Does Premarital Pregnancy Nullify ‘Unequally Yoked’?

00:00:00.000 | Today and Friday we field two different questions about premarital pregnancies, one involving

00:00:09.800 | a believer and an unbeliever, and another scenario involving two professing believers.

00:00:15.820 | First this one, "Does a premarital pregnancy nullify Paul's unequally yoked prohibition?"

00:00:22.700 | The question arrives from a listener named Patrick, a pastor himself.

00:00:26.160 | "Hello Pastor John, thank you for how this podcast serves me as a pastor."

00:00:30.760 | Love that.

00:00:31.760 | "A young couple at my church is unmarried and they have a child together.

00:00:35.880 | They're now living in a state of chastity apart.

00:00:39.120 | The man is not a believer, she is.

00:00:42.280 | They plan to marry, though I have advised her not to marry him unless he becomes a believer."

00:00:48.440 | Based on Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 6, 14-18.

00:00:53.600 | Categorically speaking, am I correct here, or does the bringing of a child together into

00:00:58.120 | the world override Paul's unequally yoked principle?

00:01:02.600 | Pastor John, what would you say about my pastoral instinct here?

00:01:06.640 | I think Patrick's interpretation and instincts are correct.

00:01:13.920 | And I would simply add a few passages of Scripture and draw out some practical implications.

00:01:20.480 | Patrick refers to 2 Corinthians 6, 14, "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers."

00:01:27.280 | Even more direct to this issue of marrying an unbeliever is Paul's instruction in 1

00:01:34.000 | Corinthians 7, 39, "A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband

00:01:40.560 | dies she's free to be married to whom she wishes only in the Lord."

00:01:48.500 | So that's Paul's explicit statement, Christians only marry people in the Lord who are Christians.

00:01:58.280 | And of course, behind these two commands for believers, "only to marry believers," is the

00:02:05.000 | wisdom that marriage ought to be built on the foundation of faith in Christ with all

00:02:12.560 | the challenges and goals of marriage shaped by the Lordship of Jesus Christ, which it

00:02:19.840 | can't be in a unity where one does not submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

00:02:27.360 | So I think these commands from the Apostles stand as the perpetual guide for marriage

00:02:33.560 | in the Christian church, and that the fact that a person has had sex before marriage

00:02:40.720 | or even given birth to a child before marriage does not change this instruction.

00:02:47.920 | Now in support of that conviction, I would point to 1 Corinthians 6, 15 following.

00:02:54.000 | It goes like this, "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?

00:03:00.280 | Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?

00:03:06.760 | Never.

00:03:07.840 | Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her?

00:03:18.320 | For as it is written, 'The two shall become one flesh.'"

00:03:22.480 | That's a quote from Genesis 2, 24.

00:03:25.960 | But "he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him."

00:03:31.880 | Flee from sexual immorality.

00:03:35.520 | Now it seems to me that we can infer from this warning against sex outside marriage

00:03:44.480 | that Paul does not believe that such a sexual union creates a covenant.

00:03:53.080 | And this is all the more striking, isn't it, because he says it does create a kind of one-flesh

00:04:02.240 | union even with a prostitute.

00:04:05.200 | And to support that, well, this is verse 16.

00:04:08.200 | "Do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her?

00:04:16.440 | For," and then he quotes this amazing text that applies to marriage, "for the two will

00:04:21.320 | become one flesh."

00:04:22.880 | So if anywhere Paul is going to say that a person is bound to marry someone with whom

00:04:31.200 | they have had a one-flesh union, this would be it.

00:04:36.200 | Say it, Paul.

00:04:38.360 | Don't you mean that?

00:04:39.360 | And he doesn't.

00:04:40.480 | He doesn't mean that.

00:04:42.680 | Sexual union is precious, unique, profound, and intended by God as the consummation of

00:04:49.880 | a marriage covenant, but by itself, isolated out there in some brothel or in some house

00:04:58.680 | at the beach as teenagers.

00:05:01.880 | That isolated sexual encounter does not create a covenant.

00:05:09.040 | Isolated from the marriage covenant, it doesn't create a marriage covenant.

00:05:11.800 | And I think we can go one step further.

00:05:14.840 | If a one-flesh union does not create a marriage covenant, then the fruit of that one-flesh

00:05:24.240 | union, namely a precious child, does not create a covenant either.

00:05:28.920 | It doesn't create a marriage.

00:05:30.500 | So it seems to me that the biblical instruction to only marry in the Lord stands, even though

00:05:39.320 | there has been a sexual union and even though there has been the fruit of that sexual union,

00:05:48.600 | a child.

00:05:50.080 | Now, of course, this raises enormously difficult issues.

00:05:56.760 | Now the couple that Patrick refers to have already evidently walked through some of these

00:06:02.520 | difficulties.

00:06:04.640 | They've kept the baby alive and evidently are publicly known as having had sex together

00:06:13.640 | and produced this child, all of which, of course, must have been painful.

00:06:18.880 | And now there are legal issues, of course, as a moral and legal question of who will

00:06:27.760 | be the primary parent of this child if they don't marry.

00:06:32.880 | What kind of financial responsibilities are there for the parent who's not immediately

00:06:39.760 | raising the child if they don't marry?

00:06:43.400 | What kind of access will both parents have to the child if they don't marry?

00:06:50.080 | But here's the greatest pastoral challenge, perhaps.

00:06:54.920 | Can you help this couple, especially the Christian woman, see 20 or 30 years into the future

00:07:05.040 | and what a 20 or 30-year marriage with an unbeliever will be like, or whether the marriage

00:07:14.000 | will even survive?

00:07:16.720 | The present problems look much bigger to them right now than those distant problems.

00:07:24.520 | They're not.

00:07:25.520 | They're not.

00:07:26.520 | It is very difficult, probably, for this Christian young woman to imagine two or three years

00:07:33.520 | from now falling in love with a different man who's a Christian and having a 50-year

00:07:39.680 | marriage of unity and common faith with him.

00:07:43.720 | But that is what she should dream about, or, if not, waiting prayerfully for the Lord to

00:07:52.680 | give new life to this child's father.

00:07:56.880 | There are no easy answers to the circumstances created by sin.

00:08:03.640 | So may God give you, Patrick, great wisdom as you counsel them, and may he give this

00:08:10.540 | Christian woman, especially, grace and courage and far-seeing vision to act wisely.

00:08:19.920 | Very good, measured counsel for a principled question.

00:08:22.560 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:08:23.560 | And Pastor Patrick really serves as a model of how to ask a question to us.

00:08:29.200 | We can't untangle the personal dimensions of all these questions, but we can address

00:08:32.780 | the biblical principles that could be in play in any given situation.

00:08:36.880 | And of course, it's always great to hear that this podcast is serving pastors of local churches.

00:08:42.720 | That is just a phenomenal answer to prayer.

00:08:45.880 | Thanks to all the pastors who listen out there.

00:08:48.280 | Over at our online home, you can explore about 1,300 of our past episodes.

00:08:52.000 | You can scan a list of our most popular ones, read full transcripts, even send us a question

00:08:56.200 | of your own.

00:08:57.200 | Go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:08:58.200 | Also, you can subscribe to Ask Pastor John in your favorite podcast app.

00:09:05.480 | Well, we have another premarital pregnancy question coming up, this time from two professing

00:09:11.040 | believers.

00:09:12.040 | We'll address that next time on Friday.

00:09:15.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:09:16.000 | We'll see you then.

00:09:16.800 | [END]

00:09:18.300 | [END]

00:09:21.300 | [END]

00:09:23.300 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Does Premarital Pregnancy Nullify ‘Unequally Yoked’?

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