1 Corinthians 7:6,7

“Now I speak this by permission, not of commandment. 7. But I wish that all men were even as I myself; yet every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that.”

The remark which the apostle makes in 1 Corinthians 7:6 might be applied to the foregoing prohibition: “Defraud not...;” or, as is done by Tertullian, Origen, Jerome, Calvin, to the precept: “that ye come together again.” But this precept had been given only accidentally, and the ground for it had been too strongly stated to admit of its being afterwards presented as a simple counsel, and not as a positive rule. Meyer and Beet make this remark bear on the restriction: “Except it be for a time.” Meyer paraphrases thus: “If I recommend you to keep apart only for a time, it is not an absolute command I give on the subject, it is a simple counsel. But you may, if you think good, remain in this state of separation, provided it be with common consent.” But, in the first place, this meaning is overturned by the same reasons as the preceding, from which it is not essentially different. Then what right have we to separate one of the three conditions (common consent) from the other two? Are they not put on exactly the same footing in 1 Corinthians 7:5 ? Far from wishing by 1 Corinthians 7:6 to attenuate the importance of the limits traced in 1 Corinthians 7:5, the apostle aims, on the contrary, throughout this whole passage to combat a too pronounced ascetic tendency which threatened to prevent marriage, or to turn it aside from the end for which the apostle claims it as a general rule. If it is so, the remark of 1 Corinthians 7:6 can only refer, as has been clearly seen by Beza, Grotius, de Wette, Hofmann, to the essential idea of the passage, as stated in 1 Corinthians 7:2, and as it is to be restated in a new form in 1 Corinthians 7:7: the general duty of marriage. 1 Corinthians 7:3-5 have only been a digression intended to maintain in the normal state the practice of marriage. The apostle now returns to the principal idea (1 Corinthians 7:2): “In speaking as I do, I do not for a moment mean to give you an apostolical command to marry. I give you a simple counsel, founded on the knowledge I have of your weakness.”

The verb συγγινώσκειν, to know with, denotes the sympathetic feeling with which one appropriates the thought or state of another, condescension, accommodation, and even pardon. The substantive συγγνώμη consequently expresses an advice in which one takes account of circumstances. It was precisely in this sense that the apostle had laid down as a rule the married state.

Vv. 7. The received reading γάρ, for, rests on the Vatic., the Peschito, etc. Its meaning is easy: “I certainly did not mean to enjoin you to marry; for my desire is rather...” But all the other Mjj., the Itala, and several Fathers read δέ, but, which is more difficult, and for that very reason more probable, and which can also be justified: “I commit you in general to marriage, but that is not my wish, absolutely speaking; on the contrary...” It seems as if instead of the indic. θέλω, I wish, the optative would have been required. But this would only have expressed a contingent wish, whereas the indicative expresses a real wish of the apostle, though he gives up its fulfilment for reasons independent of his wish. As Osiander observes, the form θέλω has in it something subjective.

Is the phrase, all men, which does not signify merely all Christians, as Osiander still thinks, determined by the near prospect of the end of the world? This is unnecessary. Absolutely speaking, Paul can only desire for every man what he has found best for himself; but no doubt on the condition that there be no essential difference between him and others.

From the words, as I myself, it may be inferred with certainty that Paul was not married, and quite as certainly that he was not a widower. For how could he have expressed the desire that all men were widowers! See on 1 Corinthians 7:8.

The καί, also, after as, strengthens the idea of the resemblance which he would like to see existing between him and other men (Romans 1:13; Acts 26:29).

But the preference which Paul gives to celibacy meets with an obstacle in practice. There is a difference among men of which account must be taken. Jesus had already pointed it out (Matthew 19:10-12), and He had Himself drawn from the fact the practical consequences relating to the subject before us. There are men whom their natural temperament, in the first place, and then a spiritual grace which takes possession of this particular disposition, render capable of living in the state of celibacy without struggle and without inward pollution. Agreeably to this saying of Jesus, Paul desires that when one has the privilege of possessing the glorious faculty of consecrating himself without encumbrances to the service of God and men, he should not sacrifice it.

The expressions, one after this manner, and another after that, denote respectively, aptitude for life in celibacy, and aptitude for married life. It should be observed that these two aptitudes bear, both alike, the name of gift, χάρισμα. And we can thus put our finger on the error into which Reuss falls, when he says: “If abstention, life in celibacy, is a particular gift of God's grace, it is evident that something is wanting to the man who does not possess it.” The apostle is innocent of this erroneous conclusion. For he declares that there is not one single gift, but two different gifts. If the one is the gift of celibacy for the kingdom of God, the other is that of marriage, also for the kingdom of God. Meyer, it is true, alleges that the apostle is here expressing an abstract maxim, and that the two οὕτως, thus, do not properly apply either to celibacy or marriage specially. But what matters? If it is a general maxim, it is in any case stated here only with a view to its application to the two positions compared in the passage. Hence it follows that there is no less need of a gift of grace to use marriage Christianly than to live Christianly in celibacy.

In 1 Corinthians 7:1-7 Paul laid down two principles: the intrinsic honourableness of celibacy (1 Corinthians 7:1; 1 Corinthians 7:7 a), and the preference which must as a rule be given to marriage (1 Corinthians 7:2; 1 Corinthians 7:7 b). He now draws, 1 Corinthians 7:8-9, the consequences of these two principles; and first, 1 Corinthians 7:8, the consequence from the first; then, 1 Corinthians 7:9, that from the second.