“If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won’t accept the church’s decision, treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector.”
-Matthew 18:17, NLT
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But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace.
-I Corinthians 7:15, KJV
The tricky part of applying I Corinthians 7:15 to matters of divorce is categorizing the cheater or abandoning spouse.
We do not access to someone’s soul. So, we never really know if the person believes in Jesus or not.
All we have is their actions or lack thereof.
I would submit that we do not need to determine the spiritual status of the abandoning spouse to apply I Corinthians 7:15 appropriately. The hint how to do this is in the words Jesus shares regarding church discipline.
Matthew 18:17 talks about what to do when the sinner refuses to repent after a confrontation with the church community. We are to treat this person as an unbeliever–aka “pagan.”
Notice this instruction is not a verdict on their souls. It is merely instruction as to how they ought to be treated.
This is the important point to note:
A professing Christian who has repeatedly refused to respond in godliness to confrontations over their ongoing serious sin is a person who we are taught to treat as an unbeliever.
So, you do not have to determine a professing Christian’s eternal destiny to know whether or not I Corinthians 7:15 applies in your situation. Look at their actions.
How have they responded to repeated confrontations over their sinful behaviors–e.g. adultery, abuse, or abandonment? Have they repented or continued in their sin?
The person who refuses to repent in spite of numerous attempts to help them see their actions destructive nature is a person we are told to treat as an unbeliever.
This means–my interpretation here–that the faithful spouse is free to divorce (and remarry later) without shame.
Whether or not they are a Christian in their hearts is immaterial. What matters is whether their actions demonstrate such a profession. We can only assess actions, after all, not hearts.
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