by Standerinfamilycourt

“And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her seed;
He shall bruise you on the head,
And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

To the woman He said,
“I will greatly multiply
Your pain in childbirth,
In pain you will bring forth children;
Yet your desire will be for your husband,
And he will rule over you.”
– Genesis 3:15-16

But to the married I give instructions, not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not leave her husband (but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband should not divorce his wife.
– 1 Corinthians 7:10-11

Jack and Jill were joined in inseverable holy matrimony many years ago.   Upon valid, witnessed vows, God’s hand created a one-flesh new entity, with which He then unconditionally covenanted as the superior party.   Jack and Jill had no children in the brief time before their estrangement, and after a time, Jill began to feel emotionally-abused by Jack.    Jill reasoned that this was because she must have married Jack “outside God’s will” and satan, more than happy to oblige, whispered to her: “if you stay, this is going to turn physical”.
(The Evil One’s very name, it should be noted, literally means “accuser of men”.)    She availed herself of man’s unilateral no-fault divorce laws, after the fashion of the majority of women in our culture.    Not long thereafter, she “married” Jim, thinking she could now have a Christ-centered marriage.    The hireling pastor involved was no obstacle to the second wedding.   Domestically, Jim was better able to manage Jill’s emotions than Jack, and children were born into this adulterous union.   Several more years passed.

One day Jill encountered serious covenant marriage standers online who pointed out the mountain of truth in God’s word that “remarriage” to another while her original husband lives is adultery, not just on the wedding night, but every night thereafter.   At first, Jill quite naturally resisted, but nevertheless she took some time to study the word of God for herself with an open heart to obey, to do whatever was necessary to follow Christ completely, and eventually the Holy Spirit persuades her to get out of this adulterous-but-happy second marriage.  She was able to eventually persuade Jim, which enabled a mutual consent petition and voluntary shared parenting arrangements.

Meanwhile, Jack has come to a very different place spiritually than when his bride was last willing to live with him.    He, too, has been absorbing God’s word, is relieved that Jill is no longer living in papered-over adultery, and it appears he hopes for reconciliation.      He is gentle in his efforts to woo Jill back, and hopefully, much is happening in prayer that the rest of us don’t see except in his manner.     If Jack became entangled during the years of estrangement, he too has become disentangled.  We don’t really know yet, and only God knows, whether Jack is ready spiritually to resume and sustain their union, non-covenant children in tow, under the same roof, but his heart appears open to growing his own discipleship.   He has publicly apologized to Jill and expressed regret for the emotional pain he caused her in their marriage.    All of this puts Jack and Jill light years ahead of most estranged Christian couples on the path to the kingdom of God, and is truly a cause for rejoicing even though reconciliation doesn’t appear to be on the horizon.

Enter the blind guide:  Joe means well, but like all of us shepherdless sheep, is no less vulnerable to being controlled by emotions and scars.   Joe runs a local “house church” and a very large standers’ ministry.   Joe has been legally estranged from his covenant wife for a couple of decades, and would probably prefer not to be reconciled, for a variety of reasons.    He frankly wouldn’t have time for her if she did get out of her adulterous “remarriage”, and he routinely refers to her as his “ex”, neither cringing  nor voicing objections when countless other professing “Christians” do the same.   Brother Joe has undergone the further pain of being emotionally alienated by the actions of his wayward wife from his (now-grown) children and sadly hasn’t seen any of them, much less his grandchildren, in many years.    Joe now leads a vibrant “single” life which includes freedom, travel, financial autonomy, mission trips and several ministries.   He reasons that this is in keeping with much of the rest of what the Apostle Paul advocated in the 7th chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians about kingdom of God fruitfulness from forsaking marriage altogether, if one is “not bound” to a wife.     He considers himself “single” rather than part of an unsevered one-flesh entity.    Joe devoted a recorded group teaching delivered to the rest of the large stander community about this issue, saying that verse 11,  gives estranged covenant spouses two “options”.   Says Joe, they are not required by scripture to reconcile.    It says right there in that verse, they can “remain unmarried”  – or -they can reconcile.

Is Joe right?   Or is he really just a Christ-robed “MGTOW*” ?
(*rightly-disgruntled “men going their own way”)

We’ll get the technical part of this discussion over with early, so that we can return to a robust discussion of submitted discipleship as a true follower of Christ.   One more thing needs to be said first:  every disciple needs a certain amount of judgment-free space to “work out their own salvation with fear and trembling” once they do have the accurate scriptural facts–and unless there’s some strong indication that the brother or sister is acting in willful hypocrisy while knowing and rejecting the truth, they are entitled to the presumption of good faith in pursuit of God’s will and His truth.    Jill and Joe have much in common in many ways, and one of those ways is they are both in this particular good-faith “boat”.     Satan’s “no-fault” attack on marriage, and its horrible consequences in the church  has been a “doozie” from which it’s not been easy to recover, most of us would agree.

It should by now be no surprise to regular followers of “7 Times Around the Jericho Wall” blog to hear “standerinfamilycourt” remind that the answer to rightly dividing scriptures like 1 Corinthians 7:11 boils down to not taking any shortcuts in applying the 5 basic principles of sound hermeneutics:  Content, Context, Culture, Comparison, and Consultation.    We have gone into great depth in previous blogs about applying the study technique, so this post will be a “cliff notes” revisit.   Despite anyone’s praying, fasting and seeking the Lord for their personal answer, after which they will “feel lead to…”,  SIFC is going to posit that someone who takes 1 Corinthians 7:11 as “two co-equal options” (remain chaste, be reconciled) has stopped superficially at Content, and didn’t really dig very deeply into that one.

(scripture4all.org  Greek Interlinear Text Tool.  Please click to enlarge.)

A couple of quick point-outs about the content of this scripture:

(1) it speaks of involuntary estrangement (choresthetai – literally, to “put distance between”, as the literal furrows in a plowed field), and is not a recognition of any validity for legal “dissolution” of the marriage.   Neither does it validate the reciprocation of that estrangement, which would be incompatible with Christ’s concept of one-flesh (sarx mia), and would excuse both spouses from their 1 Cor. 11:3 roles in the kingdom of God, with which the involuntary estrangement is interfering.    Most importantly, it prescribes a disciple’s gracious response to a circumstance that remains beyond their control.

(2) we must not overlook the importance of Paul beginning this instruction with utter clarity about Whose instruction (commandment) this is: “But to the married I give instructions, not I, but the Lord, that the wife not leave her husband“.   (Some translations insert “should” here, but neither the text nor the parsing gives them any support for implying such permissiveness.)

(3) Nowhere in all of 1 Corinthians 7 does Paul ever address “divorced” people, or ever recognize man’s divorce as having any validity whatsoever.   He speaks of illicit legal proceedings in 1 Corinthian 6, but ceases to speak of it there.    Elsewhere, Paul tells us in no uncertain terms that God’s “divorce” is always spelled “D-E-A-T-H”.    If that were not so, Paul would be speaking out of both sides of his mouth.

(With points 2 and 3 above, we have segued into the Context principle, which SIFC could take much further, but instead refers our readers to prior blogs.)   We simply say that the advocates of co-equal “options” in 1 Corinthians 7 really can’t go here, and don’t dare go here without corrupting or conflating who Paul was addressing in each section of this epistle.    When he speaks of the “unmarried” “being free of concern for a spouse” hindering them from the kingdom of God, he is not speaking of “dedetai”  but of “dedoulotai”.
Scripture consistency demands the understanding that the estranged covenant spouse is nevertheless “married”, in Paul’s parlance (and Christ’s).

We must remember that Paul got his instructions for marriage from spending three years of direct time with the resurrected Jesus, as he tell us in Galatians 1:

“But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus.  Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas (Peter)…”

When Paul says, “not I but the Lord”, this is a much stronger statement than if he’d merely been taught by the rest of the Apostles after his conversion, both by the amount of instruction time involved (equal to time spent by Christ with His disciples) and by the force with which he says it.    Any woman who leaves her husband permanently is in sin.   If she leaves him even temporarily for any reason short of physical safety, she is in sin.  She is actually rebelling against God’s sentence in Genesis 3:16, and its NT echo in 1 Corinthians 11:3.   This is as true of Jill as it is of Joe’s wife.    It is true even after she gets out of a faux “marriage” that, for however many years, has been masquerading as her true marriage.   Will this particular state of sin keep her out of heaven, or just reduce her rewards?  SIFC humbly submits that this depends on her heart being of the same hardness as the “unmerciful servant” of Matthew 18:23-35, and would strongly recommend gambling on the eternally safe side of that gamble (more about that below).

But who else is in sin?   Early church father Hermes tells us in a writing called “The Shepherd of Hermas”, of which there is documentary evidence that the Apostle’s disciples attributed the weight of scripture (in other words, conviction of Holy Spirit inspiration):

Mandate 4
1[29]:1 “I charge thee, “saith he, “to keep purity, and let not a thought enter into thy heart concerning another’s wife, or concerning fornication, or concerning any such like evil deeds; for in so doing thou commitest a great sin. But remember thine own wife always, and thou shalt never go wrong.
1[29]:2 For should this desire enter into thine heart, thou wilt go wrong, and should any other as evil as this, thou commitest sin. For this desire in a servant of God is a great sin; and if any man doeth this evil deed, he worketh out death for himself.
1[29]:3 Look to it therefore. Abstain from this desire; for, where holiness dwelleth, there lawlessness ought not to enter into the heart of a righteous man.”
1[29]:4 I say to him, “Sir, permit me to ask thee a few more questions” “Say on,” saith he. “Sir,” say I, “if a man who has a wife that is faithful in the Lord detect her in adultery, doth the husband sin in living with her?”
1[29]:5 “So long as he is ignorant,” saith he, “he sinneth not; but if the husband know of her sin, and the wife repent not, but continue in her fornication, and her husband live with her, he makes himself responsible for her sin and an accomplice in her adultery.”
1[29]:6 “What then, Sir,” say I, “shall the husband do, if the wife continue in this case?” “Let him divorce(*) her,” saith he, “and let the husband abide alone: but if after divorcing (*) his wife he shall marry another, he likewise committeth adultery.”
1[29]:7 “If then, Sir,” say I, “after the wife is divorced (*), she repent and desire to return to her own husband, shall she not be received?”
1[29]:8 “Certainly,” saith he, “if the husband receiveth her not, he sinneth and bringeth great sin upon himself; nay, one who hath sinned and repented must be received, yet not often; for there is but one repentance for the servants of God. For the sake of her repentance therefore the husband ought not to marry. This is the manner of acting enjoined on husband and wife.
1[29]:9 Not only,” saith he, “is it adultery, if a man pollute his flesh, but whosoever doeth things like unto the heathen committeth adultery. If therefore in such deeds as these likewise a man continue and repent not, keep away from him, and live not with him. Otherwise, thou also art a partaker of his sin.
1[29]:10 For this cause ye were enjoined to remain single, whether husband or wife; for in such cases repentance is possible.

[   SIFC:  (*) This translation of The Shepherd uses the words “put away” (or, send away) instead of “divorce”, and here is the original Greek text –

where the word “apoluo” was used (literally meaning: “from-loose”) which most of the early church fathers considered a separation only from “bed and board”- not necessarily a legal dissolution, though Hermes’ writing indeed indicates that Roman law, similar to today’s “condonation” provisions in some U.S. states, may have immorally required this in order to legally exonerate the husband from presumptions of “complicity”.]    This distinction is important because it helps establish that the disciples’ disciples such as Hermes only recognized legal divorce as a man-made contrivance, and (like Jesus) didn’t really hold that it dissolved the actual union.   

 Note, however, that Hermes specifically charged one-flesh spouses with the duty of care over each other’s souls, and so portrays the Holy Spirit as commanding reconciliation consistent with no-excuses indissolubility, so far as it depends upon us.      This would be consistent with the sharp warning Jesus gave in Matthew 18:23-35, also with 2 Corinthians 5:18 and Romans 12:17-19, as well as with 1 Corinthians 7:2-3.    Some who can’t presently bring themselves to obey in this area will try to call this idea that reconciliation is mandatory, “legalism”.   “standerinfamilycourt” appreciates Leonard Ravenhill’s take on legalism, and would suggest taking great care before obedience to an apparent heaven-or-hell commandment is dismissed by a Christ-follower as “legalism”, even though many contemporary “Christians” do so almost reflexively.

“standerinfamilycourt”  personally admits accepting this commandment reluctantly, since a returned spouse in this instance means one who is likely to come back to a financially and emotionally stable household with shattered health and finances, not to even mention a mountain of debt trailing behind as one more evidence of God’s merciful attempt to change their “free will”.    (The Prodigal Son came back home with the stench of hog manure on him and still was draped with his father’s best robe before finding a bathtub.)  Cherished activities and ministries may have to be given up with little or no notice to others.   Oh that Paul had left us with two equally moral options, of which we could “opt” to fulfill the easier of the two!  But a repenting spouse who dies in his or her sins because we refused to lay down our lives the way Jesus did, is infinitely and eternally worse for us, as the prodigal’s “other half”.    Let such a thing as allowing a prodigal to die in their sin be God’s decision, never SIFC’s!

With this last bit of discussion, we’ve just applied three more principles of sound hermeneutics to 1 Corinthians 7:11 – remain chaste or be reconciled:  Culture, Comparison and Consultation.

As readers might imagine, there is a real Jill and a real Jack in the online marriage permanence community.   One of them appears to be earnestly seeking to reconcile and the other has been making some powerful YouTube videos that have raised some of these questions about reconciliation.    The reconciliation-seeker goes so far as to comment about their intentions on their one-flesh’s YouTube posts, apologizing for what happened.   May God protect this pair from satan’s interference until His full will is done.    Both spouses may be “newbies” when it comes to all the implications of the indissolubility of holy matrimony.   At least one of the spouses makes clear that they need additional time and space to process all that repentance entails, and SIFC would agree they deserve it, so long as their true heart is to obey.    The reluctant spouse is also considering the feelings of the children born into the noncovenant “marriage”, perhaps very wisely, though obedience to Christ usually resolves such matters in due time.   Certainly it is prudent for the reluctant spouse to not act in a way that would mislead the children to believe that getting out of the noncovenant union with their other parent was being done for reasons the world (and worldly church) would regard as “adulterous”.      That spouse has asserted the voice of the Holy Spirit in “not being told to reconcile”.    It is not wrong to aspire to be Spirit-led, but we should remember that the person of the Holy Spirit never leads in contradiction to scripture, even where scripture’s application has been obscured by contemporary culture.    (To round out the discussion, SIFC also notes the previous posts addressing some Anabaptist sects who (for other reasons) falsely teach that reconciliation with the spouse of our youth after repenting of an adulterous noncovenant “marriage” is actually “sinful”.)

In Dr. Eggerson’s classic Christian book,  “Love and Respect”, he echoes the marriage instructions of Peter and Paul  in commanding the husband to love his wife, but commanding the wife to respect her husband.    A husband who effectively “writes off” the soul of his prodigal wife (and sometimes their children) after “remarriage”, by treating the instructions to remain chaste or be reconciled as “either / or” options at his own choosing,  does not love her the way Hosea loved Gomer, nor the way Paul describes in Ephesians 5.     As a result, he is directly contributing to her disrespect and continued prodigal state, and probably her perception of him as a “hypocrite”, since he’s wearing Christ as a large badge, but not modeling Christ toward her very well.    The wife who refuses a repenting husband his God-assigned role of her “head”, does not respect him, and by extension, does not respect Christ in him or over him.   In time, her one-flesh husband will revert to a lack of sacrificial love.

About the gamble, mentioned above, between “loss of rewards” and loss of eternal soul.    Will street ministry, group teaching calls, YouTube videos on marriage permanence make up for letting our one-flesh spouse’s soul go uncared for as a result of exercising this “option”?

 According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it.For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
– 1 Corinthians 3:10-16

We can’t take our ministry materials through this fire and expect them to survive, obviously.    We can only take the souls we influenced correctly by those materials through the fire.    SIFC would suggest that if we guess wrong here, by virtue of having produced those materials, there won’t be any souls to present.   If Christ’s warnings elsewhere concerning heaven-or-hell issues, like authentic forgiveness, and discipleship through imitating Him by laying down our lives are true without exceptions, there won’t even be a pass at that fire that tests our works.

Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.  Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’  And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’

For these strong reasons, it is wrong, selfish and rebellious against the kingdom of God to treat 1 Corinthians 7:11 as presenting two equally-acceptable “stand-alone” options, rather than as dependent commandments (“A”, if not “B”).   It should be clear from all of Paul’s other instructions that he wrote this instruction with a preference for “both / and” (not “either / or”).    After all, reversing the logic and supposing that Jill had left Jack for the “abuse” of having come to Christ, and Jack had remarried, would simply reconciling with Jill absolve Jack from the need to confess his adulterous, noncovenant union as sin and forsake it forever?    Of course not!

Wherefore I urge you to reaffirm your love for him. For to this end also I wrote, so that I might put you to the test, whether you are obedient in all things. But one whom you forgive anything, I forgive also; for indeed what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ, so that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes.
– 2 Corinthians 2:8-11

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