The Commentariat Speaks (30)

One of the most common errors Christians make in interpreting the word of God is failing to distinguish between literal and figurative language. The Lord’s disciples were notorious in this area, and their Master patiently corrected them time and time again.

“How is it that you fail to understand that I did not speak about bread?” he asked them. “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” Again, Peter, James and John, privileged above the others to see the Lord transfigured, came down the mountain “questioning what this rising from the dead might mean”.

They got the figurative literal and the literal figurative.

We do it all the time too, and one of the best things Christians can do for one another is not to take for granted that what is obvious to us from scripture is equally obvious to others. Sometimes it just ain’t.

Too Stupid to be Widespread?

In my humble opinion, no error of Bible interpretation is too stupid to be widespread. I have frequently found myself correcting mistakes it never occurred to me were possible to make. Equally, I have found myself thunderstruck when it dawns on me that a completely unexpected interpretation of a verse or passage makes far more sense than my own long-held and previously unchallenged view.

Anyway, as is my wont every Tuesday, I read Doug Wilson’s letters column for light entertainment and sometimes enlightenment. Here’s one letter that jumped out. Justin asks:

“Problem passage. What is the point Jesus is making to the disciples in Matthew 19:10-12 about the eunuchs? Does his point equally apply to women? Resources I’ve looked at seem either sparse or they just glaze over it. Some think Jesus is saying ‘do whatever you want’; others go on about homosexuality.”

Doug responds:

“Justin, no, women cannot be eunuchs. A eunuch is a castrated male. Some are born that way (birth defect), some happen to have been made eunuchs by men already when they come to Christ (Ethiopian eunuch), while others voluntarily do it to themselves.”

Say what Doug???

Figurative and Literal

Okay, you see what I mean about taking the figurative literally, right? Or maybe I’m out to lunch. Let’s think about this for a moment.

Any difficult statement is best interpreted in context. What is going on prior to the Lord’s comments about eunuchs in Matthew 19? Why, he’s having a discussion with the Pharisees about divorce.

Divorce had been an issue for Jews throughout their history, but especially in the post-exilic environment. Ezra 9-10 are all about the foreign wife problem. Jewish men were intermarrying with the women from surrounding nations. The people’s answer, which Ezra implemented, was to put the foreign wives and their offspring away. Divorce, in other words. Nehemiah documents the consequences of national domestic disobedience: the children of the men who had married foreign women spoke the language of their mothers, not their fathers, which meant they could not relate to anything about the community in which they lived, including its God. Foreign wives and their pagan children were a useless, fruitless, dead-end strategy for Israel. They changed its character with alarming speed. They were also the only really spiritually valid reason for ending a marriage via the Law of Moses because those relationships were essentially adulterous.

Those Godly Offspring

The prophet Malachi, who wrote the last book of the Old Testament, makes explicit what Ezra and Nehemiah do not, though of course we could read it between the lines in either of the historical books. In order to marry foreign women, the returned Jewish exiles were divorcing their Jewish wives, presumably relying on the divorce provisions of the Law of Moses to do it. YHWH rejected the offerings of these men, and here’s why:

“Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. ‘For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her,’ says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘covers his garment with violence,’ says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”

The point of marriage was to produce godly offspring, generations of Jews devoted to YHWH and committed to his service. This was the Lord’s desire for Israel, and this is the very purpose the men of Israel were using their own law to thwart. Divorce is the major theme of Malachi, and it ties the Old Testament to the New. The last thing Malachi says is a reference to John the Baptist:

“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”

The Old Testament ends with these words. Fast-forward a few hundred years, and here we are in Matthew, who wastes little time introducing us to John the Baptist.

The Hearts of the Fathers

John’s mission was to change the hearts of Israel from hardness and selfishness to compassion and loyalty. It would seem the problems encountered by Ezra and Nehemiah had not gone away. Jewish men were still divorcing their wives, though likely the younger women with which they replaced them were Jewish rather than foreign. The children of these new unions spoke the language of Israel, but those from earlier marriages were still just as fatherless. I believe this is why every time divorce is debated in the gospels (Matthew 19, Mark 10), it is followed immediately by “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them.” Many of the children brought to the Lord Jesus were surely neglected by their fathers. Had dad been bringing them to the Lord rather than mom, it is highly unlikely the disciples would have had the courage to turn them away.

So godly offspring and the Lord’s hatred of divorce are related issues, and John the Baptist was charged by God with rectifying the problem through a call to repentance. That aspect of John’s mission was a short-term success and a long-term failure. In AD70 the Lord struck the land with a decree of utter destruction, as Malachi had promised.

The Matthew 19 Bombshell

Meanwhile, here we are in Matthew 19, and the Pharisees are testing the Lord Jesus. When they ask him, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?”, they are surely looking for the answer “Yes.” When attracted to someone more appealing than their aging wives, their way of dealing with out-of-control desire was simply to divorce the wife of their youth and marry the object of their desire. They were engaging in legalized adultery, and wanted the Lord’s approval. Surely he would not repudiate the Law of Moses, which he had previously upheld at every turn.

The Lord not only disappoints them, but ties lifelong fidelity to the creation account in Genesis. When questioned why Moses “commanded” divorce, he responds that the law had to accommodate the hard hearts of the men of Israel, but divorce was never God’s will for his people. Jesus affirmed what Malachi wrote, that divorce is violence and faithlessness. He finishes with “And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

That this came as an absolute bombshell to all and sundry is evident from the disciples’ horrified response — and remember, these were devout men: “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” A marriage you could not get out of at the drop of a hat when you wanted to was a scary, scary prospect to even the best of first century Jewish men.

And Now, the Eunuchs

Finally — and my apologies for the long but necessary lead-in — we come to the Lord’s reference to eunuchs. It is his reaction to the horrified response of his disciples at the prospect of having to maintain lifelong fidelity no matter what difficulties marriage may present and no matter what better sexual opportunities appear to present themselves. In using the word “eunuch”, he is stressing that the only alternative to a lifelong, faithful marriage is a sexless existence. What better imagery could he possibly use for a sexless existence than a castrated male? He says:

“Not everyone can receive this saying [‘It is better not to marry’], but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.”

When the Lord refers to eunuchs here, two out of the three cases cannot be anything but figures of speech denoting voluntary celibacy. How do we know this? It’s that last line: “Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.” He is talking to people who are still able to make choices about whether to get married, some of whom elect not to, not to castrated males from whom all choice has been forever taken away. His point is not that his listeners are free to “do whatever they want”, but that they had better get used to the idea of lifelong fidelity unless they are in a rather small group of exceptions who either have no choice in the matter, or are willing and able to make their way through life without a partner. 

Lord Against Law?

So, first, when the Lord speaks of “eunuchs who have been so from birth”, I do not believe he’s talking only about men with birth defects, nor is he making discreet reference to homosexuals, for whom out-of-control desire is by far and away the demographic’s most prominent characteristic. Rather, he is talking about that segment of the population born with little or no interest in pursuing a lifelong partnership with a member of the opposite sex. “It is better to marry than to burn with passion,” wrote Paul. Well, some people just don’t burn with that sort of passion. They have themselves in control, or they have a low sex drive, or they simply have other priorities in life. They may be male or female. You surely know one or two. I do.

Second, he refers to “eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men”. These, I believe, are the only literal eunuchs the Lord Jesus mentions.

Finally, the most obvious evidence we are not to take this literally is that the Lord now speaks of “eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven”. Surely he is not talking about castrated males! How could he possibly be? The Law of Moses forbade castration in Israel: “No one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord.” This was exactly how eunuchs were made in those days in other nations: the testicles were crushed or amputated (more often) or the organ cut off as well (less often, as that presented a variety of medical issues). All sorts of unpleasant historical material exists online confirming this was the case that I will not link you to here. But in ancient times, there was no question of invisible surgical or chemical castration, or a nice little reversible nip such as may be performed today. The eunuch industry was big business in every nation on earth in those years, but not in Israel. The notion that a follower of Christ might literally castrate himself is both sad and absurd, and you will note Doug Wilson doesn’t explore this possibility, glossing over the statement rather than dealing with the difficulty it presents. Other Christians have, sadly, entertained the notion, most famously the second century theologian Origen. This fourteenth century manuscript depicts his act of self-mutilation.

Any doubts about how a Christian should handle sexual desire are settled once and for all by 1 Corinthians 7, which is all about the subject of marrying or not marrying. Castration does not even come up once. It is not a Christian option.

Two Legitimate Options

Be that as it may, and no matter who else has taken the passage literally, it’s impossible the Lord is promoting castration in violation of his own law. Rather, he’s responding to the disciples’ expression of the idea that they ought to be able to get around the restrictions of marriage in some legally and socially acceptable way. The Lord is teaching no, you can’t. You can choose a sexless life if you wish, and be completely acceptable to the Lord. You can also marry and stay faithful. What you can’t do is use the Law of Moses to justify your own adulterous impulses.

And, yes, if “eunuch” here is not literal, of course women too can be eunuchs in the sense the Lord is describing. I suspect there are far more in Christian circles than men.