Introduction

In the contemporary context, we need to think clearly regarding our sexuality, what God requires for moral purity, consequences, and the life of holiness that is required to see God (Heb. 12:12-17). There is the present danger of deception forced on us by our culture and various social pressures (peer pressure, everyone is doing it, this is what people expect, and wake up this is the 21^st century). These affect us emotionally, physically, and spiritually. And to the danger of being deceived we should add the folly into which we may be prone due to the remnants of sin remaining in us. We are especially vulnerable to fail in the face of temptation when we neglect the divinely appointed means of grace. But marvelously, God gives persevering grace to sustain sinners all the way to heaven.

With the doctrine of persevering grace in the back of our minds, I want to speak today on the difficulty that ensues when pregnancy occurs outside of marriage. How does a pregnancy affect the sex and marriage picture? We noted last week that the key to marriage is the covenant of companionship for life. So the question for this message becomes "is marriage by mutual covenant required when sexual immorality leads to a pregnancy?" I have two main headings to my outline: 1) pressure points, cases, and a loaded Q &A, and 2) the fundamental question.

1A. Pressure points, cases, and a loaded Q & A

1B. Pressure Points

There are a number of pressure points here. It can be statistically established that children need both mother and father in the home for the best upbringing. A father not just the mother is responsible for a child that is born in the context of irresponsible behavior in which no forethought, no long term planning was done for the eventuality of pregnancy as a real possibility. It is a manly thing for a father to own responsibility to his child (and to the mother of his child) and a womanly thing for the mother to own responsibility for the child. The pressure points raise important pragmatic and emotionally charged arguments that have to be evaluated on their own footing.

Another pressure point is social custom. It is a widely held practice, even an unwritten law that if pregnancy occurs then marriage should follow. Eric Fuchs speaks of a "new conjugal practice" in Switzerland in the 1980’s in which people live together and only marry "when pregnancy occurs or when conception becomes desirable" (Sexual Desire and Love, fn.12, 264). It seems that many people from many different countries share this view today. On one hand, it is a blatantly overt denial of the biblical restriction of sex to marriage while on the other hand it is a deeply humane view of the social impact (need and importance) of marriage with respect to children. This tradition is strong in its opposition to dead beat moms and dads. But does it have biblical support? Breaking down this question leads to some example cases.

2B. Cases for Pastoral Counseling

The Westminster Standards plainly state that a Christian may fall into sin, even grievous sin for a season, as part of God’s dealing with His people in persevering grace. In that light here are some initial focus questions: what if a Christian (man or woman) is immoral for a season that leads to a pregnancy? What if the immorality is committed by two professing Christians? What if one party in the immorality is a Christian and the other is a professing unbeliever? Let me simply indicate how I would approach some basic cases in pastoral counseling.

1) If the involved persons are both unbelievers, if they "love" each other, if they want to stay together, and if they want to do the right thing by the child, then they should get married.

2) If professing believers are irresponsible and immoral and it leads to a pregnancy, if they "love" each other, if they want to continue to have sex with each other, and if they want to do the right thing by the child, they should get married. It may be that a new trend is growing in which a child is born out of wedlock and the professing Christians do not marry because of external factors such as a perceived insufficiency of income. So the mother and child live in some cases with the mother’s parents. But the couple wants to continue to have sex, say, on Saturday nights before going to church together on Sunday mornings. This is obviously reprehensible and calls for church discipline. This couple should get married and if they do not marry they should abstain from sexual impurity in true repentance.

The reason that they should get married is based (in this argument) first on a) the requirement of obedience to God that they ought to have sex only within marriage (heterosexual marriage sets the norm for sexual purity). Second, it is based on b) the responsibility that professing believers have to raise their child together in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. They are to obey God by restricting sex to marriage and they are to obey God by dedicating themselves to one another and to the Lord to raise their child in gospel instruction as God commands.

3) What if one party in the immorality is a professing Christian and the other is a professing unbeliever? What if a pregnancy results from sin between a believer and a nonbeliever? Let’s consider the case to be such that the believer is repentant and has turned away from the sexual conduct that led to the pregnancy. The believer (male or female) is committed to maintaining a life of sexual purity; for this believer, Saturday night immorality on the way to Sunday morning worship is viewed as terribly inconsistent and contrary to the claims of Christ on his or her life. But a little baby is in the picture because of previous inconsistency and irresponsibility. Now the question becomes, should the believer marry the unbeliever, especially because of the child, because the child needs two parents in the home?

Does it make a difference if the believer is the mother or the father? It seems that the same principles would apply to both mutatis mutandis. This brings up the loaded Q & A. From now on let’s consider the father to be the believer in the scenario.

3B. The loaded Q & A

Now the question can be stated in its most important form. Does Scripture (does God) command that this believer only marry another believer? If God commands that this repentant believer only marry a believer, then a most difficult situation emerges: the Christian should not marry the mother of his child. This is a loaded answer. To many people it has a very "non-Christian" ring to it. It sounds like Christianity promotes the dead beat dad syndrome. It is seemingly scandalous and brings an onslaught of criticism from all sides, believers and nonbelievers. Furthermore, it sounds like one part of the Bible (do not marry an unbeliever) contradicts another part (raise your children in the nurture of the Lord). If the mother is an unbeliever and the father does not live in the same home as the head of the home, how can he raise the child in the Lord? "After all," it may be said, "the unbeliever will have household influence over the child and teach the child her unbelief by both precept and example."

There is a great pull on the heart to have a child in the picture. Concerns and criticisms abound. "If she was good enough to sleep with before the child came into view, why is she not good enough to stay with after a child is born? Your Christianity didn’t stop you from being irresponsible and now you say it keeps you from being responsible, go figure!" And "with a baby in the picture, how is it Christian for a Christian father to ‘abandon’ both mother and child?" In these questions one can sense the pressing presence of the pressure points. This brings us to the complex fundamental question that is critical to answer.

2A. The Fundamental Question

1B. Stated

The specific fundamental question is: should a Christian only marry another Christian? Does the fact of a pregnancy affect the answer to this question?  The general underlying question that is part of this question is: how important is it to obey the commands of Christ? How important is it to obey a single simple command? If you stand before the Lord and you have various circumstances and difficulties and if the circumstances point one way and the command of Christ points the other way, what is the right thing to do, what is the best thing to do? What is the safest path to take? Picture a fork in the road. A sign pointing to the left says, "easy way, the way most people think you should go" and a sign pointing to the right says, "this is the command of Christ; this is the way He tells you to go (cf. like the simple command, "be baptized"). What should a Christian, a repentant sinner as are all Christians, do? Which way should he choose to walk? Surely, the Christian must answer all these questions in the same way: "Above all else I must obey the command of Christ! Of course, I must know what He commands and I must diligently seek to honor Him in loving obedience."  Having put the question in its sharpest form by thinking of it as both specific and general, we can now proceed to answer it.

2B. Answered

Two areas of biblical teaching seem to answer this question decisively regarding the scenario of a pregnancy that occurs between a believer and a nonbeliever. The first is very broad in that it takes the entire scope of marriage into consideration along with the "unequally yoked" passage (2 Cor. 6:14-7:1) and the second is 1 Corinthians 7:39.

1) First, if we think about the definition of marriage then the point is that the repentant Christian ought to obey the Lord and not marry a non-believer. Marriage is a covenant of companionship for life made in public ("before God and these witnesses") and sealed in private (by sexual union that symbolizes the true union of husband and wife intended by God). The public covenant cannot be separated from its ratification; thus the public commitment of companionship for life is sealed in private. This fundamental definition of marriage holds whether or not there is a legal piece of paper. Simply having sex does not constitute a de facto marriage; what constitutes a de facto marriage is the public covenant sealed in private. Marriage in the legal sense (de jure) occurs when the public covenant is made by means of a duly appointed representative of the state (and marriage in the de jure sense also requires that the marriage be consummated in private; hence the appropriateness of an annulment instead of a divorce when the marriage covenant is not followed by a sexual union of man and wife).

What a repentant Christian must do is seek to enter into a mutual covenant of companionship in which he and his bride devote themselves to each other and to the Lord. The covenant ought to be explicitly triangular and the prospect of having children is taken up in the covenant with the Lord. So both bride and groom are to commit themselves to the Lord as they commit to the task of raising the children God may give them; they are to seek to raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. It goes without saying that a professing unbeliever cannot make such a covenant because this is a covenant of faith not unbelief. How can a believer make such a covenant with an unbeliever? What fellowship has light with darkness? (cf. 2 Cor. 6:14f.). For a believer marriage is a fundamental commitment in his walk by faith.

2) The second layer of biblical evidence is very precise stating explicitly that when a person is free to marry, she may marry anyone she wishes with one exception: "only in the Lord." It is a text in which Paul is discussing the remarriage of a widow (1 Cor. 7:39). He says she is free to marry whoever she wishes with one stipulation: in the Lord. In general this locks us into the definition of marriage (a covenant of faith for a Christian) and in particular it locks us into the duty to marry a believer. The fact that a widow is in view does not eliminate the application of the passage to other unmarried persons besides widows. This is so because by the death of her husband the widow has become "free to marry," which is the state of all who are unmarried. Thus, by implication, all references in the chapter to the effect of "let them marry" (vs. 2, 8-9, 28, 36, and 39) have this same stipulation. It is required of a Christian that he or she marries in the Lord. To marry a nonbeliever is wrong.

Thus from the general nature of marriage and from the specific command in 1 Corinthians 7:39, we must conclude that a believer is commanded to marry only another believer.

3B. Applied

If this is commanded then certain things of importance follow.

1) Two wrongs do not make a right

A repentant Christian who identifies his former sin by the command of Christ and who is horrified at the fact that he broke Christ’s command regarding sexual purity is treading on very thin ice of radical inconsistency if now he seeks to deal with the results of his former commandment breaking by breaking another command of Christ. One who admits violation of the command of Christ saying "I was wrong because of the command of Christ" cannot (morally or consistently) turn around to correct the violation by committing another violation of the command of Christ.

Consider an analogous case of a married man, a professing Christian, who commits adultery that leads to a pregnancy. He does not now leave his wife to marry the new mother to be. Nor does he simply marry her and become a bigamist. If he is repentant and seeks to follow the commands of Christ and if those commands are what guide him to identify his sin of adultery, then it is surely inconsistent in a radical way for him to break the command of Christ and divorce his wife or to break the command of Christ and become a bigamist.

Returning to the case of the single man whose sin results in pregnancy, if he should not marry the mother of his child (if is it something he ought not do), then the consequences for the wrong-doing of the past are analogous to those of the adulterous married man. Namely, he has the difficulty, pain, and challenges of being a father to the child without being married to the child’s mother. This pain may be very traumatic because the uncertainties that lie ahead may be very perplexing. There could be an abortion without the consent or knowledge of the father, there could be angry alienation, there could be a marriage of the unbeliever to a third party that will be an influence of whatever sort on the child, etc.

2) The child, the mother, and a host of difficulties must be left in the hands of God

This is first and foremost a walk of faith on the part of the Christian; he must cling to Christ by clinging to His commands. This can be unpacked in a number of ways.

a) Even if the believer married the unbeliever, the major household care of the child by precept and example would most likely come from the unbelieving wife. Inescapably, the spiritual well being of the child must be ultimately left in God’s hands.

b) Like the case of the married man who has a child by adultery, the believer will have to do all in his power to love and nurture his child in the things of God. Although it must be from a distance with many complications, it is still his responsibility to do all he can by God’s grace to be a part of that child’s life. This would hold true for both cases whether of adultery or of fornication.

But it might be argued that in the case of the adulterer he is not free to marry but in the case of the fornicator he is free to marry. So the cases are said to be too unlike each other to give any guidance. However, we have to ask, "Is the believer free to marry an unbeliever?" This question brings us back full circle to the command of Christ. If He commands that such marriage be avoided, then it must be avoided.

c) In the wake of the sexual sin and in the ripple effect of the irresponsibility, the difficulties that come are mapped out by the command of Christ for those who seek obedience in repentance. His command puts the parameters around the circumstances and guides us out of the darkness in the way of righteousness. His commands are sure guiding stones across the river of life. They can be trusted because He can be trusted. So the believer’s only hope ultimately is to follow the word of His sovereign Lord. When He commands, the believer responds with the exclamation, "Lord, I will obey you implicitly by your grace; enable me Lord to see your command clearly and to obey it diligently."

On one hand, it might be said that the consequence of sexual sin that leads to pregnancy is that a believer must enter into life-long commitment to an unbeliever (and that will be the case unless the unbeliever is given saving grace as sometimes happens). But if Christ commands that believers not marry unbelievers and if a repentant believer can see that command, then he is duty bound to face the difficulties that result as he tries to give Christian nurture to his child from a distance. On the path of obedience, all these things must be left in the hands of God.

d) The spiritual well-being of both the mother and child must be pursed by the father as a life-long commitment. This too must be left in the hands of God by diligent effort in the way of kind and patient Christian love (1 Corinthians 13 applies long term!). What both mother and child need for all the ensuing confusion is a clear testimony from the father by word and deed that Jesus saves repentant sinners. The child will grow up knowing that his father did not marry his mother because of the radical importance of obedience to Christ. That clear message will be sounded in the midst of confusion.

What if the mother were to marry and move away? What if the mother were to refuse overtures of the gospel to herself or to her child or to both? There are things that will be outside of our control; they may bring much pain but a repentant Christian will not despise the chastening rod of his heavenly Father (it will only be grievous for a time, Heb. 12:1-11; joy is promised for the journey of persevering grace).

e) What if the Christian lives a repentant life and out of intense concern for both the mother and child never marries? That too may be a consequence that comes from the hand of our heavenly Father (cf. the example of Augustine, 354-430, who lived with one woman for many years outside of a marriage covenant and had a son by her before his conversion; after his conversion at age thirty-three he became celibate for the remaining forty-three years of his life; Augustine was never married either before or after his conversion).

Conclusion

Time will tell; ultimately eternity will tell the story of how important obedience is in the life of a disciple of Christ. But God’s commandments are not to oppress or hinder us; they are the way of light and life, protection and safety, the glory of God, and the honor of Christ.

His commandments give light and in His precepts we find the honey in the honeycomb (Ps. 19:10). His precepts bring sweetness to life in the present and hope for the future because of the saving work of Jesus Christ our righteousness:

He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. ³¹ Therefore, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord" (1 Cor. 1:30-31).