The Apostolic View on the Impossible cross of Unbearable Marriage
“His disciples say unto him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry” (Mt.19:10).
“Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will condemn” (Heb. 13:4).
“Whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery” (Mt. 5:32).
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither…adulterers” (1 Cor. 6:9).
“There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Prov. 14:12).
“Contracting a new union, even if it is recognized by civil law, adds to the gravity of the rupture: the remarried spouse is then in a situation of public and permanent adultery: If a husband, separated from his wife, approaches another woman, he is an adulterer because he makes that woman commit adultery, and the woman who lives with him is an adulteress, because she has drawn another's husband to herself (Vatican Catechism).
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What is Jesus saying here in His response to the Apostles’ alarm? You could well end up in such a marriage. In which case it would have been better “never to have married,” because the only way out is into the Lake of Fire. This is why marriage is underwritten in the strongest possible way by the 7th Commandment. Tamper with marriage (the 7th Commandment) and you will end up in the Lake of Fire.
When a local Lutheran’s wife took up with the University quarterback, he sought counsel from the Lutheran preachers: to divorce or not divorce. “Your call,” they told him, “either way we’re here for you.” Their doctrine could handle any and all outcomes. When I came to the area, there was a woman here who was such a notorious bed-crawler that all the town wives were on the alert. “You cannot remarry,” I told her when at the bank she told me of her unhappy marriage. “I don’t want to break up my marriage,” she had told her Lutheran preacher. “Your marriage is already broken by your unhappiness,” he whispered evilly. This fellow, my neighbors would tell me, did not think that what the Bible calls “adultery and fornication” was “dirty.” Because God is not a killjoy. “You’ll like our preacher,” another neighbor told me. “No he wouldn’t,” his wife said, “because Jacob doesn’t think the Bible has errors in it.” “So your preacher thinks God has bad breath” ((2 Tim. 3:16), I would say. He was also a regular on the dance floor Saturday night (because God is not against fun). But the notion that this “unhappy woman” should spend the rest of her life bearing the senseless cross of a miserable marriage is to turn the Gospel into another Law of Moses, which not even the Israelites could bear. What good are you to God “unhappy,” Luther would say? “Do what you have to do and go forth rejoicing in grace.” Jesus did not do away with the Law of Moses to establish the Bad News of an even more wretched New Testament law. Calvin would be more careful. Like the Pharisees, he didn’t toss the Scripture when he ran up against it. He tunneled through and under it–Mir Niks, Dir Niks. He could have fatwa-ed the whoredoms of the Great Whore with his “exceptions,” and installed her into the Church like just another of Philip of Hesse’s or Henry VIII’s wives. Because if what the Bible teaches makes you unhappy, it cannot be the Good News. Jesus came to make your good life even better.
“Whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery,” if taken literally, is considered the most reckless and monstrous statement in the history of literature. For nothing has caused as much misery and hardship. Luther dismissed it out of hand as a confused relic of Jewish work’s religion. His followers, realizing the implications of his views, tried various other solutions: 1) Jesus is only talking about Jewish “stigma”: that is, this poor woman is not an adulteress, but is only treated as such by the village gossips; 2) Jesus is laying down laws “zwischen den Zeiten,” the short period of His “cross” teachings until they will all be swept away by His death and resurrection: the Cross. In other words, during this time people were saved by “becoming cross bearing disciples” (a half-way house of salvation by works), until Jesus' death and resurrection would usher in salvation “by faith alone” as taught by Paul; 3) Jesus used extreme language to make a point in the way parents do to teach their children when they illustrate with bears, rabbits, sly foxes and glib crows, etc. But you don’t take a Parable “Buchstablich,” as the Germans shriek. Everything Jesus taught is a Parable to make a point in some fashion or other to set forth an Ideal which mankind should strive for. It’s out there. The fact that “it cannot be tried” (as they say), does not mean that the Ideal is not out there. But it’s only an Ideal. You have to set the bar impossibly high for children, knowing that they know that they can get away with much less. You hope that by setting the bar impossibly high they’ll make a greater effort than they would if you merely set the mark where it should be. They’ll think you're not serious. By using the most extreme language known to mankind, Jesus is merely saying, “Look, this is serious, pay attention.” It’s the farthest thing away from Buchstablich. Paul gives you the literal, and that’s where you go to get saved; 4) Jesus is more or less talking about the Millennium when “the lion shall lie down with the Lamb.” His teachings remain interesting, and the Beatitudes, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Parables are great for comfort and meditation. But you can’t take them literally. This is why pagans tell Christians to first “try” their own religion before they preach to others. Because when pagans read the New Testament, the Sermon on the Mount becomes seared into their mind like an inescapable jingle: “Never man spake like this man.” But they mistake the language of discipleship (the cross before Jesus’ death) with that of “salvation by faith alone” (the preached Cross) which makes discipleship obsolete, optional, and often no more than a fig leaf for work’s salvation. Luther saw the Book of James as no more than the camel’s nose of Jewish work’s salvation creeping into the Church on the back of “taking up the cross discipleship.” Because, the Apostles themselves knew that “forever marriage” was impossible. It would condemn the Church to a straggly band of “hangers-on.” How could you call this “Good News,” or even salvation?
When asked to clarify Jesus does so by sharpening the point. They had understood Him perfectly. This is why the Church held the line on “forever marriage” until Luther and Calvin exploded the 7th Commandment by making divorce-remarriage repentable without repenting. For Luther this was easy: The Cross saves you "in" your sins–”sin boldly to prove to the world how great grace really is.” No, Calvin says: the Cross saves you from your sins–but what is sin? Hence, the Calvinistic fatwas to unsin any and all sins: the exceptions. Nothing in the Bible need make you uncomfortable if you “mine” it correctly. To un-cross the Cross, they had to dig an infinite number of tunnels to undermine the Bible. They fished out of it an exception for every “adulterous remarriage” since the Reformation. They have not had to separate a single one. All biblical, like the traditions of the elders which allowed you to gain “widow’s houses” by tricking the Law. These were the leading lights of Jerusalem. Snakes (vipers), Jesus calls them. Tricksters, hucksters, religious gangsters. Don't even bother to open the Bible if you have to filter it through the "traditions (teaching) of the Elders." Luther and Calvin did little more than reinvent the Pharisee. They are now joining the statues on the dunghills of reprobate History. It took centuries, but like the slavers whom they underwrote, "their sin has found them out." They have become as toxic as Bobby Lee and Stonewall Jackson. For they will be known to History as the architects of the Confederacy, the Holocaust, and Apartheid, the darkest chapters in human history.
A simple test of divorce-remarriage: present what you believe to the Apostles and see if they say “if this is what the Bible teaches, then it is good for man not to marry” (as they did to Jesus). Do you think anyone ever said that to the Pharisees? To Luther, to the Calvinites. Plug in Calvin’s “exceptions” and see what the Apostles say. Then Luther and his counsel to Philip of Hesse. Herod would look on and leer, "You've created a brothel in the Temple here."
The Apostles must have seen some very unhappy marriages. To be condemned to stay in such a marriage “till death” was, in their view, a fate almost worse than death. I meet many divorced people who now want to “serve the Lord,” but who would sooner die or take their chances with the Lake of Fire, than go back to their wives. But I have yet to meet one who was not looking for a “godly wife” to start over again. They have the right not to endure the afflictions of marriage, and the right to act upon (as the Sodomites) on their lusts. Some are on their third “start over again.” And the Calvins have yet to discover one remarriage that they call adultery. This, according to the Apostles reaction, is as it should be. The misery and hardship of a dead-end marriage seemed insane to them. Death would not come too soon. It was to become the poison pill of the Gospel for many. It stands for a mountain of unbearable misery, a soul crushing burden of despair. Taken literally, it stands as the most reckless and irresponsible statement in the history of literature to those who cannot reconcile it with the Good News. It simply cannot mean what it says. There has to be a way around it. The Gospel cannot be turned into a death sentence. God would not expect Philip of Hesse to go through life with the right eye of his lusts gouged out. That would be Bad News. Jesus did not come to lop of hands and gouge out right eyes. The language is strong, because children need strong language to get them to pay attention. But (wink, wink) adults know that you don't take nursery rhymes literally. The Sermon o the Mount should not be tried. To do so is to revert back to works salvation. It is the opposite of faith.
But the disciples understood Jesus correctly the first time. There is no way out. This is the glue that kept marriage rock solid for 1500 years until Luther and Calvin pimped it to make room in the Church for the filthy habits of their protectors. The likelihood of ending up in such a marriage is all too real. In that case, Jesus agrees, it would have been better never to have married. Because you're bound to that person until you die. For Luther and Calvin such thinking is madness, and worthless, because no one could ever follow it. Jesus came because no one could keep the 7th Commandment, and to free men from its poisonous influence. The Lutheran Hesse told Luther that he could not remain within the confines of marriage. Because Luther saw grace as God's unmerited favor at the Cross, he saw no need for man to change. God saves man as he is, "in" his sins. And how could Jesus command something that would make man very unhappy? The notion that a person should suffer or endure affliction needlessly was, for Luther, work's salvation in different dress. Why would Jesus put a person through this? "Narrow is the gate," Jesus said. You heard me right the first time. There is no way out. The Apostles thought they had either misheard or misunderstood. Jesus' clarification made their hair stand on end. Again, read them the tricks of Calvin, and see if they raise as much as an eyebrow. "This fellow," cried a world famous adulterer, "hath the sow by the right ear." They brought that sow into the Church and she turned it into a pigsty.
All the Apostles could hear was a loud "swoosh" of people running for the exists. This, they reasoned, could never be tried. They saw themselves sitting alone with Abraham in his desert tent. For Lot, this was faith that "could never be tried." "Who then can be saved?" Or can you be saved at the Cross without taking up the cross. Can you be saved without repentance? Is the cross optional, to be taken up or not taken up after salvation? In other words, could you simply disregard what Jesus says here, and pay a small penalty for disobedience? Herod was willing to mortgage half his kingdom to gratify his lusts. Why would anyone care about losing a few rewards in Heaven, if a slight disobedience can make them happy down here? Until Luther and Calvin, that slight disobedience would end up in the Lake of Fire. "Get them saved," Moody cried. The time is too short to worry about discipleship. The main thing is to get them into heaven, because you can get to heaven with the Cross alone without the cross. Who cares about rewards as long as you escape the Fire? Philip of Hesse was saved in his polygamy, was he not? He will of course have a lower rank in heaven, but who cares about that. It's like trying to bargain for a higher degree in Hell. Does a man in the fire ever request a cooler one? This is what you're dealing with here: the Cross as an insurance policy, while opting out of the extras (rewards) to be gained by "taking up the cross." Philip the Lutheran was afraid to leave the Church to gratify his lusts. Luther told him he could have both, and agreed that no man should have to suffer unrequited lust. Philip lusted against the Spirit, and Luther agreed that there is nothing in the Gospel to change that. "The new man" for Luther was a new way of thinking about how you look at your depravity (correct doctrine). As long as Sodom looks to the Cross as an insurance policy, Jesus will save them in their sins without repentance. Sin all the more boldly, Luther would have told the Sodomites, to show how much you value grace, and to demonstrate how great it is. The rich young ruler had the misfortune of seeking "eternal life" in the half-way program that was in effect until Jesus died. Before the Cross (Jesus' death) taking up the cross (obedience to Christ's teaching) was the only way to be saved (a fearful mix of the Law and good intentions). Had he sought salvation after the Cross, the Apostles would not have imposed on him such an impossible burden. He would have made a simple donation and walked off happily to enjoy his very privileged life. The Good News is meant to make your good life "even better." "Taking up the cross" was in fact even worse than the Law. For Luther it was the exact opposite of the Gospel. This, Luther called "strawy" Book of James rubbish, where an attempt is made to undermine Paul by ensnaring believers again with Jewish law and good works. For the Book of James reads like the Sermon on the Mount. The Epistles of Peter are no better. "Taking up the cross" talk even crops up at the Last Judgment in "feeding and clothing the poor." Imagine that: the celebrity preachers "who preached the (hollow) Cross in His name" are hurled into the Lake of Fire, while the cross bearers are ushered into the Kingdom. "By their fruits" Christ knew them. No cross, no fruit. No fruit, no salvation. The cross is the mark of ownership of the Cross. Like Cain, the rich young ruler simply would not repent. No repentance, no Cross. No cross, no Cross.
Whatever Kingdom Christ hoped to usher in, the Apostles concluded, will be, as a result, very sparsely populated. This is the unavoidable conclusion of the Straitgate, which "few find." "Few will be saved." Because God does not write insurance policies. The Christian life is not the enjoyment of life, but the joy of the Lord. There is little joy of life in "enduring to the end." The cross is such a stumbling block of offense because it strips a person of ownership of a personal life. "You are not your own, you have been bought with a price." Constant "watching", hour by hour, is the watchword of true faith. "I am crucified with Christ," Paul said, "nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me." Grace, in the New Testament, is both " outward favor" (the imputation of sin in the mind of God--the Cross) and the inward power of a "quickened life" (Eph. 2:1) through the New Birth--the cross. There cannot be removal of the guilt and transgression of sin, without the renewal of the guilty and transgressor of sin. The latter is the new life of the cross. Fruits are the evidence of this new life. No cross, no Cross. On the Day of Judgment, the hollow Cross is cast into the Lake of Fire (Mt. 7:22). And let the world tremble.