The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Thoughts on 1Cor 7:12ff

Hi all,
I have some thoughts on 1Cor 7:12-16 which I'd like to share.
(NKJV) 'If any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her. And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy.....'

One quick point; the words 'sanctified' and 'holy' in v14 NKJV mean the same thing. They come from the same root ('hagiazo', hagios'). If the children are 'holy' enough to be baptized without a confession of faith, so is the pagan husband or wife.

My main question is this; why does Paul suddenly change from the Third Person to the Second Person in v14? Whose children are 'your' children? Why did not Paul write 'their' children which would have been so much simpler and more logical, unless he had a special reason?

Paul is writing to 'the church of God in Corinth' (1:2). Throughout the letter, he writes in the second person ('you') when he is addressing everybody (eg. 1:26; 2:1; 3:1; 9:2 etc., etc.); occasionally, he includes himself and writes 'we' (eg. 8:8). But when he writes to a section of the church, he uses the third person ('he' or 'they' eg. 7:18; 11:29). It may be possible to argue over some instances, but this is his general practice in this letter. Therefore 'your children' in v14 refers to the offspring of all the Corinthian Christians.

The Corinthians had written to Paul (7:1) asking whether a married peson who became converted should separate from his/her unbelieving spouse. They clearly had scriptures like Ezra 10:10 and Neh 10:30 in mind. Paul's answer is that while Christians should not marry unbelievers (2Cor 6:14), a new believer should not separate from an existing spouse.

He says that the unbelieving partener is 'sanctified' by the believer. John Gill and others say that this word ('hagiazo') is used frequently in Jewish wedding rites meaning to 'espouse' or 'set apart in marriage'. The unbelieving partener has been sanctified in that sense. A faithful marriage, which is 'honourable among all' (Heb 13:4), even pagan people, has made the unbeliever acceptable ('sanctified') to the Christian spouse.

To clinch his argument, Paul points to the children of the Corinthian Christians, 'your children'. These children were, like us all, 'conceived in sin' and 'brought forth in iniquity' (Psalm 51:5), yet their parents did not immediately separarte from them because of their sinful condition. Of course not! The parent-child relationship 'sanctified' the sinful child to the believing parent. In just the same way, the pagan husband was 'sanctified' to the Christian wife and so forth.

I suggest that this interpretation is the only one that really does justice to the text, and that it is only possible if the Corinthians were not in the habit of baptizing infants. Otherwise their children would have been regarded as 'hagios' through their baptism and the comparison with an unbelieving spouse would have broken down.

[BTW, I'm informed that this argument was originally put forward by John Dagg]

Blessings to all,
Steve