So what happens to marriage when believers get to heaven? The passage we are discussing here seems to tell us that it will become superfluous. That may be of concern to many, especially those who have had a close, loving spouse for many decades. Does marriage really mean so little, at least in the eternal scheme of things?
To answer those questions, let me look at this passage in a bit more detail. It is found in all three Synoptic Gospels. The context is this: the Sadducees had asked Jesus about the resurrection – which they did not believe in – hoping to trip him up with a curly hypothetical question (see Matthew 22:23-33; Mark 12:18-27; and Luke 20:27-40).
They talked about a woman who had seven husbands in order to have children. They ask Jesus, when she dies, in the resurrection, whose wife will the woman be? Jesus replies in part by saying that marriage is not happening in heaven. Here are the three gospel versions of his reply:
Matthew 22:29-30 But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.”
Mark 12: 24-25 Jesus said to them, “Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.”
Luke 20:34-36 And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.”
So what are we to make of all this? First let me quickly deal with the issue of a woman marrying the brothers of a husband who dies leaving her childless. In what we call Levirate marriage, the Old Testament law stipulated that when this happens, the women could marry the man’s surviving brother.
We read about this in Deuteronomy 25:5-10. A man is obligated to wed the woman if his brother dies childless. The importance of continuing the family line is a big part of this. It was this Jewish custom that the Sadducees had in mind as they tried to entrap Jesus, seeking to show the absurdity of the notion of the afterlife.
But our real concern here – at least for many – is this: how can something so important in this life seemingly disappear altogether in the next life? Let me offer a few short replies, then buttress my remarks by appealing to a number of New Testament scholars and their commentary on the three passages offered above.
Yes the institutions of marriage and family are one of God’s key social institutions, and in this life they are vitally important. They serve various functions, but two core reasons for marriage are procreation and companionship. Thus we speak of the procreative and unitive purposes of marriage.
In the next life procreation will no longer be needed, and companionship and intimacy will be incomparably superior in all dimensions to what we know here. So not everything found in this life necessarily extends into the next life. That is not to diminish marriage in this life, but to point to that which is superior coming in the next.
And of crucial importance here is that marriage certainly does not disappear altogether in the afterlife. In Scripture we read about the marriage of the Lamb and his Bride. All of God’s people – whether they were single or married in this life – will be part of that incredible, eternal marriage. That will indeed be a match made in heaven.
So human marriages, as important as they can be, are really just a foretaste of the real and more vital wedding to come. In this sense the temporal picture or type of marriage in this life is no longer needed in heaven, since the permanent reality will be there instead.
Transient earthly marriage points to the eternal union we will enjoy with Christ. And the biblical writers often made this very point. As Paul said in Ephesians 5:31-32: “‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”
But let me bring in some expert commentary here. First let’s look at how Jesus dealt with the Sadducees and their sophistry – what we today call ‘trolls’. As Eckhard Schnabel reminds us, the reply of Jesus was “aggressive, matching the duplicitous purpose of the Sadducees’ question meant to ridicule Jesus.”
Or as David Turner puts it, “Jesus does not directly answer his interlocutors. Instead he strongly rebukes them, telling them that their ignorance of Scripture and God’s power has led to error.” Honest answers to honest questions is one thing, but that is not the situation we find here.
Consider the issue of how in the future life we become like the angels. As Michael Wilkins reminds us, “Jesus does not suggest that humans become angels; rather, in the same way that angelic beings do not marry or procreate, the resurrected state ends the practice of marriage and issues in entirely new relationships between resurrected humans.”
And just a bit more on the angels while we’re at it. As Schnabel notes, “Jesus’ argument does not require the implication that angels are genderless beings, but merely that angels do not need to reproduce, thus obviating the need to marry.”
Also, temporary beings do need to procreate. But eternal beings (which we will be in heaven) do not. God and the angels have no need of procreation. Says Robert Stein, “Since there is no longer death in the age to come, the need to procreate through marriage will have ceased (cf. Gen 1:28). Thus marriage as we know it will cease to exist.”
As John Nolland comments, “Presumably it will still not be good for man to be alone (Gn. 2:18), but the unitive function of marriage will not in the resurrection require the exclusivity that is proper for it in the present age.” As already mentioned, intimacy and close interpersonal relationships and fellowship will continue.
And we need not fear losing our close earthly relationships. D. A. Carson offers this thought: “Marriage as we know it will be no more. . . . Some have concluded from Jesus’ answer that in heaven there will be no memory of earlier existence and its relationships, but this is a gratuitous assumption.”
R. T. France concurs: “Note that what Jesus declares to be inappropriate in heaven is marriage, not love. So perhaps heavenly relationships are not something less than marriage, but something more. He does not say that the love between those who have been married on earth will vanish, but rather implies that it will be broadened so that no one is excluded.”
That is the good news about the next life: all relationships then will be closer, more intimate, and much more real. As Grant Osborne says, “There will be a new set of relationships in eternity, one in which husbands and wives will be closer to one another (and to all God’s people) than they were in this life!”
Everything will be better, greater and more wonderful in the next life. As James Edwards puts it:
The glorious realities of the life to come can no more be accommodated to the pedestrian routines of earthly life than can butterflies be compared to caterpillars. Present earthly experience is entirely insufficient to forecast divine heavenly realities: we can no more imagine heavenly existence than an infant in utero can imagine a Beethoven piano concerto or the Grand Canyon at sunset.
I like how R. C. Sproul puts it: “Even if marriage is no longer an institution in heaven, love will be.” Amen. He continues: “The only bride in heaven will be the church, the bride of Christ. All the people who are a part of the bride of Christ in their glorification will enjoy the communion of saints to such a degree of felicity and blessedness that marriage by contrast will be a very poor substitute or imitation.”
So there will be no disappointments in heaven. Sure, many questions remain as to how exactly things will be in the life to come. Both serious and lesser concerns cannot fully be dealt with now. For example, some wonder if their earthly joys will continue. Will artists still be able to make new sculptures?
Will book lovers find massive libraries awaiting them? Will poets still produce poetry? Will nature lovers still go for long walks? Will golf lovers still be able to do their 18 holes? We are not fully certain on all these matters, but when we get there the questions will likely disappear, or seem inappropriate.
Before concluding I better offer just one more word here – one that many people may have been eagerly anticipating! Will there be sexual activity in heaven? Again, we cannot say with 100 per cent certainty, but it would seem not. While human sexuality was of course part of God’s good creation, in the next life it may not be needed as such – certainly in terms of procreation. But will we then be missing out big time?
As is so often the case, the wise words of C. S. Lewis may suffice as we seek to address this issue. As he wrote in his book very important 1947 book Miracles:
The letter and spirit of Scripture, and of all Christianity, forbid us to suppose that life in the New Creation will be a sexual life; and this reduces our imagination to the withering alternatives either of bodies which are hardly recognizable as human bodies at all or else of a perpetual fast. As regards the fast, I think our present outlook might be like that of a small boy who, on being told that the sexual act was the highest bodily pleasure, should immediately ask whether you ate chocolates at the same time. On receiving the answer ‘No,’ he might regard absence of chocolates as the chief characteristic of sexuality. In vain would you tell him that the reason why lovers in their raptures don’t bother about chocolates is that they have something better to think of. The boy knows chocolate: he does not know the positive thing that excludes it. We are in the same position. We know the sexual life; we do not know, except in glimpses, the other thing which, in Heaven, will leave no room for it.
Or as he put it in “The Weight of Glory”: “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
Whatever heaven actually turns out to be, and whatever exactly it includes or excludes, we know that it will be far beyond anything we can currently imagine – far better, far more glorious and far more wonderful. How can it be otherwise, when God himself will be there?
16 Replies to “Difficult Bible Passages: Matthew 22:30”
I heard or read it suggested somewhere (maybe also by C S Lewis?) that when we’re newly in love, the radiance which suffuses everything connected to the beloved is a foretaste of how we will see ALL our brothers and sisters in the Kingdom. All the redeemed will see each other as God sees them in Christ.
A good discussion on the nature of our eternal life after the final judgement. I just wanted to critique one quote as it seemed to me to be a interesting point of debate.
Also, temporary beings do need to procreate. But eternal beings (which we will be in heaven) do not. God and the angels have no need of procreation. Says Robert Stein, “Since there is no longer death in the age to come, the need to procreate through marriage will have ceased (cf. Gen 1:28). Thus marriage as we know it will cease to exist.”
Before the Fall, were Adam and Eve immortal beings? If they were, then they are not temporary beings and therefore that is not a reason for procreation (although there are other valid reasons). In fact if they, at that point, were not temporary beings, then the writer above is emphatic that they do not need to procreate. I thought that our mortality was introduced because of the Fall – more explicitly, sin – entered Adam and Eve which is what made our being now temporary in nature.
Therefore, as Adam and Eve were created before the Fall, and God said to them in Genesis 1:28 and in Genesis 2:24 it is very clear that Adam and Eve’s sexual nature was God-ordained for both procreation and marital unity, that marriage and its procreative mandate were there before the Fall and before their physical beings became temporary in nature. I would go so far to suggest that as God instructed Adam and Eve before the Fall, that they did need to procreate even as beings that were not temporary.
The alternative is that Adam and Eve were temporary beings before the Fall and because of that physical fact there was a need to procreate. I do not subscribe to that theory, and one reason is if God created them as temporary beings then, even though they were without sin, they are somehow not perfect. The nature of Adam and Eve – were they eternal in nature or temporary in nature or some other nature before the Fall – gives rise to conjectures that to the best of my knowledge Scripture is silent on and therefore is speculation and lots of questions where answers are more challenging to provide.
Therefore, I am left with the conclusion that even though Adam and Eve were sinless (and therefore not temporary in nature) before the Fall, there was still a command to procreate.
I am interested if there is an alternative view.
Thanks Matthew. Yes we deal with a fair amount of hard-core speculation here, both about man’s beginning and man’s final destination. So we must proceed cautiously and tentatively. While it may surprise some, there is some debate here as to whether Adam was created mortal or immortal. Many Christians have in fact run with the former view. Not just folks like Karl Barth but conservative evangelicals like Millard Erickson to name but a few. They say spiritual death was the result of the Fall, but not necessarily physical death. And it gets more complicated, with many talking about a conditional immortality (which meant continuous access to the tree of Life – that access was lost after the Fall of course). Creationists would strongly differ of course with the idea that any sort of human death took place prior to the fall (they claim things like plant death are a different matter, and so on). But I really DO NOT want to get into a major war over THAT particular issue here, so please, do not bother to get all worked up and send in your lengthy diatribes here thanks!
Suffice it to say that whether or not Adam was created mortal or immortal, God was quite clear about his command to be fruitful and multiply. Thus having kids was part of God’s plan for Adam and Eve prior to the Fall. But in heaven all who get in will live forever, and presumably there will then be no need for any new humans to be conceived. Whether human sexuality then will disappear, or in some way remain for non-procreation reasons is a moot point.
Thanks for this thought-provoking article, Bill. It’s quite astonishing that anyone would find this a “difficult” Bible passage. By uttering the words of the marriage vow “until death do us part”, many Christians have already acknowledged before God, that their marriage ends when their life ends.
Surely it reflects a spiritual immaturity to even ask if there will be sexual activity in eternal life. What need will people have of created things, when they have direct access to the Creator? It’s absurd to suggest that lack of sex in eternal life means lack of fulfillment, as many men and women have lived a totally fulfilling earthly life, without marriage or sex. Male examples include Handel, Newton, and Locke, whose lives and works continue to benefit succeeding generations.
Perhaps Christians should meditate more on the celibate life of Christ. He held the hands of those he healed, but he never “held hands” with anyone. He let his cheek be kissed in betrayal (by a man!), but never his lips in love.
Jesus had a fully functional male body; he could not have been “a high priest in the order of Melchizedek” otherwise. Scripture is explicit that a man whose testicles are damaged by crushing or cutting cannot be a priest. The only cutting Jesus endured there was circumcision, the first time he shed his blood in submission to his Father’s will.
It’s very sad if Christians think the most wonderful thing in their life is sex. Of course, a man and a woman in a genuine one-flesh marriage experience a complete and utter unity of mind, body, soul, and purpose, that fornicators, adulterers, masturbators and sodomites cannot begin to imagine. Yet this must take second place to the couple’s relationship with God.
Just as man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, so marriage does not live by sex alone. A Christian married couple abstains from marital relations, during certain periods of fasting and prayer, in obedience to the Scriptures. It is this fellowship with God and with each other, that is the most wonderful experience of earthly life, as it most closely foreshadows eternal life.
Perhaps we should spend less time wondering what heaven is like, and more time making sure we get there.
Thank you, Bill, for your patient and polite response to Matthew’s question above. It seems to me that the “point of question” quote to which he refers, is pretty much its own response to any possible “question” concerning it. To dig any deeper, when the digger has no God-drawn map for direction, is certainly a quest in futility.
I think you did well in your explanation of the “marriage quandary,” ….. along with the wonderful quotes of other gifted minds.
Hi Bill. Any thoughts about the situation where a widower or widow remarries?
Thanks Geoff. I would think the same general response that Jesus gave applies here. As mentioned in the article, we are not entirely certain as to how things will pan out in the next life, including how various relationships that were had in this life translate into the next. So I cannot really go beyond what Scripture says on such matters.
Thanks Bill. Really appreciate your articles that are a ‘must read’. Blessings.
My thoughts although I have not researched this (I should) but would appreciate your comment. Heb 12:22 says “For the joy set before him he (Jesus) endured the cross”…etc. What was that joy? Was it not you and me and all the church (all who will believe and trust in Jesus) coming into that intimate relationship with the triune God. So His joy was and is relationships with us, His bride.
In this life our joy in ministry and life is not so much what we do and achieve but in the relationships we have and develop, and with the understanding that these are eternal relationships (we will meet again here or there!).
So surely those most special relationships we have with our spouse and also children and family will also have eternal aspects even though very different as scripture and you suggest. So we will not forget our marriage partners, but will be able to rejoice in what we have had, and moreso will have better (perfect) relationships with them and with everybody, both those we knew here on earth and also with all others likely (lots of new friends!!). Rejoicing in the Lord together for his goodness to us here and also there. Thankyou Lord.
Do you agree?
Oops..should have been Heb 12:2, (not 12:22)
There’s something to be said for careful exegesis. Thanks again, Bill.
Well said, Cathie Stawin, about God being our focus, and not temporal pleasures.
Marriage is just an earthly exercise for procreation. Even in marriage God demands that we first and foremost give him all our love. Marriage is an earthly exercise.
Marriage is Gods plan for man on earth, in gods plan man is commanded to love his wife as Christ loved the church. The wife man has, together with his children, all belong to the lord.
Man is only carrying out Gods plan on earth for his creation. The idea of human beings seeing the wife or children or loved ones on the other side is far fetched
This is why the scriptures answered in verse 29…you do not know the scriptures neither the power of God.
Since heaven will be perfect, compared to the imperfections here, I am unable to speculate about things not fully disclosed in Scripture. I simply await “revelation”!
I found this to be an excellent dissertation on Matt. 22:23-33. I would just like to tag on Eph. 3:20 (VOICE) – “20 Now to the God who can do so many awe-inspiring things, immeasurable things, things greater than we ever could ask or imagine through the power at work in us, 21 to Him be all glory in the church and in Jesus the Anointed from this generation to the next, forever and ever. Amen.” Beyond our imagination life. Also, a few years ago, as I read 1 Cor. 13:12 again – “12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.” – as part of my daily time with King Jesus, Holy Spirit gave me this perspective: not only will I know Jesus as He knows me, I’ll know myself as He knows me. (I’m often my worst enemy, Just sayin’…) I’ll also know you (and other saints) as He knows you and you’ll know me as He knows me. In other words, we’ll all experience relational perfection. No more drama, misunderstanding, suspicion, miscommunication, under and/or over performance, etc. Wow! Won’t that be an indescribable new paradigm! One of my great heartaches of living in the “Land after the Fall” is that relationships are so hard, even and especially those closest to us. Relational perfection: mansions of glory and streets of gold will be icing on the cake after that. Hallelujah!
Does this mean we won’t be hetero? Does this mean we won’t be attracted to the opposite sex? I read https://billmuehlenberg.com/2018/07/05/what-are-we-hetero-or-homo/
Could opposite sexes attract and enjoy each other’s bodies without actually having sex?
Male and female relationships are like connection of male and female ports (such as USB or Ethernet or power) on computers, I see. Couldn’t it work that way in heaven?
Thanks Jonathan. We can only go as far as Scripture goes on this – the rest is speculation. But while the passage under question tells us marriage as such will be no more in the next life, it does not say that heterosexuality disappears. God originally made us in his image as male and female. Presumably that continues in the next life, however we are to understand what that entails.
I heard or read it suggested somewhere (maybe also by C S Lewis?) that when we’re newly in love, the radiance which suffuses everything connected to the beloved is a foretaste of how we will see ALL our brothers and sisters in the Kingdom. All the redeemed will see each other as God sees them in Christ.
A good discussion on the nature of our eternal life after the final judgement. I just wanted to critique one quote as it seemed to me to be a interesting point of debate.
Also, temporary beings do need to procreate. But eternal beings (which we will be in heaven) do not. God and the angels have no need of procreation. Says Robert Stein, “Since there is no longer death in the age to come, the need to procreate through marriage will have ceased (cf. Gen 1:28). Thus marriage as we know it will cease to exist.”
Before the Fall, were Adam and Eve immortal beings? If they were, then they are not temporary beings and therefore that is not a reason for procreation (although there are other valid reasons). In fact if they, at that point, were not temporary beings, then the writer above is emphatic that they do not need to procreate. I thought that our mortality was introduced because of the Fall – more explicitly, sin – entered Adam and Eve which is what made our being now temporary in nature.
Therefore, as Adam and Eve were created before the Fall, and God said to them in Genesis 1:28 and in Genesis 2:24 it is very clear that Adam and Eve’s sexual nature was God-ordained for both procreation and marital unity, that marriage and its procreative mandate were there before the Fall and before their physical beings became temporary in nature. I would go so far to suggest that as God instructed Adam and Eve before the Fall, that they did need to procreate even as beings that were not temporary.
The alternative is that Adam and Eve were temporary beings before the Fall and because of that physical fact there was a need to procreate. I do not subscribe to that theory, and one reason is if God created them as temporary beings then, even though they were without sin, they are somehow not perfect. The nature of Adam and Eve – were they eternal in nature or temporary in nature or some other nature before the Fall – gives rise to conjectures that to the best of my knowledge Scripture is silent on and therefore is speculation and lots of questions where answers are more challenging to provide.
Therefore, I am left with the conclusion that even though Adam and Eve were sinless (and therefore not temporary in nature) before the Fall, there was still a command to procreate.
I am interested if there is an alternative view.
Thanks Matthew. Yes we deal with a fair amount of hard-core speculation here, both about man’s beginning and man’s final destination. So we must proceed cautiously and tentatively. While it may surprise some, there is some debate here as to whether Adam was created mortal or immortal. Many Christians have in fact run with the former view. Not just folks like Karl Barth but conservative evangelicals like Millard Erickson to name but a few. They say spiritual death was the result of the Fall, but not necessarily physical death. And it gets more complicated, with many talking about a conditional immortality (which meant continuous access to the tree of Life – that access was lost after the Fall of course). Creationists would strongly differ of course with the idea that any sort of human death took place prior to the fall (they claim things like plant death are a different matter, and so on). But I really DO NOT want to get into a major war over THAT particular issue here, so please, do not bother to get all worked up and send in your lengthy diatribes here thanks!
Suffice it to say that whether or not Adam was created mortal or immortal, God was quite clear about his command to be fruitful and multiply. Thus having kids was part of God’s plan for Adam and Eve prior to the Fall. But in heaven all who get in will live forever, and presumably there will then be no need for any new humans to be conceived. Whether human sexuality then will disappear, or in some way remain for non-procreation reasons is a moot point.
Thanks for this thought-provoking article, Bill. It’s quite astonishing that anyone would find this a “difficult” Bible passage. By uttering the words of the marriage vow “until death do us part”, many Christians have already acknowledged before God, that their marriage ends when their life ends.
Surely it reflects a spiritual immaturity to even ask if there will be sexual activity in eternal life. What need will people have of created things, when they have direct access to the Creator? It’s absurd to suggest that lack of sex in eternal life means lack of fulfillment, as many men and women have lived a totally fulfilling earthly life, without marriage or sex. Male examples include Handel, Newton, and Locke, whose lives and works continue to benefit succeeding generations.
Perhaps Christians should meditate more on the celibate life of Christ. He held the hands of those he healed, but he never “held hands” with anyone. He let his cheek be kissed in betrayal (by a man!), but never his lips in love.
Jesus had a fully functional male body; he could not have been “a high priest in the order of Melchizedek” otherwise. Scripture is explicit that a man whose testicles are damaged by crushing or cutting cannot be a priest. The only cutting Jesus endured there was circumcision, the first time he shed his blood in submission to his Father’s will.
It’s very sad if Christians think the most wonderful thing in their life is sex. Of course, a man and a woman in a genuine one-flesh marriage experience a complete and utter unity of mind, body, soul, and purpose, that fornicators, adulterers, masturbators and sodomites cannot begin to imagine. Yet this must take second place to the couple’s relationship with God.
Just as man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, so marriage does not live by sex alone. A Christian married couple abstains from marital relations, during certain periods of fasting and prayer, in obedience to the Scriptures. It is this fellowship with God and with each other, that is the most wonderful experience of earthly life, as it most closely foreshadows eternal life.
Perhaps we should spend less time wondering what heaven is like, and more time making sure we get there.
Thank you, Bill, for your patient and polite response to Matthew’s question above. It seems to me that the “point of question” quote to which he refers, is pretty much its own response to any possible “question” concerning it. To dig any deeper, when the digger has no God-drawn map for direction, is certainly a quest in futility.
I think you did well in your explanation of the “marriage quandary,” ….. along with the wonderful quotes of other gifted minds.
Hi Bill. Any thoughts about the situation where a widower or widow remarries?
Thanks Geoff. I would think the same general response that Jesus gave applies here. As mentioned in the article, we are not entirely certain as to how things will pan out in the next life, including how various relationships that were had in this life translate into the next. So I cannot really go beyond what Scripture says on such matters.
Thanks Bill. Really appreciate your articles that are a ‘must read’. Blessings.
My thoughts although I have not researched this (I should) but would appreciate your comment. Heb 12:22 says “For the joy set before him he (Jesus) endured the cross”…etc. What was that joy? Was it not you and me and all the church (all who will believe and trust in Jesus) coming into that intimate relationship with the triune God. So His joy was and is relationships with us, His bride.
In this life our joy in ministry and life is not so much what we do and achieve but in the relationships we have and develop, and with the understanding that these are eternal relationships (we will meet again here or there!).
So surely those most special relationships we have with our spouse and also children and family will also have eternal aspects even though very different as scripture and you suggest. So we will not forget our marriage partners, but will be able to rejoice in what we have had, and moreso will have better (perfect) relationships with them and with everybody, both those we knew here on earth and also with all others likely (lots of new friends!!). Rejoicing in the Lord together for his goodness to us here and also there. Thankyou Lord.
Do you agree?
Oops..should have been Heb 12:2, (not 12:22)
There’s something to be said for careful exegesis. Thanks again, Bill.
Well said, Cathie Stawin, about God being our focus, and not temporal pleasures.
Marriage is just an earthly exercise for procreation. Even in marriage God demands that we first and foremost give him all our love. Marriage is an earthly exercise.
Marriage is Gods plan for man on earth, in gods plan man is commanded to love his wife as Christ loved the church. The wife man has, together with his children, all belong to the lord.
Man is only carrying out Gods plan on earth for his creation. The idea of human beings seeing the wife or children or loved ones on the other side is far fetched
This is why the scriptures answered in verse 29…you do not know the scriptures neither the power of God.
Since heaven will be perfect, compared to the imperfections here, I am unable to speculate about things not fully disclosed in Scripture. I simply await “revelation”!
I found this to be an excellent dissertation on Matt. 22:23-33. I would just like to tag on Eph. 3:20 (VOICE) – “20 Now to the God who can do so many awe-inspiring things, immeasurable things, things greater than we ever could ask or imagine through the power at work in us, 21 to Him be all glory in the church and in Jesus the Anointed from this generation to the next, forever and ever. Amen.” Beyond our imagination life. Also, a few years ago, as I read 1 Cor. 13:12 again – “12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.” – as part of my daily time with King Jesus, Holy Spirit gave me this perspective: not only will I know Jesus as He knows me, I’ll know myself as He knows me. (I’m often my worst enemy, Just sayin’…) I’ll also know you (and other saints) as He knows you and you’ll know me as He knows me. In other words, we’ll all experience relational perfection. No more drama, misunderstanding, suspicion, miscommunication, under and/or over performance, etc. Wow! Won’t that be an indescribable new paradigm! One of my great heartaches of living in the “Land after the Fall” is that relationships are so hard, even and especially those closest to us. Relational perfection: mansions of glory and streets of gold will be icing on the cake after that. Hallelujah!
Does this mean we won’t be hetero? Does this mean we won’t be attracted to the opposite sex? I read https://billmuehlenberg.com/2018/07/05/what-are-we-hetero-or-homo/
Could opposite sexes attract and enjoy each other’s bodies without actually having sex?
Male and female relationships are like connection of male and female ports (such as USB or Ethernet or power) on computers, I see. Couldn’t it work that way in heaven?
Thanks Jonathan. We can only go as far as Scripture goes on this – the rest is speculation. But while the passage under question tells us marriage as such will be no more in the next life, it does not say that heterosexuality disappears. God originally made us in his image as male and female. Presumably that continues in the next life, however we are to understand what that entails.