The Cruciform Single
This essay began when a friend suggested I put together something for single people from my sermons on 1 Corinthians 7. Initially, I thought I’d begin by addressing sex. Then I realized I was taking exactly the wrong approach. After all, single people don’t need to be told sex is an important factor in deciding whether to marry: most can’t get that factor off their minds! The real problem for singles is not deciding whether to pursue marriage. Instead, it’s knowing how to live with the fact you’re not married and the fear you may never be.
Before I preached through 1 Corinthians 7, I thought the passage more or less useless to me as an unmarried Christian. In fact, I wrote an essay (okay, a rant) some years ago describing my frustration when Paul’s counsel failed to address aching loneliness, my core problem, and that of many single believers. After several failed relationships, I feared God didn’t want me to marry, even though I desperately wanted to. I knew if I kept hoping for marriage, my failure to find it would only torment me. So I would lie in bed at night and repeat to myself, “I will never get married. No one will ever love me,” in the hope that someday I might believe it. While this no doubt seems an extreme (and somewhat ridiculous) measure, I honestly don’t think it was self-pity; in fact, I suspect my story strikes a chord with those likewise single after many years. Truthfully, this was the only way I could devise to perhaps find peace with my loneliness and turn aside from the idol of marriage.
Although it may surprise you to hear it, 1 Corinthians 7 actually deals with this pain so familiar to single Christians. Particularly in verses 25-40, it does so by challenging and altering your perspective on your life as a Christian.
Freedom from the idol of marriage, I now realize, comes from living with the knowledge that the time is short (1 Corinthians 7:29). Because of this, no Christian should be bound by this world. Why is the time short? The form of this world is passing away (1 Corinthians 7:31).
“And the world passes away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.” (1 John 2:17)
God will soon destroy this world of sin. Indeed, the day of judgment, on which the world will be judged and found wanting, is at hand:
“Besides this you know what hour it is, how it is full time now for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed; the night is far gone, the day is at hand. Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” (Romans 13:11-12)
Christ’s work on the cross introduced God’s judgment into the world. You know what happened on the cross: Jesus suffered the judgment you deserved for your sins, and you were, therefore, declared righteous. Consider: the judgment he suffered was your final judgment, wasn’t it? You can’t be judged again. In Christ, you have already passed through the Final Judgment, which, properly speaking, has yet to come. Now you live in light of Jesus Christ’s work for you. Now you are already acquitted. In a real sense, then, the Final Judgment was begun in the cross. Now we await its completion when Jesus will return in glory and make his judgments evident to the entire world. Because the future judgment has already been made, the world is even now under judgment. All present things have already been brought to an end. Consequently, your values must be radically different from those of pagans, who are bound by this world.
Pagans make idols of created things. These can be possessions, but they’re also statuses and appearances and your role in life. For too many, marriage is an idol. It’s an idol for the married person who thinks his relationship with his wife is the most important one in his life, who puts his wife’s desires before God’s claims on him. Marriage is also an idol for the single person who puts his life on hold until he gets married, who is sure all his problems would be solved if only he had a wife. Neither is looking to God. All who make idols out of created things will make their choices based on what best serves their idols. They are bound by the idols of this world, controlled by who they are or what they have.
But you are different. You are different because you worship the true God. Created things, which include statuses such as marriage, need not be idols to you, but instead good gifts from God. Therefore, keeping or losing them is not of ultimate importance. You can use the things of the world without being bound by them. This is what Paul means when he says “not making full use of” the world in 1 Corinthians 7:31 (or “those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it”). This world doesn’t control you; you control it, to God’s glory.
If, however, you are worshipping the idols of this world in any way, repent. The Corinthians would have claimed to be free of this world, but some of them believed only celibates can fully serve God. Service to the Lord, in their thinking, was governed by worldly status, and so they were bound by it. But you are able to serve God anywhere. Your worldly status does not affect your status with God. Worldly things are impermanent and are meant only to be helps in this life, as John Calvin observed in his commentary on 1 Corinthians. They must not become hindrances to living for the next life. Be bound only by God, not your relationship to the world.
Glorifying God takes precedence over your status. Therefore, be faithful to Christ within your worldly status, serving him as well as you possibly can. Because Christ claimed you, make his glory the ultimate determiner of all you do.
As a Christian, even a single one, you should be free from care. The Corinthians did not lead a carefree existence. No, they were constantly fretting, concerned as to whether it was “God’s best” to be married. Ascetics in their group said no, of course, it’s not. Asceticism is a worldview that says all things physical and material are inherently evil, and therefore one must deny one’s flesh in order to be good. Accordingly, the ascetics promoted celibacy. After all, what could be more fleshly and corrupting than sex? This meant the married people started considering divorce, and the betrothed people wondered if they should break off their engagements and send back the wedding gifts. They were in a dither.
This kind of concern is worry, and worry is a sin. Jesus says as much in Matthew 6:25-34:
“Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’” (Matthew 6:31)
Worry, not lust, is the sin of most single Christians. Worry they’ll always be lonely, worry God is secretly punishing them, worry they will always sit on the congregation’s fringe, looking in. But Scripture says you must not fret over your marital status. Give up thinking you will only be able to “really” begin living once you find a spouse. Give up wondering whether it’s a sin to want to marry. Neither marriage nor celibacy leads to a foolproof, effortless, carefree Christian life. Indeed, both marriage and celibacy have their cares. Paul makes this point in 1 Corinthians 7:32-34. To the anxious, he says, “Stop caring! Stop worrying over your marital status, for whatever you choose will bring cares. Every choice brings responsibilities.” The cares of marriage and celibacy don’t have to induce the sin of worry, but those cares are the duties and obligations which consume one’s time. These obligations are good things, for they are means by which you may glorify God on a daily basis.
The problems of the single life don’t begin and end with sexual temptation. The real temptation is to replace the worship of the risen Lord with the search for a husband or wife. For too many, the Church has become a sanctified dating service, as singles move from congregation to congregation in search of the perfect singles group/meet market. When you succumb to this temptation, you’ve brought your idol right into God’s presence. In your idolatrous quest, you have broken the heart of your heavenly Bridegroom.
The answer is not to give up on the possibility of marriage. Rather, it’s to live your life for Christ’s glory. Jesus Christ has redeemed you. He has already saved you from judgment. In light of this, your marital status cannot be the most important truth about you. Live as one freed from bondage to this world of sin. Live out your life only in light of what Christ has done for you. Seek to serve God now, as you are, for you are already perfect in his sight. He has judged you righteous in Christ. This righteousness, this transformed status, is realized in you right now and will be lived out eternally.
Single or married, your identity is in Christ because you, now and always, are in Christ. So live like that’s your identity, because, after all, it, and it alone, is.
