Our Gospel Moves the Other Way

In 1 Corinthians 7:14, Paul says that an unbelieving husband is made holy because of his believing wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her believing husband.

What does Paul mean? In what sense is an unbelieving spouse “made holy” through marriage to a Christian?

Now, holiness language in the New Testament typically relates to eternal salvation, but not always. Paul’s point here is not that the unbelieving spouse is ultimately holy, that is, eternally saved. Rather, his point is the contagious, expansive, offensive (rather than defensive) nature of Christianity and Christian holiness. Believers are not tainted or spoiled simply through association with unbelievers, but in fact, gospel power moves the other way. (Like Jesus touching the leper, and instead of Jesus’s becoming unclean, the leper is healed.)

Paul is saying, when it comes to marriage, and a believing spouse married to an unbeliever, this doesn’t mean your marriage and parenting and children are ruined. Rather, the power of the Holy Spirit moves the other way. Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world! (1 John 4:14). Your marriage is not automatically defiling, if your spouse is unbelieving. And your children are not destined for ruin simply because of the unbelief of your spouse. Paul wrote to encourage believers that if you already find yourself yoked to an unbelieving spouse, you can be hopeful, not despairing. (This point is not missionary dating, or its cousin, infant baptism, but hope for those already unequally yoked.)

But the exhortation for us this morning goes beyond marriage. It’s this: freshly consider the power at work in you as you engage and seek to influence our unbelieving cities.

Brothers and sisters, Christian holiness, New Testament holiness, Spirit-indwelt holiness is not cowering, hiding, socially-quarantining holiness. It is contagious holiness, outgoing, expansive, radiating holiness. 

Our lives in Christ, with his Spirit dwelling in us, are not to be dominated by the fear of being spoiled by the world. There are real dangers, yes. But our driving, prevailing impulse is to be the hope-filled expectation that the power of Christ and his Spirit can and do move the other way, and that we can pray and hope and so act that we too move the other way. 

In Jesus, with his indwelling Spirit, we can make moments and places and groups and even unbelieving people holy, and not defiling, and pray it leads even to conversion and saving holiness in its fullest sense.

Let’s pray.

Father, this morning we acknowledge afresh that your Holy Spirit, who dwells in us, is not a Spirit of fear, but he is a Spirit of power, and of love, and of self-control. In these recent years of masks and vaccines and riots and endless speculations and accusations of racism and accusations of wokeness, a spirit of fear has pervaded so many hearts, including Christians, including all of us in various ways. But this is not your Spirit. So, Father, we repent of fearing anything and anyone other than you. And we confess our misplaced and inordinate fears, and our other shortcomings and sins, in the quiet of this moment.