How Can He Be Saved?

Q

I’m writing in reference to your article about being saved thru grace. My ex of 35yrs committed adultery 25yrs ago 1979. I forgave him & we went to counseling for some time. We were saved & baptized along with our young children shortly after. My ex became a Sunday School administrator of a small Baptist church & I a Sunday School Teacher. We were very involved but got hurt & left. We never got back into the church again. Shortly after my ex became very bitter. He left me for a 20 yr. younger woman who was his best friend’s wife. He has gained a lot of weight & has beaten his new wife several times, getting arrested. She isn’t allowed to go anywhere without him. I do believe he would kill her if she ever left him.

I have forgiven my ex but will always love him. God has been very good to our children & has restored to me more than I lost.

I believe in my heart he is sorry but he knows he can never come back again. Sometimes I wonder if he was only saved in his mind & not his heart. How could he do the terrible things he has & be truly saved?

A

Only God can say if your husband is saved. But if he is, he has been forgiven even for all of the terrible things he did to you and your children.

When David sinned with Bathsheba and then arranged to have her husband killed so he could marry her, he prayed to the Lord, “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.” (Psalm 51:4) Although he had hurt those around him and eventually paid a great price for doing so, he had only sinned against the Lord, and the Lord forgave him.

Your ex-husband is paying earthly consequences for his behavior while you are being blessed and he’ll likely miss out on heavenly rewards as well. But if he was ever saved then he still is, because it’s not our behavior that gets us saved or keeps us that way, it’s our belief that when the Lord went to the cross, He paid for all the sins of our life.