The Indissoluble Bond: Marriage as Covenant Text: 1 Corinthians 7:10-11
Introduction: The Throwaway Culture
We live in a throwaway culture. We have disposable razors, disposable plates, and disposable relationships. When something becomes inconvenient, or stops giving us the immediate gratification we demand, we simply discard it and get a new one. This mentality has thoroughly infected our view of the most foundational institution God ever gave to mankind: marriage. Our society treats marriage vows like a product warranty that you can return to the store when you get tired of it. The modern world sees marriage as a contract, and a flimsy one at that, which can be dissolved on the basis of "irreconcilable differences," which is just a high-sounding way of saying, "I don't feel like it anymore."
But the Bible does not present marriage as a mere contract. A contract is an agreement between two parties based on mutual self-interest. If one party fails to hold up their end, the other is released. God's view of marriage is that of a covenant. A covenant is not a contract. A covenant is a blood oath, a solemn bond sealed before God, that creates a new, one-flesh reality. Contracts are broken all the time. Covenants are indissoluble. When God joins a man and a woman, they are fused together, and as Jesus says, "What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate" (Matthew 19:6).
The Corinthian church was shot through with confusion on this point. They were spiritual enthusiasts, thinking that their newfound liberty in Christ meant they could rearrange their domestic lives for the sake of some kind of super-spirituality. Perhaps some thought that being married was a drag on their spiritual potential and that leaving their spouse was a holy act. Paul brings them, and us, back to earth with a sharp, authoritative command. This is not a suggestion for a more fulfilled life. This is a command from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And in a world that treats marriage like a disposable convenience, this command is as counter-cultural and as necessary as it has ever been.
The Text
But to the married I give instructions, not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not leave her husband (but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband should not divorce his wife.
(1 Corinthians 7:10-11 LSB)
A Command from Headquarters (v. 10a)
Paul begins by establishing the authority behind his instruction.
"But to the married I give instructions, not I, but the Lord..." (1 Corinthians 7:10a)
Paul is careful to distinguish between his own apostolic counsel and a direct command that the Lord Jesus gave during His earthly ministry. When he says, "not I, but the Lord," he is not suggesting that his own words are uninspired. A few verses later, he will say, "I, not the Lord," and then at the end of the chapter, he says, "I think that I also have the Spirit of God." All of it is Scripture. The distinction is one of source. Here, Paul is reaching back to the explicit teaching of Jesus recorded in the Gospels (e.g., Mark 10:2-12, Matthew 19:3-9). He is reminding the Corinthians that this is not a new rule he just invented. This is settled law, established by the King Himself.
This is crucial. The permanence of marriage is not a Pauline peculiarity or a cultural hangover from a more traditional time. It is the direct, unvarnished command of the Lord of the covenant. To disregard this teaching is not to have a debate with the apostle Paul; it is to pick a fight with Jesus. And in that contest, you will always lose. Jesus grounded the permanence of marriage in the creation order itself. "From the beginning it was not so." Divorce is a concession to the hardness of human hearts, but it was never part of the original design. God's intention, from the moment He created them male and female, was one man, for one woman, for one life.
So, when we come to this issue, we must do so with our hats in our hands. We are not free to innovate. We are not at liberty to adjust the standard to suit our feelings or our difficult circumstances. We are under orders from headquarters.
The Prohibition and the Parenthesis (v. 10b-11a)
Next, Paul lays out the command, addressing the wife first, and then provides a crucial qualification.
"...that the wife should not leave her husband (but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband)..." (1 Corinthians 7:10b-11a LSB)
In that culture, a woman "leaving" was often her only way to initiate a divorce. A man would "send away," but a woman would "depart." Paul is applying the Lord's command with an even hand to both sexes. There is no escape clause for the woman. The fundamental rule is this: do not leave. The covenant is for life.
But then Paul, being a seasoned pastor, introduces a realistic parenthesis. He knows that because of sin, hardness of heart, and intolerable situations, separations will happen. He is not condoning them, but he is legislating for the reality of a fallen world. What happens if a wife does leave her husband for reasons not biblically sanctioned? The Bible gives two, and only two, legitimate grounds for divorce with the right to remarry: sexual immorality (Matthew 19:9) and abandonment by an unbelieving spouse (1 Corinthians 7:15). If a separation occurs for any other reason, say, because he's a slob, or you've "grown apart," or he's not meeting your emotional needs, then the marriage bond remains intact in the sight of God, even if the state has issued a piece of paper saying otherwise.
In such a case, the separated person has only two options. The first is to remain unmarried. This is not a suggestion; it is a command. To remarry under these circumstances is to commit adultery, because in God's eyes, you are still married to your first spouse. The state can't unjoin what God has joined. Your only other option is to be reconciled to your husband. The door to repentance and restoration must always be kept open. This is a high and difficult standard, and it is meant to be. It is meant to be a massive deterrent to casual separation. It forces us to take our vows with the gravity they deserve. God's ideal is always reconciliation. The command to remain unmarried is a guardrail to protect the possibility of that reconciliation. It prevents us from complicating our sin by dragging another person into it.
The Command for the Husband (v. 11b)
Paul then balances the instruction by directing it squarely at the men.
"...and that the husband should not divorce his wife." (1 Corinthians 7:11b LSB)
The word here is the standard term for a man initiating a divorce, to "send away" or "put away." Paul is simply applying the same covenantal standard to the husband. What is forbidden for the wife is forbidden for the husband. In the Greco-Roman and Jewish worlds, men had far more power and freedom in matters of divorce. They could often dismiss a wife for the most trivial of reasons. But in the kingdom of God, there is a different law. The husband, who is called to love his wife as Christ loved the church, is explicitly forbidden from treating her as a disposable object.
He is the head of the marriage, and that headship is not a license for tyranny but a calling to sacrificial love and covenant faithfulness. He is to be the chief repenter, the first to forgive, and the one who sets the tone of permanence and security in the home. For him to initiate a divorce on unbiblical grounds is not just a personal failure; it is an abdication of his God-given duty. It is a profound act of covenant-breaking that brings the judgment of God.
Conclusion: The Covenant-Keeping God
Why is God so insistent on the permanence of marriage? Is it because He is a cosmic killjoy who wants to trap unhappy people in miserable situations? Not at all. It is because marriage is not ultimately about us. It is about Him. From the beginning, marriage was designed by God to be a living, breathing portrait of the gospel. It is a picture of the covenant love between Christ and His bride, the Church.
Think about it. Does Christ ever "leave" His bride? Does He "divorce" the church when she is unfaithful, when she is difficult, when she fails Him? Never. His covenant love is unbreakable. He says, "I will never leave you nor forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5). When we were unfaithful, He did not abandon the covenant. He went to the cross to absorb the curse of our covenant-breaking Himself, in order to reconcile us to God.
Our marriages are meant to put that kind of love on display in a fallen world. When a Christian husband and wife refuse to give up, when they forgive one another for the hundredth time, when they choose covenant faithfulness over personal happiness, they are preaching a powerful sermon without saying a word. They are showing the world what the love of God is actually like.
This is why the command is so strict. To treat marriage as a disposable contract is to lie about God. It is to slander the gospel. It is to take the beautiful portrait of Christ and the church and tear it to shreds. But to honor the covenant, even when it is hard, even through tears and difficulty, is to tell the truth about our faithful, covenant-keeping God. And there is no higher calling than that.