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Transcript 321D — When a Spouse is Unsaved [1 Cor 7:10-16]
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Mr. Camping, I'd like for you to give me a little help with I Corinthians 7:10-16, and relate it to salvation, and John 3:16. And I'll take the answer over the air.
HC: That's I Corinthians 7:10-16. All right. I'll try to speak to that.
I Corinthians 7 is dealing mainly with the marriage relationship. Our caller is wondering whether verses 10 to 16 have anything to do with salvation. Well, yes, they do. This is introducing, first of all, the awful situation where a husband departs from a wife. He apparently is unsaved, and she is saved. And he departs.
And the Bible first of all says, "Let her remain unmarried," in verse 11, "or be reconciled to her husband." And then in verse 12 He goes on to say, "If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she is pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away." Every once in a while someone will ask me, "My wife or my husband is unsaved, and he's living a very sinful life. Do I have to continue living with him, since he is unsaved?" Or, "At present we're separated, and he is unsaved. Am I to continue to live with him?" And the Bible here is saying, By all means! You're married to each other. This is just one of the practical aspects of what happens when we are saved.
And then it goes on in verse 14 and gives a very interesting application of God's covenant promise that "I will be a God to you and your children." God gave this promise to Abraham back in the Old Testament. He reiterated it at various times in the Bible. We read it in Acts 16, for example, at the time that the jailer at Philippi was saved. He was told, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, with your household." God is saying to parents, "Look, if you're believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, then you have become citizens of the Kingdom of God, and your children, too, are identified with the Kingdom of God. If you bring them up in the fear and the nurture of the Lord, I give you a promise that if you train a child in the way that he should go, in his old age he'll not depart from it." This is the way God works out His program of salvation throughout the world.
Of course He also looks outside of the family, and can save the individual who has no saved parent. But that is not nearly as usual as is the situation where children of believing parents are saved.
Now this concept is introduced here in verse 14: "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." You see, the question arises here, in the light of God's covenant promise, "I will be a God to you and your children," what happens to that promise in the event that only one of the parents is a believer? Does this mean that the promise no longer holds, by virtue of the fact that one person, one of the parents, is unsaved? And God says, No, no, that isn't so. The very fact that one of the parents is a believer, that makes the family a holy family. It sanctifies the husband, if he is the unbeliever. It doesn't save him, but it does make him also corporately a member of the Kingdom of God, because the wife is a believer who actually has become an eternal citizen of the Kingdom of God. And vice versa. The same would be the case in the event the husband was the believer, and the wife was the unbeliever.
And so the children, too, are holy, that is, set apart. The word holy means to be set apart for the service of God. They, too, are identified in a corporate fashion with the Kingdom of God. And all the promises that come to believing parents who will train their children in the fear and the nurture of the Lord apply, even though only one of the parents is a believing parent.
And then it goes on, ''But if the unbelieving departs, let him depart." Going back again to the relationship between the saved and the unsaved partner, if the unsaved wants to leave, if he wants a divorce, let it be so. "A brother or sister is not under bondage in such a case, but God hath called us to peace."
That is, you're not bound to try to maintain that marriage union, that marriage relationship. While in God's sight that marriage is to continue until death parts you, because of the sin of your unbelieving partner, let him go. You're not free to remarry, because you've already been told in verse 11 to remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to your partner. But you're not bound to try to keep that marriage in existence.
And then the question is raised, "For what knowest thou, oh wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? Or how knowest thou, oh man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?" Now here God is saying that the work of saving is God's elective program. It's God's grace. It's God's sovereign good pleasure. And we can't really know who He is going to save.
However, God does give some real encouragement along this line in I Peter 3:1, where God is discussing this same question of a believing wife with an unsaved husband. And here we have this wonderful encouragement. "Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands, that if any obey not the Word they also may without the Word be won by the conversation (or the conduct) of the wives, while they behold your chaste conduct coupled with fear." In other words, God is holding out the promise, salvation is very close to your husband. And if you really live by God's rules, if you will patiently obey God in the trials and troubles and turmoils and difficulties that arise because your' re married to an unsaved husband, there's a strong likelihood that he will see Christ in you, and salvation may come to him also.