The God of the Living & Loving
Wrestling with marriage and resurrection and what it does (and doesn't) mean for love.
The question the Sadducees asked, if not assumed to be snide and with an incriminating intent, is not a bad one, right? Couldn’t we imagine someone asking it today? We, too, are enmeshed in all sorts of questions and answers regarding how sexual relationships and the marital bond works. There are many Christians who have been married, unmarried, and married again. What would that look like after the final resurrection?1
Jesus again blows up the assumptions. And he does so very simply and probably quite jarringly for many - There is no marriage after death.
The Kingdom of God is surely about living “happy ever after.” And indeed, marriage here and now can and should reflect the Kingdom of God. But marriage is not an eternal institution of the Kingdom, regardless of how marriage has worked out or not in your life. For some, this comes as good news. For others, it can be challenging because the closest one has felt to experiencing the true, selfless love of Christ has come through the relationship with a spouse. For decades.
But if you let it, this can be an absolutely beautiful thing. Just how great is the loving fellowship of the Kingdom of God if it is not limited to a few people, to one relationship?
To be clear, Jesus affirmed the earthly bond of marriage this side of the resurrection. And he has words regarding marriage and unmarriage/divorce that are some of his strongest and misunderstood or applied today.
But life after the final resurrection is a whole new ballgame if we can imagine it.
The Church’s life together is meant to make that imagination visible, a people already living as though resurrection is real. In such a community, love stretches beyond boundaries, and belonging is not earned but given.2
Marriage is important, but not supreme. It can beautifully embody the selfless love of Christ, but that love is not limited to it. In fact, marriage itself, while good and necessary this side of resurrection, also reminds us that divine love is meant to extend through all our relationships.
Luke 20:27-47
Some Sadducees, who deny that there’s a resurrection, came to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies leaving a widow but no children, the brother must marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first man married a woman and then died childless. The second and then the third brother married her. Eventually all seven married her, and they all died without leaving any children. Finally, the woman died too. In the resurrection, whose wife will she be? All seven were married to her.”
Jesus said to them, “People who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy to participate in that age, that is, in the age of the resurrection from the dead, won’t marry nor will they be given in marriage. They can no longer die, because they are like angels and are God’s children since they share in the resurrection. Even Moses demonstrated that the dead are raised—in the passage about the burning bush, when he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He isn’t the God of the dead but of the living. To him they are all alive.”
Some of the legal experts responded, “Teacher, you have answered well.” No one dared to ask him anything else.
Jesus said to them, “Why do they say that the Christ is David’s son? David himself says in the scroll of Psalms, The Lord said to my lord, ‘Sit at my right side until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’ Since David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be David’s son?”
In the presence of all the people, Jesus said to his disciples, “Watch out for the legal experts. They like to walk around in long robes. They love being greeted with honor in the markets. They long for the places of honor in the synagogues and at banquets. They are the ones who cheat widows out of their homes, and to show off they say long prayers. They will be judged most harshly.”
Psalm 36:5-9
But your loyal love, Lord, extends to the skies;
your faithfulness reaches the clouds.
Your righteousness is like the strongest mountains;
your justice is like the deepest sea.
Lord, you save both humans and animals.
Your faithful love is priceless, God!
Humanity finds refuge in the shadow of your wings.
They feast on the bounty of your house;
you let them drink from your river of pure joy.
Within you is the spring of life.
In your light, we see light.
Prayer
God,
I’m so grateful for my wife. No one has shown me the love of Christ more significantly, selflessly, and exactly than her.
But I realize that this may be likely because I’ve not let anyone else have what she has of me. I can hardly imagine how destructive it could be to be as vulnerable with someone else. But I know your Kingdom calls us to such vulnerability and selflessness with all. Like Jesus on the cross. Goodness…you’re showing me just how deep and wide the capacity of love can be.
So help me, God. Help me to love others with the same care, to risk being known, and to trust that your resurrection life is already reshaping the way we belong to one another.
By your Spirit & in Christ,
Amen.
It’s again notable what the terms of the question being asked are. We’ve seen questions from other people ask about “eternal life” (i.e. the certain rich ruler). Our modern mindset often makes that about what happens after death. We already covered how this is the wrong mindset within the context of scripture. Here today, the question is about life after death, the the terms are different - “in the resurrection.”
And honestly, we haven’t even gotten into what love has to do with marriage and how much that’s a culturally shaped idea today, probably quite different than it was 2000 years ago.