I’ve read somewhere (no cite… sorry) that if a Chrisitian marries a non-Christian, that that person was automatically saved. Now, thinking of this started the hampster running in the little wheel in my head, and I came up with this:
If one person in a loving relationship was sent to hell, and the other to heaven, would it really be heaven for the Christian? I don’t imagine being completly happy (as you’re supposed to be in heaven) knowing that the one that I loved with all my heart was somewhere else, burning in hell for all eternity, and that I’d never get to see them again.
Now, lets flip it around and say that they were both sent to hell, the Non Christian for not believing, and the Christian for marrying a non-Christian, and defying scripture. I don’t imagine it being complete and utter torment knowing that I would get to spend all eternity with the one I love, even if it is in Hell.
So, I would have to conclude that in this situation, in order for heaven to be perfect happiness they both go to heaven, and the non-believing spouse gets a free ticket. That, or Heaven isn’t as good as it supposedly is, or Hell isn’t as bad as it supposedly is.
Well, first off, I don’t know of any Biblical support for your spouse being automatically saved when you get married.
As for being happy if you go and they don’t, the belief is that being in God’s presence would keep you happy. The love you feel for a person here is nothing compared to the Love of God.
And for the Hell scenario, I don’t care how much you “love” someone, I think an eternity of the worst imaginable would override that. Besides, many people’s “love” has trouble lasting our short lifetimes. What do you think the percentage of people who’s love last for eternity is? And, if Hell is REAL bad, who says you would ever get to SEE your beloved?
Eh, that’s probably a misunderstanding of I Corinthians 7:14 (from Bible Gateway:
It’s not saying, “If a Christian marries a non-Christian, the new spouse is automatically ‘saved’.” You have to take the entire passage in context, and then it’s just saying, “Don’t get divorced just because your spouse becomes a Christian. Having one-half of the husband-and-wife team be a Christian sanctifies the whole family”, “sanctifies” as in “makes holier than a family in which nobody at all is a Christian”.
And if the Christian spouse leaves the relationship, then there’s no opportunity to “save” the other half of the team.
The only thing that can “save” a person is confession of belief in Jesus Christ as his or her Personal Savior, not merely being married to someone who’s a Christian.
I guess that verse 16 is the key - wives and husbands are in a unique position to influence each other’s lives, and it may well be that the Christian spouse will bring the Non-Christian spouse to a position of belief by his/her own faith/witness.
There is a wide variety of belief throughout the huge number of Christian denominations. Not all denominations have the same take on the following verse:
If you read the run-up to it, you will notice that it is referring to the fact of the marriage remaining valid. There are verses in the Old and New Testament that are interpreted as forbidding inter-faith marriages. Again, not all denominations interpret those that way either. But, in this case, “sanctified by the wife” clearly refers to “holy matrimony.”
I think the passage is a reassurance regarding your children’s souls. Saying that even if you marry that unholy heathen their taint will not soil your children.
As I’ve always seen the day of judgement, it kind of goes like this, Everything is revealed to you, so you understand perfectly what’s been happening. Then you are given a chance to repent. If you are made to understand why your mistakes were mistakes perfectly why would you not repent? Therefore everyone is saved.
Though I’ve also believed there can be no heaven with a loved one in hell. But I’m not a devout Christian either.
alright, i think we istablished that no where in scripture does it say that if a non-believer maries a believer they are both saved.
about the heaven thing with out your wife…if you love God truly then loving him should be above anyone and anything. so if your husband or wife goes to hell and you dont then when you got to heaven it will be parodise. of corse you will miss them and i’m sure it will be hard but we cant, as humans, grasp how perfect heaven will be. but when you get there it will be perfect and you will have God’s love and you will love Him.
about the hell thing. i think hell has been molded in our mind to be some place where you just walk around like zombies and do nothing forever. like in Little Nicky. if it was like that hey go to hell with your husband/wife and walk around with them, but it’s not. it’s a place of complete isolation, darkness, pain, and eturnal seperation. if you were to go to hell you would be with him or her it’d be you suffereing alone.
i’m sorry if i have offended any of you, that is what i have come to know.
At my ludicrously god-bashing school we were taught that “christians should only marry other christians.”
An example to support this was given by our headmaster’s wife, who told of how her own father had been an unbeliever all his life, which had caused some distress to his ardently-christian wife. It was not until his seventies, and not far from his death, that he finally “saw the light” and converted.
From this our headmaster’s wife deduced that to marry a non-christian was a terrible thing as they spent their whole marriage with the wife not being able to share her faith.
I frankly saw it as a wonderful example (speaking from a christian perspective) of the very upside to marrying non-christian. It could be that the only reason this man ever “made it to god” was because of being married to a christian all his life. It could have been God’s plan - however long it took - for that man to marry that woman to eventually find Him. To my mind, it was quite a beautiful miracle story, if you are a christian and look at things in those terms.
Though Paul says you shouldn’t get divorced because one partner is an unbeliever, he does seem to think that it might be a good idea to not get together in the first place:
[2Cor 6:14.5] Do not be mismated with unbelievers. For what partnership have righteousness and iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?
[2Cor 6:15] What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?
[2Cor 6:16] What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, "I will live in them and move among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
[2Cor 6:17] Therefore come out from them, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch nothing unclean; then I will welcome you,
[2Cor 6:18] and I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty."
In all seriousness, why? I mean, I would like to believe in a fundamentally benevolent god, but that does not lead me to close my mind to any alternative possibilities.
