorce betwixt man and wife, save only the defiling of the marriage-bed, by adultery and uncleanness. This is the only case in which man and wife may lawfully part; and being for this cause parted, whether they may afterwards marry again to other persons has been much disputed; but that the innocent and injured person, whether man or woman (for there is an equal right on both sides) may not marry again seems very unreasonable; for why should one suffer for another’s fault?

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [XCVIII. Journey to Jerusalem].

XCVIII. JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM. CONCERNING DIVORCE. aMATT. XIX. 1-12; bMARK X. 1-12.

a1 And it came to pass when Jesus had finished these words [the words contained in Mat_18:15-35., which are the last teachings in Galilee recorded by any of the Evangelists, Mat_28:16, Mat_28:17, Joh_21:1], b1 And he arose from thence, and cometh acame binto the borders of Judæa and beyond the Jordan [The land beyond the Jordan was called Peræa. See Mat_5:32), they hoped to make it appear that he despised the authority of Moses. But if he ratified the law of Moses, then they would show that he was contradicting his former teaching, and hence too inconsistent to be worthy of credit. For the Lord's teaching concerning divorce see Act_13:2, 1Co_9:4, 1Co_9:5), they are permitted to abstain from marriage; and when seasons of persecution seriously interfere with the regular order and course of life among Christians, they may find it expedient to live as eunuchs ( 1Co_7:25-34). But in no case must celibacy be practiced unless it can be done so without the sin of incontinency ( 1Co_7:1-9). The Bible nowhere countenances any celibate vow, for it teaches that celibacy is to be continued only so long as it is expedient. Much less does it give countenance to the doctrine that a church can pass laws enforcing celibacy on the whole class of clergy, without any regard for their natural constitution, their spiritual powers, or their faithful continuance.--P. Y. P. [542]

[FFG 537-542]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

1. He arose from thence. From Capernaum. His Galilean ministry was now terminated. He was about to start his last journey to Jerusalem. See notes on Matt. 19:1, 2.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

Connecting Statement:

After Jesus and his disciples leave Capernaum, Jesus reminds the Pharisees, as well as his disciples, what God really expects in marriage and divorce.

Jesus left that place

Jesus' disciples were traveling with him. They were leaving Capernaum. AT: "Jesus and his disciples left Capernaum" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

and to the area beyond the Jordan River

"and to the land on the other side of the Jordan River" or "and to the area east of the Jordan River"

He was teaching them again

The word "them" refers to the crowds.

he was accustomed to do

"was his custom" or "he usually did"

What did Moses command you

Moses gave the law to their ancestors, which they now were also supposed to follow. AT: "What did Moses command your ancestors about this"

a certificate of divorce

This was a paper saying that the woman was no longer his wife.

translationWords

Jesus

Judea

Jordan River

teach

Pharisee

test

lawful

divorce

Moses

command

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

1–12. THE QUESTION OF DIVORCE

Mat 19:1-12; Mat 5:31-32. Luk 16:18

1. καὶ πέραν ([2101][2102][2103][2104][2105][2106]) rather than διὰ τοῦ πέραν ([2107][2108][2109][2110][2111]).

[2101] Codex Sinaiticus. 4th cent. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the Monastery of St Katharine on Mount Sinai. Now at St Petersburg. The whole Gospel, ending at Mar 16:8. Photographic facsimile, 1911.

[2102] Codex Vaticanus. 4th cent., but perhaps a little later than א. In the Vatican Library almost since its foundation by Pope Nicolas V., and one of its greatest treasures. The whole Gospel, ending at Mar 16:8. Photographic facsimile, 1889.

[2103] Codex Ephraemi. 5th cent. A palimpsest: the original writing has been partially rubbed out, and the works of Ephraem the Syrian have been written over it; but a great deal of the original writing has been recovered; of Mark we have Mar 1:17 to Mar 6:31, Mar 8:5 to Mar 12:29, Mar 13:19 to Mar 16:20. In the National Library at Paris.

[2104] An asterisk denotes that the word is not found elsewhere in N.T., and such words are included in the index, even if there is no note on them in the commentary.

[2105] Codex Regius. 8th cent. An important witness. At Paris. Contains Mar 1:1 to Mar 10:15; Mar 10:30 to Mar 15:1; Mar 15:20 to Mar 16:20, but the shorter ending is inserted between Mar 16:8 and Mar 16:9, showing that the scribe preferred it to the longer one.

[2106] Codex Athous Laurae. 8th cent. Like N and Σ, it is written in silver letters on purple vellum. Contains Mar 9:5 to Mar 16:20, and, as in L, the shorter ending is inserted between Mar 16:8 and Mar 16:9. As in Δ, the text of Mark is specially good.

[2107] Codex Alexandrinus. 5th cent. Brought by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, from Alexandria, and afterwards presented by him to King Charles I. in 1628. In the British Museum. The whole Gospel. Photographic facsimile, 1879.

[2108] Codex Purpureus. 6th cent. Full text in Texts and Studies v. No. 4, 1899. Contains Mar 5:20 to Mar 7:4; Mar 7:20 to Mar 8:32; Mar 9:1 to Mar 10:43; Mar 11:7 to Mar 12:19; Mar 14:25 to Mar 15:23; Mar 15:33-42. See below on Ψ.

[2109] Codex Monacensis. 10th cent. Contains Mar 6:47 to Mar 16:20. Many verses in 14, 15, 16 are defective.

[2110] Codex Oxoniensis. 9th cent. Contains Mark, except Mar 3:35 to Mar 6:20.

[2111] Codex Petropolitanus. 9th cent. Gospels almost complete. Mar 16:18-20 is in a later hand.

1. Καὶ ἐκεῖθεν ἀναστὰς κ.τ.λ. We have almost the same wording Mar 7:24, where, as here, a move of a considerable distance is begun. We have perhaps reached the long section in Lk. (Luk 9:5 to Luk 19:28) which is called “The Journeyings towards Jerusalem.” Ἀναστάς does not look back to καθίσας (Mar 9:35); it is Hebraistic amplification (Mar 1:35, Mar 2:14, Mar 7:24, Mar 14:57; Mar 14:60); freq. in Lk. and Acts, twice in Mt., once in Jn. Καὶ ἐκεῖθεν ([2418][2419][2420][2421][2422]) is perhaps unique in N.T. Elsewhere the best MSS. have κἀκεῖθεν, as in Mar 9:30.

[2418] Codex Sinaiticus. 4th cent. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the Monastery of St Katharine on Mount Sinai. Now at St Petersburg. The whole Gospel, ending at Mar 16:8. Photographic facsimile, 1911.

[2419] Codex Vaticanus. 4th cent., but perhaps a little later than א. In the Vatican Library almost since its foundation by Pope Nicolas V., and one of its greatest treasures. The whole Gospel, ending at Mar 16:8. Photographic facsimile, 1889.

[2420] Codex Ephraemi. 5th cent. A palimpsest: the original writing has been partially rubbed out, and the works of Ephraem the Syrian have been written over it; but a great deal of the original writing has been recovered; of Mark we have Mar 1:17 to Mar 6:31, Mar 8:5 to Mar 12:29, Mar 13:19 to Mar 16:20. In the National Library at Paris.

[2421] Codex Bezae. 6th cent. Has a Latin translation (d) side by side with the Greek text, and the two do not quite always agree. Presented by Beza to the University Library of Cambridge in 1581. Remarkable for its frequent divergences from other texts. Contains Mark, except Mar 16:15-20, which has been added by a later hand. Photographic facsimile, 1899.

[2422] Codex Sangallensis. 9th or 10th cent. Contains the Gospels nearly complete, with an interlinear Latin translation. The text of Mark is specially good, agreeing often with CL. At St Gall.

τὰ ὅρια τῆς Ἰουδαίας. A comprehensive expression for Judaea and the adjoining country; cf. Mar 5:17, Mar 7:24; Mar 7:31. The εἰς need not be limited to mean simply “up to”; it probably means “into” (A.V., R.V.).

καὶ πέραν. See crit. note.

ὄχλοι. Nowhere else does Mk use the plur., and here [2423] and Lat-Vet. (with Syr-Sin.) have the sing. and they couple ὡς εἰώθει with the action of the multitude. This has much less point than the statement that Christ takes up once more His practice of public teaching. Here again Mt. (Mat 19:2) substitutes healing for teaching; see on Mar 6:34. Syr-Sin. has “healed and taught.”

[2423] Codex Bezae. 6th cent. Has a Latin translation (d) side by side with the Greek text, and the two do not quite always agree. Presented by Beza to the University Library of Cambridge in 1581. Remarkable for its frequent divergences from other texts. Contains Mark, except Mar 16:15-20, which has been added by a later hand. Photographic facsimile, 1899.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.