I Corinthians 7:8-12

Back to The Bible's Difficult Scriptures Explained!

“I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn. And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband: but and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife. But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: if any brother has a wife that believes not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away.”

This passage represents some of the basis for the new “divorce and remarriage” understanding that Mr. Herbert Armstrong began to teach in 1974. Some of his critics still argue with these verses.

I Cor 7:8, 10, and 12 each address different groups or categories of people within a congregation. The question becomes who are the “rest” in the third category, referred to in I Cor 7:12, unless they are people in marriages that are failing?—and what is the “bond(age),” which can be broken (I Cor 7:15)? Consider: human beings can be either “married” (I Cor 7:10) or “unmarried” (I Cor 7:12). There are no other options.

The “rest” must be a category within these two conditions. Read I Cor 7:27, noticing that the only conclusion is that a man can be “loosed” in certain circumstances, if he was bound. Think for a moment. A person can only be loosed from something that he was bound to. This means that such a person can remarry and not sin (I Cor 7:28)—he has been loosed!

The Church of God grew out of the understanding that the “loosing” (I Cor 7:27) meant loosed from a wife who had a previous husband to whom she was bound.

So then, cited as an example of our old understanding, a wife would have never actually been bound to her second husband. Such a couple would merely separate—leave each other, but there could have been no actual “loosing” as such, that would have been necessary. In any event, the Church grew out of this understanding, and the booklet below explains the truth of when one can and cannot divorce and remarry.