1 Corinthians 7:10-16 - The Permanence of Marriage

Introduction:

Good morning,

If you have your Bible let me invite you to open with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 7.

I want to begin with the theological foundation for this week’s passage.

Here it is.

God loves you.

He desires an active and forever relationship with you.

He has proved his love for you through the sacrificial death of Jesus.

He absorbed all the penalty for your sin.

He paid the eternal price of sin for your freedom to dwell with him forever.

He has made promises to you.

He has promised that nothing, for all of eternity, can separate you from the love of God.

Through your faith in Jesus.., Your forever future is a joy-filled relationship with God.

He will not change his mind,

He will not take back his offer,

He will not drop you at the first sign of difficulty, or failure, or sin.

He will not go back on the covenant he made with you.

He will not break his vow.

He will not divorce you.

What God has joined together, let no man separate and

Through the cross of Christ and the gift of His spirit, God has joined the sinner to himself through faith in Jesus.

The passage from 1 Corinthians 7 today is a passage about marriage, and divorce.

But you cannot read this paragraph without the larger biblical story as your back drop.

God spoke this analogy to and through his prophet Hosea:

Hosea 2:19–20 ESV

19 And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. 20 I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.

Paul would later affirm and clarify this analogy.

Ephesians 5:25 ESV

25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,

The Bible is clear that marriage promises are a part of God’s design, because they are designed to reflect God’s eternal promises to us.

Every good thing about the marriage relationship foreshadows the best and most eternal relationship

That is God’s purpose in marriage,

and thats the theological background of the instructions in this text...

Now with those things freshly contemplated let’s read verses 10-17

1 Corinthians 7:10–17 ESV

10 To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband 11 (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife. 12 To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. 13 If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. 14 For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. 15 But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. 16 For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife? 17 Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches.

Lets Pray

1 Corinthians 7:10 ESV

10 To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband

Paul is delivering a charge…

He is declaring a command for the people in the Corinthian church…

He is declaring that divorce is NOT the will of God.

Truth #1 Divorce is Not God’s Will (v.10-11)

The first thing you probably notice is the parenthetical statement (not I, but the Lord)

Paul is directly quoting Jesus the Lord

So lets put Jesus’ teaching in front of our eyes so that we can understand Paul’s commentary here.

Look at Mark 10 with me.

Mark 10:7–12 ESV

7 ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. 9 What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” 10 And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11 And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, 12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

Jesus very clearly taught

Divorce is Not God’s Will

It is not his will for a wife to divorce her husband.

It is not his will for a husband to divorce his wife.

And Paul says that if a Christian has already separated from their spouse to pursue another relationship,

they should stop, repent, and seek reconciliation with their spouse if at all possible.

This is straight forward teaching from the Holy Spirit-filled Apostle Paul,

This is straight forward teaching from Jesus himself,

and according to Jesus this comes straight from God’s original design in creation order.

He very clearly quotes from Genesis 2 as the authority on the matter.

God’s original design for marital faithfulness is the ideal for Human Flourishing

One of the reasons God speaks so clearly against divorce, is because divorce is contrary to original design, and it is therefore not good for his people.

If you are here this morning, and you are contemplating something like divorce, and you think that it will be to you some kind of solution, you need to listen very carefully.

God does not give you commands in the Scripture to enslave you in misery.

He does not give commands to withhold good things from you.

He gives commands to you that are for your most ultimate blessing and most eternal joy.

If he says don’t do something, it is for your good.

If he says do something it is for your good.

Do not fall for the lies of the serpent, which suggest that God is somehow keeping something better from you,

We saw how that worked out for Adam and Eve.

Do not disobey assuming that disobedience will somehow be for your benefit.

That is not our God. and it wont be good.

If he says don’t eat the fruit, lest you die…. believe what he says.

If he says don’t divorce if you can at all prevent it…. believe that fighting for your marriage will be eternally better then giving up on your marriage…

And if you think thats tone deaf….,

and that I am just somehow missing your situation, or that I am not being sensitive to difficult marriages…,

lets keep reading.

Paul recognizes that there are some marriages that are very difficult to fight for.

He continues in verse 12.

1 Corinthians 7:12 (ESV)

12 To the rest I say (I, not the Lord)

Now, let me pause here, because you can get caught up on this parenthetic statement “I, not the Lord”

Does this mean that what Paul is about to say is not authoritative Scripture?

No, It simply means that he is no longer directly quoting Jesus his Lord.

He is now going to apply Jesus’ teaching to a very specific scenario, though Jesus, himself, never taught on this specific scenario.

1 Corinthians 7:12–13 ESV

12 To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. 13 If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him.

Truth #2 Divorce is Not God’s Will Even if Your Spouse Rejects Jesus (v.12-13)

Before applying to our own situations lets consider how often this scenario played out in the first century.

Prior to missional efforts to Corinth there would not have been a Christian person in the city.

Almost everyone would have pagan.

No one would have had a Christian morality.

No one would have had a Christian understanding of marriage.

No one would have understood sin,

or their need for salvation,

or their true purpose and meaning of life.

No one would have known God.

Idol worship and sexual promiscuity would have been the norm of the society.

Idol worship would have been a part of the feasting, the partying, the family traditions.

The cultural values of Ancient Rome were anything and everything but the values of Christ.

And then the gospel was preached in Corinth.

Imagine becoming a Christian in this world.

When you come to faith in Christ, everything changes.

Life priorities change

how you want to spend your money changes

How you spend your time changes

How you understand what sin is changes.

Literally the ultimate goal of life changes

Your sense of identity is different then it once was.

Now what if you experienced this cataclysmic faith change…, but your family doesn’t?

Your marriage, existed within that value system, but now you have changed…

And your spouse has not.

In fact your spouse is hostile to the idea of stopping the household idol worship.

How do you fight for a marriage, when your spouse rejects yours savior?

How do you raise your kids, when your spouse wants your kids to bow the knee to Julius Ceasar and not to Jesus Christ,

meanwhile you believe that without faith in Jesus, your kids stand unforgiven and eternally condemned before God.

How do you seek physical intimacy when your spouse rejects what has now become the deepest part of who you are?

How can you be one flesh, and your spouse not share commonality in the most important thing in the universe?

You don’t agree on the ultimate purpose of marriage, or life, or what happens after death.

and not only that, but the Roman government begins to crack down on this Christian movement.

It would not be long in church history, before wide scale persecution would arise for those who claim to be followers of Christ.

Now your faith could potentially cost you and your loved ones beyond comprehension.…

Surely, this degree of difference is grounds for divorce.

Surely, pursuit of this kind of marriage is not good for me, nor is it possible for me.

Surely, Paul will explain why its ok to abandon such a marriage.

Perhaps to the surprise of the reader, however, thats not what Paul does.

No, he doubles down on the necessity of a believer in Jesus Christ fighting for their marriage if the unbeliever consents to continue living with them.

Notice what he doesn’t say.

He doesn’t say if the spouse is kind to you, stay.

if the spouse accepts the gospel, stay

if the spouse is easy to love, stay

if the spouse expresses love to you, stay

No Paul says, if the unbelieving spouse consents to stay, then you believer must not give up on them.

You must not divorce them.

You must love them the way that Jesus loved you when you didn’t love him.

Jesus stayed.

My favorite quote from Timothy Keller’s book meaning of marriage is this,

“When Jesus looked down from the cross, he didn’t think, ‘I am giving myself to you because you are so attractive to me.’ No, he was in agony, and he looked down at us - denying him, abandoning him, and betraying him - and in the greatest act of love in history, he stayed. He said, ‘Father forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.’ He loved us, not because we were lovely to him, but to make us lovely. That is why I am going to love my spouse. Speak to your heart like that, and then fulfill the promises made on your wedding day.” - Timothy Keller

This is the calling of every spouse… including the spouse married to an unbelieving person even if the relationship is difficult …

1 Corinthians 7:13 ESV

13 If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him.

Now, the next verse is difficult to interpret.

Follow along in verse 14

1 Corinthians 7:14 ESV

14 For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.

What in the world does it mean that the unbelieving spouse and children are made holy because of the believing partner?

Well we know what it CANNOT mean….

It CANNOT mean that unbelieving spouses and children are eternally saved from God’s judgment through the believing spouse’s faith.

Not only does that contradict all the teachings of Scripture elsewhere, it actually contradicts the teaching of this paragraph.

In verse 16, Paul is going to explicitly articulate that part of the hope, is that the unbelieving spouse will actually believe and thus be saved.

The assumption is that they are not saved.

No person is forgiven of their sin by virtue of someone else’s faith.

You the individual are accountable to the God who created you and who sustains your breath even now.

You the individual are called to repent and believe in the salvation that God has provided you.

So if thats not what this means, what does it mean that the unbelieving spouse and children are made holy?

Option 1 - It could most simply mean that the family is set apart from the world because they now have constant access to the saving message of Jesus through the believing spouse.

They are unlike other Roman households. They have the way, the truth, and the life in dwelling in a member of their family right there in their own household.

The word holy, could simply mean set apart from other households who do not yet have the gospel.

Option 2 - One of the suggestions that I found interesting was that some in the community of faith in Corinth were advocating for divorce because they thought to remain in their pagan families, would be to make themselves unholy, or unclean before the Lord by association with their unbelieving families.

The Old Testament teaching on holiness codes designated certain unholy things or people as untouchable.

In the OT if you touched an “unclean” person it made you unclean as well.

You were not to touch anything that was unholy, lest you be made unholy as well.

If this is the background assumed here, Paul is reassuring the readers that their pagan families do not become unholy to them.

They are not untouchables.

In other words, Believers are not supposed to separate from unbelieving family when they put faith in Christ.

Rather they can draw near to them.

The relationship itself is holy and should be maintained as God’s holy design.

Paul is arguing that there is no theological excuse for separation, though perhaps some in the community were trying to make those arguments.

Option 3 - another way of understanding this verse would be in light of verse 16.

Now let me jump to verse 16,

Paul asks two rhetorical questions that are designed to help the reader persevere in their potentially difficult marriage to an unbeliever.

1 Corinthians 7:16 ESV

16 For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

Paul holds this possibility out to the reader tempted to divorce their unbelieving spouse.

He doesn’t make a promise that this will happen… but suggests that they could potentially lead their spouse to saving faith in Jesus Christ.

They could potentially lead their spouse to join with them in the joy of eternal life.

Truth #3 If Married to an Unbeliever, Love Them by Reflecting Jesus to Them

Now, let me pause here.

This passage is not encouraging believers to marry unbelievers.

This would actually be discouraged elsewhere.

Rather, Paul is addressing the unique situation in which this is already the reality.

In that case, you stay in the relationship with the aim of leading your spouse to see the glory of Christ through your life.

The hope is that they would see something supernatural in you, something different in you that sets you apart, and that difference is the active, sanctifying, hope, faith, and love that the Holy Spirit has given you.

The hope is that they would see something in you so attractive, so different, so Christ-like, that they too would want what you have in your relationship with God.

Peter articulates it this way when addressing wives with unbelieving husbands.

1 Peter 3:1–4 ESV

1 Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, 2 when they see your respectful and pure conduct. 3 Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— 4 but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.

Notice, Peter does not encourage you to argue with your unbelieving spouse,

or to sort of shove Scripture down their throat ever time you have a conversation.

No, Peter advocates for an approach that makes the gospel of Jesus Christ in your life attractive, blessed, precious, and good even in the eyes of your unbelieving spouse.

There should be a sense in which your Christ likeness in your love for your spouse, should draw your spouse to the love of Christ.

And that becomes one of the primary missional goals of your life.

Now let me talk to the unbelieving spouses in the room or watching online for just a moment.

If you respect your spouses belief in the Bible, then you have to respect their desire for you to believe.

They believe it is whats best for you.

They desperately want you to go to heaven.

With every fiber of their being they want you to have eternal life and to share in it with them.

They want you to know the love of Christ.

And they want your marriage to reflect the love of God in the deepest and most profound ways.

Do not be angry, that your spouse genuinely wants what they believe to be eternally best for you.

And on the flip side, Do not hold them to an impossible standard. They are not perfect, they will not be perfect, they are a sinner…

Thats why they put their trust in Jesus… they need the forgiveness only he offers.

I have noticed that unbelieving spouses are very quick to point out any sin or flaw in their believing counterpart…,

Christian do not be discouraged by that.

You believe the gospel and the gospel says you are a sinner in need of grace upon grace… you will fall short, but you fall into the merciful arms of your savior.

Nor should you pile the responsibility of your spouses salvation on your shoulders. Your role is to patiently and faithfully reflect the beauty of Jesus. You can’t save anyone. God does that. So be faithful to him and trust him.

Now, to the believing spouse who is in the end abandoned.…

what if you do everything you can and its not enough to save a marriage?

What if you do everything you can believing that divorce is not God’s will…but divorce is thrust upon you anyway.

Paul is not silent here either.

look at verse 15.

1 Corinthians 7:15 ESV

15 But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace.

We live in a broken world where we experience all kinds of heartache that is contrary to God’s design.

Divorce is an awful thing.

Its consequences are deep, lasting, and life changing.

But for the Christian, they are not life ending.

If you fight for your marriage,

and your unbelieving partner walks away…

Paul says you are not enslaved.

You are no longer bound.

and that God calls you to his peace.

Truth #4 If Abandoned, You are Called to Peace (v.15)

Peace is a theologically rich word.

It has covenant overtones.

God has called you Christian to peace…

peace with God

peace with yourself

peace with others

for all of eternity.

A divorce is anything but peaceful.

But Christian you have been called to a peace that is not of this world.. a peace that cannot be easily shaken.

a peace that will not be undone.

Divorce is painful because someone whom made very important promises to you, breaks those promises.

Divorce is painful because someone who knew you most intimately rejects you.

Divorce is painful because after becoming one flesh you are now ripped apart.

but for the Christian person who has experienced such pain, abandonment, rejection, and regret… there can be peace…

Because your God will not break his vows to you.

Your God who knows you most intimately does not reject you, rather he has chosen you before the foundation of the world.

Your God has joined himself to you so that no man can separate.

Peace is your eternal calling and as you meditate on those future promises you bring the experience of that peace into your present moment.

If abandoned, abused, or neglected.... you have been invited into the arms of a Jesus who stayed on the cross for you, and who will forever stay in relationship with you.

#1 Divorce is Not God’s Will

#2 Divorce is Not God’s Will Even if Your Spouse Rejects Jesus

#3 If Married to an Unbeliever, Love Them by Reflecting Jesus to Them

#4 If Abandoned, You are Called to Peace

Conclusion:

Now I want to conclude with a concept that we will begin with next week.

1 Corinthians 7:17 ESV

17 Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches.

Perhaps you’re listening to this and none of this describes your life situation.

Maybe you’re single, or uninterested in marriage, or have been divorced for a long time.

Whatever the case may be… there is a God in heaven who is very much sovereign over your life.

He has assigned the life that you now live.

and his call on you is to trust him, and to now be faithful in the life you have been given.

I’ll end on this.

Truth #5 In All Situations, You are Called to Faith

Many situations in this world are difficult.

Many kinds of lives have their unique difficulties.

Christians are not promised that they will avoid every strife or suffering in this world.

They are not promised a fulfillment of their american dream.

They are not promised marriage the way they always dreamt of it.

No, they are promised that God is sovereign over strife and suffering In a broken world.

And they are promised that one day, it will all be worth it.

Regardless of our past mistakes, regrets, shame and sin… We have only to lead the life that the Lord has assigned to us now..… and look forward to the eternal life that he has promised us Forever.

We are called to peace in the midst of our trials and tribulations.

lets pray to that end and ask for the Lord’s help.