John Piper | – Are Non-Christian Marriages Valid in God’s Eyes?


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Comment (21)

  1. This is probably a not easy to answer question. And you could argue back and forth (as with millions of other questions) if a non-christian marriage is valid for God or not. No matter if the answer is yes or no, does it really matter? The dividing line between a lost sinner and a saved child of God is the important issue. Even if the answer was "yes", a valid non-christian marriage wouldn't save anybody from eternal separation from God. Only Jesus does.

    It's not bad at all to think about things like from time to time that but in the end (to me at least) it seems like not good use of our time when we are discussing something biblical/God related (I'm not talking about a topic that is more or less secular) but we are wasting time and energy (discussions can quickly get exhausting and emotional) when we are talking about a non-significant, non salvation related topic when you are already talking about God and the bible and therefor are so close to the Truth you didn't have to change the topic. But you can also discuss the validity of such marriages and if you agree, you go your ways and absolutely nothing has changed.

    And if a non-believer would hear an answer such as "no, (the biblical) God doesn't recognize non-christian marriages and he doesn't even hear their prayers", that wouldn't turn this man away from the allegedly loving God rather than closer to him.

  2. From Larry Alex Taunton: John Piper Weighs In on Trump

    Timothy Keller is not an evangelical anomaly. In a recent blog post, popular pastor John Piper asserts Republicans aren’t morally rigid enough. Whipping out the ultimate tool in the pastor’s complexifying toolbox, he employs biblical Greek to add authority to his case against Trump and against voting at all. (Some pastors love to do this. It is their way of saying “don’t try this at home.”) He says the president is guilty of “unrepentant sexual immorality (porneia), unrepentant boastfulness (alazoneia), unrepentant vulgarity (aischrologia), [and] unrepentant factiousness (dichostasiai).”

    One wonders how he knows Trump is unrepentant and precisely how he can be blamed for a factiousness. Did the president concoct a Russia collusion narrative? Did he spy on Hillary Clinton’s campaign? Did he illegally use the FBI to push false evidence? Did he do anything justifying impeachment? Did he support the looting, burning, and rioting in our streets? Did he take money from China through a family member serving as a proxy? As for his vulgarity and boastfulness, I suggest Piper get out more. Trump is fairly typical of the chest-beating, plain-speaking businessmen one finds in places like New York, New Jersey, Boston, and Philadelphia.

    Piper then uses a similarly fallacious argument of moral equivalence to that of Keller, suggesting that abortion is no more sinful than Trump’s hubris:

    I think Roe is an evil decision. I think Planned Parenthood is a code name for baby-killing and (historically at least) ethnic cleansing. And I think it is baffling and presumptuous to assume that pro-abortion policies kill more people than a culture-saturating, pro-self pride.

    By my count, Trump’s “self-pride” has killed no one. Indeed, he has transformed the judiciary, and in the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court there now exists the first real chance in decades to overturn the murderous Roe v. Wade decision. As president, Trump has even kept us out of silly wars, preserving yet more human life. But for Piper, Trump’s hubris is reason enough to abstain from voting.

    I am reminded of a quotation attributed (perhaps inaccurately) to George Orwell:

    “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

    Orwell or not, the sentiment is true. Like many of those who do violence on our behalf for the sake of our freedom, Trump is a rough man. That’s too much for Piper. Oddly, Piper represents a segment of the evangelical population that demands his president bear the characteristics of an elder, pastor, or high priest. This runs counter to the biblical narrative.

    I am thinking of how the Lord used not merely ungodly kings, but outright pagan kings like Nebuchadnezzar and Darius to render justice on behalf of his people. In Esther chapters 4-8 we see Mordecai, a Jew, appeal to King Xerxes through his queen, Esther, to save the Jews from the plot of Haman. The king responds decisively and destroys the plotters. This story is not altogether different from the situation we face insofar as the lives of the unborn are at stake to say nothing of where the Left’s radical agenda will lead us as a nation. But in Piper’s estimation, Xerxes is no better than Haman.

    There is a difference between private sin and public policy, and it would be foolish to confuse the two. Does Piper make the same demands of his barber, his mechanic, his accountant, or his surgeon? Or does he look for someone who can do the job competently?

    Conclusion

    Tim Keller and John Piper have had long, fruitful ministries. No doubt both are under a great deal of pressure to declare decisively on this election. Moreover, Keller is battling pancreatic cancer and deserves our prayers and well wishes.

    That said, I believe both are egregiously wrong in this instance. Matthew 24:24 tells us the time will come when even the elect will be led astray. Such is the power of the “social justice” lie. Like Satan masquerading as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14), social justice—in this case, the thin end of a socialist wedge—holds out the hope of heaven on earth. But it cannot deliver on such promises. In her book The Russian Revolution, historian Sheila Fitzpatrick superbly characterizes the socialist revolutionary spirit:

    All revolutions have liberté, égalité, fraternité, and other noble slogans inscribed on their banners. All revolutionaries are enthusiasts, zealots; all are utopians, with dreams of creating a new world in which the injustice, corruption, and apathy of the old world are banished forever. They are intolerant of disagreement; incapable of compromise; mesmerized by big, distant goals; violent, suspicious, destructive. … They have the intoxicating illusion of personifying the will of the people, which means they assume the people is monolithic. They are Manicheans, dividing the world into two camps: light and darkness, the revolution and its enemies. They despise all traditions, received wisdom, icons, and superstition. They believe society can be tabula rasa on which the revolution will write. It is the nature of revolutions to end in disillusionment and disappointment.… All revolutions destroy things whose loss is soon regretted.

    It is the nature of socialist revolutions to end in “disillusionment and disappointment” because, as we have already noted, they begin with the wrong premise: there is no God.

    * * * * *

    The forces of darkness threaten to engulf this land as they have engulfed so many before it. They cannot be allowed to succeed. But if good men and women do nothing, how can we expect a different result? Let us exercise our freedom to choose our leaders judiciously as we pray for our nation.

    Larry Alex Taunton

  3. If one of them comes to the faith, they would be subject to the rules of one being in faith and the other not, which means that the marriage is still valid before God, even if the marriage began before conversion.

  4. Any and every marriage transcends the bindings and snares of any religion or profession of faith. Why we fail in this revelation, utterly, is a result of what we call the "Imago Dei," which is Latin for "The image of God." The Imago Dei is the belief that man perfects God's image as either male OR female, man OR woman. Unseating this belief and teaching as bearing any element or trace of truth is a testament of nature herself.

    It is what we find in nature that allows us to resolve the Imago Dei as a teaching that is false. Nature abhors waste. Nature abhors imbalance. In all things, nature always strives for balance or harmony. No more do we witness this than in the ecological cycle in which we have birth, life, death, regeneration, and the cycle begins again.

    No, nature is not God. And though nature is not God, it is for us to appreciate that at a minimum, she represents the merest, least, or littlest of what is of God. Meaning, that we should expect that God also abhors waste, spiritual or otherwise.

    And so, that we reckon how the Imago Dei is a teaching that is utterly false. It is for us to ask, if the man stands as the fullness of God's image, why the woman? Even more so, if the woman prevails as the fullness of God's image, why the man? Why the waste if either the man or woman stands as the fullness of God's image? It is on this basis of waste, as an ontological matter, ever before we consider one passage of Scripture, we settle the Imago Dei as a false teaching. And by such settlement, by such assurance, are we better to enter the teachings of the Bible with a renewed sense of purpose and understanding that we might make straight what this church has twisted.

    How then does this aid us to resolve non-Christian marriages as yet being of God? It lies in the reality that it is only when we prevail in the earth in the pillared pair of "male AND female" that we take part in God's image (Genesis 1:26-28). It is only when we participate in the earth as betrothed, husband and wife, and especially father and mother we partake in the reality that is God's image. Wherein we are to be utterly aware that there are three stages of this reality we affect in the pillared image of male AND female.

    As to the first and initial phase, there is "God's Image," in the betrothed. It is as the "betrothed" that we recognize this phase of God's image as the "prospective phase" wherein the man trains up his wife that she might declare him as someone she's willing to follow. And then there's the "participant phase" when we take on the roles of husband and wife. But there's the zenith of God's image when we affect the roles of father and mother.

    Why as father and mother, God's image ascends to its zenith is that it is then we affect the presence of God. By which we participate in the reality of our partaking in the LORD's Promise (John 14:23). All, of which, as to whether we prevail to realize the LORD's Promise (John 14:23), hangs on what the father teaches and commands his children. And that this condition as to whether a man's home realizes the LORD's Promise (John 14:23), hangs on the truths he instills in his children, is not conditioned on the religion or faith he professes.

    The difference between these three phases or stages of God's image centers on the power of the spoken word. Here, it is only necessary we give attention to the "zenith phase" as father and mother. It is only as father and mother that we affect God's presence since it is then we've taken up the obligation to train up a soul as to the way it should go. Wherein, it is by the word spoken in the house of a father and mother that serves as the standard that distinguishes those marriages that are of the LORD (John 14:23), and those that are of man. That is, we sanctify our marriage by what we teach our children and the beliefs that prevail in our home.

    How this pertains to marriages broadly and universally? We are to walk in the assurance that truth is not resigned or relegated to any man, people, or religion. It is possible for truth to come from any man or people. However, it falls to the church to be a witness to the truth and to that which is true. It is our obligation to walk in the earth as bearers of truth since Jesus is LORD, and LORD is synonymic with the truth. And because no other religion finds itself bound to lifting up and preserving the Light that is Jesus. We find ourselves burdened with upholding the truth and what is true, as the LORD is Truth.

    As to those other marriages, it is for this cause Jesus says: "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd" (John 10:16).

    But given how we, as Christians and children of this church, find ourselves seeking the basis upon which we foster division between men, even where it pertains to such a universal reality as marriage. It is not those who do not profess Jesus, who are of any concern. The concern is with those of us who do. Since we are the wolf-shepherd who fail in knowing what is from the beginning as it pertains to God's image. And if nature is able to rebuke our claim as to the Imago Dei as the perfection of God's image. How much even more so is the LORD troubled over our failure to be established in a truth that's ontologically revealed.

  5. Yeah ofc they are look at the Old Testament Potiphar and his wife were considered marrried in the eyes of the Lord. The Egyptians were pagans and yet God still viewed them as married. So yeah Gods principles of marriage are applicable to all and so is his standard for it. The terms for divorce and remarriage stand with all and will judge all because we are judged by Gods words. They are the ultimatum and the conclusion for all.

  6. More grace sir…

    Whether or not it is a believer living in an area God will still shine his lovely sun.

    Whether or not it is a believer that sowed in that field God will still give his blessed rain.

    Whether or not the land is full of sinners God will not stop giving air for the inhabitants to breathe.

    God acknowledges man (human) as man (human)…

    Yet all these will not for once change the decision of God to judge the wicked once his hour of grace is over.

    Part of the intension of God is that reproduction (a part of his purpose for marriage) and core responsibilities attached to it should be done within the confines of marriage; when unbelievers honour this wisdom (on marriage) from God he accepts it as from the assigned creatures of his – as God assigned marriages to men… This all the same would not, as noted earlier, change God's final judgement plans against them should they not accept his provision of redemption for them before their expiry on earth, though he acknowledges their properly carried out marriage.

    ——————————————————————–

    "…My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth – HOLY DEPENDENCY – …Give us help from trouble, for vain is the help of man…"

    God bless you!

  7. I got a question! It’s always in my mind I no gif fir gives all sin I believe that . But here is my question . Day your married okay I’m happy in my marriage. But my husband has his own problems don’t want marriage counseling. But here is the question. This is what he believes. It bothers me because he thinks this way. Can you plan a sin . And you no it’s a sin your going to sin and do it . He thinks it don’t matter I’ll ask for forgiveness. I feel gif will ask you why you planned it boing it was wrong that’s just me. What dose anyone think of that?? I really need answers it bothers me.

  8. Very good point indeed, without definition, what are we talking about?
    A lot of arguments can be shortened by having definitions.
    From the states point of view, marriage is about legal rights, plights, protections, expectations, taxations and so on. That is THEIR definition.
    Religious people have other definitions they work with. Their definitions are based upon their faith.

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