And a woman who has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to dwell with her, let her not leave [her] husband.
A woman comes to faith after she is married, but her husband does not. Should she stay with him, and what does her faith mean for him and for their children?
Paul opens this section by saying that he speaks, not the Lord. One writer weighs what that difference means:
In verse 12, "To the rest speak I, not the Lord," is very precious... Now I find the apostle making a difference here, which is instructive... On this subject Paul will not give us a command, and he is inspired to tell us that.
This verse speaks to a woman already married when she came to faith.
This does not for a moment have in view a believer marrying an unbeliever. That is clearly contrary to the mind of the Lord (2 Cor. 6:14). Here the case is mixed marriages, where one partner came to faith after the marriage. In this case the believer is not defiled by union with the unbeliever.
Israel's rule pointed the other way, and this verse overturns it.
Here the serious question was mixed marriages, where the gospel had won one married partner to Christ and not the other. Here the grace of Christianity stands in sharp contrast with the strictness of Judaism... Israel stayed a holy people partly by refusing to marry the surrounding nations. Those who intermarried, or took foreign wives, were polluted, and their children were unclean.
The same rule runs the other way, where the husband believes and the wife does not. The unbeliever's wish settles it, and faith is no excuse to escape an unwanted marriage.
If, then, the woman who refused her heart to Christ still clung in natural affection to her husband, let him not put her away. Still less should he use this difference God has made to claim freedom from a tie he may not want. Her pleasure, and not his, must be consulted.
Her faith changes where her husband and children stand, though it leaves his character untouched.
The faith of the one sets the other apart in a very real way, for he is a member of a household where Christ is recognised as Lord. He is set apart despite himself, and however ungodly his character may be. And the children are "holy" — a stronger word than sanctified. It is of course the position they are privileged to hold because of the faith of one parent.
Commentators are careful about what this holiness does not mean:
Here the sanctification and the holiness do not mean a spiritual condition that puts them in relationship with God. Through the believer the relationship is clean and God acknowledges it, so the believer can continue in it.
One writer pictures what such a wife faced day to day.
If the believer were the wife, she might be suspected and thwarted at every turn by her unbelieving husband. He would watch that the children were kept from Christian truth and privileges of every kind. He would show his contempt for what his wife valued... If her husband consented to live with her, despite that confession, she was not called to leave or put away her unbelieving husband.
Such a husband is rarely reached by words.
The unbeliever as such slights the word and has no conception of its power... But his conscience can value gentleness, humility, patience and obedience in another very highly, above all when that other is his wife. He knows well how unreasonable and unkind he has often been to her. Yet she has borne it. She never complained and never blamed him, but stayed as loving and dutiful as ever. He is forced to feel that there must be something in her faith that makes the difference — the faith he often mocked.
One writer applies the verse to a marriage that has already broken up:
If he wishes to come back, it is the same as his "consenting to live with her," and if she is told she "should not divorce him," that amounts to being told to receive him... It may be that the Lord is about to bring the husband to Himself. If so, it would be very sad if a Christian wife should prove a stumbling block by failing in grace.
- Advice, not command. Paul gives this as his own judgment, not a command from the Lord. God inspired him to make that difference clear.
- Grace, not strictness. The older rule sent away a foreign spouse and counted the children unclean. This verse tells the believing wife to stay.
- Consent, not compulsion. She stays only as long as he is willing. His wish, not hers, settles the question.
- Sanctified, not saved. Her faith sets him apart as part of a household where Christ is Lord. The children gain a holy position — a standing, not a conversion.
- Won, not preached at. Gentleness, patience and steady love at home may reach the husband her words could not.
For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the brother; since [otherwise] indeed your children are unclean, but now they are holy.
Paul writes to couples whose marriage began before one partner came to faith. His ruling reverses the old rule: the unbeliever does not defile the believer. Two words carry the weight — "made holy" (older translations: "sanctified") and "holy." How much do they promise for a spouse and children who have not believed?
Under Israel's law a mixed marriage worked one way only. Under grace it works the other way:
It is in contrast with the Jews. If a Jew had married a Gentile wife, he had to send her away, and her children too, or he profaned himself. If the Jew was to be holy, they all had to go. The Christian system is gracious, so the opposite happens. The unbeliever does not profane the Christian; the Christian sanctified him or her, and the children too. They are "sanctified" in the exact opposite sense to the way a Jew was profaned.
Paul keeps the vocabulary of clean and unclean, but uses it to bless what the law would have broken up.
God's grace in the gospel reverses the sentence of the law, making pure what had until then been unclean. Otherwise it might have seemed the duty of the believing husband to put away his unbelieving wife and their children, since mixing with Gentiles was hateful to the law.
The word does not describe the unbeliever's character. One writer had seen the opposite happen:
In 1 Corinthians 7:14 the word covers the unbelieving husband with the believing wife, and the unbelieving wife with the believing husband. The verse says the converted one sanctifies the unconverted. I have known cases where the unconverted husband grew far worse. He persecuted his wife and shut her out of the house. He behaved much worse than he did before his wife came to faith. The passage does not mean the unbeliever becomes morally pure. It means husband and wife may live together, unlike under the law.
So the word is about position, not character. The unbeliever belongs to a home where Christ is Lord:
The faith of the one sets the other apart in a very real way, because he is a member of a household where Christ is recognised as Lord. He is set apart despite himself, however ungodly his character may be.
That position is worth something, even though it saves no one by itself:
This holiness is only external, and it carries no saving power. It surely does not save, because salvation is always tied to personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Even so, it still gives the priceless privilege of being in the place of blessing, the sphere where the Holy Spirit dwells and acts.
With the children, the point is their standing, not their conversion:
It is now not a question of the practical state of the children themselves — whether they are saved or not saved. The passage simply says that their relationship with the believing parent sanctified the children, so no one need send them away. But some would build a monstrous error on such a passage: that the children of Christian parents are saved as such, without the life-giving grace of the Holy Spirit. That idea is too gross to deserve a moment's thought.
The verse settles a situation already in place; it does not open a door.
The passage does not consider for a moment a believer marrying an unbeliever. That is clearly against the Lord's mind. Here it is a case of mixed marriages, where one partner came to faith after the wedding… The sanctification and the holiness do not mean a spiritual condition that puts them in relationship with God. They mean that through the believer the relationship is clean and owned by God, so the believer can continue in it.
Writers do not agree on how this verse touches the baptism of children. One links the child's place to baptism:
The child has an acknowledged place as "holy" or "clean." Paul uses this to show that the marriage stands, since if the children were unclean, the marriage itself would be. Baptism gives this acknowledged place, a place in the kingdom of God, which runs through the ages in different forms.
Another replies that the verse itself says nothing about baptism:
The apostle means a sanctified, or holy, state, actually and always true of the husband and children of a believing wife… Not a hint is dropped in this verse of being converted or brought to baptism.
- Reversed. Under law the unclean partner defiled the believer. Under grace the believer's faith sets the partner apart.
- Set apart, not saved. "Sanctified" here does not mean pure or converted. An unbelieving spouse may grow harder, not softer.
- Place, not state. One believer's faith gives the household standing: a place near where the Holy Spirit works.
- So keep the family. Children of such a marriage are "holy," not unclean, so they stay. Yet no child is saved by having a believing parent.
- Stay put. The ruling covers a marriage already formed, never a believer's choice to enter one. The believer stays in a bond God owns as clean.