It seems rational as Christians that we should marry Christians. It makes sense, that you would want Christ at the center of your Covenant marriage. The pitfalls of marrying an unbeliever is not only how it will effect potential children with unbelief, rather you afe marrying the devil, “You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil—the commander of the powers in the unseen world.He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God.” (Ephensians 2:2). At any moment that person can be an agent of the evil one to torment you. While it is true Christian spouses ars not devoud of swlfihisness, the flesh, and demoninc influences m, the difference is that they do not harbor the evil one inside them (Ephensians 2:2). They can be influenced bu mmy him as Peter was (Matthew 16:23), but being potentially influenced is not the same as being possessed, and utterly dominated as a unbeliever can be by the demonic.
The greatest Biblical rebuke of marrying an unbeliever comes from the Apostle Paul’s Epistle, “Don’t be unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what fellowship do righteousness and iniquity have? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness? What agreement does Christ have with Belial? Or what portion does a believer have with an unbeliever? What agreement does a temple of God have with idols? For you are a temple of the living God. Even as God said, ‘I will dwell in them and walk in them. I will be their God and they will be my people.’” (2 Corinthians 6:14-16). Here it is clear that God does not even wanted us yoked to disbelievers and unbelivers on a friendship level, how much more so a marriage covenant! Some may try to take Pauls other words on the matter, “To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.
But if the unbeliever leaves, let it be so. The brother or the sister is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?” (1 Corinthians 7:12-16) out of confext. Those passages in 1 Corinthians 7:12-16 are in context if a pagan gets saved and is married still to an unbeliever, that thet are not to divorce unless the pagan spouse desires it. It was not a license to marry unbelievers and believe we can get them to heaven by marrying them; the Scripture there is clear you cannot be certain you will effect them to be saved, “But if the unbeliever leaves, let it be so. The brother or the sister is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?” (1 Corinthians 7:15-16).
In the same chapter Paul is clear you have to marry a believing person,
“A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 7:39). That applies to a man too, seeking a wife, she must “belong to the Lord.”
The same apostle in the same chapter gives us the final word on it (1 Corinthians 7:39). It may have been directed to women, but it is clearly is applicable to men, that you must choose someone belonging to the Lord, which is someone who’s name is in Lamb’s Book of Life. There is no alternative, we are not permitted to marry a infidel. Interfaith marriages are forbidden. That is what Scripture tells us and if is for a good reason. For how can you be your whole self in a marriage where the other person does not get your spirituality? How can they truly know you if they do not know your Lord and God? Worse what if they undermine your faith, mock it, and deride it. I knew prayer warrior lady who would bless the food and her unbelieving husband would mock and say, “the food is not that bad.” He also was so antichrist, she had to hide her vibrant faith, turn of worship music she had on all day and etc when he came home; because he was so antagonistic. Is that what you want? An antagonist in your home and life?
Let’s say you get a unbeliever who us not antagonistic. They are sweet as pie and maybe even behave more like Christ than Christians you know. What then? Well that is not without stress, for again you cannot share your living faith with them, you will fret about their eternal desistination and on Judgement Day you will face them going with the goats into The Lake of Hellfire (Revelation 20:15) because they rejected God’s love and salvation. Honestly, how loving can they be if they reject a simple faith in a God of Love who died for their sins and who gives them salvation by simply trusting in Jesus as Lord, Son of God, and Savior. Worse them preforming better in virtue and Christian tenets than Christians you know can be a trap of Satan to caste doubt on your faith; when in truth only Jesus saves us, not works (Ephesians 2:8-9, Philippians 3:9, John 3:16, Acts 15:7-11, John 6:40, John 17:3). Looking at an unbeliever being a paragon of better virtue is actually antichrist, because no matter who good they seem and better at regeneration, they still have rejected Jesus as Savior and thus the door to salvation is shut to them (John 3:18); because man can never be good enough to atone, only The God Man Jesus Christ could: “Now listen well, for what I have to say contains the doctrine of important truths. Because for his own good, he would not let his will be curbed, the man who knew no birth (Adam), damming himself, dammed all his progeny (descendants, all humans), therefore, the human race lay sick below within their error for long centuries, until the Word of God chose to descend: there, moved by His unselfish Love alone, He took unto Himself, in His own Being, that nature which had wandered from its maker. Now listen to my reasoning, once joined with its First Cause, this nature was (as it had been when first created) pure and good; but by itself alone, by its own act, having abandoned truth, and the true life, out of God's holy garden it was chased. Then, if the Crucifixion can be judged as punishment of that nature assumed, no penalty could bite with greater justice, just as none could be judged as more unjust, considering the Person who endured it with whom
that other nature was combined. Thus, one event produced different effects; God and the Jews both pleased by this one death for which earth shook and Heaven opened wide. Now it should not be difficult for you to understand the concept of just vengeance being avenged in time by just decree. You say: I clearly understand your words, but why God did not choose some other way for our redemption still remains unclear. The reason. brother, for that choice lies buried from all men's eyes until their inner sight has grown to ripeness in the warmth of love, nevertheless, since men have always aimed their arrows at this mark they rarely strike, I shall explain why this choice is best. Divine goodness, which from itself rejects all envy, sparkles so, that It reveals the eternal beauties burning in Itself. That which derives directly from His Being from then on is eternal, for His seal, once it is stamped, can never be effaced. That which derives directly from His Being is wholly free, not subject to the law of secondary things. Created thus, it most resembles Him, most pleases Him; the Sacred Flame which lights all of creation burns brightest in what is most like Himself. These are the gifts with which humanity was privileged, and if it fails in one of these, it must fall from its noble state. Sin is the only power that takes away man's freedom and his likeness to True Good, and makes him shine less brightly in Its light; nor can he win back his lost dignity unless the void left by tha sin be filled by just amends paid for illicit joy. Your nature, when it sinned once and for all in its first root, was exiled from these honors, as it was dispossessed of Paradise; nor could mankind recover what was lost, as you will see if you think carefully, except by crossing one of these two fords: either that God, simply through clemency, should give remission, or that man himself, to pay his debt of folly, should atone. Now fix your eyes on the infinity of the Eternal Counsel; listen well, as well as you are able, to my words. Given his limits, man(kind) could never make amends, never in his humility could man, obedient too late, descend as far as once, in disobedience, he tried to climb, and this is why mankind alone could not make his amends to God. Thus, it remained for God, in His own ways (his ways, I mean, in one of them or both) to bring man back to his integrity. But since the deed gratifies more the doer, the more it manifests the innate goodness of the good heart from which it springs--so, then, that Everlasting Goodness which has set its imprint on the world was pleased to use all of its means to raise you up once more. Between the final night and the first day no act so lofty, so magnificent was there, or shall there be, by either way, for God, Who gave Himself, gave even more so that mankind might raise itself again, than if He simply had annulled the debt; and any other means would have been less than Justice, if God's only Son had not humbled Himself to take on mortal flesh.." (Paradise, Canto 7, The Portable Dante, pg 429-432). ” (Paradise, Dante Bestrice quote).
The devil will use the unbelever to undermine your faith. It is rare that your faith will reach them (1 Corinthians 7:15-16). I know we hear stories like Lee Strobel who’s wife got saved and then in two years of him trying to disapprove Christianity he got saved. There are many stories of a believing spouse being patient in prayer and life and the unbeliever getting saved, but this is not guarantee, for Paul says, “But if the unbeliever leaves, let it be so. The brother or the sister is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. 1How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?” (1 Corinthians 7:15-16). You are gambling and honestly, risking your own soul because if they choose to be hardened rock and not believe, you have an enemy of your faith share intimacies with you; sex effects people, it can pass demons and feelings between people. Worse your children will see a divided spiritual home, and those who favor the unbelieving spouse will be damned with them. Now I am speaking of you trying to make covenant with an unbeliever in marriage when you are a Christian. If you were both unbelievers when you married and then you got saved, you are to stay with them in wedlock unless they leave (1 Corinthians 7:10-16). Amen.
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