1 Corinthians 7

1 Corinthians 7:1-40

Section 4. (1 Corinthians 7:1-40.)Nature: how far to be yielded to. We now come to a question which, as already observed, is intimately connected with that of the flesh. Fallen nature is distinctly fleshly, as the Lord says: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh;” but that is the fallen condition. We are still to distinguish from that human nature as God has constituted it, and which remains therefore to be owned as such, without forgetting how the fall has affected everything now. The apostle takes up here, therefore, the question especially of marriage, but also, in connection with this, of the relationship of children to the Church of God. This is incidentally, however. He is replying to questions which have been put to him by the Corinthians, and which are of the most practical character.

We find a setting forth of things very different from that which we have, for instance, in Ephesians, by the same apostle, where the higher character of marriage is shown us and God’s thought in its institution. Here we have nothing but the practical question answered; -as to the expediency of it, for instance, when sin has now come in so to dislocate that which is natural, and to pervert that which is best in nature making the strongest ties oftentimes to be the most significant of evil.

1. Here the principle, which is that which we are mainly concerned with, is a very simple one; the application of it, also, as the apostle gives it, so simple as to need little more. The principle is that the institution of God is to be maintained. Sin has not altered the rightness of that which God at the beginning ordained for man. The institution of God, therefore, has to be maintained, but on the one hand we are to consider the disturbance which sin has brought in, and how that affects the conduct of a believer with regard to such things, and we have also to consider that grace has brought in with it a power which is above nature and created new interests beyond those of the individual. Christians are free, but the apostle’s idea of freedom is liberty to serve.

He has no thought of anything freer than the service of Christ. Thus if these higher interests are the motive, a man may walk above nature, walk of course in faith; and he must take heed that he has faith to walk in this way.

If not, in the necessary testing which will come in, there will surely be a breakdown, and evil instead of good. The path must be that of faith, and it can only be, therefore, in the following the will of God that we can have faith for it. We can never have faith for paths of our own choice simply. Thus, if a man choose to walk free from all distraction to serve God, apart from all the natural ties which God has instituted, he may be proportionately free from the distraction of cares which would in measure take him off from the service that he covets. On the other hand, if he is not with God, he may place himself in circumstances where there shall be much more distraction. The apostle has no thought of asceticism in the smallest degree.

Man may go outside the world, as he imagines, into a wilderness and solitude, only to find that there is an inner world from which he is not separated and cannot separate himself, and which claims him the more for the very isolation which he has chosen. The separate path is not to be sought, therefore, for its own sake.

It is not to be taken as if it were in itself a higher elevation. The motive is that which governs all, and here, therefore, the will of God, which can alone give one a right motive. In general, as the apostle decides here, the rule is the natural one. He cannot perhaps exactly quote any more that it is not good for man to be alone, and that God hath made him a help meet for him. This always remains, of course, in measure true if we contemplate man as man, but ibis the first creation, not the new one; and, as already said, the interests of Christ and service to Him, in a scene which so calls for service as does the world in its fallen state, are motives which the original creation did not contemplate. The general rule, even for Christians, remains the natural one, and a path of special faith requires distinctly the special gift of God.

If God brings one into circumstances of trial, He is competent for the circumstances. If we essay the trial apart from this, we shall only find the breakdown of a strength which is the strength of nature, and not spiritual strength. On the other hand, for those who are married, the bond which God has ordained is, of course, recognized. There is no longer, in the same sense, freedom. The apostle could desire for all the very highest path, of course, but he has no commandment for any with regard to this. Wishing that all men were even as himself, he realizes, however, that every one has his own gift from God, one man after this manner and another after that. He is only expounding here what the Lord Himself more summarily declares in the nineteenth of Matthew. Thus far it is only the case of marriage among Christians themselves that he is speaking of. 2. He now takes up the question of separation and divorce; and here, as most naturally having to do with this, the case of a believer united to an unbeliever. In those days there must have been necessarily from such a cause oftentimes the greatest perplexity. He decides that in such a case the wife is not to separate herself of her own will from her husband, as in the case of Christians also be is wholly against separation; and if the wife has been separated she is to remain unmarried or to be reconciled to her husband, the husband not to leave his wife. In the case of an unbeliever there is, of course, a difference. On the side of the Christian, if the unbelieving wife be content to dwell with him, he is not to leave her; so, on the other hand, if it be the husband that is the unbeliever and not the wife.

The reason of this he gives as to be found in the sanctification of the unbelieving husband in the wife, or of the unbelieving wife in the Christian to whom she is married, and he adduces as the proof of this the known position of the children of the married in such a case. The children, he says, are holy. This, of course, as it is the basis of his argument, must have been an acknowledged fact for Christians. The working of Israelitish law was quite in the other direction. If a man had married outside of Israel, the children were unclean, and were disowned as belonging to the congregation of the Lord. The holiness of the children here is not a necessarily spiritual condition, but that of external relationship, as we may say, but which of course manifests the mind of God for blessing to those who are in such a relationship. The baptism of the household is not intimated, but it is evident that this would naturally result from the position here. The token of discipleship could hardly be denied to those who as holy were to be brought up as disciples. They are thus addressed throughout the epistles, and they could not be so addressed if outside the Kingdom of that in which the claims of Christ as Lord were owned. It has sometimes been argued that the unbelieving wife or husband is, according to this, as much holy as are the children; but this is an oversight as to what is really expressed. The unbelieving husband or wife is only sanctified in the believing partner, not otherwise: sanctified, therefore, in that relationship in which he or she stood to the other, and not in himself, so as to be himself acknowledged in any relationship to the Church of God. The relationship was clean and owned of God, so that the believer could continue in it, and is urged to do so.

But, on the other hand, if, on the side of the unbeliever, he departed, then, in such cases, the brother or the sister, says the apostle, is not bound. He or she is not obliged to recognize any more the relationship as existing. Yet the apostle does not mean by this anything equivalent to divorce, or that which would set absolutely free the one separated from. The Lord Himself has decided in the plainest possible way in the Gospels that there is but one ground for divorce, and we have no right from the apostle’s words here to suppose, as many do suppose now, that they declare another. Whatever trial there may be in such circumstances of separation, yet if there be no more, it is a trial to which God has called the person in question, and for which He must be counted upon; but to continue in the relationship as far as possible is that which he encourages. Christianity, with its all-embracing desire for the salvation of souls, would rather use such a relation for the salvation of the unbeliever than cast out one who might be thus rescued from his natural, lost condition. 3. The apostle here, in a parenthesis, goes aside to consider for a moment how far this principle of abiding in the position in which God’s call found its objects would stand good. The general rule was, and he ordains it in all churches, to abide wherever one could abide with God. There was to be no restless spirit of change, as if circumstances were the great consideration rather than God’s control of circumstances, which ought to be realized. Thus, if any one was called, being circumcised, he was not to become uncircumcised. He was not, as it were, to ape the Gentile. So, if one were called in uncircumcision, he was not to be circumcised. Circumcision and uncircumcision were alike now on the same footing; that is to say, there was nothing in them.

The keeping of the commandments of God was the whole matter. If a man were called even being a bond-servant, -and we can hardly imagine, perhaps, the bitterness of such a position oftentimes in those old heathen days, and especially for a Christian in bond-service to a heathen, -yet the apostle bids such an one not to care about it. If he could become free, by all means he may do so; but on the other hand, if be were ever so much a bond-servant and called in the Lord, the Lord had set him free in such a way as no bondage on the part of man could possibly affect. He could serve Christ in that condition; and the more painful the circumstances might be, the more acceptable even, we may be sure, would be such a service. His spirit was free, nothing could touch that, and He who was his Master was Master also of all else, so that this, as all other things, should work for good to him. If he were free as to circumstances, he would still be Christ’s bond-servant.

Christians are those bought with a price. They were not to be indeed the bond-servants of men.

They were not to allow themselves to descend to a lower sphere of service. Christ was to be served, and His people, of course, in Him, but always, therefore, in the remembrance of that love which had at the same time bound him to Christ and set him free. The general rule, therefore, is, let each abide in the calling wherein he is called, if only he can abide there with God. If; of course, his position is such that he cannot abide in it thus, he is bound to leave it; but the restless spirit of change is not that which suits Christianity. It makes too much of the world and the circumstances, which are indeed nothing, but only a condition under which God can display Himself without possibility of hindrance. 4. The apostle returns now to the matter in hand. He answers the question, then, how far, in view of actual circumstances, marriage were good or not. He tells them this is a mere question of giving advice. He has no commandment of the Lord. He distinguishes that in the most absolute way from whatever judgment he may give as one faithful, as he was known to be, through the mercy of the Lord to him, and whose spiritual judgment might therefore be of the greatest value to those who used it aright. There was that which the apostle speaks of as a “present necessity.” It is to be supposed that he refers to the immense pressure of the world upon the infant Church. This would make the entanglement with unnecessary cares a thing not to be desired.

Still he can do little more than reaffirm what he has already said. In view of it all, it was good for a man to remain as he was; but if he was already bound to a wife, he must not seek to be loosed. If he was loosed, then he would not have him seek a wife; but at the same time distinctly decides that there was no sin at all that was in question. He or she who married did not sin. There would be trouble naturally, as he foresees, but he is not going to make this too strong a point with them, for there might be that which more than compensated the trouble. In short, it was a matter for individual exercise and determination.

No one could determine the course of another; but as to all, the time was shortened. The coming of the Lord was nigh, always nigh for the Christian; without regard to any exact knowledge, he was to be in the spirit of constant expectation.

Those who had wives were to be as they who had none. If they wept, things were passing, so that it was not to be as it were in real sorrow. As to that in which they might rejoice (of course, he is speaking of circumstances, what might thus rejoice them here), still they were to be as those who rejoiced not. Whatever they acquired, they were to be as though they possessed it not, and while using the world, they were not to dispose of it as if it were their own. They had, so to speak, a certain interest in it, but the character of everything was necessarily determined by the condition of things. The world was passing away; and their possession of anything would pass away with it. And there was another matter also to be considered; the great and important thing in his eyes was that people should live without care, -without that weight of anxiety which would disturb them in their walk with God. As a fact, he is not speaking of what should be or what need be, but what is so often found. The unmarried would be naturally careful for the things of the Lord, to please Him -he has no one else to please. If a man is married, he has, on the other hand, plainly, another to please, and thus he is tempted at least to care for the things of the world in order to please his wife. So with a woman, in the same way. The one who is free from everything of this sort can be careful for the things of the Lord alone.

She that is married is apt to be careful for the things of the world, just with the desire, and a not unreasonable desire, to please her husband. He is not saying this, as he declares again, constantly guarding it, for anything but for their profit.

He does not want to lay down rules, the observation of which might only be a snare to them, but he wants them to seek, whatever their course may be, to serve the Lord without distraction. There was no sin, as he insists again, there was no kind of sin in marriage; but if a man had no need of it, if he had authority over himself and had judged in his heart to remain so, he did well. So, on the other hand, he says, the one who marries does well, although if he does not, he may do better. Once in the bond of marriage the Lord’s will was already declared, wife or husband were bound unto death. if the husband were fallen asleep, the wife was still free to be married to whom she would; (thus the apostle declares positively as to the lawfulness of second marriages;) but he puts in the condition that it was to be only in the Lord, which does not mean simply that she was to be only married to a Christian, though that of course, but as seeking the Lord’s guidance about it and therefore in obedience to Him, as the whole Christian life should be. The happier course, according to his judgment, was for her to remain unmarried. He thinks that he could surely speak as one having the Spirit of God, but there he leaves it. It is plain how, all through, the apostle insists upon the difference between advice, such as one Christian may give another, (such as he above all others was competent to give,) and the command of God. All, of course, that is given here is given by inspiration, the advice as well as the command; and if, as we see in a chapter beyond this, the apostle ordained anything, it was in fact the commandment of the Lord. The advice was inspired, but it was advice. The character of it in that respect was not affected by the inspiration. It is not the lowering of the thought of inspiration, to look at it as advice simply, what he himself characterizes as that.