But She Claims To Be a Christian…

Yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave; the brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us to peace.

I Corinthians 7:15, NASB

When a partner is abusive and leaves or forces a faithful partner to separate, is a divorce an option for the abused partner if both claim to be Christian?

In other words, does I Corinthians 7:15 only apply to those who do NOT claim to be Christian. Or can this text apply to situations of abandonment even with those professing to be Christian?

These are hard questions.

I Corinthians 7:15 forces us to ask the question of whether or not a spouse is a Christian. It puts us in an awkward place of deciding this spiritual status.

Personally, I feel icky making such an assessment of another person. God decides who is a true follower or not, in my opinion.

However, we have to make this assessment if we are to properly handle this Scripture as it comes to marriages with partners possibly both claiming the Christian identity.

First, we need to understand that a claim to be a Christian does not necessarily settle the matter.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 7:21 and 23–

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. … And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”

-Matthew 7:21, 23, NKJV

A profession of faith in Jesus is not enough. We must actually know Jesus.

What does that mean as it comes to a lifestyle of spousal abuse–aka a lifestyle of sin?

I John 3:6 (NIV) tells us:

No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

These verses taken together give us clear indication of who truly follows Jesus and who is just giving lip service to their allegiance to Jesus as Lord. The true follower does not persist in sin. They repent, not double down on sinful wickedness.

Since being known by Jesus is a requirement for salvation and a person willfully stuck in a pattern of sinful abuse does not know Jesus per I John 3:6, we can be fairly confidence an unrepentant spousal abuser falls into the unbeliever category based on their actions.

Ultimately, God knows the eternal destination of this person. However, as it comes to applying Scripture to matters regarding divorce, I personally and pastorally have no problem teaching divorce is allowable in situations of spousal abuse.

A spouse abusing another spouse has pushed them away, and their continuing abuse is a sign of allegiance to the world over Christ. I Corinthians 7:15 thus applies for the abused party.

So–according to my interpretation of Scripture–the abused party is allowed the option of divorce and freedom from a spouse who has demonstrated an unwillingness to live in peace with the abused spouse.

That said, I understand other well-meaning and sincere Christians may interpret and apply these verses differently. I am only sharing how I read them and invite all to come to their own conclusions.

 

*Some abusers may take this very hard. They might insist their victim is playing God by making such an assessment of their salvation. I just point out the Scripture here. If God did not want us assessing others by their behavior or fruit, then why bother giving us these verses? We can only assess by actions/fruit. How else are we to assess an abuser who feels entitled to abusing their partner other than as a person uninterested in following a God who is utterly opposed to such sin?

8 thoughts on “But She Claims To Be a Christian…”

  1. I got into an online spat with a pastor who insists that “true Christians” are guided by the Holy Spirit and cannot live in persistant sin. I pointed out that famous American preachers owned slaves and promoted slavery and surely that evil qualifies as persistant sin? So they were not really Christians? He did not have a good answer because I shot a hole in his argument.
    Judging whether someone is a true Christian is a fool’s errand.
    Judging their behavior is different. If they have substantially violated marriage commitments they have broken the marriage contract, the marriage is basically void. That is the gist of Jewish law and what Paul taught. Also take into account that marriage at that time was quite different than today. Women had few rights, but the right to a divorce certificate was supposed to be one of them. (Deut 24:2)

    1. I agree about the shaky grounds of declaring someone in the Christian camp or not. God knows. AND we still have to judge behavior as you say. I am simply trying to fit my head around the New Testament justification for divorce when one spouse is both declaring she is a Christian while NOT living as one (despite confrontation). It is a hard situation to unwind with NT texts.

      1. My electrical engineer father used to say that if you have a difficult time solving a problem you should question your assumptions. Believing the New Tesament covers all the bases on divorce may be too big of an assumption. It is after all an incomplete record of everything Jesus said or did and a partial compilation of one side of Paul’s correspondence with a few churches. Some of his letters were likely written by others much later. I think that the progressive sweep of Hebrew and Christian scripture suggest resolutions too divorce issues, but are too fuzzy to be strictly prescriptive. I think this is a good thing, as hopefully it leads to thoughtful and prayerful self examination instead of righteous condemnation.

        1. My concern with that is trying to still view the Bible as a constraint of some sort. I agree with the idea that it does not contain all knowledge and truth even though the Bible is fully true. It does not even have all that Jesus did on this earth. Yet I get concerned with a trajectory interpretation as that can lend itself to all sorts of distortions and heresies if one is not careful.

  2. This another torment that we have to deal with. My wife is Catholic. She cheated, wanted to reconcile. Her behavior toward me never changed and after 7 months she moved to another city. I can’t know her heart but her actions say she doesn’t want to be with me obviously. But I am struggling to finally file for divorce. I don’t hate her it’s just hard to finally let go. I feel embarrassed and ashamed already and don’t want the stigma of being divorced but I also want my life back. It’s just one trial after another.

      1. I’ve read on her site, but am reluctant to fully embrace what she talks of as she’s not coming from a Christian perspective. She does make good points though many times

        1. I find that site helps people get in touch with their righteous anger.
          Sometimes we need to get really angry to have the strength to overcome denial.

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