Why does God prohibit marriage to an unbeliever?

Question:

My sister is 22 years, she is a member of the church and serves in the church, but she dates a boy who is unbeliever. He seems to be a good boy: doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink and is a good man according to human standards. When I talked with her she told me she was aware that she must think of a Christian boy, but her question was where to find such a boy? Now this problem exists in many churches where there are more girls, but there are few boys. Some girls marry to unbelievers, but I do not want to be so with her. I have talked with her and it seems she understands everything, but then she says: “But how long shall I wait to get married and where to find a Christian guy?” I fear that this boy will propose marriage to her and she will accept. How to convince my sister not to do this step?

Will depart the believer from God

Before the people of Israel should have entered the promised land of Canaan, God told them about the people who lived in the country and who were pagan:

Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons. For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods; then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you and He will quickly destroy you. (Deuteronomy 7:3-4)(NASB)

When I talked with people who got married to someone who was not in the covenant with the Lord Jesus, they always tried to convince me that it would not be so, but conversely, they will win the unbeliever for Christ. What deceit! This fight is lost from the beginning, because the Christian trampled the covenant with the Lord Jesus when he chose to go into this marriage. The unbeliever will always have greater influence and he will be the one to deviate the Christian from God.

Solomon was deviated from God through marriage

The Bible says about the King Solomon that he was the wisest man in the world regarding administration, but the marriages to pagan women deviated his heart from God. Here is what the Holy Scripture says:

Now King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning which the LORD had said to the sons of Israel, “You shall not associate with them, nor shall they associate with you, for they will surely turn your heart away after their gods.” Solomon held fast to these in love. He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned his heart away. For when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians and after Milcom the detestable idol of the Ammonites. Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and did not follow the LORD fully, as David his father had done. (1 Kings 11:1-6)(NASB)

For more details about his fall and the consequences he has suffered, read the whole chapter 11. If this happened to a king who had all authority in the kingdom and in his house and whom God made the wisest, you should not think you can change the unbeliever after you marry .

Marriage to a unbeliever will bring only sorrow

In the book of Joshua, after they entered the promised land of Canaan, God warned the people from his nation again about the consequences they will have if they choose to intermarry the unbelievers.

For if you ever go back and cling to the rest of these nations, these which remain among you, and intermarry with them, so that you associate with them and they with you, know with certainty that the LORD your God will not continue to drive these nations out from before you; but they will be a snare and a trap to you, and a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good land which the LORD your God has given you. (Joshua 23:12-13)(NASB)

I know women who were so desperate to get married and agreed to marry unbelievers and then became so miserable and downcast, that their eyes are always full with tears.

An inappropriate partnership

In the second Epistle to Corinthians, the apostle Paul wrote:

Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, ”I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM; AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.“ (2 Corinthians 6:14-16)(NASB)

Try to imagine a cart where an ox and a donkey are yoked. Their height, speed, and power are so different and they can not do any work together. Being yoked to the same cart will make one have his head hung and the other one have his head bent. That will be in a marriage of a Christian with an unbeliever.

magarul si boul înjugat la celasi jug.

The Christian will be judged by God

The marriage of the Christian to an unbeliever is an infringement of the covenant with the Lord Jesus and it will bear the consequences described in 1 Corinthians 11. God will not delay to bring out His judgment, so that the Christian may not be judged along with the world, and the punishment of this judgment will be powerlessness, disease and death.

The argument that there are not Christian boys is cheap and unreasonable. God is the One who joins the two in marriage, and when they want “to help God”, it ends very badly. The choice and the consequences are theirs.

Translated by Felicia Rotaru