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Can a couple who has been divorced and remarried be baptized scripturally?

Categories: Bible Questions and Answers Tags: , ,

If you have a couple who divorced (both), and then married each other before either heard the Gospel, say 20 or 25 years ago. Then they hear the Gospel and want to be saved–do they have to separate and either go back to their first spouse or remain apart?

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If the couple were unscripturally divorced and remarried to one another, then they are living in adultery (Matthew 5:32; 19:9). They have no legitimate marriage at all. You can’t live in adultery and be saved (Gal. 5:19). Baptism washes away sin, but it doesn’t change relationships. If their relationship was adultery before baptism, then it will be adultery after baptism. Sin is forgiven, but relationships do not change. Works of repentance must be done in order to be forgiven (Acts 26:20). That means that this couple must separate from one another and stop living in adultery.