will this couple go to hell?

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Sophia1993

Guest
#1
There is a couple who have been together for 60+ years but they aren't married (I don't know why they never did). They act as husband and wife do and love each other. will they go to hell for not getting married, but staying with each other for all this time?
 

tourist

Senior Member
Mar 13, 2014
43,316
17,652
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70
Tennessee
#2
There is a couple who have been together for 60+ years but they aren't married (I don't know why they never did). They act as husband and wife do and love each other. will they go to hell for not getting married, but staying with each other for all this time?
The couple has a common-law marriage which will be valid in the eyes of God if he joined the two of them together in the first place. What you have described sounds like a marriage that was made in heaven.
 
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Spokenpassage

Guest
#3
Well if they don't know Jesus, I believe that's a bigger reason why they may go to Hell.
 
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Sophia1993

Guest
#4
I'm pretty sure they know Jesus. Thank you, tourist!!
 
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Spokenpassage

Guest
#5
I differ with brother tourist. I believe it's proper that they get married properly. Because so many people nowadays shack up together without being married, that's fornication, a form of immorality. On top of that, even Israel did so (marry properly).

If the Gentiles in the world today get married, what example as heirs of the kingdom would be to not marry properly?
 

posthuman

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2013
38,939
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#6
Adam and Eve didn't have a marriage certificate. just sayin..

but i agree with Spokenpassage -- just like John told Jesus that he needed to be baptized by Him, not the other way around, but Jesus replied it was "fitting to fulfill all righteousness" -- it's also fitting to fulfill all righteousness that we declare to public law the same that God has declared to our hearts.

why hide from the government what is open before God? we're a city on a hill. so i wouldn't say "oh they are living in sin" and condemn them for lack of a proper legal document - is it my place to judge anyone, or God's? - but i would say it's foolish not to obey or respect the authorities God has set in place, when doing so in no way contradicts the law of love, and in fact in this case upholds His word that "the two become one flesh"
 
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Ugly

Guest
#7
I see it as a cop out. People can give the 'common law' argument, but at the end of the day it's just two people who have set themselves up to separate more easily.
There's also the case of it looking bad for your witness.
Shacking up together is not a covenant. It's a convenience.
But as to whether any of us can say if these people would go to hell over this, no one can answer that. As stated above, if they aren't Christians, then it doesn't matter. But often times God condemns people whose lives are actively and perpetually in sin with no conscious. So, though we can't speak to the matter for sure, we can know that they put themselves at great risk.
 

p_rehbein

Senior Member
Sep 4, 2013
30,932
7,012
113
#8
There is a couple who have been together for 60+ years but they aren't married (I don't know why they never did). They act as husband and wife do and love each other. will they go to hell for not getting married, but staying with each other for all this time?
Spiritually, that's up to God, not us....................

Legally, many States recognize Common Law Marriages as Legal and Binding, and if the couple splits, they must do so through a Legal Divorce Proceeding.
 
Feb 21, 2014
5,672
18
0
#9
There is a couple who have been together for 60+ years but they aren't married (I don't know why they never did). They act as husband and wife do and love each other. will they go to hell for not getting married, but staying with each other for all this time?
It's faith in Christ that gets people heaven.

Having said this, if they really have believed in the Lord Jesus for the past 60 years or some of them, then we would have assumed that they would have gotten around to getting married sometime.
 

crossnote

Senior Member
Nov 24, 2012
30,783
3,686
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#10
No one goes to hell for not getting married.
They will be judged by their works if they rejected Christ's work for them.
So hopefully they have received Jesus as their Savior.
And if they have, it makes you wonder why they did not marry.
Maybe they are shunners of institutionalized Marriage.
 

Atwood

Senior Member
May 1, 2014
4,995
52
48
#11
There is a couple who have been together for 60+ years but they aren't married (I don't know why they never did). They act as husband and wife do and love each other. will they go to hell for not getting married, but staying with each other for all this time?
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.
Fornicators and adulterers go to the Lake of Fire, if they don't get regenerated.
I think that at least in states that have it, common law marriage is marriage.
satan is the author of confusion. I think that with some couples the relationship is so confused that it is hard to be able to
say if they are married or not.

How do you know that they love, agape love?
If one is unsaved, one can act nice as part of one's own ego bolstering, but to be truly loving, it requires a miracle of God in a regenerate person. Love is the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5).
 
Nov 30, 2012
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#12
There is a couple who have been together for 60+ years but they aren't married (I don't know why they never did). They act as husband and wife do and love each other. will they go to hell for not getting married, but staying with each other for all this time?
Law has nothing to do with Christian marriage. I would suggest they seek to have a church officiated wedding.

And no this would not be a single cause of going to Hell.