At the very beginning of His earthly ministry, Jesus said that He had come to bring the Torah to fullness, not to destroy it. One aspect of this process was evidently the logical completion of the meanings placed in it when it first appeared. This is how Jesus also views marriage. The Torah, of course, knows the depth that...
At the very beginning of His earthly ministry, Jesus said that He had come to bring the Torah to fullness, not to destroy it. One aspect of this process was evidently the logical completion of the meanings placed in it when it first appeared. This is how Jesus also views marriage. The Torah, of course, knows the depth that unites spouses, binding them not only at the physiological or psychological level but also at the spiritual one. Yet, condescending to the weakness of fallen human nature, it permits divorce in certain cases. At first sight this is an absurd situation, for it concerns bonds that are not subject to human control at all, something with which one cannot play and which one cannot manipulate. But the fallen world is full of absurdity in general, and the Torah, making allowance for human nature, had to take this into account.
Jesus, however, does not wish to make allowance for fallen human nature: He has brought into the world the Kingdom where the complete transformation of this nature is possible, and His task is to prepare everyone who desires it to enter the Kingdom. That is why He speaks of the inadmissibility of divorce. With one exception: if one of the spouses is guilty of sexual immorality, something by definition incompatible both with marriage and with the Kingdom.
The spiritual standard is, of course, set extremely high here. The disciples understand this, which is why they say that it is then better not to marry. On the lips of a Jew, for whom family life was effectively a religious duty, such a statement sounded strange, to say the least. But Jesus, of course, understood everything perfectly and answered directly that in principle a situation is possible in which a person postpones family life until the triumph of the Kingdom, postponing it in order to build it no longer according to the laws of the untransformed world, but according to the laws of the Kingdom. Yet, in His own words, by no means everyone is capable of this: it must be given to a person, and it depends on that person no more than being born a eunuch or being made one by others.
Obviously, such a renunciation of family life cannot and should not be a universal principle. Jesus evidently looks at everything through the eyes of the Kingdom. At the same time, He looks at everything through the Torah, which Paul will later compare, not by chance, to a tutor who leads seekers to Christ.
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19:1 He departed - and from that time walked no more in Galilee. Marco 10:1.
19:2 Multitudes followed him, and he healed them there - That is, wheresoever they followed him.
19:3 The Pharisees came tempting him - Trying to make him contradict Moses. For every cause - That is, for any thing which he dislikes in her. This the scribes allowed.
19:4 He said, Have ye not read - So instead of contradicting him, our Lord confutes them by the very words of Moses. He who made them, made them male and female from the beginning - At least from the beginning of the Mosaic creation. And where do we read of any other? Does it not follow, that God's making Eve was part of his original design, and not a consequence of Adam's beginning to fall? By making them one man and one woman, he condemned polygamy: by making them one flesh, he condemned divorce.
19:5 And said - By the mouth of Adam, who uttered the words. Genesi 2:24.
19:7 Why did Moses command - Christ replies, Moses permitted (not commanded) it, because of the hardness of your hearts - Because neither your fathers nor you could bear the more excellent way. Deuteronomio 24:1 Matteo 5:31; Marco 10:2; Luca 16:18.
19:9 And I say to you - I revoke that indulgence from this day, so that from henceforth, Whosoever, etc
19:11 But he said to them - This is not universally true; it does not hold, with regard to all men, but with regard to those only to whom is given this excellent gift of God. Now this is given to three sorts of persons to some by natural constitution, without their choice: to others by violence, against their choice; and to others by grace with their choice: who steadily withstand their natural inclinations, that they may wait upon God without distraction.
19:12 There are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake - Happy they! who have abstained from marriage (though without condemning or despising it) that they might walk more closely with God! He that is able to receive it, let him receive it - This gracious command (for such it is unquestionably, since to say, such a man may live single, is saying nothing. Who ever doubted this?) is not designed for all men: but only for those few who are able to receive it.O let these receive it joyfully!