1 Corinthians 7:14-16 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband… The unbelieving husband (or wife) is externally sanctified. His status is a hallowed one. For he dwells no longer in the profane and godless world, but stands upon the sacred threshold of the Church. Both he and his wife are in God's commonwealth: she incorporated, he merely attached; hers is a dedication of self, his a consecration of position; his surroundings only are hallowed; brought oat of darkness he is in the light, but the light is not in him. United to a saintly consort he is in daily contact with saintly conduct; holy association may become holy assimilation, and the sanctity which ever environs may at last penetrate; for it is drop upon drop that hollows the rock and makes it a cistern; the circumstances are such that the man's will may be reached by God's grace, which by a Divine law moves in the sphere of theocratic consecration. But the man's conversion is not a condition necessary to the sanctity of the subsisting conjugal union. This being so, the children being the offspring of a hallowed union are themselves hallowed, i.e., in a position meet for dedication to God's service in Holy Baptism. It is not easy to sound the deeper sense of this. We may imagine three concentric circles: the innermost circle of spiritual light, environed by a margin of theocratic twilight, the suburbs of the city of God; embracing this twofold sphere is the immense margin of outer cosmic darkness. Better the twilight than the outer darkness, for it is a state of hope and transition from the bad to the good, and one that furnishes opportunities of grace, and makes salvation accessible. The deeper causes of these boundary lines lie in the secret laws of the Divine government of the universe, and in the unknown partition of mundane realms among angels and spirits, good and evil. (Canon Evans.) Parallel Verses KJV: For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy. |
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