Sinners Must Get Divorce First

The following excerpt is from my article "Winslett & Marriage To Christ" (here).

Paul in Romans, as respects our coming to be united to Christ, in marital covenant, said that we must first get freed from our first union, our first husband, and end our former marriage, before we can become married to the Lord Jesus. Wrote Paul:

"Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God." (Rom. 7: 1-4 KJV)

In this text the union of believers with Christ is described by the marriage metaphor. There are two marital unions, and two husbands, but only one wife. Clearly the second husband is Christ to whom the believer is joined by faith. The first husband many take to be the law, and in some sense this is true. But, it fails to identify the real husband of the sinner. "The law" is identified as the power that creates and maintains the union between the wife and her first husband. That law cannot be broken or set aside. The law cannot be put to death. But, the law that binds the two spouses together becomes no longer applicable nor enforceable when one of the spouses dies. This frees the wife to be lawfully married to another man.

Who then is our first husband? To whom are we joined before our conversion? Are we not joined to several husbands, as the woman at the well in John 4? Are sinners not married to themselves, to their own egos, lusts, and passions? To their laws and ways? To the evil world system? To Satan and evil spirits? Did not God say of Ephraim of old that he is "married to his idols"? (Hosea 4: 17) Do sinners not need, like Ephraim, to obtain a valid divorce or severance of the bond that binds them to idols before they can be married to Christ? The first husband of sinners must be separated from (to use one metaphor), or else the Lord must kill those husbands. When the Lord destroys the idols that are set up in the heart, then the sinner is made ready to be joined to the Lord.

In order for us to become "joined unto the Lord" and be "one spirit" (I Cor. 6: 17) with him, we must first become free from the bond of union that keeps us "joined" to idols, self, lust, pleasures of sin, etc. We must become divorced from our self righteousness too.

One is either married to his sin, and to the world, or he is married to Christ. He cannot have two husbands in the same way that he cannot serve two masters. To whom are you married, dear reader?