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1 Corinthians 7 is Paul's most practical chapter on marriage and its complications — and in verse 28 he says plainly, "if thou marry, thou hast not sinned." He is speaking to the person who has been wondering whether they have disqualified themselves from love. The context is pastoral, not legalistic. Paul is not granting a loophole; he is telling someone who is afraid of condemnation that the thing they are afraid of is not coming from God.
Get These Verses Daily — Free“But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace.”
The language of 'not under bondage' is the language of release. The operative calling is toward peace — which means continued suffering inside a broken and departed covenant is not what God requires.
“But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you.”
Paul's statement is direct: marrying again is not sin. He adds an honest pastoral note — marriage has its difficulties. But he does not add condemnation to the word.
“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”
The word 'now' is present tense. This is not a promise for after you have fully processed your past or resolved all guilt. It is the condition of the person in Christ in this moment.
“The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.”
The broken heart of a failed marriage is specifically the territory where God draws near. The contrite spirit is not a disqualification — it is the condition he comes closest to.
“Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.”
The new thing is not contingent on the old thing having gone well. The wilderness is the terrain after something has been lost — and God says he makes a way through it, not around it.
1 Corinthians 7:15 addresses the person whose spouse has departed — specifically the one who did not choose the dissolution. The phrase "not under bondage in such cases" is the language of release from obligation, not of failure. God has called you to peace, Paul says — and peace is the operative goal, not indefinite obligation to a broken covenant.
Romans 8:1 was written for people with real histories, not hypothetical cases. "There is therefore now no condemnation" is a present-tense claim. Not "there was no condemnation once you processed everything correctly" — but now, in this moment, for the person in Christ. The guilt that attaches to moving on after divorce is often not from God. Isaiah 43:19 speaks of God making a way in the wilderness — and wilderness is exactly what the aftermath of a marriage ending looks like.
Commentary is from a charismatic Protestant perspective, drawing on KJV text and public-domain sources including Spurgeon, Andrew Murray, and Matthew Henry.
The Greek word in 1 Corinthians 7:15 translated "bondage" is dedoulotai — from doulos, slave. Paul is using the strongest language available: the person whose spouse departed is not enslaved to that broken relationship. The freedom is real and the peace God calls you to is a destination, not a consolation prize.
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