Robert Stewart
1 Corinthians 7:14. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.
Speaking to the people of this world, the Lord says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways” (Is 55:8). Indeed, no two things can be more unlike than the estimate the men of the world form of the world and the estimate God forms of it. In the judgement of worldly men, saints or believers are the most useless, if not the most contemptible, portion of society. Their scruples, peculiarities and self-denials are considered senseless and unreasonable, and their answers and rebukes are condemned as ill-natured and uncharitable. In the judgement of God, on the contrary, they are the excellent of the earth, the pillars of society.
“Ye are the salt of the earth”, said Jesus to His disciples. He was implying that the world, which is a mass of corruption, would be lost in rottenness but for them. “Ye are the light of the world”, He said again, implying that, but for them, the world would speedily be overwhelmed with darkness. In the opinion of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot was an insignificant stranger who came in to sojourn among them upon sufferance. But had there been ten such men in those cities, they might have remained until this day. In our Lord’s parable of the field in which the enemy sowed tares, the wicked are represented as permitted to continue until the day of judgement for the sake of the righteous.
And in the passage we are considering, the “unbelieving husband” is said to be “sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife by the husband”. There are two kinds of sanctity, or holiness, spoken of in Scripture. The sanctity of dedication, whereby persons or things are appropriated to God, so they cannot without sacrilege or injustice be used for any other purpose. And the sanctity of purification, which refers only to persons, consists in deliverance from what God hates or disapproves of, and a conformity of all the powers of body and mind to God’s will. It is in the sense of dedication that cities, lands, houses and household utensils are said to be sanctified or holy, for they cannot be holy in any real sense; to set them apart exclusively to God’s service could not effect any change whatever on their internal structure.
It is in the same sense that the firstborn in Israel, when they were delivered from Egyptian bondage, are said to be sanctified, or holy (Ex 13:2). No real change was made on their mind or feelings by being set apart to God, and the same is the case with the sanctity of the tribe of Levi in general, and that of the priests in particular. In fact, the sanctity of complete purification, or of unspotted holiness, was never true of anyone, except the man Christ Jesus. All others have hearts which are more or less deceitful and wicked; if weighed in an accurate balance, they must be found sadly lacking. Christ, however, knew no sin. He never did evil, nor was guile found in His mouth; He was holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners. As He bore the griefs and carried the sorrows of His people, He is able to “present them without spot or wrinkle . . . holy and without blemish” (Eph 5:27).
The sanctity of the believing husband or wife includes both kinds of sanctification. This is the sanctity of dedication to God, which every believer is enabled to do when he is united to Christ; and from Christ in justification and through the Holy Spirit in sanctification, he receives holiness, or spiritual purification. The sanctity of the unbelieving husband or wife, however, is merely the holiness of dedication. The husband and wife are one in the eye of God, and because one of the parties is truly dedicated to the Lord, and truly made holy, the other is considered as federally holy – or holy by the bond and covenant of marriage.
The unbelieving husband or wife, who is joined in marriage to a believer, is, on two accounts, nearer to God, and is more valuable in His sight than the unbelieving husband or wife of an unbeliever. He or she is nearer to God because having a spouse in close communion with God. And he or she is nearer to God because more likely to be converted to God, “for what knowest thou, O wife,” says the Apostle, “whether thou shalt save thy husband? Or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?” If God for the sake of ten righteous people, would have tolerated the wickedness of Sodom and saved its many guilty inhabitants, much more, for the sake of a believing spouse, will He spare an unbelieving husband or wife and protect them.
Indeed, so valuable and dear in God’s sight is every believer, that the offspring of the Christian husband or wife, although the other parent may be an infidel, is viewed as holy and privileged to approach God. Jehovah will not overlook or neglect the humblest servant (Is 42:3); rather than the faith of one believing parent should, with regard to a child, be barren and unfruitful, the unbelief of the one party is swallowed up in the faith of the other, and the children of both are considered holy.
The holiness here ascribed to the child is obviously the holiness of dedication, for the infant could derive no personal or spiritual holiness from a parent. So this passage triumphantly demonstrates that the infants of members of the visible Church have a right to be baptized. Paul speaks as though the holiness of a child, born in such circumstances, was well known. “Else were your children unclean,” he says, “but now are they holy.” He does not lay it down as a doctrine to be received in future in all like circumstances: that the child of parents, of whom only one was a believer should be considered holy. But he refers to it as doctrine already established, and from it he draws the inference that the believing husband or wife ought not to forsake the unbelieving partner.
Baptism then is the gate of admission into the Christian Church, or the only path by which, in dedication, we can approach God. The apostles judged the child of one believing parent to possess the holiness of dedication. It is therefore obvious that the children of believers generally must have been, at that time, constantly presented to God at baptism, just as the children of believing Israelites were, under the preceding dispensation, dedicated or presented to God in circumcision.
Footnotes for The Holiness of a Believer’s Children:
1. Taken, with editing, from The Christian’s Daily Companion. Stewart (1783-1852) was minister of Broughshane, near Ballymena, in Northern Ireland.