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Reading 1 Corinthians 7:15-16 where the Apostle Paul gives a personal word to those Christians whose unbelieving spouse has left home. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!
There's a problem with your marriage. There's two sinful people in it. And so we must turn to the Bible to know what God has said about marriage and how we are to be in our marriages in honor of the Lord when we understand the text.
This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ that men and women of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com.
Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.
Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study in 1 Corinthians 7. And picking up where we left off yesterday, I'm gonna start reading in verse 12. And we're gonna go to about verse 23. The apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth.
But to the rest I say, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever and she consents to live with him, he must not divorce her. And a woman who has an unbelieving husband and he consents to live with her, she must not divorce her husband.
For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband. For otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy. Yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave.
The brother or the sister is not enslaved in such cases, but God has called us to peace. For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife?
Only as the Lord has assigned to each one, as God has called each in this manner, let him walk. And so I direct in all the churches. Was any man called when he was already circumcised? He is not to become uncircumcised.
Has anyone been called in uncircumcision? He is not to be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. But what matters is the keeping of the commandments of God. Each man must remain in that condition in which he was called.
Were you called while a slave? Do not worry about it. But if you are able also to become free, rather do that. For he who was called in the Lord while a slave is the Lord's freedman. Likewise, he who was called while free is Christ's slave.
You were bought with a price. Do not become slaves of men. Brothers, each one is to remain with God in that condition in which he was called. That was through verse 24. I don't remember where I said I was gonna read to.
But anyway, picking up where we left off yesterday. So we read in verse 12, Paul saying this, I say not the Lord that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever and she consents to live with him, he must not divorce her.
So our desire is to keep the marriage bed pure. Our desire should be that. That's what Paul is advising here. So even in cases where somebody becomes a Christian and the spouse is still an unbeliever, Paul is saying remain married.
If the unbeliever will stay with you, then you should remain in that marriage. And a woman who has an unbelieving husband and he consents to live with her, she must not divorce her husband. That's verse 13.
So we're not looking for excuses to get out of marriage. We need to be committed to our marriages. Verse 14, for the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife. And the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband.
For otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy. Let's sit on this one for a little bit. We considered this verse yesterday. Let's come back to this again. So verse 14, the unbelieving husband sanctified through his believing wife.
And the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband. Now the word believer is not used for wife in the first part of verse 14. But that is the inference because verse 13 was a woman who is a Christian who has an unbelieving husband.
If he consents to live with her, she must not divorce her husband. So we're talking about a Christian wife. The unbelieving husband is sanctified through his Christian wife. And if a Christian husband has an unbelieving wife, she is sanctified through her believing husband.
It does not say justified, it says sanctified. So if the unbelieving wife, you have a Christian husband, you have a non-Christian wife, the pagan wife, when she dies, she does not go to heaven just because her husband was a Christian.
She was not justified. We're justified by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, as it says in Romans 5 .1. If she does not have faith in Christ, then at the judgment, she will perish. She will not enter the kingdom of God because she was never part of the kingdom of God.
Entrance we receive only by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. So what does it mean then? What is being implied by saying that this unbelieving spouse is sanctified? Well, the word means to make holy or to consecrate or to purify.
So very specifically, and this is always the definition that accompanies holiness, it means to be set apart. It's regarded as special. And so an unbelieving spouse is therefore set apart from the world, not totally, because she, if I'm still referring to an unbelieving wife here, she is not a member of the kingdom of God.
So she's not set apart from the world and set into the kingdom of God, but she is set apart from the sense that she is able to walk under the blessings that her spouse receives with whom she is one flesh.
Because remember, once again, that a husband and wife, the two have become one flesh. So part of her one flesh union is under the justification of God by faith in Jesus Christ. And he is therefore, the Christian husband, is receiving the blessings, the benefits of that union that he has with Christ.
So therefore, she is a recipient of that also to some degree, not to the point of justification, but certainly of sanctification. So she's set apart from the world to be able to be united with a person who is a Christian, someone who became a Christian while they were married.
Because again, as I mentioned yesterday, this is not an excuse for a Christian to marry an unbeliever. As Paul says to the Corinthians in his next letter, do not be yoked with unbelievers. We should not enter into a marriage with one who is an unbeliever.
But in the instance that you have two people who are unbelievers and one becomes a Christian, the Christian should not leave their unbelieving spouse. As long as the unbelieving spouse is willing to remain committed to this marriage, so the Christian should also be committed to the marriage.
And then the Christian is able to extend this witness to their unbelieving spouse through the gospel, something that they would not receive if you're talking about two people who were unbelievers. And then you see that these blessings extend to children as well.
So in a household where one spouse is an unbeliever and one spouse is a believer, one is a pagan and another is a Christian, that's the context we're talking about here. In such a household, your children are holy.
They are also set apart, set apart from the world, recipients of the blessings of grace that have come upon that household because one parent is a Christian. Now notice that Paul says here in verse 14, otherwise your children are unclean.
That is the state into which they are born. We are all born into a state of uncleanliness because we are recipients of the sin nature of Adam. All of us who are born of the seed of Adam, we are born with his sin nature.
We desire to sin and rebel against God. That is our natural state. So your children are unclean. Otherwise they are unclean. But now since they are in a household where the gospel exists and can be extended to them, they are holy, they are set apart.
Now another possible understanding of this here in verse 14 is that Paul is talking to parents of children. Parents who've become Christians, they have children in their home, and their children have likewise heard the gospel and become Christians.
That could also be the context here. We don't necessarily have to hear this word children and automatically think, well we're talking about age zero to two, where they have no cognition or understanding of the gospel at all.
And so therefore those are the kinds of children we're talking about, and yet they are extended the grace of God because they have a parent who is a Christian. No, these could be children who are old enough to understand and hear the gospel, and it has been given to them because they have a parent in the home who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And they've told this to their children, and now the children are holy because they likewise have become believers. That could also be the meaning of this inference here in verse 14. A believing parent should not be worried when married to an unbeliever that their children are likewise going to be unbelievers.
That seems to be the comfort that's offered here in this verse. Don't think that your children are now heathens and that's the way they're gonna turn out, so therefore you have to leave your unbelieving spouse in order to protect your children.
Paul is assuring the believer in a marriage with an unbeliever that your children are holy. They are set apart. They have received the goodness of the gospel, and if they believe in the gospel, then the Lord will protect them.
He will uphold them with his mighty hand. They will not be led astray by your unbelieving spouse. So that seems to be the comfort and the assurance that's given here. Verse 15, yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave.
Now I said yesterday, we got to verses 15 and 16. I said I didn't wanna rush through that. I wanted to spend a little bit more time on that. So coming again to the beginning of verse 15, yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave.
A wife who's a Christian has a husband who is not a Christian. If he leaves, let him leave. The brother or the sister is not enslaved in such cases, but God has called us to peace. Now back on Monday, and I mentioned this yesterday, there are those who hold the marriage permanence view in that the only thing that can truly release a person from the covenant of marriage is death, till death do us part.
We are in that covenant, and death is the only thing that can annul the covenant. So if a spouse, if a Christian wife is married to a husband who commits adultery, she has biblical grounds for divorce.
And as I've taught, she can get remarried. Now the marriage permanence view says she cannot. Yeah, he might be sleeping around with a bunch of other women, it might be a bum deal for her, but nonetheless, she can't divorce him and therefore get remarried.
She can divorce, she just can't marry another. Or according to those who hold the marriage permanence view, she would also be committing adultery. And I just don't agree with that. I think that the Westminster authors, the authors of the Westminster Confession of Faith, I believe they got this right.
Because they say that in such a case, where you have a spouse who's committed adultery, if at all possible, they should reconcile. And I've absolutely recommended that even in my pastoral ministry. I believe that Paul would have said the same here because the nature of what he's writing in chapter seven is we should not be seeking ways to get out of our marriage.
We should be faithful to our marriage. So even if you have a spouse who is unfaithful, if that spouse is seeking forgiveness and wants to be reconciled, it should be granted. And that couple should do what they need to do to reconcile the marriage.
But even if he wants to reconcile, but he's still carousing around with other women, she has a right to divorce him. She has biblical grounds to divorce him and can get remarried. And it's not looked upon her as committing the fault because he's the one that was unfaithful to her.
So the covenant has been dissolved as if it never was because this man was not faithful to the covenant. He is an adulterer. And it can go the other way as well. The man was faithful, but the woman was unfaithful just for the sake of not having to flip-flop between husband and wife, I'm sticking with that analogy.
All right, so that's my example to give an understanding of this passage. But I believe Paul gives another allowance here in verse 15. He says, yet if the unbelieving one lives, so you're talking about a spouse.
In this case, we're gonna say a husband because the next pronoun is him. So yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him live. So if a wife has a husband who is an unbeliever, she's a Christian, he's not a Christian.
He's therefore unregenerate. He does not have a heart that goes after God. He has no desire to keep God's law. In fact, he cannot. Those who are not of the spirit, those who are not followers of Christ cannot please God as Paul says in Romans chapter eight.
So he has no desire even to follow the law of God and please the Lord. This is a man who has a wicked heart that is in rebellion against God. If he leaves the marriage, the unbeliever, a man who is not a Christian, if he leaves the marriage, let him leave.
Notice what it says next, the brother or the sister. So of course, even if we're talking about a Christian husband who has an unbelieving wife who leaves him, it could work that way as well. The brother or the sister is not enslaved in such cases, but God has called us to peace.
So he or she is under no obligation to have to chase down the unbelieving spouse and make the marriage work. Nor are they tied to or bound to this thing that they had absolutely no control over. My unbelieving spouse has left me.
Paul says here, they are not enslaved. So they are not obligated to keep that covenant. The covenant's gone. The unbeliever has left and that's not surprising because they're in rebellion against God.
Now, it's a wonderful thing that in the case of there being one spouse who is a Christian, Paul indicates that you could lead that person to faith. And that's a wonderful thing to consider. So a wife becomes a Christian, she can lead her husband to the Lord.
A husband becomes a Christian, he can lead his wife to the Lord. And one parent becomes a Christian, they can lead their children to the Lord. That's what Paul is indicating here. But in the case of a person becomes a Christian and persecution occurs there then in that marriage.
So a wife becomes a Christian, her husband hates her, despises her because she's a Christian. He hates her faith. He doesn't want to have anything to do with her. And he abandons his wife and possibly also his children.
If that happens, she's under no obligation to that man because he's abandoned her. And she should not have to invest her life. Now, get this here, okay? Paul is saying this under the umbrella of to the rest I say, not the Lord.
That is in verse 12. He's not saying this as a command. So it's not a commandment that if a Christian wife has a husband who leaves her, that she should be released from it. It's not a commandment. Maybe she wants to chase down her husband and she still wants to be committed to him.
And she still wants to try to get him to become a believer and be faithful to their marriage. That's great. That's beautiful if she wants to do that. That's wonderful. But Paul here is not obligating her to do that.
She doesn't have to do that. And in such a case where the unbelieving spouse leaves, she is released from the marriage covenant. She is not enslaved in such cases, or he, he, or she. You know, either way, we're talking about a husband or a wife, but they are not enslaved.
God has called us to peace. So don't enter into any unnecessary conflict or strife where there does not need to be. Now, having said that, let me share this story that happened with a couple of friends of mine.
This happened before I met them, but they were married. He was not a Christian and she was. And at some point in their marriage, he just didn't want to do it anymore. So he left his wife and even moved way out there.
I won't give any specifics of this story, he just moved a long way away, got far, far away from his wife. She decided she was going to uproot her entire lifestyle, everything that she had established for herself where they were.
She was going to leave that, and she was going to go be where he was. And so she did. He left his wife, moved far away. She moved to where he was just to be close to him. She didn't hound him. It wasn't like a stalker sort of a situation, but she just wanted to be close by, to let him know, I still love you, and I still want to make this work.
And I forgive you if he was going to be convicted of heart and would be willing to commit himself to that marriage. And God stirred in his heart, and that's exactly what happened. And he repented of his wicked ways, his selfish direction.
He committed himself to his wife again, and they were reconciled to one another. And I had the privilege of baptizing that man after he had committed himself to Christ. It was a beautiful story. And this is a story of a woman who, though she could have just let him go.
And according to the Apostle Paul, no one would have considered her rotten for doing so, nor would she have been guilty of adultery. If she decided to marry somebody else, this man abandoned her and went away.
She could have just let him go. But she pursued the man, just as Christ had pursued her, and just as Christ was also pursuing him. And he repented of his sin and became a Christian, and not only has a beautiful, wonderful marriage, still love these two people and all of their children, not only had a beautiful marriage as a result of that, but also everlasting life.
And so consider this next word in verse 16. For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife? Now that's really a very open-ended question.
I mean, the answer to that question is, well, I don't know. Yeah, you're right. You don't know. So that's why Paul says, if you're married to an unbeliever, don't try to get out of your marriage. How do you know whether you'll be able to save your spouse?
But if you're married to an unbeliever and they leave you, let them go, and it's not your fault, because how would you know whether you would have been able to save your husband or your wife? In all of these things, we are to commit ourselves unto the Lord.
That's really what Paul is getting right down to with regard to these instructions that we've been reading here in chapter seven. We are to be committed to Christ. For those who are married have marriages that are built upon Christ Jesus and raise up your children in the training and the instruction of the Lord.
But every single person has their own personal responsibility to commit themselves unto Christ. We are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone. Amen? Heavenly Father, we thank you for the grace that you continue to show us every day.
And may we show that grace to each other. Today, for those of us who are married, we have an opportunity to show grace to our spouse today and to our children. This grace that we have received from God who loves us and demonstrated his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, as it says in Romans 5 .8.
And as Paul said in Galatians 2 .20, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me. In the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
Thank you for your goodness. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book.
On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow, we'll pick up on a Old Testament study When We Understand the Text.