BY GLENN PEASE
CONTENTS
1. THE INDWELLING SPIRIT Based on I Cor. 3:10‑16
2. THE CHRISTIAN AND SUICIDE Based on I Cor. 3:1‑17
3. THE CHRISTIAN AND DIVORCE
Based on I Cor. 7:8‑16
4. DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE PART 2
Based on I Cor. 7:10‑16
5. THE IDEAL AND THE REAL Based
on I Cor. 7:12‑16
6. THE PAULINE PRIVILEGE Based
on I Cor. 7:12‑16
7. THE THIRD CHOICE Based on I
Cor. 7:17‑24
8. SINS AND MISTAKES Based on
I Cor. 7:25‑31
9. DEVOTION TO THE LORD Based
on I Cor. 7:32‑40
10. LOVE MAKES THE SIMPLE COMPLEX
I COR. 8
11. FROM START TO FINISH Based on I Cor. 9:24 to 10:12
12. AN ACT OF OBEDIENCE Based on I Cor. 10:1‑5
13. THE CONCEPTION OF COMMUNION CLARIFIED I Cor. 11:17‑34
14. A MOVING EXPERIENCE Based
on I Cor. 11:23‑26
15. THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING INFORMED
Based on I Cor. 12:1‑11
16. TEST OF THE TONGUE Based
on I Cor. 12:1‑3
17. GIFTS UNLIMITED Based on I
Cor. 12:4f
18. GIFTS FOR THE COMMON GOOD
Based on I Cor. 12:7f
19. THE GIFT OF WISDOM Based on
I Cor. 12:8f
20. THE GIFT OF WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE
Based on I Cor. 12:8f
21. LAYING THE GROUNDWORK
Based on I Cor. 15:5‑11
22. THE BURIAL OF HIS BODY
Based on I Cor. 15:1‑11
23. THE GOSPEL AND THE BODY
Based on I Cor. 15:1‑12
24. THE CONTEMPORARY CHRIST
Based on I Cor. 15:12‑28
25. THE IMMORTALITY OF PERSONALITY based on I Cor. 15:35‑49
26. BODY LOVE Based on I Cor.
15:35‑49
27. THE RESURRECTION BODY based on I Cor.15:35‑49
28. THE MYSTERY OF DEATH Based
on I Cor. 15:51‑58
29. WORK AND WAGES Based on I
Cor. 15:58
1. THE INDWELLING SPIRIT Based on I Cor. 3:10‑16
In the Old Testament the emphasis is on Jehovah, the God who
is above us. In the Gospels the
emphasis is on Jesus, the God who is with us.
In the book of Acts and the Epistles the emphasis is on the Holy Spirit,
the God within us. There can be doubt
that this is the age of God’s indwelling.
Pentecost began a new relationship between God and man. Jesus pointed to it when He taught His
disciples in the upper room that the Holy Spirit, the Father and Himself would
all abide in them. No longer would God
be one afar off, and one to whom you had to go. He will be nearer than your hands and feet, for He will be
within.
In the Old Testament this relationship was a promise, but
at Pentecost it became a possession. In
Ezek. 36:26-27 we read, “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will
put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give
you a heart of flesh. And I will put my
spirit within you...” The promise is of
a two fold change. A man’s own spirit
is to be renewed, and then God’s own spirit will dwell within. Man’s old spirit in incompatible with the
spirit of God, and so there has to be a radical renewal of it before God’s
Spirit can dwell within it. The
disciples of Jesus were prepared, and their spirit was renewed, and they waited
then for the promise of the Father.
Pentecost fulfilled that promise.
There was fire and a demonstration of power at Sinai also,
but it was a fire that stirred up fear rather than joy. Men were compelled by external power to bow
and obey God. At Pentecost the picture
is radically different, for God no longer stands above and apart from man. He comes within and demonstrates His power,
and He gives His message through man. Keble
wrote,
The fires that rushed from
Sinai down,
In trembling torrents dread,
Now gently light, a golden
crown
On every sainted head.
Men became the temple of God. This was a basic fact and essential truth of Christianity, but it
was one that was difficult to grasp, and it still is today one of the most
difficult concepts for Christians to make real in their lives. The Corinthians had an especially hard time
understanding this truth of the indwelling Spirit. Paul tries hard to get it across to them. They were very poor Christians, and they
were ignorant and immature, and some of them were even immoral, they were still
Christians. Paul begins this chapter by
writing, “But I, brethren, could not address you as spiritual men, but as men
of the flesh...” He goes on to tell
them how they are just like ordinary men yet.
They are jealous, envious, and they fight over which man to follow. They are like children arguing over whose
father is the strongest, and how many people their big brother can beat
up. Then he comes to verse 16 and asks
this question: “Do you not know you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit
dwells in you?”
It is obvious they did not know, or at least never gave it
much consideration. If they had, they
would not have been such miserable specimens of the Christian life. In chapter 6 Paul repeats this question
again after pointing out that if they realized the Holy Spirit dwelt within
them, they would not continue to be immoral, and they would stop visiting
prostitutes. Our bodies are to be used
for the glory of God, for they are temples of the Holy Spirit, says Paul. Only very ignorant and immature Christians
could be doing the things the Corinthians were doing with their bodies. Paul knew that the key to their being lifted
to a higher level was in the truth of the indwelling Spirit. The more Christians are aware that they are
indwelt by the Holy Spirit, the more they will become like Christ.
The tragedy is not just that the Corinthians did not
emphasize this truth, but that it is still not emphasized today. It is a revolutionary truth, and yet it is
seldom heard or practiced. Christians
do not deny the doctrine of the indwelling Spirit, but they do ignore it. One of the reasons for this is the fact that
it is such a radical truth that even Christians fear to take it literally. It seems almost presumptuous to claim that
you are a temple of God. It would be
construed as pride for me to say that the trinity abides in me. People would either laugh or be
disgusted. Can we take this truth
seriously? Can the infinite indwell the
finite? It may be hard to believe it,
but it is basic to New Testament Christianity.
W. T. Davison in his studies on the Holy Spirit writes,
“The religion of the New Testament is a religion of the Holy Spirit, and the
Christianity of subsequent times that would realize the New Testament type
under new conditions must also be a religion of the Spirit. Most of the declensions which have marked
the religious life of Christendom have been due to forgetfulness of this
fundamental fact, and all striking revivals of Christian life and power have
sprung from its recollection and reinforcement.”
It is a fact of history that revivals are always
accompanied with a consciousness on the part of Christians of the work of the
Holy Spirit. When Christians neglect
this aspect of God’s relation to them, there is cooling off. This means Christians more often than not
are ignorant of this truth. Sophir
wrote, “For how long a period, even after the Reformation, were the doctrines
of the Holy Spirit, His work in conversion, and His indwelling in the believer,
almost unknown.” This is the hardest
truth to get across to believers, but one of the most important, for it is a
truth distinctive to Christianity, and it is the source of the power to live
the Christian life. Sir Monier
Williams, a great oriental scholar, asserts that the consciousness of a
personal union and fellowship with God is a unique feature of Christianity. He fails to find it in any of the religions
of the East. Dr. W. L. Walker in The
Spirit And The Incarnation says, “The Spirit is the great thing in
Christianity. It is the distinctive
doctrine, vital, fundamental and permanent”
The power of Pentecost and of the early church was not in
creed or ritual, but in the indwelling Spirit.
A whole new relationship between God and man had come into the
world. Peter said to the 3 thousand
converts on the day of Pentecost, “You shall receive the gift of the Holy
Spirit.” Then he says in Acts 2:39,
“For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all that are afar off,
everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Him.”
No longer was the Holy Spirit to be confined to the favored few. He would indwell every believer. Paul says He was even indwelling the
Corinthians, who such poor Christians.
Of course, they were grieving and resisting the Spirit, but they were
still temples of the Spirit. Power for
a victorious life of holiness was available to them, but they were not aware of
it.
James M. Campbell
in his book After Pentecost, what?
Compares the Christian who is ignorant of the doctrine of the indwelling
Spirit to a fish who lies gasping in the sunshine only an inch away from the
water. One flip would take him over
into his native element, but there he lies in a sad plight as if the water were
miles away. Christians are always near
to abundant life, for God with all His resources dwells within, but we are so
seldom conscious of this reality, and we do not know how to take advantage of
it, even when we become conscious of it.
Our whole way of life, and the total pattern of our culture
make it hard for us to develop a consciousness of the inner life. We seldom meditate and develop an awareness
of the world within. We do not think of
preparation on the inside before we read the Bible, and yet men of the Spirit
tell us it is the key to Bible study.
George Fox wrote, “A man can understand inspired Scriptures only as he
is in the same spirit in which they are given.” The unique New Testament perspective is to see life from
within. It is to see with the eyes and
mind of Christ who dwells within. We
depend almost totally upon externals, but the poet reminds us:
The outward word is good and
true,
But inward power alone makes new;
Not even Christ can save
from sin
Until He comes and works within.
The inner life is the greatest reality, and yet it is the
most ignored aspect of life. Even
Christians feel it is impractical and a waste of time to focus on what seems
like self-centered introspection. There
is to much to do, and so we give ourselves to doing rather than to becoming,
even though the New Testament makes it clear that God cares more about what we
are than what we do. Paul says in Col.
3:3, “Your life is hide with Christ in God.”
God hides within us, and we are hidden within God. There is a mysterious hidden life that is
the key to effective Christian living, and we must give this truth its rightful
place in our lives. Flowers spring from
hidden seed, and the fruits of the Spirit likewise spring from the hidden life
of the believer. Only as we cultivate
this deeply personal and private relationship to the indwelling Spirit can we
be outwardly productive.
If Paul expected the Corinthians to develop the inner life,
how much more should we be expected to do so?
The beginning point is simply in awareness and desire. Do you not know you are a temple of the Holy
Spirit? To know it, and to keep it in
mind will develop in us a new perspective with new desires. A steady and consistent consciousness of the
indwelling Spirit cannot help but make a radical difference in our lives. It calls for concentration, for the very
fact it is a truth so much ignored shows it is a truth hard to grasp. It is like nerve action in the body. Muscle action we can understand, but the
nerves are so mysterious and hard to figure out. So the hidden life of the indwelling Spirit is hard to be
conscious of. To deny it or ignore it
is as harmful to the spiritual life as a ignoring nerves is to the
physical. Whether you feel it or not,
your nerves are in operation for good or ill, and so it is with the Holy
Spirit. We need to ask ourselves
constantly this question of Paul: Do you know that you are a temple of God and
that the Spirit of God dwells within?
2. THE CHRISTIAN AND SUICIDE Based on I Cor.
3:1‑17
Shakespeare said, "Against self‑slaughter there is
a prohibition so divine that cravens my weak hand." He was expressing the attitude of the vast
majority towards suicide. We did not
find that prohibition in either the Old Testament or the New Testament. The whole Bible does oppose the taking of
one's life even if there is no explicit prohibition. Life is sacred; God is its author; we are to present our bodies a
living sacrifice; we are to do all that we do to the glory of God. No one can doubt that self‑destruction
is sinful, and opposed to the whole plan of God.
So obvious is this truth that it has been recognized to be
evil by the majority of non‑Christians.
Pythagorus and Plato, the ancient Greek philosophers, condemned it
"on the ground that we are all soldiers of God, stationed at appointed
posts of duty, which it is rebellion against our maker to desert." Aristotle and Greek legislators condemned it
as abandonment of duty to the state.
The ancient poets, like Lucretius the Roman, condemned it as cowardice. Buddhism and Islam condemn it. Practically all pagans have recognized it to
be a sin. The rare exception is the
Stoics whose goal of life was to avoid trouble and pain. If all did not go right, they encouraged
suicide as a solution. Zeno the founder
hanged himself when he broke his finger, and the famous poet that Paul quotes
in Acts 17:28, Cleanthes, starved himself to death because his gums were
sore. Apart from these we have the
whole weight of the moral conscience of heathenism again suicide.
That it is a sin we cannot doubt, and that it is a grave sin
we cannot question, but what we want to do is to get some answers to some very
important questions related to suicide.
These may be only idle speculation for some, but there are Christians in
our world who would feel them to be desperately relevant, and the day may come
when American Christians will also feel this.
Now is the time to ask the questions, and prepare ourselves for proper
attitudes and understanding. The first
question is this:
I. IS IT POSSIBLE FOR A
CHRISTIAN TO TAKE HIS OWN LIFE?
If we come to this question with preconceived notions, we
will, of course, already have an answer before we examine the evidence. There is only one preconceived idea we can
have, however, and that is that it is sin, and a grave sin at least as bad as
murder. This means that we are seeking
to determine if a Christian can do the worse kinds of sin.
Jesus implied it was possible when He gave the Sermon on the
Mount. He said that it was not only
murder when you kill, but it was also murder when you are angry without a
cause, and so full of hate that you call a brother a fool. This puts the believer in grave danger. This becomes meaningless if it is not
possible for the believer to do such evil.
The whole New Testament implies by its moral standard and prohibitions
that it is possible for a believer to commit any of the sins forbidden by the
ten commandments. There is no basis for
saying that the sin of suicide is impossible for the believer. It is morally impossible, just as stealing,
adultery, lying, and covetousness.
What does history tell us.
The question was debated in the early church. One of the big questions was this: Could a Christian woman take her own life in times of persecution
to escape the dishonor she would suffer by brute soldiers, who would rape her
before she was killed? Eusebius, the
church historian, Chrysostom, the golden mouth preacher, and Jerome, the Bible
translator, all favored it as the lesser of two evils. Augustine condemned it, however, and later
church councils did also. They passed a
law refusing church burial to anyone who did so. The debate arose out of life's battles where women did take their
lives to escape the awful fate awaiting them.
Even Augustine allowed exceptions, since some were called martyrs and
made saints. The modern Catholic
Encyclopedia says this question is still open for debate.
What is not debatable is the fact that true Christians did
take their own lives. In more modern
times we find that after the Reformation the question arises again. There was no problem with suicide in the so‑called
dark ages. It became a universal
problem only since the Enlightenment.
In Tirospol, Russia in 1897, 28 persons buried themselves alive to
escape the census which they felt was evil and against God's will. In 1666 Russian Zealots looked for the
antichrist to come so soon that they urged Christians to escape him by suicide
and entering into heaven. Whole
communities hailed with enthusiasm this gospel of death, and they put it into
practice. Such fanaticism characterized
the Anabaptist also. They claimed they
were setting up the kingdom of God, and they brought destruction on themselves
when they tried to rebel and make society socialistic. Luther and his princes went to war and
killed over 100,000 because of this fanaticism.
This was not suicide in the same sense as it was with the
Russians, but it was close to it in terms of the folly of it all, and in terms
of getting Christian people so fired up over fanatical ideas that they were
willing to die for some man made scheme.
The purpose of sharing this history is to show that God's children can,
and have, been victims of false and fanatical leadership, and have even taken
their own lives as a result. Martyrdom
was so prized at one time that Christians fought to be killed. Some early Christians deliberately threw
themselves to their death under the delusion that a violent death gained
merit.
Leslie T. Lyall in his book Come Wind Come Weather gives an
account of evangelical reactions to the Communist takeover in China. Christian leaders were disgraced and accused
by other Christians of crimes and sins.
He reports that people of evangelical persuasion were driven insane, and
a number of them committed suicide. These he mentions were leaders and not just
new Christians. They were people like
T. H. Sun who was editor of the Christian Farmer. Some were pastors, and one was archdeacon James Fu who was
accused by his own sons. How are we to
look at this? First we must recognize
the differences in cultures. To be
accused by ones own family and friends, and have public demonstrations, and
have it put in the paper was, for an oriental mind, a burden beyond us to
comprehend. The saving face attitude is
a part of the Christian life in the orient, and this type of thing could crush
the heart of even the strongest. It
will not do to say that maybe none of them were true Christians. That could very well be, but it begs the
whole question, and ignores the testimony of their lives. Since there is no basis for believing that
it is impossible for a Christian to take their own life, it is better to give
them the benefit of the doubt.
The Bible makes it clear that the most godly of men can
develop all the symptoms of loneliness and despair that lead to suicide. Moses who was tired and discouraged cried
out to God in Num. 11, "The load is far to heavy! If you are going to treat me like this,
please kill me right now; it will be a kindness. Let me out of this impossible situation." Moses spoke with the mind that fits the
majority of people who commit suicide.
Then there is Elijah who was emotionally and physically exhausted in his
battle with Jezebel. He cries out to
God in I Kings 19, "I've had enough.
Take away my life. I've got to
die sometime, and it might as well be now." Keep in mind, we are not looking at the words of new believers
who could not take the pressure. These
were pros, and the cream of the crop of God's best men. Job and Jeremiah both cursed the day of
their birth they fell so low in depression.
What about the prophet Jonah who was so embarrassed because
God in His mercy did not destroy Nineveh after He preached that He would. He cried out to God in despair in Jonah 4,
"Please kill me Lord: I'd rather be dead than alive." Life was unbearable, and that is precisely
where the suicide is when he takes his life.
From the time you ate breakfast this morning until the time you eat
breakfast tomorrow one thousand people will have killed themselves on this
planet. And not a day goes by but that
some of that thousand are born again Christians. Christian doctors,
psychiatrists, and those working with suicide prevention centers as well as
pastors know this to be true. I have
counseled a number of Christians who were suicidal.
Billy Graham has acknowledged that Christians can so fall
under the deceptive power of Satan that they can be enticed into suicide. Duane
Peterson who headed the Jesus People Organization published many letters from
Christians who attempted or succeeded in suicide. Leslie Weatherhead, the well known preacher and author in England
writes, "When Captain Oates‑a valued colleague of Captain Scott in
his epic journey to the South Pole‑found that frost‑bite in his
feet was holding up his companions, he walked out into the blizzard to lay down
his own life and was rightly labeled, "A very gallant
gentleman." No one would criticize
a man who, after a shipwreck, leapt to certain death in a stormy sea because a
raft containing women and children was already over filled." What he is pointing out is that there are
circumstances in which the taking of one's life is an act of heroism.
You might think it is dangerous to make these facts known, and
ask, won't this encourage Christians to take their own life? Not at all.
The reason the Bible does not hide the deep negative emotions of the
best of God's people is because God knows that the key to conquering Satan's
temptation to suicide is the freedom to share your burden and be accepted. No Christian will ever be defeated by the
devil or depression who can feel free to share their despair without fear of
rejection. Christians need to know they can commit suicide and will if they
refuse to use the weapons God has given to outwit the enemy. If I fell and sprained my back I would not
hesitate to share with you about the pain, and get your encouragement and
prayer. But if I fell into depression
and life became a dark pit with no light penetrating into my gloom, I may try
to hide that from you, and in so doing be playing right into Satan's
hands. If I could treat my mental
injuries as I do my physical injuries, and be honest and open about them, I
would discover they were often easier to heal than the physical ones.
All of this is to say that we need not fear to talk of suicide
and despair. Nothing is more necessary
than to get the gloom out into the light of God's love and understanding. It is the only way you are going to beat
it. Since most human beings consider
suicide at some point or another, it is folly to feel you are some kind of
freak or weirdo if the thought ever comes to you. Fear it and hide it, and it could ensnare you. Face it and fight it, and you will certainly
win. Having thoughts of suicide is not
a sign you are not a Christian. Don't
let Satan deceive you. Many of the
greatest people God ever used in history had these same thoughts. If you recognize this you will disarm Satan
of one of his most powerful weapons against you.
Christians can and do
commit the grave sin of suicide, but they would do it far less if they could
only realize it is no different than temptation to any other sin. Christians
are tempted to lie, cheat, steal, and every other sin, but because they know it
is possible to fall into these sins they fight the temptation. But when it comes to suicide they feel so
depressed over it that they tend to yield to Satan out of sheer despair, and
feeling forsaken even by God for such a horrible desire. Don't let Satan get you into a guilt trip
where he can persuade you that you are so unworthy that suicide is all you
deserve. Since all the evidence
indicates it is possible for the Christian to commit this sin, the next question
is all the more important.
II. IS SUICIDE UNFORGIVABLE?
If a Christian does take their own life for any number of
reasons such as, to avoid what they think to be a greater evil, or out of
devotion to a fanatical leader, or because pressure to the breaking point, do they
commit a sin so evil as to forfeit their salvation? We know Judas was not
forgiven, but the New Testament nowhere condemns his suicide, but only his
betrayal of Jesus. Judas was not lost because of the way he took his life, but
because of his betrayal. Nothing he could do after that could add to his
condemnation.
Jesus made it clear that there is only one sin that is
unforgivable both in this world and the next, and that was blasphemy of the
Holy Spirit. If suicide was also unforgivable, Jesus would have said there are
two such sins, but he said there is only one, and suicide is not it. So then
the question is, is it possible to be forgiven after one is dead? Catholics
have their purgatory, and so they say very definitely the answer is yes.
Protestants have no such doctrine, and so they have to wonder how sin can be
forgiven after death. If a Christian dies with some sin unconfessed, will he
enter heaven with a sinful soul? This is, of course, not possible, and so the
common view is that when a Christian dies he is made whole by the blood of
Christ. If this be so, then we have no basis for saying the same is true of the
suicide who is a Christian. This sin will be cleansed by grace just as all
other sins.
In debate on this issue one of the first text to come to the
surface is, "Thou shalt not kill."
I do not know of anyone in all of history who does not agree that murder
is forbidden by God, and that it is one of the gravest sins. Self‑murder then is obviously also a
grave sin. But this says nothing about
it being unforgivable. David plotted to
murder the innocent Uriah to cover up his adultery with his wife. It is one of the most despicable sins of
history. Yet I know of no one in all of
history that does not recognize that David was forgiven for that grave
sin. What he did makes the suicide
victim seem mild in comparison. The
suicide may be laying down his life for the sake of others. David's sin was pure evil, and yet he was
forgiven.
The Bible has been searched from cover to cover to find a
shred of evidence that suicide is worse than murder, and after reading dozens
of books by those who have done the searching, I know of no Bible verse that
support the view that suicide is unforgivable.
Karl Barth, one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century, said,
"If there is forgiveness of sin at all, there is surely forgiveness of
suicide." Bonhoffer and Thielicke
are two other great theologians who agree.
All you have to ask is the question, did Jesus die for this sin also, or
is this one He left out when He took on Himself the sins of the world? Unless you would risk the wrath of God by
adding this sin to the only one Jesus said was unforgivable, you have to leave
it where Jesus left it, and that is with all the other forgivable sins.
Joseph Bayly, one of the outstanding evangelical authors, says
that he finds nothing in the Bible that alters his conviction that the blood of
Jesus Christ cleanses from the sin of suicide.
John R. Rice, a great fundamentalist leader who has influenced millions,
responded to a letter about a Christian girl who committed suicide. He wrote, "I am so sorry about your
sister, but I'm sure you can have sweet confidence that she is with the Lord,
and now happy." This is from a
fighting fundamentalist who split hairs over all kinds of issues. Why?
Because he knew the Bible gives no basis for thinking there is any
difference in the destiny of a Christian who dies by the sin of suicide then
the Christian who dies with the sin of
lust, envy or pride in his soul.
Where then does the idea come from that so many Christians
have in their head that anyone who commits suicide is automatically
damned? It is a tradition that grew out
of the middle ages, and has not yet died, but like many old wise tales and
superstitions it clings to men's minds.
The motive of the tradition was good.
It was to so frighten people with the fear of hell that they would not dare
kill themselves. It probably saved many
lives through the centuries, and still does yet today. But there is a better way, and that is the
way of truth. If the Bible does not
teach it, then it is false doctrine, and it is wrong to use false doctrine even
if you do good with it. It is better to
use true doctrine and do more good in the will of God.
I have no desire to go and steal, or lie, or murder, because I
know it is forgivable. Nor do I feel
less repulse by suicide because it is forgivable. But I feel more secure knowing that if I should be deceived and
fall into the snare of Satan, I am not cut out of the family of God. I have assurance in Christ, and this makes
me stronger to face up to the causes of depression that could lead to
suicide. I do not need to suppress it
in fear, but I can openly face it in faith and conquer it. This is better than going through life
scared stiff that I could kill myself and end in hell. To prevent suicide by fear does not lead to
the abundant life, but to prevent it by faith does.
This brings us to our text at last. This is the only New
Testament text I am aware of that is used to show the danger of suicide, and to
support the view that if one does take his own life he is forever damned. On
the surface it appears to be a sound argument, but closer examination reveals
it to be another case of taking Scripture out of context to prove something
that the passage is not even hinting at.
The whole context makes it clear that Paul is not talking about their
bodies as such, but about themselves as the church‑the temple‑the
dwelling place of God. The problem is that they are a disgrace to the temple.
All their divisions and strife and envy are terrible, and Paul rebukes them and
warns them that if they destroy the temple of God, they will be destroyed by
God. Self destruction is not the issue
here, but the destruction of the body of Christ‑the church. To read
suicide into this passage is called eisegesis, or a reading in of what is not
there. It is an abuse of the Bible to use this passage to deal with suicide.
It may seem to be a logical implication, however, since they
body of a believer is the temple, and even if Paul does not refer to it, self
destruction would be destroying the temple of God, and would be worthy of being
destroyed by God. The only problem with this deduction is that it proves too
much. It proves more than those who use it would want to admit. It proves that
one can lose his salvation by doing anything that mars his body. This would
lead to damnation for smoking, drinking, getting a tatoo, and many other self inflicted
injuries. Nobody wants to take this to its logical conclusion, for it damns
millions of believers.
The Greek word used here is worth studying. There are ten
Greek words translated destroy in the KJV.
The differences are very great. Some mean to kill; some to demolish;
others to lay waste or to make of none effect, and still other to mar or
corrupt. The word here is phtheiro which means to mar or corrupt. It does not
even mean to mar or corrupt thoroughly, for there is another word for that
which is diophtheiro. So the KJV
translators had a right to give weaker meaning to the first use of it, and say
defile, for envy and strife do not demolish the church but they do defile it,
and bring evil into the holy place. The whole point is, if you try to draw
teaching about suicide from this text, you end with a view that Christians are
in danger of losing their salvation for anything that mars of defiles their
body, or the church.
Even those theologians who strongly believe that it is
possible for a believer to be lost do not take this passage as support, for
they recognize with all biblical scholars that this, though a serious matter of
judgment, cannot be applied to the loss of salvation. It does teach that the
Christian who causes division in the church is in danger of judgment, but even
such an unholy Christian as this will not be damned for his hindrance to
Christ. If it could be made to mean
this, it would be taken advantage of by those who warn of Christians losing
their salvation. Therefore, to use this passage to prove that suicide is
unforgivable is foolish, for it does not even prove that about the very sin
that it is written about, which is church division. If anything can be inferred
from this passage about suicide, it would be that there is more hope for the
suicide than for the trouble maker in the church.
If suicide cannot be forgiven because the person doing so is
dead, then neither can any other sin, and we are caught is the same dilemma
that led the early church at one point to baptize people just before they died
so they could die without sin. We need
to face the fact that most every Christian will die with some sin in their life.
If nothing else, there are the sins of omission. If one needs to be free of all sin to go to heaven, then all sins
are unforgivable is not forgiven before you die. This is theology not found
anywhere in God's Word. All sin can be forgiven after death, and must be, and
this includes the sin of suicide. Paul
says in Rom. 8 that nothing can separate us from the love of God, and that
would include the sin of suicide, or his statement is not true.
If all we have said is true, what are the implications? It means that the Christian must be on guard
and recognize they can be victims of Satanic forces; they can be misled by
fanatics; they can be crushed by psychological warfare, and circumstances can
lead them to lose all interest in life. These dangers are real, and they call
for increased devotion and maturity in Christ. It calls for the practice of the
Biblical exhortation to bear one another's burdens. It calls for a commitment
that goes beyond all that life has to offer, so that we can say at the lowest
ebb with Job, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." Satan is
still going about seeking who he may devour, and not one ought to know better
than Peter that Satan is more than a paper lion. He has real teeth, and he who
stands must beware lest he should fall.
Self‑destruction is just one of the many grave sins that
Christians can be ensnared with. If we
had time we could examine many of the forces that compel people to self‑destruction,
and we could see that all of us are subject to these forces. Our defense against these, as well as all
forces of evil, is constant commitment and growth in Christ. All sin is possible for the believer, but it
is to be avoided, and we must include more subtle sins as well. John Howe said, "What a folly it is to
dread the thought of throwing away life at once, and yet have no regard to
throwing it away by parcels and piecemeal." All of life is sacred and needs to be used for the glory of
God.
3. THE CHRISTIAN AND DIVORCE Based on I Cor. 7:8‑16
Dave Howell, The World Service Secretary Of The YMCA, was
going to give a speech on his experience in Liberia. There were three speakers before him, and the first mentioned
that Howell had come from Libya to be there, instead of Liberia. Howell whispered to the next speaker that he
would appreciate it if he could correct the mistake.
This second man rose to
speak, and referred to Mr. Howell, there guest from Nigeria. Howell nudged the speaker who was to
officially introduce him, and reminded him to set the record straight. The gentleman nodded, and rose to introduce
him. He said, "Now it is my
pleasure to present Dave Howell from Siberia." There are some situations where it is so hard to set the record
straight, because you cannot get people to be accurate by focusing on
details.
Agassiz, the Swiss Naturalist, was one of the world's best
teachers, and many of his students became famous, because his first lesson was
on detail. New students would come to
his study, and he would give them a fish in a jar. He would tell them to observe it, and he would be back. He would be gone for hours, and the student
had nothing to do but watch that fish, and count the bones in the fins, and the
number of scales. They would get
disgusted and discouraged, but when the professor returned, he did not relieve
them of their task of observing. For
three days they spent hours looking at that fish, and they learned the knack of
careful observation of all detail, and the rest of their lives were benefited,
and they went on to become the best in their field.
If you want to be the best at anything, you have got to be an
observer of detail. This is not the
same as being picky, and a person who is devoted to the trivial. Paul warned about getting all hung up on
foolish questions dealing with genealogies.
There is also the folly of dwelling on detail. Like the man who said, "My wife and I had an interesting
fight last night. She said it was five
days since our last fight, and I said it was four." Detail is only crucial when our
understanding of more major issues depends on our grasp of detail. This is certainly the case with this complex
chapter of I Cor. 7. Paul is making all
kinds of distinctions in this chapter, and if you do not give heed to detail,
you will miss the essence of his whole approach, which is, a clear recognition
of individual differences.
One of the first things you learn in counseling is that people
who have the same problem are radically different. You can not deal with people like barrels on an assembly
line. You have to deal with them as
persons, and to do this, you have to reject legalism as your guide. If the church would have followed Paul in
rejecting legalism, and have dealt with people as individuals, there would never
have been the dark ages of the church, and the folly that has done so much harm
to God's people.
Just one illustration out of many dozens reveals the
point. St. Benedict, as a youth of 16,
fought off lust for a beautiful maiden.
So determined was he, that he cast off his simply garment, and threw
himself into a thicket of brambles and nettles. He thrashed and rolled until his body was lacerated from head to
foot. This crude, but successful,
method of conquering the flesh made him a hero, and he founded a monastery, and
gained a great following, and did great things for the kingdom of God. So far so good, but the church officials
said, "What is good for St. Benedict is good for everybody," and they
passed a law that said all priests were to abstain from sex. They were not to marry, or if they were
married, they were to stop sleeping with their wives. All clergy were to be celibate, or lose their office. Some actually were successful. One holy man kept his wife at a distance for
years, and when she approached him on his death bed to see if he was still
breathing, he gathered up his strength and said, "Woman depart! Take away the straw, for there is yet fire
here."
The tragedy, however, is that this legalism forced the non‑gifted
to live a life they were not fit for.
The result was centuries of Christian scandal. By forcing everyone to be celibate, they made a mockery of all
the Bible teaches about sex. Sex
starved priests, by the thousands, who could have been happily married, were
visiting prostitutes, sleeping with parishioners, making all kinds of
arrangements with nuns, and, at one point in the tenth century, the Archbishop
of Sens had the entire Abby of St. Peter filled with concubines. Temple
prostitution became as common as it was in pagan Corinth.
You cannot begin to imagine the mess Christians have made in
history by not paying attention to Paul's advice. He is constantly making distinctions, but legalists make no
distinctions. They just cast everybody
into the same mold, and say this is it, there is no other perspective. Paul says to avoid to being a fool you have
got to recognize that people differ.
They differ in their gifts, in their personalities, and in there
circumstances. For example, in verse 8
he says it is well for the unmarried and widow to remain single, but then he
immediately says it is better for them to marry than to burn with passion they
cannot control. It is well to stay
single, but better to marry if there is this difference in their makeup. So Paul clearly puts the burden on the
individual. There is no rule here that
applies to all. Which is best for you
depends upon you, and only you can know what you are capable of handling. It is folly to make a rule which applies to
all which does not recognize individual differences. The church has tried it many times, and it always leads to
tragedy. Those who learn nothing from
history are condemned to repeat it.
Two tired donkey's came to a stream on a hot day.
One carried a load of salt, and the other a huge pack of sponges. The one carrying salt went in first, and
when he came out the other side he called back and said, "It was easy and
delightful," for his burden was lightened as the salt dissolved in the
water. The second donkey plunged into
the stream and the sponges filled with water and he drowned. The point is, do not assume that what is a
blessing for you is a blessing for others in Christ. It may very well be a burden to them. Celibates who feel all should
be celibate, and marrieds who feel all should be married, are dangerous
legalists, for if they had the power they would impose their preference on
everyone. History is full of this kind
of nonsense.
Paul will have no part of it.
He recognizes distinctions, and honors individual differences. We see him maintaining the same spirit as we
come to his dealings with divorce. He
makes a distinction between marriages of two Christians, and marriages of a
Christian and a non‑Christian.
His point is, divorce in never good, but it may, in certain cases, be
the only alternative that makes sense.
The case he deals with is a non‑Christian mate who refuses to live
with his Christian spouse. If the non‑Christian
gets a divorce, Paul says in verse 15, let it be so, for the Christian mate
cannot be bound in such a case. It is obvious to all that a non‑Christian
can just say, "I refuse to try and save this marriage," and go off
and get a divorce. The divorce
Christian, in this case, does not need to have the slightest guilt for being
divorced, unless, of course, they were terrible mates.
For now, let's focus our attention on verse 10‑11, where
Paul deals with two Christians who are married to one another. He first addresses the wife, and gives a
clear word of warning that it is not just his authority, but from the
Lord. The Christian wife is not to get
a divorce. By not paying attention to
detail, I always saw this as a warning not to separate, as if the mere act of
separation was itself wrong. Paul is
not writing here about separation, but about divorce. This is clear from the 11th verse, where Paul says, if the wife
goes ahead and does what he says not to, she should remain single or unmarried. Obviously, a mere separation does not make
her single or unmarried. She has gotten
a divorce, and so Paul is saying the same thing to the wife as he does in verse
11 to the husband‑don't get a divorce.
The one thing that is clear in the Bible is that divorce is
never the best way to go. Divorce is
negative. Nobody ever rejoices that a
divorce is a part of their life. The
most liberal Bible interpreters recognize that divorce is a sad ending to a
beautiful dream. The cults even agree,
there is no praise for divorce.
Paganism, and even secularism join in the universal agreement that
divorce is not success, but failure.
But the fact is, it is a reality. It always has been, and always will
be. It is a growing menace in our
culture, and Christians can no longer be smug about it, for it is no longer a
problem of the world only, it is a major problem of the church. The church can never escape the changes in
the culture, and the result is, Christian marriages are breaking up at a faster
pace than ever in history.
It is not new, however, for Paul dealt with a culture where
the same problem existed. He is writing to Christian couples, telling them not
to divorce each other. You may think
Paul knew very little about women, but he proved you wrong, right here. He told the Christian wife she was not to
divorce her husband. Then in the very
next sentence, he tells her what to do after she ignores that first
command. Don't let anybody ever tell you that Paul did not understand women. Paul knows some of the problems in Christian
marriages are so bad that it is superficial to assume there will never be a
divorce. Instead, he assumes there will
be, and so he goes on to say what the next step is after a Christian wife does
get a divorce. Paul was a realist. He would like to see all obey the first
rule, but he knew he had to have a back up plan, for those who would ignore
it.
For example, let's get back to the Corinthian husband who is
still going to the temple prostitute.
Paul knows he will not prevent this sin among all the men. The result will be, some of the wives will
be divorcing their husbands. They have
a right to do so, for Jesus made it clear, this is a valid reason for divorce. If a mate cannot be faithful, God does not
demand that anyone live with such a person.
This explains why Paul does not lay it down as an absolute law, that the
Christian wife should never divorce her Christian husband. To do so would be to rob her of a God‑given
right, and Paul knows he cannot do that.
All he can do is go on to urge her to remain single, and try to bring
about a reconciliation. Paul is hoping
that Christian wives can be channels of God's grace, and rise above their
rights to a divorce, and strive to forgive their husbands, and keep their
Christian marriages alive.
Paul has as great faith in women. He believes that they can let the grace of God triumph over sin,
and win a victory. You notice, he does
not have any elaboration after telling the husband not to divorce his
wife. It is almost as if he is saying,
if a husband disobeys, and does divorce his wife, the game is over. He does not ask him to stay single, and try
to be reconciled to his wife. I don't
know how much we can read between the lines, but it seems as if Paul is saying,
he has more hope of a wife seeking reconciliation then a husband. In the Corinthian context, and in much of
history, the wife usually gets a divorce because she is hurt and betrayed. She can be persuaded to forgive and try
again. The husband usually gets a
divorce because he wants another woman.
He is not likely to be forgiving and be reconciled, for he has nothing
to forgive, in that he is the guilty party.
Whatever the case for the divorce, Paul is confident the wife
is most likely to still save the marriage by not getting married to another,
but remaining single, and seeking reconciliation. Paul does not add another verse saying what this Christian wife
should do
if she ignores his second
command, like she did the first. What
if she not only gets divorced, but then, instead of remaining single and
seeking reconciliation, she goes off and remarries another Christian? Paul does not say, here is what you should
do if you do what I told you not to do, after you did what you shouldn't. In other words, Paul is not covering all the
possibilities by any means.
What he is doing is establishing a pattern for Christian
counseling, based on grace rather than law.
If a Christian does not chose the ideal, then you have to deal with them
where they are, and shoot for another
goal which is best on that level. The
Christian counselor is not to be concerned so much with punishment for sin and
failure in marriage, as with trying to gain victory over them. Christians are making wrong choices all the
time, and in the area of divorce and remarriage they make a lot of
mistakes. They often chose to ignore
God's will, and deliberately sin, and get their lives messed up.
Paul's approach to life is the Christlike approach. It often can be misunderstood as being soft
on sin, but in fact, it is the key to victory over sin. Jesus could have justly had the woman taken
in adultery stoned, but instead, he told her, go and sin no more. That was quite a light sentence for so
serious a sin, but Jesus knew you can bless people out of sin more effectively
than you can blast them out. Grace
experienced by the guilty in forgiveness and acceptance saves people from more
sin than does condemnation.
The goal of Paul is to help the Corinthians get out of the
vicious circle, where sin runs their lives, and enter into an orderly and godly
pattern of life, where they can experience peace. He does not once hint at any form of punishment for those
Christians who are still trying to live like pagans in the realm of their sex
life. He does not mention
excommunicating this Christian wife who goes ahead and gets a divorce. He does not suggest that the single who
struggles with fornication, or goes to the temple prostitute, should be
rejected. Is Paul being too soft on
sin? He is, if the goal of the church
is to punish sin, but if the goal of the church is to win people out of a life
of sin, and help them live a life pleasing to God, then Paul is doing what has
to be done. Loving the sinner, and
accepting the sinner, while condemning the sin.
The legalist, in contrast, is not as concerned about the
person as he is about the sin and its punishment. The goal of the legalist is to see that the law is obeyed, or the
penalty is paid. Churches, like
individuals, tend to operate on a value system that is guided either
by legalism or grace. The result is, you have many churches where
this Christian wife that Paul writes to, would be made to feel rejected, and
would be forced to leave. Listen to the
testimony of one such contemporary wife.
"Its been 19 months
since I've been a member of church,
and it will probably be 19
years before I am again," said the
young woman angrily. "I sang in the choir, attended every
worship service and worked
in the Sunday School. When my
husband began to have
trouble, we went to the pastor. He gave
us a lot of advice and tried
to help, but it didn't work. We were
divorced. Right about that time the pastor was saying
from the
pulpit that divorce was the
biggest sin in America today. Well,
I didn't want to mess up his
precious little group of saints, so
I just quit going to
church. And no one asked me back. The
church isn't for the
divorced."
This is not an isolated case.
There are many thousand who have felt the same way, and many have their
testimony in print. June Carter Cash,
the wife of Johnny Cash, wrote about her life, and the fact that they were both
previously divorced. They both became
Christians, but they were hurt most by Christians who could forgive thieves and
murders, but who, for some
reason, felt divorce was unforgivable.
She wrote, "There are those in the Christian church who will never
forgive us for those broken marriages.
But Christ died for people like me.
People who mess up their lives and stand shaking in their boots with
guilt, wondering if they're really going straight to hell. But he tells us to repent, and if we really
do this and know in our hearts that He has forgiven us, then the sin is no
longer ours. That's what I did. And if they cannot forgive me, they must
answer for that.
Please remember‑we are
justified in Jesus when we believe, but it can take a long time to be
sanctified." Never once does Paul
single out the Christian caught in the tragedy of divorce for special
punishment.
The plea of Mrs. Cash is the very thing that Paul is
responding to in this chapter. He is
dealing with Christians who are justified by faith, but who are not yet
sanctified by a life of obedience.
Without the loving spirit of Paul in striving to guide such people, the
church tends to become legalistic. They
say that now you have fallen short, you cannot teach any more, or be an officer
in the church. There are times when violating
God's will does demand severe discipline.
In chapter 5 Paul does demand that the man living with his fathers wife
be excommunicated. But in this chapter
he does not suggest any such thing for those who are divorced. In fact, he has compassion for those in
circumstances beyond their control, such as the Christians married to a non‑Christian
who wants to leave. In verse 15 he says
if the non‑Christian spouse divorces the Christian, the Christian is no
longer bound. In other words, Paul does
not expect a Christian man or woman to be a slave to a non‑Christian, and
their life style. If they go off and
end the marriage the bond is broken, and the Christian is free to remarry a
Christian.
This merciful treatment of the divorce has been a part of
Christian history. Let me share with
you a brief outline of the history of acceptable divorce in the church. By acceptable I mean, one where there is a
right to remarry and be blessed by the church.
1. Jesus said if adultery enters a marriage, this can be a
legitimate reason for divorce.
2. Paul says, a non‑Christian leaving a Christian is a
legitimate reason for divorce, and the Christian mate is not bound, but free to
remarry.
3. The early church added that abandonment by a mate leaves one free
to remarry.
4. When barbarians raided the Roman Empire, and carried people off
to be slaves, if a mate was so taken, after a period of waiting, there was
freedom to remarry.
5. When a mate joined a
convent or monastery, the other mate was free to remarry.
6. If one, unknowingly,
married someone they found to be near of kin, they were free to divorce and
remarry.
7. If one discovered they
were married illegally, such as being married to a bigamist, the right to
divorce and remarriage was granted.
8. In our day it is common for a Christian wife to discover she has
married a homosexual. Even the most conservative churches permit her to divorce
and remarry.
There are no doubt others, but these are those I have picked
up in reading Christian history. What
they reveal is that the Bible does not give us all the possible problems we may
have to face. It gives us principles
that can be applied in all ages and circumstances.
What God has joined together
let not man put asunder is true, but all agree that there are many marriages
that are not God's doing, and so man is free to put them asunder.
The divorced single is no different than the never married
single, or the widowed single. They all either have self‑control, and can
remain single, or they burn with passion, and must seek a marriage
partner. Those who put divorce people
into another category that Paul does not mention, become very superficial in
their dealing with the sex drive. There
are those who say that a divorce person must stay single, even they do burn
with passion. Paul says it is better to marry than burn, but they insist it is
forbidden that they marry, and so they must burn. These legalists, because of their stubborn resistance to all
remarriage, reverse Paul, and say, it is better to burn than to marry.
Paul wants the burning passion of the Christian wife to drive
her back to her husband, and be reconciled.
But for the Christian who is divorce by the non‑Christian, there
is no going back. He, or she, if they
do not have self‑control, are free to seek a new mate. The encouraging thing to see in our day is
that more and more churches are developing Paul's attitude. The goal is no longer to punish, but to help
people overcome guilt and grief, and begin again.
The six thousand member South Main Baptist Church is the
largest of Houston's 222 Southern Baptist Churches. They have 700 singles, many of whom are divorced, in their active
membership. They have a program for
healing, and helping the divorced to start over. This is just one of many, and we see that Paul did not write this
chapter in vain. In spite of periods of
legalism, the church has been able to catch his spirit of love for the fallen
and failing. Paul's message has gotten
through to millions. Divorce is always
a negative thing, but God works in all things, even the negative, for good, and
this should be our goal in relating to all who have experienced divorce.
4. DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE PART 2 Based on I Cor. 7:10‑16
I got a kick out of the story I heard the other day. This man had gone to a psychiatrist, and after
a great deal of examination he asked the doctor, "What is wrong with
me?" The doctor replied, "I
think you are crazy." "I
demand a second opinion," the man insisted. "Very well," said the doctor, "I also think you
are ugly." The only relevance of
the story to our theme is that we are also looking for a second opinion on this
issue of divorce and remarriage. We
have looked at what the Old Testament said, and now we want to look at what the
Apostle Paul said.
The Corinthians had just about every problem known to man, and
so we have their problems being dealt with in Paul's letter to them. This becomes our blessing, for because of
their problems we have authoritative counsel on how to handle them. What we get from Paul confirms what we studied
before. Divorce is not God's best, and it is never His primary will. However, sometimes it is inevitable in a
world where everyone has a sinful nature.
The principle we are seeking to establish is that whenever divorce is
legitimate the right to remarry is assumed.
Moses and Jesus both assumed that divorced people would remarry, and
both gave assurance that it was proper and acceptable to do so when the divorce
was valid.
Paul confirms this in verse 15 by telling the Christian who
has been divorced and deserted by a non‑Christian mate that the marriage
has been dissolved, and they are no longer bound. Those who do not like this conclusion go to verse 39 where Paul
says, "A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives." They say this has to apply to the one that
Paul says that is not bound in verse 15.
It cannot be both ways. You
can't be bound an unbound to a mate at the same time, and so they say this
principle is superior to the words of Paul in verse 15. The confusion is the result of carelessness
with terms. Everyone agrees that a wife
is bound to her husband as long as he lives.
That is an absolute principle, and I have never heard or read of anyone
even trying to find an exception to it.
There are no exceptions.
When you introduce the subject of divorce, however, you are
dealing with different terms and relationships. When a wife is divorced from her husband for adultery, as Jesus
said, or for desertion, as Paul says in verse 15, she is no longer his wife, and
he is no longer her husband. If they
were still husband and wife, they would still be married in the sight of God,
and, therefore, bound to each other.
Paul could only say to the wife in verse 15 that she is not bound,
because the divorce from her non‑Christian husband made her no longer his
wife. Everywhere that a true divorce
takes place the terms husband and wife no longer apply. We saw in part 1 in our study of Deut. 24:1‑4
where divorce changed the husband to a former husband, and set the wife free to
remarry. Paul is not saying in verse 39
that a former wife is bound to her former husband as long as he lives. That is the very thing we are establishing
that is not true to Scripture, and that is why Paul says in verse 15 that a
mate properly divorced is not bound.
We want to look now at what appears to be an exception to the
principle we are expounding. In verse
11 Paul tells the Christian wife who has divorced her Christian husband that
she is to remain single and not remarry, but rather seek to be reconciled. Here is a divorce where remarriage is
clearly forbidden. Why? Because in verse 10 Paul says this kind of
divorce is forbidden. It is not
acceptable for two Christians to get divorced.
Paul does not get into the exception of adultery being a valid
cause. He is just dealing with divorce
in general. The kind of divorce he is
dealing with here is not valid, and so in God's eyes it does not break the
marriage bond. Neither mate has the
right to remarry in such circumstances.
One only has the right when the marriage bond is broken.
This is really not an exception then to the principle we are
expounding. Forbidden divorce naturally
does not give the right to remarry. If
you are married it cannot be legitimate to remarry, for this would be
bigamy. The point of the principle we
are seeking to establish as being consistent with all of Scripture is that God
expects all unmarried people to have the right to marry. If you are not married, there is no reason
you should be hindered from getting married.
A legitimate divorce returns a person to the state of being unmarried,
and in that state they have the same right to get married as anyone else who is
single. They will have the same desires
and needs that lead them to get married in the first place. There is no Scripture that says God expects
them to remain unmarried. In fact, all
of Scripture expects that they will remarry.
If marriage is legitimate for all unmarried people, then all we have to
do is establish that divorce makes a person no longer married.
Paul does this in verse 11 where he is dealing with the most
unacceptable kind of divorce in all of the Bible. It is the divorce of a Christian wife from her Christian husband. Note that Paul says that if a Christian wife
does this which is forbidden, she is to remain unmarried, or as some versions
have it, she is to remain single. There
is no getting around this clear word of Paul.
Even an illegitimate divorce returns a mate to a state of singleness
where they are no longer married. This
Christian wife is now single says Paul when she divorces her husband. She is not free to remarry, however,
because in God's eyes the marriage bond is not broken, and as far as He is
concerned the man is still her husband, and they are to strive for
reconciliation. Now you can see that if
the divorce is legitimate, and is based on adultery or desertion by a non‑Christian,
the Christian is returned to a state of being unmarried with no marriage bond
existing. There is not a hint anywhere
in the Bible that this single person is not free, like all other unmarried
people to enter into a relationship
that will lead to marriage.
We need to study these verses carefully to get as much light
as possible on this issue. The first thing Paul does is make clear who he is
addressing. In verse 8 he addressed the unmarried and widows. Here he addresses the married, and in v. 12 he
addresses the rest. Ignoring this
simple fact that Paul is addressing different categories of people has led to
misuse and abuse of this passage. If you read 20 commentaries, 19 of them will
point out to you that the rest that Paul addresses in v. 12 are also married,
but they are dealt with separately because they are involved in a mixed marriage
with a Christian and a non‑Christian.
This is a totally different category than those in verse 10 and 11 where
both are Christians and both are members of the church.
Some commentators who are more determined to defend their own
views than they are to listen to the Word pay no attention to Paul's
distinction here. Listen, for example,
to how one of them avoids Paul's conclusion by forcing Paul to contradict
himself. Commenting on verse 15 he
writes, "There are those who make this verse an argument for a remarriage
of divorced people where they point to the statement that a brother of a sister
is not in bondage in such cases. But
this argument is negated entirely by the other statement of Paul in which he
says, "But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled
to her husband."
Do you see what he has done?
He has ignored the word of Paul to the Christian divorced by the non‑Christian
to whom he says, "You are not bound." He goes back to the word of Paul to the two Christians to whom he
says that they are not to remarry. He
takes the word that applies to the two Christians and applies them to the
Christian and non‑Christian, and he just ignores Paul's conclusion that
they are not in bondage. He says they
have to be in bondage yet, and not set free to remarry because Paul said they
are to remain unmarried, paying no attention to the fact that Paul draws a
clear distinction between the two categories of people.
This is clearly a stubborn refusal to allow Paul to speak for
himself. It is done in order to avoid a
conclusion that Paul comes to that does not fit one's conviction. It is a deliberate abuse to take Paul's
conclusion on the Christian couple and apply it to the couple in the mixed
marriage, for Paul comes to two different conclusions. To ignore this is to reject the Word of God
for the tradition of man. You might
differ with Paul when he shares his own conviction, but no one can question him
when he states what the Lord of the church himself speaks on the issue, which
is the case here with two Christian people.
We need to get this distinction clear in our own minds. In verse 6 Paul says, "I say by
permission not of command." He
knows his own conviction is not of absolute authority, for in verse 7 he says
he would prefer all Christians to remain single as himself, but he knows other
Christian feel equally strong in their conviction that every Christian should
be happily married. Christians have different gifts Paul says, and so he knows
they will have different convictions, and he does not expect that his will be
acceptable to all.
In verse 12 he again says, "I say, not the
Lord." In verse 25 he says,
"I have no command of the Lord but I give you my opinion." It is important that we pay attention to
this distinction between what is clearly commanded of the Lord, and what is
Paul's conviction. Allen Redpath, the
one time pastor of Moody Memorial Church in Chicago, wrote concerning these
statements of Paul, "In other words, he is using his own judgment
supported by what he believes to be the authority of the Holy Spirit. That does not invalidate this teaching in
any way. It does, however, recognize
that in matters concerning marriage there is no law so inclusive as to apply to
every situation. Each case will call
for the careful exercise of human judgment under the direction and authority of
the Holy Spirit."
What Redpath says makes so much sense to pastors who have to
wrestle with real life situations where there is no clear word from the
Bible. Paul is doing that in this
context, for he is confronted by issues that never before existed. Paul could not look to Jesus for a word on a
Gentile married to a Jew who did not accept Jesus as the Messiah. It did not exist in the day of Christ, and
so Jesus never spoke to the issue. Paul
had to deal with it without help from Moses in the Old Testament, or from his
Lord. He had no choice but to seek the
leading of the Holy Spirit for wisdom to do what was best. This is what every leader has to do as he
faces situations not covered by Scripture.
In verse 10 Paul says he does not have to wrestle with this
issue, for he has the word of Christ on it.
Whether two Christians should get divorced or not is not a question at
all. It is not a matter of majority
vote of the Apostles, or of Paul's conviction.
It is a matter of the Lord's command, and Paul says the Lord has said no
to such a divorce. Note that Paul
begins in verse 10 with the wife, and then gets to the husband in verse
11. This is in contrast to all of the
rest of the Bible. Why? Because Paul faces a world totally different
from the world of Moses and Jesus.
Women did not have the right to divorce, and so there was no word to
them about not doing it. Paul, however,
faces a world where women had the right to divorce their husbands. They have equal rights in the New Testament,
much as is the case in our own day, and so Paul deals first with the women.
The Lord's command in the Gospels applies to wives as well as
husbands, and so Paul says a wife should not depart or separate from her
husband. The wife is told not to depart
because divorce for her means leaving her husband and going back to mother, or
elsewhere. Divorce for the husband means to put away, or send away, and so we
see two different words are used to describe the women's perspective and the
man's, but they both mean divorce. Paul
says a wife should not depart, but Paul knew that saying you shouldn't do
something to a woman does not mean she won't do it. It didn't stop Eve, and Paul knew that just because it was the
Lord's command would not stop all Christian women from doing it.
He goes on then after saying you shouldn't do it to say, but if
you do, what you shouldn't do, here is what you should do, when you do what you
shouldn't. In other words, Paul had a backup plan. He was no ivory tower idealist.
He knew that real saints still live like sinners, and so he shows what
needs to be done when a Christian wife fails to do what is best. Paul says here is what is the next best
thing after you have missed the best.
Paul's method here is a great lesson.
Like Paul, we must be asking ourselves all the time, what is the next
best thing to do when we have missed God's best? Some Christians are so pessimistic that when they fail to reach
the ideal they collapse in despair and feel defeated. The proper attitude is this:
I have failed to follow the path to the best, but now which direction
can I go to still be in God's will, and receive the second best, or the third,
or the 99th best?
This is Paul's approach to life, and it is the only realistic
approach. Paul does not go on to look
at all the other possible problems that could develop if this wife also rejects
his second command like she does the first.
What if she does go ahead and remarry after he says this is not
acceptable? If she remarried, she would
be guilty of adultery, and would thereby destroy the marriage bond, and kill
the union she had with her Christian husband.
Paul is hopeful that Christian couples will see what a blot this would
put on the church, and so avoid this kind of scandal. If the wife remarries another Christian in the church, and the
husband goes on to remarry a Christian in the church, it is not far removed
from wife‑swapping, and the church would be disgraced before the
world. Paul says two Christians having
serious marital problems may be forced to separate, and that is bad enough, but
they are to remain unmarried, and seek by all means to overcome their problems
and be reconciled.
Christian couples have an obligation to Christ, and to His
body the church to make sure they get all of the marriage counseling available
to avoid divorce. If divorce comes,
they are to be open to reconciliation.
Even when a Christian couple get involved in a situation where adultery
happens, they should labor hard to bring about healing and reconciliation. Every author you can read agrees that two
Christian people should pay any price to save their marriage.
Paul does not deal with
every possible exception. What if a
Christian husband goes off to live in adultery with another woman, and this
leads to divorce? I know of a pastors daughter
where this was the case. Her husband is
now married to the woman he went off to live with. The marriage bond was dissolved, and there was no reason based on
the Bible or tradition that would make anyone assume that he was still her
husband. She is now a single woman again,
and she is free to remarry.
I know of another pastors daughter who was divorced because
she discovered her husband was homosexual.
Nothing in the Bible deals with this situation, and so, like Paul, we
have to deal with it seeking the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. She got her divorce and remarried a
Christian man, and there was no way to see that this was not a wise thing to
do. The bottom line in all of this
study of divorce and remarriage is this:
Every situation has to be considered on its own merits, and decisions
need to be made in such a way that the grace of God dominates over any kind of
legalism. This is a difficult subject,
and the only way to be right most of the time is to make love the priority.
5. THE IDEAL AND THE REAL Based on I Cor. 7:12‑16
Mary was branded as a backslider when she divorced her husband
of 20 years. Her church asked her to
resign from all her roles, and the outrage pastor demanded-how could you? Mary endured the pain of criticism as long as
she could, and then she moved away. The pastor of her new church questioned her
about her divorce. She burst into tears
and sobbed, "No one knows what I went through. He was a homosexual, and we hadn't had sex for 14 years. I pleaded with him to go for counseling, but
he refused, and would stay away for days with his friend. Finally, I told him you have 18 months to
get counseling. If you don't, I'm going
to leave you."
This man was a Sunday School teacher, a board member, and good
giver to the church, but 18 months later she left him. They seemed like an ideal couple, but no one knew the reality of the situation,
and so she was condemned as a wicked Christian wife. No one could help her until they left the level of the ideal, and
began to deal with her on the level of the real. That, of course, could not happen until she shared the real, but
she could not do that with people who refused to listen to the real. The ideal is for two people to get married,
and have a lifetime of sharing the joys and sorrows of life. Adam and Eve had plenty of heartaches with
the fall, loss of Eden, and one son killing the other. We do not have a record of all they endured,
or of all they enjoyed, but it was a lifetime of both together, that is the
ideal, even in a fallen world.
Unfortunately, the ideal is not always attained. Even God's people could not maintain the
ideal, and so God permitted divorce for His people. You would think God's people could hold to the ideal, but it was
not so. God is a realist, and He knew
there was no point
in expecting His people to
reach the ideal when their hearts were hard.
God accommodated Himself to man.
He came down to their level of attainment for their sake. It was grace and mercy that brought Him down
to the level of permitting divorce. Men
were so determined to leave their wives for other women that if the law did not
permit it unless their wives were dead, they would be tempted to murder their
wives. It was to prevent this worse
evil that God permitted divorce.
Divorce was the lesser of two evils, and God is realistic. He will not demand the ideal if it leads to
intolerable evil, for then the ideal is a sham. Better to permit the lesser evil than to promote the greater
evil.
This is the principle that guides Paul as he deals with the
issue of the Christian and non-Christian marriage. The ideal is to keep this marriage alive, and hopefully win the
non-Christian to the Christian faith.
Paul makes it clear, if the non-Christian wants the marriage, the
Christian is to strive for this ideal, and not get a divorce. The real ideal is to always have two people
married who are Christians. But the
fact is, all through history you have deal with the mixed marriage of the
Christian and non-Christian. This is a
lesser level than the ideal, but on this level there are still ideals to reach,
and so the Christian is encouraged to live with the non-Christian and make it
work.
But someone will say Paul wrote to these very Corinthians in
II Cor. 6:14-15, and warned them not to marry non-Christians, for what
fellowship has light with darkness?
Paul is trying to prevent the problem that leads to so much divorce by
warning of the conflict such marriages produce. The ideal is to avoid the conflict by not falling in love with a
non-Christian. But in our present
passage, Paul is dealing with the real, those who have already missed the
ideal. They are already in a marriage
with a non-Christian. Does Paul say it
is hopeless? Not at all. He says, if the non-Christian is willing to
live with the Christian, the marriage can work. I know of marriages where the mates are happy, and truly love
each other, even though one does not trust in Christ as their Savior. It is a problem, but people can have good
marriages in a less than ideal relationship.
Is it a sin for the Christian to be one with the
non-Christian? Not at all. It is a sin not to satisfy the sexual needs
of the non-Christian mate. But if it is
wrong to marry a non-Christian, how can it be right to live with them and meet
their sexual needs. We need to see that
an act of sin does not mean the same as a life of sin. If a Christian girl marries a non-Christian,
that is an act of sin. It is the sin of
rebellion, disobedience, and ignorance. They are out of God's will in marrying
a non-Christian. Once they have
committed this sin,they need to repent, and seek God's forgiveness, but this
does not mean they must reject their non-Christian partner. They do not now live in sin, by remaining
faithful and loyal to this one they sinfully married. On the contrary, they live in sin only if they refuse to be
faithful and loyal to their mate.
God accepts their marriage as valid, and one they have an
obligation to make work. Here is reality, a child of God married to a
non-Christian, and the child of God is under obligation to this
unbeliever. God did not want his child
in this relationship, but now that it is real, they have an obligation to strive for an ideal marriage on that
level.
Paul says in verse 14 that the non-Christian is sanctified, or
consecrated, through the believing mate.
The result is, the children born to such a union are not pagan children,
but Christian children. Paul is saying,
on the spiritual level the Christian genes are dominant. When a black and white marry, the children
are always dark, and never totally white, because the black genes are
dominant. So when a Christian and
non-Christian marry, the child is always a Christian child, and never a
non-Christian. In other words, God
looks upon all children from a mixed marriage as a part of His flock. They are
not saved by merely having a Christian parent, but they are a part of
the Christian community where they will likely become part of the kingdom of
God.
Timothy was a product of just such a marriage. In Acts 16:1 we read, "A disciple was
there named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his
father was a Greek." This implies
he was not a believer. Here is a non-Christian
father who gave birth to a son, and he became a leader in the Christian
church. Many great Christians have had
non-Christian father's or mother's. One
parent being a Christian means that the children are not unclean, says
Paul. They are not part of the pagan
world in darkness, and cut off from the people of God. Not at all, they are part of the people of
God, and set apart to be in the service of God.
A marriage of a Christian and a non-Christian is not ideal,
but it is a tolerable reality that can even produce fruit for the kingdom of
God. Therefore, the Christian is not to
use the non-Christian as an excuse for divorce. The believer is not contaminated by the unbeliever, but just the
opposite is the case. The unbeliever is
made acceptable because of the believer.
The non-Christian is not saved by being married to a Christian, but he
does gain a unique status before God, as one who is part of the community of
God's people. He is lost, but he is still part of the Christian community, and
is having an influence in that
community. If it is positive, and he is
growing, then there is a good chance he will come to Christ, and become a full
fledged member of the community. If he
rebels, and finds the whole relationship intolerable, he will probably leave
the marriage, and find a mate to his liking in the pagan world.
What this means is, if one partner is a Christian in a
marriage, you have a Christian family.
That family is part of the kingdom of God. It is not ideal or complete, but, nevertheless, it is included in
the kingdom. God is not offended that
the Christian loves, and makes love, to a pagan mate, nor does in consider the
offspring of such a union illegitimate.
Again, we see God adapts to reality.
It is not the ideal, but he does not ring his hands in despair and
refuse to have anything to do with the mess.
He says, I will deal with the real, and bring good out of it.
Paul does not say, if a marriage is not made in heaven, you can
treat it as of no value on earth. Not
so-it is legitimate, and precious to God, and you can count on it, God will
even hear the prayers of this non-Christian mate for his children, for God
considers them His children. So we see,
there is an ideal even in the less than ideal relationship. But in verse 15 Paul go on to deal with
reality of not being able to maintain this secondary ideal. What if the non-Christian mate refuses to
live with the Christian? If they refuse
to seek the ideal, the Christian has to face this reality. Paul says the Christian is not bound. When the Catholic church refused to let
Christians be free in such a circumstance, this became a major battle in the
reformation. Listen to these words of
Martin Luther:
"But shouldn't the
Christian mate wait until his non-Christian
spouse comes back or dies,
as has been the custom and canon
law until now? Answer:
If he wants to wait for his mate, that
is up to his good will. For since the Apostle proclaims his free
and unbound, he is not
obliged to wait for his mate but may
change his status in the
name of God. I wish to God that people
had made use of this
teaching of St. Paul, or would begin to make
use of it where man and wife
run away from each other, or one
leaves the other sitting,
for much whoring and sin have resulted
from them. This has been increased by the senseless
laws of the
pope, which, indirect
contradiction to this text of St. Paul,
compel and force the one mate not to change his status
on pain of
losing his soul's salvation, but to wait for the run
away spouse
or the death of the same. This means that the brother or sister
in such cases is truly bound in irons, because of the
wantonness
and wickedness
of another, and for no cause is driven into the
danger of unchastity."
The reformers were angry at the Catholic church because they
were indifferent to the hardships they created for people because of their
legalism. They would not make provision
for people who were back in verse 2 of this chapter, where they were full of
temptation. Paul said such should get a
wife or husband. The Catholic church
said no, not even if you have been divorced, or if your non-Christian mate has
left you. The Catholic church clung to
its ideal, even when it had already been shattered. They refused to come down from the ideal to the level of the
real. The reformers said this is sheer
folly. God knows better than that, and
the church ought to follow His lead.
You need to come out of the ivory tower, and meet people where they
are. Luther said, any Christian who is
divorced and finds himself in the position of verse 2, should remarry. Remarriage is always right, rather than
living in immorality.
There is a great deal of guilt over this issue. Many people struggle with whether they have
a right to remarry. Typical of many is
the letter to Dr. C.S. Lovett.
"Dr. Lovett, my husband divorced me 6 years ago to marry another
lady. He is still living. Would I be living in a state of adultery if
I married again?" Dr. Lovett
replied that there is no such thing as living in a state of adultery. Adultery is an act of sin, and not a
state. Of course, if you are committing
adultery over and over again, you could be said to be living in a state of
adultery. But is sex by any legally
married couple, adultery?
Most agree that once adultery has been committed, and a
marriage bond is severed, and a new marriage is entered into, even if the sin
of adultery was the cause of the divorce, the new marriage is not a living in
adultery. If two people sin by
divorcing without a Biblical reason, and remarry, they do commit adultery, but
they do not live in adultery, for once the former marriage is dead, sex in the
new marriage is not adultery, but an obligation. The point is, once you are married to a pagan, or to an
adulterer, or adulteress, you have all the same obligations as any couple who
marry wisely. You may be guilty of sin
for getting into such a marriage, but once you are in you are not living in
sin. You cannot live in sin with
someone who is truly your mate.
The woman, whose husband divorced her, and then she remarried,
cannot commit adultery by remarrying, for she is no longer a married
woman. Her husband, by remarrying, has
shattered their marriage bond, and however guilty of sin he was in doing so,
his present marriage is a real marriage, and he is not living in adultery. He committed adultery by getting married,
but he is not living in adultery, for his new wife is his only wife. His former
wife does not have a husband, and so if she finds herself, as a single, in
great need of love, and cannot be happy single, there is no reason in the world
she should not remarry if she finds the right partner. She would not be living in adultery, or even
committing adultery, for she is not married, and if her partner is not married,
there are perfectly free to marry with no sin whatever.
This is what Paul means in verse 15 when he says, the brother
or sister is not bound. Not bound means free.
There is no marriage bond binding once the unbeliever has deserted. The Christian is free to remarry because the
union is dead. This is the key to all
valid exceptions. If a marriage is
dead, and cannot function to fulfill the purpose of marriage, and it cannot be
restored, it is no longer a marriage, and people are free to remarry.
Paul prefers everyone to stay single. It is the perfect solution to divorce. Marriage is the primary cause of divorce,
and so you prevent it by never getting married. But Paul is a realist and he knows people will burn with passion
they cannot control if they don't get married.
The divorce single is in this same boat. Paul's logic must be seen here also. It is best not to remarry, but if you are going to burn and be
tempted, then get yourself a mate. Those who reject remarriage, and demand that
divorced singles remain unmarried are idealists who refuse to deal with the
real as Paul did. Nobody ever wanted
people to stay single more than Paul, but Paul recognized this is not possible
for a great many.
Those who force Christians to remain single when they could be
happily remarried, often drive these Christians into an immoral lifestyle. They are actually forced to live in sin to
avoid an act of sin, and this is folly.
Paul would have all giving singleness a try, but if the sexual
frustration is intolerable, his principle is simple, better to marry than to
burn. That goes for never married, widows, and the divorced. To say the divorce single does not have this
option is to say, it is better for them to become prostitutes, or live with
somebody than to remarry, for remarriage is absolutely forbidden.
The facts of life make it clear, the divorced person is often
in greater temptation than anyone, for they have enjoyed marital sex, and there
need is usually greater than that of the never married. Men tend to see the divorced woman as a
likely partner, because of being deprived, and she too is open to greater
temptation because of this attitude of men. The philosophy of life that Paul
teaches is, aim for the ideal; strive to reach the highest; stretch for the
best, but when that goal is not attainable, make the best of the real level you
are living on, for in those cases, the real lived at its best is the
ideal.
6. THE PAULINE PRIVILEGE Based on I Cor. 7:12‑16
Thousands of young boys walked past the Bathwell Castle in
England, and none ever dreamed of climbing up the chimney to carve his name at
the top. There was one exception,
however. One boy did the unusual, and
his name was David Livingstone. That
boy went on to become one of histories most famous missionaries to Africa. Browning wrote,
You see lads walk the
street.
Sixty the minute, what's to
note in that?
You see the one lad astride
the chimney stack.
Him you must watch.
Browning is saying, keep
your eyes on the exception, for the exception may be more significant than the
rule. The age old saying that the
exception proves the rule is nonsense.
What it proves is that the rule is not all there is. It proves the rule does not cover all cases,
and to say it does, in the face of an exception, is to say that a black sheep
proves that all sheep are white. The
exception does not prove the rule, it breaks it, and shows that reality is more
complex than the rule. Science must
constantly reckon with exceptions. It
cannot say, light is always a wave, for there are conditions under which light
behaves like a particle. This
exceptional behavior cannot be dismissed as irrelevant, but must be
incorporated into the total picture.
Darwin had to postpone the publishing of his book for 29 years, because
he had to be honest about exceptions.
Often he would exclaim,
"This little beast is
doing just what I did not want him to do."
Ignore exceptions, and you become, not a seeker for truth, but
a manipulator of facts to get your own
way, and a narrow minded legalist, whose only concern is getting your own
way. The Bible demands that you be open
to the power of exceptions, for only those who are, are open to the spirit of
grace. Even under Old Testament law we see
examples of exceptions that allow grace to dominate. The law forbids the Jews to marry Caananites or Moabites, but
Rahab the Caananite and Ruth the Moabite are in the blood line of Jesus. They
became exceptions by their faith, and played a major role in God's plan.
The Jews recognized the need to be flexible, and open to exceptions. It was the law that all male babies be
circumcised on the eighth day. It was a
sign of the covenant between God and Israel.
But there were conditions that could alter this law, and allow for an
exception. A Rabbi wrote, "If a
mother has lost 2 sons by the fever following circumcision, the operation on
the third should be deferred until he is grown and strong." Here was a
circumstance where holding to the letter of the law would be cruel. You destroy the whole spirit of the law if
you cannot adjust to exceptions. This
was the whole point of Jesus breaking the Sabbath laws to heal people. He was making it clear man was not made for
the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for man, and, therefore, it is always
right to do good on the Sabbath. The
rule is for man's good, but if the exception is even better, then the rule can be broken. The exception is more important than the rule, if it accomplishes
the purpose that made the rule good in the first place.
Exceptions are so vital to the whole plan of God that there
would be no New Testament without the power of the exception. All have sinned and come short of the glory
of God, is the blanket of condemnation
that falls over the whole of humanity.
All, that is, except one. There
is one glorious exception to this rule, and that one exception‑the Lord
Jesus Christ, by not falling short of God's glory, made it possible for there
to be a perfect sacrifice to take away the sin of the world. In other words, through this one exception
the door is opened for grace to triumph over law, and allow all men to escape
the condemnation of the law. God's
entire plan of salvation is based on the power of the exception.
Jesus stressed the motivating power of the exception in His
own ministry. The 99 followed the rule,
and they stayed in the fold, but the one exception wandered away. Jesus says the exception is what dominates
the shepherd's mind, for he leaves the 99 and goes after the one to seek and to
save it, and when he does, all heaven rejoices over that one exception being
found. The point is, sometimes it is
the exception that matters most. Those Christians who refused to deal with
exception tend to become legalists, like the Pharisees, and depart from the
spirit of Christ. Much of the conflict
of Catholic and Protestants was over this very issue.
Jesus made it clear in Matt. 5:32, and 19:9 that there was an
exception which made divorce legitimate.
That exception was adultery. The
word actually covers all forbidden
sexual relationships,
including sex with animals. Jesus is
saying there are some things no mate needs to tolerate. He does not say they have to divorce for
this behavior, but they are free to do so, if they cannot forgive and be
reconciled.
The Catholic church had to reject this exception. Their legalistic system did not permit them
to be open to the Lord's exception.
They had developed the concept that marriage was a sacrament. A sacrament is a means of grace, and once
you have experienced a sacrament, you have received something from God that can
never be undone. Baptism is another of
the sacraments, and so once you have been baptized, they say, you have received
the grace of God, and this can never be undone. Applied to marriage, the Catholic church said, there can be no
such thing as divorce, for once married it is like being baptized, and you
can't undo it. Only death can end a
marriage.
Now, of course, they had to deal with intolerable situations, and
so they called marriages like Jesus and Paul deal with, not true marriages,
and, therefore, able to be annulled.
The history of this is a terrible scandal, for people married for many
years, with large families, could get their marriage annulled, if they knew the
right people, and had the power. The
Catholic church had to deal with exception, but they did it by pretending there
were no exceptions.
Then came the Protestant reformers, and they began to question
the Biblical right of the church to impose on people what God did not. The first thing the reformers did was to
reject the idea that marriage was a sacrament.
This was clearly a man made idea, for marriage is universal. All men, even pagans and atheists, get
married, and they do not receive grace in doing so, and so the whole idea comes
from the Catholic desire to get power in people's lives. The reformers discovered that Jesus not only
allowed divorce for the exception of adultery, but that Paul allowed another
exception here in I Cor. 7. Desertion
by a non‑Christian became the second exception the reformers
allowed. The Catholic church at the
Council of Trent in 1563 blasted the Protestants for heresy. The two sides became locked into their
positions. The Catholics became more
legalistic than ever,
and the Protestants became
more soft hearted than ever.
Luther felt that the exception Paul allowed was based on the
recognition that the marriage was dead.
You cannot keep alive that which is dead. This lead to their being still more exceptions. Once you depart from the absolute of the
Catholic church, you open the door to more and more exceptions, and this is
what the Protestants did. Luther, Calvin,
Melanchthon, and Zwingli, all agreed that divorce was permissible for other reasons
that destroyed the whole purpose of marriage.
They added such things as:
1. Impotence: If sex is not
possible, and is yet vital to ones partner, they said there is no marriage, and
divorce and remarriage is legitimate.
If a mate refused to meet the sexual need of the other, as Paul stresses
in the first part of this chapter, they forfeit their right to be married. We are getting into touchy territory here,
for the reformers are now going beyond Jesus or Paul, and we are in the area
where the Bible does not speak, and it did not end here.
2. Leprosy became another cause for divorce, for this made marriage
impossible. Other sicknesses were soon
added, such as mental illness.
3. John Calvin added extreme religious incompatibility. And Italian leader in Naples became a
Protestant and fled to Geneva where Calvin's authority was strong. His wife remained a Catholic and refused to
come with him, even after he settled down and invited her to join him. Calvin said the marriage was dead. He dissolved it, and the man was allowed to
remarry.
The Protestant view seems to open up more and more reasons for
valid divorce and remarriage, for life
seems to get more and more complicated.
What if a man's wife became a witch?
What if she tried to poison him?
Were these not just as serious as adultery and desertion? The Puritans tried to limited divorce to the
two exceptions of Jesus and Paul, but these other issues forced them to
consider more exceptions. In the late
sixty's, the Baptist Convention of Canada called upon the government to
recognize divorce for incurable insanity, chronic alcoholism, and repeated
prison sentences.
There is much more of the history of this battle, but we have
seen enough to get the picture. The
Catholic position of absolutely no divorce led to all kinds of cruelty and hypocrisy.
But the Protestant view of divorce for anything that destroyed the
purpose of marriage led to more and more exceptions. One refused to let the water of liberty flow at all, and the
other produced a flood. The conflict
goes on to this day, and Christians still tend to fall into one category or the
other. They are either so anti‑divorce
they refuse to accept the exceptions, even of Christ and Paul. Or they are so open to divorce they accept
it as inevitable for numerous reasons.
It is hard to stay in the middle, but it is important to try and strive
for balance. Which way you lean depends
largely on how you interpret Paul in this paragraph which deals with what have
come to be called, The Pauline Privilege.
Having studied the history of the interpretation of this
passage, I have to take my stand with the Protestant Reformers, and recognize
that Paul has added an exception that Jesus never dealt with. There were no Christian and non‑Christian
marriages when Jesus spoke, but Paul had to deal with this issue, for when the
Gospel came to Corinth, and all of the Gentile world, many families were
divided. On top of this, Christians
were in the minority, and non‑Christians were the majority. Where that is the case there are always
Christians who fall in love and marry non‑Christians. Paul would not have had to warn Christians
not to do it, unless they were doing it.
Paul was dealing with a major social and spiritual problem that did not
exist in the time of Christ.
That is why Paul begins this paragraph in verse 12 by saying,
"I say, not the Lord." He has
no word of Christ on this issue, and he has not received any special
revelation. It is a complex subject the
Corinthians have asked him about, and Paul is saying, here is my best judgment
on the issue. Notice, Paul did not say
the Bible has the answer to everything, and then quote a couple of proof texts
to settle the matter. He says just the
opposite, and says that we have no word of God on this problem, because it
never before existed. Paul is,
therefore, setting a precedent for the entire history of the church. He is saying that there are all kinds of new
problems that can arise that are not dealt with in Scripture. The Bible is not an exhaustive rule book to
cover all of the issues that life can bring.
There is no law for everything under the sun. Instead, there are principles that the believer must apply to
make the best judgments as new issues arise.
Paul said that his best judgment in the case of a non‑Christian
deserting a Christian mate, was that the Christian had no marriage, and was not
bound. All of the reformers said, by
being not bound Paul meant they were free to divorce and remarry. The
assumption is that the non‑Christian has left to remarry another non‑Christian
more to his liking. If this is not what
Paul meant, then there is no sense in saying they are not bound. If they had to
remain married to that mate, even when they were gone, and had remarried
another, there is no way to say they were not bound. They would be nothing but bound, and they would actually be
slaves to the non‑Christian deserter, who was free to do as he or she
pleased, while the Christian had no freedom at all.
Believe it or not, some Protestants took this view that Paul
meant by not being bound,
that they were merely not
bound to try and win their mate to Christ any longer. Some comfort, after they
have taken off and remarried. The
cruelty of this view has hurt many Christian lives, and made them slaves when
Paul's whole purpose was to set them free. The majority of Protestants,
however, recognized that Paul had already established desertion as a legitimate
basis for divorce and remarriage. This
Pauline Privilege has been a guide to the church through the centuries in
dealing with new situations. There are
circumstances that make a marriage no marriage, and when these circumstances
are that severe, the marriage is dead, and grace and mercy demand that the
victims be given a chance for a new beginning.
I have read of many pastors who solved the problem of how to
deal with divorce people by saying, they just don't deal with them at all. There are to many uncertainties as to who is
to blame, and who is lying, and so they just wash their hands of the whole
mess. This is the no risk legalistic
approach. It solves everything for the
pastor, and solves nothing for those who are suffering. In contrast, we have the Pauline approach. The Corinthians have messed up their
lives. Their sin and ignorance has
taken them into complex relationships that have created suffering and sorrow. They need help to find a way to get their
lives straightened out so that they can live meaningful lives for Christ.
Paul says, I don't have all the answers, but I'll do my best
to give you the guidance you need to get back on track. God took this attitude and Paul's advice,
and made it a part of His Word, and by so doing He says to the whole church,
this is the way to go to be Christlike, and to build my kingdom. Deal with people where they are. Whatever their mess, there is always a way
to go that leads to life, for sin can be forgiven, and there can be a new
beginning that leads to happiness.
Look at how Jesus dealt with the woman at the well. Hollywood cannot produce a more messed up
person than her. She was married five
times, and was living with a man who was not her husband. It is likely she was divorced from several
of her five husbands, for there is no hint that they all died, or were poisoned
by her. She was a person that most
counselors would be happy to avoid.
Jesus accepted her as a person of value, and by so doing He won her, and
she became the best evangelist we have any record of in the Gospels. She was not the type of woman you go looking
for to be a leader. She had done
everything all wrong, and had gone down every path God had forbidden. Yet, Jesus saw her as a precious person
worth saving, restoring, and using for His kingdom.
The point is, Jesus did not treat this often divorced woman as
one guilty of unforgivable sin. On the
contrary, He so forgave her that He allowed her to become His disciple and
witness. This kind of grace is scandalous
to many Christians. They refused to
believe a person can make so many mistakes, and still have the right to be
happy in Christ. There legalistic minds demand that she pay for her folly, and
they refuse her the right to remarry and be happy with another mate. They demand that she remain single for the
rest of her life, regardless of her misery and temptation. You can go this route if you chose, for many
good Christians do, but I have made my choice to go with the reformers, and
chose the way of Christ and Paul, which is the way of grace that allows
exceptions, and permits the victims of a dead marriage to remarry in the
Lord. If I err, let me err on the side
of love, and not on the side of legalism.
Does this view of the reformers encourage divorce? Not at all, the reformers hated divorce and
fought against it on all levels. They
just faced up to the fact that you have to reckon with exceptions. To ignore them, in order to be an
absolutist, is to put law above love, and precepts above persons. God did not do it in the Old Testament;
Jesus refused to do it in the New Testament, and Christians must refuse to do
it as long as history lasts. Exceptions that fit the Bible principles do not
open the door to sin, but they open the door of mercy to those who otherwise
may be dominated by sin. The exceptions
permit us to make people our priority.
This is the goal of the Pauline Privilege.
7. THE THIRD
CHOICE Based on I Cor. 7:17‑24
Hubert Humphry's father was a druggist in a small town in
South Dakota. He had to come up with a
way to increase profits at his soda fountain.
He began to push the idea of putting an egg in his malts to enrich them. Nobody was ordering the new malt, so told
his clerks to ask people if they wanted an egg in their malt, but nothing
happened. Then he got the idea to have
the clerk face the customer with an egg in each hand, and they would ask,
"Would you like one or two eggs in your malt?" Profits began to rise at last, for this
clever approach caused people to forget they had a third choice, which was, no
egg at all.
Life is constantly playing this trick on all of us. We are always being forced into either‑
or choices, when in fact,
the best may be neither‑nor, but a third choice. Edward Whymper
was the first man to conquer
the Matterhorn in 1865. Every climber
before him tried the two approaches on the Southwest side. He tried those two approaches 7 times
himself, because all the experts said these were the only two ways to make
it. He decided to defy the wisdom of
all the guides, and make a third choice.
He went up the Eastern side, and he made it to the top. Everyone thought there were only two
choices, but Whymper showed them there was a third and better choice.
The Pharisees were forever trying to get Jesus trapped by
their either‑or questions.
They asked, "Should we
pay taxes to Caesar or not?" They
were saying, take your stand Jesus,
either you stand with those who give their loyalty to the state, or you stand
with those who give their loyalty to God.
Which of the two is your choice?
Jesus is too clever for their trap, and He says, you are forgetting the
third choice, where you can be loyal to Caesar with what is his, and loyal to
God with what is His. It is not a
matter of either‑or at all. It is
a matter of both‑and. May God
spare us from the folly of thinking life is always a matter of either‑or,
and that there are only two choices.
Of course, this is often true, and it is definitely true in
life's most crucial choices. Either you
receive Christ as your Savior, or you reject Him. Either you are saved, or lost.
There is not third choice here.
But this is not the issue that is confusing the Corinthians, and has
confused Christians through the centuries.
The Corinthians had made the right choice for Christ, but now as
Christians they thought there were only two choices open to them. Either remain just as they were and change
nothing, or reject all of their past and change everything. The first would indicate nothing had
happened, and would make conversion meaningless, so they decided choice two was
their only alternative, and so everything must change and be different.
This radical commitment sounds very noble and highly
spiritual, but in real life it proves,
all to often, to be unwise,
for it produces enormous instability and insecurity. Paul sees this in the Corinthians, and he is concerned about
them. Therefore, he writes this paragraph
to somewhat dampen their spirits, by showing them there is a third choice. If
you have ever cooked on a grill, you have had the experience where the
fat drippings begin to burn out of control, and you have to sprinkle water over
the coals to bring the flames under control. It is not Holy Spirit fire that is
burning when people are getting hurt and becoming unstable by their
enthusiasm. Not everything Christians
do is wise, just because it is done with such burning enthusiasm.
The Corinthians were caught up in the‑change is
everything syndrome. If its new its
better, and so change to what is new.
Gentiles who became Christians heard of the Jewish covenant in
circumcision, and they were enthused about that, and wanted to be circumcised.
Jewish Christians were enthused about the freedom of the Gentiles to be God's
children without circumcision, and they sought, by means of surgery, to remove
the effects of circumcision, in order to be like the Gentiles. Of course, this was a ridiculous idolizing
of change for change sake, and not only added nothing to the church, but
detracted from it by implying that Christianity promoted the uprooting of
everyone's heritage. Christians were
changing all kinds of things that did not need changing, but needed preserving. They got carried away with change to the
point that they became unstable. When
Christians become unstable, they do not appeal to the world, and they stir up
division among themselves.
Paul, therefore, was writing to these Corinthians Christians,
and making stability one of his main themes.
It is the motive behind all that he says in this chapter. He is telling these fanatics for change that
change is not necessary in everything.
If your marital status is that you are single, and can handle it, you
don't have to marry. If you are married
and become widowed or divorced, you don't have to remarry. If
you are married to a non‑Christian, you don't have to get a
divorce and marry a Christian. There
are all kinds of things you don't have to change. There are exceptions that Paul recognizes, but his main point is
that you can remain just as you are in so many ways, and be a healthy and stable Christian. Even the slave who accepts Christ can learn
to be a happy stable Christian as a slave.
Paul has learned to be content in any state, and he is convinced this is
a key to Christian stability, and that is why he urges this on the Corinthians.
The choice is not, either is nothing is changed, or everything
is changed. There is a third choice he
spells out, and it is the choice of balance, where you change some things and
leave others unchanged for the sake of stability. Between nothing and everything is something, and this third
choice is the best. A lot has changed since
Paul's day, but the amazing thing is, that with all of the changes, everything
is still so much the same. It's like
this letter and response: "Dear
Abby, Six years ago, when I first married, every evening our dog would bark at
me, and my wife would bring me my slippers.
Now my wife barks at me and the dog brings me my slippers. What shall I do? Troubled. Dear Troubled,
What's your problem? You're still
getting the same service."
Radical changes can leave everything pretty much the
same. The centuries since Paul wrote
have brought many changes, and the issues of circumcision and slavery are not
relevant to us today. But there are new
issues that put people into the same conflict the Corinthians had. Today there are many who are becoming
Christians who are in prisons. They are very much in the same boat as the
slaves Paul wrote to. There are many
who become Christians who belong to liberal churches, and who go through the
same battle the Corinthians had. To
what degree do I change my external affiliations? What rituals should I change, or what should I cling to? Christians in every age have to wrestle with
the issue of change.
The principle we need to see is that change must begin as
internal, rather than external.
The external is the most conspicuous
choice, however, and so people tend to put it first.
The Corinthians were caught
up in a fervor for external change.
Change your external relationships; change your external environment;
change your physical appearance, and status.
Paul throws a wet blanket on this fire, and says, this is zeal without
knowledge. It is much ado about
nothing, for external change, in itself, may be completely worthless and
without meaning. The Gentile who gets
circumcised has chosen a change that equals nothing, and the Jew who gets
surgery to eliminate the marks of circumcision, has gone to a lot of bother,
equally for nothing. Paul rejects the
idea that change is good in itself.
Paul is saying, don't waste your energy on changing the external, it is
the internal change that is most needed.
Paul says his rule in all the churches is the same‑stay
where you start. The Christians first
responsibility is to be a Christian where they are. That is why Jesus told the Gaderene demoniac he could not follow
him, but was to go home to his own people.
They were the people who would be the most impressed by his radical
healing, and his new found faith. His
greatest impact would be on those who could see the change. So brighten the corner where you are was the
message of Jesus. Paul is saying the
same thing to the slaves who have come to Christ. You have got to learn to be a Christian where you are, and show
that it makes a difference to be a Christian in any situation. If you can't be a Christian where you are,
how do you expect to be a Christian where you have never been?
Now, let's be aware, Paul
was a ware of exceptions. He would not
say to a converted prostitute, just stay where you are and be a good Christian
prostitute. Some externals demand
immediate change.
Paul recognized that enthusiasm for external change can be a
form of escapism. The Christian wife
who is married to a non‑Christian is saying, if only I could get out of
this relationship, I could be a good Christian. The fact is, only when
she learns to be the wife God meant her to be to this non‑Christian, will
she be a good Christian. The strong
desire for external change is often a desire to escape obligations and
responsibilities. Paul's point is, do
not try to become a better Christian by external change. Instead, take your state, whatever it is,
and, however short of the ideal, and learn to grow where you are planted. Do
not hold up escape as your only hope.
Look at change in your attitudes, and internal life, as the way to deal with
dissatisfaction. This holds good for
singles who long to be married; for marrieds who long for divorce; for the
divorced and widowed who long for remarriage; for Jews who long to be like
Gentiles, and for Gentiles who long to be like Jews, and for slaves who long to
be free, and for the many dozens of other states of life people find themselves
in, which they long to change.
The only way you can be adequately ready for external change
is to come to the point where you no longer need it to be a good
Christian. In other words, when you
learn to be content in whatever state you are, and can find meaning in that
state, you are ready to be a mature Christian in other states. The first goal of the Christian than, is not
to change, but to find meaning in your present status, whatever that might be.
A doctor came to the famous psychiatrist Viktor Frankel, and
told him he just could not be reconciled to the death of his wife. He was full of stress and grief. Dr. Frankel asked him how his wife would
have taken it had he died first.
"Oh," he said, "It would have been terrible for
her." And he described how
intolerable the situation would have been.
Dr. Frankel pointed out to him, that by his surviving, he spared her all
of that suffering. The mans attitude
changed immediately, and he was able to come out of his pit of depression, for
his present awful state now took on meaning.
He thought the only hope for meaning was in an external change of
circumstances. He was trying to escape,
but it wouldn't work. The key he found was not in external change, but in
internal change, and by that means he was able to find meaning in his present
state.
This is Paul's message to all who are in states they do not
care for. Your priority should not be
escapism, but stability, which begins with the inner man, and its adjustment to
the present state. Reject this approach
to life, and go the way of escapism, and you end with nightmares more often
then a dream come true.
I can never forget the wife who felt she could never be happy
until she was divorced.
Her husband wanted her to
stay with him, and I joined him in pleading with her to remain,
but it was all in vain. Her mind was filled with the fantasy that
she would be gloriously free,
and could really enjoy life
as never before. She got her divorce. A few months later she called me aside in the hospital where she
was a nurse. She said, if only I had
listened to you. She had tried to find
happiness in a couple of affairs, and soon learned that such freedom was not
the gold she thought it would be. She
did not feel enriched at all, but poorer than ever. She said she was lonely, and longed for the security of her home
and husband. Now it was to late. She had been duped and deceived by seeing
what seemed to be the glory of change, and when she got it, she had to live
with the curse of change.
It is not an absolute law, but it is a basic principle of
life: Change the inner man and you can be content in any state. The Jew does not need to be a Gentile to be
a happy Christian. The Gentile does not
have to conform to Judaism to be a happy Christian. The single does not have to be married to be a happy
Christian. A married person does not
need a Christian mate to be a happy Christian.
The slave does not need to be free to be a happy Christian. You can
be a happy Christian right where you are in almost any state, so stay where you are, and develop
stability, is the message of Paul.
Don't worry about changing where you are, until you change who you are.
In a world where change is worshipped, Paul's message is
simply, beware, change can be dangerous.
We live in a culture where progress, advancement, and speed, are key ingredients. All of these mean change is a basic part of
life. The idea of staying put anywhere
rubs against the grain of our culture.
We thrive on the very thing that Paul warns us about. We encourage change as rapidly as
possible. It a new convert can be
sharing his testimony to the nation a week after he becomes a Christian, we are
thrilled. The faster people can be propelled to the top, in any area of life,
the better we like it. Paul knew the
dangers of emphasizing change over stability.
He wrote to Timothy about selecting leadership in the church, and wrote
in I Tim. 3:6‑7, "He must not be a recent convert, or he may be
puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil; moreover he
must be well thought of by outsiders, or he may fall into reproach and the
snare of the devil."
Paul was a realist. He
knew that good Christian people pushed into too much change to rapidly could
become better servants of the devil than servants of Christ. They are not allowed to stay put and develop
stability where they are, but are thrust into places and positions where they
are not able to cope with the temptation to abuse their power. History is filled with the collapsed lives
due to man's compulsion to change everything on the outside, regardless of
inner changes. Paul says, don't go the
route that leads to disaster. Instead, let internal change take precedence over
external change. The Christian faith is
both firm and elastic. It can change everything,
but it can also establish everything, and, thus, preserve and conserve. Christianity is meant to be both
conservative and liberal. Conservative in that it does not change anything just
for the sake of change. It holds fast
to what is good, and strives to sanctify all that it touches. It is liberal in that by sanctifying all
that it touches, it changes it, and changes it for the better. It is not either conservative,
or liberal, for there is a
third choice, and that is a balance combination of the other two that preserves
the old, as it creates the new.
Francis Bacon was one of the most brilliant minds England ever
produced. His essays are still classics
in the literature of ethics. His wisdom
has no doubt helped many to stay on the right track. He would have died with the highest respect had it not been for
an external change he was not prepared to handle. He was made Lord Chancellor of England, which made him, not only
the most learned man in the empire, but one of the most powerful. He was an authority on ethics, but he became
unethical, and was convicted of bribery and financial corruption. He lived the last five years of his life a
disgraced man.His inner man was not prepared to handle the pressure of the
external change. It happens everyday,
and it happens to Christians. That is
why Paul says, stay where you are, until who you are, can handle a change in
where you are.
Stability comes before change, for the stable person can make
change beneficial. The unstable tend to
make change a curse. Jesus said the
wise life is the life built on the rock. Those who build on unstable sand will
fall, and there building is all in vain.
Paul says the same thing to the Corinthians. Stay put and lay the foundation for stability, before you get
caught up in the spirit of change.
Everyone needs change, but everyone also needs the lack of change. The choice is never, either change, or don't
change, but rather, regulate change based on what your inner stability can
handle well. For the good life, and the
life that will honor Christ, we must all make this third choice.
8. SINS AND MISTAKES Based
on I Cor. 7:25‑31
Bruce Larson in Dare To Live Now, tells of his experience as
a new recruit during World War II. He
sat down to his first breakfast in the mess hall, at Fort Benning, Georgia. He saw something in a large bowl that looked
like cream of wheat. He scooped out a
lot of it into his bowl, and poured milk and sugar on it. A tall mountain boy sitting across the table
from him was bug-eyed, and he asked, "Is that the way you eat grits?"
Larson says, as a Chicago boy he heard of grits, but never had seen any. He did not want to admit his ignorance, so
he said, "Yes, this is how we eat them in Chicago." It was awful tasting, but he manage to down
the whole bowl. He learned that they were
meant to be eaten with butter, salt, and pepper. Some days later the same soldier sat at his table, and he ate
another bowl of grits with milk and sugar, rather than admit he had made a
mistake.
Had he admitted his mistake, he would not have needed to sin,
by telling a lie. Human nature hates to
admit to mistakes. We all freely admit
that nobody is perfect, but we hesitate to exhibit ourselves as proof of the
rule. But the fact is, mistakes are
distinct from sin. This means, not everything
that we do that may be unwise, is a sin.
It is not necessarily a violation of God's commands or will. Paul makes it clear in verse 28 that if the
Corinthians do not give heed to his advice, they do not sin. If you don't sin by ignoring Paul, what is
it? It all depends on how it turns
out. If you find you are in all the
trouble he tried to spare you, then you have made a mistake. He warned you, but you did not listen. Now
you must suffer the consequences, but the fact remains, you have not sinned. If you find you overcome all of the
problems, and are very happy, and your marriage does not hinder, but even
helps, your service to God, then you
have not sinned, nor even made a mistake, but have, as we say today, lucked
out. You took a risk, and you won.
We are in a very unique portion of Scripture in this seventh
chapter of I Cor. We are not dealing
here with absolute issues of right and wrong.
We are dealing with issues that are very complex, and where the question
is not, what is right or wrong, but what is the best under the
circumstances. The result is, the
choice will not be for sin or righteousness, but for what is wise, or for what
is a potential mistake. Let's not
minimize mistakes, for though they are less than sins, they do violate
wisdom. They are not necessarily less
costly than sins, however. If I steal a
thirty cent candy bar, I have sinned, and I need to confess it and be forgiven,
and make restitution by repaying the thirty cents. This is not a costly sin, even though Christ had to die for that
one too. But if I make a mistake, and
get married to the wrong person at the wrong time, I have not sinned at all,
but that mistake may be extremely costly.
It was no sin that someone left off a mere hyphen in the instructions
fed into the guidance system of Mariner I, but that mistake caused it to go off
course into oblivion, and cost the nation two millions dollars. Mistakes can be costly, but they can also be
trivial. Like the pastor who preached
on gossip, and then closed the service with the hymn, I Love To Tell The
Story. Many mistakes are harmless, and
even humorous, but they can also be horrendous. Paul takes mistakes seriously, and that is why he offers his
opinion on the matters the Corinthians struggle with. Paul is not laying down a set of laws to guide the church for all
time. He is not even telling the
Corinthians they are laws for their time. He is simply giving them his advice
as to how they should conduct themselves in the circumstances they find themselves
in.
One of the biggest mistakes Christians make is that of
ignoring Paul's attitude, as he gives this advice. Most are not as wise and
humble as Paul. Most tend to become legalistic, and they demand that their advice
is absolute. Paul refuses to take this attitude. He says if you ignore my
advice, which I feel is the best Spirit led decision I can come to, you do not
sin. Ignoring even the best advice is not a sin, even though it may be a great
mistake. How many counselors can openly admit that their advice is not
equivalent to the Word of God? It is Paul's honesty and humility that keeps
this passage from being meaningless. If it was given as a command for all
Christians, for all time, it would be disastrous advice, preventing 2000 years of
the history of Christian marriage and families, which have been for the glory
of God.
The value of this passage is in its emphasis on
circumstances. Paul is saying,
circumstances do make a difference.
What is wise for a Christian to do will vary with the
circumstances. Changing times demand
changing approaches to life. If the
times are calm and peaceful, Paul is all for marriage and families, and living
peaceably with all men. But if the
times are full of danger and tribulation, he is for detachment from the things
of this life. Paul is saying, when the
things of earth are insecure, and all in a flux, and radical change rob you of
all the values of this life, this is no time to try and sink roots into the
earthly. It is time to be radically
non-involved with earthly values, and totally devoted to those values which
last forever.
Circumstances make a difference in the advice you give. If a young girl comes to you saying she just
met a young man two months ago, and he asked her to marry him, and she comes
asking if she should say yes, and you inquire, and learn that he is returning
to Iraq to fight as a mercenary soldier to make a quick buck, what would your
answer be? I hope you would consider
the circumstances, and not treat that couple just the same as two from the same
community who are going to settle down there, where they have roots. Circumstances make a world of difference in
what is wise. But if that girl goes
ahead and marries the vagabond adventurer, who goes off to make his fortune,
she does not sin, if he is a Christian.
If he leaves her and gets killed, and she goes through great grief, she
will have made a painful mistake, but she will not have sinned.
Her pastor may have warned her of her risk, and the sorrow she
would face, but her rejection of that advice is not the same as rebelling
against God. It may be, but it is not
necessarily so, and Paul recognizes that.
Paul makes it clear beyond a shadow of a doubt, that no human advice is
on the same level as God's commands.
The pope, councils, church leaders, professors, and pastors, make many
pronouncements, and give much advice on how we ought to live. Most of it is good and wise advice, just
like Paul's advice to the Corinthians, and it is aimed at preventing
problems. However, the Christian has a
right to evaluate this advice; look at the risk of ignoring it, and then choose
to take that risk. If it turns out bad,
and he suffers, he is not a sinner to be condemned, but a saint who has made a
costly mistake.
The point is not that it is okay to make mistakes, in contrast
to sin. We have already shown that
mistakes may be worse than a sin in terms of consequences and cost. The point is, in the realm of Christian
advice, and the risk of mistakes, the Christian has to give careful
consideration to the circumstances. Is
it best to be married or single? Paul
does not give an absolute answer, for this would be absurd. The answer is, it all depends on the
circumstances. Is it best to remain a
slave, or gain ones freedom? It all
depends on the circumstances. Later, in
chapter 8, Paul deals with eating meat offered to idols. Should a Christian do it or not? It is not an absolute matter of right or
wrong. It all depends on the
circumstances.
We do not necessarily like this approach. We like things wrapped up with no loose
ends. We want all the rules of life,
like the Ten Commandments, clear and absolute. But when you try and apply all of man's wisdom and experience,
like you do the Word of God, you end up with the spirit of the Pharisees,
rather than the spirit of Christ. Edna
was a Christian writer who prayed for two weeks before she sent her first
manuscript to a publisher. She got her
book published, and she was convinced she had the formula for success. She began to tell other Christian writers
why they failed. Her pride was a pain
to endure, but she soon got her chance to be humble. Her next book, in spite of her formula, was rejected by six
publishers, and it took two years to get it published. She was so depressed, she almost gave up
writing. She had to learn the hard way
that her convictions, and even her experiences, were not the guide for all
writers. She was saying by her
pride,follow my advice, or you sin.
This is what the Pharisees were saying to Jesus. You follow our authority, and conform to our
image of the Messiah, or you sin, and are worthy of death. Paul was a Pharisee, and he put many Christians
to death, because they did not obey the laws of the Pharisees. Paul knew what
it was to put human opinion on the same level with the commands of God. But
here, we see the redeemed Paul with a totally different attitude. Only God's commands are absolute. Man's wisdom and advice is to be evaluated
relative to the circumstances of life.
Disobeying God is always sin, but disobeying man may be only a mistake. You never have a right to sin, but you do
have the right to risk a mistake. Paul
says do not seek marriage in the circumstances
you face, but if you do marry, you do not sin. I want to spare you the troubles you will endure, but if you
chose to suffer, you are not out of the will of God.
Paul recognizes that some Christians will prefer to take their
chances, and risk the sorrows of marriage in tough times. But he goes on to warn them not to put all
of their eggs in one basket. Don't
devote your life to the good, and miss the best. Romeo and Juliet so gave themselves to romantic love, that it
became a form of idolatry. When one
died, all meaning to life was gone for the other. Paul says, the wise Christian will not put anyone on that level. In verse 29 he says something that is easily
abused and misunderstood. He says, let
those who have wives live as though they had none. There are many wives who can testify that this is one part of the
Bible their husbands obey.
Paul did not mean what some practice in ignoring their
wives. He is simply saying to the
married Christian, you cannot devote your life to the values of marriage and
family, for all of these will soon pass away.
In the urgency of the times, you must give yourself to the values that
will not pass away. The emergency of
circumstances demand that all secondary priorities be kept secondary, and the
focus of life be on the first priority, the kingdom of God. To the best of our knowledge we do not live
in the same circumstances as the Corinthians did. Nevertheless, our focus too must be on the things of God, and not
on the things of earth, even when they are precious values that we want to
preserve.
If we are so devoted to life's values and joys that their loss
robs us of meaning, we are not prepared for the end of history, and the coming
of Christ. We are building on an
inadequate foundation. Only the cross
and Christ crucified give us values that nothing in history can take from
us. Nothing can separate us from the
love of God in Christ Jesus. So much is relative, but here is your absolute,
and loyalty to Him is to be your primary concern as you struggle with many issues of life. You come to Christ to receive forgiveness, and to get your priorities straight. The ideal is to
avoid both sins and mistakes, but they are not the same, and we ought not to
accuse ourselves or others for sin when mistakes are made by making wrong
choices that are unwise in the circumstances.
9. DEVOTION TO THE LORD Based on I Cor. 7:32‑40
Few groups of people in history have fought a more bitter
battle than the Pilgrims who came to
Plymouth on the Mayflower. So many of
them died from sickness, that at one point only four of the original couples
still had each other. Edward Winslow
and Susanna White had each lost their mates.
They were both convinced that God did not intend for them to remain
single. So, in spite of the short time
their mates had been dead, they asked Governor Bradford to unite them in
marriage. It was the first wedding of
the Pilgrims in their new land. The
feasting, gaiety, and laughter, of the wedding was a healing gift from God to
these people oppressed by so much sadness.
It boasted their spirits and gave them a renewed sense of hope.
These godly people were thankful for marriage, as godly people
have been ever since Adam saw Eve, and said, now this is more like it. Marriage is God's idea, and He proclaimed it
good. It is honorable in all says the
book of Hebrews. We do not have to
labor the point, for it is universally accepted that marriage is both beautiful
and essential. Yet, in this 7th chapter of I Cor., the Apostle Paul seems to
have it in for marriage. The nicest
thing he can say for it seems to be that it is not a sin, which is hardly an
exalting compliment. The one thing we
can say for Paul is that he is consistent.
He tells the never married to stay single, and he tells the divorced to
stay single, and he tells the widow to stay single. As far as Paul is concerned, the number one choice is to stay
single.
Paul is saying it is not wrong for any Christian to get
married, but there are circumstances that make it better if they are not
married. Paul said he did not baptize
many people, but you get the distinct impression that he married even fewer
people. He sounds a great deal like the
man who defined a bachelor as one who never made the same mistake once. Maybe Paul, in his travels, stayed with some
families that left him with a very negative impression, and he went away
thanking God for the blessing of escaping all that hassle. We don't know all of the reasons for Paul's
negative attitude, but when it comes to marriage, he seems to be a confirmed
believer in Murphy's Law, which says, if anything can go wrong, invariably it
will. He assumes that marriage and
trouble are synonymous. In verse 28 he
does not say troubles are possible, or even likely, he says they are a
certainty. "Those who marry will
have worldly troubles and I would spare you that." Paul knew that marital bliss can turn to
marital blisters. I read of one bitter
wife who said she would gladly get a divorce if she could figure out how to do
it without making him so happy.
The value of this passage for us is that it counteracts the
dreamy idealism of the romantic. People
who think holding hands, and gazing into each others eyes, solves all of life's
problems are not ready for the realities of marriage. Paul's purpose is not to spread pessimism, for he is a positive
thinker. He knows the Christian can do
all things through Christ who strengthens them. He knows that God will work in all things for good with those who
love Him. He just wants Christians to
be realistic about the obligations that go along with marriage. We do not live under the same circumstances
as the Corinthians, but Paul's point it still valid for all generations. Marriage is not the promised land, but is
still part of the wilderness journey.
Life in general is full of problems, and getting married does not
shelter you from them, but often compounds them.
One of the reasons divorce is so high is because of
unrealistic expectations. They jump
into marriage thinking it will be the solution to all of their troubles, and
when they discover it isn't, they figure they must have married the wrong
person, and so they divorce and try again.
They are always looking for that marriage that will bring utopia. The whole process is a subtle form of
idolatry, where people expect to find in marriage what only God can
supply. Gordon and Dorthea Joeck in I
Take Thee write, "Marriage, as life itself, is made up of many and varied
ingredients: Struggle and achievement,
success and failure, joy and pain.
Marriage does not remove us from vulnerability to life's difficulties
and bring us only its joys. To expect
this is unrealistic preparation for married life." This is what Paul is conveying to the
Corinthians.
Paul's attitude gives a needed realistic perspective to
counteract the myths of marriage. It is a myth that happy married people do not
have problems and stress. This myth
does a great deal of harm, for people who marry soon discover they do have
problems, so they assume something went wrong, and maybe they were not meant
for each other. Nobody in the
Corinthian church could ever get married, and be so deceived, for Paul makes it
clear, even if two Christians, who are madly in love, get married, they will
have troubles and conflicts of interest that demand painful adjustments.
This sounds very negative, but the fact is this attitude can
save people from the worst problem of marriage, which is to enter it with the
illusion that all their problems are over. The best marriages of the most godly
and loving people have problems, and Paul refuses to white wash it, and pretend
that Christian people escape what is inevitable in a fallen world. Kenneth
Chafin, dean of Billy Graham's school of evangelism, and pastor of a seven
thousand member Baptist church of Houston, tells of his experience as a
newlywed. On their first morning in
their new apartment, his wife Barbara made her father's favorite
breakfast. It was a biscuit split open
and toasted with a slice of cheese on each half. It wasn't bad he thought, but neither was it the thrill of his
life. The second morning she made the
same thing. When the biscuit came out
the third morning, he exploded, and wanted to know if that was the only thing
she knew how to make. She was hurt, of
course,but fortunately they talked about what was happening. As far as she could remember, her father
never varied his breakfast menu. She
thought she had found the perfect breakfast, and was planning to make this for
the rest of their lives. He made it
clear that he loved variety, and was not like her father at all.
One of the hardest areas of adjustment in marriage is you
suddenly start living 24 hours a day with someone who is different than the
people you have been living with all of your life. That is one of the reasons troubles are inevitable. Maybe the family you lived with enjoyed
being messy, and it didn't bother them at all.
Now you suddenly realize the person you married is someone who is picky
neat. Maybe your family always squeezed the toothpaste, but now you discover
there are people who roll it up, and you don't understand why anyone would do
it that way. You might be a night owl,
and suddenly discover you are united to an early bird. There are endless trivialities that mean
trouble in adjusting to your mate.
Life is never static so that you can finally adjust to each
other, and be done with the struggle.
Each age of marriage brings new problems. The child bearing period is not easy. Children are such a
blessing, and bring so many pleasures to life, yet there is an enormous price
to pay. Many marriages are destroyed by
all of the hassle of raising children, keeping them well, and getting them
educated.
Then comes the empty nest period. The children are gone and the hassle is over, but still there is
no utopia. If the children are all a
couple has lived for, their marriage is now empty without the kids. The mother has loving labored for 20 some
years, and now what she has learned to do best does not even need doing at
all. This can be a time of great
depression and loneliness. Her husband
may not even understand, for he is at the peak of his career, and is happy and
fulfilled. He is a success, and she
feels like a failure, and it is a prime time for both to be tempted to some
sort of an affair. Then comes
retirement and all is reversed. The
wife has adjusted, and has found ways to make her life meaningful, but now he is lost. What he has done well still needs doing, but
not by him, and he now feels useless.
The whole point of this overview of marriage is to show us
that Paul was not just being a killjoy.
He was looking at life as it really is, and trying to get Christians to
see that marriage calls for deep commitment, for better, or for worse, for both
will be inevitable.
What I hear Paul saying is,
if you are willing to pay the price don't take the merchandise. If you are not
willing to struggle and adjust, and sacrifice, so your marriage can be a
channel of God's love in the world, then don't do it. Stay single, and be more effective for God's kingdom. Paul does not buy the philosophy that says,
troubles will always make you a better Christian. We know that they can, but anybody who goes looking for them is
stretching the truth. In verse 32 Paul
says I want you to be free of anxieties.
There is no virtue in suffering what can be avoided and prevented. Paul is a strong believer in an ounce of
prevention being worth more than a pound of cure.
Paul is actually trying to prevent marriages that will lead to
all of the troubles he warns of, and end in divorce. I have to confess that I have never tried to prevent a marriage.
I am a product of our culture where romantic love is an idol. Anyone who is in love, I have felt, are
legitimate candidates for marriage. I
still feel that way, but I realize that Paul's attitude must modify my
own. He writes in a different context,
and times do differ, but the fact remains, it is too easy in any age to treat
marriage lightly, and not examine the seriousness of what it means to get
married.
Someone said, the proof that Paul was never married is that he
writes as if all mates do, is try to please each other. This whole passage can be very superficial
if you take it out of context, and try to impose it on all of history. We know history is filled with married
people who have been devoted servants of God, and who have changed the course
of history for His glory. Married
people are not just worldly minded and spending their whole life devoted to
earthly things. Most of the churches of
the world are founded on the family.
On the other hand, the singles whom Paul so exalts, who give
themselves to Christian service, have also been great servants all through
history. Singles have been dominate in
the thrust of world wide missions. But
the fact remains, there are many singles who do not devote themselves to
Christian service, any more than uncommitted married people. We dare not take this passage out of the
context of Corinth, and make it a reflection on all of history. Paul is telling us what he has observed in
the life of the Corinthians, and what he saw was that the married people tended
to devote their lives to one another, and the singles tended to devote their
lives to Christian service. This is
often true in our culture as well, but in no way can it be seen as a rule of
life, it is only a tendency that is common in all ages.
When you are married you can't be home pleasing your wife, and
out somewhere else in Christian service at the same time. You can't be home cooking your husbands
favorite meal, and still be engaged in Christian service all afternoon. Marriage brings limitations,
and if Christians are going
to be fighting over these limitations, and feeling guilty, and making others
feel guilty, they are going to make a mess of their marriage. Paul says if this be the case, you are
better off to stay single. One lodge
member asked another why the lodge meeting was canceled. He responded, "The
Grand-All-Powerful-Invincible-Supreme-Potentate's wife wouldn't let him
come." Such are the limitations of
marriage.
Christian history is full of examples of Christian leaders who
had very unhappy marriages. John and
Charles Wesley, the founders of Methodism changed the course of history, and
influenced millions of people for Christ, but they had unhappy marriages. William Carey, the father of modern
missions, had a miserable marriage. It
would be easy to say, they would have been better off single. Possibly it is so, but Paul who recommends
it highly also recognizes the dangers.
If these men, by not being married, could not control their passions,
they may have become immoral, and ruined their chances of doing great things
for God. Many have also traveled this
path. So Paul could say to them, it is
no sin that you are married, even though you are not the most qualified people
to make a marriage happy. It is good
that you married, but would have been better had you not needed to be
married.
There can be no question about it, Paul preferred the single
life for himself, and considered it the best choice for just about everybody
else. What is important for us to see
is, Paul is sharing his perspective and not laying down a law. He is not anti-marriage as many Christians
have been in their legalistic fight to exalt celibacy. Many groups have prohibited marriage as a
unworthy state, but Paul would have no part of such nonsense. He is simply
saying, just as a soldier does not take his wife onto a battlefield, so the
Christian in time of great conflict ought not to marry, unless compelled by the
strongest passions. Devote yourself to
the battle, and do not get sidetracked with lesser battles, which are
inevitable part of marriage.
The key verse that helps us apply all this is verse 35. Paul tells us clearly, his motive for being
so negative. "I say this for your
own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and
to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord." Paul's motive is very positive, but he uses negatives to get
there, for married people need to see the dangers in order to avoid them. Paul is not against marriage after all, but
just opposed to the blind entering into it, unaware of the problems inherent in
it. The immaturity of Corinthians, and
the instability of the times, made marriage a high risk, and that is why Paul
was so negative, and promoted singleness.
What all this means for us today is, we must see marriage as
for adults only, and not just in years, but in maturity. Christians must be mature enough to
recognize the reality of negatives in marriage, and be willing to commit
themselves to work through the adjustments needed to make it work. They need to be people who recognize the
danger of idolatry. They need to be
willing to encourage each other in Christian service, so that their marriage
does not make them less devoted to God, but more so. Mature love can lift people out of the realm where the
Corinthians are struggling. There will
still be problems,but there can also be a life dominated by joy and Christian
service.
Paul becomes an optimist when he gets to chapter 13, and
writes about the power of love. He says
in verse 7 that love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,
and endures all things. If they have a
mature love, they are ready for marriage.
F. Alexander
Magoun points out in his
definition of love, the other side of marriage: "Love is a passionate and abiding desire on the part of two
people to produce together an emotional climate in which each can flourish, far
superior to what either could achieve alone." Paul would agree that this optimism is legitimate if love is
mature, and ready to make sacrifices.
The complex issues of marriage, divorce, remarriage, and
singleness, are not matters of cut and dried rules. You are dealing with people and their relationships to other
people. The complexity can be enormous, and so there is no single rule to fit
all. The one question for the Christian
in all his relationships needs to be, what will contribute to my being a better
Christian? Because Christians have
different personalities and circumstances, there answers will vary, but their
goal can be the same whether they chose to marry or stay single. That goal is, as Paul says, devotion to the
Lord. If any choice you make in life
hinders that, you are making a mistake.
If any discussion or relationship you chose is an aid to this goal, you
are on the right track. The measuring
rod is not marriage or singleness, but your devotion to the Lord.
10. LOVE MAKES THE SIMPLE COMPLEX I COR. 8
Dr. James H. Robinson, a great black preacher in New York,
tells of how he
use to sit on the steps of
the public library in Knoxville. He
would watch the
white people go in, and he would
be filled with resentment because he wanted to
read and learn, but the
doors were closed to blacks. He came to
hate white
people, and he would look up
at the high water tower and wish he could poison it
and kill all the white
people in Knoxville. There were 3
reasons he never did it.
1.He didn't have the
poison. 2. He was afraid of high places.
3. He could never
figure out how he could keep
from the drinking the same water. The
complexity
of his evil scheme is what
prevented it from becoming a reality.
Thank God for
complexity. If evil was always easy there would be even
more of it, and a man
like Dr. Robinson may never
have become a child of God and a servant of the
kingdom.
Complexity is a comfort.
Much of our security in this life is based on
complexity. Man has devised locks and alarms to protect
his possessions. Vaults
and guards protect his
banks, and numerous methods are devised to make it too
complex for robbery. But complexity is also a challenge. People love to go into
politics and wrestle with
the complex issues of society. They
strive to come up
with a plan that benefits
the majority. Scientists love to labor
with the near
infinite complexity of
diseases to figure out a way to conquer them.
Most of the
challenges of our world that
motivate people to dedicate their lives to a cause are
based on the reality of
complexity.
Complexity is a comfort and a challenge, but it can also be a
curse. If every
Christian had the same
background, the same culture and the same personality,
life would be so much
simpler. It may be boring, but it would
be simple.
Needless to say, this is not
the way life really is. Christians have
all different
backgrounds, and they come out
of radically different cultures. Their
personalities are like
fingerprints, and no two are exactly alike.
This can be a
comfort and a challenge, but
history forces us to face up to the fact that this
complexity can also be a
curse. It is a curse because people
don't life other
people to be different. They like it when all Christians see
everything from the
same perspective. If the viewpoints get too diverse there is
suspicion that
somebody is on the wrong
track.
This was the problem in the church of Corinth. Some of the Christians there
felt it was no problem
whatever to eat meat offered idols.
After all, the idols did
not really exist, and so it
is a meaningless ritual that does nothing to the meat by
being offered to an idol, and
so why be uptight about it? Giving it
up was almost
like becoming a vegetarian,
for practically all meat was offered to some idol. If
your pagan family, which you
came out of to become a Christian, invited you to
a wedding, a funeral, or
just a family picnic or social, you would be served meat
that had been offered to an
idol. It was a part of the pagan
culture. Many
Christians had no problem
with relating to their pagan family and friends by
eating this meat offered to
idols. Life would have been so simple
if other
Christians had not taken an
opposite view.
These Christians said that the idols are real, and that they
represent real evil
spirits and demons. Therefore, the Christian cannot be loyal to
Christ and still
eat meat that has been
offered to his opponents in the spirit world.
They had an
conscience that was
sensitive to this issue, and they were offended by Christians
who had the audacity to
profess the name of Christ and then indulge in eating
such desecrated meat. This is where the curse of complexity comes
in and which
explains why people love
westerns so much. In a western the good
guys and the
bad guys are so
obvious. You always know whose side to
be on. It is such
satisfying simplicity, and
it helps us escape from the real world where things are
not so simple.
The Corinthians Christians were on two different sides of
this issue, as
Christians often are on most
controversial issues. Each group
thought the other
group must be a pack of
mutations and misfits in the body of Christ.
It was no
minor matter limited to a
handful of Christians. This was a major
conflict in the
church. At the first church council described in
Acts 15 the leaders of the
church, with Paul present,
came to the conclusion that this was one of the things
Gentile Christians would
have to do, and that is to abstain from meat offered to
idols. The problem was that this was the Jewish
leader's telling the Gentiles
what was good for them. It was the Jewish conscience trying to
impose itself on
the Gentile conscience. Paul was the Apostle to the Gentiles, and he
did not go
along with this
decision.
Had Paul agreed with the decision he would have just told
the Christians
who were eating meat offered
to idols to stop doing it immediately.
Paul did not
do this, however, but in
fact, he defended the wisdom of those who recognized it
ought not to even be an
issue because strong Christians can eat it with no less
loyalty to Christ because he
knows the idols do not exist. Paul does
not say that
these Gentiles need to
conform to Jewish convictions, but he does say that love
demands that they be
sensitive to other Gentiles who have a weak conscience on
this issue. If it is a matter of legalism, Paul was on
the side of those who chose
liberty. But if it was a matter of love, Paul was on
the side of those who chose to
limit their liberty for the
sake of the weak.
So is it right to eat meat offered to idols? Paul says, "Yes and no." We don't
like this answer, for we
like a simple black and white decision.
But the
complexity of life will not
allow Paul to be superficially simple.
It all depends on
whether the issue is one of
legalism or love. This is a crucial
distinction in
knowing the will of God in
areas where Christians disagree and see from
opposite perspectives. Whether I am obligated to surrender my
conviction or
fight for it all depends on
this distinction. Those who do not
bother to make this
distinction use this passage
in a way that makes it a denial of all Paul fought for
in the early church.
Paul clearly tells the strong‑minded Christians that
love demands that they
limit their liberty in
Christ in order to protect their weaker brothers who are
supersensitive and need
support. The Christian who will not
make a sacrifice
for the sake of another
Christian's security is a poor specimen of a Christian.
Those who take this out of a
context of love and put it into a context of legalism
are obscuring Paul's
message, and they are using it for blackmail to get their
own way. Paul is not giving every legalistic fanatic
the right to force the church
to conform to his
convictions. If this is what Paul is
saying, it is a direct
contradiction to all he
fought for, and all that Jesus fought against with the
Pharisees.
Many sermons have been preached on how the strong are to give
way to the
weak, but few have practiced
it, for it would lead to the absurd conclusion that
the church is to be guided
by its most ignorant, weak and incompetent members.
Those least set free by
Christ, and most in bondage to the old life would be the
pace setters. This would mean that if you had one
sensitive saint in your
fellowship who was brought
up to believe you should never eat out on Sunday,
and never go for a drive on
Sunday, and never watch TV on Sunday, you would
all have to conform to this
legalistic conviction less they be offended.
Paul would say to this, "O you foolish Christians. You are not under the
law, but you are free in
Christ. Do not submit again to a yoke
of slavery and
turn Christianity into a
form of Phariseeism." Paul opposed
Peter to his face
because Peter had a
sensitive conscience, and he was backing away from eating
with Gentiles. Paul did not say, "I don't want to
offend your sensitive conscience
Peter." On the contrary, he condemned Peter for
letting the Jewish sensitivity
weaken his stand for Gentile
equality. Paul would not tolerate a
legalistic
conscience trying to
regulate the liberty we have in Christ.
Paul followed in the steps of Jesus who shattered the
legalism of the
Pharisees. He broke all of their ceremonial laws, and
he ignored their Sabbath
laws that hindered his
ministry of healing and doing good.
They were so
offended that they crucified
them, but Jesus did not back off from the battle for
religious liberty. The New Testament nowhere supports the idea
that Christians
are to conform to the minds
of legalistic people. History shows
that every step of
progress in the church has
been opposed by the sensitive conscience of legalistic
people.
Musical instruments were fought by those who said it is immoral
to praise
God with a mere thing when
the Bible says, "Let all that has breath praise the
Lord." Christians fought back and not only used all
things to praise God, but
even adapted secular tunes
with which to do it. Battles have been
fought over
almost everything including
colored glass, heat in the church and communion
cups. If strong Christians would have feared to
offend the sensitivities of
legalistic Christians the
church would still be in the dark ages, or never even
gotten that far. It would still be nothing more than an
exclusive Jewish church.
Many Christians who are truly godly feel it is evil to
vote. Are we to give up
our support for the best
leaders we can vote for because we do not want to
offend these brothers? Many Christians feel it is a lack of faith
to buy insurance.
Are we to leave our loved
ones unprotected because of their conviction?
We
could go on endlessly with
all the areas of life where Christians have different
convictions, but the point
should already be clear. When it comes
to issues of
legalism, the Christian is
not only not under obligation to conform to the
conscience of another, he is
obligated to fight in order to change and overcome
that conscience. He is to pursue the liberty we have in
Christ in order to
promote it and preserve it
for the good of others.
Eating meat offered to idols is a legalistic issue between
Jews and Gentiles,
and so Paul takes his stand
with the Gentiles. As a matter of right
Paul would
say the Gentile Christians
have freedom to eat that meat without feeling guilty.
Paul was opposed to any law
demanding that Gentile Christians conform to
Judaism, but because life is
complex this issue is more than just a matter of
legalism. It has personal ramifications that go beyond
the battle of legalism, and
make it a matter of
love. In this chapter Paul is not
concerned about Peter's
feelings, or how the council
of leaders in Jerusalem feels. They are
mature
Christians, and Paul will
deal with them on the level of debate and argument as
to what is legitimate in
Christian liberty. But here Paul is
concerned about the
pagan believers who have
just recently come out of their idolatry to faith in
Christ.
In verse 7 he refers to those who are the center of his
concern, and they are
those who do not have a
clear grasp of the unreality of other gods.
They have for
all their lives believed in
these gods, and for them to eat the meat dedicated to
these gods is to feel guilty
of disloyalty to Christ. Their
conscience has been
programmed, and for them to
eat this meat is like stealing from their neighbor.
They feel guilty and their
conscience bothers them, for they sense they have
sinned. If this sensitive person sees other more
mature Christians eating this
meat he is encouraged to go
ahead also, even though he feels it is wrong.
This
violation of his conscience
will damage his spiritual life. He is
by this act
rejecting the Lordship of
Christ, for to him it is claiming another god over Jesus.
This could very easily lead to new Christians returning to
their pagan ways
and be lost to the church
permanently. It happens all the time
all over the world
in the lives of those who
come out of a pagan culture and then slip back into it.
This is an altogether issue
than someone who is trying to force you to conform to
their legalistic
conviction. Here are people who do not
have roots. They are in
an unstable transition, and
they can be easily led astray. Paul is
saying that
Christian love demands that
the strong Christian be sensitive to these people.
Love demands that strong
Christians be willing to sacrifice some of their liberty
for the sake of these weaker
believers until they too become strong.
This is how
love makes the simple
complex.
11. FROM START TO FINISH Based on I Cor. 9:24
to 10:12
You don’t have to be an expert on racing to know that you don’t
get a prize just for signing up, but many feel that is all that is needed to be
a winner in the Christian life. They
think that you do not have to budge from the starting line as long as your name
is on the list of contestants. Paul,
however, made it clear that the Christian life is a struggle and a challenge,
and it calls for suffering, sacrifice and service. Before he died he said, “I have fought a good fight, I have
finished my course, henceforth there is laid up for me a crown.” You see there is a cross before the
crown. There has always been a tendency
to bypass the cross and gain the crown.
The flesh desires comfort and not challenge; ease and not effort. Now I lay me down to sleep is our favorite
theme. We want to receive the reward
without running the race.
A sign in the window of a sporting goods shop said, “See us
for camping supplies so you can rough it smoothly.” We want all the blessings and none of the burdens. There is a church in Florida that has put in
rocking chairs in place of the pews.
They are perfectly balanced so as to give the maximum amount of rocking
for the least amount of effort. There
is nothing wrong with rocking chairs, but there presence in the sanctuary is a
symbol of how we seek to avoid the cross for the sake of comfort. This is nothing new, for Paul found the same
tendency in the Corinthian church. They
had the idea that now that they were Christians they could take life easy. The flesh began to dominate their lives and
they became immoderate in eating, drinking and sexual practices. Paul seeks to correct their foolish thinking
by comparing the Christian life with the life of the contestants at the
Isthmian games held every two years just 8 miles from Corinth. He refers specifically to the runners, and
in so doing he teaches that there are 3 qualification necessary to be successful
in the Christian race.
I. COMMITMENT v. 24-25
The men who wanted to enter the contest in the arena had to
commit themselves to a rigorous ten months of training. They gave up all sensual pleasures, and they
had to be in bed early. They had to eat
special food and have no alcoholic beverages.
This was not just a suggestion, but it was demanded before they could
even enlist in the races.
Paul, like his Lord, used the examples of the world to
teach Christians. He is saying that
they need to stop and consider what your favorite runner goes through in terms
of self-denial in order to win a perishable crown. It was a wreath of parsley, ivory or pine. They do it for a bit of self-glory, and will
you offer less to gain the crown of eternal glory? What is eternal life worth to you? If a man will gladly live a life of committed self-control and
constant exercise to get a piece of pine on his head and a crowd cheering him,
how much more ought you to be committed to gain the crown that is
incorruptible. Paul is not criticizing
the athletes. He is just using them as
examples of commitment.
Even the philosopher Seneca saw the folly of men who devote
more energy than sports than they do for developing a good life. He wrote, “What blows do athletes receive in
the face, what blows all over the body, yet they bare all the torture from
thirst of glory. Let us also overcome
all things, for our reward is not a crown or a palm branch or the trumpeter
proclaiming silence for the announcement of our name, but virtue and strength
of mind and peace acquired ever after.”
Even a thinking pagan wonders at the mixed up values of men who will
commit themselves to the trivial, but who will not lift a finger for the essential.
We have lost the biblical concept of the Christian life as a
race. We make conversion represent
crossing the goal, when it really is just stepping up to the starting line. We are in the race between of the grace of
God. He paid our entrance fee on the
cross to get us in, but then we have to do the running, and to run well we need
to prepare ourselves. We need to
practice self-denial, and we need to exercise our soul in prayer, and
strengthen our minds by wrestling with the Word of God. Failing to do so results in a superficial
Christian.
The problem is not that we do not have a glorious and
thrilling Gospel. The problem is that
we do not have enough trained and committed instruments to communicate it. The instrument makes all the difference in
the world as to the quality of music it produces. Two men in Old London met on the street and began to talk. Just then a street organ struck up a
tune. It was a rickety old instrument
that wheezed and groaned. One of the
men wanted to move on and get away from that awful tune. The other said, “It is not the tune, for
that was written by the great Handel, and it is ‘See The Conquering Hero
Comes.’” The other responded, “Well then Handel wrote a poor thing.” A month later the man who knew Handel’s
music invited his friend to go with him to the Handel’s festival. As they listened to symphony the friend went
into rapture in his praise of it, and he asked what that was called. When his friend told him it was the same
music they heard a month earlier on the street he was amazed. The instrument made all the difference.
In order to be the best possible instrument for
communicating the good news of God, we need to be trained and committed. We need to examine our lives to see if we
are a race course type Christian, or a rocking chair type Christian, and if we
find ourselves sitting at the starting line, we know we lack the commitment
necessary.
II. CERTAINTY.
v. 26-27
This is an age of anxiety and uncertainty, and the masses of
the world do not know where they are going.
There is no fixed star and nothing steady to hold on to. A French aviator in his book Night Flight
tells of being lost in the sky at night.
He caught a faint whisper from the radio control operator, and he
frantically asked him to flash the signal at the air field. When the operator replied he had already
flashed them and he saw nothing, he knew he had not found a light to guide him
home. So many have no light to guide
them, but the Christian does, and he is to look to Christ to keep him on
course.
Paul says he does not run like a man running aimlessly. Paul had a clear aim and goal. He had many setbacks, but he always knew where
he was going. He was always pressing on
toward the mark. His eyes were always
focused on Jesus. As Calvin said, “In
him alone is the whole stuff of our salvation.” Nothing is more dangerous than uncertainty as to one’s goal. If you are not sure what you are running
for, you will not be very zealous, and more than likely you will choose a
lesser goal than the crown of righteousness and joy in Christ. Paul says to know your goal and keep
pressing toward it. You may be fast and
full of energy, but if you are running all over the landscape, no one will
thank you, and especially the judge who awards the crown. It is not just action that is important, but
your aim. Religious activity is not
enough, for it must be Christ centered to be an adequate goal.
Paul changes his metaphor from runner to boxer, and he says
I am not wasting my energy by hitting wildly, but I take careful aim and make
every blow count. The Christian is no
part time amateur, but a professional, and it calls for our very best. His certainty as to his goal causes him to
use every means possible to attain it.
Here is where men fail, for they think it is enough to want and wish for
great values without working for them.
Every young couple wants a happy marriage, and they all want it to work
out for the best. They desire a good
end, but they are not willing to use the means to attain it. You can’t arrive at your goal if you do not
use the necessary means to get there.
Every parent wants their child to grow up to be a wonderful person, but
so often they think that loving them and desiring that goal for them takes care
of it, but it is not so. Love does not
train a child. That takes sacrificial
effort, and all the wishing in the world will not accomplish that goal without
the proper means.
Paul says in verse
27 that he finds one of the greatest obstacles in his way is his own body. The Bible does not teach that the body is
evil, for Jesus took on the form of human flesh and gave it dignity. It does teach that the body is an instrument
of either good or evil. It is a bad
master, but a good servant. Paul says
that he keeps his body under. The Greek
word for keeping under refers to a solid blow right under the eye. He says that he is no air beater, but that
he beats his body black and blue to bring it into bondage. He does not destroy it, but he makes his
body his slave by keeping his soul on top and his body under it. Because he is certain of his goal he disciplines
his body to make sure it does not slow him down. The Christian who allows his body to dominate him will be beaten
to the canvass by crushing blows of self-indulgence.
III. CONSISTENCY. v. 27
Even with a committed attitude and a certain aim you are
not assured of success without consistent action. You not only have to start and keep on going, but you have to
finish. You must persevere to the
end. If a Greek runner obeyed all rules
and had his ten months of training, but the night before the race had his fling
by staying out late and eating and drinking to excess, all of his preparation
would in be vain. Paul says that he
never lets up, but is constantly running and fighting lest after telling others
the rules he ends up disqualified. Paul
is saying to the self-indulgent Christians that you are babes in Christ who are
relaxing in your running. You spurt
ahead now and then, but spend most of your time on the bench when you should be
consistently striving for the goal.
Just being in the race is not enough, for you have to keep
running to gain the crown. In chapter
10 he illustrates by saying that all our fathers were in the race as well. They were all baptized and had their name on
the roll. They drank the spiritual
drink, but many were not pleasing to God, and they fell before they reached the
promised land. He goes on to say that
this is an example for us. You can be
baptized and partake of the Lord’s Supper, but this will not carry you across
the goal line. You must be obedient and
give yourself to concentrated and consistent effort to pursue the will of
God. Even the best of men like Moses
fell before the finish line.
Ike Skelton Jr. was stricken with polio as a boy. A doctor in Kansas City told his parents
that nothing could be done. Ike had such
a will to win, however, that through months and years of painful recovery he
never gave up. He became a student at
Wentworth Military Academy and joined the track team. When the big meet of year came Ike entered the two miles
race. His legs had recovered, but his
arms were still useless, and so his teammates taped his helpless arms to his
side. He went all the way, and it made
no difference that his opponents had already finished two laps before him. He gritted his teeth and tore across the
line into the arms of his teammates.
One of them said, “The rest of them came in first, but they didn’t beat
this boy.” It is he who endures to the
end that shall be saved. We must run
with the determination until we die. It
is not enough to tell others the way, for you must go the way yourself.
Paul says that he is no signpost Christian. A sign points to a place, but it never goes
there itself. Paul says that he practices
what he preaches, and he goes where he points.
We need to take the words of Paul seriously. Just as a magnifying glass can concentrate the rays of the sun
and start a fire while it remains cold itself, so a Christian can be an
instrument through which others can receive the Son of Righteousness, and yet
remain as cold as ice themselves. Paul
had perfect assurance of his salvation, and that nothing could separate him
from the love of God, but he didn’t give up persistently pursuing the path to
perfection. It is not enough to start,
but we must run all the way to the finish line. An unknown poet wrote,
Its prizes call for
fighting,
For endurance and for grit,
For a rugged disposition,
And a don’t know when to quit.
12. AN ACT OF OBEDIENCE Based on I Cor. 10:1‑5
The whole duty of man is to love God and keep His commandments.