What should a Christian do if he or she is married to an unbeliever?

Next we have the apostle inspired to add light as to present difficulties, and this not at all a repetition of the principle for Israel, but in contrast with it. "But to the rest I say, not the Lord, If any brother have an unbelieving wife, and she consent to dwell with him, let him not leave [or put away] her; and a woman which has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to dwell with her, let her not leave [or put away] him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the brother; since then your children are unclean, but now are they holy." (Vers. 12-14.) Here it was the grave question of mixed marriages, where one of the parties already united, and not the other, had been won to Christ by the gospel. In this the grace of Christianity is strikingly contra-distinguished from the rigour of Judaism. (Compare Ezra 9:10.) One of the ways in which Israel abode a holy people was in refusing to mix with the heathen in marriage. Those who thus intermarried, or took strange wives, were polluted, and their children were unclean; when they felt and judged the sin, they proved it by not only offering a ram for the trespass but putting both away. The holiness of the Christian is not only intrinsic, instead of being fleshly and external, but there is a far more gracious consideration, and a largeness, of which the law knew little or nothing. Thus, if husband or wife were a believer, he or she was not defiled by union with the unbeliever, but contrariwise the unbeliever is sanctified, and the children are holy.

In this way does the Spirit of God comfort the believer whose wife or husband, as the case might be, still remained an unbeliever; for I presume it was as true of an Israelite as of a heathen. It was of course a grievous trial to be so united. If the believer were the wife, she might be suspected and thwarted at every turn by her unbelieving husband. He would naturally be vigilant that the children should be kept from Christian truth and privileges of every kind, and would himself show his contempt for that which his wife valued, resenting above all the calm confidence of faith that counted idols nothing and confessed the Lord Jesus before men. But she is here instructed and strengthened by the apostolic injunction. If her husband consented to dwell with her, spite of that confession, she was not called to quit or put away her unbelieving husband, for he was sanctified in her, as the children were holy. What a relief this must have been to godly but scrupulous souls, who had been brought to God by the gospel, after being married to Gentiles or Jews, with children brought up in Judaism or idolatry! Were they troubled when they read in the scriptures that of old the requirement was to abandon the ill-assorted wife and the children so born? The grace of the gospel, as the apostle shows, delivers from all uncertainty as to God's mind, and pronounces the unbeliever, whether husband or wife, to be sanctified in the believing correlative, and the children holy, not profane.

8 But I say to the unmarried and to widows: It is good for them that they remain even as I. 9 But if they have not continency let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn. 10 But to the married not I enjoin but the Lord, that wife be not separated from husband 11 (but if also she be separated, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband), and that husband leave [or, put away] not wife. 12 But to the rest I say, not the Lord, if any brother has an unbelieving wife, and she consent to dwell with him, let him not leave [or, put away] her; 13 and a woman which has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to dwell with her, let her not leave [or, put away] him. 14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the brother; since then your children are unclean, but now are they holy. 15 But if the unbelieving separates himself, let him be separated. The brother or the sister is not in bondage in such [circumstances]: but God has called us in peace. 16 For what knowest thou, O wife, if thou shalt save thy husband? or what knowest thou, O husband, if thou shalt save thy wife?

(Vv. 12-17). The Apostle then takes up the difficult position of a brother with an unbelieving wife, or the woman with an unbelieving husband. Here he gives his advice. This does not contemplate for a moment the case of a believer marrying an unbeliever, which is clearly contrary to the mind of the Lord (2 Cor. 6:14). Here it is the case of mixed marriages, where one of the parties has been converted after the marriage. In this case the believer is not defiled by union with the unbeliever. On the contrary the unbeliever is sanctified and the children holy. Here the sanctification and the holiness do not signify a spiritual condition that puts them in relationship with God, but rather that through the believer the relationship is clean and owned of God, so that the believer can continue in it. If, however, the unbeliever departs, the believer is released from the bondage of being tied to an unbeliever and is not to raise any dispute with the one that has departed, for we are called to peace. This does not give the believer any licence to break the tie by departing from the unbeliever, nor does it grant the abandoned believer permission to remarry. So far from the believer separating from the unbeliever, the brother or sister is to remain at all cost in the relationship, counting upon God for the salvation of the unbeliever. There will thus be submission to what the Lord has allowed, and a walk in accord with His will. This, too, we are reminded, is the order for all the assemblies; thus ecclesiastical independency is shut out. The assemblies are not independent companies, each left free to adopt its own practices. The word of God is still our only guide, and assemblies walking in the light of the word will be united in submitting to its instructions.

But there was a case more complicated, when the man was converted and the wife unconverted, or vice versa. According to the law a man who had married a woman of the Gentiles (and was consequently profane and unclean) defiled himself, and was compelled to send her away; and their children had no right to Jewish privileges; they were rejected as unclean (see Ezra 10: 3). But under grace it was quite the contrary. The converted husband sanctified the wife, and vice versa, and their children were reckoned clean before God; they had part in the ecclesiastical rights of their parent. This is the sense of the word "holy," in connection with the question of order and of outward relationship towards God, which was suggested by the obligation under the law to send away wife and children in a similar case. Thus the believer was not to send away his wife, nor to forsake an unbelieving husband. If the unbeliever forsook the believer definitively, the latter (man or woman) was free — "let him depart." The brother was no longer bound to consider the one who had forsaken him as his wife, nor the sister the man who had forsook her as her husband. But they were called to peace, and not to seek this separation, for how did the believer know if he should not be the means of the unbeliever's conversion? For we are under grace. Moreover every one was to walk as God had distributed to him.

Verses 12-15. "But to the rest speak I, not the Lord," etc. Having thus ratified solemnly, as God's witness, the primitive ordinance of marriage, and asserted its unalterable validity, he turns now to contemplate sonic of the practical anomalies which the operation of the gospel could not fail occasionally to produce. Of a married pair, one might be taken, and the other left. Was the man, who had received the Lord while his wife remained in unbelief, to put her away? His first impulse might be to do so, and passages of Scripture might easily occur to him, when he turned to search into the oracles of life, which seemed to point out such a course as well-pleasing in His sight who will be sanctified in His people. But such an inference could only arise from a mistaken estimate of his calling; for gospel truth makes no compulsory external change. While Christ is hidden from the natural eye, God's kingdom is within His saints. By the power of the Spirit, truth operates upon the heart and conscience, and proves by its fruits that its mission is not to regulate the social life of this world, but to call men out of it to heaven. If, then, the woman who refused her heart to Christ clave still in natural affection to her husband, let him not put her away. Still less should he avail himself of this divinely wrought difference to claim emancipation from a possibly unwelcome yoke. Her pleasure, and not his, must be consulted. If she depart, he is a married man no longer.2 Neither brother nor sister is bound in such a case. But let both man and woman, whom the Lord has singly called, remain content in the now incongruous union which the Lord has thus disturbed. Let His hand be known and waited on by those who bear His name.

The Christian wife must not, and need not, forsake her unbelieving husband who would keep her still; for both wife and husband are mutually sanctified in such connections.3 There is a remarkable force and beauty in this declaration. God, who is holy, and who calls His children to be like Himself, puts thus an especial honour on the name of Christ, by extending its hallowing influence to things which are themselves unholy. The root of this, as of all other Christian privileges, is the Lord's victory in redemption. As He had already said, "All things are yours, and ye are Christ's."4 Thy wife then, O believing husband — thine husband, O believing wife, is still thine own, and may be owned and honoured without derogation of thine high and holy calling. The children also which may issue from this heterogeneous union are holy, for the believing father or mother's sake; or rather, through the sanctifying virtue of that Name on which either parent has believed. Let such, then, as be content to dwell with Christ, be suffered to remain; to become, peradventure, themselves partakers of like precious faith. But liberty must never be infringed. They who will may go. God's calling is in peace. If present unbelief is associated with respect and natural affection, there will be peace unbroken in the household, though the Lord may have divided soul from soul. If otherwise, the cross must be accepted, and its burden borne; and no false relief sought by an arbitrary disruption, on the believer's part at least, of this standing ordinance of God.

Verse 16. "For what knowest thou, O wife?" etc. A truly solemn question, here put by the apostle for the double purpose of encouraging true faith, and of discountenancing that species of natural importunity which sometimes takes its outward form. The common tendency, to do evil that good may come, might easily find room to operate in cases of this kind. A Christian wife, or husband, might reasonably wish to detain a reluctant partner, in the hope of winning such to Christ. But this wish must not be gratified at the expense of liberty. Faith has no need of such methods to attain its end. Its first and last principle is unqualified subjection to God. Its dearest interests are committed trustingly to Him, and to His will. Nor does it ever shine so brightly as when submitting willingly, at God's command, to such privations as appear to shut out natural hope. Subjection to the mighty hand of God is the leading idea in all these admonitory provisions for the well-being of His saints.

Verse 12 again is Paul's advice. So long as an unbelieving spouse was willing to remain with a believing husband or wife, then his unbelief was not sufficient reason for his spouse to leave him, or her, as the case may be. "For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the husband." 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 recognized as Lord. He is set apart in spite of 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 occupy because of the faith of one parent: the parent is not expected to leave his children in "Egypt," exposed to the unclean world, just because the other parent is an unbeliever.

Under law, when Israelites had taken strange wives, they were required to put away their wives (Ezra 10:3,19); but grace is far different. It will not hold the unbelieving against his will, for if he desires to depart, the believer is told to "let him depart." When the unbeliever takes the initiative, then the believer is not under bondage in such cases. How much wiser for him to leave the matter with God, with no contention. But the faith and the gracious attitude of the believer may be the means of winning the unbeliever to the Lord: therefore, he is to take no harsh action against the other. Under law a Moabite could not be changed into an Israelite, but under grace an unbeliever may be changed into a believer. This certainly gives no permission for a believer to marry an unbeliever, for this is expressly forbidden in 2 Corinthians 6:14; but if one partner has been converted after marriage, he is encouraged to use the grace and faith of Christianity now in his marriage relationship, in patient testimony, for it may be the means of the other's conversion.

It remains clear then that the unbelieving husband is sanctified in virtue of the christian wife, and the children holy, to the relief of those that were troubled by scruples from God's judgment of such a state of things among the Jews. God's grace in the gospel reverses the sentence of the law, to the pure making pure what had hitherto been unclean. Otherwise it might have seemed the duty of the believing husband to have put away his unbelieving wife and their children, as Gentile admixture was abhorrent to the law. Hence the apostle keeps up the language of the Jewish ceremonial, even where he determines the question by God's gracious and holy sanction of such marriages and their offspring, in contrast with the obligation of the Jews as shown in Ezra and Nehemiah.

We have now the question raised of separation on the part of the unbeliever. "But if the unbelieving separates himself, let him be separated. The brother or the sister is not in bondage in such [circumstances]: but God has called us† in peace. For what knowest thou, O wife, if thou shalt save thy husband? or what knowest thou, O husband, if thou shalt save thy wife? Only as the Lord†† divided‡ to each, as God†† has called each, so let him walk. And so I ordain in all the assemblies." (Ver. 15-17.) Thus, if the unbelieving party in the relationship were to sever himself from the other, the believer is released from bondage, be it the brother or the sister in the case. Not that such an act on the unbeliever's side gives to the believer thus abandoned licence to marry, but that the believer is thereby left the more free to serve the Lord by the other's separation. Such a union after all is apt to involve strife, the natural man hating the life of the Spirit. Not that this would justify anything on the believer's part to break the marriage tie: the unbeliever is supposed to have broken it of himself or even herself; and "in peace has God called us," (or "you,") not to seek separation. On the contrary, whatever the trial involved in such a life, the brother or the sister must earnestly desire the salvation of the unbeliever; but this after all is in God's disposal. "For what knowest thou, woman, if thou shalt save the husband? or what knowest thou, husband, if thou shalt save the wife?" If it were so, what a joy! We have to acquiesce therefore in the ordering of the Lord and as we should on no account take the initiative into our own hands, so also to save the unbeliever is a question, and should not swamp everything else. Thus the apostle even here cautions by pressing the rule, whatever the issue: "Only as the Lord divided to each, as God has called each, so let him walk." This was intended to guard against undue or excessive feeling. Our place is one of intelligent subjection, owning the Lord's allotment and God's call: the one at the time of conversion, the other the permanent condition. So was each to walk. If Judaism enfeebled, Christianity strengthened a sense of relationship, and meets every difficulty and complication in grace. Nor was the apostle laying down anything peculiar on the Corinthians because of their peculiar circumstances: "So I ordain in all the assemblies." There may be ever so many assemblies, but the order of all is one, and apostolic authority is universal. Nothing is more opposed to its true idea than ecclesiastical independency. The notion of different bodies, each with a distinct regimen, is a modern invention, while the assumption of a continual power of regulation in or over the church may be ancient but is no better. Neither the one nor the other was "from the beginning," when the foundation was laid by the apostles and prophets. There is no authoritative regulation now outside the word of God, though the Lord raises up those that guide and take the lead, but they, as all, are bound by scripture to which the Spirit answers in power.

In the painful case you name, we do not believe it to be the right thing for a son to “try and manage a reunion” between the father and mother. If the husband wishes to come back, the wife should receive him. This is clearly involved in 1 Corinthians 7:13. “The woman which has an husband that believes not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him.” If he wishes to come back, it is tantamount to “being pleased to dwell with her,” and if she be told “not to leave him,” it is tantamount to being told to receive him. At least, so we judge. It may be 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. No doubt, he has greatly failed in his duty as a husband by leaving his wife, even were there nothing more serious. But if he really desires — apart from any management or any influence brought to bear upon him — to come back, we cannot but judge it to be the duty of a Christian wife to receive him and to seek “by her chaste manner of life, coupled with fear,” to win him for Christ. Should she refuse and he be then driven away into sin or hardness of heart, she could never forgive herself. Back

But verses 9 and 10 are not simply Paul's advice, but the Lord's commandment. The wife is told positively not to depart from her husband. Of course, if he were unfaithful to her, this would be a different matter. If circumstances were such however, that a wife did leave her husband, she is told to remain unmarried, or to be reconciled to her husband. If of course in the meantime her husband had remarried, this would change things completely. She could then never be rightly re‑united to him, even if his second wife died (Deut.24:3,4).

Verse 12 again is Paul's advice. So long as an unbelieving spouse was willing to remain with a believing husband or wife, then his unbelief was not sufficient reason for his spouse to leave him, or her, as the case may be. "For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the husband." 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 recognized as Lord. He is set apart in spite of 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 occupy because of the faith of one parent: the parent is not expected to leave his children in "Egypt," exposed to the unclean world, just because the other parent is an unbeliever.

Under law, when Israelites had taken strange wives, they were required to put away their wives (Ezra 10:3,19); but grace is far different. It will not hold the unbelieving against his will, for if he desires to depart, the believer is told to "let him depart." When the unbeliever takes the initiative, then the believer is not under bondage in such cases. How much wiser for him to leave the matter with God, with no contention. But the faith and the gracious attitude of the believer may be the means of winning the unbeliever to the Lord: therefore, he is to take no harsh action against the other. Under law a Moabite could not be changed into an Israelite, but under grace an unbeliever may be changed into a believer. This certainly gives no permission for a believer to marry an unbeliever, for this is expressly forbidden in 2 Cor.6:14; but if one partner has been converted after marriage, he is encouraged to use the grace and faith of Christianity now in his marriage relationship, in patient testimony, for it may be the means of the other's conversion.

In ver. 7 they say, "Why did Moses then command?" etc. He did nothing of the sort. He gave liberty; but never commanded; so the Lord takes them up and says he "suffered you." No doubt it was allowed in order to prevent worse sin, because of the hardness of the heart. The woman may suffer by fear, and the man be characterised by anger. If a daughter made a vow it had to be ratified by her father. But Jehovah hated this putting away. So we get the instructions in 1 Cor. 7. that the believing wife or husband is not to put away an unbeliever if pleased to dwell together. "For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; else were your children unclean; but now are they holy." It was very different in Israel, as we learn from Ezra and Nehemiah. They were not on Christian ground, and so Israel had to put away these unholy alliances. But now a believing husband or wife is not to put away the unbeliever. There is only one exception, which in God's sight dissolves the tie. So that putting away in that case only makes public what already exists under God's eye. The disciples say, "If the case of a man be so with his wife it is not good to marry," which shows how they were affected by the evil. Living the truth before the eyes of the unbeliever is what God will honour (1 Peter 3:1).