Making sense of 1 Cor 7:14

For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy. (1Cor 7:14)

Now what do we have here? This is one of those verses that has always left readers scratching their heads. The lack of context has led to some strange interpretations, such as the idea that someone could achieve salvation simply by being married to a believer, or have a believing parent.

Others have used this to argue that there is clearly a transaction of holiness from parents to children, so therefore we should baptize infants.

But let’s take a closer look at the verse, and see if we can’t make better sense of it after all.

The verse starts with the word “for”, which binds it to the previous verse. You should not break off a marriage with an unbelieving spouse, for the unbelieving spouse is sanctified through the believing one. If that wasn’t so your children would be unclean.

I want you to notice that Paul doesn’t say “their children.” He says “your children.” That’s interesting. He is speaking in third person about those who are in mixed marriages, but then he switches to second person. So the children who would be unclean is not the children of an unbelieving spouse. It is the children of everyone in the Corinthian church.

Now that probably only made matters worse when it comes to understanding this verse. So let me explain how I read this verse.

I believe Paul is making a parallel between the relationship between a husband and wife, and the relationship between parents and children. He is saying that if those who are in mixed marriages can’t live with their spouse because they haven’t come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, then you couldn’t live with your children either. Not until they had been saved.

He is agreeing that there is a problem with being married to an unbeliever. The holy and the unclean under the same roof. What is set apart for God being mixed with what is unclean. But the issue isn’t limited to those mixed marriages. It is an issue that exists in every Christian home where there are children who haven’t come to know God.

But in God’s eyes that does not make the christian unclean, but rather it makes the non-christian set apart in a certain sense because of the christian.