A Peaceful Parting

If you would please take your
Bibles once again and turn to first Corinthians chapter seven.
If you haven’t been with us before or haven’t been with us in a
while we’re working our way through first Corinthians. I didn’t lose
my place. It’s exactly where we left off
two weeks ago. First Corinthians chapter seven
and we are working through the very difficult section on divorce. And to briefly review our context
here in Chapter 7, Paul is speaking to one of the many areas that
the Corinthian church was in need of discipleship, godly instruction. They had questions and they had
presented them to Paul. We don’t know in what form or
how many. We don’t have that specific list. But they had questions, including
questions pertaining to marriage and all things pertaining to
marriage. They would not receive any wholesome
counsel from the world. They would not receive any good,
sound wisdom from the Greek culture in which they lived. Nor would
they hardly gain any wisdom, unfortunately, from the practical
lives of the very few Jews that lived in their city. Their example of faith was not
much better than the Greek culture that surrounded them. And so
they had to turn to Paul, their father in the faith, and he has
been only too happy to speak to their many questions. Whereas
the culture in which they lived readily accepted divorce and
promoted adultery really and other immoral acts. Paul’s words
countered that ungodly mentality. What a refreshing voice. To a
newly converted child of God, to be pulled out of the world
and now graciously instructed in the things of God, For one
to follow Christ, especially in the area of marital purity,
it would have been a heroic battle against their own flesh, against
the world’s lies, and against the devil’s deceitful temptations. And so these believers in Corinth
likely felt shame and even embarrassment in even posing some of their
many questions. They thought perhaps they were
dumb questions. We have that sentiment from time
to time. But Paul, this faithful friend, this servant of God,
is equal to the task to take these questions and one by one
answer these many questions throughout the course of this epistle. And here he begins to entangle
himself in their questions about marital relations, that such
As we learned in the first five verses of chapter seven, marital
relations are good and God-given. They are the very means of protection
from rampant immoralities, not only in that society, but still
today in our own. Each man was to take his own
wife and each woman her own husband and You would think that a discussion
that frank might make people in any day blush. But Paul delicately presents
the blessedness of marriage with all of its benefits, not the
least of which is marital intimacy. Well, singleness likewise, Paul
presents, is a good and moral state if one is called to it. If one enjoys the calling and
the grace of God for that particular status, few are called to that
condition, that state. But if so, it is a good and God
honoring state, Paul says. These men and women are able
to overcome fleshly desires and truly live lives that glorify
God with the added benefit of being greatly freed up to serve
God in a more plentiful manner. But marriage, singleness, no
discussion about things pertaining to marriage would be complete
in first century Corinth or in any other age for that matter.
Wouldn’t be complete without a discussion of divorce. Sad
and destructive as that is. And of the myriad of questions
swirling around in the Corinthians’ minds, the subject of divorce
must have been near the top of their list. Both Greeks and Romans,
and even the Jews themselves, were almost indifferent to the
practice of divorce. It was just part of life. Ho
hum. And so, as Paul is providing counsel here, questions like
these stood out to him. We considered three weeks ago
one such question. Should I jettison my wife now
that we’re Christians so that we can both serve the Lord more
effectively? Or maybe the question was along
the lines, aren’t marital relations immoral even in themselves? Paul
answers that and we dealt with that particular question in the
first five verses. Then we considered two weeks
ago, what if my stubborn spouse refuses to acknowledge Jesus
Christ by faith? Should I dump him? Should I dump
her? Won’t life be impossible for
me as a Christian if they choose to hang around? I love my wife,
but I love Christ more. And it sounds so noble. Or worse. We dealt with that question two
weeks ago, but this morning we face a different question. The
question might go something like this. As I was being drawn to
Christ, my spouse went the other direction, siding with the Jewish
teachings, that we have to practice their traditions and laws. Well,
divorce to the Lord and to the Apostle Paul in almost any circumstance
is unacceptable. It tears at the fabric of family
and society. And so there are very few exceptions
where divorce is allowed by God. And so Paul speaks to the various
circumstances in which a believer might come face to face with
this option. And Paul deals with each of these
three scenarios in verses 10 through 16. We’ve looked at two
so far. We looked at the question of
divorce between two married believers. Paul says, do not. seek a divorce
in that situation. We looked at the second scenario,
the question of a believer married to an unbeliever, but one who
desires to stay in the marriage. Paul says, do not seek divorce. This morning we consider the
third scenario, the question of a believer married to an unbeliever
who leaves, who abandons the marriage and seeks divorce. In
the first scenario, With the question of divorce between two
married believers, Paul cautioned against causing one spouse or
former spouse to commit adultery. Divorce prompted adultery, we
called it, and Paul presents that marriage is God’s gift to
prevent, not cause, sexual immorality. The second question he dealt
with. the question of a believer married to an unbeliever who
desires to stay married, Paul argues strongly against the idea
of abandoning your God-given wife. And so Paul’s opening address
here in chapter 7 regarding intimacy in a Christian marriage, verses
1 through 5, singleness, verses 6 through 9, then these two divorce
scenarios, verses 10 and 11 and 12 through 14, With that, Paul turns to address
a third possible divorce scenario, that of a believer who’s married
to an unbeliever who bolts, who desires to leave the marriage.
And for that, if you would, I want to read the section in its entirety,
verses 10 through 16. But to the married, I give instructions,
not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not leave her husband.
But if she does leave, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled
to her husband and that the husband should not divorce his wife.
But to the rest, I say not I, not the Lord. I pardon me, 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 send her
husband away. 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 sister is not
under bondage in such cases, but God has called us to peace. For how do you know a wife, whether
you will save your husband or how do you know a husband, whether
you will save your wife? Now, if we just pause for a moment. Before we throw ourselves headlong
into the consideration of this final divorce case versus 15
and 16. Many people have looked at this
final case as a kind of get out of jail free card with regard
to their marriage, an escape clause. To them, it gives legitimacy,
a legitimate excuse to end their marriage. All I’ve got to do
is make my spouse, and for some of us it wouldn’t be very difficult,
all I’ve got to do is make my spouse want to end the marriage. And I have known of marriages
in which even a professing believer makes the marriage so miserable
that the unbelieving spouse eventually caves to the demands for a divorce. That’s not the situation before
us. The fomenting of this kind of strife is no real surprise
among unbelievers. But for a Christian to stir up
such acrimony that a non-Christian longs to be excused from the
relationship, that is sinful and wrong. To agitate, grumble,
complain, irritate, deride, provoke, harass, harangue, pester, needle,
annoy, gripe, berate. One’s God-given spouse with the
goal of driving a fateful wedge between two marriage partners
is ungodly behavior. But grumbling and complaining
are not the only means of undermining a marriage. There are many other
devices as well, not the least of which is, as we’ve already
addressed, withholding marital intimacy, the matter that began
this very discussion. And then you add to that abusive
spending, gossip, undermining of parental authority, and so
much more. There are many ways to undermine
a marriage to try to force the spouse to make the move to seek
divorce. Who wouldn’t want to escape such
a marriage? And that’s the entire point.
But no true Christian would knowingly and intentionally undermine the
institution of marriage in order to gain their so-called freedom. I’ve counseled and I’ve said
it for years. that if there is even one believer
in a troubled marriage, I believe that marriage is savable. I typically need go no further
than the $10 million sin. You know the $10 million sin,
don’t you? It’s the parable of the unmerciful
slave who owed the king the equivalent of $10 million. But he went in and he pleaded
his sob story before the king and the king forgave him. He
didn’t set up a percentage based discount on the loan. He didn’t set up a repayment
plan. He forgave him all $10 million
worth of debt. And what did the slave do? He
turned around. And he went and accosted his
fellow slave and began choking his neck for a measly 16 penny
debt. You say, what does that have
to do with marriage and divorce? Well, everything. You see, in
that account, we are the ones who have amassed so great a debt
against the holy God. We are the ones like that slave
who came and begged the king to forgive us. We are the ones
who have been forgiven so great a debt and to go out and hold
someone accountable for a measly 16 penny debt, especially our
God given spouse. Is reprehensible. Even such debt
that occurs in the course of a marriage. That debt by God’s
grace should be forgiven as we have been forgiven, right? Well,
that mindset is the very thing that puts me at odds with no
fewer than a half a dozen couples through the course of our church
who have trounced through our church. You see, people want
what they want when they want it. That is the essence of sin. And if you dare get in someone’s
way in their pursuit of such desires, woe and pity to you,
right? If you call an offended spouse
to repentance for their unwillingness to forgive, you tend to bring
scorn upon yourself and worse. But if you’re a believer in a
blended marriage and you’re making life miserable for your spouse
in hopes of them abandoning your marriage, it’s nothing short
of sinful rebellion. So that kind of situation is
categorically not the scenario that Paul presents here in verses
15 through 16. It’s a different scenario entirely.
Let me say it as clearly as I can. The passage before us is not
a license to make oneself wretched to our spouse in order to drive
them out of marriage in the name of Christ. Before we delve into
that passage, I just want you to look at one additional verse,
1 Peter chapter 3. This will give us a balancing
piece of advice. Paul is going to say that there
is grounds for divorce. If a spouse abandons another, there
is grounds for divorce. But I want you to see the balance
to this in 1 Peter 3 verses 1 and 2. In the same way, you wives, be
submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are
disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by
the behavior of their wives as they observe your chaste and
respectful behavior.” Here, Peter addresses the husband-wife relationship
head on. And we hear his straightforward
counsel to wives that even a husband who is disobedient to the word
may be one without a word. Here’s a very similar situation
to that which Paul is addressing in 1 Corinthians 7. Only there,
pardon me, here, there is a sustained hopeful outlook. This is much
earlier in the skirmish. Divorce is not even on the horizon
yet. And I would suggest to you that
this is the backdrop of what Paul addresses in our passage.
He doesn’t tell us about this part of it. Now, of course, the
first time that this wife comes home. She did not mix it up with
her husband and max out his irritation. In the situation that Paul speaks
to, there were likely weeks, if not months or even years of
sweet, patient, long-suffering with her unbelieving husband. The passage here in 1 Peter just
captures the godly and ideal wife in such a situation. Peter doesn’t indicate whether
this man is even saved or not. It’s a worst case scenario that
he’s not saved, but neither is he a godly man. Look at it. He’s disobedient to the word,
not exactly a description of a Christian man. And yet this
winsome wife is serving and yielding and praying and modeling Christ
to this brute. That’s all I really wanted to
point out. Before we go back to 1 Corinthians 7, because the
passage in 1 Corinthians does not give us this backdrop. It
doesn’t give us the background of the relationship. It just
brings us right to the very courtroom where divorce papers are laid
on the table. So with that background in mind, let’s consider Paul’s
counsel to a believer whose marriage is indeed on the rocks. I’ve
called it a peaceful parting. And what Paul gives in these
two short verses are guidelines for a deserted Christian. Guidelines
for a deserted Christian, first of all. He gives us the circumstances
of abandonment. He just states it bluntly there
in verse 15. Yet if the unbelieving one leaves,
let him leave. So the previously described situation
above, set aside, in verses 12 through 14, the unbelieving spouse
who desires to remain married is set aside. Here is the situation
where a non-believer chooses to end the marriage, to abandon
their spouse by way of divorce. This is a case that likely ends
with much grief. The believing spouse has done
everything in their power, we would believe, to preserve the
marriage, prayer and acts of kindness and service and marital
affection and intimacy, everything. There is no good, just reason
for the unbeliever to seek a divorce. The believer contributed nothing
to their non-Christian spouse’s desire to leave. That’s the situation
into which Paul speaks. But the unredeemed partner, the
husband or the wife, against all efforts to the contrary,
has decided to terminate the marriage. Now in first century
Corinth, as we’ve seen, divorce was easy. It was as easy as changing
your clothes. It was not unlike our own culture
in that regard. And this scenario was just yet
another situation that the church in Corinth was facing, a marriage
in which one of the two became a Christian and that so bothered
the unbelieving spouse that they seek to end the marriage to a
new believer in a young and undeveloped church. This would be a very
bewildering question, and it was. And we can immediately begin
to empathize with any spouse, male or female, whose spouse
seeks to destroy the marriage simply because of their disdain
for Christ. That’s the situation that Paul’s
addressing. But Paul, for Paul, this situation
is really cut and dried. If he or she leaves, he says,
let him or her leave. Simple, straightforward, as I
said, cut and dried. And there should be no doubt
the word leaves has reference here to termination of the marriage
to divorce. This is the unbelievers choice
and responsibility. They alone are culpable in this
situation. And so as we’ve seen it here
in this chapter, there are two and only two reasons for divorce,
adultery and now abandonment. This is as willful an act as
the act of adultery. It’s the exact opposite of the
scenario presented in the immediately preceding three verses. There,
a believer married to an unbeliever but one who does desire to remain
married. They love their spouse. Here the unbeliever wants out
and goes out. And Paul says, if an unbeliever
in this situation leaves, let him leave. There is no obligation
to hang on for some undetermined period. There’s no call for the
believer to hang on to hope and fond memories. The unbeliever
is expressing his or her disdain for God and spiritual things
in general. The Christian spouse just happens
to be in the way. He or she is an easy target,
and Paul says, let them go. To hang on to such wayward, determined,
unbelieving spouse is pointless. The grounds for divorce are established,
and Paul says, justified. Now the question, the question
of remarriage remains. It’s not dealt with in this passage.
Can this believing spouse now finding him or herself divorced,
can they remarry? Well, Paul doesn’t speak to that
directly in this passage. But allowance is made for adultery,
that remarriage is possible only in the Lord. That is only if
one remarries a Christian. And so Paul doesn’t speak to
the issue explicitly here, but he does shed some light on it
in the next phrase, right there in verse 15. If the unbelieving
one leaves, let him leave. The brother or sister is not
under bondage in such cases. And so, as we’re looking at the
guidelines for a deserted Christian, we see not only the circumstances
of the abandonment, but secondly, the consequences of abandonment. Here, Paul says, he’s facing
this particular scenario where somebody comes to him and says,
Paul, I’m in this situation. I’m saved and my spouse does
not love Christ. In fact, my spouse is determined
to break up our marriage. Now what do I do? And Paul immediately
sets the believer free. He says that a brother or sister,
it makes no difference here, whether it’s the wife or the
husband who’s facing these circumstances, the brother or sister is not
under bondage in such cases. And I think even by that, he
sets this as a rare scenario. Now men, I would caution you
ahead of time as to how you speak of your marriage on the way home
today. I don’t suggest that you refer to it in terms of slavery. But that’s what Paul does here.
He says that a believer in this particular situation where an
unbelieving spouse wants to leave, that is divorce, he is not under
bondage. There is no obligation to remain
in such a marriage. In other words, if the believer
chooses to stay, the believer is bound. If the unbeliever chooses
to leave, the believer is freed from such bondage. The word is
a literal word for slavery or enslavement. Now, most people,
if you’re wise men, would not, indeed should not, use such language
to refer to your marriage. Paul’s point here is not one
of disdain for the institution of marriage. Rather, he’s speaking
of the degree of commitment one makes to their spouse in marriage. We speak of it as the marriage
bond, right? The bonds of marriage. And Paul says that those bonds
of marriage are broken by a departing spouse. Such a believer is freed
from the marriage bonds. It would be a dreadful kind of
enslavement to force a believer to continue to hang on to such
a marriage, Paul says. And given that a believer is
freed, the church has generally held for thousands of years that
a believer in such a scenario is indeed free to remarry. Luther
believed so, but not all students of the word. Again, it’s not
a direct address, but it must be resolved by conjecture to
some degree, even as one writer put it, the tenor of the words
seems to favor liberty, and that seems to imply the freedom to
remarry. Well, it’s an excruciatingly
difficult situation. Forced to choose between Christ
and one’s unbelieving spouse, who does not share the same spiritual
affection for the Savior, the choice is made easy. If the unbeliever
departs, there’s liberty, freedom. The believer is not under bondage.
There’s comfort available for the brokenhearted believer. Peace. God’s peace. And that brings
us to our third guideline for the abandoned Christian. Not
only the circumstances of the abandonment and the consequences
of abandonment, but look at the comfort of abandonment. Verse 15. It’s in its entirety. If the unbelieving one leaves,
let him leave. The brother or sister is not under bondage in
such cases, but God has called us to peace. Now, for the Christian facing
such a lamentable scenario, your beloved and God given spouse,
maybe your high school sweetheart, but someone that you loved with
whom you contracted in marriage for life. Even if while you were
unbelievers. to suddenly be faced with that
person abandoning you because your relationship with Christ
would be exceedingly painful. And I’ve counseled those situations,
but Paul gives consolation here. God has called us to peace. This
would have been an immediate reminder to a brokenhearted spouse
of God’s work of grace in their hearts and lives that God was
very much with them. that God had not only forgiven
their sins, he had enacted a peace treaty with them. A Christian
is a person who has been providentially and mercifully called out of
his or her conflict with a holy God to a life of peaceful communion
with him. That word peace would immediately
resonate with a Christian. Because of this, the believer
now has a peaceful conscience. We heard those words spoken earlier. There is therefore now no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus. The only real peace that a sinner
will ever know comes not in the context of marriage, good or
bad, or any other earthly relationship, but the only real peace a believer
will ever come to know comes as a result of the relationship
established with Christ in faith. This ought not be a familiar,
unfamiliar concept to the Christian. God, First Thessalonians 5.23,
God has called us to peace. Peace with God by our relationship.