We next consider Paul’s instruction that “each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him.” What does this say about the conversion of a wrongly divorced and remarried couple?
17 Nevertheless, each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches. 18 Was a man already circumcised when he was called? He should not become uncircumcised. Was a man uncircumcised when he was called? He should not be circumcised. 19 Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commands is what counts. 20 Each one should remain in the situation which he was in when God called him. 21 Were you a slave when you were called? Don’t let it trouble you-although if you can gain your freedom, do so. 22 For he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the Lord’s freedman; similarly, he who was a free man when he was called is Christ’s slave. 23 You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men. 24 Brothers, each man, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation God called him to.
Why is Paul addressing circumcision and slavery in this discussion on marriage, divorce, and remarriage? Notice that he immediately returns to his original subject in verse 25. The only logical explanation is that Paul is still addressing marriage here. He is teaching us about marriage by analogy to other more obvious principles. His point is that if we remain a slave after becoming a Christian, or remain circumcised or uncircumcised after becoming a Christian, then we remain married after becoming Christian — so far as it is within our power to do so.
Now this is not an absolute rule, as the analogies themselves make clear. Paul certainly would not argue that a slave should refuse to accept his freedom if it became available, as he makes clear in verse 21. Therefore, while Christianity does not require a change in life situation, neither does it prevent a change when the change can be accomplished without sin.
Paul’s argument is broad. Take for example a married couple where each spouse is on his or her second marriage. Suppose that couple is converted to the Lord and wish to be baptized. Some have argued that they must be divorced as a condition to being saved, because their marriage is wrong — indeed, adulterous — arguing from Matthew 5:31-32.
But Paul plainly teaches that Christians who are married when converted are to stay married. Indeed, divorce is a sin. How can we urge couples to divorce — that is, to sin — as a condition to being saved? I thought we taught repentance — not sin! — as a step toward salvation![1] How does one repent of vow breaking by breaking another vow?[2]
The only possible argument that we should require divorced and remarried couples to divorce to be saved is to contend that the couple is not married at all because the spouses are still married to their first spouses in the eyes of God, their divorces being wrongful. But, as will be explained in more detail later, this is not possible. After all, Jesus himself said, “What God has put together, man should not separate” (“put asunder” in KJV). How can we contend that it’s impossible for a marriage to be wrongly ended when Jesus said that man can (but shouldn’t) separate the marriage?
More fundamentally, Paul plainly says in verse 28 that it is not a sin to remarry after a divorce. It is the divorce that is a sin — not the remarriage. Marriage is good, blessed, and ordained of God. Divorce — more precisely, breaking the marriage covenant — is hated by God. Why? Because God loves his people and violating a marriage hurts his people.
The husband and wife who have remarried are just as bound to their new covenant as they were to their first covenant. And their children will be just as hurt by a divorce of their parents as they would be if their parents were on their first marriage.
We’ll address this situation further later.
[1] Acts 2:38.
[2] Foy E. Wallace, Jr. writes, “It is in this connection that the apostle added in verse 20, ‘Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called,’ and it should serve as a check to some marriage counselling preachers who are so readily disposed to break up marriage relationships that are not in conformity with their own immature opinions.” Sermon on the Mount and the Civil State (1967), p. 45, quoted by Hicks, p. 24.
Wallace was editor of the Gospel Advocate for many years during the midst of the 20th Century. By today’s standards, Wallace would be considered very conservative and, indeed, legalistic.
