Beauty in Both Singleness and Marriage

If you have a Bible—and I hope you or somebody around you does—let me invite you to open with me to 1 Corinthians 7. I love God’s Word so much. I just don’t think it was a coincidence that last Sunday, in the middle of this series on Sexuality, that our Bible reading together would be in a text that tells the story of a woman caught in sexual immorality, who was being ostracized by the religious elite, but whom Jesus forgave and saved, then turned her brokenness into beauty.

God, make us a church where many sinful people find forgiveness, grace and mercy in Jesus, knowing that we are all sinful people in need of forgiveness and grace and mercy in Jesus.

Now this week, we come back to 1 Corinthians 6 and 7 to hear God’s good word to us amidst a sea of cultural confusion that surrounds us when it comes to sexuality, singleness and marriage in our world today. Specifically, I want to show you the beauty of both singleness and marriage according to God. We’ve got a ton of ground to cover, so let’s dive right in. Here is God’s Word to us in 1 Corinthians 7:1: “Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: ‘It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.’”

1 Corinthians 7:1–9 Offers a Stark Message to the Corinthians 

Let me pause here for a second before we go on and acknowledge that this letter we’re reading in the Bible was written to a group of real Christians in a real church in a real city called Corinth in the first century. Paul, who’s writing this letter under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is addressing something they had written to him. Corinth was a sex-crazed, sexually confused culture; many of the people in this church could be branded new believers in Jesus. They were trying to figure out how to follow Jesus in this culture around them.

Paul had been telling them to flee from sexual immorality. We saw this two weeks ago—a command from God to flee any and all sexual activity outside of marriage between a man and a woman. That sounded so extreme to them, much like it sounds to us today, to the point that they were probably thinking, “Well then, maybe we should just flee any and all sexual activity, period.” Apparently they had written to Paul saying, “It seems good for a man not to have any sexual relationship with a woman or vice versa. Is that right?” In response to that question, God says this through Paul: 1 Now concerning the matters about which you wrote:

“It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. Now as a concession, not a command, I say this. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

There’s so much here. I want to show you in the next few minutes three foundational truths about both singleness and marriage that lead to two commands from God. The first of these commands will be for all of us, whether we’re single or married; the second command is specifically for those who are married. And this will lead all of us to the gospel. We’ll start with the three foundational truths about both singleness and marriage.

1. Both singleness and marriage are good gifts.

Let me show this to you straight from 1 Corinthians 7:7: “I wish that all were as I myself am…” This is Paul talking as a single man. “…But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.” The Bible is referring there to the gift of singleness and the gift of marriage. Then in the very next verse, Paul—again single—writes, “To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am.” So it’s good to be single, Paul says. Both singleness and marriage are good gifts.

When we read that, we need to realize how revolutionary this was for Paul to write in first century Corinth. Think about it. Based on this command to flee sexual immorality—to flee all sexual activity outside of marriage between a man and a woman—that means to be single is not to engage in sexual activity. That sounded crazy to people in Corinth, to people who thought you need sexual activity in order to be fully yourself, much like our culture says today.

In the Bible, God is saying, “It’s actually good to be single and to not engage in sexual activity. It’s good; it’s a gift from God.” God never gives bad gifts. This was revolutionary, not just in first century Corinth or in our culture today, it was revolutionary in biblical history. I want to show you this. I want to take you on a super-quick tour of the Bible and show you how Jesus and the gospel totally changed the view of singleness in the Bible.

We won’t have time to turn to all these places, so I’m just going to list them. It all starts way back in the beginning, in Genesis 1, the first chapter in the Bible, verses 27–28. The Bible tells us, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.’” God created man and woman to be fruitful and to multiply. How would they do that? Genesis 2:24, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Man and woman would come together as one flesh in marriage, then they will have babies. They will multiply.

This is why a few chapters later, when God is forming the people of Israel—His covenant people in the Old Testament—He tells them He’s going to bless them and multiply them. So what does He promise them? Look in Genesis 15:5. God brought Abraham outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then He said,, “So shall your offspring be.” God says, “I’m going to give you offspring more numerous than the stars in the sky. Tons of children and grandchildren.” And God’s design for producing offspring was what? Marriage. From the very beginning, marriage and offspring were central in the blessing of God.

God gives this same promise of children through marriage to Isaac in Genesis 26:3 and Jacob in Genesis 28:14. We just walked through all of this in our Bible reading. It’s interesting that some of the most intense moments in these initial stories in the Bible revolve around barrenness. It was a curse to be barren. Sarah was initially barren. Rachel was initially barren. We could say cursed, because if you were barren your family legacy would stop with you, because you wouldn’t have children. Genesis 48:16 says your name would be virtually cut off from the earth if you didn’t have kids. Deuteronomy 25:6 says your name was blotted out from Israel if you didn’t have a child. What that means is you didn’t want to be single in the Old Testament. Singleness was like a curse. Most all the classifications of singles were undesirable. Singles included widows, but often widows would remarry very soon. Singles included eunuchs, who had their sexual ability physically taken from them. Singles included people with diseases like leprosy who were unapproachable by others.

That’s why if you were a young man or young woman, you got married asap. You didn’t want to be single, which heightens how we view Jeremiah, Elijah, and Elisha as prophets whom God called to be single in the Old Testament. That was undesirable in their day, because the culture of God’s people in the Old Testament equated the blessing of God with marriage and children. This made sense in light of the way the old covenant worked. The people of God would fill the earth primarily through procreation, through having offspring. You couldn’t do that if you were single.

Then watch this from Isaiah 53:7–10. This is a promise of Jesus coming to die on the cross. It says, “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation” —in other words, His descendants— “who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living?” He didn’t have descendants who would come after Him. Isaiah goes on:

…stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.”

Are you following this? Jesus—Who, by the way, would be the offspring of a woman in a supernatural way, just like God promised in Genesis 3—would be cut off out of the land of the living, without any physical descendants. So He’s single, yet He has offspring. How is that possible? His offspring are those He died to save.

Ah, this is the gospel, so pay close attention. If you’re new to Christianity or exploring Christianity, the good news of the Bible is that God sent Jesus to die on a cross for sinners, so that anyone who trusts in Jesus can be forgiven of all their sin and can become a child of God. You can do this today. If you’ve not placed your faith in Jesus, I invite you to do this today.

When you do, and for all who have, realize what’s happening here in the Bible. God is foretelling in the Old Testament how His family will multiply ultimately, not through physical procreation, but through spiritual regeneration. Not through babies being born, but through people being born again through faith in Jesus. This totally changes everything. Don’t miss it. In the gospel, the new covenant, the coming of Jesus would radically transform the picture of God’s blessing. You see it promised in the very next chapter, Isaiah 54:1:

“Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married,” says the Lord.

The rest of this chapter goes on to talk about how the Lord God, your Maker, is your Husband and He gives new life through His Spirit to all who trust in Him—many of whom will trust in Him as a result of hearing about Him through your life. Then in Isaiah 56:3–5, we read this:

Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely separate me from his people”; and let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.” For thus says the Lord: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

Are you hearing this? Eunuchs, singles, don’t worry. You’re not a dry tree. Your name will not be cut off. Why? Because God’s Kingdom is not ultimately dependent on physical offspring. God’s Kingdom expands through spiritual offspring, so your name will be better than if you had sons and daughters. All of this was bring promised in the Old Testament, but it wasn’t part of Old Testament culture, which is why people were shocked when Jesus came on the scene and started talking about marriage, and He started talking about singleness in desirable ways.

In Matthew 19:10, the disciples said to Him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” It’s very similar to what the Corinthians were saying. Jesus responded in verses 11–12, “Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs” —this is not physically talking about eunuchs now—“who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.”

Jesus just said in these verses, “It’s good to be single for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven.” And the disciples were shocked; this was revolutionary. In the Old Testament, God’s people multiplied almost exclusively through marriage and children. Now in the New Testament, we’re seeing a picture starting to unfold of people from every nation, tribe and tongue, born not of natural birth, but of new life. These are people who are born again through the Spirit of God. That new life—and the spread of that new life—can be a reality, regardless of whether you are single or married.

So put it all together and come back to 1 Corinthians 7. God is clearly saying singleness is a good gift from God that includes heroes of the New Testament. Most notably, this includes Jesus; but also John the Baptist, Paul, Silas, Luke, Titus, Apollos, Lydia, Phoebe and Philip’s four unmarried daughters. We could go on and on and on. Singleness is a good gift from God and marriage is a good gift from God.

Part of the problem in 1 Corinthians 7 is addressing people who thought, “I’d rather be what I’m not.” People who were married were thinking, “Marriage is not all I thought it would be, so I’d rather be single again.” People who were single were thinking, “I’d rather be married.” God is saying in His Word, “Stop. Trust My goodness in your life.”

1 Corinthians 7:1–9 Calls Us to Trust in God During Our Singleness 

Now, this doesn’t mean if you’re a single that it’s wrong or sinful to desire a husband or wife. First Corinthians 7 actually confirms that desire, while also saying, “As long as you’re single, trust that God is your loving Father, that He has you where you are right now, that God has not forgotten about you and that God is always, always, always working for your good.” Singleness is not a state to be endured as you wait for something better. We’ll get to this more specifically when we get to the last part of 1 Corinthians 7 and see God’s specific word to singles in a couple weeks. But for now, I’d just point out this. Parents, this means that success for our kids is not necessarily for them to get married. We need to be very careful as parents not to implicitly or explicitly communicate to our children that marriage is the ideal and singleness is second best. That is not true biblically. I pray every week for my kids that they would either marry a godly wife or husband, or thrive in singleness.

Children, students and anyone else who is single, yes, a potential future marriage is good. But it is not the only option for you to maximally glorify God in your life. Singleness is not a state to be endured as you wait for something better. If you’re married, marriage is not just an obligation you have to fulfill or an arrangement to be tolerated when you prefer something else. Singleness and marriage are both good gifts that God has given to each of us. Which means if someone is single and gets married, then they exchange one good gift from God for another good gift from God. Or if someone is married and their spouse passes away, then they exchange one good gift from God for another good gift from God.

One caveat I’ll mention is that there are circumstances in marriage when God allows for divorce which we’ll talk more about that next week, because that’s what comes next in 1 Corinthians 7. But for now, we see that both singleness and marriage are good gifts.

2. Both singleness and marriage display the gospel.

I want to show you how the Bible teaches that both singleness and marriage are a display of the gospel. Again, we don’t have time to turn to all of these places, but you might write down Ephesians 5:22- 33, where Paul makes it clear that God designed marriage between a man and a woman from the beginning of creation as a picture of Jesus and the church. A husband illustrates Jesus’ love for the church by laying down his life to love his wife. And a wife illustrates the church’s love for Jesus by following the loving leadership of her husband.

This kind of selfless love in both a husband and a wife is evident here in 1 Corinthians 7:3-5. We’ll talk about that more in a minute. At the same time, I want to encourage single brothers and sisters— whether you’re a child. a teenager or you’re a senior adult, no matter how young or old you may be—the gift of singleness also portrays the gospel in a powerful way to the world.

Singleness portrays the ultimate identity that we all have in Jesus. Think about it. We live in a world that says you need a spouse to complete you. Or that you need sexual activity to fulfill you. But biblical singleness declares to the world that neither of those things are true. Biblical singleness declares to the world that we are complete in Christ, regardless of our marital status. Isaiah 54, John 3 and Revelation 18 all describe the Lord as a husband to His people, more satisfying and more eternal than any husband or wife could ever be.

Singleness says to the world, “I find my ultimate joy in Jesus; In Him I have everything I need,” in a way that marriage—although also good—does not portray in the same way. Amy Carmichael, missionary to India, in her singleness once said, “There is joy, joy found nowhere else, when we can look up into Christ’s face, when He says to us, ‘Am I not enough for thee, Mine own?’ with a true, ‘Yes, Lord, You are enough.’”

All the more so in a world that is saying to us today, “You need sexual activity in order to be fully yourself.” It’s not true, so don’t buy that lie. Instead, make this truth clear in the world: Jesus and His Word and His ways are all we need to experience all that He has created us to be. Singleness portrays our ultimate identity in Jesus and our eternal identification with the church. We know that physical family relationships in this world—as wonderful as they are—are passing away. Only a relationship with Jesus through faith in Him as a part of His spiritual family, the church, lasts forever.

Jesus makes this clear when He’s asked about marriage in Matthew 22:30: “…in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” In other words, Jesus is saying here that marriage is temporary. It’s an institution from God for this world that will not be in heaven. Married people are only married in this life, then for billions and trillions of years, we will all be single. Marriage is temporary, whereas relationship to Jesus and His church is timeless. Singleness uniquely portrays this reality. All this to say, both singleness and marriage display the gospel.

3. Both singleness and marriage bring God glory.

Every follower of Jesus wants to maximally glorify God. Right? This is the question that drive each of all: how can I most glorify God? Singleness and marriage are both designed to do exactly that. This is where 1 Corinthians 6:18–20 left us at the end of that chapter a couple weeks ago.

Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

So how do we do that? How do we glorify God with our bodies, whether we are single or married? That question leads to two commands from God. The first command we’ve already seen and we just read. Regardless of whether you are single or married—so this is for every single one of us—run from any and all sexual activity outside of marriage between a man and a woman. Flee from it. Don’t flirt with it Don’t rationalize it. Don’t reason with it. Run from any and all sexual thinking, desiring, acting, anything outside of marriage between a man and a woman.

Just to clarify, when we’re saying flee sexual thinking outside of marriage between a man and a woman, we’re talking about lustful thinking, thinking sexually about someone who’s not your husband or wife. When we’re talking about sexual desiring, we’re not saying it’s wrong to have a desire for sexual activity, but that it is sexual immorality to feed or fuel those desires outside of marriage between a man and a woman. Let me clarify one other thing here. I hear from leaders of our “Preparing for Marriage” ministry that many dating or engaged couples are already living together The Bible does not give any space for single brothers and sisters in Christ to live like they’re married when they’re not married. Cohabitation may be common according to our culture, but according to God it is sin. It is sexual immorality and God clearly calls you to flee from it.

We walked through this and so much more a couple weeks ago, but as a reminder, we have a whole page of resources that we’ve created or recommended at mcleanbible.org/sexuality to help you think through more specifics along these lines, particularly as we’re trying to keep these gatherings and sermons appropriate for all ages. I encourage you to dive into those resources. We have a disclaimer at the top that says, “Keep in mind none of these resources are perfect. So filter-test all of them through the lens and light of God’s perfect Word.”

Some of the questions we’ve addressed there even have different perspectives from different pastors in our church. For example, we asked two of our pastors to answer a question about whether or not someone should attend a same-sex ceremony. These pastors offered two different perspectives on that question. So we put both online, hopefully in a way that models good biblical dialogue on an issue that may lead to different convictions. We do that only when the Bible is not directly clear on an issue. But the Bible is clear on this command: flee from sexual immorality. Flee. Flee. Flee. Run from any and all sexual activity outside of marriage between a man and a woman. That’s clear for all of us in the Bible.

In a few weeks, we’re going to talk more in-depth about singleness, because that’s the focus of the last half of 1 Corinthians 7. This first part of 1 Corinthians 7 gives a specific command to those who are married. If you are married, God calls you to run to loving, God-glorifying sexual activity with your husband or wife. This means God has designed sexual thinking and desiring and acting with your husband or wife to be an expression of love for one another and to bring glory to Him.

Look at 1 Corinthians 7:2–5:

But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

I’m doing my best here to keep this PG rated, but God is specifically saying here that sexual activity is beautiful by His design for marriage, so it should be actively pursued by a husband and a wife. The husband or wife should run to it in loving, God-glorifying ways. In verse three it says, “The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband.” That term means that a husband and a wife have a responsibility to give of themselves physically to each other.

Now, unfortunately, these verses have often been either ignored in marriage or twisted to mean things God doesn’t mean for marriage. Spouses may be tempted to ignore these verses and not to pursue or run to loving, God-glorifying sexual activity with their husband or wife, or not to prioritize that or to show its importance in marriage. Or spouses may twist these verses in ways that lead to demands, hurt or abuse in marriage that is not tolerable, is not loving and does not bring glory to God. Twisting or ignoring these verses misses God’s good design for marriage.

In this command to pursue loving, God-glorifying sexual activity with your husband or wife, God is telling husbands and wives, “Serve your spouse selflessly. Let your love for your husband or your wife be driven by the question, ‘How can I please you?’ Not by the demand, ‘Here’s how you must please me.’”

God tells us in Ephesians 5 that marriage illustrates the relationship between Jesus and the church. This means a wife looks for ways to honor and please her husband out of selfless love for him, while a husband takes the lead in gently, lovingly pursuing his wife’s good and pleasure above his own, in such a way that they are both selflessly serving each other.

Now, you might wonder at this point, “Well, how can sexual activity be selfless? I thought sexual activity was all about fulfilling your own desires.” This is where I can’t improve on the words from one of the resources we recommend titled True Sexual Morality by Daniel Heimbach. I’m going to hedge a couple words here to keep it PG, but I think you’ll get the point:

Some wonder how sexual activity can be truly satisfying or enjoyable without focusing on yourself. The idea of selflessness here seems contradictory. Does not getting the most out of this activity require putting your own desires ahead of everything else? The surprising answer is no, both on biblical terms and based on human experience. God has imbedded a paradox in how this kind of pleasure works that helps to restrain natural human selfishness. The more a couple focuses on pleasing each other, the more enjoyment each receives in return. And the more a person focuses on demanding his or her own satisfaction, the less satisfaction is possible. Self-centeredness always destroys satisfaction in this arena; unselfishness always makes it better.

God has wired husbands and wives for marriage and to serve each other selflessly in this way, then in so doing, to satisfy your spouse regularly. Again, I’ll come back to this in a minute, but verse five is clear: “Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” So yes, there may be times when sexual activity is paused, but that time is intentional. It’s not just letting it fall by the wayside. It’s prayerful and temporary. Then come together again—why? Well, for many reasons in the Bible, including what God is saying here, that regular, satisfying sexual activity in marriage guards you against sexual immorality. This is all over God’s Word. I won’t dive into these passages here, but we see explicit language in Proverbs 5 about a husband’s body and a wife’s body filling one another with delight as they’re intoxicated in each other’s love. The same picture is all over the book of Song of Solomon. “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine. Our desire is for each other.” It says, “We are sick with love.” God has designed marriage for the display of passionate love. So if you are married, run to passionate, pure, loving, God-glorifying sexual activity with your husband or wife.

At the same time, realize that we do live in a broken world where spouses are prone to be unloving, selfish, even abusive, which again is not tolerable in any way. Know too that we may have physical struggles that affect this satisfaction or past hurt that can make this satisfaction challenging. We have a video on the resources site where we’ve hit on some of the issues about what can be done when sexual activity is a struggle in marriage. I would encourage you not just to use that resource, but to share your struggles with other Christian brothers or sisters who can pray with you, walk with you according to God’s Word, so that husbands and wives might do what God is calling us to do, what He has created marriage to do which is to run to loving, God-glorifying sexual activity in marriage.

So now we come back to where we started in the very first week of this series for each of us. Whether single or married, know that each of our bodies has been created, formed and fashioned by God Himself, like clay in a potter’s hands. Yet in this broken world we all have broken bodies. The good news of the Bible is that Jesus has given His body to make our bodies new, to take our brokenness and transform it into beauty.

1 Corinthians 7:1–9 Reminds Us to Put Our Trust in God 

When we trust in Him and His Word more than we trust ourselves—and certainly more than we trust what the world is saying around us, the lies that are being told to us—He will lead us for our earthly and eternal good. Remember, in all these commands in the Bible, God is pointing us to that which is good and protecting us from that which is not good. All are called, every single one of us—some of us in marriage, some of us in singleness—to deep and abiding fulfillment in Him, to enjoy His good gifts for the display of His gospel and ultimately for the glory of our God.

Will you bow your heads with me in prayer? We’ve talked about a lot and I want to give you a moment to soak in what we’ve just heard from God. I want to ask you, first and foremost, have you put your faith in Jesus? Have you trusted in Jesus to forgive all your sins before God, to bring you into relationship with God, to give you new eternal life?

If the answer to that question is not a resounding yes in your heart, then I invite you right now, in the quietness of this moment, to say to God, “Today I want to experience new life through faith in Jesus. I know that I have sinned against You. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins and rose from the dead so that through faith in Him I can be restored to relationship with You and have new life. I believe that You will take all my brokenness and will redeem and make me new.” If you say that to God, the Bible talks about that as being born again, experiencing new life through faith in Him. I invite you to say that today.

And for all who have new life there are so many different circumstances and situations and struggles, some in singleness, some in marriage. I pray that God’s Word, by the power of His Spirit, would land in a helpful way on each individual heart. I invite you to lay your circumstances, situation and struggles before God honestly. Ask Him for the help He promises to give you when you ask.

God, we want to glorify You with our bodies, so help us do that in singleness, help us to do that in marriage, according to Your Word. Free us from the lies of this culture. Help us trust the truth of Your Word. Help us all run from any and all sexual activity outside of marriage between a man and a woman. God, we pray that for each of us. We pray specifically for those who are married, that you would help us experience loving sexual activity that brings glory to You in marriage.

We pray for all of our circumstances and all of our situations—help us to glorify You with our bodies. We come to you with all kinds of brokenness, praying that You would redeem us, making our bodies and our use of them in this world beautiful world good for us and glorifying to You. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.