Theologian, former Bethlehem Baptist Church pastor, and Desiring God author John Piper answered a tricky question many pastors have had to answer while shepherding God’s people. On his popular “Ask Pastor John” podcast, a listener asked how the church should respond when a member knowingly marries a non-believer.
“Hello, Pastor John! I’m a pastor wondering what should be a corrective course of action when a Christian knowingly marries an unbeliever. The believer was forewarned and went ahead with the union anyway. Now the marriage has been formalized. So how should we, the church, now respond?“
The short answer one could conclude listening to the episode is to remove the believer from membership in the church.
To get to that conclusion, Piper started by mentioning there are three layers of sinfulness involved when a professing believer willingly rejects the counsel of the church elders and marries someone who doesn’t believe in Christ.
The three layers of sin Piper mentioned were disobeying God’s Word (1 Corinthians 7:39), choosing another over Christ (Matthew 10:37), and rejecting the elders’ counsel and authority. He said there are more, but those three are enough to deem this a serious situation.
Unpacking 1 Corinthians 7:39, which says “A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord,” Piper said “Only in the Lord” means only to a person who is in the Lord — a believer, a follower of Jesus.” Rejecting the command to marry a man that belongs to the Lord is an act of “open defiance” to the teaching of the apostles and God, he commented.
The second layer of sin Piper sees comes from Matthew 10:37 where Jesus said, “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Piper said, “A believer who chooses to marry an unbeliever shows how deeply compromised the believer’s love for Christ is.” Enjoying the presence, friendship, and intimacy of a person that has rejected Christ, more than the presence and fellowship of Christ puts into question that person’s faith and love for Jesus, which the Desiring God author pointed out isn’t just his opinion, this is what Jesus says.
“Something is deeply, deeply wrong with the heart’s affection for Christ.”
Expounding on the last layer of sin, Piper explained, “If faithful leaders in the church have lovingly explained God’s will based on God’s word to the believer, and have told the believer not to move forward with this illicit marriage out of obedience to Christ, then the marriage is not only rebellion against the explicit biblical command and not only a revelation of an idolatrous heart that puts a human above Christ in the affections, but also a spurning of the authority of the elders, which God gave to protect the sheep from sin.”
After the elders of the church plead, pray, and teach the church member who has chosen to marry a non-believer, and the member still rejects the biblical guidance, Piper recommends “you remove the believer from membership in the church, for moving ahead with the marriage.” The removal is to “sober” the disobedient believer and draw them to repentance so they can be restored.
“Many professing Christians today would regard such excommunication as more hurtful than helpful,” because most people don’t take the Bible seriously, Piper argued. Some might call such advice hateful and intolerant, but “that’s because they elevate their own wisdom above God’s wisdom.” Piper said that some might even reason to allow the conscious disobedience because “maybe they will win the unbeliever to Christ through the marriage.”
Citing 2 Thessalonians 3:14-15 and 2 Corinthians 5:4-5, the theologian pointed out that Paul teaches that using the means of “holy ostracism, people will, in fact, be saved and restored.” He says that he has seen the effectiveness of church discipline throughout his years in ministry and gave a warning to church leaders saying, “Church leaders have to be prepared to be vilified by people who think they know better than the apostles how to love people.”
However, if the believer comes to repentance, they should not divorce the unbelieving spouse, Piper believes. He concluded the ten minute podcast explaining what the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 7:12. Repentance and restoration includes a “heart change, not a marriage change,” and he gave three steps what that looks like. 1) There should be an authentic remorse and regret for disobedience to 1 Corinthians 7:39. 2) There should be an acknowledgment and repentance that the heart was not right in putting man above Christ in the affections. 3) There should be an apology and sorrow for spurning the counsel of God’s leaders in the church.
Piper’s advice to the believer in the marriage is to tell the unbelieving spouse, “My reawakened love for Jesus, and my treasuring Christ above you as my Lord and Savior, and my desire to be a part of Christ’s people again, and my regret over my sin in marrying an unbeliever, does not mean I have stopped loving you or that I want to leave you. We have a covenant till death do us part; I intend to keep it. In fact, my restored faith means that I now know how to love you better. I would like to show it. I hope you will have me.”
“The aim of this removal is to sober the disobedient believer, wake them up, and win them to a repentant and obedient heart and restoration.”