New Thoughts: (12/09/15-12/13/15)
The flow of this chapter just seems to move from question to question. I’m not thinking so much about the way Paul turns to address various questions, but rather that his answers seem to raise more questions for me. This particular section just raises all manner of questions. Having addressed the married in verse 10, how are they distinct from those with husbands or wives in verse 12? Is it, as many translations conclude, a distinction between couples where both believe and couples where only one believes? Clearly, this latter group is in view from verse 12 forward. But, the wording leaves me wondering whether we have things in clear perspective or not.
Let us start at the top, though: ‘To the married’. Here, we have a verbal adjective, and the verbal force of this indicates a present result of prior (and concluded) action. Wuest, rather surprisingly, offers this as ‘to those who have married’. That implies marriage that has transpired after coming to faith. But, the Perfect Tense, as I understand it, suggests something else. I would have thought this pointed to those who were married prior to faith and continue to be so subsequently.
But, let’s look at Wuest’s perspective a bit. Can we suppose that those who have married (assuming this is subsequent to coming to faith), married within the faith? For us, that seems a reasonable supposition, for we have the wider teaching, including 2 Corinthians 6:14, “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers.” If that is part of the earlier letter portion of 2 Corinthians, perhaps we can assume they have already known this teaching and heeded it. I have to say that there’s not a lot of evidence to support the idea that they heeded much at all. But, let us suppose this is the case. Then, what we have is the first two verses addressing those who have married subsequent to believing. Both partners are believers, and now they are wondering, given this message of celibacy that’s been making the rounds, whether they should perhaps undo the marriage. Paul’s answer is emphatic. Don’t do that! God hates divorce. That hasn’t changed.
Then, he turns ‘to the rest’. Who are the rest? Well, we’ve addressed the unmarried, the widowed, and those who have married subsequent to faith. What’s left are those who were married prior to faith, and particularly those in the situation where one partner has come to faith and not the other. What to do with them? Should faith break the marriage? Paul answers no. But, here’s the thing: Only one partner in that marriage is going to be concerned with what Paul or God has to say on the matter. If the other decides to divorce, what is the believing partner to do? Does he or she refuse to accept it? Should they go to court? Insist that the marriage must be preserved even if their partner is fit to kill at the idea? No, says Paul. If the unbelieving spouse desires a divorce, grant it. You are not in bondage. That will raise questions of its own, as far as how widely that reprieve is to be taken. But, let’s stick with the first challenge for now.
While I would say taking Wuest’s view results in a logical flow of thought, is it within the range of the Perfect Tense? I suppose it would be. If they were married subsequent to faith but prior to this letter, it’s still a Perfect Tense situation: The deed is done, but the results are ongoing. This has the benefit of leaving us with a flow of discussion that is very much in keeping with Paul’s style, as he answers one question and anticipates the next. We’ve addressed the unmarried, which leads to questions about how to handle sexual matters within marriage. That, in turn, leads to questions about whether marriage should persist at all. And, having settled that, we arrive at the hardest of the questions, I think: What do I do with this unbelieving spouse? What if he or she wants to leave? What am I to do?
That is going to present a serious moral dilemma to the believing partner. Am I marked for life by this divorce if I allow it to proceed? Must I remain with this unbeliever and have that perpetual ache in my spirit? Is it even permissible to do so, or does this newfound faith require that I should divorce for my own sanctification? After all, if I am to forsake the world, and this one is clearly worldly, wouldn’t that suggest I should leave?
All in all, I am liking the result of this interpretation, as it answers not only the question of how the verse 10 contingent differ from the verse 12 contingent, but also eliminates the question of how to interpret andros and gunaika. Those terms are both a bit ambiguous, either indicating man and woman, or husband and wife. It’s interesting that there is this dual nature to both terms, and it is actually quite telling as to the intent of marriage, I should think. Man is husband, and husband is man. Woman is wife and wife is woman. But, while the question of differentiating ‘the rest’ from ‘the married’ left me wondering if that ambiguity was clouding my reading of the latter portion, seeing the first group as those who have married in the faith makes the second group entirely plain.
It would have been rather a wrenching reading to attempt to read the terms as man and woman in that section, and it is well that we have good cause not to do so. What we are left with is Paul addressing the case wherein one married partner comes to faith and the other has not done so, at least as of yet. His qualifier on this does not, I should note, render his answer any less authoritative for the church, for he writes under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. When he says, “I say, not the Lord,” it is not by way of reducing the validity of his words. It is merely stating that Scripture as it existed at that time did not address the matter.
After all, Scripture as it existed at that time consisted of the Old Testament. What was written of marriage in that text was written to a nation. Membership in the faith community was effectively a presumed, a priori condition, and the strictures against marrying outside the community were clear. There simply wasn’t opportunity for one spouse to ‘become’ Jewish, with the other continuing to be a Gentile. It had either been so prior to marriage, and the Law had already made it clear that this was wrong, or it could not happen. Therefore, the Scriptures did not address it. This was something of a new situation introduced by Christianity. It was not a national, or a clannish religion. It was global. People were, of necessity, coming from non-Christian backgrounds, and what to do in this situation was a new problem.
We have had the benefit, for the most part, of growing up in an at least nominally Christian culture, and there has always been a reasonable chance that we would wed within the faith. It has not been a guarantee. I, for example, married as an unbeliever to a believing wife. Now, we can argue that I was a believer but didn’t know it yet. It sounds silly to me, but then, God knows better than I do. I can give my wife an alibi as far as becoming unequally yoked, in that I was willing to fake it to keep her happy. I think she was (and still is, in spite of my thoughts) convinced I was truly a believer. Certainly, she’d made it clear she would not marry otherwise. It seemed so small a price to pay at the time. Give her an hour or two of church attendance and I get a week full of loving companionship? Fair trade! Indeed, the price was very small, and the benefit that accrued to me infinite. But, that is nearer the concluding verse of this section than it is to the start.
This moves us on to our next question, which concerns this matter of sanctifying partners and children. What is Paul saying with this? Surely, the mere presence of a believing partner does not render the unbelieving partner fit for heaven. Salvation, as we are told in clear and uncertain terms, is by faith alone in Christ alone. We can and should account salvation and sanctification separately, but it would seem undeniable that salvation, that act of the Holy Spirit upon the heart so as to render us willing to God’s will, must precede that sanctification. As one may hear in outreach training, you can’t clean the fish before you catch it. Of course, God can, for nothing is impossible to Him. But, the normative flow is from salvation into sanctification.
Paul, I am certain, held this view. So, what is he saying? Is it that God does not recognize those marriages that are performed apart from Him? Does this suggest that where two atheists marry and later divorce, it isn’t accounted a sin by God? I don’t think so. Perhaps we should hear this as something of a corollary to what he says later. “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company corrupts good morals’” (1Co 15:33). I shall have to save the investigation of Paul’s intent with that section for its proper place. But, it seems a counterbalance to what he says here. The implication seems to be that good morals, at least in so intimate a setting as marriage, may well ‘corrupt’ bad company.
Even so, it must be clear that this is no recommendation for seeking out an unbeliever for marriage, or even considering it. Paul’s concern here is with those who came to faith after marriage. They did not go into the marriage as unequally yoked. The inequality came about as the Holy Spirit moved upon one partner and not the other. It may be a temporary situation or it may be permanent. We don’t know. In the meantime, that partner is in some wise sanctified by your presence.
Let me say this. I don’t suppose God is any less concerned with the covenant of marriage when it is practiced by unbelievers. Marriage is a vow, an oath, and all oaths are sworn before God as witness whether knowingly or not. Marriage remains His institution whether it is practiced with that in mind, or whether it is pursued with no regard at all for God. Where that institution is now being perverted and warped to encompass such things as God pronounces an abomination, we can be sure that the resulting union is no less an abomination in His eyes for having this mockery of a ceremony applied as cover.
It is interesting, as well, to consider the record of Nehemiah on this subject. There was Israel, come back into the land, and what happened? They were marrying into the surrounding peoples. This was in express violation of the Mosaic Law, and Nehemiah and Ezra called them on it. They even demanded that these wives be put away, divorced. The purity of God’s people was at stake, and the record is painfully clear as to the impact of an unbelieving spouse upon the believing one. That message from 1Corinthians 15:33 rings true, and is given ample witness in the life of Solomon. Bad company indeed corrupts good morals. The temptation to worship the gods of one’s spouse (in the interest of maintaining marital peace) is strong. Of course, that cuts both ways, doesn’t it? I stand as a case in point.
The New Covenant, with its more evident Gospel component, alters the balance from that which Nehemiah pursued. I should rightly say that it more properly restores the balance to its original intent. Now, Paul hedges himself by saying that this is his view, not the express commandment of God, but as I said earlier, that does not leave it any less weighty for our purposes. If that unbeliever is willing to stay with you, stay with him or her. Do not set aside your marriage so readily, for it might just be that you will be instrumental in God’s calling of them. It’s no guarantee, but it’s a possibility. I cannot suppose that the weight of Paul’s use of the term sanctification is any greater than that.
Then comes the question of progeny. If neither of you had been saved, the reasoning appears to go, your children would be ceremonially unclean. But, with one of you saved, they are made holy. Really? They are not only washed, but wholly set apart for God? That seems too strong a statement to me. It is a promise above and beyond what I hear God saying. Can it really be supposed that the simple fact of Christian parentage – even if it is lopsided – is sufficient to ensure the election of the child?
For those with a more thoroughly covenantal understanding, perhaps that view would ring true. Isn’t that, after all, the strength of circumcision in the Old Covenant? Doesn’t baptism, as practiced by those who hold to paedobaptism, hold the same place in the New? But, neither covenant sign ever guaranteed true entry into the covenant. At the end of it, no one can be bound to a covenant upon another’s decision. It is a matter of personal will, whatever one may think of free will. We find even the Old Testament serving up corrections on this matter. The son is not punished for the father’s sins, nor saved by the father’s righteousness. Mind you, the father had no righteousness with which to save him in the first place, but the point is larger. Salvation or condemnation hinges not on heritage but on personal record. If you live right, you’re in. If you live in sin, you’re out.
With all that in view, we cannot hold that Christian parentage offers any sort of guarantee as to the outcome for our children. It may be an advantage to them, if our faith is true and our example godly. But, it’s up to God whether that example takes. I want so much to say it’s up to the child, but it’s not. It’s up to God. If He does not elect to call them, then all our godly example will be to no avail in their case. If He does elect to call them, then the worst of parents will serve equally as well as the best.
So, Paul, what are you saying? It doesn’t seem like the setting for him to enter into hyperbole, although it’s not out of the question. Perhaps he is responding to yet another assumed truism of the Corinthians. Was there some teaching running there which suggested that children of religiously mixed marriages could not possibly be accepted into the church? That actually sounds like it would be in keeping with other matters that have been coming up, although it can’t be said with certainty that this is the case.
Consider, though, where we have been with this material. There have been those points where Paul is generally thought to be quoting local axioms and either refuting or clarifying the truth of the matter. This could readily fit the style, although the axiom itself is left unstated in this case. The implication is clear enough. As much as they found it reasonable to suppose that marriage was itself a barrier to full sanctification, leading to the idea that celibacy should be practiced even amongst the married, the idea that children of such mixed marriages would necessarily be unacceptable, too. Certainly that idea needs fixing, and fast!
After all, who in that church could claim to have been born to believing parents? Not a one, I should think. It had only been a few years, after all, that the church had even been in existence in Corinth. That there were even marriages amongst believers already is believable. Perhaps some had borne children already, but if so, they were as yet infants or at best toddlers. I suppose they might already have come to be accepted as part of the church family. We certainly would view them as such in our own time, although not necessarily accounting them part of the church invisible.
So, sure: It could be a question that was bothering the church. What do we do with the unbelieving family members? If that is the case, then it would be well to have Paul’s clarification, even if the phrasing does seem a bit over the top. All in all, the whole matter of verse 14 remains uncertain to me. The terminology just does not seem to fit the situation. The unbeliever cannot possibly be sanctified by the spouse’s faith, nor can the child be made holy by the faith of its parents. It just doesn’t work that way. There is advantage, to be sure, but there is not a guarantee. Yet, I must note that we again have the Perfect Tense addressing the sanctification matter, and it is in the Indicative Mood. It is being declared as established fact, a certainty that past action of sanctification has been completed and has continuing results. That, I have to say, runs utterly counter to our understanding of sanctification as a lifelong process, rather than a lifelong result like salvation. I must conclude that Paul has a different meaning in view.
What might bring sanctification to mind is the divorce discussion. After all, the meaning of that term speaks of separating from the filthy, the common, which is to say the worldly. In that it is a separating, it certainly has a degree of commonality with the idea of divorce, where spouses separate one from another. Sanctification is, in a sense, divorcing the world. One who has divorced cannot be assured of never encountering their ex. In like fashion, one who is sanctified cannot suppose he will never encounter the worldly. Far from it! We have been purposefully left in the world, though no longer truly of the world. We have divorced, but there’s still these social engagements that can’t be avoided – and shouldn’t be. There is no Biblical foundation for monastic, cloistered living, as tempting as that can be to our beleaguered senses.
That said, even such a sense of sanctification does not fit the bill. That unbelieving spouse has not been divorced from the world. Were that the case, they would no longer be the unbelieving spouse. The children may not be accounted as utterly unacceptable by the Church, but they certainly can’t be construed as automatic members of the True Church. They’re hardly priests from birth just because mom or dad has become a believer. They’re not suddenly priestly material on the day that mom or dad became so, either. But, I’m getting nowhere with this beyond speculative pursuits. Let me save further effort until I return with commentaries in hand.
I will touch briefly on verse 15. The general point is sufficiently clear. If the unbelieving partner sues for divorce, don’t fight it. Grant it. Whereas in a marriage of believing partners, all effort should be made to restore a healthy marriage – and if they are indeed believers, that ought to be a real possibility – in this situation there is no such reason for optimism. If they want to leave, particularly if they want to leave for the very reason that your faith is repugnant to them, then let them go. Don’t be the one to initiate the separation, but neither feel that you have to expend every effort to persevere in spite of their antipathy.
The question that arises in regard to this straightforward point is how far does the ‘not under bondage’ go? Is the believing partner merely free to grant the divorce, or is that one thereafter free to remarry within the faith without running afoul of the sin of adultery? That’s much harder to settle. Certainly, the general teaching of Scripture in regard to such situations would suggest that to marry a divorcee is to render both yourself and your partner adulterers in God’s view. But, does that body of teaching, being directed to Israel as the people of God, already assume a marriage within the faith? Why, after all, would there be any great effort to discuss what to do with those who have been in marriages already forbidden by the same body of law?
Of course, God knows us. The Law He gave to Israel was replete with cases in the form of, here’s the rule and if you break it, here’s the next rule. We see that in Paul’s discussion of those married within the faith. Don’t leave your husband. But, if you do, remain unmarried unless it be to that same husband. I could certainly see an argument for supposing that the one who marries as a believer, even should they choose to become unequally yoked, should see themselves just as bound by the marriage covenant. After all, they knowingly sealed that covenant with God as witness, however much their choice may have been a violation of His law.
Here, we have a different situation. The marriage was not in the sight of God, so far as either partner was concerned. Granted, the reality is that every marriage occurs in the sight of God, whether acknowledged or not. There is, however, a sense in which it could be said that no covenant is there to bind the conscience in this situation. I could as easily, though, expect that the believing spouse, having come to understand the reality of the situation in God’s eyes, would take the marriage vow to be exactly as binding as if they had been aware of His oversight when they wed. Divorce is hard. There’s a reason God hates it!
But, is He hereby granting a fresh start to that believer who has become a divorcee effectively through no fault of their own? How far does this mercy extend? Does it permit of remarriage? Certainly, there are many who would hold that it does in our own day. I must count myself among them, although I would have to recognize a certain vested interest in the matter.
Let’s take another step along the path that becomes necessary in our day, where it probably hadn’t been in Paul’s. What of that marriage that was seen to be between two believers, but one appears to have fallen away, or to have been false in their earlier profession? Does that fit the same rule Paul is laying out? We are, of course, compounding the quandary. For, first we must reach some conclusion as to the initial state of the one who left. Were they of us or not? The answer to that must hinge on their present condition as much as their past. Are they at present a believer who has lapsed into sin for a season and whom we may hope shall return to faith at a later date, or is it simply that the façade of false faith has finally fallen from their visage?
As to the believing partner, they have already been redefined to some degree from those Paul is considering. They were believers from the outset of the marriage. That is part of our premise. Granted, they entered into the marriage thinking themselves equally yoked, but that has at least the appearance of not being the case. The problem is that we cannot know. We cannot know the truth of their initial condition, and we cannot know the permanence of the present lapse. Is it, then, ever safe to suppose that this couple has effectively come to be under the definition of a marriage in which one has become a believer and the other not? It certainly has fallen out in the reverse order, but is it the same thing in effect?
Again, I have clearly reached my own conclusions in this regard, but I am forced to acknowledge to myself that in many ways, my conclusions are forced upon me by my present state. That is not a wise way to discern the Truth. But, I am one in the situation of having entered into just such a marriage. It seems to me that we managed to break just about every rule of courtship and marriage in coming together as husband and wife, apart from those covering degrees of separation. Our courtship was brief in the extreme. She was a divorcee with children. I was an unbeliever. She had been married to a believer. One or both had lapsed from faith. One or both later returned to faith. At the time we married, none of this mattered a great deal to me, other than to acknowledge the baggage handling ahead.
Now, the whole matter of whether that divorce falls under the verse 15 rule is of interest. I believe that it does, or did to the best of my wife’s understanding of the situation. Her ex would certainly claim to be a believer now, and may even be so. It’s a hard read for me, given his attitudes and combativeness, but that’s no proof one way or the other. An unpleasant Christian may well be a Christian yet. Some doubtless see me in a similar light, as being a rather unpleasant Christian. But, we have settled, as best we may, that at the time the situation was such as might be deemed covered by this rule.
Then comes the harder question for the church. What does this all do in terms of disqualification for service as a deacon or elder? Here, again, I can only say I have reached my own settlement with the matter, and the church I serve, or the leadership thereof prior to my seating, has concurred. There is abundant mercy in Christ. At the end of the day, as destructive and distracting as sexual sins are, they are no more or less sinful than other sins. If a past sin with other matters is insufficient to permanently disqualify one from serving as an officer of the church, how can we suppose this one sin, having been long repented of, is?
There are the added wrinkles that come of these entanglements. To repent cannot, and should not in this case, consist in seeking to alter the situation. The marriage is consummated. The vow has been made. It would seem improper and sinful in its own right to pursue a divorce on the grounds of having come to such realization. That, I have to say, also seems to come under the verse 15 rule. An increase in enlightenment, a greater understanding of Scripture, changes one’s perception of one’s own past (or current) actions. But, to alter one’s course to the degree necessary to comply with that understanding has its own sins attached. Which is worse: To trust in God’s forgiveness for those past actions, or to count on Him to forgive the one now contemplated?
I conclude, given my present understanding, that it is present state that determines one’s fitness for office, not matters of youthful indiscretion. I conclude that the mercy of God is great, indeed, and that He prepares us uniquely for our unique roles in His plan of salvation. I conclude that there is, to be sure, an ideal course for marriage, but that God has also made allowance for the fallen state of man, that He might salvage by His great mercy what we have laid wreck to by our low sinfulness.
That brings us to the final verse and the final question for this passage. The way different translations present verse 16 may tend to tilt how we hear it. The NASB, for example, says, “For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband?” Wuest stresses the form of knowing that is in view, saying, “How do you know positively, O wife, whether you will save your husband.” Then, there’s the TLB, which renders the matter thus: “After all, there is no assurance to you wives that your husbands will be converted if they stay.” Now, those present three very different perspectives. The first would seem to stress the positive: Stay, because you might save them. Wuest, being focused on the verb tense for to know, introduces a note of doubt, and the TLB would appear to stress the unlikeliness of success.
Which way, then, should we take this verse? The answer hinges in the tiny word translated as ‘whether’. Ei, which is a conditional particle, tends to assume the action when it is combined with an indicative term, as it is here. The sense, then, according to Thayer, is ‘whether or not’. This may be what Wuest is trying to bring out when he asks, “How do you know positively?” You can’t be certain.
This is the intent. Stay if they will have you. Perhaps you shall be instrumental in their salvation. Leave if they won’t have you. After all, there’s no guarantee that all your effort will ever produce the fruit of repentance in them. The result for them is in God’s hands. If He has chosen them, they will come to Him with or without you. If He has rejected them, then they will not come no matter how much you pray and labor for their rescue. What is left for you to do, O believer? It seems to me you are in the place of David praying for the son that would be taken from him. So long as the child lived, he committed himself to prayer and fasting on behalf of that child. But, when the child was taken, he arose, cleaned himself up, and went to worship the Lord.
For those in this situation, that answer might be seen as playing out in the unbelieving partner’s decision to leave. That is, in a symbolic fashion, the death of the child. It is to some degree evidence of God’s decision. Their leaving may be taken as indication that they are not going to come to Christ. Is it guaranteed? No. It is no more a guarantee of the future than their staying. You don’t know. You cannot know. Now, some will lay claim to a word from the Lord in regard to a specific pairing. My beloved wife was given such a word in respect to myself. You may say what you will about such activities, but I must say this: It proved right. I cannot, in good faith, recommend the course we took towards marriage and life together, as utterly wonderful as it is in result. The credit for that goes entirely to God. That is so, I must suppose, in all successful marriages. But, we feel it in a particularly strong way, because we really left no other avenue for success other than God making it work.
What have we seen, then, in this part of Paul’s instruction? We have seen that divorce is at best to be reserved as a last resort, and even then, there is no ground given to the believer to pursue it by choice. Now, we must temper that with the recognition that even Jesus acknowledged a release from this for those whose partners were unchaste. I note this is not mandatory. It is granted, as Paul would say, as a concession not a command. We may include violence and abuse on the part of one partner under that head, or bring it in as being in keeping with the mercy of God. That is, however, much shakier ground. There is no direct Biblical instruction to suggest such an exception to the law against divorce. The nearest I could come to finding support for it would be in the sense that authority is rendered null and void when it is exercised in a fashion contrary to that Authority who delegated authority in the first place. That is to say, being ungodly in the exercise of authority renders that authority void.
Of course, such a principle would apply more correctly to governance, but as husband and wife are called to submit one to another, there is a degree of governance in the home. I cannot claim to be entirely comfortable with that reasoning, but it is one approach.
Paul provides another, clearer exception: If the unbelieving partner chooses to divorce, let him or her go. Do not violate peace in pursuit of maintaining this fiction. But, it is noteworthy that this only holds if the unbelieving partner wishes the divorce. If that is not the case, the believer is called to persevere. I should think that such a relationship must be in some ways abusive. One thinks of the thing said of Lot, that he was tormented by the ways of the Sodomites so long as he lived in that city. The sinfulness of those around us must necessarily torment us if we are in Christ. It is a stench and an offense in the nostrils of our God, and a thumbing of the nose at Him. How much harder a burden is that to bear when it is in the home?
I think of the situation faced when one’s child rejects the faith. It is an agony to the parent. We pray that God would reverse the situation – knowing He did so for us. We seek by example and effort to demonstrate the love of God, and to hold out the Gospel in the best and most becoming light. But, the fact must be faced: They are not guaranteed entry. Whatever we read into verse 14, we cannot read that degree of assurance. Even if we take the parental favorite, Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it”, it cannot, in the end, be accounted a guarantee. How we would love to take it thus! But, there is an assumption in that, which is that our training has been not merely the best we could do, but sufficient to the mission. In that sense, it rather requires a failure to assess our own fallen condition to suppose a guarantee has been given us.
We must recognize the ei: Whether or not. We labor in hope, and we hope in a good and merciful God. But, like David, when the evidence is rendered conclusive, we must worship God whatever the outcome. His glory upheld and manifest is of far greater import in the scales of eternity than the election of our progeny. That may sound cold, but it is cold fact. “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me” (Mt 10:37). That is no new language. Aaron got the same message from God when his sons were rather forcibly removed from both the priesthood and from life. Don’t mourn. No sackcloth and ashes for you. God’s Justice is made manifest, and thus is His glory upheld. As you are His servant, this cannot be cause for mourning for you, but for worship.
We must maintain, as Scripture maintains by implication if not by direct expression, that to have godly parents is a great boon to the child. To have godly parents is to have every advantage. We hear much today about white privilege, or male privilege or what have you. But that is nothing. The wealth of parents is no great advantage, and has proven to be particularly destructive of the children in many a case. The race of the parents carries no advantage. The black is as fallen as the white is as fallen as the Latino is as fallen as the Asian is as fallen as the Arab is as fallen as the Jew. There’s no escaping the Fall, and the federal headship of Adam. There is only rebirth, as God grants it. That is the sole advantage. Having parents who have been reborn offers an earlier awareness of the possibility of rebirth and of one’s own fallen nature. It is no guarantee, for it remains God’s prerogative to have compassion where He will. But, how much easier for the child of a believer to believe! How great the benefit to his soul of having been trained as best his parents could manage in the ways of the Lord. How much greater, I must suppose, is the crime should they reject the God who caused them to be born into so advantageous a setting.
As I close out this study, I think I need to alter my selection of key verse. In my preparatory work, I looked upon verse 14 as the key verse to cling to. It does, after all, represent the kind of hope that we must find particularly compelling when we find our nearest relations do not share our faith. But, I am thinking more and more that verse 16 is truly the key verse to hold in view. Whether it is the unbelieving spouse, the child had with that spouse, or even the child of two lifelong believers, the truth of it holds: You don’t know for certain whether they shall be saved or not. I will maintain to the end that we can and should have certainty about our own situation, but that is the only one in which we can have such certainty. When it comes to others, we can do our best to assay the fruit evident in their lives, but even with our closest companions, the fact is that we are privy to only the smallest portion of their real condition.
We don’t know, as God does, the heart. We cannot. Frankly, I think it is one of His greatest mercies towards us that we do not. If we were to know every thought of those with whom we associate, I think it would leave all of us rather neurotic. For that, if you knew everybody you met likewise knew your inmost thoughts, I dare say it would drive you either mad, or into the greatest isolation you could obtain. Freedom of thought rather requires privacy of thought. But, let us never lose awareness that our most private thoughts are never ours alone. They are always shared with God. Therein we shall have plenty of cause to repent. But, returning to the topic of this passage, and the critical message it holds: We can never know for certain what impact we shall have for the salvation of another, however near and dear they may be to us. Much though it hurts to think it, our spouses, our children, our parents may not follow us as we follow Christ. Even so, to God be the glory. Whom He has called, He has justified and sanctified. By clear and simple corollary, whom He has not called, He has not justified or sanctified, nor can they ever do so without Him.
