The Sanctification of the Christian Home

1 Corinthians 7:12–16 AV

But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy. But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace. For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?

Sin is an extremely powerful force. It is so powerful, in fact, that the apostle Paul told the Corinthians later in this letter that evil communications corrupt good manners (1 Cor. 15:33). Perhaps a better translation would be “bad associations ruin good habits.”

We don’t have to look too hard to find plenty of examples of this in Scripture. Let me give you just one. Consider how living in Sodom affected Lot and his family. When the men of the city wanted to have their way with the angels who had come to visit him, Lot offered to let them abuse his daughters instead. Later, as the city was about to be consumed with fire and brimstone, neither he nor his family wanted to leave; the angels had to lead them out by taking hold of their hands. Even then, Mrs. Lot looked back and the Lord turned her into a pillar of salt. And finally his daughters, fearing that their father would be left without seed, got him drunk and committed incest with him. This is where the Moabites and the Ammonites come from. Life in Sodom had infiltrated their ways. They were not living as God’s covenant people.

If bad friendships don’t pose a threat to believers, Solomon would never have counseled his son not to follow after sinners. But he did. In the very first chapter of Proverbs he wrote, My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.… Walk not thou in the way of them; refrain thy foot from their path: for their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood (vv. 10, 15–16).

Sometimes, however, we cannot avoid interacting with unbelievers. Paul understood that. He had told the Corinthians not to keep company with fornicators, and in chapter 5 he explained what he meant. He did not mean that they should never talk to the fornicators of this world because, if they were to do that, they would have to leave the world (vv. 9–10). There’s no other way to avoid worldlings completely.

When we find it necessary to interact with unbelievers, we must keep two things in mind: first, the warnings of Scripture not to adopt their ways; and second, the truth that although sin is powerful, the grace of God is even more so.

With this in mind, let’s look at this evening’s text.

An Unbelieving Spouse

Beginning with verse 8, the apostle Paul gave very specific instructions to believers concerning marriage. He began with the unmarried and widowed in verse 8 and 9, reminding them that of his preference that they remain unmarried (mostly due to the circumstances of that day), but also affirming that most people are better off getting married to avoid temptation. In the next two verses he addressed believing couples who separate from and perhaps even divorce their spouses without Biblical grounds. He made it very clear that they have only two choices: either reconcile to each other, or be reconciled to the fact that they cannot marry anyone else until the other spouse dies or proves unfaithful.

This evening we turn to the third set of special instructions in verse 12 and following. Here Paul tackled the problem of believers who have unbelieving spouses.

Of course, this isn’t a situation that believers should intentionally put themselves in. In 2 Corinthians 6:14 Paul wrote, Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. Although this is not true exclusively of marriage, who can doubt that it includes marriage? There is no other human relationship in which an equal yoke of faith is more necessary. Marriage is not a mission field; it’s a covenant union in which both members must be in fellowship with Jesus Christ.

But remember that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians before 2 Corinthians. The situation in 1 Corinthians was different. The problem in 1 Corinthians wasn’t believers marrying unbelievers. It was new believers whose spouses had not been converted. The Corinthians saw the inequality that this created in the home and they wanted to know what to do about it. In the book of Ezra, when the men of his day came under the conviction that they had sinned by marrying foreign women, they agreed among themselves to send their wives away (Ezra 10:1–5). Is this what the people of Corinth should do? They needed to know.

Before we assume that Ezra is the key to the problem, we have to understand the situation that Ezra faced. The fact that the men of Ezra’s day had married foreign women was not the problem. Moses had an Ethiopian wife (Num. 12:1). The law that he delivered to the people even allowed warriors to marry captured women under very specific circumstances (Deut. 21:10–13). It outlawed only marriage to Canaanite women (Deut. 7:1–6).

Based on this, some commentators have actually suggested that Ezra and the men of his day were wrong to have sent their wives away. But they are the ones who are wrong. There were actually three problems with the marriages in Ezra, which he himself identifies for us in the first two verses of Ezra 9. The first problem is the obvious one: some of the women that the Jews had married were in fact Canaanites. Thus, their marriages were illegitimate to start with. The second problem is that the foreign wives had influenced the priests and Levites in favor of their false gods, with the potential of leading the nation as a whole into apostasy. They were evangelists of a pagan religion. So, in effect they had already left the marriage. They were doing everything they could to bring God’s wrath down on their husbands. And third, they had corrupted the holy seed, i.e., they were teaching their children to follow their false gods as well. That’s why the men not only sent their wives away, but also their children. The Lord would now allow the watering down of the covenant seed, especially in Immanuel’s land.

The situation in Corinth was more complex. In verses 12 and 13 Paul explained what believers should do when their unbelieving spouses agree to live with them. That is, although their unbelieving spouse have rejected the faith, at least they were not actively opposing it. When the unbelieving spouse consents to remain in the marriage, divorce is not an option. Paul wrote, But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: if any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him.

But it’s also possible that the unbelieving spouse is more like the foreign wives in the book of Ezra, i.e., hostile to the faith. Many commentators suppose that that’s what happened to Paul’s wife. What should the believer do in this situation? The answer is in verse 15. If the unbeliever cannot tolerate the believing spouse’s new faith and chooses to leave as a result, the believer must let him go. Verse 15 says, But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace. In other words, there is no remedy either in the courts of the church or in the civil courts for an unbeliever who walks away from a believer. And the Lord himself will not hold the believer accountable to do what he or she cannot do. The believer is no longer bound to the marriage covenant and must not show any hostility to the unbeliever.

God has called all of his people to peace. Peace often softens the hearts of a man’s adversary. Proverbs 15:1 says, A soft answer turneth away wrath. And who knows? Perhaps that little kindness that the believer shows the unbeliever on his way out might just be the very thing that draws him back in. In fact, it might be what the Lord uses to transform him from a child of darkness into a son of light.

There are no guarantees, though. Verse 16 makes this clear by asking a very important question: For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife? You don’t. That’s why you must never try to read God’s providence as if it were a roadmap for your life. The Lord had given you a roadmap: it’s his Word. You have to obey his Word regardless of how things might turn out.

Those of you who are not yet married need to pay careful attention to this. It’s easy to say, “I’m sure my unbelieving boyfriend or girlfriend will come around once we’re married. I’ll be able to change him or her.” A lot of people have told themselves the same lie over the years, and the overwhelming majority paid a high price for it. So, not only is marrying an unbeliever presumptuous, it hardly ever turns out like we want. Don’t even think about it. Just let Scripture alone be your guide.

Holiness

Now you might have noticed as we covered the big picture that Paul wants us to see in this evening’s text that I skipped over one verse. Tucked in the middle of Paul’s instructions is a little theological gem. Verse 14 says, For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband. Please note that Paul gave it as a reason why believers should not initiate divorce against their unbelieving spouses who are willing to remain with them. But what does it mean?

To begin with, it is not a promise of salvation to the unbelieving spouse. We believe that the Bible teaches covenant theology, which means that salvation is administered along covenantal lines. But no one is saved because of another person’s faith. Salvation is distinctly individualistic. Pay careful attention to what Paul wrote. There’s nothing about the future in this verse; it concerns only the present. That is, the unbelieving spouse, even while remaining an unbeliever, is sanctified by the believer.

I believe that Paul used the word sanctify here in the sense of dedicate or consecrate. When one person in a home believes, that person’s faith has the effect of setting the whole house apart for the service of God. Why? Because the believer in the home applies the Word of God to the family’s circumstances and prays for each individual. The Word of God constantly challenges the unbeliever to turn to the Lord. And God’s blessing rests on the house for the sake of that one person who trusts him.

But that doesn’t sound right, does it? It seems that the unbeliever, if he or she is of a mind to, can do a lot more evil than the believer can do good. The unbeliever can make the believer’s life an absolute nightmare. I have no doubt that that happens sometimes. But it’s not the rule. Without minimizing the harm that unbelievers can cause, as Christians we have to stop thinking that wickedness is stronger than good. Listen to Calvin’s comment about this:

Paul therefore declares here, that marriage is, nevertheless, sacred and pure, and that we must not be apprehensive of contagion, as if the wife would contaminate the husband.… It might seem (judging from appearance) as if a believing wife contracted infection from an unbelieving husband, so as to make the connection unlawful; but it is otherwise, for the piety of the one has more effect in sanctifying marriage than the impiety of the other in polluting it.

Did you hear that? The piety of the believer is a more potent force than the unbeliever’s impiety. The grace of God working in the lives of his people is stronger than any man’s sin.

Of course it’s not just unbelieving spouses who benefit from the piety of a believer. The children who live in the home do too. The last part of verse 14 reads, Else were your children unclean; but now are they holy. When one parent believes, the children who live in that home receive all the promises of the covenant. And that’s why we baptize them.

But let’s make sure we understand the order. Our children do not become holy when we baptize them. Rather, we baptize them because they are already holy. They are holy because of their relationship to a believing parent. Our children do not become members of the covenant when we baptize them. We baptize them because they are already members of the covenant. Again, they are members of the covenant by virtue of their relationship to a believing parent. In other words, baptism recognizes what already is. It’s not giving our children something new. It’s our promise and commitment to raise them according to what God declares them to be, and it’s God’s promise that he will use our teaching and prayers to call whichever among them are elect to himself in faith.

Question 74 of our catechism makes this clear. It asks, “Are infants also to be baptized?” The answer begins, “Yes, for since they belong to the covenant and people of God” (HC 74). They are already counted among God’s people.

Does this then mean that each and every one of them will believe? No, of course not. Remember that not every unbelieving spouse of a believing spouse will be saved either. But thankfully in the case of our children there’s a little more. God’s covenant with Abraham guarantees that Abraham’s seed belongs to the Lord. The Bible doesn’t tell us which ones or even how many, except that it will not be all of them but it will be a multitude which no man can number, like the stars of heaven. And that, my brothers and sisters in Christ, is a promise that you can count on!

So, which is the stronger force — sin or grace? There is no doubt that the stronger power is God’s grace. Is it not God’s grace that softens the hearts of unbelievers to agree to live with their believing spouses do that gospel preaching strengthens families instead of tearing them apart? Is it not God’s grace that sanctifies unbelieving family members in ways that they can neither understand nor appreciate? Is it not God’s grace that assures us that our children have the promises of the gospel?

You see, Paul’s final comment in verse 15 (that God has called us to peace) and his questions in verse 16 put everything in the right perspective.

We are called to peace. Jesus even called believers sons of peace in Luke 10:6. That is, we are sons of God, whose chief characteristic is peace. We have peace with God. We long for others (especially our spouses and children) to have the same peace, and we work toward that goal by holding the gospel constantly before them. We want men to have peace with one another through the Lord Jesus Christ. Without compromising the truth, that’s our responsibility.

But it’s not our job to dispense grace. Only the Lord can do that. A believing wife cannot save her husband, nor can a believing husband save his wife. Neither parent can save his or her children. For that we look to the grace of God and pray fervently that he would use our labors, however weak they may be, to effect his purposes in the lives of sinners who need to be covered by the shed blood of Christ. Amen.