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.
Let the husband render her due to the wife, and in like manner the wife to the husband.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
The wife has not authority over her own body, but the husband in like manner also the husband has not authority over his own body, but the wife.
Paul is answering the Corinthians' questions about marriage, and here his answer reaches its sharpest point: neither partner owns himself or herself alone. That raises two questions — what a married person gives up, and why Paul says it twice, of the wife and then of the husband.
The verse rests on something already settled: two people have become one. The claim on the body follows from that, and so does the end of any right to act alone.
Each owes the other consideration to the fullest degree, in a relationship where the two who were two are now one... If we are in the relationship, we are bound to be true to its claims. Being married cannot go together with independence from each other in anything that belongs to it.
Authority here is power over yourself. Marriage ends it from the moment the union is formed, and the loss concerns the body.
For this reason then, every man should have his own wife. Once the union is formed, he no longer has power over himself. As to the body, the husband belongs to his wife, and the wife to her husband.
Paul states the claim of the wife, then turns it round and states it of the husband. Neither keeps a private reserve.
Verses 3 to 5 insist that both wife and husband must show full consideration of each other, as the marriage bond requires. They are one flesh. Neither the husband alone nor the wife alone has power over his own or her own body, to bear fruit. They are united, and must not ignore this sacred relationship... What matters is proper consideration of each other, and that neither one defrauds the other of his or her proper rights in marriage.
Some treat going without marriage as the higher path. A verse that ties husband and wife to each other's bodies cuts that idea off at the root.
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, and this is a legitimate way to avoid the temptation to unholiness. So the false claim to higher spirituality, made by insisting on a life of self-denial, stands completely condemned.
The order Paul upholds goes back to creation. The same writer shows where the single life fits inside it.
When Adam was made, the LORD God 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... The apostle was the last person to weaken the order of nature... He is in full agreement with his Master, who defended God's original institution from creation, though He also held that the unmarried state is better, where a person has the 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. But if he boasts, he is in danger of dishonouring the Lord more than those he despises.
The verse says a husband and wife belong to each other. It does not say they belong only to each other. One writer speaks straight to a married couple.
You belong to each other now for as long as life lasts. You are to know the joy of holding each other as your own. But before you knew each other, you belonged to the Lord Jesus your Saviour, and you will not deny Him that joy. His claim must always stand first... He has given you to each other. Yet He has not surrendered His rights in you, and He cannot; they are the rights of your God and your Redeemer. Put His claim first and you will not lose your own happiness. You will sanctify it, make it last, and guard it from the selfishness we are all prone to, which can only spoil it.
- One flesh — the two are no longer two. The claim on the body rests on that union.
- One surrender — from the moment of union, a person no longer has power over himself. The husband's body belongs to his wife, and the wife's to her husband.
- One rule, both ways — Paul says it twice on purpose. Neither partner alone holds power over his or her own body, and neither may defraud the other of a proper right.
- One order honoured — Christianity does not set aside the order of nature. It condemns any claim to higher spirituality through self-denial, and boasting in the single life dishonours the Lord.
- One prior owner — the Lord gave you to each other, but He never surrendered His rights in you. Put His claim first, and it guards the marriage from selfishness.
Defraud not one another, unless, it may be, by consent for a time, that ye may devote yourselves to prayer, and again be together, that Satan tempt you not because of your incontinency.
Paul has just said that in marriage each partner's body belongs to the other, and here he applies it. The verse has raised questions ever since: is abstinence holier than union, how long may a couple part, and why is Satan named here?
The instruction assumes a marriage that is actually being lived. One writer treats verses 3–5 as a model of plain spiritual wisdom, and reads them as a warning against the merely nominal marriage:
No one should mock God in any of His arrangements. If His children marry, let the marriage be real, and not in form and name only.
The reason no partner may simply decide alone is that the relationship rules out that kind of independence. Kelly draws it out from the ownership language of the previous verse:
The married estate is inconsistent with independence of each other in all that pertains to it… It is the sure mark of the enemy when grace is twisted into contempt for the least or lowest of God's arrangements. If we are in the relationship, we are bound to be true to its claims.
The exception is hedged on three sides: both must agree, it must be limited, and it must be for prayer. Each fence matters, and one commentator notes how easily the exception could be turned into the rule:
Married Christians may think it good to part for a while. They may want to seek God more earnestly in persevering and abundant prayer, and for some definite spiritual purpose. Then let it be only for a while. Keep such exceptions clearly distinct from the rule.
The positive side is that the pause exists to make room for something. It is not self-denial for its own sake, but for undistracted prayer:
He indicates that the natural desires associated with marriage are not to be lightly denied, except in connection with burdens and exercises where both need to be involved in prayer and fasting… Even necessary food is given up so that prayer may be made without distraction. This shows what a powerful activity prayer is when we seek to gain the resources available from God.
Commentators differ over whether "fasting" belongs in the verse at all. Some keep the older reading of "fasting and prayer"; others follow a text that reads only "that you may devote yourselves to prayer," listing this among phrases the oldest manuscripts do not support:
1 Cor. 6:20, "and in your spirit, which are God's;" 1 Cor. 7:5, "fasting and;" 1 Cor. 10:28, "for the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof."
The command does not end with the parting. It ends with the return, and a long separation opens a door:
Let them come together again. Otherwise a long separation from the habits of married life could give the father of lies a chance to plant doubts in either of them about the holiness of what God ordains. In marriage, abstinence is not a virtue, but it can easily become a snare.
The clause about self-control is usually read as a warning about sexual failure. Darby reads it differently — the preposition points to a temptation aimed at a heart that has over-reached:
If, by mutual consent, they separated for a while so that they might give themselves to prayer and to spiritual exercises, the bond was to be acknowledged again at once, in case the heart, not governing itself, should give Satan occasion to come in and distress the soul, and destroy its confidence in God and in His love — in case he should tempt with distressing doubts (it is for, not by lack of self-control) a heart that aimed at too much, and failed.
He connects the same clause with the enemy's "flaming darts," and insists the pain involved is not pleasure but agony:
This is the force of the passage in Corinthians, in case Satan tempt you for your lack of self-control. The evil was there, the failure of self-control was assumed; the temptation was Satan's power over the soul, which was the result… There is no pleasure in despair. The flesh finds its pleasure in satisfying its desires, but there is no craving for despair — it is like a consuming fire in the soul.
The next verse guards this counsel from being made into law. The concession is not Paul apologising for writing without inspiration:
No compulsion was laid on the saints as to the advice given in verse 5; but he recommends this to them. He was inspired to speak in this way. The mistake lies in the sense of the Lord's permission to him to write, whereas he means that it was not compulsory on them, but left to their discretion before the Lord.
- Owed — what a husband and wife withhold is not their own; marriage leaves no room for acting alone in what belongs to both.
- Agreed — only mutual consent opens the door out, never one partner's private choice to be more spiritual.
- Timed — the pause is short and made for undistracted prayer; the exception must never become the rule.
- Reunited — coming back together is part of the command; a long separation lets doubts grow about the holiness of what God ordained.
- Guarded — abstinence in marriage is no virtue, and it can become a snare. Satan's target is a heart that aimed at more than it could hold.