Divorce 101

Divorce 101

“Divorce 101”

(1 Corinthians 7:10-16)

Series: Chaos & Correction (1 Corinthians)

Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD

Henderson’s First Baptist Church, Henderson

•Take your Bibles and join me in 1 Corinthians, chapter 7 (page 770; YouVersion).

 

We are preaching our way, verse-by-verse, through the letter of 1 Corinthians.  When we were last together we studied the first nine verses of chapter 7 in a sermon entitled, “Marriage 101” and Paul, now turning to questions of divorce, leads us to entitle today’s message, “Divorce 101.”  Before we look at verses 10 and following, let’s quickly review what we studied last time.

 

In chapter 7 Paul begins a section of material where he answers specific questions put to him in a letter that had been hand-delivered to him.  The Corinthian Christians had written to Paul and asked him a number of questions concerning theological difficulties arising in the church.

 

You will remember 1 Corinthians may be divided into three sections: In Chapters 1-4 Paul addresses division in the church.  In chapters 5-6 Paul addresses disorder in the church, and now in chapters 7 to the end Paul addresses difficulties in the church, theological difficulties, questions raised by the church members at Corinth.

So we read verse 1 of chapter 7 and Paul says, “Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me.”  That is, “Okay, church, now I’m getting around to these questions you all wrote me about and I’m going to answer each one now beginning first,” as we saw last time, “with this matter of marriage.”

 

Paul addresses a “pro-celibacy group” within the church at Corinth, a group who was suggesting that it was best for men and women to never marry because it was best to refrain from sexual intimacy.  And Paul, in essence, says, “Look, marriage is not a bad thing.  It is a gift from God.  It doesn’t make one any more or less spiritual to be either married or single.”  And so we drew a few practical principles from the first nine verses about marriage.  We said if marriage were math, then: 1) One Plus One Equals One—which is to say that a man and woman “become one” in marriage, 2) One and One Agree as One, and 3) One with One is not for Everyone—marriage is not for everyone; Paul advocates singleness as a virtue.  So you can review the message by going to our website and listening to the audio or reading the full manuscript as these are always available online for free.

 

Now, in verses 10 and following Paul continues to speak on the matter of marriage and he addresses first those marriages where both husband and wife are Christians, that’s verses 10 and 11, and then he speaks to those marriages where one is a believer and the other is not, so instructions about divorce for those married to Christians and those married to non-Christians.  Let’s listen now to the teaching:

 

•Please stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word.

 

10 Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband. 

11 But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife. 

12 But to the rest I, not the Lord, say: If any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her. 

13 And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him. 

14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. 

15 But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases. But God has called us to peace. 

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? 

 

•Pray.

 

Introduction:

 

I read recently about a story published in a British newspaper that began with the following sentence: “Heartfelt commiseration to Dorothy Naylor of Plymouth, whose recent day-trip to Bridgewater was spoiled when her husband, Oliver, left her on the forecourt of a garage … and drove 17 miles before noticing his wife was not in the car.”

 

Mrs. Naylor told the Western Morning News, “I couldn’t believe he’d gone without me,” She said, “I usually sit in the back because I can move around more, but normally we talk to one another.”

 

The couple, both in their 70s, had pulled into a garage to change a tire.  Mr. Naylor drove off and didn’t notice his wife’s absence until he had arrived in Bridgewater (17 miles away).  After stopping in town, he asked his wife, “Where do you want to get out?”  When she didn’t answer, he turned around and discovered that he had left her behind. The paper added that the couple had been married for 40 years.  —As told by Rico Tice, “What Shall I Do With Jesus?” Sermon at All Souls Church, Langham Place, London.

 

Now I’m not sure this is the best way to introduce a message on the matter of divorce and remarriage.  It may be a story better used to illustrate how some of us treat Jesus—we “leave Him behind” and “don’t take Him with us.”  Worse, we think He is with us but He is not.  But I wanted to tell that story because I thought it was kind of funny and I thought it might be helpful in sort of “breaking the ice” this morning as we enter into a discussion about the painful reality of divorce.

 

Divorce is common.  My parents divorced.  My wife Michele’s parents divorced.  We have other family who have divorced.  Divorce is common even in the church.  Several of you have divorced.  Some of you have been divorced more than once.  Divorce is common.

 

So I think if we can begin by just sort of “laying all our cards out on the table” and just being honest with our past and saying, “Okay, I’ve made mistakes” or, “My family has made mistakes,” or whatever, that we can say, “And now by God’s grace what are we to do?  What is there here for us to learn?  How do we grow from this point forward?”

 

We serve a very loving God, a forgiving God, a merciful God, a gracious God.  He is so good to us.  We need only to confess our sin, repent from our ways, and turn to Him through Jesus Christ and we may be put in right standing with our Holy and wise Creator.

 

So we begin here.  This message is not about singling people out and making them feel badly about themselves.  We’re simply going through the book of 1 Corinthians and here we are.  So this message is for our good and for God’s glory.  So let’s go through these seven verses, one at a time, and learn some helpful facts about biblical marriage.  Okay?  All in favor of studying the Bible this morning?  Write this down, number one:

 

I.  Marriage is about Everlasting Permanence (10-11)

 

The key word in marriage is permanence.  Marriage is meant to last.  The word “divorce” should never even enter into the realm of a couple’s conversation.  Most of us are familiar with Billy Graham’s wife, Ruth.  She was once asked whether she had ever considered divorcing her husband.  She replied: “Divorce? Never.  Murder, often!”

 

Marriage is about permanence.  Look again now in 1 Corinthians 7 and verse 10 and following, verse 10:

 

10 Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband. 

11 But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife. 

 

There is a lot here in these two verses.  We could spend an hour alone on each of them.  The main point is that marriage is about permanence, everlasting permanence of the union.

 

We cannot rightly interpret these verses without reaching back into the preceding verses we studied last week, verses 1-9.  You’ll remember there was a “pro-celibacy group” within the church that was going around suggesting that in order to be “real spiritual,” you didn’t engage in any sexual intimacy and therefore it was probably best not even to be married.  And apparently, then, some married couples in the church were like, “Well, Paul, is this right?  Should we abstain from sexual intimacy and, further, if we’re married, should we divorce?”

 

So Paul responds now by saying, “No!”  No, he says, “To the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband.”  He says, “It’s not I who gave you this command, it is the Lord who gave it during His earthly ministry.  Paul reminds the Corinthians that the Lord Jesus had taught previously on this matter.  It was part of Jesus’ teaching that was eventually written down in the Gospels.  So, for example, we have Jesus’ command on this matter in Mark’s Gospel, chapter 10.

 

Mark 10:11-12, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. 12 And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

 

So Paul tells the Corinthians, “No, if you have a marriage and both of you are Christians, you are to remain together.”  Paul is like, “I didn’t come up with this idea myself.  It is the Lord’s teaching,” a teaching that we have today in the Gospels.  Where divorce has occurred, the husband and wife are to remain unmarried in order to keep the door open to the possibility of reconciling with one’s spouse, re-marrying one’s spouse.  That’s why Paul says what he does in verse 11, verse 11 again:

 

11 But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife.

 

So, whether it is the Christian husband or the Christian wife, if one leaves the other, they two should remain unmarried in order to keep the door open to the possibility of reconciling with each other, re-marrying one another.

 

By the way, this is where ministers like me need to be very careful.  We must not become the person who performs wedding ceremonies with no regard for biblical teachings.  If what these verses are saying is true—and it is—then ministers may be guilty of actually enabling persons to sin by wrongly assisting a recently divorced person to marry another.

 

Now understand that this passage does not provide an exhaustive treatment of the matter of divorce and remarriage.  In order to do that we would want to take all of the passages together and systematize them responsibly, this is of course the work of “systematic” theology.  This is why, many years ago, before I came here as pastor, many years ago while still in seminary, I drafted a position on the matter of divorce and remarriage.  I didn’t want to be in the pastorate making decisions on whether to marry certain persons based solely on my emotions or my personal feelings, but rather I wanted to make decisions based upon biblical teachings.  And you can pick up one of these this week if you would like.  It’s just my position on the matter of divorce and remarriage and includes a pre-marital wedding covenant for those who ask me to perform their ceremony.  These are very important considerations, not to be taken lightly, especially by ministers as we will give an account for our fidelity to the Scriptures.

 

So, first point: Marriage is about Everlasting Permanence.  Number two:

 

II.  Marriage requires Evangelistic Persistence (12-14)

 

Now, what Paul does in verses 12 and following is he turns his attention from marriages where both husband and wife are Christians to marriages now where one of the two is a non-Christian.  Okay?  This is what Paul means in verse 12 when he says, “But to the rest.”  That is, “I was previously talking about two Christians married to one another, now I am talking about a Christian brother or sister who is married to a non-Christian spouse.”  So verse 12:

 

12 But to the rest I, not the Lord (and we’ll come back to this phrase), say: If any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her. 

 

Okay, so same stress on the permanency of marriage.  If a Christian brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him—so there’s no acrimony or anything like that, no hatred for his love for Jesus or his love for spiritual things—if she is willing to live with him, then Paul concludes, “let him not divorce her.”

 

So the wrong idea that was going around Corinth was like, “Well, if you’re a Christian and you’re spouse isn’t, then you should probably leave your spouse.  After all, every time you have intimacy with your spouse you are defiling yourself.”  And Paul refutes that wrong teaching.  He’s saying, “No, stay with your spouse.”

 

By the way, there is application here for some who say, “Well, I never should have married my husband.  We weren’t saved at the time or I was saved and he wasn’t and so it’s all messed up, or we met in a bar, or whatever.”  Look, in the mystery of God’s providence, the two of you came together and married one another.  Stay married.  God knows what He’s doing.  The old adage is true: two wrongs don’t make a right.  If you say you and your spouse met in shameful circumstances and married one another.  Okay, it was wrong.  But that’s in the past.  You don’t undo the wrong by divorcing.  What God has joined together let no man separate.  From last week: One plus one equals one.  Stay married.

 

What Paul says about a Christian brother whose wife is not a believer he says is also true in the instance of a Christian wife whose husband is not a believer.  Same teaching in verse 13:

 

13 And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him. 

 

Same stress on the permanency of marriage.  Now what about this statement of Paul’s in the beginning of verse 12 where he says, “But to the rest I, not the Lord, say,” and then he goes on to say what he does.  What about this phrase?  Are we to put the words of Paul against the words of Jesus?

 

I was once asked, “Do you agree with Paul’s teachings on marriage or do you agree with Jesus’s teachings on marriage?”  And my answer is, “Yes.”  I agree with both.  The Bible is the inspired record of God’s truth.  It is all true.  This is especially helpful for us to remember when using a “Red-Letter edition of the Bible.”  The words written in red are no more inspired than the words written in black.  All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.  All of it.

 

When Paul says in verse 12, “But to the rest I, not the Lord, say,”  he is simply acknowledging that the words Jesus speaks about marriage and divorce were a matter of record.  We read some of that teaching earlier in Mark 10:11-12.  Jesus spoke on the matter of marriage and His words were eventually recorded as a matter of record in Mark 10, as well as Matthew 19 and Luke 16.

 

So Paul is saying, “Now what I am teaching you is as important as what you previously have on record.  I’m just letting you know that this is an area Jesus was not asked about.”  Paul may have said, “This is new ground here, these questions you are asking me about marriage and divorce.  We have the words of Jesus up to a point and now this is new material—guided and inspired by the same Holy Spirit.”

 

We’ll see this kind of statement again by the Apostle Paul in the upcoming verses (verses 25 and 40).  And perhaps the clearest expression helpful to us comes later in chapter 14 where Paul says in

 

1 Corinthians 14:37, “If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord.”

 

Paul is guided by the same Holy Spirit as he writes about the matter of marriage and divorce.  All Scripture is inspired by God.

 

So again, back to the original concern.  There was this element in the church, a group of people who suggested that if a person in a marriage had gotten saved and their spouse was not saved, that they should divorce, largely because of a fear that sexual intimacy with the unbelieving spouse defiled the Christian spouse.  Paul responds by saying, “No, no at all.  You are not defiled.  In fact, quite the contrary, verse 14:

 

14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. 

 

Paul is saying that, rather than your being defiled by your unbelieving spouse, there is a kind of blessing that you bring to your unbelieving spouse.  There is a spiritual benefit, a kind of “spin-off” blessing that accrues to the non-Christian spouse as well as to his or her children.  The words Paul uses to describe this benefit are the words “sanctified” and “holy.”

 

Of course the words “sanctified” and “holy” here do not mean the unbeliever is saved.  We know that cannot be the case else Paul would be contradicting himself and the clear teaching of all of Scripture on the matter of salvation.  So the words don’t mean that the unbelieving spouse and children are somehow automatically saved simply because there’s a Christian living in the house.

 

We are always to interpret words primarily by the context in which they are found.  The context tells us right away that Paul doesn’t mean for us to understand these words “sanctified” and “holy” as meaning that a person is saved.  This is especially clearer in verse 16 where Paul says, “How do you know…whether you will save your (spouse)?”  In other words, your spouse is presently not saved.  What Paul is teaching here in verse 14, however, is that the unbelieving spouse does receive a kind of blessing that attaches to one who is married to a Christian.  In this sense, the unbeliever is “sanctified by the wife” and the children are “holy.”

 

The unbeliever is “sanctified” or “set apart” from the evil in the world in the sense that he or she is living in a house “set apart” like a sanctuary, set apart from the godlessness around it.  The unbelieving spouse is “sanctified” in the sense of living under the protection and influence of a Christian.  It’s the same idea with the word “holy.”  Paul says unbelieving children are “holy,” and again it is not that they are saved, but that they also are “set apart” to live under the protective care of either a Christian mom or dad in a home where that parent’s Christian influence permeates the house.

 

It makes sense: If there’s a family where only the father is a Christian, only one parent is a believer, nevertheless that family will fare far better than the family where neither parent is a Christian.  Why?  Because the Christian father will endeavor to live in accordance to the teaching of Scripture and be the godly daddy he is to be to those children and the godly husband he is to be to his wife and so, in this sense, the non-Christian wife will receive a blessing that accrues to her because her husband is walking with the Lord.

 

So he will be influencing the family for good, reading God’s Word to them and so forth.  It’s a matter of godly influence in the home.  The unbelievers in the house are far more likely to be saved—though no guarantee—the odds are in favor of their eventually being saved, especially since they are not protesting the faith of the one who is the believer.  There is a good relationship there.  This unbelieving spouse is “willing to live” with the believing spouse (verses 12-13).

 

So this requires evangelistic persistence and patience on the part of the believing spouse.  If you are married to an unbeliever, the Bible says, “Hang in there!”  Keep believing what you believe.  Be sweet.  Don’t take a Bible to your unbelieving spouse and beat him or her over the head with it.  Continue to allow your godly character to influence and permeate that home.  Odds are your children are more likely to share your faith and your unbelieving spouse may also come around.  Keep praying.  Keep witnessing.  Keep trusting God.  This is the Word of God.  You keep it and God will honor that.

 

So again, while there may be a situation where there is a husband and wife, but only one of the two is a Christian, there is much good that can come of that union.  Where the unbelieving spouse is “willing to live” with the believing spouse, the situation is not all bad.  There is much good and a potential even for the salvation of the entire family baed upon the evangelistic persistence of the believing spouse.  Marriage is about everlasting permanence and marriage is about evangelistic persistence—hang in there—but remember that we live in an imperfect world and there’s only so much you can do.  I say this because while marriage is about everlasting permanence and evangelistic persistence, thirdly:

 

III.  Marriage contains an Element of Powerlessness (15-16)

 

There’s only so much a believing spouse can do.  Verse 15:

 

15 But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases. But God has called us to peace. 

 

In other words, the Christian, the believer, should not try to manipulate the unbelieving spouse to stay in the marriage if the unbeliever is not “willing to live” (verses 12-13) with the believing spouse, if he or she is dead-set against staying.  I mean he or she has “had it” with all this “Christianity stuff” and is angry and vocal and wants nothing to do with it.  That’s what Paul’s talking about here, an unbeliever who cannot stand the Christian faith of his or her spouse.

 

If the unbeliever were forced to stay in the marriage there would likely be even more tension and strife—relative to the hardness of the unbeliever’s heart—a hatred of spiritual things and therefore constant warring with the believing spouse.  And so Paul is like, “If your unbelieving spouse is so determined to leave and is so against your Christian commitment, then let your unbelieving spouse leave.”  There’s an element of powerlessness here.

 

By no means try to force him or her, or manipulate him or her, to stay in the union.  You can’t force someone to become a Christian.  You are powerless in that sense and so if the unbelieving spouse must depart, then he or she must depart.  God has called us to peace, not war.

 

So “a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases.”  If there’s nothing you can do and the person leaves you, then you’ve done what you can.  Marriage contains an element of powerlessness.  God has not called you to manipulate the unbelieving spouse to see it your way.  It’s not as though you are forever bound to this person who has decided to abandon you.

 

Now this is a rare thing today.  We don’t often see marriages ending because of one person’s commitment to Christ, but it can happen.  And when it does, the believing spouse is powerless to change it.  At the same time, if this happens the believing spouse is not left in bondage to a hopeless situation.

 

While the word is different later down in verse 39, the word also translated “bound,” it seems synonymous in that the person abandoned is thus free to re-marry.  I would add, however, that the abandoned spouse should not re-marry until the departing spouse makes such reconciliation impossible, namely by marrying someone else.

 

So if you are the abandoned spouse, as a general rule, the wisest thing to do is to remain unmarried and pray for your unbelieving spouse to come back, to reconcile.  If, however, the unbelieving spouse does not return and, in fact, marries another person, then you as the abandoned spouse are free to remarry.   I think that’s the idea here.

 

So back to Paul’s immediate concern, the trying on the part of the believer to prevent the unbelieving spouse from leaving the marriage, trying to prevent the unbeliever from leaving by forcing him or her to stay would create obvious tension and strife.  This seems to be the point, then, of Paul’s concluding statement in verse 16:

 

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?

 

In other words, “It’s one thing when you have an unbelieving spouse who is “willing to live” (verses 12-13) in the house with the believing spouse.  It is, however, quite another thing when you have a quarrelsome, antagonistic unbelieving spouse who is “not willing” to live in the house.  In these cases, when this person departs, then let the person depart.  So here is an exception to the command stressing the permanency of marriage.

 

The sense in verse 16, then, is Paul’s saying, “You can try to force your unbelieving spouse to live in the house because you think you will succeed in getting him saved, but how do you know you will succeed?  Or how do you know, o husband, whether you will save your wife?”  In other words, “There’s no guarantee.  Ultimately you are powerless.  This is quite a different matter than what Paul describes up in verses 12 and 13 where you have unbelieving spouses who are willing to stay in the house.

 

Now again, it is helpful to remember that Paul is not providing here a full-orbed theology of divorce and remarriage.  If we were interested in formulating such a doctrine then we would look elsewhere in the Bible for all the places where God teaches about marriage and divorce.  For example, Jesus provides another exception for divorce.

 

Matthew 19:32:

 

32 But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.

 

So the Lord permits the seeking of divorce on the part of a faithful spouse whose husband or wife has been unfaithful.  But note even here the Lord permits divorce but does not command divorce.  It is always His ideal that husbands and wives remain together, the everlasting permanency of marriage.

 

And there are other difficulties in marriages today that are not specifically addressed in the Scriptures, difficulties including abuse, that require great prayer and counsel.

 

But clearly divorce is not permitted for reasons so popular in our culture today.  And our culture today is not altogether unlike the culture of the Graeco-Roman world.  In Paul’s day, Roman Law allowed either a husband or wife to initiate a divorce with no stated cause required.  Just like our “no-fault” divorce as I understand it in Kentucky.

 

The question is, “Will we live according to popular culture or we will live in accordance to Scripture?”

 

Divorce is not permitted on the basis of unhappiness.  Divorce is not permitted on the basis of so-called incompatibility.  By the way, it is often the opposite attraction of so-called incompatibility persons that completes the marital union in God-glorifying ways.  It’s the old adage: “in marriage if both persons are exactly alike, one of them is unnecessary.”  God brings together two persons who are each uniquely hardwired often in opposite ways to bring a sense of wholeness and completion to the marriage.

 

So, “No, divorce is not permitted solely on the basis of one person’s unhappiness.”  So enough of these unbiblical statements such as, “Well, I don’t think God wants me to be unhappy.”  I wonder if we’re aware of a great number of our biblical heroes who were often very unhappy.  We need not cite merely Job as the only example.  I cannot imagine that any of Christ’s disciples were particularly happy about being beaten, persecuted, or killed.  It’s hard to imagine any follower of Christ being particularly happy when tortured or imprisoned.

 

If happiness were a condition for marital faithfulness why have marital vows at all?  Think of it.  Why promise, why pledge one’s life to another if you could divorce someone as soon as you became unhappy?  What’s the point of the pledge?  What’s the point of the vow?  Why say, “For better or for worse” if you don’t mean it?  This is precisely why we have marital vows.  Because we are promising to be faithful to one another even when we go through dark seasons together.  That is the whole point of the promise.  Anyone can stick around while he or she is happy.  Marriage means you pledge to stick around when you’re not happy.  And if you cannot promise to do that, don’t marry.

 

The disciples got that message from the Lord.  That’s why they responded as they did to Jesus’ words in Matthew 19.  He had just said to them, “Look, whoever divorces except for sexual immorality is an adulterer.”  In other words, “Keep your vows.”  And the disciples reply in Matthew 19:10, “If such is the case…it is better not to marry!”  They understood the gravity of the situation, that God’s ideal is permanency in the marriage.

 

God says in the Old Testament book of Malachi, “I hate divorce (Malachi 2:16).”  I think one of the reason God hates divorce is the same reason those who have been divorced hate divorce.  It hurts.  It breaks up families.  It robs children of a biological mom and a dad in the home.  Most who have experienced divorce will admit that they hated divorce.  God hates divorce because of what it does to us.

 

Let me close with these words from helpful commentator Craig Blomberg.  He writes:

 

The rationale that it is better to live happily divorced than unhappily married, while increasingly common, is fallacious on several grounds: (1) most who think they will be happy divorced are not; (2) even those who are happy themselves often do not take adequate account of the effect on their children or their ex–spouse; (3) the premise of the entire argument is ultimately self-centered and flies directly in the face of the fundamentally selfless nature of Christian living.

 

•Stand for prayer.

 

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