One of the gifts that the Roman Empire gave to European civilization was their legal system. They helpfully differentiated three types of law: natural law, the law of nations (international law), and civil law (the law of a particular people). Similarly, one of the major characteristics of Mesopotamian civilizations (Babylonians, Akkadians, and the Medes and Persians), was their meticulous concern with laws, including the Jewish Old Testament Law. This Mosaic Law understood that certain moral laws were established in God's creation for all people: the sanctity of life and wrongfulness of murder, the establishment of two genders equaling biological sex--males and females, the goodness of marriage between a male and a female, the commandment to be fruitful and multiply upon the earth, oversight over and responsibility for the flourishing of all creation, and the commandment to live by God's law and not try to take His place (i.e., not to eat of the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil). In addition to this natural law, God gave the Jews laws that defined them as different from the surrounding nations. In the Ancient Near East and in Greece and Rome, law codes given perhaps by significant persons (Hammurabi, Solon, Romulus, etc.) were attributed to the gods. Likewise, the Old Testament Law, given through Moses, was given by God. Some laws were universal--according to nature--while some laws were particular to a certain people (circumcision, food laws, holy days).
With this foundational thinking about law codes, Paul the Christian Jew was able to answer some questions from the Corinthian church about marriage and sexuality. One question that the church needed answered was what to do in the case of a mixed marriage, that is, a marriage between a Christian and a non-Christian. Paul stated the obvious: a Christian should only marry a Christian (1 Cor. 7.39). This makes marriage more like a 'civil law' for Christians. That is, this view has no bearing on non-Christians.
Yet people inevitably found themselves in mixed marriages, whether because one spouse left the Christian faith or because the couple was married before one came to faith. In this case, Paul says that the Christian should not leave the marriage (1 Cor. 7.12-16). This advice is understandable from the creation narratives in Genesis 1-3. Marriage is part of natural law, whatever particular laws human law codes add around this. This is why, of course, Jews and Christians have held through the millennia that marriage is only between a man and a woman and that, whatever one's religion, it is binding. In fact, when asked about divorce, Jesus replied that one--anyone--should not divorce because of the creation ordinances of marriage (Mark 10.6-9). He said, 'What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate' (v. 9).
There is more to Paul's statements to the Corinthians, however. While recognising that marriage fits under the category of natural law, he introduces a further understanding: holy matrimony. This has very practical value. If there were not a sanctity in a Christian's marriage, the children would not be holy but unclean (1 Cor. 7.14). Not only are the children holy, but because of the believing spouse the even unbelieving spouse is made holy (v. 14). This does not mean that the unbelieving spouse is 'saved,' but continuing in a mixed marriage makes it possible that the believer would win the unbeliever to the faith and he or she be saved (v. 16). Even so, the marriage of a Christian constitutes a holy matrimony extending to the couple and their children.
Crucially, one of the fundamental convictions about marriage in this entire argument is that creation established marriage between a man and a woman. In this same letter, Paul declared in no uncertain terms that crossing genders ('soft men') and homosexual sex are sins that will keep one from the Kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6.9; cf. 1 Tim. 1.10). Sadly, the ESV translation of 1 Cor. 6.9 obscures the two terms Paul uses and simply translates them together with the one word, 'homosexuality.' This is part of what Paul means, but in our now trans-culture, we need both terms. 'Soft men' is a broad notion in antiquity--commonly used--that has to do with both sexual profligacy and same-sex orientation. Thus, in 1 Corinthians 6.9, Paul says that both 'soft men' and same-sex persons will not inherit God's Kingdom. He also says that Christians in the Corinthian church had been washed, sanctified, and made righteous (the ESV says 'justified') through Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit (v. 11). The Church was not a congregation of forgiven sinners alone; it was also a purified people no longer characterised by their sins. Paul's letter to the Romans also includes a clear word against lesbian and male homosexuality (Romans 1.25-27). Thus, he would never have recognized contractual marriages that did not have the backing of the creational understanding of marriage, such as the novelty of same-sex marriage.
So, now, we come to contemporary Western society--Postmodernity's rejection of natural law and creation. In this context, marriage is contractual. It is neither based on God's purposes in creation nor is it holy. Whatever civil laws a Western country passes, they are not God's laws. Christians naturally reject any laws passed about marriage that reject creational ordinances. Nor is a Christian to associate with anyone who 'bears the name of brother [i.e., claims to be a Christian] if he is guilty of sexual immorality' (1 Corinthians 5.11). Paul adds that, if the person does not claim to be a Christian, one should not judge him or her (v. 12). Christians should only judge those within the Church, and for this he quotes a common rule in the Mosaic law: 'purge the evil from your midst'--see Deut. 13:5; 17:7, 12; 21:21; 22:21, 22, 24; Judg. 20:13. Paul says that one should not even eat with such a person (1 Cor. 5.11). This law does not apply to fellowshipping with non-believers. Of course, no Christian would countenance a sinful marital union, such as same-sex 'marriages' or other unions that oppose their faith. One does not countenance sin even if one might fellowship with sinners outside the Church, and marital celebrations are not matters of fellowship but, indeed, 'celebrations' and support for the union. Again, Christians cannot celebrate sinful unions, even of non-Christians.
This clear teaching has a variety of applications to our present circumstances. First, there is no such thing for Christians as 'same-sex marriage' according to the laws of nature. No Christian will recognise even non-Christian 'same-sex, civil marriages' as marriage. This would be an example of codifying sin.
Second, anyone coming to faith in such a 'marriage' will not have that marriage recognised in the Church because it is not recognised in God's creational order. Nobody is holy in such a 'marriage'--the person claiming to be a Christian is not a true believer. Becoming a Christian would involve separating from such a sinful union. Paul says, 'Such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified [made righteous] in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God' (1 Corinthians 6.11.
Third, no Christian would approve the adoption of children by persons who are in same-sex 'marriages.' This is simply child abuse in that it is throwing a child into an unholy union. It is the opposite of extending holiness in a marriage and family by virtue of a believing spouse. It is extending unholiness in the marriage and over the children. As no Christian would recognise same-sex marriages, no Christian would recognise adoption into same-sex unions.
However, fourth, Christians can associate and eat with non-believers in such sinful relationships, and sinners of all sorts. They recognise that they were once cut off from God themselves until they came to faith and changed their ways (1 Cor. 6.9-11). Also, as Paul says, ' I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—10 not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world' (1 Cor. 5.9-10). Christians, as God's holy people, are to attend to their own congregations, purging evil persons from their midst (vv. 11-13). Only so can they provide a testimony to those outside the Church. A compromised Church has no witness.
Fifth, Christians should not marry non-Christians. Paul says, for example, that a widow may marry again, but 'only in the Lord' (1 Corinthians 7.39).
Sixth, as already noted, persons coming to Christian faith should remain in their marriages even if the spouse is not converted (1 Corinthians 7.10-16). In saying so, Paul entertains only the notion of heterosexual marriage--there is no alternative. As we have seen, the believer sanctifies his or her spouse and the children in such marriages. This means that, as the Christian is 'set apart' or sanctified unto God, so a marriage is set apart as holy unto God when there is a Christian. Christian marriage is 'elevated' from being a natural union intended by God in creation for procreation to being holy before God. (Paul expands on the nature of Christian marriage in Ephesians 5.21-33.)
Seventh, Paul also says that, should the unbeliever wish to leave the marriage, the Christian should let them go--grant the divorce (1 Cor. 7.15). (He says nothing about remarriage in such cases.) God has called us to peace, he adds.
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