1 Corinthians 7:10-16

The first nine verses of Chapter 7 are focused on marriage versus singleness, with the conclusion that both states are, in their own way, good, and either are preferable to the only other alternative which is living (or attempting to live) in fornication. The passage ended with Paul advising single people not to rush into marriage if they were doing all right single. From that, Paul turns to deal with issues that arose from the married state—he deals with special cases and circumstances and how Christians ought to behave in them. (These may be issues that the Corinthians had specifically asked about or Paul have realized that these were problems that would naturally arise, especially in a new church.)

In verses 10-11, Paul speaks to those who are married. As we talked about in our last lesson, there are some things Paul says that, taken on their own, implies that he looked down on marriage. But it is clear, taking his words as a whole, that he held it as sacred. He might have felt that, at certain times and for certain people, it was better to remain single, but that opinion did not weaken or change the state of marriage itself.

I said before that Paul's advice to the married was, if you are going to marry, then commit to it. There are duties and responsibilities that go with marriage which cannot just be ignored by the Christian. Speaking of more mundane things, Paul wrote: “Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.” (Romans 13:7) A Christian must be different from the world; he must come apart and be separate. And yet, there also duties and responsibilities that come to all men and being a Christian does not release us from them. A Christian must pay his debts as well as the sinner. And that includes the debt owed to a partner in marriage.

Paul spoke before the responsibilities owed to each other within the context of marriage. Here he speaks of the sanctity of marriage itself; of the bond which ties a husband and wife together and the necessity that this bond remain unbroken.

This is the general truth and is the foundation for any Biblical discussion on marriage. But in the New Testament church, there was a particular problem that needed to be addressed.

Before we get there, we should notice something interesting. In verse 10, Paul says this command comes not from him, “but the Lord.” But then in verse 12, he says that the words are his, “not the Lord.” What does that mean? What is the difference between verses 10-11 and the rest of the passage?

The difference is this. The sum of verses 10-11 is that a married couple should remain married; it is a statement against divorce. In other words, it is Matthew 5:31-32: “It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: but I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.” When Paul says this command is from the Lord, he is speaking quite literally. He is referencing the doctrine which Jesus taught during his earthly ministry. Mark records a similar saying of Jesus. This is important, because most scholars believe that either Matthew or Mark were the first gospel written. Though we don't know when, it's very possible that at least one of them were written at the time of 1 Corinthians.

The point being, Jesus had spoken on this issue in a form that was recorded. However, the issue of verses 12ff were something Jesus never directly addressed, so far as we know. Therefore, Paul could not reference the command of Jesus.

Paul was very much aware of his authority as an apostle. Very possibly he was aware that he wrote with divine inspiration. But he also refused to attribute his words to Jesus and made sure to keep them separate.

Returning to the matter at hand: verses 10-11 reinforce the Biblical idea of the sanctity of marriage. But with verse 12, Paul has to address a specific issue that the church was dealing with. It is an issue the church still faces, but it would have been far more pressing at the time.

This is what you have to remember about the Corinthian church (or any of the New Testament churches). Nobody in the church came from a Christian background; none of them had been raised in the church, because Christianity itself hadn't been around for that long. All the people in the church came straight out of paganism or out of Judaism. And while we don't know the age range of the church, it is safe to assume that a majority of the converts were adults. And so the discussion at the beginning and end of chapter 7—the question of whether or not to marry—would have been irrelevant to many of them, because they would have already been married when they became Christians. In some cases, a husband and wife might be converted together, but in the remaining cases, you ended up with this situation—where one partner in the marriage had become a Christian, while the other reminded outside the church.

The issue here is not about whether a Christian should marry a nonChristian. We can get an answer to that from 2 Corinthians 6:14: “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?” This idea of be unequally yoked or “mismatched” as some translate it (NET Bible, footnote) probably includes more than marriage, but it certainly would include that. Paul will more directly address this issue later in this chapter: “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.” (1 Corinthians 7:39) The idea of marrying “only in the Lord” seems to mean marrying a Christian, someone who is also in Christ.

And even aside from the Bible, there is a logical reason for this. G. K. Chesterton pointed out that a husband and wife can be very different, and for marriage to work, they must have some kind of basic agreement, a common view of the world. “But to have the same fundamental theory, to think the same thing a virtue..., to think the same thing a sin,... in the last extremity to call the same thing duty and the same thing disgrace--this really is necessary to a tolerably happy marriage.” (A Miscellany of Men) Religion defines how one sees the world and people of different religions are, in effect, living in different worlds. Long distance relationships seldom work out.

However, as I said, that is not the issue here. The issue is people who become Christians, while their partner remains outside the church. This is still a thing that happens in the church, but in the first century, it would have happened for far more people. So what is the state of such people?

The question is: can a Christian life in that close and personal relationship we call marriage with someone who is not a Christian? In the previous chapter, Paul spoke with contempt of the idea of a Christian, as a member of Christ, entering into a relationship with a prostitute—but is it any better to be in a relationship with a sinner, even if it is within the context of marriage?

Paul's answer is that yes, this relationship is permissible. This is in verses 12-13. If the unbelieving partner is willing to remain in marriage with the Christian, then the Christian partner should also remain. Marriage is sacred and should be preserved even in these less-than-ideal circumstances. 

Paul says that the unbelieving partner in marriage is sanctified by the believing partner. We've talked about this word sanctify before—it means to make or constitute something as holy. Paul uses a form of the same word when he says that the children of such a marriage are also holy.

But what does it mean for someone or something to be holy? There are two ideas included. To be holy means to be separated, set apart, consecrated to God. In the OT, the tabernacle and the temple were described as holy because they were set apart from ordinary things and consecrated to the service of God. And then, by extension, holy means that which is clean or pure, that which is worthy to be offered to God because (in some small measure) it mirrors the purity of God.

In 1 Timothy, Paul speaks of false doctrines which would arise; he gives a description of their teaching and then launches into a rebuttal: “Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.” (1 Timothy 4:3-5)

The acetic heresy Paul foresaw included some kind of rigorous regulation on what food could be eaten; perhaps seeing self-starvation as a moral good or perhaps thinking that any sort of enjoyment which comes from eating must be bad. And Paul's rebuttal is food is good; it is something that God made and that God specifically made for us to be used. At the beginning of the world, God told Adam and Eve: “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.” (Genesis 1:29) This refers only to plant food, but after the Flood, God told Noah: “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.” (Genesis 9:3)

Paul says that our food is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. 'The word of God' seems to point to what we just said—that God created, we might, set apart or consecrated it for us, as declared in the Bible. So when we receive food—not as a mere animal necessity, but as a gift of God, received with thanksgiving, with an attitude of prayer, with a recognition that it comes from God and it is given to us for God's purposes—it is sanctified. Food has no moral quality, but for the Christian, it becomes something holy because it was made by God and it is received as something from God.

And that brings us back to 1 Corinthians 7. Marriage—like food—is something created by God and therefore, in itself, good. And if a Christian, in their marriage, views marriage as something from God and, in a prayerful and thankful attitude, gives that marriage to God, then that marriage is sanctified—it is consecrated and offered to God. The other partner in the marriage may not share in this attitude; the children of the marriage may have their own ideas or be too young to have any ideas at all—but the marriage, as a whole, is consecrated and given to God by the believing partner. 

There is no defilement from being married to a nonChristian; instead, there is a certain sense of holiness and consecration that comes to the entire family because of the one Christian member. 

Remember I said that the word holy has both the idea of that which is set apart and dedicated to God and that which is clean and pure. The unbelieving family of a Christian is only made holy in the sense of being consecrated. But that can also lead to an actual change of nature, to true purity or holiness—that is verse 16; there is always the possibility that the influence of a Christian will lead their husband or wife to become a Christian. (The way Paul states this as a mere possibility is an argument against marrying a nonChristian expecting them to become a Christian later.) Paul doesn't apply this to the children, but obviously having at least some Christian influence in the home gives more hope of the children becoming Christians.

So, in short, a Christian who is married to a non-believer should continue to fulfil that marriage; that itself becomes a form of Christian service, a form of worship.

But what if the nonbelieving partner in the marriage refuses? What if they refuse to remain in the marriage now that the other is a Christian? This is verse 15: “If the unbelieving depart, let him depart.” In a case like this, there is really nothing else to do. Albert Barnes paraphrases Paul's idea: “You cannot prevent it, and you are to submit to it patiently, and bear it as a Christian.” There may also be the idea that it is better to simply let the unbelieving partner go rather than kicking up a fuss to try to make them stay. Paul's advice here is similar to that he would later give the Romans in a more general context: “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.” (Romans 12:18)