1 Corinthians 7:39

And again I asked him, saying, "Sir, since you have been so patient in listening to me, will you show me this also?" "Speak," said he. And I said, "If a wife or husband die, and the widower or widow marry, does he or she commit sin?" "There is no sin in marrying again," said he; "but if they remain unmarried, they gain greater honour and glory with the Lord; but if they marry, they do not sin. Guard, therefore, your chastity and purity, and you will live to God."

That marriage is not to be contracted with Gentiles. In Tobias: "Take a wife from the seed of thy parents, and take not a strange woman who is not of the tribe of thy parents." Also in Genesis, Abraham sends his servant to take from his seed Rebecca, for his son Isaac. Also in Esdras, it was not sufficient for God when the Jews were laid waste, unless they forsook their foreign wives, with the children also whom they had begotten of them. Also in the first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians: "The woman is bound so long as her husband liveth; but if he die, she is freed to marry whom she will, only in the Lord. But she will be happier if she abide thus." And again: "Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? Far be it from me. Or know ye not that he who is joined together with an harlot is one body? for two shall be in one flesh. But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit." Also in the second to the Corinthians: "Be not joined together with unbelievers. For what participation is there between righteousness and unrighteousness? or what communication hath light with darkness? " Also concerning Solomon in the third book of Kings: "And foreign wives turned away his heart after their gods."

But it is Gentiles who "are called," I take it, not believers. But if he had been pronouncing absolutely, (in the words under discussion,) touching the marriage of believers merely, (then) had he (virtually) given to saints a permission to marry promiscuously. If, however, he had given such a permission, he would never have subjoined a declaration so diverse from and contrary to his own permission, saying: "The woman, when her husband is dead, is free: let her marry whom. she wishes, only in the Lord." Here, at all events, there is no need for reconsidering; for what there might have been reconsideration about, the Spirit has oracularly declared.

Paul writes this in order to make it clear that a woman who has been rejected by her husband is not free to marry again. If he should die, then she may remarry, but only in the Lord, which means without any suspicion of wrongdoing …

The death referred to here is clearly the death of the body, not of the soul. Forgiveness and attempts at reconciliation of the offending person are offered as better solutions than divorce.

You have the law from the patriarchs indeed; you have the apostle enjoining people to marry in the Lord. You have a crowning also on the making of a freeman; but you have been already ransomed by Christ, and that at a great price.

Here he teaches about second marriage, and although he permits it, nevertheless he considers more blessed the one who does not enter into a second marriage; for as virginity is higher than the first marriage, so the first marriage is higher than the second. "The …

The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth,.... That is, she is bound to her husband, by the law of marriage, during his life; nor can the bond of marriage between them be dissolved but by the death of one of them, except in the cases of adultery, and wilful desertion, see Rom 7:

But if any parent think he should otherwise act indecently - Unbecoming his character. Toward his virgin daughter, if she be above age, (or of full age,) and need so require, ver. 9, let them marry - Her suitor and she. Having no necessity - Where there is no such need.

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8 I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. 9 But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn. The apostle comes now, as a faithful and skilful casuist, to answer some cases of conscience which the Corinthians had proposed to him.

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Only in the Lord - That is, only if Christians marry Christians: a standing direction, and one of the utmost importance.

The wife is bound ... - ; see the notes at Rom 7:2. Only in the Lord - That is, only to one who is a Christian; with a proper sense of her obligations to Christ, and so as to promote his glory. The apostle supposed that could not be done if she were allowed to marry a pagan, or one of a different religion. The same sentiment he advances in 2Co 6:14, and it was his intention, undoubtedly, to affirm that it was proper for a widow to marry no one who was not a Christian.

The wife is bound by the law - This seems to be spoken in answer to some other question of the Corinthians to this effect: “May a woman remarry whose husband is dead, or who has abandoned her?” To which he replies, in general, That as long as her husband is living the law binds her to him alone; but, if the husband die, she is free to remarry, but only in the Lord; that is she must not marry a heathen nor an irreligious man; and she should not only marry a genuine Christian, but one of her own religious sentiments; for, in reference to domestic peace, much depends on this.

Now when we pass from loyalty to the nation to loyalty to the family, there can be no doubt about the first and plainest difference. The difference is that the family is a thing far more free. The vow is a voluntary loyalty; and the …