Bible Question: "Can a person who is divorced and remarried go to Heaven?"

Bible Answer: Yes. The Bible does not encourage divorce, and does encourage marriage as a lifetime commitment. But the Bible does not that say a person who is divorced and remarried cannot go to heaven. The only requirement to go to heaven is salvation by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And if I might add a personal note to answering this question: I sure hope so because I am both divorced and remarried.

Moses allowed divorce in Deuteronomy 24:1-4 for "uncleanness" and Jesus interprets that in Matthew 5:23 as being for "sexual immorality" and says that is the only ground.

Jesus adds in reply to the Pharisees' questions to him about divorce in Mark 10:4 that Moses "permitted" and not commanded divorce, which is what the Pharisees taught.

Jesus adds in Mark 10:5, "Because of the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept," referring to Moses' words.

In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul gives instruction on marriage and divorce, in particular in the case of a believer married to an unbeliever and if the believer should divorce the unbeliever.

"And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy," Paul writes in 1 Cor. 7:13-14.

The believer can hopefully eventually lead the unbeliever to Christ is what I believe Paul is saying here, and therefore should not give up and divorce the unbeliever as long as there is hope.

Paul says in 1 Cor. 7:16, "For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife?"

But Paul adds in 1 Cor. 7:15, "But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases. But God has called us to peace."

If the unbeliever wants to end the marriage, I believe Paul is clearly saying the believer then can be divorced with no wrong.

As for divorce and remarriage having anything to do with whether believers are allowed into heaven, the Bible does not make any statements to that effect anywhere, to my knowledge.

And I have read the entire Bible several times very closely.

Submit Bible questions by email to writeme@johnwmyers.com

(John Myers has been a Christian lay speaker, Sunday School adult teacher and newspaper Bible study columnist for more than 20 years.)