Will I go to hell if I love an atheist?

Full Question:

Will I go to hell if I love an atheist? I'm a Christian and my pastor says we'll both go to hell ,if we get married. But I can't find it in the bible. Can you please tell me why is it and where it is in the bible?

Answer:

I can understand your problem and I will try to help you solve this problem. Actually no human being or your pastor can never say for sure that someone will go to hell or heaven. God do not gave any right for human being to judge others. In this situation, what I can do is to just evaluate the situation and try my best to give a practically possible answer.

Do not marry an atheist or an unbeliever is not a commandment given by God for that God will throw you both to hell on the day of judgment. I do believe that your pastor also do not mean it in that sense. If it was a commandment, I will answer you simply that 'Yes, you will go to hell, If you love and marry an atheist'.

Bible says, not to marry a unbeliever or atheist not as a commandment, but as a matter of wisdom, which will help people especially believers to lead a good married life. We can just have a look about the wisdom in 'Do not be bound together with unbelievers' as it is said in 2 Corinthians 6:14. Wisdom was never in the same as commandment which is disobedience to God. It is difficult to take a decision in wisdom, but if we take decisions in wisdom, later we don't regret for it.

The wisdom in these verses are very clear if we read the verses after that which says, "For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols?"

All the things mentioned above shows inappropriate and unsuitability. Very similar only is your case too which is about marrying an atheist or an unbeliever who do not have God in their life, by a believer who have God in their heart. It also does not mean that you can never love or lead a successful married life. But it means, if you marry an atheist most probably sooner or later, your love to Jesus will grow cold and you will fall shortly from the grace and love of God.

And when we can look to what Bible says about marriage, "The man said, 'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man.' For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh." According to my opinion it is not possible with a believer and an atheist to be united together and to become one flesh, with whole commitment, while they both had different opinion in the main thing, which is to worship God, their creator.

The next most important problem I think will occur is, for any person who does not had God in their life will never have pure Love in them. This is for the very simple reason that 'God is Love'. If so, most probably the person's desire will be to your body and much in a sense of lust. People will get satisfaction in their married life with lust or overwhelming sexual desire only for a short time. When it comes to other moral values, problems will begin in life. Once if problems begin in your life, you are also not able to divorce your spouse for the reason that you are bounded to each other through marriage and to divorce is a sin.

If I say frankly, marrying an atheist by knowing all the truth about God is like doing a foolish thing. It is also dangerous. Bible says these type of incident as, stepping into fire and so. It means, if you step into fire, it is sure that you will be burned. Not only you, no one can keep themselves without burned by stepping into fire. Marrying a atheist can be consider similar to that.

Bible says this situation through Elijah as "Elijah went before the people and said, "How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him." Jesus said the same thing very clearly as "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."

This case is not only with God and money. When this is compared with your situation, either you hate your husband and love God or you love your husband and despise God. Sometimes the next question you are going to ask is, How then other couples serve their spouse and God together. Yes, they are also serving, but when they serve their spouse, they are also serving God in the other and they are obeying the God's commandments too.

So I believe God helped you to understand all the things clearly through my answer. Now the decision is yours to choose. What do you need? 'A living God' who loves and cares for you or an 'Atheist' whom you love. May God bless you to take the right decision and pour his grace to have you a wonderful married life.