I Cor 7 and Separation

When you have the right to do something, does it become the right thing to do? Well, obviously not. The question is silly. You have the ‘right’ to do millions, even gazillions, of things that not only shouldn’t you do, but you can’t do, and don’t want to do.

And more importantly just because you have the ‘right’ to do something doesn’t mean that the Scriptures say it is the right thing to do. In fact, the Scriptures may say it is the wrong thing to do… even when Scripture itself says you have the right to do it!

In fact, that thing you have a ‘right’ to do may be in active disobedience to several thing you are called to do.

Concerning the Wife

And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord,

Let not the wife depart from her husband:

But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband:

and let not the husband put away his wife.

But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away.

And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him.

For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.

But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace.

For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband?

or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?

I Corinthians 7:10-16

Let us examine the above passage… from the perspective of a woman who’s husband is not obeying the Word.¹ Let me repeat that: I am going to look at this passage specifically and uniquely from the perspective of a woman who:

1. Claims to be a Christian. This passage applies specifically to women who ‘are believers’. Which we as humans can only see in what they claim thus: women who claim to be Christians.

2. Has a husband who is not obeying the Word. She has a husband who is engaging in one or more active sins. He is not ‘thinking about’ disobeying the Word, it isn’t a potential. He is currently, right now, disobeying the Word.

3. Has a husband who wishes to still live with her. He wishes to stay in the same house, he wishes to share the same bed. I am not discussing in this post the situation where her disobedient husband wishes to leave.

4. Wishes to be obedient to God’s Word. If she claims to be a Christian but doesn’t care what God would have her do in this situation, well, we might question her claim but we are excluding her from this post. She is in disobedience, therefore I am not speaking to her until she wishes to be in obedience again.

That is who this post is directed to. That woman.

Contra Separation

Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.

The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.

She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.

Proverbs 31:10-12

What the I Corinthians 7 passage says, specifically to that wife, is that separation is not the Godly option. It is a legal option, or at least it is an allowed option… but it is not the Godly option. The Godly woman… the woman who wishes to obey what God actually tells her to do… will continue to live, continue to obey, continue to sleep with, continue to pray for and support… her unGodly, disobedient husband.

The woman in Proverbs 31, the virtuous woman, is one in whom the heart of her husband can safely trust. One who will do him good, and not evil all the days of her life. It does not say that she will do him good if he does her good. It does not say that he can trust her as long as he shows himself trustworthy.

Porn

Nevertheless, to avoid fornication,

let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.

Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband.

The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband:

and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.

Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.

I Corinthians 7:2-5

But what if he has confessed to watching porn? Shouldn’t a wife divorce, or at the very least separate from a man like that?!?

The Greek word translated ‘fornication’ in I Corinthians 7 is ‘Porninea’. It means ‘sexual sin’. It includes all forms of sexual sin, from porn to adultery. And the answer, according to the Apostle Paul, to sexual sin is… marriage. Indeed, sex in marriage. Frequent sex in marriage.

Mistresses

Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.

Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.

Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee.

Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.

Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe;

let her breasts satisfy thee at all times;

and be thou ravished always with her love.

And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?

Proverbs 5:15-20

The Old Testament saints were no strangers to sex, and sexual sin. They had multiple wives, concubines, they used prostitutes. Their neighbours had ritual temple prostitution. There are stories of gang rape. Two of the women in the genealogy of Christ were called prostitutes.

That was the context of Proverbs 5. That is the context of the Scripture’s command to a man to rejoice always with his wife, to let her breasts satisfy him at all times.

In the context of sexual temptation, of rampant sexual immorality, he is called to be ravished always with her love.

Abigail

And when Abigail saw David, she hasted, and lighted off the ass, and fell before David on her face, and bowed herself to the ground,

And fell at his feet, and said, Upon me, my lord, upon me let this iniquity be: and let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak in thine audience, and hear the words of thine handmaid.

Let not my lord, I pray thee, regard this man of Belial, even Nabal: for as his name is, so is he; Nabal is his name, and folly is with him: but I thine handmaid saw not the young men of my lord, whom thou didst send.

Now therefore, my lord, as the LORD liveth, and as thy soul liveth, seeing the LORD hath withholden thee from coming to shed blood, and from avenging thyself with thine own hand, now let thine enemies, and they that seek evil to my lord, be as Nabal.

And now this blessing which thine handmaid hath brought unto my lord, let it even be given unto the young men that follow my lord.

I pray thee, forgive the trespass of thine handmaid: for the LORD will certainly make my lord a sure house; because my lord fighteth the battles of the LORD, and evil hath not been found in thee all thy days.

I Samuel 25:23-28

If any woman wishes to ask herself if she has a bad husband, I would invite her to compare her lot with a lot of Biblical wives. Is she married to a man who committed adultery and had the husband killed? Is she married to a man who told her to pretend she was his sister, and she ended up in a king’s harem? A man who already has dozens of other wives and concubines? Do you have to pay off your sister to get an evening with your own husband?

Or are you married to a man who is called by all their neighbours a ‘son of the devil’? I bring before you Abigail, who everyone agrees was a Godly woman, who was married to a man literally called ‘a son of the devil’. (King James: ‘Belial’) Or, if you wish to use the more moderate formulation: a son of wickedness, a son of unGodliness, a son of naughtiness. (A slightly stronger word in the KJV than ours today).

How many modern wives considering ‘separation’ could really say that they are in a worse marriage than these? Married to a man whose sins are greater than murder?

And David sent and enquired after the woman. And one said, Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?

II Samuel 11:3

From the roof of his palace, David, and his men, could look down into the women’s bath. And did. David. Called a man after God’s own heart.

David sent for the woman, slept with her and, when she got pregnant, murdered her husband. David! A man after God’s own heart!

Challenge

The challenge in these passages is two fold. The first is to be able to look at them and stay in the viewpoint of what God tells the wife. Not to ask ‘what of the husband?’. To start by assuming that your husband is a man in rebellion against God whether he claims to be a Christian or not, and that he sins against you daily. Severely. To start there and ask, “So what?” To ask, “What would God have me do in this case??”

The second challenge is to do it. To see what God would have one do and, despite all of the opposition that you will get from the women around you (and men, and pastors, and your family, and even your husband!) to say, “What would God have me to do… that is what I will do.”

To realise that the modern world will give you zero support, and will oppose your decision root and branch and say, “I will do him good and not evil, all the days of my life.”

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Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,

Von

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1. See I Peter 3