Marriage Isn't Made for the Law (The Law Was Made for Marriage)
"The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27, NKJV).
Jesus spoke these words to religious leaders who had become so obsessed with protecting their interpretation of Sabbath law that they'd forgotten the purpose of the Sabbath entirely. They had elevated their rules above the wellbeing of actual people, creating a system where individuals existed to serve the institution rather than the institution serving people.
Sound familiar?
When it comes to marriage and divorce, we've made exactly the same mistake. We've elevated our interpretation of marriage law to where people are now having to serve the preservation of marriage as an institution rather than marriage serving the wholeness and wellbeing of the people within it.
When Jesus Confronted Religious Systems
The Sabbath controversy wasn't really about grain or healing—it was about two completely different approaches to God's law. The religious leaders saw law as a system of rules to be protected at all costs. Jesus saw law as a gift designed to promote human flourishing.
When Jesus healed the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath (Mark 3:1-6, NKJV), he was deliberately provoking the religious establishment. He could have waited until the next day. He could have pulled the man aside and healed him privately. Instead, he made it a public confrontation with this pointed question: "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?" (Mark 3:4, NKJV).
The religious leaders were so committed to their interpretation of Sabbath law that they would rather see a man remain crippled than allow healing to happen on the "wrong" day. They had made their rules more important than human dignity.
Jesus was essentially saying, "I'm going to heal on the Sabbath to show you your laws are out of order with love."
The Hierarchy of Truth That Changes Everything
What Jesus understood—and what the religious leaders missed—is that not all truths carry equal weight. When he accused the Pharisees of being meticulous about tithing garden herbs while neglecting "the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith" (Matthew 23:23, NKJV), he was teaching a crucial principle: there's a hierarchy to truth.
Love trumps law. Always.
This doesn't mean law is unimportant. Rules and guidelines serve valuable purposes. But when following a rule requires us to violate love, we've misunderstood both the rule and its purpose.
I learned this principle years ago when I heard a message about "all truth is not created equal." The pastor was wrestling with a counseling situation where a woman was being abused, and while he knew what certain interpretations of scripture seemed to say about divorce, love wouldn't let him tell her to go home to more violence.
That's when he realized he'd been viewing truth horizontally—as if all biblical statements carried identical weight. But truth actually operates vertically, with some principles being weightier than others. The law of love is greater than any specific regulation about marriage.
Marriage as Institution vs. Marriage as Relationship
When we make marriage preservation more important than the people within the marriage, we've turned marriage into an idol. We're essentially saying that maintaining the external form matters more than the internal reality.
This happens when:
We insist people stay in abusive relationships because "God hates divorce"
We shame divorced people as "failures" regardless of their circumstances
We treat remarriage as permanently disqualifying people from ministry or full acceptance
We prioritize what looks good to the community over what's actually healthy for the individuals involved
We make people feel trapped by religious obligation rather than free to choose love
Real marriage—God's design for marriage—isn't about institutional preservation. It's about two people joining together in mutual love, honor, and support to create something beautiful that reflects God's heart and releases His Kingdom into the world.
When Bad Marriages Damage God's Kingdom
Here's something the institutional-preservation crowd misses: bad marriages do as much damage to God's Kingdom as healthy marriages are supposed to advance it.
When people maintain marriages that are built on fear, control, manipulation, or abuse, they're not modeling God's heart—they're distorting it. They're teaching their children, their community, and the watching world that God's "love" looks like domination, that His "faithfulness" means enduring harm, that His "grace" means accepting mistreatment.
Fake marriages don't release God's Kingdom. They counterfeit it.
I've seen too many families where the parents stayed together "for the kids" or "for the testimony," but the home was a war zone of conflict, criticism, and emotional devastation. Those children didn't learn about God's love from watching their parents' marriage—they learned to fear intimacy, to expect relationships to be painful, to believe that "commitment" means accepting abuse.
The Freedom Essential for Authentic Love
Until you're willing to lay a relationship down and let it die, it doesn't actually have the opportunity to truly live. Freedom is a major ingredient for true success in any relationship—even our relationship with God.
When someone stays in a marriage only because they feel religiously obligated to do so, that's not love—it's bondage. And bondage never produces the fruit that authentic love creates.
In my current marriage with Gregory, we don't stay together because we have to. We choose each other every day because we want to. That freedom creates space for genuine intimacy, mutual honor, and the kind of partnership that actually does reflect God's heart.
When I submit to Gregory, it's not because some religious system demands it—it's because his character inspires it. When he loves me sacrificially, it's not because he's fulfilling a biblical duty—it's because that's who he is in Christ.
This freedom makes our marriage a living testimony to God's Kingdom rather than a religious performance for the approval of others.
Practical Wisdom for Leaders and Counselors
If you're in ministry or counseling and someone comes to you with a marriage in crisis, resist the urge to immediately quote verses about God hating divorce. Instead, ask better questions:
Is everyone safe in this relationship?
Are there patterns of abuse, addiction, or unrepentant destructive behavior?
Have genuine efforts been made to seek help and create positive change?
What would be best for any children involved?
Is this relationship producing the fruit of God's Kingdom or releasing destruction?
What does love—informed by wisdom and biblical principles—require in this specific situation?
Remember that your goal isn't to preserve marriages at all costs—it's to help people walk in wholeness and honor God with their lives. Sometimes that means fighting for restoration. Sometimes it means creating space through separation for healing to happen. And sometimes it means releasing people with grace to find the authentic love they were created for.
When Religious Systems Sacrifice People
One of the most tragic aspects of institutional marriage preservation is how it sacrifices real people for the sake of abstract principles. I've watched religious systems:
Shame abuse victims for leaving dangerous situations
Prevent divorced people from serving in ministry regardless of their circumstances
Create elaborate theological justifications for keeping people trapped in destructive relationships
Prioritize what looks good to the community over what's actually healthy for the individuals involved
This is exactly what Jesus confronted in the Sabbath controversies. The religious leaders had become so focused on protecting their interpretation of God's law that they'd forgotten God's heart for actual people.
When we make marriage rules more important than marriage partners, we've made the same mistake.
The Different Kind of Righteousness
Jesus taught about a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 5:20, NKJV). This wasn't about following more rules or being more strict in interpretation—it was about understanding the heart behind God's instructions.
Sometimes the righteous decision—the decision that actually honors God's heart—is to end a marriage that has become mutually destructive. This isn't failure; it's wisdom. It's refusing to enable patterns that destroy human dignity and distort God's character.
The goal isn't to make divorce easy or treat it lightly. Marriage is sacred, and the breakdown of marriage affects everyone involved—including children, extended family, and community. But neither should we make divorce impossible or treat all divorces as equally tragic regardless of circumstances.
A Personal Testament
I can speak from experience about both kinds of marriage. My first marriage was sustained by legalism—by duty, obligation, and religious pressure rather than authentic love. I stayed for years beyond when love had died because I believed God would want me to suffer rather than leave.
That marriage eventually ended, and I spent years healing from both the relationship trauma and the religious shame that surrounded its failure.
My marriage with Gregory is built on entirely different foundations—mutual honor, authentic choice, and genuine partnership. We're not performing marriage for the approval of others; we're living it for the joy of loving each other well.
The difference is night and day. One was sustained by law; the other flows from love. One felt like imprisonment; the other feels like freedom. One drained life from both of us; the other multiplies life for ourselves and everyone around us.
The True Purpose of Marriage
Marriage was created to be a living picture of God's relationship with humanity—characterized by love, faithfulness, sacrifice, and mutual joy. When a marriage embodies these qualities, it becomes a powerful witness to God's Kingdom.
But when a marriage lacks these qualities—when it's built on control, fear, manipulation, or abuse—it becomes a distortion of God's character rather than a reflection of it.
God didn't create people to serve marriage; He created marriage to serve people. When we get that order right, we're free to pursue marriages that actually honor Him rather than merely appearing to honor Him.
The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Marriage was made for people, not people for marriage. And when we understand this principle, we're free to choose love—even when love requires the courage to walk away from what isn't working.
This is the righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees: the courage to prioritize people over institutional preservation, love over legalistic performance, and authentic relationship over religious obligation.
It's not always easy. But it's always right.
Blessings,
Susan 😊