Will There Be Marriage in Heaven?

The Resurrection and Marriage

27 Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. 28 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless.30 The second 31 and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. 32 Finally, the woman died too. 33 Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?” 34 Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, 36 and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. 37 But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ 38 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

Since there is not a lot of teaching on what heaven will be like, I am always drawn to passages that do talk about it.  The Jewish leaders were always trying to trip Jesus up in his teaching.  If they could show that he was teaching ideas that went against the Jewish bible, especially the Torah, they could discredit him.  In this case it was the Sadducees, who denied anything supernatural, who tried to trip Jesus up.  They took a teaching of Moses from Deuteronomy 25:5-10 which taught that if a man's brother dies and leaves a widow, he should marry the widow to produce a descendant for his brother's name.

Bottom line is the Sadducees were making a ridiculous argument to support their denial of eternal life in any form.  Jesus uses the opportunity to teach what heaven like.   This passage teaches several important things.

1.  Jesus is not against marriage, but relationships in heaven will be altogether different than here on earth.  For instance if a man was widowed many times and remarried, who would his wife be? Rather than being disappointing, heaven will be the fulfillment of everything that gives us joy on earth and so much more. Why? Because our sinful nature which ruins so many of our relationships will be gone. 

2. We will be like angels in the sense that we will live forever. We will be called "sons and daughters of the resurrection", which the angels are never called.  We know we will have bodies just as Jesus had a resurrected body.  Angels are eternal spirits. They are real not made up.  This leads us to believe that we will have a different relationship to God than his angels, because we are called his sons and daughters. 

3. Finally, this story teaches us that Old Testament faithful servants of God will be in heaven.  Moses says "God is the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob" Not, God was the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob.  It is used in a present not past tense.  Since the Old Testament faithful, both Jews and Gentiles, believed in the God who was revealed to them. God honors their faith in what they knew of God. 

Paul also teaches, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him."  1 Corinthians 2:9

So while marriage relationships may be different in heaven, we know we will not be disappointed in any way in how we relate to God and each other. Further the book of Revelation says "Every tear will be wiped away in heaven". Though we have all suffered in this life we will be made whole relationally and otherwise.