Sent Away for Believing

In the Old Testament, a Jew had to marry a Jew, otherwise the children were spiritually unclean, so they could not enter the temple nor could the next two generations. The purpose of marriage is to produce godly offspring, so these mixed marriages were called illegitimate marriages. In 1 Corinthians, Paul is saying that it is NOT the same for Christians, for if a Christian is married to a non-Christian, the children are not spiritually unclean, i.e. they are still able to receive God’s full blessing in their lifetime and can enter the fellowship of believers by faith and so can the husband. The growing holiness of the believing spouse is a persistent witness of faith abiding with them, encouraging them also to believe. It doesn’t mean that they are automatically saved because of the wife’s faith because each person stands alone before God and is judged on their own sin which can only then be paid by their blood or through faith by Jesus’ blood.

Here Paul also permits the unbelieving spouse to leave a mixed marriage if they refuse to live with their believing spouse. Paul like Moses has the authority to bind and loose and here Paul permits the marriage bond to be loosed to bring peace into the relationship between believing and unbelieving spouses. Though it is permitted, in most cases it would be extremely difficult for a woman to be sent away because she would have no income or home or protection. Paul doesn’t make any comment on remarriage in this case, so either her father would have to take her back or maybe her adult children could take her into their home. Though the bond of husband-wife would be broken, the believing spouse should maintain the relationship with their children if possible, so that they would continue to have a godly influence in their life, so effectively the bond of father-mother should not be broken.

Mike Banker 2014

(Deuteronomy 3:2, 1 Corinthians 7:12-16, NASB)