The apostle proceeds by answering a question in connection with the subject
he had been treating-the will of God with regard to the relationship
between man and woman. They do well who remain outside this relationship in
order to walk with the Lord according to the Spirit, and not to yield in
anything to their nature. God had instituted marriage-woe to him who should
speak ill of it! but sin has come in, and all that is of nature, of the
creature, is marred. God has introduced a power altogether above and
outside nature-that of the Spirit. To walk according to that power is the
best thing; it is to walk outside the sphere in which sin acts. But it is
rare; and positive sins are for the most part the effect of standing apart
from that which God has ordained according to nature. In general then for
this reason, every man should have his own wife: and the union once formed,
he had no longer power over himself. As to the body, the husband belonged
to his wife, the wife to her husband. If, by mutual consent, they separated
for awhile that they might give themselves to prayer and to spiritual
exercises, the bond was to be immediately acknowledged again, lest the
heart, not governing itself, should give Satan occasion to come in and
distress the soul, and destroy its confidence in God and in His love-lest
he should tempt by distressing doubts (it is for,not by incontinency) a
heart that aimed at too much, and failed in it.
This permission, however, and this direction which recommended Christians
to marry, was not a commandment from the Lord, given by inspiration, but
the fruit of the apostle's experience-an experience to which the presence
of the Holy Ghost was not wanting.[see note #8]
He would rather that every one were like himself; but every one had, in
this respect, his gift from God. To the unmarried and the widows, it is
good, he says, to abide as he himself was; but if they could not subdue
their nature and remain in calm purity, it was better to marry.
Unsubduedness of desire was more hurtful than the bond of marriage. But as
to marriage itself, there was no longer room for the counsel of experience,
the commandment of the Lord was positive. The woman was not to separate
from the man, nor the man from the woman; and if they separated, the bond
was not broken; they must remain unmarried or else be reconciled.
But there was a case more complicated, when the man was converted and the
wife unconverted, or vice versa. According to the law a man who had married
a woman of the Gentiles (and was consequently profane and unclean) defiled
himself, and was compelled to send her away; and their children had no
right to Jewish privileges; they were rejected as unclean (see Ezra 10:3).
But under grace it was quite the contrary. The converted husband sanctified
the wife, and vice versa, and their children were reckoned clean before
God; they had part in the ecclesiastical rights of their parent. This is
the sense of the word "holy," in connection with the question of order and
of outward relationship towards God, which was suggested by the obligation
under the law to send away wife and children in a similar case. Thus the
believer was not to send away his wife, nor to forsake an unbelieving
husband. If the unbeliever forsook the believer definitively, the latter
(man or woman) was free-"let him depart." The brother was no longer bound
to consider the one who had forsaken him as his wife, nor the sister the
man who had forsook her as her husband. But they were called to peace, and
not to seek this separation, for how did the believer know if he should not
be the means of the unbeliever's conversion? For we are under grace.
Moreover every one was to walk as God had distributed to him.
As regarded occupations and positions in this world, the general rule was
that every one should continue in the state wherein he was called; but it
must be "with God"-doing nothing that would not be to His glory. If the
state was in itself of a nature contrary to His will, it was sin; clearly
he could not remain in it with God. But the general rule was to remain and
glorify God in it.
The apostle had spoken of marriage, of the unmarried and of widows; he had
been questioned also with respect to those who had never entered into any
relationship with woman. On this point he had no commandment from the Lord.
He could only give his judgment as one who had received mercy of the Lord
to be faithful. It was good to remain in that condition, seeing what the
world was and the difficulties of a christian life. If they were bound to a
wife, let them not seek to be loosed. If free, they would do well to remain
so. Thus if they married, they did well; not marrying, they did better. He
who had not known a woman did not sin if he married, but he should have
trouble after the flesh in his life here below. (It will be observed, that
it is not the daughter of a Christian that is here spoken of, but his own
personal condition.) If he stood firm, and had power over his own will, it
was the better way; if he married, he still did well; if he did not marry,
it was better. It was the same with a woman; and if the apostle said that
according to his judgment it was better, he had the Spirit of God. His
experience-if he had no commandment-had not been gained without the Spirit,
but it was that of a man who could say (if any one had a right to say it)
that he had the Spirit of God.
Moreover the time was short: the married were to be as having no wives;
buyers, as having no possession; they who used the world, not using it as
though it were theirs. Only the apostle would have them without carefulness
or distraction, that they might serve the Lord. If by reckoning themselves
dead to nature this effect was not produced, they gained nothing, they lost
by it. When married they were pre-occupied with things below, in order to
please their wives and to provide for their children. But they enjoyed a
repose of mind, in which nature did not claim her rights with a will that
they had failed to silence, and holiness of walk and of heart was
maintained. If the will of nature was subjugated and silenced, they served
the Lord without distraction, they lived according to the Spirit and not
according to nature, even in those things which God had ordained as good
with respect to nature.
As to the slave, he might console himself as being the Lord's free-man; but
(seeing the difficulty of reconciling the will of a pagan or even an
unspiritual master with the will of God) if he could be made free, he
should embrace the opportunity.
Two things strike us here in passing: the holiness which all these
directions breathe with regard to that which touches so closely the desires
of the flesh. The institutions of God, formed for man when innocent, are
maintained in all their integrity, in all their authority, a safeguard now
against the sin to which man is incited by his flesh. The Spirit introduces
a new energy above nature, which in no wise weakens the authority of the
institution. If any one can live above nature in order to serve the Lord in
freedom, it is a gift of God-a grace which he does well to profit by. A
second very important principle flows from this chapter. The apostle
distinguishes accurately between that which he has by inspiration, and his
own spiritual experience-that which the Spirit gave him in connection with
the exercises of his individual life-spiritual wisdom, however exalted it
might be. On certain points he had no commandment from the Lord. He gave
the conclusion at which he had arrived, through the help of the Spirit of
God, in a life of remarkable faithfulness, and aided by the Spirit whom he
but little grieved. But it was not a commandment of the Lord. On other
points that which he did not except in this manner was to be received as
the commandment of the Lord (compare chap. 14:37). That is to say, he
affirms the inspiration, properly so called, of his writings-they were to
be received as emanating from the Lord Himself-distinguishing this
inspiration from his own spiritual competency, a principle of all
importance.
