The Permanence of Marriage

1 Corinthians 7:39–40 AV

The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord. But she is happier if she so abide, after my judgment: and I think also that I have the Spirit of God.

So far in 1 Corinthians 7 we’ve seen that the apostle Paul has answered a lot of questions about marriage that puzzled the Corinthians. He spoke of intimacy, problem solving, the sanctification of the home, whether virgins should marry, and what fathers should do if their virgin daughters want to get married. In the last two verses of this chapter, which we are about to consider, he tied it all together with a word about widows.

A Life-long Covenant

Our text begins with a declaration that most of us understand very well, viz., that the Lord designed marriage to be a life-long covenant. Verse 39 says, The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth. Paul wrote his letter to the Romans about the same time that he wrote 1 Corinthians. In it he said the same thing: For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband (Rom. 7:2).

The marriage covenant then is not subject to the whims of those who engage in it. When a man and a woman get married, they are bound to each other from that point on. As Jesus said, no one — either the two that are married or any outsider — should put asunder (or separate) what God has joined together.

Paul could not have been any clearer as to how long this marriage covenant should last. Our text says, As long as her husband liveth. Marriage is to last as long as both spouses live in this world. So, in our wedding vows, as those who attended Jacob and Kyela’s wedding yesterday heard, husbands and wives must vow to live together according to God’s holy ordinance “as long as we both shall live.” This means that the death of one spouse is the only way to end a marriage that does not involve sin.

There are other reasons for dissolving a marriage that God allows, but each of them is the result of one spouse sinning against the other. Let me outline what these are. Basically, there are only two:

The first is sexual sin. Jesus said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery (Matt. 19:9). Of course, this would include actual adultery, which is an insidious and treasonous attack on the marriage covenant itself. But fornication includes any and all sexual transgressions, such as incest, harlotry, bestiality, sodomy, rape, and so on. It also includes the deliberate and malicious withholding of intimacy. According to Exodus 21:10–11, if a man takes a second wife in addition to a slave-wife, he is not allowed to reduce the duty of marriage toward his slave-wife; otherwise, she’s allowed to leave. Desertion also falls into the sexual sin category, since it by definition is a withholding of marital rights. Even a spouse’s failure to disclose sexual sin committed before marriage is grounds for divorce, according to Deuteronomy 22:13–21.

Divorce can also be granted when one spouse purposely does something that endangers the life of the other. Exodus 21:10–11 forbids a husband from diminishing his slave-wife’s food and clothing. Why? Because it jeopardizes his wife’s life by exposing her to starvation and the elements. And if the simple withholding of life’s necessities is grounds for divorce, then certainly divorce can be granted for physical abuse or even credible threats of violence.

Sexual sin and threats made against the life of a spouse constitute Biblical grounds for divorce. However, even when these sins are present, divorce isn’t required. It’s only permissible. The goal of your pastors and elders is to preserve marriage whenever we can. After all, the preaching of the gospel is a ministry of reconciliation — reconciling sinners to the Lord through the preaching of the blood of Christ, and reconciling sinners to each other through the forgiveness that the gospel offers.

Practically speaking, our marriages should imitate the original marriage, viz., the marriage between Christ and his church. Here we have a union that will never be severed. It cannot be severed because the Lord Jesus Christ is a husband who cannot fail, and his righteousness covers all the shortcomings of his bride. This shows us just how strong the covenantal bond really is!

Free to Marry Again

Marriages among men and women fall short of the glorious marriage of our Savior to the church in another way. Jesus will always be the husband, and the church will always be his wife. But human marriage is only for this life. Jesus said, For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven (Matt. 22:30). And there’s no greater evidence that marriage ends with death than the fact that the surviving spouse is free to marry again. Verse 39 continues, But if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.

Here Paul clearly says that a widow has the option of marrying a second husband. But does she have to get married? Is it expected that she’ll do so? The verse that comes closest to answering this is 1 Timothy 5:14. Paul wrote, I will therefore that the younger women [i.e., those under the age of sixty] marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. His concern is that young widows, having an abundance of time on their hands, might be sidetracked from following the Lord and become idle or gossipy. Even so, he refrained from commanding them to marry. He said, I will that they marry. That is, it was his desire, his wish, his preference that they marry. Based on the verb that he used, we can say that it was a strong wish (βούλομαι). But it was a wish, and young widows should be encouraged to heed apostolic wishes whenever possible.

Nonetheless, there are some good reasons why Paul stopped short of commanding young widows to marry. An obvious reason is suggested in our text. A young widow is only free to marry in the Lord. It may be that the Lord does not providentially provide another believer for her to marry.

Another reason why Paul didn’t insist that all young widows remarry is that we have examples in Scripture of young widows not marrying again. One is Anna, the prophetess who greeted the baby Jesus. She had been married for only seven years before she was widowed, and had lived as a widow for perhaps eighty-four years (Luke 2:36–37). It’s possible in her case that she didn’t seek another husband because the Lord had called her to a special ministry of fasting and prayer. But that doesn’t seem to have been the case with Mary, the mother of Jesus. Most commentators believe that Joseph died sometime between Jesus talking to the doctors in the temple at age twelve and the start of his ministry at age thirty. But there’s no indication that Mary, who would almost certainly have been under sixty at the time, found another husband. The point is that, although there are dangers that young widows often fall into, women who are more firmly grounded in the faith, as Anna and Mary were, are not as susceptible.

One thing that is required, though, is that a widow who desires marriage can marry only in the Lord. In fact, this is the general rule that all believers must abide by. The only appropriate spouses for believers are other believers.

There are exceptions to this, but they are extremely rare. In the Old Testament Esther married a pagan king named Ahasuerus. Why? Because wicked Haman had devised a plot to exterminate the Jews. Esther’s uncle Mordecai, who seems to have been a surrogate father to her, heard of his conspiracy and insisted that she take action. He said, For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this? (Esth. 4:14). Esther married a pagan and the Lord worked through her marriage to save the Jews.

But I want to emphasize again that this was a very unusual situation. Solomon also married pagan wives. His marriages were often forged in political bargains, but that wasn’t an excuse that pleased the Lord. The fact that his wives led him astray speaks clearly to the Lord’s displeasure.

Today it’s more common for young Christians to treat marriage as a mission field. That is, they want to marry an unbeliever under the pretext that they’ll be able to win him to the Lord. But this is no more acceptable than Solomon’s marriages. It is an unequal yoking. It’s forming a one-flesh relationship with someone with whom there can be no spiritual union. And there’s no guarantee that the Spirit of God will regenerate the unbeliever at all. Do you remember what Paul wrote in verse 16? For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?

Believers can expect the Lord to bless our marriages only when we marry in the Lord. That begins with marrying another believer, but it doesn’t stop there. It means that both spouses must maintain a consistent and godly walk before the Lord. They must pray individually and together. They must search the Scriptures in their private devotions and in their devotions as husband and wife. Remember the words of Psalm 127: Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain (v. 1).

So, if you’re not seeking the Lord in your marriage already, now is a good time to start.

Greater Blessing

Verse 40 adds one more thought to this. Although widows are free to marry again, Paul’s opinion was that they should not. He wrote, But she is happier is she so abide, after my judgment. As we saw a few minutes ago, this is the opposite of what he would later write to Timothy, showing once again that Paul’s advice was not universal.

Presumably Paul based his opinion in our text on the present distress of the Corinthian church. It’s the same advice that he had already given several times. The only difference is that he applied it specifically to widows here.

Yet, there’s something else in this verse that’s important. The word happier is an unfortunate translation. It gives the impression that a young widow would be more content and satisfied by not marrying again than by marrying. But the Greek word is actually a form of the word translated blessed in the Beatitudes. It has a lot more than mere happiness or contentment in view. As one commentator put it, this word conveys a sense of spiritual richness in all areas of life. It comes very close in meaning to the Hebrew word shalom. So, what Paul is actually saying is that the widow who does not marry again is spiritually richer for it.

We might wonder how this can be? Didn’t God create the institution of marriage for man’s spiritual enrichment? Wasn’t it the Lord who said, It is not good that the man should be alone (Gen. 2:18)? But in our text the woman who does not marry is blessed. What does this mean?

Since Paul didn’t explain what he meant, the safest course for us to follow is to consider the context. In other words, all that Paul had said previously about singleness applies to widows too, and in speaking of singleness he mentioned two blessings. One is in verse 26. Singleness offered some advantage to the Corinthians while they were experiencing the present distress. That is, not having to care for a spouse and children made the distress easier to endure. The other is in verse 32. Those who are unmarried can devote themselves more directly to the things of the Lord. They have more time to invest in prayer (like Anna the prophetess), Scripture study, evangelism and charitable deeds.

To conclude the message this evening, I want you to look at the last part of verse 40 with me. This has to be the greatest understatement of the last two thousand years. Paul wrote, And I think also that I have the Spirit of God.

Paul “thinks” he has God’s Spirit? No, he knew very well that he had the Spirit of God. He demonstrated it constantly in his letters, in which he insisted that the churches follow his instructions as an apostle of Jesus Christ instructed by God’s Spirit. He conducted his ministry with a constant awareness that the Lord had caused a heavenly light to shine upon him while he was on his way to Damascus to arrest Christians.

So, why did Paul mention this at all? Some think it was because the men who were disrupting the church at Corinth also claimed to have the Spirit of God. But in reality there was no speak against them here, since had already exposed their foolishness earlier in 1 Corinthians. Besides he would have been much more forceful if he had done so. I believe he had another reason for mentioning the Spirit here. It was to to emphasize the fact that, even though he had expressed certain things in this chapter as his opinions, he wanted to remind the church that his opinions carry real weight. And well they should, since it was the Lord Jesus himself who had set Paul apart as a chosen vessel to bear his name before Gentiles, kings and the children of Israel (Acts 9:15).

And why did Paul use such an understatement? I believe it was because he also wanted to emphasize that he had done nothing to deserve the unique role that had been assigned to him. He was a servant, fulfilling the mission that had been given to him by his master.

Our attitude should be the same as we face important questions in life, whether those questions concern marriage or some other subject. We stand in the faith solely by God’s will. We can serve him only as long as he gives us strength. And we will be called away from this life at his pleasure. Humility must prevail, as we look to the Lord to guide us by the wisdom of his Word. Amen.