3266.— What Is Lawful in Marriage?
By Editor
In 1 Cor. 7:27 it is said: "Art thou bound unto a wife? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife." And verse 28 says: "And if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you." Now if a man's wife has left him of her own will and the man has taken another woman, does Paul mean by the 28th verse that there is no sin in doing this? What does he mean that such shall have trouble in the flesh? The mere fact that a wife leaves her husband does not give him the right to marry. She is his wife still altho she has left him. In verse 11 we read, "But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife." The Lord in Matt. 5:32 gives us the only true cause for divorce, and that is fornication, or transgression of the marriage vow. Where the wife or the husband has proved false in this respect the other party may secure divorce and marry again, according to our reading of the scripture. But the mere leaving of either party does not leave the other free to marry without divorce, nor does it indicate divorce unless there has been transgression of the seventh commandment. The trouble in the flesh to which the apostle refers seems to be simply that which follows all marriages in the added anxiety of rearing of children, etc. The 28th verse would seem to refer to those who had purposed marriage but who had refrained from it for the Lord's sake.