But concerning the things of which ye have written [to me] [It is] good for a man not to touch a woman;
Paul now turns to a set of questions the Corinthians had put to him in writing, and the first concerns marriage itself. His opening answer sounds at first like a warning against marriage. Is the single life the holier one?
One writer traces why marriage had become a question for them at all:
They had been taught, as a basic doctrine of the gospel, that God's judgment has set nature and its claims aside. They had also learnt, we may well suppose, that in the resurrection people neither marry nor are given in marriage. The believer is dead and risen with Christ, and shares in the heavenly calling. Was it his duty, then, to show his separation from the world in practice by refusing to enter a tie whose chief purposes include filling the earth?
The pressure came from two sides: the city's immorality, and the strict self-denial that answered it.
The loose living of the pagan world — especially the Greeks, and above all the Corinthians — produced a reaction towards asceticism. The apostle urges holiness, but not at the cost of liberty in Christ.
Some read the wording as though God preferred lifelong celibacy. Commentators reject that, and point to how Paul honours marriage elsewhere:
When Adam was made, the LORD said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." And so He built the woman out of the man. They were to be, and were, one flesh. The apostle was the last man to weaken the order of nature. He later wrote to the Hebrews, "Let marriage be held in honour among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled." He in no way contradicts that here.
Marriage is honourable. So the gain of staying single must lie elsewhere: in undivided freedom for the Lord.
They do well who stay outside this relationship to walk with the Lord according to the Spirit, and not to give way to their nature in anything. God instituted marriage — woe to anyone who speaks ill of it! But sin has come in, and all that belongs to nature, to the creature, is spoiled. God has brought in a power altogether above and outside nature — the power of the Spirit. To walk by that power is the best thing; it is to walk outside the sphere where sin operates. But it is rare.
What changed? Another writer points to the new creation:
Paul could not have written his first statement in verse 1 when creation began, for it would have been bad for Adam to refuse the wife God gave him. But in Christ, now raised from the dead, God has brought in the new creation.
Paul marks off his own counsel from the Lord's command. He grounds it in what God has given each person.
This is what the Holy Spirit led the large-hearted apostle to write, declaring that what he had laid down was not a command but a permission. His own wish for others was that all should be even as he himself was. But he does not overlook that each has as God gives him.
The same writer adds where the danger lies for those who can stay single:
The unmarried state has a higher excellence where there is power to be undivided for the Lord and His things. But it is not so with every saint. All cannot receive it — only those to whom it has been given. If anyone is able, let him receive it. But if he boasts, he is in danger of dishonouring the Lord more than those he despises.
This is the third step in a single line of teaching on holiness.
Having urged the saints to maintain holiness in the assembly (1 Corinthians 5) and personal holiness (1 Corinthians 6), the apostle now teaches us to maintain holiness in the natural relationships of life. Christianity in no way sets aside the order of nature. But it corrects the abuses by which fallen man has corrupted these relationships. Every man is free to have his own wife, and every woman her own husband. This is in fact a proper way to avoid the temptation to unholiness.
One writer weighs the demand to go without marriage against plain immorality:
Asceticism is no more Christian than moral laxity, though it takes a fairer form. It is a pretentious assault on the Creator and Preserver of man by setting up a superior sanctity.
- Question. The verse is Paul's reply to a letter, not a decree. Corinth's immorality had produced a swing to the opposite extreme. Paul answers with holiness that does not cost liberty in Christ.
- Gift. The single life is "good" only where God has given the power for it. That power of the Spirit is above nature, and rare. Boasting in it dishonours the Lord.
- Honour. The same apostle upholds what God said over Adam and calls marriage honourable. The verse never demotes it.
- Permission. Verses 1 and 2 stand together. Staying single is counsel. Marrying is free, right, and a guard against temptation.
- Warning. Turn the counsel into a rule and it is no longer spirituality. Asceticism is no more Christian than moral looseness.
but on account of fornications, let each have his own wife, and each [woman] have her own husband.
Paul turns from correcting immorality in the church to the subject of marriage. His answer sounds oddly practical — marriage as a guard against sexual sin — so is that a low view of marriage, or a wise one?
The danger was sharpest in Corinth itself.
Nature as it is has its snares. And nowhere gave more reason to fear from its habits and associations than Corinth. Pagan religion in some cases made sexual sin sacred. Loose living was the commonest thing there at that time, and it is always a danger. Because of it, let each man have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. In a relationship where the two are no longer two but one, the fullest consideration on both sides is only fitting.
Paul's concern for holiness does not stop at the church door.
Having urged the saints to maintain holiness in the assembly (1 Cor. 5) and individual holiness (1 Cor. 6), the Apostle now instructs us to maintain holiness in the natural relationships of life. Christianity does not set aside the order of nature. It does correct the abuses by which fallen man may have corrupted these relationships. Every man is free to have his own wife, and every woman her own husband. This is a legitimate way to avoid the temptation to unholiness.
People often fall not because they took what God gave, but because they refused it.
God had instituted marriage — woe to anyone who should speak ill of it! But sin has come in, and everything of nature, of the creature, is spoiled. God has brought in a power altogether above and outside nature — that of the Spirit. To walk according to that power is the best thing; it is to walk outside the sphere in which sin acts. But it is rare. And most actual sins come from standing apart from what God has ordained in nature.
Notice the wording of the verse: it is a grant, not an order.
So that sin might stop among God's children, let believers still walk as men do, at least in what God approved before sin began. Christian marriage is something allowed, and so it is blameless and honourable — rather than good in itself... Hence what was a command to the Israelite is only a permission to the Christian... Yet marriage is honourable in all. It is granted as a concession to our natural weakness. Even so, the Spirit reflects on it the light and beauty of the finished truth above. In a word, no Christian is advised to marry whose life of celibacy is not found to be a burden and a snare.
Some read Paul as grudging about marriage. The opposite is true.
When Adam was made, the LORD said, It is not good that the man should be alone: I will make him a helper fit for him. And so He built the woman out of the man. They were to be, and were, one flesh. The apostle was the last man to weaken the order of nature. It was he who later wrote to the Hebrews, Let marriage be held in honour among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled. Here he in no way contradicts that or differs from it... He did hold that the unmarried state is better, where a person has power to be wholly for the Lord and His things. But it is not so with every believer. All cannot receive it — only those to whom it has been given. If anyone is able, let him receive it: if he boasts, he is in danger of dishonouring the Lord more than those he looks down on.
If loose living is one ditch, forced abstinence is the other.
Asceticism is no more Christian than loose living, though it takes a fairer form. It is a pretentious attack on the Creator and Preserver of man. It sets up a holiness of its own, and it ends in vileness against nature.
No one can copy another person's path without God's call and power for it.
It is one thing to say, "Follow Paul's example," and quite another thing to have the "proper gift" to do it. It is a fatal mistake for anyone to expect to walk in a path for which God has not given him a call or the spiritual power. In these days of ritualism and revived monasticism, remember this. Marriage is a holy and honourable institution. God established it in the Garden of Eden, and the Lord's presence in Cana of Galilee set His approval on it.
- Setting — Corinth made immorality part of its religion. Paul's answer meets a real danger, not a theory.
- Safeguard — Marriage is the legitimate way to keep holiness in ordinary life. Most sins come from standing apart from what God ordained in nature.
- Sanctioned — For the Christian, marriage is permission, not command. It is blameless and honourable, granted for our real weakness.
- Sacred still — Paul wrote that marriage is to be held in honour among all. He is the last man to weaken what God set up in Eden.
- Snare — Forbidding marriage is not higher holiness. It is an attack on the Creator. Each person must know the gift God has given him.