Restoration: Mark 10:10-12
Through the cross, God demonstrates His willingness to pay the ultimate sacrifice to fix the greatest possible break in relationship. Paul understands this when he writes Romans 5:7-10. The depth of God’s love is that while we could not save ourself, He died so we could be saved. He dealt with our brokenness. Our task is to receive it.
Not surprisingly, the disciples inquire more from Him when the circumstance warrants it. Jesus goes into more detail once He has an audience desiring to know more. Most topics worth discussing are nuanced enough to require time and interest to do them justice. Jesus goes deeper not because He thinks the disciples will agree with Him but because the disciples want a meaningful conversation.
Jesus teaches that anyone who divorces and remarries commits adultery. The underlying points about sin remain unchanged. All sin is forgivable once it is acknowledged and repented. Any person who divorces and remarries can be in relationship with God like every other person who has sin can be in relationship with God. Sin breaks relationship; the cross restores it.
Making divorce and remarriage a bigger issue than any other sin is unfair. All sin is wrong. All sin can be dealt with. There is no sin so great that God is not willing to reach across the brokenness created and invite us unto restoration – so long as we are willing to receive Him. The bigger the sin the harder the acknowledgment may be. The bigger the sin the more costly the repentance will feel from our perspective. So long as we are willing, God can deal with it through the cross regardless of the scope of the break.
Returning to the test case of divorce and remarriage, this should make sense. Marriage is hard work; there is going to be repentance and forgiveness even in the best of marriages! Divorce makes it harder to restore brokenness. Remarriage makes that brokenness even harder to restore. It can be restored; it just requires more intentional effort.
Jesus adds that the adultery is committed against the other person. This isn’t meant to say that it is a more acceptable sin. Sin is sin, it doesn’t matter whether it is sin against God or sin against a fellow human being. All sin breaks relationship. The point that Jesus is making, though, is that the sin against God happens when we undo what He has done. When a divorced person marries another, it is the relationship with the first spouse that breaks even further. That is where the repentance and forgiveness needs to be focused because that is the relationship that broke.
This is one of the reasons why I love defining sin as brokenness in relationship. All relationships can be fixed. Furthermore, we readily understand how the difficulty of the fix relates to the depth of the break. Through the cross, God demonstrates His willingness to pay the ultimate sacrifice to fix the greatest possible break in relationship.
