Marriage is the story of our lives. It is the story of grandpa’s love for grandma for these past fifty years. It’s the backdrop of the world our children are born. It is the fabric of so many of our families where dad and mom set up a home. Their love is constant. Their love is normalcy.
Romantic love is compelling. It is intoxicating. It remains one of the most powerful experiences any human encounters. When couples are under its sway, your deepest desire is that this feeling will last forever. And especially in the South, the church plays a big part in marriage. Many, if not most, of your marriages begin here inside the church building. Perhaps you first met your spouse in a church like I did.
“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. 13 If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. 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. 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. 16 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 7:12-16)?
1. Jesus Impacts Your Marriage
When two sinners unite in a life-long union, there will be tension. At some point one or both of you will be selfish. At some time, you will speak unkindly to one another. Despite this, if one of the married partners is a Christian, then your marriage will be radically different. If you are not careful when examining today’s passage, you’ll overlook this for all the talk about divorce. Don’t miss this point. Paul is addressing the situation where two unbelievers had married and one had subsequently converted to Christianity. And there is an underlying assumption to today’s text. When a person invites Jesus Christ into their lives, Jesus does more than simply forgive you of your sins. When Jesus Christ enters into a person, the person’s nature is changed. When a person encounters the love of God and is captured by His love, then they are given new life …NEW LIFE.
A Myth of Christianity
The myth is where God takes a divine eraser to your sins so you enter heaven after you die. But the person is essentially the same. For example, when Steve becomes a Christian, he still has the same intense love of Nascar (it’s all that ever talks about)… the same love for violent, sexually provocative movies, and he still hates Mondays. Steve is forgiven and he may go to heaven when he dies, but the guy next to Steve in the cubicle on weekdays, senses no change. But this is a myth. Every Southern Christian you see does not always pass for a biblical Christian. When your daughter’s killer is set free by a bribe to the judge, don’t call that justice. It’s anything but justice. When you are “born again” and you fail to be obedient to Christ, don’t call this Christianity. It’s anything but Christianity.
Let me show you the cause and effects of Christianity…
“For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. 4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God” (1 John 5:3-5)?
Notice three links used to describe a believer and then we’ll see how these three things affect a marriage. The first two links are effects while the third link is the cause. First Link… “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3). When a person experiences the love of God, they obey Christ joyfully. They do not obey Him grudgingly. They obey Him willingly.
Second Link… “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. ” (1 John 5:4a). The world doesn’t have the same allurement for Christians. What the Bible calls the world is an old value system that is tuned to Satan’s value system.
When I took three years of piano as a child, my mother placed a metronome on top of the piano. A Metronome is a device that produces a regular beat. Much like the rhythm of your heart. When a person is converted, the world’s allurement isn’t as attractive to them as it once was. The desires and the heart of a Christian beat new a metronome. This is why I say that what the South oftentimes calls a Christian is not really a Christian. When a person covets what the world covets… When a person enjoys God-ignoring entertainment just as the world would… it is a profound mistake to call this person a Christian. It is not always easy to see the line between a Christian and a non-Christian. Yet, God sees the line with 20/20 vision. A Christian is a person who hears and walks to a different beat.
Third Link… “And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith” (1 John 5:4b). Here is the cause for the two effects – faith. Don’t play chicken and egg with this. You can’t say that it makes no difference which comes first. Your joy in keeping his commandments is the effect while faith is the cause. Faith is seeing the beauty and majesty of Jesus Christ. Faith is much more than celestial accounting. Faith is much more than the make-up a mortician puts on a corpse to make it look a live. Faith is the God-given ability to see divine things as attractive. If you have no joy in keeping his commandments, then you don’t have faith.
Imagine if my wife and I loved to race. We felt the need for speed, if you will. To quote the Sammy Hagar song back when I was in high school, “I can’t drive 55….” Imagine also that this need for speed cause me to receive five (5) speeding tickets in and around the River Valley. On the fifth speeding ticket, I appear before the judge who in all likelihood is about to revoke my license. But instead of law, I receive His grace. He tells me that he will forgive my recent five tickets and I can be on my way. But as I leave the courthouse, I peel black rubber from the parking lot on my way. His forgiveness of past offenses hasn’t changed my nature. God’s forgiveness is not like this. God’s forgiveness wipes away my every traffic offense but it also causes me to love to obey the speed limit. When the State Trooper pulls me over on I-540 and tickets me, he cannot change my desire to speed the moment I leave his presence. Yet, when a person encounters God’s love, she desires to drive within the speed limit. This can cause a tremendous amount of frustration in marriage. Sometimes this newfound faith is a source of division, anger, and conflict. The Gospel of Christ had intruded into a marriage and caused a godly kind of turmoil. This should come as no surprise to us. Jesus told us that this was coming:
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person's enemies will be those of his own household” (Matthew 10:34-36).
So when the wife is converted, she no longer has a desire to exceed the speed limits to use my analogy from earlier. Yet, he longs to put the petal to the medal. When one person loves Christ and the other is indifferent to him, there will not be harmony in the home. He has a desire to watch God-ignoring entertainment while she has a desire to extend mercy to her neighbors. She covets the stuff the Jones have across the street. All she wants him to do is to work overtime so he can provide her with more and more. He has a desire to work less, lead a simple life, and attend a men’s group early in the mornings where he studies the Bible. The difference between the partners is faith. They don’t see the same things because of faith.
Paul said this earlier in the letter: “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). The lost person is unable to see because she has no faith in Christ: “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4).
One person fondles an ebony brooch hanging around her neck, and then the lights go on and he sees it’s not a brooch but a cockroach. They no sooner see this then the fling it across the room. One sees Jesus Christ as the all-consuming desire of their hearts while the other person ignores him. This why the Bible has an expectation that Christians will only marry other Christians” “A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 7:39).
Listen to this: “In those days also I saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. 24 And half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and they could not speak the language of Judah, but only the language of each people. 25 And I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair. And I made them take oath in the name of God, saying, “You shall not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves. 26 Did not Solomon king of Israel sin on account of such women? Among the many nations there was no king like him, and he was beloved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel. Nevertheless, foreign women made even him to sin. 27 Shall we then listen to you and do all this great evil and act treacherously against our God by marrying foreign women” (Nehemiah 13:23-27)?
2. Can I End My Marriage?
The Corinthians marriages have experienced this turmoil. And they write their questions to Paul. Paul’s first response is to cause them to tap the brakes.
“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. 13 If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him” (1 Corinthians 7:12-13).
Roughly nine out of ten Americans will marry. Of those who have experienced divorced and subsequently remarry, roughly 2/3’s of the new marriage will divorce. What do those stats tell us? It tells us that many Americans think they have married the wrong person. Approximately half of those marriages will divorce. One of the great books written on this in the modern era is called The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce. It’s a non-Christian book where they studied 131 families looking at the effects on the children who came out of divorced homes over the course of their life. What they discovered was very early on there are very obvious implications for a child from a divorced home, one immediately being emotional. Now all of a sudden Mom and Dad are no longer living together. They have a contentious relationship to varying degrees. Mom and Dad are separated. Now there are parenting agreements and custody disputes, and you’ve got two homes and two families, and then remarriage and blended families, and perhaps step-siblings. And sometimes the child is used as the pawn in the war between the mother and the father. All kinds of difficulties ensue. Usually the child ends up with the mother, so there is emotional in addition to financial implications. Mom is making less money. She has high costs to provide for the care of the child or children. Income level goes down. Daycare comes into being, and maybe Grandma is called to help look after the kid. The whole social environment changes; the whole family becomes unstable.
Each of us is touched by divorce. Some of us are divorced. Some of us, our parents are divorced. Grandparents are divorced, friends, family, people that we love are divorced, and we’re implicated in it.
There is a great myth to divorce. A young father who was just fresh from his own divorce, said something profound: “My wife divorced me, and she said, ‘Well, I just want it to be over.’” It’s never going to be over. You still have kids in many cases, so you’re not done with each other’s lives. Those kids are going grow up, and then they’re going get married, and then you’re going be at the wedding together. And you’re going have to see each other on many holidays, and your grandkids are going to have to figure out how to split time with you. Perhaps they will ignore one of you for the other? This whole thing where we say, “I’ just want it to be over,” is a myth. It’s not over. It’s just really complicated.
Divorce doesn’t end anything. You still have life together. You still have the effects of your past life together. And you still have children and inevitably grandchildren together. All of this was happening in the church in Corinth is that people had become Christians, and they were sick of each other, and they wanted to get divorced. A believer who is a husband might say, “I didn’t want a divorce, but now she has left me….” “To the rest I say (I, not the Lord)…” (1 Corinthians 7:12). Paul is pointing us to the truth that Jesus did not directly teach on this aspect of divorce. Jesus’ teaching didn’t cover every possible situation. Consequently, Paul fills in the content as an inspired apostle who writes Scripture for the church.
So I want offer four outs for your marriage:
2.1 When Your Spouse Dies
2.2 Adultery
“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (Matthew 5:32). In the Old Testament, death was the means of ending an adulterous relationship. “If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel” (Deuteronomy 22:22). Martin Luther (1483-1546) and John Calvin (1509-1564) both considered the governments in Europe unbiblical because of its refusal to treat adultery as a capital crime. We are bound a civil authority that does not mirror ancient Israel so I am not advocating capital punishment. Nevertheless, when we read the words of ancient law code of Israel, they are sobering.
2.3 Non-Christian Divorce
“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” (1 Corinthians 7:15).
The Christian should not initiate the divorce when married to a non-Christian. Instead, they should live graciously and quietly with their spouse in order to win their spouse to faith in Christ. Your demeanor should be infectious as it is salted with tenderness, kindness, generosity, and service to your spouse. “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” (1 Corinthians 7:15).
Paul isn’t advising divorce any time our personal peace is disturbed in marriage. As long as the divorce is sought by, and initiated by, the unbeliever, the Christian spouse is not enslaved to Jesus’ command not to divorce. A peaceful divorce will involve resisting divorce. The believer will plead with the unconverted spouse to change their mind on wanting a divorce. How do you know that peaceful cooperation with your unbelieving spouse’s decision to divorce will not bring about his or her conversion?
2.4 No Other Reasons are Given
The Bible offers no other legitimate reason for divorce. Don’t use the Bible as a checklist. “Ah, here it is. I get to divorce him.”
3. Christianity Gives Wives Dignity
“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” (1 Corinthians 7:14). Paul is directly contrasting the practice of his day when a wife would just automatically adopt the gods of her husband. Don’t confuse submission with conversion.
“Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct” (1 Peter 3:1-2).
This practice placed Christian wives married to non-converted husbands in a difficult position. Peter does not succumb to this cultural understanding of the wife’s intelligence where she would blindly submit to her husband’s views on religion and God. Instead, Peter assumes that she will hear, ponder, understand and respond to God’s Word on her own. Verse one tells us that some wives have chosen to follow Christ in opposition to their husband’s thoughts. These wives have thought the matter through and departed from their husband’s way of thinking on this issue of supreme importance. Submission does not mean agreeing with everything your husband says. You can see that in verse one that she is a Christian and he is not. He has one set of ideas about ultimate reality. She has another. Peter calls her to be submissive while assuming she will not submit to his view of the most important thing in the world – God. Submission does not mean leaving your brain or your will at the wedding altar. You are Equal to Him in Intelligence and Competence. The Christian wife should try to influence her husband to become a Christian. The presence of a Christian in the home does not automatically save his or her spouse. The presence of a Christian in the home does not automatically the children. Each individual must repent of their sins and embrace Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.No one makes the choice of becoming a Christian for another. You must turn from sin and trust Christ. An unbeliever married to a believer has a spiritual advantage.
A believing spouse can bring God’s blessings to a nonbelieving partner. They will be exposed to a Christian witness. They also will be prayed for by a Christian spouse. A spiritually mixed marriage is just as sacred and binding as a Christian marriage.
