by Matthew W. Bassford<\/p>\n
From time to time, I receive article requests from brethren who want me to address a particular topic. Sadly, my usual response to these requests is to forget that they have been made and never write about them. However, recently someone asked me about my views of “not enslaved” in 1 Corinthians 7:15, and the subject is important enough that I resolved to break this lamentable trend.<\/p>\n
Countless words have been written about this verse, but the differing opinions of commentators can be sorted into two main views. Some think that “not enslaved” means that the believing spouse is not required to keep on trying to make their marriage work when the unbelieving spouse is determined to divorce them. Others maintain that the phrase means that when the unbelieving partner leaves, it dissolves the marriage, and the Christian is free to remarry even if no fornication has occurred.<\/p>\n
The appeal of the second position is obvious. I have friends who would be free to remarry if it were correct. However, I feel compelled to reject it for two main reasons.<\/p>\n
First, it doesn’t fit with the language of the rest of the verse. “Let it be so” is an instruction not to continue a pointless conflict. Why? To quote the verse’s final sentence, “God has called you to peace.” Christians are not supposed to engage in futile contention, and nothing is more futile than trying to keep a marriage together when the other spouse is set on separation.<\/p>\n
Second, if this is an exception to the no-divorce rule of 1 Corinthians 7:10-11 and the no-remarriage rule of Matthew 5:31-32, it should resemble the other exception, which is found in Matthew 19:9. However, it doesn’t.<\/p>\n
As Jesus points out in Matthew 19:4-6, marriage is unique because it creates a one-flesh relationship between husband and wife. This relationship is the essence of marriage. Thus, sexual sin attacks a marriage in a unique way.<\/p>\n
Consider Paul’s discussion of sexual sin in 1 Corinthians 6:12-20. This context reveals that sexual immorality is unlike other sins in the effect that it has on us and even God. It takes the members of Christ and makes them members of a prostitute. All other sins are outside the body, but fornication is a sin against the body. Finally, sexual sin defiles the temple of the Holy Spirit, which is the body.<\/p>\n
When Christians honor their marriages, they are one flesh with their spouses and one spirit with the Lord. However, when they commit adultery, they forsake both of these relationships to become one flesh with someone who shares their contempt for marriage. They have already violated Matthew 19:6 and separated what God has joined together.<\/p>\n
Thus, the exception of Matthew 19:9 makes sense. When one spouse is unfaithful to another, the wronged spouse can divorce them and even remarry without sin. After all, the innocent spouse wasn’t the one who violated the one-flesh relationship in the first place.<\/p>\n
We see, then, that the Matthew 19:9 exception exists because of the fundamental nature of marriage and adultery. However, no such fundamental justification is present in the text of 1 Corinthians 7:15. If the verse permits a Christian to remarry when their non-Christian spouse leaves, why?<\/p>\n
Compassion for the deserted spouse isn’t the answer. There are jerk Christian spouses who walk out on their marriages too. Aren’t their spouses equally deserving of compassion? Certainly, there is nothing like a violation of the one-flesh relationship to which we can point.<\/p>\n
I sympathize with the plight of brethren who find themselves forced into a state of lifelong celibacy through no fault of their own. I would imagine that such Christians suffer great unhappiness. This is offensive to our cultural sensibilities. In America, we believe that everyone should get to be happy (though oddly the pursuit of happiness often fails to make people happy). Thus, we want to read our ideal of happiness into the Bible.<\/p>\n
However, this has much more to do with the spirit of the world than the Spirit of Christ. After all, the central event of Scripture is the unjust torture and execution of a man who was literally sinless. If anyone deserved to be happy, Jesus did!<\/p>\n
Clearly, the life of Jesus was about far more than His earthly happiness, and the same is true for His disciples. He considers abandoned spouses with the same compassion with which He considers all of us, but He says to all of us nonetheless, “Take up your cross. Follow Me.” Even for them, the sufferings of this present age are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Matthew W. Bassford From time to time, I receive article requests from brethren who want me to address a particular topic. Sadly, my usual response to these requests is to forget that they have been made and never write about them. However, recently someone asked me about my views of “not enslaved” in 1…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[167,728,64],"class_list":["post-62635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-divorce","tag-i-corinthians","tag-marriage"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":16183,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-is-meant-by-not-being-enslaved-to-a-non-christian\/","url_meta":{"origin":62635,"position":0},"title":"What is meant by not being enslaved to a non-Christian?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 28, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I'm confused about this verse about being enslaved to a non-Christian. Does not being enslaved mean you are no longer bond by the covenant of marriage or what? I've never study this verse and we'll be going to be hitting the topic of marriage again soon, so do you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27298,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-would-someone-not-like-the-esv\/","url_meta":{"origin":62635,"position":1},"title":"Why would someone not like the ESV?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Why would someone not like the ESV? What is wrong with the ESV? I saw \"Which Translation Should I Use?\"\u00a0concerning\u00a0I Corinthians 7:15: \"The ESV is the clearest that it is talking about slavery\" I Corinthians 7:15 seems to be talking about marriage to me, not slavery. Answer: \"But if\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28168,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/if-an-unbelieving-spouse-leaves-the-marriage-can-the-christian-remarry\/","url_meta":{"origin":62635,"position":2},"title":"If an unbelieving spouse leaves the marriage, can the Christian remarry?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I guess my question is about \"wrongful marriages.'' If a Christian is married to an unbeliever\u00a0and the unbeliever\u00a0does not want to stay married to the believing party, it is my understanding that the Christian is to let the unbeliever go and the \"bond of marriage\" is not binding anymore.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":19806,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-marriage-divorce-and-remarriage-in-the-bible-by-jay-e-adams-biblically-correct\/","url_meta":{"origin":62635,"position":3},"title":"Is “Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in the Bible” by Jay E. Adams biblically correct?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 7, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Please, I would like to know if you have read the book \"Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in the Bible\" by Jay E. Adams. Is this book by Jay Adams biblically and scripturally correct, especially in regards to the remarriage of the innocent and guilty party in a divorce? I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":19886,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/was-it-wrong-to-leave-a-marriage-when-my-ex-husband-had-tried-to-kill-my-son-and-me\/","url_meta":{"origin":62635,"position":4},"title":"Was it wrong to leave a marriage when my ex-husband had tried to kill my son and me?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Was I wrong to leave the marriage? My ex-husband tried to kill my son and me. He told me that he was a baptized Christian. Then he said he was Catholic. After that, he said he did not believe in God at all and cursed His name many times.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16185,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-desertion-a-ground-for-remarriage\/","url_meta":{"origin":62635,"position":5},"title":"Is Desertion a Ground for Remarriage?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 28, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Johnny Stringer Guardian of Truth XXIX: 5, pp. 137, 141, March 7, 1985 Jesus taught that marriage is permanent. In keeping with God's original intent regarding marriage, He prohibited divorce and stated that all second marriages of divorced persons are adulterous (Matthew 19:3-9; 5:32; Luke 16:18). He made only\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/11\/divorce.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62635\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}