GOSPEL DIRECTION FOR DIFFICULT MARRIAGES
The More Excellent Way, Part 11 — 1 Corinthians 7:10-16
Stonebrook Sunday AM, 4/12/26, Matt Heerema
Please turn with me to 1 Corinthians, chapter 7.
To bring us up to speed after our two-week break from the series, we are on
week 11 of our walk-through of 1 Corinthians. This letter is written to a
church that had many problems. It seems they believed the gospel but
kept living as if they hadn't. They were using the world's categories — status,
power, personal rights, self-promotion — to navigate the Christian life. So
Paul keeps coming back at them from different angles with the same
correction: you belong to Christ, not to Corinth. Act like it.
In chapters 5-7 Paul is dealing with a number of problems in the church
related to sexuality and relationships. In chapters 5 and 6, we find that at
least some of the church was caught in sexually immoral relationships and
immoral attitudes toward sex. Adultery & fornication (sex outside of
marriage), and pornography are addressed.
Chapter 7 begins with a swing in the opposite direction: in light of all the
immorality in the culture, some in the Corinthian church pendulum swung
to the opposite extreme, and that even in marriage, they thought it was
better to consider sex itself evil and to be avoided. Paul corrects the
imbalance.
And in our passage today, he continues the thought, correcting the error
going on in the church. Culturally, in Corinth, attitudes toward divorce were
very similar to those in our culture today. No-fault divorce for any reason is
accepted as normal and right. When your personal happiness is the
ultimate goal, why not? If something doesn’t make you happy, quit!
Whatever makes you happy is the right thing.
Combine this with the growth of the newborn church in Corinth, where the
church was doing its God-given task of evangelism, and people were
coming to Christ, and suddenly, you might find yourself in a marriage where
one spouse is a believer, and the other is not. Combine this with Paul’s
teaching in chapter 5 about protecting the church's purity and removing
immoral people from it. Sometimes that cut across marriage lines.
What was one spouse to do when they found themselves in a marriage
where the other spouse had been sexually immoral, or any of the other
items on the list? What if that person were a repentant believer? Or what if
they were an unbeliever? Should they stay in that marriage? Or should they
divorce, as was so common in the culture when seemingly irreconcilable
differences arose? That is the issue Paul is dealing with.
DIRECTION FOR DIFFICULT MARRIAGES
1 Corinthians 7:10–16 (CSB)
10 To the married I give this command—not I, but the Lord—a wife is
not to leave her husband. 11 But if she does leave, she must remain
unmarried or be reconciled to her husband—and a husband is not to
divorce his wife. 12 But I (not the Lord) say to the rest: If any brother
has an unbelieving wife and she is willing to live with him, he must
not divorce her. 13 Also, if any woman has an unbelieving husband
and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce her husband.
14 For the unbelieving husband is made holy by the wife, and the
unbelieving wife is made holy by the husband. Otherwise your
children would be unclean, but as it is they are holy. 15 But if the
unbeliever leaves, let him leave. A brother or a sister is not bound in
such cases. God has called you to live in peace. 16 Wife, for all you
know, you might save your husband. Husband, for all you know, you
might save your wife.
THE RISK
When we take a book of the Bible like 1 Corinthians that is meant to be read
in a single sitting, and break it up into twenty pieces and spread it across
seven months, the benefit is that we get to take a close and careful look at
much more detail together. The risk is that we forget that it is meant to be
read together as a whole. When we do that, the individual pieces start to
sound a whole lot more like a rulebook for being a good Christian.
Today’s passage runs that risk heavily. The mistake would be taking this as,
“Here’s how good Christians should think about divorce. If you don’t think
this way, you aren’t a good Christian.
If you’ve acted differently from this, too bad for you. You’re stuck living in
shame and confusion the rest of your life, and we should look down on
you.”
So I want to review what Paul has said so far, and also zoom out on this
chapter a bit so we can see the load-bearing foundation that Paul is placing
this teaching about divorce on. The foundation of The Gospel.
Before we get into the specifics, I want to show you five Gospel truths that
Paul has at the foundation of this discussion.
THE FOUNDATION
1. God has provided and will provide everything you need in your walk
with Him.
1 Corinthians 1:4–9 (CSB)
4 I always thank my God for you because of the grace of God given
to you in Christ Jesus, 5 that you were enriched in him in every way,
in all speech and all knowledge. 6 In this way, the testimony about
Christ was confirmed among you, 7 so that you do not lack any
spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus
Christ. 8 He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you will be
blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful; you
were called by him into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our
Lord.
2. The Church has a responsibility to care for and protect its members.
1 Corinthians 5:11–13 (CSB)
11 But actually, I wrote you not to associate with anyone who claims
to be a brother or sister and is sexually immoral or greedy, an
idolater or verbally abusive, a drunkard or a swindler. Do not even
eat with such a person. 12 For what business is it of mine to judge
outsiders? Don’t you judge those who are inside? 13 God judges
outsiders. Remove the evil person from among you.
It is true that we don’t know the condition of people’s hearts; only God
does. But Jesus said, “You will know a tree by its fruit.”
He has told us that faith is not merely a matter of inward belief or claiming
to believe, but also of outward action. And Christ has given us, as the
church, the responsibility to watch over one another, to make clear when
someone who claims to be a Christian is or isn’t living like one, and to draw
boundaries according to the scriptures. We’ll see in a moment why this is
especially relevant to our passage today.
3. Forgiveness and holiness are possible for all who turn to Christ
1 Corinthians 6:11 (CSB)
11 And some of you used to be like this. But you were washed, you
were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
4. You do not belong to yourself, but to God. Your purpose is to glorify
Him.
1 Corinthians 6:19–20 (CSB)
19 Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who
is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for
you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body.
The ultimate framing for all the commands of Christ: life is not about you,
your personal happiness, your personal fulfillment, your personal
achievement. Your life is about God’s glory. And let me tell you that when
you seek His glory first, when you seek His kingdom first, you will find all the
happiness, fulfillment, and achievement you were looking for out there, in
Him. If not in this life, then fully in the one to come.
5. You are never alone in this.
1 Corinthians 7:24 (CSB)
24 Brothers and sisters, each person is to remain with God in the
situation in which he was called.
When you belong to Christ, you are never alone. God is with you in
whatever situation you find yourself. Giving you wisdom, guidance,
strength, and resources to bear up under whatever circumstance comes
your way.
THE COMMAND
Carrying all those promises with us into the discussion, we can go back to
verses 10-16, and deal honestly with what, in our culture, feels like a
difficult-to-swallow passage. The logic of our passage today is pretty
straightforward.
Paul begins by summarizing Jesus’s teaching on divorce. (This is why he
says “not I, but the Lord” gives this command.) From Matthew 5:31-32,
19:3-12; Mark 10:2-12; and Luke 16:18. Jesus brings light to the Old
Covenant Law in Deuteronomy 24:1-4 & Exodus 21:10-11 by going all the
way back to the creation of marriage at the beginning in Genesis.
Jesus’s teaching: You should never initiate a divorce. If a divorce occurs,
remain unmarried in hopes of reconciling the marriage. Widening the lens a
little bit, the Bible’s teaching never commands divorce. It never says, “Here
are the circumstances in which you should divorce your spouse.” Permission
for divorce is granted by Moses as a concession to human sin.
The Way It Was From The Beginning
Jesus calls his people back to God’s design: a marriage that endures
through the struggle against our sin, and is a help to each partner in it.
This passage’s teaching, and indeed the whole Bible’s teaching on
marriage, is that it is a gift from the Lord meant to be cherished and
nurtured toward a thriving, mutually beneficial relationship that overflows
into blessing and life in the community and the world. When we’re wrestling
with the question “when is divorce allowed?”, we’re already in a situation
that needed help long before this question.
But the Bible also recognizes that divorce will happen because of human
sin, and so it regulates it, for the good of all those involved. There are
circumstances where an abandoned or betrayed spouse is no longer
bound by the broken marriage covenant.
Paul’s Expansion
Paul, writing under the Spirit's guidance, extends Jesus's teaching into a
situation Jesus did not directly address—what happens when a believer
finds themselves married to an unbeliever.
First, it is important to state that an unmarried Christian getting newly
married to an unbeliever is forbidden in verse 7:39, and elsewhere in the
Bible. But if you find yourself married to an unbeliever, bring Jesus with you
into the mixed marriage! The marriage is holy; it is right. It is no longer like
the situation in the Old Covenant, where being married to an unbeliever
would draw the spouse into idolatry, but now the situation is reversed!
Now, this unbelieving spouse gets a front-row seat to the life of someone
who is full of the Holy Spirit and gets to see the joy, contentment, peace,
and love that flow from following Jesus. The children, likewise, are a
blessing from the Lord, “Holy,” and are welcome to the help of the believing
community.
THE HOPE
The hope that Paul holds out for someone finding themself in this difficult
marriage? “Who knows, you might be the instrument God uses to work in
that person’s heart to bring about faith.”
Paul writes in chapter 10 that Christians are not to join unbelieving spouses
in their sin. This friction might cause the unbeliever to want out. Paul says let
them leave.
So many of the fears, the “but-what-about’s” raised by this teaching against
divorce are answered by Paul’s whole argument.
THE HELP
The church has a role in supporting the believing spouse. Continuing to
encourage them in Gospel Hope and the following of Christ. It also plays a
crucial role in protecting one another.
Look back at the lists in chapters 5 and 6, if someone claims to be a believer
and is sexually immoral, greedy, idolatrous, verbally abusive, a drunkard, a
swindler, adulterous, a thief, and when confronted refuses to repent and
continues in their sin, we are to rightly recognize them as outside the
covenant community, an unbeliever.
As we, with fear and trembling, and humility and courage, follow the whole
counsel of God, including getting civil authorities involved in matters of
physical threat, so many of the concerns are addressed, without being quick
to pull the eject lever in divorce.
It would be impossible to give a comprehensive enough list of every
possible situation you might encounter with a marriage from the pulpit this
morning. Community is required. Help is available. If you are concerned
about the situation of your marriage, we have resources. Be in touch with
one of the pastors or mature believers in your life. We’ll go to the scriptures
and to the Lord for help together.
I also recognize that there are some, perhaps many, of you here this
morning who find yourself in circumstances described by this passage.
Some of you are carrying the weight of a marriage that has already ended.
Some of you have divorced. Some of you have remarried. Some of you are
in a marriage that started wrong. Some of you followed the Bible's
guidance carefully and still ended up in a painful place. Some of you
knowingly didn't follow it.
Here is what Scripture shows consistently, from Deuteronomy through Paul.
God deals with what is, not just with what should have been. Deuteronomy
24 does not endorse divorce. It deals with the reality of it. Paul does not
endorse abandonment. He deals with the reality of it. A wrongly-entered
second marriage is not something Paul endorses. But it is a real marriage.
Real covenant vows have been made. The marriage is Holy and to be held
in honor. A couple who repents and receives God's cleansing is not living in
ongoing sin. They are living in a marriage that, even if it started wrong, has
become holy because of Jesus’s sacrifice. The gospel does not pretend
broken things didn't happen. It covers broken things.
So if you have divorced, the text does not give you a scarlet letter. It gives
you a call to faithfulness going forward. If you have remarried, the text does
not condemn your current marriage. It calls you to honor it. If you are in a
mixed marriage, the text does not tell you to leave. It tells you that your
presence there is a sanctifying grace from God. If you were faithful and
were left anyway, you are not bound; God has called you to peace.
Paul's word for all of us: marriage, however hard, however broken, however
beautiful, is not the goal of the story. Christ keeps covenant with his bride.
Forever. That is what marriage was always meant to show the world.
And when we live that out, staying faithful, forgiving, present, patient,
especially when it costs us, we are showing the world something true about
Jesus. Something they cannot see anywhere else.
That is worth staying for.
Let's pray.
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