The Bible Study Hour

Guest (Male): Marriage was ordained by God to, among other things, illustrate the most sublime of spiritual truths. The Lord Jesus Christ is the bridegroom of the church and we, His followers, are His bride.

Welcome to the Bible Study Hour, a radio and internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically. Unfortunately, the world view of man has crept into the marriage covenant and denigrated it in three major areas, setting man up as an autonomous being with no ultimate responsibility to either a marriage or to God.

Listen now as Dr. Boice observes the way in which the world has set about to demean the sacred covenant of marriage as a picture of Christ and His bride, the church.

Dr. James Boice: We're looking at the seventh chapter of First Corinthians where Paul discusses marriage, and I've entitled this study "Marriage and its Many Problems." Our problem today is the secular world view which begins with this as a closed universe, which is to say a world of matter and things and which excludes God and therefore naturally excludes spiritual realities and ultimate responsibility.

It goes along with that that if you have a closed universe, thereby excluding God, man becomes self-sufficient and buttressed by the philosophy of Darwinian evolution, becomes perfectible. We may not be perfect yet, but we're on our way. This is what most people think. Therefore, the thing to do is to carry along in this way as fast as we can and with all the gusto at our disposal.

And then the third thing comes in at that point: that if we're going to do this and do it effectively, then no restraints should be allowed. As a matter of fact, any restraint is evil, any limit must be bad, and so man in this self-sufficiency seeks to be autonomous with no ultimate responsibility to anyone but himself.

Christianity is the antithesis of this in every single area. We don't deal with a closed universe; we deal with a universe that is made by God and is therefore responsible to God. We don't deal with the self-sufficiency of man. Man's important, yes, man's made in the image of God by all means, yes, but not self-sufficient and not perfectible unless God Himself does the perfecting.

As far as autonomy goes, we are simply not autonomous. If there were no God, we could have a claim to be autonomous, even then we might not necessarily be, but if there's a God, we most certainly are not autonomous and we are responsible to Him. It's within that framework that Paul introduces these matters before us.

Now, one of them had to do with sexual immorality, and Paul talks about that at the end of First Corinthians 6. That's one particular aspect of the problem, the kind of thing that says, "Well, if it feels good, do it, that's all that counts." Paul points out that breaking the law of God in this area is not beneficial, it is enslaving, and it's dishonoring to God.

Now, in First Corinthians 7, he deals with marriage, and for the first time in this letter, he seems to be dealing with a question that the Corinthians had asked him. Up to this point, he had dealt with problems that he knew they had, but they hadn't been so concerned with those problems.

He dealt with their pride and their wisdom. He talked about the divisions in the church; they seemed to take that all in stride. There was immorality in the case of a man who had his father's wife, and they had dealt with that in an open way, no doubt considering themselves very broad-minded.

Paul brought up all those matters they hadn't raised that with him. But here, for the first time in Chapter 7, is something that apparently they had written to him about. That's the way he begins it: "Now for the matters you wrote about." There are a number of matters like that in this book.

And so they had said, and we begin to get the idea as we read this chapter, "What about a situation in which..." and then they would spell it out. Should a person be married in that particular situation? And what about this kind of a difficulty? Should a person get a divorce in that kind of a difficulty? This is what Paul is dealing with.

I think it's hard to handle this in easy outline form, but let me suggest in a general way the gist of what Paul says. I'm going to take it in three or four categories. First thing Paul talks about is marriage, and what Paul says about marriage is that marriage is good. That's the point at which you have to start. Marriage is good.

We read this and because we don't enter fully into the kind of questions that had been given to Paul by the people in Corinth, we're prone to say, "Well, it's hard to see that he's really saying that it's good." They obviously ask him whether in the situation in which they lived, a situation where they were under persecution, where they were at the very front lines of the battle of evangelism in the Greek city-states of their day, whether it was good for a person to be married in that kind of a situation.

Or whether it would be better for the sake of the gospel that a person remain unmarried. Paul responds to that in the situation to say, "In my judgment, in that kind of a situation, it's good to remain unmarried. Be like me because I'm an evangelist, and I certainly am free from family cares, able to carry on a very effective ministry going from city to city in a way that I would not be free to carry on the ministry if I were married."

We read that and we say, "Oh, yeah, well, it sounds like he's saying that the unmarried state is the state to be desired above all else." It's as if we hear Paul saying, "By all means, stay unmarried. But if you've got to get married, if you just can't resist it, if you're just burning with passion, well, it's better to get married than to have fornication." We read it that way.

And yet the Paul who wrote this, you see, also wrote Ephesians the fifth chapter, where you have really a beautiful description of marriage, which he says there God ordained in order to illustrate the most sublime of all spiritual truths, namely the way the Lord Jesus Christ is the faithful husband and bridegroom of the church and how we the church are His bride.

Paul, you see, who says that there is not saying something utterly different here. Paul is saying that marriage is good, but notice he is not saying marriage is the only good. There's the problem, you see, because we're not at that edge of the spectrum in our society where we say, "Oh, yes, the celibate life is the thing and anybody who marries is a second-rate Christian."

We're at the other side of the spectrum where because of the input and the pressures of our society, we say, "Oh, yes, marriage is the only thing, you've got to have a sexual relationship, and if you don't have that, well, then you're just a second-rate person, you can't possibly be fulfilled."

And you understand that Paul is saying marriage is good, but it is not the only good. And the single life is good if God calls you to that, but it is not the only good. And the question that he wants to raise and which he places before us and before any other Christian is simply this: what is that calling to which God has called you?

I suspect as I read this that there was a division in the church between a Jewish mentality and what we would call a super-spiritual Greek mentality. In the Jewish culture, marriage was required, that was the normal thing, and it was just the only thing that really allowed you to be a full person. It was very important that a man get married and that a woman get married.

In the Greek culture, well, it wasn't quite that way. The Greeks had a division in their philosophy between spirit and matter, and in that particular division in the Greek culture, spirit or the world of the mind, ideas, was good, and the body and matter and such things were bad.

Oh, they recognized that there was a certain necessity there, but anybody who really wanted to be a philosopher, the way the secular spirit of the Greeks would express it, or in the Christian community, wanted to really be a spiritual person, really should abstain from anything physical because that was bad.

And of course, what Paul would say at that point is that God has created the body as well as the spirit, and God has created marriage as well as the fact that God has called some to the celibate life. And therefore, neither the extreme of the Jew nor the extreme of the Greek were right, but rather marriage was good though not the only good.

Now, in the context of this first paragraph as he begins to talk about the goodness of marriage, he is talking about the goodness of sex. And he's very explicit. This is the sort of thing that Christian teachers don't always talk about today, and yet Paul isn't shy at this point, he's quite open.

He says, "Look, in marriage, a man and a wife are to have a sexual relationship." And he says the reason for that is that in marriage, God has made of two individuals one flesh, so the wife's body is no longer just her body and the husband's body is no longer just his body, but rather each belongs to the other.

And for that reason, a wife must not say, "Well, I don't want to have a sexual relationship," and the husband must not say, "Well, I don't want to have a sexual relationship and therefore I'll hold back," or she says, "Well, I'll hold back because somehow if we do that, maybe we'll be more spiritual."

Paul says that's wrong. Within marriage, there must be that spiritual union, and it is a good thing, and the sexual union is a good thing. And furthermore, if you don't have that, you're laying yourself open to all kinds of temptations and problems.

It's hard to realize that that sort of mentality would be a problem in our time because our culture is so much on the other side. It talks about sex, sex, sex and sometimes nothing but sex. But there is that in Christian relationships at times.

Howard Hendricks says one of the difficulties he discovers in marriages, Christian marriages, especially among young couples, is that one or the other parties, usually the wife in this particular situation, thinks it's somehow sex isn't the kind of thing a godly person would do.

Oh, it might be necessary, but it's not the sort of thing you would do if you were really spiritual. And therefore, when the husband has a desire for a sexual relationship, the wife kind of holds back on that and thinks, "Well, you know, he's young and immature yet, and I suppose it's the sort of thing you have to do, but maybe as he grows in the Lord, this will become less necessary."

That's a terrible thing. Sometimes these wives say to Howard Hendricks, "Oh, yes, Dr. Hendricks, but you don't understand, he has so much desire!" And he points out, and I think quite rightly, that that desire is given to the man by God.

He says, "What did you think you were marrying? A man with no desire? That's part of what makes him what he is." And one of the glories of a married relationship is that the wife is the sole person on the face of the earth who is able to satisfy that desire in the particular man that God has given her.

And that is not bad, that is good, and that is what Paul is saying. And if you think it's bad and you get into a frame of mind where you say, "Well, you know, maybe a little bit of sex but not too much sex because after all you get into trouble that way," Paul says the opposite is the case. You begin holding back on that, you'll find that there'll be trouble, but it'll be trouble that involves somebody else.

So that's the first thing he says. Now, the second category of problems that he deals with are those involving separation. And since I've begun to put it in that way, saying marriage is good, let's talk about separation and say separation is bad.

What he's talking about in verse 10 and following, "To the married I give this command—not I, but the Lord—a wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband, and a husband must not divorce his wife."

Paul talks very explicitly in the next paragraph about divorce, and he's very strong on that. I think when he talks about separation here in verse 10, he's talking about something else. Now, it's separation that may lead to divorce, and that's why he throws in the line that there must not be divorce.

But when he talks about separation saying it's bad, he is not necessarily saying that in every possible circumstance it can never happen. Sometimes there are situations where a separation perhaps for a time becomes necessary. There are situations where a wife is married to a drunken brute of a husband and her physical life is in danger. And perhaps not only hers, but perhaps the health and the well-being of the children.

Paul might say, although he doesn't explicitly say so here, that in such a situation it might be necessary for the sake of the health of the children and the wife as well that there be a separation. But Paul says if a separation occurs, this is not what you're to do, it's not the way it's to be worked out, but if that happens, if it becomes necessary by virtue of circumstances, the wife in that kind of a situation is to remain unmarried or else by the grace of God in time be reconciled to her husband.

And you see, even though Paul is dealing with what is quite obviously the fruit of sin in human life, he finds himself in an entirely different world of thought than the world that characterizes much of our contemporaries.

People today say, "Well, you know, if things don't work, well, that's all right, just break it off, you know, start again. Nobody can expect anything to be perfect, least of all a marriage. And so if the marriage isn't everything you want it to be, well, you just end it."

Paul is entirely on the other side of that. Paul is saying, "Look, it may happen because it's a sinful world that a separation becomes inevitable," but he says, "If it does, here's the consequence of it. Understand it in advance. If you're a Christian and you're living by the standards of God, then your alternative at that point is not remarriage to someone else, but either reconciliation to your spouse from whom you're separated or else remaining unmarried for the rest of your life."

"Oh!" people say. "Oh! How could that be? That's impossible! How could I live that way?" Well, the answer is that if you're a Christian, God will give you the grace to do what God tells you to do. And this is what Paul says.

He brings in another matter at this point, he begins to talk about divorce, and it's significant the way in which he talks about it. Three times over in these verses Paul says, "You must not divorce, you must not divorce, you must not divorce." And he makes it on both sides. He says a husband must not divorce his wife, a wife must not divorce her husband.

But somebody says, "Well, what about a condition where a Christian is married to a non-Christian?" Everybody knows if they're taught anything about Christian view of marriage, that marriage is to be a union in the Lord. To be a union of body with body, which is the sexual union, and a union of soul with soul, which is a union of minds and a union of spirit with spirit, which is a spiritual thing.

And that's possible obviously only if both parties are Christians. Suppose you have a man who is a Christian and a wife who is not, or a wife who is a Christian and a man who is not. Wouldn't it be proper in that kind of a circumstance for the Christian to divorce the non-Christian in order that they might establish a true, beautiful, spiritual Christian home?

You would almost think that Paul would be inclined to say that. And yet Paul says here more emphatically than at any place in any of his writings, if the person involved is a Christian, that Christian must not divorce the other party.

And he gives several reasons for it. "Well," he says, "there's a matter of the children, and they're set apart to the Lord in a home even if there's only one Christian parent. And," he said, "you might be the means of reaching the non-Christian spouse. And," he says, "God has called us to peace, not to disunion," and so on.

But suppose the non-Christian leaves. I mean, suppose the non-Christian says, "I don't want to be married to a Christian. I'm going to go." What do you do then? Well, that's what Paul deals with. Probably there had been cases like that.

And Paul says if that's the case, well, then if the non-Christian goes, they go, there's nothing you can do about it, divorce becomes inevitable in that situation and the Christian is no longer bound to that marriage.

Now, at this point, there is a difference in interpretation among Christian commentators. That phrase, verse 15, "A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances," has been interpreted in two ways.

Some have said, "Well, it means that the Christian is no longer bound to that marriage. He's not bound to pursue the unbelieving spouse whether man or woman all over the Roman world trying to get the marriage back together again. If it can't be done, it can't be done." And that's all it means.

And other people have said, "Well, no, it means that you're no longer bound to the marriage, you're free from the marriage, and if you're free from the marriage, you have the right to remarry." Now, my opinion is that the first is right, because I think there are so many other passages in scripture to that effect, that the Christian is not even in a situation like that, where divorce apparently becomes inevitable, to remarry.

I think several times over in this chapter Paul says the same thing as well. Verse 39: "A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes," and so on. That's what I think.

But let me say that even if the second is true, even if this is a case where, and I do not believe it is substantiated anywhere else in scripture, but even if it is the case that here Paul is saying in this particular circumstance if a Christian is married to a non-Christian and a non-Christian leaves and a divorce results, the Christian has a right to marry again for the first time as a Christian, even if it is saying that, notice that it is saying that about a particular situation in which a Christian is married to a non-Christian and not to two Christians.

The reason I emphasize that is because we have a very dangerous thing happening in the evangelical church today. This verse is regarded as an "out" by those who are having difficulty in their marriage, and the way to handle it in some situations is to try to maneuver things in such a way that it's possible to regard the partner with whom you're having difficulty either as a non-Christian or acting as one.

And it goes like this: in the 18th chapter of Matthew, the Lord Jesus is speaking and he gives instructions for dealing with a brother who has created some offense. And he says what you do in a situation like that is go to your brother and try to make it right. And if your brother refuses, then you take a witness with you and the two of you go, or three of you go, and try to make it right.

And if that still fails, you bring it to the attention of the church, and if after the church becomes involved in the matter the erring brother doesn't repent of his sin, then you're to treat him as a tax collector or a pagan. That is, there is to be church discipline.

Now, the argument goes that it's possible for somebody to act in a recalcitrant way. This would be possible in a marriage, a spouse, either a husband on the one hand or a wife on the other, can act that way. You can bring church discipline, and if they don't respond, well, then you can treat them as an unbeliever, and if you're treating them as an unbeliever, you can divorce them, which is what it says in First Corinthians 7, and you can get remarried.

Now, people who haven't gone through that might think, and I suppose rightly, that that's somewhat convoluted reasoning. And yet people who find themselves in that situation today, having difficulty in a marriage, but to nevertheless want to live as Christians, find that extremely attractive.

And what I want to say is that that is not what the Bible teaches, certainly that is not what Paul is teaching. This situation that Paul speaks of here concerns, if it concerns remarriage at all, which I don't believe it does, but if it concerns remarriage at all, it concerns the marriage of a Christian with a non-Christian and the non-Christian breaking off the marriage by the divorce.

And the law for Christians is simply this: if a separation comes among Christians and it's inevitable—it may be inevitable—but in that case the Christian is to remain unmarried or else be reconciled with the spouse.

You see, those are hard words for people who are suffering in relationships which are not harmonious, but that is the teaching of the Word of God, and that is necessary for the strength of families and the preservation of righteousness within the church and for the good of society.

The very last portion of this, which actually is a long portion beginning with verse 17, Paul talks about what I would call contentment. He brings in a number of different illustrations, and what he's really saying here as he deals with this matter is that we should be content to abide in whatever calling God has called us.

We might look at this at first and say, "Well, it seems like Paul is digressing here a little bit," certainly some of the things that he mentions aren't, strictly speaking, applicable to marriage. He talks about a man being circumcised or uncircumcised, a Jew or not, a slave or a free man, yes or no. He brings in those examples, but what he's really talking about is contentment.

And he's saying the same thing is true in these matters that concern marriage. He says if God has called you to a married state, be content with the married state and use that for His glory and make that everything that God can possibly make the marriage be.

And if on the other hand, God has at least to this point in your life called you to a single state, don't try to be married because God's grace is sufficient also for the single life and God will bless that too. You say, "Well, I don't think I can do that," that is if you're unmarried and you want to be. Or you say, "I don't think I can do that," that is if you're married and you wish you weren't.

You see, the problem there is the problem of sin, which simply is to say that we are so focused in our sinful state and stimulated to it by our culture upon ourselves that we can't imagine continuing in any relationship which from our point of view is not the most satisfying and personally fulfilling thing on the face of this planet.

You see, this is not Christianity. If you say to yourself, "Well, what I want to be is fulfilled and I'm single and I can't be fulfilled single, I've got to get married," or if you say, "Well, what I've got to be is fulfilled and I can't be fulfilled in this relationship, I've got to break this off and try again, I just have to start again," if you're thinking that way, you're thinking as the old man. That's the sinful nature within which says "me first, me first, I've got to satisfy me."

And what Paul says instead is, "Look, you've got to break that." There's no real growth in the Christian life unless you do break that. What you have to begin with is the will of God and serving God. And you've got to recognize that you're not your own, but you're bought with a price, even the precious blood of Christ, and you're here to serve Him.

And if He calls you to a single life, you should count that all joy to serve Him in a single life. And if He calls you to a married life, you should count that all joy to serve in a married life. And furthermore, that it's from that framework, that outlook upon things that God is able to use you to bring the fullest measure of blessing in the lives of other people.

Someone will say, "Oh, yes, but you don't understand." Well, it may be that I don't understand. A pastor sees many difficult things, but the longer you live, the more difficult some of these problems seem to be and you say, "Yes, I don't know what I would do if I were in the circumstance." That's all true.

But you see, what we're to do is not to be determined by whether someone else understands us or not, or even whether we understand the situation ourselves, but what we do is to be determined by what the Word of God says. Where we live by that, we find that even if human loves disappoint us, the love of the Lord is sufficient and is able to take us up.

"O Love that wilt not let me go," wrote George Matheson. "I rest my weary soul in Thee; I give Thee back the life I owe, that in Thine ocean depths its flow may richer, fuller be."

"O Light that followest all my way, I yield my flickering torch to Thee; my heart restores its borrowed ray, that in Thy sunshine's blaze its day may brighter, fairer be."

"O Joy that seekest me through pain, I cannot close my heart to Thee; I trace the rainbow through the rain, and feel the promise is not vain, that morn shall tearless be."

"O Cross that liftest up my head, I dare not ask to fly from Thee; I lay in dust life's glory dead, and from the ground there blossoms red life that shall endless be."

That's a great love. And it's not the love of man or the love of woman. It's the love of God. Let us pray.

Our Father, we recognize that because of our sin and the involved situations of our lives brought about by sin, there are things in scripture which are hard to receive. We wish they weren't that way.

And yet our Father, You speak clearly and You speak to us, You tell us what we should do and You tell us to abide in that state in which we're called and to be content with what You do in our lives.

And our Father, that's what we would do, and if we find it difficult, we would do as George Matheson did and learn to rest in that eternal and unchangeable love that never lets us go. And so in that love, go on, not in bitterness, but in joy and compassion and from strength to strength, to the praise of the glory of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Guest (Male): You're listening to the Bible Study Hour featuring the teaching of Dr. James Boice. We'd like to send you a booklet by Dr. Boice entitled *God's Plan for a Happy Marriage*. In it, our teacher establishes God's purpose for marriage as seen before the fall, discusses divorce, looks at the difference between worldly and Christian marriages, and tells us that marriage is the first and greatest of all human institutions. Without it, we really can't understand the most important of spiritual relationships.

This free booklet offer is our way of saying thanks for listening. Give us a call at 1-800-488-1888 and we'll be pleased to send you a copy of *God's Plan for a Happy Marriage*. That number again is 1-800-488-1888.

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Listen to the Bible Study Hour anytime on the Alliance app. Learn more at alliancenet.org/app. I'm Mark Daniels. Thanks for joining us today. Of all the questions on the minds of Christians, what do you think is the most often asked? While it may be approached in a variety of ways, the most asked question is probably: how do you determine the will of God, especially in questionable situations?

Join Dr. James Boice as he explores that question through the perspective of the eating of meat sacrificed to idols in the ancient world of Corinth. That's next time on the Bible Study Hour, preparing you to think and act biblically.