In The Hardness of the Heart I argue that Jesus’ phrase, “from the beginning it was not so,” is far more than a comment on divorce. It is a summons to return to what God actually said—and to the intent behind His words. That intent is oneness. But in Matthew 19, this call to oneness emerges in the middle of a confrontation with religious leaders who are deeply invested in something less.

Matthew tells us:

“The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him,
Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?” (Matthew 19:3)

They are not sincerely seeking God’s will; they are “tempting” Him—testing Him, trying to trap Him. Their aim is to pull Jesus down into the mud of human failure and institutionalized compromise, to force Him to play by their rules, within the framework that preserves their authority in an imperfect world. If He sides with a strict view, He risks alienating the crowds and contradicting Mosaic concessions. If He sides with a lax view, He becomes one more teacher blessing the people’s hardness of heart.

Jesus refuses the trap. He will not let the debate be framed around their question—“Is it lawful…?”—as though the highest concern is what the system permits. Instead, He exposes the poverty of their approach with a simple but devastating counter-question:

“Have ye not read…?” (v. 4)

Of course they have read. These are experts in the text. But they have read in a way that leaves the deeper intent untouched—and leaves their power intact. Jesus bypasses their citadel of legal precedent and goes straight past the wilderness of human failure, back to the wellspring:

“Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,
And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife:
and they twain shall be one flesh?
Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh.
What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” (vv. 4–6)

He reaches behind the entire edifice of later accommodation to “the beginning”—to Genesis 1–2, to God’s primal speech and intention. There we find no machinery for managing failure, no legal gamesmanship, but a clear, luminous design of unbroken unity:

  • “Male and female” created together as image‑bearers of God.
  • A man “leaving” and “cleaving”—a decisive, covenantal union, not a casual arrangement.
  • “One flesh”: two lives joined into a single reality that God Himself has forged.

In The Hardness of the Heart I stress that “one flesh” is not a poetic exaggeration. It names a covenantal oneness that is ontological and sacred. When Jesus adds, “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder,” He is confronting a mindset—exemplified by the Pharisees—that treats what God has joined as raw material for human negotiation, a domain where religious authorities can define and manage exceptions.

Predictably, they retreat to their strongest card:

“They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?” (v. 7)

Here is the attempted trap: If you contradict Moses, you lose. If you stand with Moses as we interpret him, you’re in our system. They are trying to anchor the conversation in the desert of human failure, where their authority as interpreters and regulators of that failure is secure.

Jesus exposes the deeper dynamic:

“He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives:
but from the beginning it was not so.” (v. 8)

Two crucial points emerge, both central to my book:

  1. Moses “suffered” it—he permitted, regulated, conceded. His legislation is a response to hardness of heart, not a revelation of God’s ideal. The Pharisees have turned a compassionate concession into a platform of power, confusing divine patience with divine preference.

  2. “From the beginning it was not so.” There is a kingdom beyond the wilderness. God’s intention precedes, transcends, and judges the structures we build around our failure. Jesus is calling His hearers—then and now—out of that desert, beyond institutionalized brokenness, back toward Edenic oneness.

This is where Genesis becomes indispensable. In Genesis 1–2 we see that oneness is not a marginal theme; it is the pattern:

  • Humanity created “in the image of God,” male and female together reflecting a unified divine image.
  • The man’s recognition of the woman: “bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23)—a statement of profound mutuality and shared essence.
  • The capstone: “they shall be one flesh” (2:24).

There is harmony:

  • Between man and woman: naked and unashamed, without blame or domination.
  • Within the human person: body formed from dust, animated by the breath of God—material and spiritual dimensions integrated.
  • Between creation and Creator: God walking in the garden, communion without fear or hiding.

This is the “beginning” Jesus insists on. This is what the Pharisees, and we, are always in danger of losing sight of as we normalize and manage our failures.

Once the fall occurs in Genesis 3, hardness of heart manifests as fragmentation:

  • Internally: fear, shame, and hiding distort the unity of the self.
  • Relationally: the man blames the woman—“The woman whom thou gavest to be with me…” (3:12); solidarity gives way to self‑protection.
  • Spiritually: the sound of God’s presence now elicits dread, not delight.

By the time we arrive at Moses’ allowance for divorce, we are dealing with a world already far from Genesis 1–2. The Pharisees’ error is not merely misinterpretation; it is complicity. Instead of leading the people back toward oneness, they stabilize a compromised order and seek to trap the One who calls them beyond it.

In The Hardness of the Heart I argue that Jesus’ response in Matthew 19 is a model for us:

  • We must distinguish between what God concedes to our condition and what He intends “from the beginning.”
  • We must beware of religious patterns that turn concessions into norms and norms into instruments of control.
  • We must let Jesus’ “Have you not read…?” unsettle our settled readings—not to discard Scripture, but to press deeper into its heart.

For Christians, this becomes a hermeneutic of return: every time we find ourselves defending the minimum God will tolerate, we should ask whether we are standing with the Pharisees in the desert, or walking with Jesus back toward the garden. For Bahá’ís and interfaith readers, a parallel emerges in the idea that revelation both accommodates and elevates: God meets humanity in its weakness, but always with the aim of leading us into higher degrees of unity.

In this series, we will follow that trajectory. We’ll begin with marital oneness in Genesis and Matthew 19, and then widen the lens:

  • Oneness of body and soul.
  • Oneness of creation and Creator.
  • Philosophical and symbolic readings of Eden—Joe Atman’s “philosophical war,” and ʻAbdu’l‑Bahá’s view of Adam as body and Eve as soul—that all, in different ways, point back to God’s design for unity.

ʻAbdu’l‑Bahá closes his discussion of Adam with the words: “This is but one of the meanings of the biblical account of Adam. Reflect, that you may discover the others.” Jesus’ “Have you not read…?” is a similar invitation—not only to read, but to reflect until we recover the pulse of oneness that beats in “the beginning.”

In the next article, we’ll stay with Matthew 19 and Genesis to examine how “one flesh” confronts both lax and legalistic approaches to marriage and divorce, and what it means to live toward God’s original intention even in a fractured world.

As you think about your own audience, where do you most see this Pharisaic tendency today—using divine concessions as a way to preserve control, rather than as a starting point for the journey back to oneness?

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