1 Cor 7:6-16 continues to offer holy surprises. The previous section had given us the holy surprise that the marriage bed of believers is holy. This is a surprise because the original audience thought that those who abstained were more holy and more single-minded in their devotion to Jesus than those who did not. Now we will be surprised to discover that one can have more than one partner in life and still be holy. The situation in view here being a widower or widow who remarries. Then comes a big surprise for several reasons — that when you become a believer you do not need to divorce your spouse who does not believe. Instead of you becoming defiled when they touch you, you make them holy. And another surprise, more for us though a surprise given Jesus’ teaching on marriage, if the unbeliever wants to divorce you can let them go. But these holy surprises pale in comparison to the surprise that Jesus does not just make us clean but holy, and not just holy ceremonially like the unbelieving spouse, but holy in that the Holy Spirit lives in us and He will never leave us or forsake us or divorce us.
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