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THE NORTHERN KENTUCKY SEARCHER VOLUME 4, NUMBER 13, MARCH 28, 2004 QUESTIONS ABOUT 1 CORINTHIANS 7 As we continue our study of 1 Corinthians 7, we are going to focus now on verses 12-14. Paul wrote, “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, let him not send her away. And a woman who has an unbelieving husband, and he consent to live with her, let her 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.” Paul is now dealing with the subject of mixed marriages, a marriage where one partner is a Christian and the other is not. To explain the statement, “But to the rest I say, not the Lord,” let me refer to what Charles Hodges says in his commentary on 1 Corinthians and with which I completely agree. He wrote, “The distinction which he here (v.10) and in v. 12 makes between his commands and those of the Lord, is not a distinction between what is inspired and what is not,…the distinction intended is between what Christ taught while on earth, and what Paul by the Spirit was inspired to teach.” Paul was merely leaving the realm of those things that Jesus personally discussed while on earth. There is no contrast between degrees of inspiration. If a brother has a wife who is not a Christian and she agrees, with him, to dwell together in the marriage relationship, the Christian is to remain with his wife. He has the same responsibilities to his non-Christian wife as he would have if his wife was a Christian. God’s marriage laws apply equally. The same holds true for a sister who has a husband who is not a Christian. Verse 14 is interesting for a number of different reasons. The first concerns the word “sanctified”. This word is usually used to describe the “setting apart” unto God of a Christian. But that is not the only “setting apart” to which the word can refer. It is important to note that the verse does not teach that the unbeliever is saved by the righteousness of their spouse. This is not true for the following reasons. (1) Ezek. 18:20 shows that every person is personally responsible before God and neither sin nor righteousness can be transferred. (2) Every person is accountable for his or her own deeds. (Rom. 14:12, 2 Corinthians 5:10). (3) No one can be saved without personal faith in Christ. (Mark 16:16, Hebrews 11:6). So this verse does not teach that the non-Christian, or their children, can be saved through the faith of the Christian spouse – influenced yes, saved no. In order to understand this verse we need to have some knowledge of the prohibitions under the Law of Moses concerning the marriage of Jews to non-Jews. It also helps to have some knowledge of the work of Ezra and Nehemiah. In Deut. 7:3-4, marriage of a Jew to a heathen was forbidden on the basis that the heathen could lead the Jew into idolatry. After the return from Babylonian Captivity the Jews began to inter-marry with Gentiles to such an extent that Ezra and Nehemiah took strong steps to stop such mixed marriages. Ezra and Nehemiah didn’t just forbid future mixed marriages, they also required that all who were married to foreigners put away their non-Jewish wives. They didn’t stop there. They required also that the children of those marriages be excluded with the women. This can be seen in Ezra 10 and Nehemiah 13. Perhaps there were some Jewish Christians in Corinth who were demanding that the new converts divorce their pagan mates as Ezra and Nehemiah had required of the Jews returning from captivity. What Paul is doing is showing that the situation is not the same. Verse 14 says that non-believers have been sanctified by the believer. But how? The words variously rendered as sanctify or sanctified not only describe persons who are holy, but they also describe things which were especially separated. A good example is found in Matt. 23:17, 19, where the temple is said to sanctify the gold that is used in its construction and the altar is said to sanctify the gift offered on it. Salvation is not even remotely under consideration in the definition of sanctified as used in that passage in Matthew. The idea was that these things are either especially separated for use to the Lord or that they were no longer common or unclean. Therefore the best explanation of this part of v. 14 seems to be that the marriage of a believer to an unbeliever is legitimate under the gospel: whereas under the Law of Moses such a marriage was condemned. The non-Jew was common, unclean. Now the unbeliever does not make the believer unclean; rather the believer makes the unbeliever clean – like the altar sanctifies the gift. If this was not true, if such a marriage was condemned before God and the non-believer considered unclean, than the children of such marriages would also have to be considered unclean. Remember, Ezra and Nehemiah required the excluding of the children of mixed marriages as well. But this was not the case in a marriage of a Christian and a non-Christian. The marriage was legitimate and the children were holy in the sense of being clean. Salvation is not under consideration in this verse. We will have more to write about next week, Lord willing. Greg Litmer
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