A few years ago I gave a lecture in Europe to a group of pastoral students on the topic of why Jesus didn’t focus on the family. Quoting Mark 12:18-25, I made the point that Jesus taught that marriage ends at death:
Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. Teacher, they said, Moses wrote for us that if a mans brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died without leaving any children. The second one married the widow, but he also died, leaving no child. It was the same with the third. In fact, none of the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman died too. At the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?
Jesus replied, Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. (Mark 12:18-25)
After the session, one of the students asked me, “If it’s true that marriage ends at death, then how are my wife and I going to relate to each other in eternity? Isn’t that going to be a little awkward? And won’t heaven be anti-climatic if we’re not going to be able to have sex?”
Good questions. Probably every believer has thought about this at some point. Marriage and family relationships are so ever present and real to us now. Heaven, on the other hand, seems far off and vague. Won’t we constantly feel an eternal loss if these relationships don’t translate into our heavenly experience?
First of all, everything we anticipate in the future – whether in this life or in eternity – can seem far off and vague…until we actually experience it. A future wedding, the birth of a child, a Mediterranean cruise, our glorification with Christ, any future event, whatever it may be, only occupies our imagination until it actually happens. Marriage and family are present experiences for many believers. It may be difficult now to think about not being married or not being related to our children in eternity. But we shouldn’t let that negate the reality of the glory of heaven.
But how will we deal with the knowledge in heaven that we have been married, or that we have born children? The answer is that we will always know these facts in heaven. But our ongoing experience of heaven will so overwhelm and engulf us as to make these past details almost irrelevant.
For example, my mother was born in Canada and came to the United States with her family as a teenager. My father’s parents, on the other hand, were born in Norway and arrived in America through Ellis Island. These facts – that my mom had been a Canadian citizen and that my dad was Norwegian – came up in our home from time to time. But they had relatively little to do with our lives in America. Mom and Dad married as U.S. citizens, raised their children in American culture, and are buried here. The United States became their primary identity and Canada and Norway became only incidental historical facts about them. In the same way, the overwhelming glory of heaven will make our previous marriage and family relationships only incidental historical facts about us.
In addition, heaven affects our marriages and families, not only by changing our identities, but also by perfecting our relationships as believers. In theory, the body of Christ is to be one as the Father and Son are one in this life.
My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are oneI in them and you in meso that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (John 19:20-23)
But sadly, in practice this is often not the case. Sin still affects the church. Strife and division occur. The end result is that our marriages and families often offer more meaningful relational experiences than do our churches. In heaven, however, this reality will be reversed. Our relationships with our fellow believers will be unimaginably pure and intimate. There will be no sense of division, no hiddenness, no emotional distance from others. In a sense, we will wear our souls “on the outside.” We will be immediately observable to others because we will be holy. Consequently, the fellowship we will experience for eternity in heaven will be on the level of the Trinity itself: “that they may be one as we are one.”
No marriage that has ever existed or ever will exist can come close to the love and intimacy that we will experience in heaven. I often think that this is why God forbade Paul to describe what he saw when he was caught up into heaven (2 Corinthians 12:1-4). The reason why there is no marriage in heaven is because the divine intimacy we will know will make marriage and sex irrelevant. We will look into the eyes of our former spouses and chuckle at how little we really knew about love “back in the day.”
Marriage and family are great. But the body of Christ is greater. It and it alone is eternal. The relationships we are developing in our church will last forever. Think about that the next time you walk through its doors.
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
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