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September 16, 2018
Jason Meyer | 1 Corinthians 7:8-16
To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife.
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. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. 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. 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. For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?—1 Corinthians 7:8–16
Introduction
We are in the midst of a four-part sermon series on divorce and remarriage. Some of you may not have heard the first two sermons (or some of you heard them and do not remember them) so it is important at the outset to summarize briefly where we have been.
Sermon #1 considered at Mark 10. We saw that Jesus addresses the hardness of heart that leads some to shun their spouse and send them away in divorce. Jesus has a word of warning for the hard-hearted perpetrator: God has joined your marriage together and has not authorized you to tear it down and build another one. He looks upon what you have done as adultery—a false union not sanctioned by God. This is clearly the burden in Mark’s Gospel that links together the end of chapter 9 (causing a “little one” to stumble, sending a spouse away, or little children trying to come to Jesus and the disciples hindering them and sending them away).
Sermon #2 considered Matthew 19. This text is a parallel of Mark 10 except for an additional phrase: Divorce and remarriage is adultery except in the case of sexual immorality. We examined three different ways of reading that exception clause. View #1 says Jesus is talking about sexual immorality that takes place only within a specific time frame: the betrothal period. If sexual immorality happens during that time, then the innocent party can pursue a divorce from the betrothal. View #2 says that Jesus is talking about sexual immorality any time in marriage and so it is permissible for the innocent party to pursue a divorce, but they cannot remarry while that spouse is alive. View #3 says that Jesus is talking about sexual immorality any time in marriage and so it is permissible for the innocent party to pursue a divorce and remarry. I made the case that this is a tier three issue, and that one could hold any of these three views and still be a member or an elder at Bethlehem. We took time to move from understanding each view to appreciating each view and what each view was trying to uphold.
Today’s sermon (Sermon #3) will examine 1 Corinthians 7:10–16. At first glance, it appears that the apostle Paul adds an additional ground for divorce and remarriage beyond what Jesus did in Matthew 19. It will not surprise you to learn that our leaders read this text in different ways. In this sermon, I am going to lay out those differences, and then I am going to try to persuade you of something that you may find surprising. But let us pause for a moment and entrust this message and this time and our hearts and minds to the Lord in prayer.
Prayer
The first thing we need to do is see a high level overview of today’s passage. Let’s walk through the outline.
If the unbelieving spouse is content to live with you, then don’t divorce them
Because they are holy and your children are holy because of the believing spouse
But if the unbelieving spouse abandons you, then you are free (free to divorce or free to divorce/remarry)
Because God has called us to peace (v. 15)
Do you know God will save your spouse? (v. 16)
Let’s start with point 1.
1. Unmarried and Widows (vv. 8–9):
Stay as you are (unless … )
To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
Notice that Paul’s most basic word of counsel is “remain single, as I am.” He has been speaking about sexual relations in marriage in verses 1–5 and then he inserted himself into the picture. He speaks from his own vantage point, but he recognizes that God did not create everyone with the same calling and gifting. See vv. 6–7.
Now as a concession, not a command, I say this. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.
Paul discusses singleness as a gift. God gives some the ability to remain single and be content and not be consumed with sexual passion. He does not say why remaining single is good here, but he does in verses 32–34.
I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband.
I want you to make a mental check mark at this point. We will come back to these verses later because they are so foundational. For now, I want to note that being single is a gift (not a curse), because being single allows you to be single-minded or undivided in terms of the things of the Lord. One can have a single-minded, consuming focus on pleasing the Lord, not a dual focus with how to please the Lord and how to please his or her spouse.
That leads to Paul’s word of exception about the general pattern. He has been speaking the way we do: “all things being equal …” That is what he is saying, “If you can, remain single.” But don’t remain single if you struggle with self-control. In that case, it would be better to marry than to stay single and constantly struggle with a consuming sense of longing for sexual intimacy.
So if you are single today and you have the gift to stay single, then go all in with the Lord. We will commend you and not critique you for this single-minded focus. If you don’t have the gift to stay content in singleness, then in your pursuit of marriage—go all in with the Lord. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, don’t lean on your own sense of timing and own sense of direction, but in all your ways acknowledge him and may it be that for someone to find you that will only find you in Christ.
2. Married: General Principle (vv. 10–11):
Stay as you are (unless … )
To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife.
Paul always starts with this general principle: stay as you are. It unites this entire chapter together as a golden thread of teaching.
The teaching that says, “If you are married, stay married,” aligns with what Jesus said in the Gospels (that is what “not I, but the Lord” means). Jesus has already spoken to this. He made it clear that marriage is when God joins two into one. What God has joined together, let not man separate!
That is why Paul uses the word “separate” in verse 10. Jesus used the exact same word in Mark 10:9 (“what God has joined together let not man separate”). In other words, Paul does not have our idea of separation in view (the technical sense we use when we say (i.e., “they are not divorced, but they are separated”). It is simply another term for divorce that describes divorce from the standpoint of what it does (separating what God has joined). In other words, the two words “separate” (v. 10) and “divorce” (v. 11) are synonyms that mean the same thing.
The general principle is don’t divorce, but if divorce happens, then there are two options: stay single or reconcile to your spouse. I would ask you to recall the application points in the first sermon on the many false, unbiblical reasons people try to justify divorce by saying: (1) “My spouse is a huge disappointment,” (2) “We are no longer in love,” (3) “I married the wrong person/we were too young,” (4) “I owe it to myself to be happy/God wouldn’t want me to be unhappy,” (5) “God will forgive me.”
Don’t forget the implied premise already present in verses 8–9. If God calls you to be single, God will enable you to be single. If he calls you to do something, he will give you the grace to do it. The same holds true here. If God calls you to stay in a marriage, he will give you the grace to do it.
When verse 12 says, “To the rest,” he means those who do not fit the situation of verses 10–11. Paul addresses a situation that Jesus never addressed in the Gospels – which is what “I, not the Lord” means. Jesus addressed marriage in which Jews married fellow Jews. Now Paul is speaking into a new situation because of his missionary work. Before Paul came to Corinth people there were in marriages between two non-Christians. But now Paul has come and preached the Gospel and the Holy Spirit gave new life so that now some of those spouses have become believers. In other words, there are now mixed marriages because of the power of the gospel. So here is the question: What if you have become a Christian, but your spouse has not? Paul will say in verse 39 that Christians should not marry non-Christians (someone who is free to be married can still only marry “in the Lord”). Does that mean that if one spouse is a Christian and the other is not that they should divorce? The underlying assumption up for debate in that question is whether or not the non-believer is in a sense contaminating the marriage and the children with spiritual darkness. In the struggle of light and darkness in a mixed marriage, should the light separate from the dark?
Paul now gives his answer as an inspired apostle: It depends.
The first scenario he addresses could be put in the form of a question. Is the spouse content to stay with you? Then don’t divorce (vv. 12–13).
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. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him.
Why? Don’t think in terms of the unbeliever contaminating you and your children, think of the light of the believer shining upon your spouse and upon your children. The power of the light is greater than the power of the darkness (v. 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.
Paul has already taught them that “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:9–10). The believer sets the entire family apart in some way for good. The light that comes from a believer is greater than the darkness put out by the unbeliever.
But now for the other part of Paul’s answer: It depends. Has that spouse abandoned you? Do they want to go? Have they gone? Then let them. In that circumstance, believers are not bound or enslaved. That is, they are not enslaved to the response of the non-believer. They are not shackled in the chains of indecision because they don’t have to wait indefinitely to reconcile. They are not bound by a situation entirely out of their control (v.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.
Now we come to the real dividing line between the views. There are at least two different ways to understand the phrase “not enslaved.” Both views believe that it means the believing spouse can accept a divorce from an unbelieving spouse. But the second view says the phrase implies more than just “freedom from the marriage.” They are free from the marriage (i.e., free to divorce), but are they free to remarry? The second view says, “Yes.”
Pastor John is the clearest and most consistent advocate of the first view. He argues that a deserted and divorced spouse is not free to remarry. His view hinges on two observations. First, verse 10 has already addressed what should happen if divorces takes place: “The wife should not separate from her husband (v.11: But if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife (1 Corinthians 7:10–11). Therefore, Pastor John reads verse 15 and understands what “enslaved” means in the light of that guideline from verses 10–11.
Second, Pastor John notes that Paul uses two different Greek words for the idea of “bound.”
The word used for “bound” (douloo) in verse 15 is not the same word used in verse 39 where Paul says, “A wife is bound (deo) to her husband as long as he lives.” Paul consistently uses deo when speaking of the legal aspect of being bound to one marriage partner (Romans 7:2; 1 Corinthians 7:39), or to one’s betrothed (1 Corinthians 7:27). But when he refers to a deserted spouse not being bound in l Corinthians 7:15, he chooses a different word (douloo) which we would expect him to do if he were not giving a deserted spouse the same freedom to remarry that he gives to a spouse whose partner has died (verse 39). See John Piper’s article at the Desiring God website: “Divorce and Remarriage.”
The second view sees two problems with this reading: (1) these two words are not technical terms, but are synonymous terms, and (2) no first-century reader would read “not enslaved” as free from marriage, but not free to remarry.
First, the second view says that Paul intends for the two words to be read as synonyms (two different words that in a given context mean the same thing). They would say he does this frequently. For example, in the preceding section (verses 10–11), Paul wrote, “the wife should not separate from [χωρισθῆναι] her husband … and the husband should not divorce [ἀφιέναι] his wife.” In other words, Paul used two different words that functionally mean the same thing (divorce).
Second, they would say that no first-century reader (like the Corinthians) would have understood “not enslaved” as free to divorce, but not free to remarry. The divorce certificates all said something to the effect of “You are free to remarry.” This was true of Jewish, Greek, and Roman divorce certificates. For example, Craig S. Keener reads the meaning of “not enslaved” in the light of the laws that governed Corinth in Paul’s day.
If the unbeliever, not following Christ’s law, chose to divorce, the believer could not stop it. When Paul says that “the brother or sister is not bound” in such cases (7:15), he does not simply mean that they are free to divorce. He had no reason to state something so obvious, since they had no control over the situation: Under laws effective in Corinth, either party could dissolve the marriage without the other’s approval. “You are not bound” or “you are free” was the language of ancient divorce contracts, always stipulating freedom to remarry (e.g., m. Git. 9:3; CPJ 2:10–12, §144; P. Grenf. 2.76.10–11). Paul affirmed believers’ freedom to remarry if they did not break up their marriage.” Craig S. Keener, 1–2 Corinthians, CBC (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 65.
Pastor John would respond to this argument by saying that Jesus and Paul are bringing something radically new into the world and so it is an odd argument to say that they could not point people in a direction different from the culture. View #2 would say that Paul could go a different direction than the rest of the culture, but if he did so he would have to be very explicit to overturn the consensus assumption. View one would say that Paul has already made it explicit in verses 10–11 concerning no remarriage after divorce. And we could keep tracking the discussion back and forth.
The point here is that this issue is not simple, and thus we should not talk about it in a simplistic way. There is a reason that this is a tier three issue and that we allow different views of divorce and remarriage here.
Two more questions are essential to address at this point if we are going to understand the view that says sexual immorality and physical desertion as grounds for divorce. First, why do they both actions (sexual immorality and desertion) belong in the same “covenant-breaking” category? I think the underlying logic of the passage views physical desertion as grounds for divorce just like sexual immorality because both actions are a direct attack on the essence of marriage as leaving and cleaving and becoming one flesh (Genesis 2:24). One assaults the one-flesh sexual union (sexual separating from the marriage and making a different sexual union), and the other assaults the one-flesh union by spatially separating from the marriage (removing your presence from the marriage in a way that reverses the leaving and cleaving by leaving again).
Second, we have to ask a question about abuse: Can one abandon the marriage in a spatial way or an abusive way? What if a spouse is content to live with his/her spouse and not divorce because they want to abuse him/her?
Some elders would say “no.” They would argue that there are only two grounds for a believer in terms of pursuing a divorce that are explicit in the New Testament: sexual immorality and physical abandonment. In other words, in this text they would say that the separation of abandonment has to be physical or spatial, not just relational, because verses 12 and 13 say that the opposite of separation would be the unbelieving spouse consenting “to live with” the believing spouse. This “living with” is surely physical, not relational. One would have to read “relational” into the text because “separating” is more naturally taken as a decisive physical action, not a relational one.
On the other hand, many elders believe abuse is a grounds for divorce for three main reasons. First, in response to the idea that one has to read relational separation or abuse into the text, these elders would say that there is no way you can convince them that Paul was talking about “living with a spouse in an abusive way.” In other words, when Paul speaks of living with a spouse, he is speaking of normal marriage conditions. Paul is not talking about abusive marriage conditions. He would not write, “… If they are content to live with you and abuse you.” That was not in Paul’s mind at all.
Second, they make the case from the lesser to the greater. “Why would spatial departure (walking away from responsibility—passive harm) be a ground for divorce but active harm (like severely abusing a spouse) would not be grounds for divorce? How does one action (physical separation) break the marriage covenant, but the other action (perennial attacks on someone’s personhood) not break the marriage covenant?
Third, Paul’s whole discussion of 1 Corinthians 7 should be read against the backdrop of Exodus 21:10–11. God is laying out legislation to protect a vulnerable slave wife (a slave girl who has become someone’s wife). This legislation is meant to protect her in the event that she begins to be neglected by her husband (vv. 10–11).
If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.
God is protecting the vulnerable in saying that a slave spouse should have the same rights as a free spouse. The same is true earlier when Moses says a father-in-law should treat a slave daughter-in-law the same way he would treat a free daughter-in-law.
What does it mean that “she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money”? It means that the husband could not profit from her financially by selling her into slavery again. It is striking to me how the elements of Exodus 21 show up in 1 Corinthians 7.
Her marital rights (marital intimacy—not neglecting her sexually) …
Her physical needs (food and clothing = not neglecting to care for her) …
The view that sees sexual immorality, physical desertion, and abuse as grounds for divorce would say that these are not three unrelated grounds. They would say there is one essential ground for divorce: Covenant-breaking behavior that directly and decisively attacks the essence of the marriage union (whether sexually, spatially, or abusively). All of those things decisively break the marriage covenant and make divorce and remarriage permissible (but not mandatory).
This whole discussion raises many practical questions about when specific actions are serious enough to break the marriage covenant. There are no “one-size-fits-all” answers because this is a wisdom issue. That is exactly the same thing we face in church discipline—which behaviors would we expect a Christian to commit and which would we not. Church discipline is a wisdom issue and so a church and its elders must deal with such situations on a case-by-case basis.
Conclusion
I want to conclude with one crucial question. Where is the hope in all of these situations? The hope cannot be in the improvement of your circumstances, your marriage, or your spouse. God has not promised that those things would improve. There is hope in one person alone because only One can truly say, “I will never leave you, I will never forsake you, I will never fail you.”
Some of you have been through some of these abusive situations. You have experienced destructive degrees of oppression (physical, emotional, mental, sexual, spiritual). We are fearfully and wonderfully made and we have many needs. Unfortunately, that means that there are many ways to oppress people. But the heavenly spouse, the Lord Jesus, proves perfect in every way. He experienced horrific oppression for you—physically, emotionally, sexually (hung naked with shame), they tried to say that he was not the Son of God, God was not his Father). And having endured all of these things, his promise is that he will care for you and provide for you. He tells us not to “worry” (the same word Paul used in 1 Corinthians 7) saying, “What shall we eat, what shall we drink, what shall we wear?” (Matthew 6:31). The same Lord who feeds sparrows and dresses flowers will take care of you because he cares more for you than birds and flowers.
You may think that your past and the wounds you carry define your future. They do not. Jesus’ wounds define your future. He still bears the wounds forever in heaven to show what purchased our freedom and our future.
Kids, if your parents have divorced, it was not your fault. I know that the pain of divorce is something that you don’t just shake off some day. But please die to the idea that your past dictates you and defines you and commands your destiny. It influences us, but does not define us and dictate our future. From life’s first cry to final death, Jesus commands our destiny. No power of hell, no scheme of man, can ever pluck me from his hand.
Outline
Discussion Questions
Application Questions
Prayer Focus
Pray for a grace to reflect deeply upon Paul’s words about divorce and remarriage and pray for a grace to relate in charitable ways with others who see it differently.