Audio Transcript
For your part, you did things right — not perfectly, but right. You waited. You saved yourself for marriage. You made purity pledges, you kept boundaries, you committed your sexuality to God early, and then you meet someone great. She loves Christ, and you have a lot in common. You can see your future with her. And then she drops a bombshell revelation. She didn’t wait. Suddenly, all the clarity you thought you had becomes a fog and a fear. Did her past ruin your future? It’s a difficult question. Today on Ask Pastor John: Should you marry her anyway?
The question is from a young man named Luke: “Pastor John, I want to thank the Lord first of all for your devotion to him and to all of us in providing so many thoughtful, biblical answers to tough questions over the years. Many of those answers have helped me out at just the right time in life when I needed it. I wanted to ask you about dating relationships and virginity and ask your advice. I’m a single, 25-year-old man, a virgin. I’ve striven to live a sexually pure life for God and my future wife.
“Recently, I met a girl who is a loving, Christian woman. I like and share a lot in common with her except for this: She is not a virgin. This came as a shock to me. To be honest, the clarity I once had is gone. I don’t know what to do now. She has repented and asked Jesus for forgiveness. But I’m also painfully aware that sins have ongoing consequences, and that I’m going to have to carry this memory for the rest of my life, should I marry her. I’m worried I’m going to have a ‘second-rate’ marriage. I know ultimate happiness isn’t found in marriage or this life, but in Jesus alone. However, I am in a position where I could end this relationship and find another Christian woman who is a virgin. I guess what I’m asking is this: What biblical truth can you offer as I make this decision?”
Well, let’s start with this:
An excellent wife who can find?
She is far more precious than jewels.
The heart of her husband trusts in her. (Proverbs 31:10–11)
There are no perfect women, but there are excellent women. There are trustworthy women. And what you want in a woman is a morally and spiritually excellent, trustworthy, lifelong partner. If she can be pretty, that’s a bonus, but that’s not the focus. Where does such a wife come from? Proverbs 19:14 answers:
House and wealth are inherited from fathers,
but a prudent wife is from the Lord.
I don’t have any doubt that my wife of 57 years was and is from the Lord. The circumstances surrounding our meeting, our first talking, our falling in love, were not designed by us — and may it be so with you.
“There are no perfect women, but there are excellent women.”
So, how shall you think about the woman in your life as God’s gift to you and you to her? How does her previous sexual immorality — that’s the phrase from the New Testament; the old phrase is fornication — how does that figure into this? Here are five things to consider from the Bible.
1. Sincere Repentance
Is her repentance sincere? Are there evidences, as you know her now, that her past sin is a sign of an ongoing character flaw that would suggest she is untrustworthy? That’s your key question. There’s no formula here. This is what courting or dating or engagement is for: a time for both of you to discern each other’s character. And you need to pray that God will give you discernment. Pray earnestly. The Lord will show you and her your true selves. That’s what you want.
Genuine repentance is reflected in new character strengths. Otherwise, it’s not repentance. Repentance means change. Whatever sinfulness or weakness caused her to have sexual relations outside God’s will should be deeply regretted, deeply changed. And God will help you see what he’s done in her life.
2. Abundant Grace
Don’t treat the transforming grace of God as less powerful than the corrupting power of sin. That would dishonor Christ, dishonor the Holy Spirit. Believe 1 Corinthians 6:9–11:
Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral [that’s her action], nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. [They won’t.] And such were some of you. [What a statement about the church.] But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
Don’t treat that miracle as less glorious than the ugliness of her sin. Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.
3. Beautified by God
Keep in mind the marriage of God to Israel and the marriage of Christ to his church. Neither God nor Christ found a pure bride. They made a pure bride. Listen to God’s engagement and marriage to Israel in Ezekiel 16:5–7. It’s an incredible chapter. God is talking to his bride that he found.
No eye pitied you . . . but you were cast out on the open field, for you were abhorred, on the day that you were born.
And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, “Live!” I made you flourish like a plant of the field. And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment. Your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare.
God did not find her beautiful. He made her beautiful. And here’s the marriage of Jesus with his church in Ephesians 5:25–27:
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
Now, this doesn’t mean we go looking for the most impure woman we can find to marry. We’re not God and we don’t have his ability to sanctify. But the picture is telling, isn’t it? Marriage does not begin with a sinless bride. It begins with love and faith and progresses with growing holiness.
4. Grace to Enjoy
Ask yourself whether you are concerned that she has had sex, or whether you are concerned that she has had sinful sex. If you are primarily concerned that it was sinful, that’s good. And you know what the answer to that is: repentance from her, forgiveness from you.
“Don’t treat the transforming grace of God as less powerful than the corrupting power of sin.”
But if you are concerned about the sheer fact of her previous sexual intercourse and whether it will be in your minds when you lie together and whether it will fill your thoughts and ruin the purity of the ecstasy, remember this: The Bible teaches that it is good for young widows to remarry (1 Timothy 5:14), which means it is possible for a man to have a beautiful sexual relationship with a wife who, in a previous marriage, has had sex with another man hundreds of times.
That doesn’t mean that both of you may not be tempted to go there in your mind, but it does mean you don’t have to. And the Lord will give you great grace to enjoy each other for who you are now in the moment.
5. Consuming Love
Finally, when all these things have taken their proper place, all those four things that I’ve suggested, the decisive question, Luke, is going to be this: Do you love this woman with the kind of love that consumes like a fire every obstacle standing in the way of your enjoyment of her presence and her commitment? Test yourself. This is Song of Solomon 8:6–7:
Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm,
for love is strong as death,
jealousy is fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
the very flame of the Lord.
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it.
If a man offered for love
all the wealth of his house,
he would be utterly despised.
Do you love her like this? If so, then you will find in Jesus all the resources necessary for forgiveness and faithfulness and joy.
