A. OVERVIEW
A1. What Eternal Echad Marriage is and What It Isn't
Eternal Echad (Oneness) Marriage (EEM) (in sharp contradistinction to the false Mormon doctrine of 'eternal' or 'celestial marriage' which depends on a counterfeit legalistic system of presumed 'priesthood sealing authority' to be efficacious after this life) is the Messianic Evangelical belief that marriages brought together by, and therefore according to the will of, Elohim (God) - the parties being in Messiah (Christ) through emunah (faith) in a state of spiritual regeneration or salvation through grace - shall continue, first, into the spirit world known in Scripture as 'heaven' ('paradise') and thereafter continue into the physical resurrection on earth. Marriages not in Messiah under the New Covenant, such as marriages contracted under the former Levitical system, as defined by the Old Covenant Torah, are lifelong only. All those who lived before the New Covenant have, or have already had, the opportunity to accept Messiah and therefore enjoy the same opportunities for eternal echad marriage as those born in the New Covenant æon or age. As shall be shown, the Messianic Evangelical belief has many points in common with Eastern Orthodoxy.
A2. Isaiah Describes the Millennial World
That normal marriage, including procreation, continues under messianic conditions in the resurrection world following the Second Coming of Messiah, is clearly indicated by Isaiah's millennial prophecy which yet remains to be fulfilled:
"I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in My people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of My people be, and My chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labour in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by Yahweh - and their descendants as well. Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent - its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all My qadosh (holy, set-apart) mountain" (Is.65:19-25, NRSV).
A3. Marriage in the Thousand Year Messianic Kingdom
The picture painted by the navi (prophet) here, of Yahweh's final interposition and restoration of all things (2 Pet.3:18; Rev.21:1), is of a world co-habited by the resurrected qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones), who are able to resume life on the land and procreate again but without deprivation or oppression. Nature itself will be transforned to be in harmony with regenerate Israel (also Is.11:6-9). The righteous who were alive on earth when Messiah returns will have been renewed and transformed in the twinkling of an eye (1 Cor.15:52). Thus the resurrected will be living together in the estate of marriage and bringing forth mortal children who shall grow up to great ages like the ante-diluvian patriarchs, this being, in a way, the restoration both of that world and the Edenic world before the Fall. Thus, as prophesied by the apostle Peter, such millennial marriages ensure that husbands and wives become permanent "heirs together of the grace of chayim (life)" (1 Pet.3:7, NIV) by virtue of their spiritual, allegorical marriage union with the Eternal Messiah (Christ) or 'Bridegroom', and with each other, in what ever state they may exist as:
- 1. Mortal physical beings (the present condition of the living);
- 2. Disembodied spirits (the present condition of those who have died and are awaiting the resurrection); or
- 3. Resurrected immortal physical beings.
This kind of sanctified, timeless, eternal marriage Messianic Evangelicals call Holy Echad Marriage (HEM) to clearly distinguish it from the claims made by various unorthodox groups (like the 'Mormon' and 'New Life'/Swedenborgian Churches) who believe in various forms of 'eternal marriage' that do not conform to the revealed biblical pattern.
A4. The Goal is Echadness
In plain language, if you have been born again and are abiding in Messiah, living the prescribed New Covenant Israelite Torah-lifestyle of the saved, with a pure heart and to the best of your understanding and ability, and if Yahweh has brought you together in His will by the clear leading of the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit), and godly fruit has been - and is being - produced by the union (love, peace, etc.), then you are living in a state of eternal echad (oneness) marriage already, fulfilling in your marriage, at least, the substance and goal of the High Priestly Prayer of the Saviour whose overriding, passionate desire was that there be echadness (oneness) in all relationships, including (but especially in) marriage, because human marriage is the human illustration or type He used to describe a similar, though allegorical, union that Elohim (God) wants between Himself and the saved (Jn.17), on earth and in the eternities, the same that He enjoys with His Father, Yahweh.
A5. The Need for the First Marriage
That marriage was always intended, both in the fallen world and in the perfect one which we long for, is proven by the fact Yahweh made Adam a marriage companion in the very physical paradise world of Eden, long before the rebellion and fall. It was unnatural, and not at all according to Yahweh's will, for man to be alone even in a heavenly world like the Garden of Eden where Adam walked and communed daily with Yahweh his Elohim (God)! If Adam was lonely without an intimate companion in the very presence of Elohim (God), the Creator of the Universe, in the Garden of Eden, why would anyone suppose he would not continue to be lonely in the Resurrected Eternities, after a lifetime of joyful, loving marriage, even in the presence of Christ, without his divinely appointed companion and soul-mate?
A6. The Logical Inconsistency of the Traditional Christian View
Yahweh did not solve the problem of Adam's deep need for companionship by providing him with lots of siblings or friends (to whom he would not obviously be literally married, the way Protestants envisage Heaven in the eternities). Instead, Yahweh met a much deeper need in him, which even He or friends could never have provided, by giving him a spouse. Had the Protestant vision of eternity been true, Yahweh would have given Adam companions who also loved Him and then provided these with spouses later (to emphasise that marriage was the least important of these two kinds of relationship), knowing that the purely spiritual friendships would be eternal but the compound spiritual/physical marriages not so. But He didn't, proving our point.
A7. Created Mutual Dependence of Male and Female
This is not because Yahweh couldn't have made Adam to only (in the eternal persepctive) have a need for Himself and for 'brothers and sisters' in deep union with Messiah but because He didn't. He was purposefully made to have a permanent need for a special kind of companionship which only marriage could provide because that is how Yahweh is Himself. Thus Paul, speaking of marriage and in particular, the matter of a wife being under a man's authority, would tell the Corinthian believers:
"Nevertheless, in the Master (Lord) woman is not independent of man or a man independent of a woman" (1 Cor.11:11, NRSV).
Or, as J.B.Philips renders the sense of this passage:
"...in the sight of Elohim (God) neither 'man' nor 'woman' has any separate existence" (1 Cor.11:11, JBP).
A8. Designed to be a Compound Unity in Yahweh
Why? Because they were designed to be a compound unity having different but complimentary rôles. He therefore views husband and wife as a single entity with component personal parts. There is not the slightest hint here that He intends to separate them again when they are operating in, and reflecting, the harmony of Heaven. Quite the opposite.
A9. Eden as a Picture of Paradise and Eternity
This mutual dependency for completeness, then, applies to both man and woman on a fallen world as well as in a perfect one like the Garden of Eden, which is a picture both of the Paradise as it exists today in Sheol for the disembodied spirits of the righteous saved and for the exalted physical resurrection world which will eventually be inseparably joined to it and on which Messiah will live as its King.
A10. Western and Eastern Orthodox Views of Marriage
The Western (Catholic and Protestant) and Eastern (Orthodox) Churches have very different views about marriage after death, as well as in many other theological areas. Whereas the Western Church, strongly influenced by pagan gnosticism that views matter, and therefore sex, as inherently evil and therefore to be shunned except for bringing children into the world, has always regarded celibacy as a spiritually superior estate to marriage, the Catholic Church forbidding its priests to ever marry, even though the Scriptures give a stern warning reminding us that such a teaching is a doctrine of demons:
"In latter times some will depart from the emunah (faith), giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry..." (1 Tim.4:3, NKJV).
A11. A Warning
The severity of this prophetic warning ought to alert us to the importance and sacredness of the qadosh (holy, set-apart) estate of marriage, an estate so vitally important to man's well-being that even in the perfect world of Paradise it was clear that Adam could not survive without it and remain a whole human being created in the image of Elohim (God). Remember also that this estate was given before the commandment to reproduce. Marriage isn't only for procreation but has an overarching purpose that reflects a glorious, eternal design.
A12. Remaining Faithful to Deceased Spouses in Messiah
The Eastern Orthodox or Byzantine Church, being in closer geographical proximity to the heartland of the biblical world and its spiritual currents than the Western (Catholic, Protestant) Church, has always maintained that only marriage can contain the perfect meaning and significance which Messiah gave to physical reality, whether mortal (this life) or perfect (the Edenic-like resurrection world). Thus, in the Orthodox Christian tradition, widows and widowers are encouraged to remain faithful to their spouses who are dead to this world but alive in Messiah in the invisible one because of their anticipation of a future reunion with each other, in Christ for whom they live, in the eternities [1].
A13. No 'Until-Death-Do-Us-Part' in Eastern Orthodoxy
Thus before the Second Coming of Messiah, Eastern Orthodox Christians believe that the souls of the righteous will be in Paradise awaiting the Kingdom of Heaven, so there is still a binding relationship between the living spouse and the departed spouse. Unlike in the Catholic and traditional Protestant churches, in the Orthodox wedding service there is no line that says 'until death do us part', and as a result there are numerous Orthodox believers who, for their own reasons, after their spouse dies, refuse to marry again. Interestingly, the Orthodox Church does allow second and third marriages for those who are widowed or divorced, but these actually have a different service with a more penitential character (1 Cor.7:9). Though Messianic Evangelicals do not agree with all the practical reasons why Eastern Orthodox Christians do not necessarily remarry, not least their belief in monogamy-only unions, we very much hold in common their belief that the marriage covenant transcends the veil of mortality and remains sacred amongst the faithful throughout the æons (ages) of time (eternity).
A14. Motivation to Live Marriage on Earth to the Full
Such an attitude, at the very least, can only have a positive impact on marriage that is being lived here in mortality, giving the couple an added impetus and greater motivation to make their marriages happy and productive. It is not difficult to see how those in marriages that are struggling would have less motivation to make them work knowing that they cannot simply discard their companions at death in the hope of a much deeper and more fulfilling 100 per cent non-physical, corporate one with the whole Body of the Redeemed in Messiah in 'heaven'. Our thesis is, that whilst we shall indeed enjoy a blessed echad union with all the redeemed in Messiah, this is never at the expense, or in place of, our own marriages, as shall be further explained in this essay.
A15. Heaven is a Temporary Place for Spiritual Travelers
Unlike Eastern Orthodox and a large number of Western Christians, whose focus tends to be on the temporary disembodied state called 'heaven' rather than in the final and permanent physical resurrection world which is a renewed earth, we do not accept that marriage after death between those who were married on earth is non-physical and purely spiritual, for reasons already given. Herein we see the importance of having a correct doctrine of the nature of the substance of man's being in the eternities, which Scriptrue makes the claim to be one of physical resurrection where, as Isaiah pointed out, procreation resumes, at the very least during the Millennium. Heaven, or Paradise, is correctrly viewed as a kind of 'traveler's inn', a temporary state of needed rest before the main business of eternity is resumed once again though this time in a perfected, Edenic-like state.
A16. A Common Western Fudge
We reject the commonly used Western Church fudge that detailed, descriptive millennial passages like Isaiah 65:19-25 are just 'vague' pointers to something more etherial like a stand-alone 'New Jerusalem', forgetting that the heavenly New Jerusalem (Rev.21:1-2) is actually merging with the physical earth to form a new resurrection reality. Heaven and earth are, like the human resurrection, joining together, so that the renewed earth, an immortalised physical reality freed of sickness and death, becomes more elevated spiritually - more moral, more ethical, more glorious, and more permanent, as we see in this beautiful figurative description earlier on in the same book of Isaiah:
"O afflicted city (of Jerusalem), lashed by storms and not comforted, I will build you with stones of turquoise, your foundations with sapphires. I will make your battlements (parapets) of rubies, your gates of sparkling jewels, and all your walls of precious stones. All your sons will be taught by Yahweh (as Adam was in Eden), and great will be your children's shalom (peace). In righteousness you will be established; tyranny will be far from you; you will have nothing to fear" (Is.54:11-14a, NIV; cp. 48:18).
A17. A Joint Renewal
Moreover, both earth and heaven are being "renewed" since they're obviously going to impact one another by virtue of their new association and unity, just as marriages in Messiah will be renewed, physically and spiritually, just as the divine moedim (appointments - new moons, sabbaths and festivals) will be renewed:
"'Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth...As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before Me,' declares Yahweh, 'so will your name and descendants endure. From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind ('flesh' - NKJV, NRSV; 'humanity' - NLT) will come and bow down before Me,' says Yahweh" (Isa.65:17; 66:22-23, NIV).
B. MAIN OBJECTIONS TO ETERNAL MARRIAGE EXAMINED - Part 1
B1. Overview of Articles
What follows in this section is an overview of what is discussed in greater detail in other articles which you can find in the Register below. Three passages in the Messianic Scriptures (New Testament), all duplicating the same event though differing slightly in detail, constitute the chief argument advanced by the Western (Catholic and Protestant) Church against the notion of any kind of human marriage after death (Mt.22:23-33; Mk.12:18-27; Lk.20:27-40). We shall be carefully examining this in a moment.
B2.Two Different Marriage Covenants
In any consideration of marriage, both on earth and in the eternities, it needs to be carefully born in mind that historically-speaking there are two laws and covenants spoken of in Scripture that are easily confused with each other. We must carefully separate these in our minds when dealing with biblical passages just as we do when considering the mitzvot (commandments) so that we do not fall into the trap, for example, of believing former mitzvot (commandments) to offer animal sacrifices still devolve on Christians which have long since been fulfilled and superceeded by Christ. These, then, are the two biblical types, covenants or estates of marriage:
- 1. The superior, "better" (Heb.7:22), indissoluble Messianic, Melchizedek or New Covenant form of marriage which is "after an indestructible life" (Heb.7:16) with strict rules forbidding divorce in almost all cases (Mt.5:31-32); and
- 2. The inferior, lesser, temporary, life-long 'until death do us part' Mosaic, Levitical, Aaronic or Old Covenant form of marriage which is 'after mortal human life', with lax laws about divorce given to Moses on account of people's hard-heartedness (Mk.10:5; Mt.19:8-9), making it easy to dissolve a marriage.
B3. Eternal, No Divorce vs. Temporal, Easy Divorce
The first of these is necessarily eternal, with divorce virtually unheard of, and the only one capable of bringing about perfection because it alone is after an "indestructible (and therefore eternal) life" (Heb.7:16, NIV). The second is only for the duration of mortality, with divorce common to accommodate the weakness of man, and quite incapable of bringing about perfection. Before getting further into this discussion on eternal echad marriage, you are therefore encouraged to carefully study our Melchizedek website, and especially the first two articles in its Register (Melchizedek I and Melchizedek II).
B4. The Master's Conversation With the Sadducees
We shall now look at the longer and more detailed account of Yah'shua's (Jesus) encounter with the Sadducees (who lived under the Old Covenant Levitical system of lifelong marriage covenants only with easy divorce) which allegedly provides the material leveraged by Western Christianity to attack any idea of eternal marriage in the New Covenant. As you read it ask yourself whether Levitical-type or Melechizedek-type marriage is being addressed:
"27 Then some of the Sadducees, who deny that there is a resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, 28 saying: 'Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man's brother dies, having a wife, and he dies without children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. And the first took a wife, and died without children. 30 And the second took her as wife, and he died childless. 31 Then the third took her, and in like manner the seven also; and they left no children, and died. 32 Last of all the woman died also. 33 Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife does she become? For all seven had her as wife.' 34 And Yah'shua (Jesus) answered and said to them, 'The sons of this age (æon) marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are counted worthy to attain that age (æon), and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; 36 nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the malakim (angels) and are sons of Elohim (God), being sons of the resurrection. 37 Now even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised, when he called Yahweh (the LORD) 'the Elohim (God) of Abraham, the Elohim (God) of Isaac, and the Elohim (God) of Jacob. 38 For He is not the Elohim (God) of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him.' 39 Then some of the scribes answered and said, 'Teacher, You have spoken well.' 40 But after that they dared not question Him anymore" (Luke 20:27-40, NKJV).
B5. Yah'shua (Jesus) Teaches Law of Eternal Echad Marriage
This colloquy between Yah'shua (Jesus) and his Sadducean detractors does not question or throw doubt, in proper cases, on the eternal truth that marriage continues in the resurrection. He had, after all, previously taught the indissoluble nature of divinely-appointed marriage unions, saying:
"Therefore what Elohim (God) has joined together, let not man separate" (Matt.19:6, NKJV).
B6. Marriage as Elohim's Will
That is, when a marriage is performed in the will and according to the Davar (Word) of Yahweh-Elohim, the Eternal One, and therefore by His toqef (authority) which cannot be overturned — not man's will or authority — it is (or will, provided the couple are faithful unto death) ipso facto be an eternal marriage:
"I know that whatever Elohim (God) does, it shall be forever (olam)" (Eccl.3:14, NKJV).
B7. Usage of the Hebrew Olam
Note that olam, when used of Yahweh-Elohim the Creator, is literally 'eternal', 'everlasting' or 'perpetual' in the sense that the original Latin (æternum = eternity) means in our language, but when refering to created things like hills, mountains and people, an undefined period of time is being spoken of, one that has boundaries, viz. a beginning and an end. (For further information, see our website on Æonian Time).
B8. A Common Judahite Belief About Marriage
Indeed, almost the whole of the nation of Judah believed that marriage was eternal, and that parents would beget children in the resurrection. Those few (the minority) who did not believe that marriage continued after death were mostly the sect of the Sadducees, who could not so believe because they denied the afterlife and resurrection itself and, like the Samaritans, rejected over three-quarters of the Tanakh (Old Testament). The few books they accepted - the five books of Moses or Pentateuch - said almost nothing about the afterlife, and so they concluded there was none. The Sadducees were nonetheless fully aware that the prevailing religious belief of the people generally, because of what the nevi'im (prophets) had said, which the Sadducees and Samaritans had rejected, was that there would be a physical resurrection of the righteous and that they would be living on the earth and continuing with family life but on a far grander scale and with greater longevity. Without doubt Yah'shua (Jesus), the apostles and the talmidim (disciples) generally had discussed this doctrine amongst themselves since we see hints of it elsewhere.
B9. The Sadducee Argument Assumed the Common Belief of Marriage
The Sadducean effort here was based on the assumption that Yah'shua (Jesus) and the Judeans generally believed in marriage in heaven otherwise their attempt to trip the Saviour up would have backfired. They were using this commonly accepted concept to ridicule and belittle the fact of the resurrection itself. They were saying, using a fallacious argument: "How absurd to believe in a resurrection (and therefore in the fact that there is marriage in heaven) when everybody knows that a woman who has had seven husbands could not have them all at once in the life to come."
B10. The Known Historical Belief System
This historical reality has all been known to theologians for some time. A popular early 20th century commentary, which continues to be published today (I have both the original 1909 and 1936 editions - the volume, held in high regard, continues to be reprinted and is widely used still) showing that the Judeans believed there should be marriage in heaven was made by the Anglican clergyman and theologian, Rev.J.R.Dummelow of Queen's College, Cambridge, England, who wrote:
"There was some division of opinion among the rabbis as to whether resurrection would be to a natural or to a supernatural (spiritual) life. A few took the spiritual view, e.g. Rabbi Raf is reported to have often said, 'In the world to come they shall neither eat, nor drink, nor beget children, nor trade. There is neither envy nor strife, but the just shall sit with crowns on their heads, and shall enjoy the splendour of the Divine Majesty.' But the majority inclined to a materialistic (physical) view of the resurrection. The pre-Christian book of Enoch says that the righteous after the resurrection shall live so long that they shall beget thousands. The received doctrine is laid down by Rabbi Saadia, who says, 'As the son of the widow of Sarepton, and the son of the Shunamite, ate and drank, and doubtless married wives, so shall it be in the resurrection'; and by Maimonides, who says, 'Men after the resurrection will use meat and drink, and will beget children, because since the Wise Architect makes nothing in vain, it follows of necessity that the members of the body are not useless, but fulfill their functions.' The point raised by the Sadducees was often debated by the Jewish doctors, who decided that 'a woman who married two husbands in this world is restored to the first in the next'." [2]
B11. An Untrustworthy Belief System
Whilst it is true to say that the majority is not necessarily always right, or at the very least are not precisely accurate in the details of their belief system, it must also be categorically stated that the minority, who were spiritually powerless to discern that Scriptures consisted of more than the Five Books of Moses (Pentateuch), who denied the inspiration of the nevi'im (prophets), and who both denied the physical resurrection or any kind of existence after death, and who necessarily therefore viewed death as bringing marriage to a permanent close, must surely be the least trustworthy in their pronouncements on spiritual matters and scriptural interpretation. As already noted, the prevailing view was essentially of a continuing physical existence at some point after death, and indeed the Pharisaic view, in the details, was that this state would be more-or-less the same as in mortality. Yah'shua (Jesus) at no time contradicted this belief. In the general matter of the resurrection the Pharisees were perfectly correct; in the details they yet lacked the precision and depth afforded by the new messianic revelation. We may assume the same to be true of the majority position of marriage after death. Nevertheless, as we shall see, they were right in the general drift of their thought. Marriage somehow continues into the eternities.
B12. The Pharisees Displace the Sadducees
The unbelieving sect of the Sadducees (which was more interested in temporal power and establishing and maintaining a set of rules for living in the mortal sphere than they were in spirituality), as is well known, became extinct after the Roman expulsion and diaspora, leaving the Pharisees the undisputed masters of their particular Talmudic brand of Judaism which alone survived as the inheritance of those Judeans (Jews) who would not accept Yah'shua (Jesus) as the Messiah. And though the Pharisees were often faulted by Yah'shua (Jesus) and the apostles for their religious hypocrisy (Mt.23:13,15,23,25,27) and man-made traditions (Mk.7:8-9), it is known that in a number of key doctrinal areas such as the resurrection, they were broadly-speaking on the mark (which Paul on one occasion exploited to save himself from being mobbed - Acts 23:6ff.), as they and the majority of the people were correct in maintaining the continuity of marriage beyond the grave. They grasped the emet (truth), along with the nevi'im (prophets) before them, that marital love, felicity, and unity does not cease simply because the spirit temporarily steps out of the body in what men call death until such as time as they receive those bodies back again but this time in an immortal, perfected state.
B13. Yah'shua's Words in the Light of First Century Belief About Marriage
If we can at least accept this as being the background of the historical belief system of first century Judaism (whether at this moment you believe that either or both of the parties were wrong) then honest investigation forces us to accept the historical context of any theological discussions involving either believing (Christian/Messianic) or non-believing (Pharisee and Sadducee) Judeans from that time. Only then can we ask ourselves the question: what was the Master Teacher affirming by saying, "in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the malakim (angels) of Elohim (God) in heaven" (KJV) and to whom was He speaking? Before we answer that, we need to take a close look at the biblical theology of marriage.
C. A THEOLOGY OF MARRIAGE
C1. An Historical Absence of Christian Theology on Marriage
Unfortunately, and perhaps surprisingly, Christian theologians do not seem to have paid very much attention to marriage in the past, even less than the first century Judeans who at least had a general idea of marriage beyond the grave. There were no clearly worked out dogmatic definitions for marriages as there have been, for example, in Christology, and even that was relatively unarticulated until 300 years after Messiah, in the 4th century AD (CE). Christian theology has been slow getting off the ground. Until the Council of Nicea (AD 325) began trying to flesh out a detailed Christology to deal with the Arians who were denying the deity of Messiah (who were like today's Jehovah's Witnesses), believers embraced no more complex a Christology than what Messianic Evangelicals call a simple 'proto-Trinitarianism'. They simply believed Yah'shua (Jesus) was Elohim (God). Period.
C2. Three Theological Dimensions of Marriage
If we are to properly understand eternal echad marriage, or just plain 'biblical marriage' of either the Old or New Covenant, then it is essential that we do the 'theology of marriage' too, even though the ancients felt no need to because there was no real controversy as there is today because of the subsequent gnostic infiltration in Western Christianity. To do this, it must be clearly understood that scripturally marriage has three theological 'properties' or 'dimensions' which must be viewed as being in some sort of a 'three-dimensional' harmonious echad union for any of its parts to be properly understood:
- 1. Ontological (the nature of being);
- 2. Sacramental (holiness and grace); and
- 3. Juridical (contractual or covenantal).
C3. Western Emphasis on Contracts
Traditionally, Western Christianity (Catholic and Protestant) has tended to view marriage as primarily a legal contract (much like the Old Covenant Levitical system) and therefore 'juridical' by nature which, though correctly emphasising the two-way concept of 'ownership' by Elohim (God) of the couple, and of the wife by the husband (because it encompasses the concept of a 'contract' or 'covenant'), can, if done in isolation, detrimentally eliminate the principles of ahavah (love) and grace (unmerited favour) which are so necessary for love (ahavah and chesed) to grow. Then the Messianic Community (Church) becomes little more than a mundane legislator. Though a covenant is a necessary starting point of marriage in one major respect (whether Messianic or Levitical), it is not in another.
C4. The Anthropology of Marriage
The starting point for understanding marriage can be seen in Mark 10:7, when the Pharisees came to the Master and asked Him about the lawfulness of divorce. In other words, it was a juridical and legal question. But Yah'shua (Jesus) does not answer the question in a juridical and legal manner, but rather in an ontological one:
"The Pharisees came and asked Him, 'Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?' testing Him. And He answered and said to them, 'What did Moses command you?' They said, 'Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce, and to dismiss her.' And Yah'shua (Jesus) answered and said to them, 'Because of the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of the creation, Elohim (God) 'made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife'" (Mark 10:2-7, NKJV).
C5. One Bone and Flesh in Elohim's Image
Here Yah'shua (Jesus) was referring to two passages from the beginning of Genesis:
"So Elohim (God) created man in His own image; in the image of Elohim (God) He created him; male and female He created them" (Gen.1:27, NKJV).
"And Adam said: 'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man.' Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh" (Gen.2:23-24, NKJV).
C6. Adam's Marriage Was a Heavenly Imaging
In other words, human marriage is an image of how Elohim (God) is ontologically - He too is male and female (the "us" and "our" in Genesis 1:26) and in relationship, and man is a reflection of that eternal way of being. (See Yah'shua the Messiah and His Place in the Elohimhead).
C7. Marriage as a Permanent Community or Echad
Eastern Orthodox Christians are therefore partly correct in arguing that according to the Scriptures, Elohim (God) did not start by making an individual, but an indissoluble community, a marriage, an 'echad union' (to use Messianic Evangelical terminology). And even before Eve was created from Adam, she was still 'in' Adam as a unity, albeit a different kind of unmanifested unity to the one that would obtain after she was created by Yahweh out of Adam's own tsela or rib. "It is not good for man to be alone" so Elohim (God) made man male and female, completing what 'man' is. The Zulus have a proverb that illustrates this well: Umuntu ungumuntu ngabantu — "a person is a person because of [two] people". There was, and never can be, therefore, a permanently single, unmarried 'Adam'. Such is neither fully human nor a complete imaging of the divine. Being permanently single is unnatural by divine design even if legitimate short, temporary separation and absitinence (e.g. for devotions or missions) is sometimes desirable, and then only by mutual consent (1 Cor.7:5) and not unilateral action.
C8. The Handicap of the English Language
We are extremely handicapped by the English language when it comes to use of the word 'man' to refer exclusively to male persons. There is no other word in English that expresses the notion of the human person in either echad union or in community generally. Most other languages have two words where English has only one. Greek has anthropos and aner, Zulu has umuntu and indoda, Russian has chelovek and muzhchina; but English has to make do with 'man' and 'man' for both meanings. The worldview of Western individualism means that Western people feel no loss in this, but it goes against biblical anthropology, which makes a distinction between the individual and the person. The individual is isolated; a person is in community and relationship with others: with a spouse, with other people, and with Elohim (God).
C9. Sexuality vs. Sterility
In making man male and female, Elohim (God) deliberately creates sexuality. The author of Genesis knew the difference between a cow and a bull, but did not see fit to mention this sexual difference when describing the creation of cattle. This is because man can debase sexuality in a way that cattle cannot. Man can treat sexuality as something alien and hostile, as an invention of demons, as many gnostics did and as many Western Christians still do, a reason they refuse to entertain its continuity (and therefore marriage) after death, even though the nevi'im (prophets) clearly contradict this very unbiblical notion. The Western vision is very asexual and sterile which has itself led to historical abuses because it is so unnatural. It is also noteworthy that having made the sexual distinction in man at creation - and this before the Fall - Yahweh makes no other distinction. There is no distinction between Greek man and Jewish man, black man and white man. There is only man, male and female, two (or more) yet one - always.
C10. A Fish Without a Bicycle
Male and female are neither inseparable nor interchangeable. There is a echadness or unity and a difference; male man is incomplete without female man; female man is incomplete without male man. That's how we are made in our core essence. Western culture tends to deride and devalue this complementarity and the need for community. We see this amoebic separateness in the concrete jungles that are modern Western cities, with cities like Stockholm having more single, unmarried (though predictably promiscuous) people per capita than any other metropolis. Stephen Hayes notes in one of his essays the saying that was common a few years back that illustrates this dysfunctional separateness: "A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle" which rejects the biblical idea of "bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh". Denying the complementarity, however, is like saying that having two left feet is the same as having a left foot and a right foot.
C11. 'Ontological' and 'Anthropological' Marriage
We are considering marriage from an ontological and anthropological perspective. This is what human beings are and always will be irrespective of man's irresponsible, destructive and therefore doomed social engineering experiments. And it's how our first parents were in the Garden of Eden before rebellion marred the perfection to which all mankind is called. This is what Yahweh made man to be, inwardly and outwardly, spiritually and physically; not alone, but longing for the other compliment - different, yet the same because of the perfect, natural, inbuilt complimentarity reflecting that of Elohim (God) Himself. This has been true throughout biblical history, whether the marriages have been monogamous or, in some cases, polygamous. [3]
C12. Marriage as a Sacrament
The anthropological and ontologcal view of marriage looks at what marriage is practically - in reality - both the way Yahweh created us and as it subsequently evolved as a human institution. But the legal and social dimensions of marriage do not determine what marriage is in inner substance.
C13. Marriage in Its Universal and Cosmic Dimensions
It is so easy to forget that marriage, like everything else in "this world", is a fallen and distorted caricature of true marriage, and that what it does not need is to be simply 'blessed' and 'solemnised' in some religious ceremony with the help of the photographer afterwards to record the event – but restored. To borrow the helpful thoughts of the Eastern Orthodox writer Alexander Schmemann, this restoration, furthermore, is in Messiah (Christ) and this means His life, death, resurrection and ascension to heaven, in the Shavu'ot ('pentecostal') inauguration of the "new æon", in the Messianic Community (Church) as the sacrament of all this. Needless to say, this restoration infinitely transcends the idea of the 'Christian family', and gives marriage cosmic and universal dimensions too. [4] It starts with marriage, but is an extended family that builds upon marriage. The Kingdom of Heaven is an allegorical 'marriage' consisting of many literal marriages. They are no more separate than a married couple is separate in the heavenly view of things. The Kingdom is an 'echad of echads'. Deep down, in our heart of hearts, we all know this to be true.
C14. Marriage and the Master's Supper
The historical evolution of Eastern Orthodox thinking about marriage as a sacrament is very interesting and enlightening. What Western Christians (Catholic and Protestant) are largely unaware of is the fact that in the early Messianic Community (Church) marriage was always viewed in relation to the Master's (Lord's) Supper, Communion or Eucharist. In the early Messianic Community (Church) there was no separate marriage ceremony that we know of. Married couples brought their life together into the Messianic Community (Church) by participating together as one (echad) in the Master's Supper. The literal and allegorical aspects of marriage took place simultaneously! The later development of a separate marriage service was basically an extension of this but in the process the sacramental quality of the marriage union became progressively lost leading to various distorted theologies about marriage and the afterlife.
C15. Two Simultaneous Affirmations
In other words, two contiguous affirmations were being made in the very early Messianic Community (Church):
- 1. The permanency of the marriage union on earth and beyond the grave by partaking of the Master's Supper together as one or echad in the Messiah; and
- 2. The permanency of the fellowship of the Messianic Community on earth and beyond the grave by sharing the Master's Supper with the local fellowship or assembly as one or echad.
C16. Two Types of Marriage in the Eternities
There was, therefore, no question, of any marriage union in Messiah terminating beyond the veil of mortality because of the alleged superiority of the communion of the qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones) in Messiah but a recognition that both proceeded into the presence of Messiah both in the paradisaical world of spirits and in the future world of the physical resurrection, each enhancing and complementing the other like a symbolic 'husband and wife' on their own. They enter both realities together. As we shall hopefully, see, this is the only way to harmonise all the Scriptures on marriage and the eternities: Elohim (God) does not destroy what He has brought together in Messiah - that is impossible! You do not destroy one relationship to make another one better, you enhance both of them to the glory of Elohim (God) because they are witnesses or reflections of each other, just as they are in the Elohimhead (Godhead).
C17. No Vows or Legal Contracts in Eastern Orthodoxy
As mentioned earlier, in the Eastern Orthodox marriage service, hearkening back to an earlier time long forgotten by the Western Church, there is no exchange of vows and no legal contract (ketubah) that is ended by any "till death us do part" clause because they view such a concept as essentially an impermanent Mosaic (Levitical, Aaronic), Old Covenant affair (in which so many messianics are still regrettably very much stuck). Western Christianity, which has traditionally put its emphasis on contractual marriage, still has a very Mosaic and temporal outlook in that respect. Eastern Orthodoxy, at least in its view of marriage, retains much more of the idea of the Melchizedek or Messianic Covenant. It also contains a crowning ceremony in which Psalm 8 and Hebrews 2 are recalled, in which the Psalm is quoted:
"Yahweh, our Adon (Lord), how majestic is Your Name in all the earth! You have set Your glory above the heavens. From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of Your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that You care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings (malakim/angels) and crowned him with glory and honour. You made him ruler over the works of Your hands; You put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. O Yahweh, our Adon (Lord), how majestic is Your name in all the earth!" (Ps.8:1-9, NIV).
C18. Marriages are Cells in the Body of Messiah
This refers to fallen man restored to fellowship with Elohim (God) in Messiah, and restored to rightful dominion over the earth. The couple are to be king and queen to each other, and their life together is to be a witness to the kingdom of Elohim (God), a 'little kingdom', and a little 'messianic community (church)', a cell of the Body of Messiah.
C19. The Complete and Whole Vision of Marriage Revealed
In this respect, the Eastern Orthodox vision accords well with the Messianic Evangelical one. The Body of Messiah - the allegorical Bride of Christ - consists of these marriage 'cells', not disunited or unmarried individuals. This is the epitome of completeness and wholeness as human beings in union with Messiah. Are the individualities of husband and wife maintained? Absolutely, they are each saved separately, but like Adam and Eve, they were never created to be 'alone' but to be echad or 'one' in and with each other. And these marriage units, small (monogamous - like Isaac and Rebekah, and Joseph and Asenath) and large (polygamous -like Abraham's and David's families) - were made to all join together spiritually as one giant, corporate, allegorical Bride of Messiah, perfectly united with the Cosmic Bridegroom and with the Father of All, Yahweh-Elohim, to whom all power and toqef (authority) must one day return (1 Cor.15:24-28).
C20. Marriage as a Sign and Witness
Christian/Messianic marriage, therefore, is to be a sign and a witness of the restoration of eternal marriage, and of mankind and all creation from their fallen state, and to be restored to fellowship and communion with Elohim (God). The love of the married couple for each other must overflow as a witness of the love of Elohim (God). So Christian/Messianic marriage is to transform the fallen human institution of marriage itself, and also to participate in the renewal or transformation of the fallen world. It looks forward, then, to the future Millennium and the Eternities beyond that. One of the primary features of their witness will be that if Elohim (God) blesses them with children, they will bring up their children in the knowledge and fear of Yahweh so that they may become a part of that Greater Allegorical Union with their own marriages and families, forever binding all together in Messiah.
C21. Marriage as a Qadosh Sacrament and Theosis
Qadosh (holy, set-apart to Yahweh) Matrimony is a sacrament indeed, because through marriage the Kingdom of Elohim (God) becomes a living experience, in the midst of the Messianic Community (Church) united in the Master's Supper. In the Body of Messiah the husband and wife (or sometimes wives) [5] can become the flesh of each other in a way unique to the measure of the unity of Messiah and His Bride, the Messianic Community (Church). Sacramental marriage is like other marriages, but it does not belong to this world in its content and experience - it is eternity-minded. Qadosh (holy, set-apart to Yahweh) matrimony is therefore a testimony to Elohim (God) for all the world to see and be drawn to and a way toward what the Eastern Orthodox call theosis - a way toward eternity.
C22. The Truth and the Counterfeits
All of this strongly disagrees with both the Western Vision of marriage ending at death and the perverse Mormon system of 'celestial marriage' which is purely contractual and based on a false claim to pretended legalistic 'priesthood authority' similar to that claimed by the Roman Catholics. For both Messianic Evangelicals and, as far as we can tell, the Eastern Orthodox as well, the key to eternal marriage is authentic Union with Messiah. Whether our marriages are eternal or not will depend, therefore, on whether Yahweh has called those marriages into existence and whether the parties remain surrendered to Yah'shua (Jesus) and are bringing forth the fruit of salvation which are the works of the Ruach (Spirit) (Gal.5:22-23). This would then be a pure Messianic or Melchizedekan marriage which can never be destroyed because it is sealed by Messiah.
D. MAIN OBJECTIONS TO ETERNAL MARRIAGE EXAMINED - Part 2
D1. Exception to the Rule?
All these things must be clearly born in mind as we return to a passage of scripture which records the same event three times - it must clearly be understood in terms of the whole witness of Scripture. And even if it be argued (wrongly) that it is an exception to the whole thrust of biblical thought, the exception would not in any case prove the rule. How could it? The Davar Elohim or (Word of God) cannot contradict itself, nor any part claiming to be the Davar Elohim (Word of God) return to the Creator void (Is.55:11). It then becomes the sacred duty of the exegete, who believes in the inspiration of Scripture, to discover the harmony of the whole. The alternative is the dishonest man's 'solution', namely, liberalism and, ultimately, atheism. So we return, to conclude this essay, to the alleged objection to marriage after death found in the Master's discussion with the Sadducees.
D2. The Law of Levirate
The background to the Sadducee argument was the Levitical Law of Levirate which has little meaning in Western or Eastern Christian society these days both because we aren't now living in a theocratic nation in the Promised Land and because such a law could only operate when plural marriage was being practiced which it currently is not in orthodox Christianity, Western or Eastern, save in some isolated instances in Africa where it is barely tolerated. This law is stated in the Pentateuch which was, you will remember, acknowledged by the Sadducees as Scripture to the exclusion of the rest of the Tanakh (Old Testament):
"If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the widow of the dead man shall not be married to a stranger outside the family; her husband's brother shall go in to her (have intercourse), take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her. And it shall be that the firstborn son which she bears will succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel. But if the man does not want to take his brother's wife, then let his brother's wife go up to the gate to the elders, and say, 'My husband's brother refuses to raise up a name to his brother in Israel; he will not perform the duty of my husband's brother.' Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him; and if he stands firm and says, 'I do not want to take her,' then his brother's wife shall come to him in the presence of the elders, remove his sandal from his foot, spit in his face, and answer and say, 'So shall it be done to the man who will not build up his brother's house.' And his name shall be called in Israel, 'The house of him who had his sandal removed'" (Deut.25:5-10, NKJV).
D3. Ruth and Boaz and the law of Levirate
Interestingly, it was this law of marriage that enabled Boaz and Ruth, progenitors of Yah'shua (Jesus), to become man and wife (Ruth 4). (For more information on this, see Theocratic Government and the Kinsman-Redeemer).
D4. Only Two Reasonable Interpretations
As we bring together the whole counsel of Scripture, as well as acknowledging the historical realities of the beliefs and practices of 1st Century AD Palestine, there remain only two possible, satisfactory interpretations of Yah'shua's (Jesus') response to the Sadducee questioning. Both are, though they approach the question from slightly different angles, in reality complimentary to one another. These are that:
- 1. Yah'shua (Jesus) is not denying but limiting the prevailing concept that there will be marriage in heaven. He is saying to the target audience (the Sadducees) that as far as "they" (the Sadducees) are concerned (and in the wider sense, that as far as "they", "the children of this world" (KJV) are concerned) the marriage estate does not, and will not, continue in the resurrection. It's over for them for they neither believe in the resurrection nor the Lord of the Resurrection, Yah'shua (Jesus). Because He does not choose to cast His pearls before swine, and because the point at issue is not marriage but resurrection anyway, Yah'shua (Jesus) does not here amplify His teaching to explain that marriage in heaven is only for those who who believe Him and the Word of Salvation — a blessing which excludes worldly (unsaved) people; and
- 2. Yah'shua (Jesus) is not saying that there is no marriage in heaven at all (for anyone) but that married people who attain to eternal life during mortality do not contract new Levitical (Old Covenant)-type marriages in the afterlife, which is what the juridical or legal expression, "marry, and are given in marriage" means (Luke 20:34, KJV) in the Mosaic system which, like the world in its present form, "is passing away" (1 Cor.7:31, NIV) which the religious leaders of that time had absolutely not understood, and as Judaism (and to some extent, Messianic Judaism and orthodox Christianity still caught up in the old juridical mindset) still hasn't understood. In other words, the way the legalities of marriage are transacted in "this world" with agreements between family heads, the payment of dowries, betrothals, etc., does not obtain in the world beyond. A different order obtains there. The 'business of marriage' in done in an entirely different way, by Yahweh simply declaring who is, and who is not, married, by the power and toqef (authority) of His Davar (Word). There, you are either still married (if you're properly saved and are a child of heaven) or you're no longer married (if you are still a child of the world system because you're effectively operating under the old Levitical system) because remaining married entirely depends on your being in Yah'shua (Jesus) who alone possesses the power of eternal chayim (life) to maintain the unions therein.
D5. The Reason Marriage Breaks Up
Why would marriage end? Indeed, why does it usually end in divorce in mortality? Because of the selfishness of one or both of the parties. Indeed, in speaking of ahavah (love) in that extraordinarily beautiful poem that is 1 Corinthians 13, Paul reminds us that in this life it is decidedly incomplete along with our knowledge and prophesying - we just don't yet see the whole picture!
"For our knowledge is always incomplete and our prophecy is always incomplete, and when the complete comes, that is the end of the incomplete" (1 Cor.13:9, JBP).
D6. The Three Incomplete Loves on Earth
So what is it that exists here on earth that is presently incomplete?
- 1. Our love for Elohim (God) as the allegorical Bride (we're always falling short of giving what is due Him);
- 2. Our love for our spouses as literal brides and bridegrooms (spouses always falling short of what they ought to be giving each other); and
- 3. Our love for each other as participating members of the corporate allegorical Bride (the saved, the Body of Messiah) (we're always falling short in how we should be loving our brothers and sisters in Christ).
D7. Incomplete People Living as Complete
We are, in a word, subject to frustration in our love-relationships. Paul's poem yearns over the fact that our experience of ahavah (love), as of everything else that matters, is decidedly incomplete. And in the resurrection, which is the subject material two chapters on in 1 Corinthians 15, our loving will finally be complete in all our relationships. Paul's central message in chapter 13 is that we should live in the present in all our relationships, including marriage, as people who are to be made complete in the future. But "at present we are men looking at puzzling reflections in a mirror" (v.12, JBP). The more complete our ahavah (love) and our loving, the more complete the marriage equation in eternity will become in our own minds. Those who deeply love always have eternity in mind - it's the inbuilt default of the human heart. Only those who aren't loving as they ought to be, or aren't being loved as they feel they should be, tend to have a negative reaction to the idea of marriage in the eternities.
D8. Breaking Down Yah'shua's Response to the Sadducee Question
With all of these considerations in mind, we can now carefully look at the contentious part of the Sadducee discourse in Luke 20:34-36 unmuddled by the distorting lenses of denominationalism:
"But the children (sons) of this æon (age) ('world' - KJV)
marry, and are given in marriage;
{but those deemed worthy
{to obtain that æon (age)
{and that resurrection
{neither marry, nor are given in marriage;
{for they can die no more;
{because they are like ('equal to' - KJV, ESV) [the] angels (isaggelos);
{and are Sons of Elohim (God),
{being sons of the resurrection"
(Lk.20:34-36, Griesbach Recension, Vatican MS #1209)
D9. Management of the Affairs of Earth Life is the Object
Yah'shua (Jesus) does not discuss the intermediate disembodied state called 'heaven' or 'paradise' at all but goes straight from the current æon (age) to the resurrection or millennial æon (age) because the discussion is about earth life and the physical resurrection. Notice that both are æons or fixed periods of time - the current one of about 6,000 years (some divide this up into two or three parts) and the millennial one which will be 1,000 years long. He doesn't discuss the æons or ages beyond the millennium. Again, the sole purpose of His response is to prove that life-after-death in the physical resurrection will definitely happen. That is why He attaches "for they can die no more" to "neither marry, nor are given in marriage". The old system of contractual marriage, which rested on the fact that the parties would eventually die, would have no meaning in an eternal, resurrection world. Provision for one of the spouses if the other died, or for their children when both eventually passed on, would be superfluous in an immortal sphere. This is how the Sadducees thought and it was their mindset that He was addressing, not ours, for we, like the Pharisees of old, believe in the resurrection, do we not?
D10. The Design of Scripture Structure
As you will see, the Master uses a conventional Hebrew chiasm to help His audience remember His words, shown in the written text above as a series of semi-bracketed indentations containing related material. This is common in the nevi'im (prophets) and was inspired by Yahweh to help essentially illiterate people remember large amounts of Scripture so that they could be absorbed aurally (by ear) and be passed down orally (by mouth). Many of the Scriptures we remember the most readily are those structured chiastically.
D11. In What Sense are Humans 'Equal' to Angels?
Why has Yah'shua (Jesus) included the malakim (angels) in this passage? What have they got to do with all of this? It is assumed by Protestants, quite incorrectly, that He did so because these supernatural agents are permanently single and that therefore those humans worthy of the resurrection - the saved - will be single also...'like' or 'equal to' those malakim (angels). But Yah'shua nowhere says anything about the sexuality or marriage status of these malakim (angels). He does not say, of those worthy to receive the resurrection, that they will be "sexless like the angels". Pay attention to the words He uses and ask yourself the question: In what sense are the "sons of this æon (age)" 'like' or 'equal' to the malakim (angels)? Why this particular wording? Is this pointing to their immortality? Authority? Singleness? Or what?
D12. Angels are All Male and Capable of Procreating
Faithful malakim (angels) are clearly all male, and are always referred to as "he", e.g. Matthew 2:14, and never as "she" or "it". There is no hint that they are asexual neuters. If we conclude that they are, then we must also conclude (if we follow the traditional Protestant train of thought and using the Saviour's undisguised parallelism) that the dead (and especially here the faithful dead, including those who were women in mortality) will all be sexually neutral in the resurrection too, which would be agreeable to the undisguised Catholic/Gnostic bias against sexuality. The false assumption is made that there will no longer be any procreation in the next life, and whilst that is of course true in a disembodied state, is that necessarily true of the physical resurrection? Of if we agree that angels are all male but don't reproduce, do we assume, following Protestant logic, that men and women will be male in the resurrection ("like the angels") but won't reproduce either? The absurdity of such illogical extrapolations of sexually neutral thinking soon become apparent. If "equal" or "like" does not refer to angelic sexuality, then what does it mean? Indeed, does it have anything to do with sexuality or the ability to procreate (or not) at all?
D13. Angels and Marriage
There are plenty more clues in Yah'shua's (Jesus') densely packed reply that will answer these questions decisively for us. Remember, the expression b'nei elohim or "sons of God" is a term referring to either malakim (angels), who are all male - as in the fallen malakim (angels) of Genesis 6:2 who lusted after "the daughters of men (bat 'adam)" and "married...them" (NIV), procreating with them, thus proving that they are sexual beings capable of reproduction - or to human beings (Mt.5:9), specifically, the males of the species, that is, the 'Adam's' of each marriage, who obviously are sexual beings. The sexuality of both the malakim (angels) and human beings is only restrained by divine command; malakim (angels), who are forbidden from reproducing at this time, and humans, who may only reproduce in contractual marriage arrangements. It is not an unreasonable deduction, therefore, which Messianic Evangelicals make, that at some future time malakim (angels) will be able to express their sexuality, otherwise why would Yahweh create them male in the first place with fully functioning genetalia? The current æon (age), for whatever reason that is not given, just isn't their 'time' for using their procreative organs in marriage unions.
D14. Why the Sethite-Cainite Theory is False
The assertion (sometimes made by those who refuse to believe malakim (angels) are capable of procreation) that the b'nei elohim or "Sons of God" are mere godly human males who make ill-advised marriage unions with ungodly human females is refuted on several counts:
- 1. Stories of unions between deities and the women of the earth, which resulted in gigantic and corrupt races, were common to many nations of antiquity, and it has long been accepted that we have here traces of a similar tradition among the Hebrews though free of those polytheistic features which are to be found in the pages of heathen mythology;
- 2. Such passages as 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 6ff., which speak of the fall of malakim (angels), are clearly based on Genesis 6:1-4;
- 3. The expression b'nei elohim appears in other passages like Job 1:6, 38:7 and Daniel 3:25, where it is clear that the malakim (angels) can only be meant, means this is the only possible explanation; and
- 4. That the b'nei elohim ("sons of God") refer to the godly 'Sethites' who became corrupted by marriage with the bat 'adam (daughters of men) or ungodly 'Cainites' may be dismissed on two counts:
- a. The assumption that Cain's descendants were pre-eminently wicked has no foundation or merit in Scripture or any known authentically ancient historical text on par with that of Genesis; and
- b. It is absurd in the extreme to assume that purely human unions would have resulted in a race of "giants" or nefilim otherwise the unequal yoking of believers to unbelievers would be expected to produce something similar today (2 Cor.6:14), which they clearly do not.
D15. Beware of Modern Politically Correct Gender Inclusive Translations
Clearly, then, there is no way of distinguishing between male malakim (angels) and male humans except in scriptural context. But when angelic and human b'nei elohim are spoken of together in the same passage - when both are referred to as the b'nei elohim or "sons of God" then it's the men Yah'shua (Jesus) is talking about as representative heads of marriages and families in much the same way as Yahweh our Heavenly Father is the representative Head of the Elohimhead or Godhead Family. And though modern liberal-leaning versions of the Bible often substiture "children" for "sons" in this Sadducee discourse, this is a deliberate attempt at modern political correctness - at 'gender inclusion' - without linguistic warranty. So be careful of more modern Bible translations as they can, on occasion, seriously distort the Davar (Word).
D16. No Female Angels in the Scriptures
Very clearly an 'equality' or 'likeness' is being spoken of here between malakim (angels) and saved men, but in what sense are they (or will they be) 'equal to' or 'like' one another? Both are sexual beings (though under various Torah restraints) and the fact that there are no female malakim (angels) around (yet) suggests to us that they are in the same condition as Adam was before Eve was taken out of Him surgically when Yahweh put him into a "deep sleep" (Gen.2:21, NIV). The claim rarely made that the 'two women' of Zechariah 5:8-9 with the 'wings of storks' (carrying a basket with a woman called 'Wickedness' in it) were female malakim (angels) is without credibility as the passage is not intended to be taken literally. It is simply a picture of the people's sin (the prostitute in the basket) being deposited in Babylon. There are no female malakim (angels) in the Bible and to date none that we know of have yet been created. That doesn't automatically mean that in some other æon (age) they won't be, though.
D17. Are Angels Like Adam Before Eve Was Created?
Though it can't be proven conclusively, by following the sacred tavnith of Scripture it is not unreasonable to deduce that the future wives of the malakim (angels) yet reside within them, as Eve was within Adam, and are yet to be manifested in a future æon (age) for which they are required to patienty wait and not imitate the rebellious Watcher malakim (angels) who seized human women by force, sexually violated them, and created a race of giants that Yahweh had to wipe out in the Flood to prevent the contamination of the messianic line and to curtail all the evil they brought in their wake.
D18. When Godly Men are Inferior to Angels
We return to the faithful qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones) being "like" or "equal to" malakim (angels) in the resurrection æon (age) to come and are closer now to understanding just what this means. Let's unpack this carefully. Are malakim (angels) - or have malakim (angels) - or will malakim (angels) always be "equal to" righteous men? No. In this æon or age, mortal man is described as being "lower than", unlike, unequal to, or inferior to the malakim (angels). Observe what the writer of Hebrews, quoting a messianic prophecy from the Psalms in the Tanakh (Old Testament), says. He begins talking about humans generally and then telescopes the future Messiah into the picture as an added layer:
"What is man that You are mindful of him,
Or the son of man that You take care of him?
You have made him a little lower than the malakim (angels);
You have crowned him with glory and honour,
And set him over the works of Your hands.
You have put all things in subjection under his feet"
(Heb.2:6-8, NKJV; cp. Ps.8:5-7)
D19. When The Righteous Judge the Angels
But what of glorified man in the life after this one? Is he equal to the malakim (angels) or does he have a different status? Paul tells us of the judgment that shall take place at the end of the first resurrection æon (age) known as the Millennium when the rest of mankind and, presumably, the malakim (angels) with them, are brought to account:
"Do you not know that we shall judge malakim (angels)?" (1 Cor.6:3, NKJV).
D20. Three Types of Relationship Between Righteous Men and Angels
Beyond question, the status of malakim (angels) and their relationship to man changes with time, that is, in accordance with the divinely assigned purpose of each æon or age. We can now see from the whole counsel of the Davar (Word) that there are three different relational positions between godly man and malakim (angels) at different times or in different æons (ages). Humans are either:
- 1. Inferior or Lesser (mortality);
- 2. Equal (in the millennial resurrection age); or
- 3. Higher (acting as Judges, presumably at the end of the millennium).
D21. When Will Godly Angels Be Judged by Godly Men?
How can we be sure that the malakim (angels) will be judged at the end of the Millennium and not at the beginning along with those men judged worthy to live during that 1,000 year reign? Again, we can deduce it because of the fact that at the end of the Millennium, Satan and his fallen (demonic) malakim (angels) will be released for a short period to tempt mankind (those born during the 1,000 years) one last time before being permanently removed as tempters of the Adamic race. Since these must undoubtedly be judged before their final banishment, it is not unreasonable to assume that the righteous malakim (angels) will be judged at around the same time, concluding the Final Judgment not only of all human beings who remain but all the malakim (angels) too. There really is no other period of time left to judge them, unless it is in some even later æon (age) that we as yet know nothing about. Why the qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones) are called to do this judging we can only speculate about but it may have something to do with the responsibility of those who are under the calling of a higher authority, a subject dealt with elsewhere. One thing we do know is that husbands, who are in authority as heads of households, have to give account of their wives when Yahweh judges the men.
D22. Equality and Superiority are not Possible Simultaneously
To summarise what we have learned: Right now, in mortality, the saved are inferior (in terms of power) and lesser (in terms of authority) to the loyal malakim (angels). Yah'shua (Jesus), in His discourse with the Sadducees, speaks of a time after the current æon (age) of mortality in which we are equal to the malakim (angels) who, like us, are b'nei elohim ("Sons of God") but there is also a time when the saved will have a higher toqef or authority and are given the mandate to judge these malakim (angels). How, in the "age to come" can we be both equal and a little "higher" or superior?
D23. Yah'shua's Economy of Words and Keeping to the Point
The answer is, we can't be. The "age of equality" can only refer to the intermediate 'spirit world' or 'Paradise' (where the spirits of disembodied believers go) and to the Millennial resurrection world to come. The "age of superiority" can only refer to the æons or ages after the Millennium. Yah'shua (Jesus) is not interested in that post-Millennial æon (age) in the Sadducee discourse because it is not germaine to His exposé of the false doctrine of there being no resurrectiion after this life. He's extremely economical with His words and always to the point. The unbelieving, Messiah-rejecting Sadducees will not, in any case, be inheriting the world of the b'nei elohim in any æon or age to come. And their attempt to catch Yah'shua (Jesus) out with the Law of Levirate spectacularly backfired.
D24. 21st Century Conceptions of Marriage are Radically Different
Part of the problem we face in analysing difficult passages like the discourse between Yah'shua (Jesus) and the Sadducees is that marriage is conceived of very differently in the 21st century to the 1st. Marriage in Yah'shua's (Jesus') day was very different from what many people think of as marriage today. It had nothing to do with 'true love', 'soulmates',' or any kind of inner connection at all. Hard though it is for modern Christians to imagine, let alone accept, the concept of marriage as a relationship based on ahavah (love) developed in human society only within the last two or three centuries, and it has become widespread only within the last half century or so.
D25. When the Need for Contractual Marriage Ends
For Yah'shua's (Jesus') listeners, who were under the Mosaic (Old) Covenant and Levitical Torah, and throughout most of human history, marriage was what we today would call a contractual and business relationship. Its purpose was to provide financial advantages and social recognition to married couples and their clans, and to perpetuate the family's lineage, property, and inheritance (a reason the Law of Levirate existed). And as Yah'shua (Jesus) said, and as Eastern Orthodox Christians have understood, and as we have seen, that sort of marriage does not exist in heaven or in the resurrection world beyond it. There is absolutely no need for it there.
D26. Master of Metaphor and Parable
And yet, there is more to Yah'shua's (Jesus) words than meets the eye. The Saviour was a master of metaphor and parable. If we look at His words more deeply, we can learn a great deal about what kind of marriage does and doesn’t exist in heaven. And more importantly, we can learn a great deal about how to live here on earth so that we can experience and enjoy real, eternal echad marriage in heaven.
D27. A Detailed Analysis
What exactly did Yah'shua (Jesus) say and not say about marriage and the afterlife? We will now thoroughly dissect and analyse the Sadducean account. Of necessity, because there are so many myths and misunderstandings about marriage in the afterlife that have been circulated and accepted into Christianity for the last two millennia, we must at times be detailed and technical. If your minister or priest has told you that there is no marriage in heaven 'because Yah'shua (Jesus) said so', we hope that you will see this essay to its conclusion.
D28. Marriage and Spiritual Connectivity
Throughout much of the history of Christianity, the idea that there was no marriage in heaven wasn't particularly upsetting to most people. That's because marriage as a deep spiritual connection of love between two people either didn't exist at all or it was so rare that very few people ever experienced it. Yes, some people did love their marital partner. But that was considered a pleasant add-on, not something critical to the purpose or success of a marriage. Today, however, millions of men and women do experience a deep inner connection with their partner. And for these people, the idea that their marriage relationship will come to an abrupt end at death can cause great pain. The following letter is typical:
"I am widow and a believer in Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ)...I am so lonely without my husband of 38 years, we did everything together, even in the ministry. Will we be together in heaven? Yah'shua (Jesus) told the religious leaders that there will be no marriage in heaven. I miss my husband so much, my life without him has been turned upside down. Many tell me to move on with my life and find someone else. He was my soulmate. Please help me understand! Thank you. I still trust Elohim (God) and love Him."
D29. Deep Union and Woundedness
This sister's feelings reflect those of millions of widows and widowers who dearly and deeply love their deceased husband or wife. For people who have experienced true spiritual marriage — or who long for it — the common Christian/Messianic belief that there is no marriage in the afterlife creates a deep wound in the heart. And Christianity is supposed to heal wounds, not inflict them.
D30. Christianity's Levitical Outlook on Marriage
Happily for those who hope for eternal marriage, traditional Christianity has been wrong on this issue all these centuries precisely because it, too, has thought of marriage as a merely earthly coupling solely for the purpose of reproduction and social stability in this world — just as the people of Yah'shua's (Jesus') day did. In that respect, Christianity has not really left the Levitical mindset at least in respect to marriage. Beyond any doubt, this was the view of the Sadducces whom Yah'shua (Jesus) was correcting - He did not say that there would be no exclusive, intimate covenant-unions between husbands and wives in the world-to-come.
D31. Luke 20:27-40
Let's take a fresh look at the most detailed record of this encounter between the Master and the Sadducee sect of that day:
"27 Then some of the Sadducees, who deny that there is a resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, 28 saying: 'Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man's brother dies, having a wife, and he dies without children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. And the first took a wife, and died without children. 30 And the second took her as wife, and he died childless. 31 Then the third took her, and in like manner the seven also; and they left no children, and died. 32 Last of all the woman died also. 33 Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife does she become? For all seven had her as wife.' 34 And Yah'shua (Jesus) answered and said to them, 'The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; 36 nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the malakim (angels) and are sons of Elohim (God), being sons of the resurrection. 37 Now even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised, when he called Yahweh (the Lord) 'the Elohim (God) of Abraham, the Elohim (God) of Isaac, and the Elohim (God) of Jacob. 38 For He is not the Elohim (God) of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him.' 39 Then some of the scribes answered and said, 'Teacher, You have spoken well.' 40 But after that they dared not question Him anymore" (Luke 20:27-40, NKJV).
D32. The Shorter Accounts
As already pointed out, the same story occurs in slightly shorter versions in Matthew 22:23–33 and Mark 12:18–27, which you should also read and which we will occasionally refer to. The quotation in the next reading is from the abridged Matthean account:
"You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of Elohim (God)" (Mt.22:29, NKJV).
D33. The Sadducee Word Trap
The religious leaders of the day considered themselves very smart and intelligent. Yah'shua (Jesus) had already silenced the rival Pharisees, with their trick question about paying taxes to Caesar (see Mt.22:15–22; Mk.12:13–17; Lk.20:20–26). That didn't slow down the Sadducees. They had formulated an even more elaborate word-trap for Yah'shua (Jesus). They told an over-the-top hypothetical tale about one woman who married seven brothers in a row under the Law of Levirate marriage, none of whom fathered a child with her before they died one by one. She herself survived them all and died childless. The Sadducees' purpose in asking the question had nothing to do with marriage. It was meant to force Yah'shua (Jesus) into admitting that there is no afterlife.
D34. The Pentateuch and the Afterlife
The Sadducees were the biblical literalists of their day, rather like modern Baptists and a number of other fundamentalist Protestants. They didn’t believe anything unless they could read it in the plain, literal meaning of the Scriptures — which for them was that part of the Tanakh (Old Testament) known as the Pentateuch (Genesis-Deuteronomy). And since the Pentateuch (which was all the Scripture that was known until Joshua, Samuel and the rest of the writers of the Tanakh (Old Testament) started penning their own inspired prophecies and histories) says virtually nothing about any afterlife, the Sadducees didn’t believe in one.
D34. Canonical Issues Ignored
Notice that Yah'shua (Jesus) did not quarrel with them about the canon of the Scriptures, though He could have. The Pharisees accepted the whole canon of the Tanakh (Old Testament), from Genesis to Malachi, which was good, but they also accepted a whole host of apocryphal and pseudepigraphical works, often written by themselves - including the imaginary so-called 'Oral law', which weren't inspired. Since the Pentateuch was just as inspired as the rest of the Tanakh (Old Testament) that the Sadducees rejected, Yah'shua (Jesus) limited Himself to what they were prepared to use in any discussion, much as Messianic Evangelicals do with respect to the Protestant canon of the Bible (which differs in content from other Christian Bible canons such as those accepted by the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches).
D35. The Trickster Sadducee Argument
According to the Law of Moses, every one of that woman’s seven marriages, to seven brothers in a row, was a legal and valid life-long marriage at the time each was contracted. And yet, unlike men, who could have multiple wives, a woman could not have multiple husbands at the same time. So (the Sadducees’ reasoning went) if all eight of them were resurrected and lived on in an afterlife, they would be in the illegal and impossible situation of one woman having seven husbands. Therefore, their argument went, there couldn't be an afterlife!
D36. 'You are Wrong'
Yah'shua (Jesus) didn’t bat an eyelid. He told the Sadducees, who believed they were the supreme experts on the Scriptures, "You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of Elohim (God)" (Mt.22:29, NRSV). And He referred them to the words of Yahweh speaking to Moses himself at the burning bush referring to the dead as though they were still alive (which, of course, they were - in Paradise):
"I am the Elohim (God) of your father -- the Elohim (God) of Abraham, the Elohim (God) of Isaac, and the Elohim (God) of Jacob" (Ex.3:6, NKJV; cp. Mt.22:32a).
And Elohim (God), Yah'shua (Jesus) calmly said, "is not the Elohim (God) of the dead, but of the living" (Mt.22:32b, NRSV). The Sadducees, too, were silenced.
D37. Building Up the Family Line
We have already examined the Law of Levirate in Deuteronomy 25:5–10 and understood what it was for. Many present-day commentaries on the Law of Levirate marriage emphasise that it was created by Yahweh to protect the widowed woman, so that she would have a son to take care of her in her old age. And while that may be true, that is not the reason stated in the Tanakh (Old Testament) for the practice. Its purpose was to produce a son for the deceased man so that his name and lineage would not end, but would continue. In fact, in the Torah (Law) as delineated here in Deuteronomy 25:5–10, even the widow is to speak of a refusal of her deceased husband's brother to marry her as a refusal to build up his brother’s family line (v.9). And it goes without saying that the first son born from a Levirate marriage was also entitled to the deceased brother’s share of the family inheritance along with his name and position in the clan.
D38. How Marriage is Defined Today
Now that we understand the background to the Sadducee incident, we can look at one of the major reasons that Yah'shua (Jesus) did not actually say what traditional Christians think He said about marriage and the afterlife. These days marriage is defined in all sorts of different ways but the broad 'consensus' is well represented in these three dictionary definitions:
- A. "(1) : The state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2) : the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage (same-sex marriage)" (Merriam-Webster);
- B. "1 The legally or formally recognized union of two people as partners in a personal relationship (historically and in some jurisdictions specifically a union between a man and a woman): ‘a happy marriage’ ‘the children from his first marriage’ [as modifier] ‘marriage vows’" (Oxford Dictionary); and
- C. "1. (broadly) any of the diverse forms of interpersonal union established in various parts of the world to form a familial bond that is recognized legally, religiously, or socially, granting the participating partners mutual conjugal rights and responsibilities and including, for example, opposite-sex marriage, same-sex marriage, plural marriage, and arranged marriage: Anthropologists say that some type of marriage has been found in every known human society since ancient times" (Dictionary.com).
D39. Contract & Social Recognition
Though there is some mention of a 'personal relationship' the common threads running through all of these definitions are that marriage is a consensual, contractual relationship that is legally or socially recognised and that grants the partners various mutual, social, and legal rights. Historically, those rights have included sexual rights, property rights, rights to children born of the union, rights of inheritance granted to those children, and so on.
D40. A Ubiquitous Definition
This general form and view of marriage has, as pointed out in the third definition, existed in every known human society since ancient times, including the ancient Jewish society in which Yah'shua (Jesus) lived. Based on the hypothetical situation they presented and its social context, what was the Sadducees' view of marriage? What was their society's view of marriage?
D41. Perpetuation of the Family Name
Evidently, they saw marriage as a contractual-type relationship whose primary purpose was to produce offspring that would carry on the husband’s name and rôle in the clan, and that would inherit his property. The whole point of the Law of Levirate marriage was to ensure that this function of marriage, seen as essential in that society, would be carried out.
D42. Contractual Marriage Cannot Exist in an Immortal State
When a man married a woman, and a woman was given in marriage to a man, he and she were entering into that formally recognised, contractual-type relationship, in which they secured various legal and property rights, and their children were given rights of inheritance and property as well. Yah'shua (Jesus) told His listeners that in the resurrection, this type of legal "marrying" and "being given in marriage" does not happen. Why? Because "they can no longer die" (Lk.20:36, NIV) so material possessions cannot be passed on to the next generation.
D43. Scholars Challenge the Traditional Interpretation
Indeed, the language Yah'shua (Jesus) uses in His response to the Sadducees' question has prompted even some traditional Christian theologians like the highly respected and distinguished contemporary Methodist Bible scholar and pastor, Ben Witherington III, to question whether Yah'shua (Jesus) really meant that marriage does not exist in heaven. [6] I believe we will see more and more scholars and scriptorians taking this position in these last days just as other religious sacred cows are being overturned in the light of new research.
D44. Luke's Version
So to recap, here is Yah'shua's (Jesus’) response again to the Sadducees, from the Gospel of Luke:
"Those who belong to this æon (age) marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that æon (age) and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed, they cannot die anymore, because they are like the malakim (angels) and are children of Elohim (God), being children of the resurrection" (Lk.20:34-36, NRSV).
D45. Inheritances in an Immortal Sphere
More and more will be becoming immortal so those contractual arrangements designed for a previous æon (age) of exclusive mortality would be impossible to apply. A new system would need to be implemented. And if we have understood the New Covenant revelation given to us in the Book of Revelation and elsewhere in the Messianic Scriptures (New Testament) correctly, our inheritances will already have been preselected by Yahweh based on His foreknowledge of our choices.
D46. Nonsensical Statements in Light of the Protestant Interpretation
If Yah'shua's (Jesus') main point here is taken to be that there is no marriage in the afterlife, some of the things He said don’t seem to fit in. Why does he say, "they cannot die anymore" (NRSV)? And why does He say that they are "children (sons) of Elohim (God)" (NRSV)? What do these things have to do with marriage?
D47. A Limited View of Marriage is Being Addressed
It is important to recognise that Yah'shua (Jesus) is talking to the people of "this æon (age)" (specifically, 2,000 years ago) according to their essentially Levitical, limited, pre-messianic view of marriage. Marriage, as they saw it — and as many people even today still see it — is a legal and social contract whose purpose has to do with offspring, property rights, and certain other legal and social rights and privileges. Such may be necessary in a carnal world but not in a spiritual one.
D48. All About Property Rights
Notice that the Sadducees' story is all about the woman having children for her husband. The whole point of this particular law of Moses was to provide offspring for a man, to continue his name and inherit his property after he died for the perpetuation of Old Covenant Israel in the land - a nation which eventually apostacised and was finally expelled from the land.
D49. What If...?
But what if there were no such thing as death? What if a man (or woman) never died? What would be the purpose of all of these marriage laws whose purpose was to carry on a man’s name and lineage, provide for the future ownership of his property, and ensure that his land is tended to and his business continued after died? In a world in which there is no death, all of the laws about providing for offspring for a family’s lineage and inheritance would serve no purpose whatsoever.
D50. Yah'shua is Right On the Mark
So that odd-sounding statement, "for they cannot die anymore" (Lk.20:36a, ESV) is actually right on target. In the resurrection, Yah'shua (Jesus) is saying, there is no death. This means that all of your marriage laws (such as the law of Levirate marriage), whose purpose was to provide for children, property, and inheritance, have no purpose in the eternal world where everyone is immortal, a world which was ordered and structured in heaven by Messiah Himself before descending to, and merging with, the renewed earth.
D51. A Question of Children
Yah'shua (Jesus) then deals specifically with the issue of children — one of the primary functions of marriage as traditionally understood — by saying:
"They are sons ('children' - NRSV) of Elohim (God), being sons ('children') of the resurrection" (Lk.20:36b, ESV).
D52. After All are Resurrected...
With these words Yah'shua (Jesus) is saying that once the millennial æon (age) is over and everyone has been resurrected, including the children born and instantly transformed "in the twinkling of an eye" (1 Cor.15:52, KJV) when they finally die after a very long age, during the Millennium or afterlife - then there is no more human parenting, no more birthing and raising of children, and no new family lines. There is no inheritance of the father's property, no carrying on of the father’s name and lineage, because Yah'shua (Jesus) has already established our inheritance in that world - "I go and prepare a place for you" (Jn.14:3, NIV) for indeed "in My Father's house are many mansions (rooms)" (Jn.14:2, KJV). All men and women who inherit the resurrection and the æon (age) to come will be Elohim's (God’s) children, not children of Abraham or Isaac or Jacob or any other human being, but this does not mean that they cease being married.
D53. The Sadducee World Will Pass Away
In short, Yah'shua (Jesus) is saying: All of the temporal, Levitical laws and ideas about marriage, family, children, inheritance of property, family lineage, and so on, simply don’t exist in the afterlife once everyone has been resurrected! "You are quite wrong" (Mk.12:27, ESV, NRSV) - "You are badly mistaken!" (NIV) to think otherwise. That world which you Sadducees love so much, because you are currently in charge of it, in which you preside over betrothals, dowries and inheritance rights, issuing ketubah's (marriage contracts), won't exist anymore. It will pass away - not all in one go, but progressively:
"For this world in its present form is passing away" (1 Cor.7:31, NIV).
D54. The Final Transition to Permanent Cosmic Glorification
And the Millennial world will be the final transitioning from the old to the new - from the old creation to the new one. "This world in its present changing form will not last much longer" (1 Cor.7:31, Barclay) - "the present scheme of things is rapidly passing away" (JBP). Then, when mortals are no more, and only the resurrected are left on earth, and the devil and his angels have had their last go and been cast out forever, on a single day, "the heavens will disintegrate in fire, and the burning elements will melt" (2 Pet.3:12, JBP) in the final act of cleansing and glorification. And that is why the Sadducees were so wrong - though, of course, they were wrong about there being no resurrection and no afterlife, which was the main point of contention.
D55. The Sadducees Had No Concept of the Spiritual Dimension
But more specifically, their temporal idea or concept of "marriage", and the purposes for which people "married and were given in marriage" in their culture under their covenant and priesthood, were inappropriate to the state that righteous people live in after death in the Melchizedekan or Messianic Order. Their earthly, human, legal, property-based, government-steered ideas about marriage betrayed a complete ignorance of the realities of at least the non-material afterlife in Heaven or Paradise (where no children are obviously being conceived or born), and of spiritual life in general.
E. A MISUNDERSTANDING, THE LONG WAIT, SLOW TRANSITIONS
E1. The Promise
Many Christians and Messianics believe that the apostles had all that there was to know and share concerning the doctrines and practices of the Kingdom, that the Bible fully and completely laid these out - in depth - and without the need of any new revelation of any kind ever again. Reality proved different, complex circumstances required answers not immediately apparent in the written Scriptures. Nevertheless, they insist, by the time the New Testament was written, all that was needed for salvation and the running of a spiritual community was all present. There would not therefore have been any need under any circumstances, from their perspective, to speculate about anything or to dig deeper for more light and truth. The dogma arose at any rate, after a few centuries, that the 66 books that make up our modern Protestant Bibles were forever the complete Davar Elohim (Word of God) to which nothing could ever be added and certainly nothing could be subtracted. It was, the story arose, a complete, self-contained work of revelation. But the Messianic Scriptures (New Testament) still had to be written down and that had not even begun while the Saviour was still alive on earth.
E2. The Strange Way the New Testament Came to Be
Not only did Yah'shua (Jesus) never write down a single word while He was on earth (that we know of) but He never instructed His talmidim (disciples) to write anything down either. Preserving His teachings for posterity did not seem to be a matter of immediate urgency for as far as we know, the first book of the Messianic Scriptures (New Testament) was not written down for around a decade, namely, Matthew's Gospel (~AD 41) - it took another 40 or so years to complete the rest. The Saviour had, after all, promised the original apostles that after He was gone, He would send the Comforter, Counselor, Paraclete or Advocate - the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) - so that they would have a perfect recall of everything He had said and taught them while He was in mortality:
"But the Comforter, which is the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Ghost), whom the Father will send in My Name, ... shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you" (John 14:26, KJV).
"But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My Name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you" (John 14:26, NIV).
"I have said all this while I am with you. But the one who is coming to stand with you, the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) whom the Father will send in My Name, will be your teacher and will bring to your minds all that I have said to you" (John 14:25-26, JBP).
E3. The Response
In other words, the complete teachings of the Master were available to those first witness (not Paul, as he was not an early talmid/disciple) if they had need of them and if they chose to subsequently write them down. Did they record every teaching and deed of the Yah'shua (Jesus) that they had been party to?
"Now there were many other things that Yah'shua (Jesus) did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that could be written" (John 21:25, ESV).
E4. The Miniscule Scriptural Legacy
In other words, what we have in the Messianic Scriptures (New Testament) is but a small fraction of the sayings and deeds of the Master. Though John 21:25 is typical Jewish hyperbole (exaggeration), and was probably written by a later scribe (not John himself), the passage does make the important point that what we have between the covers of our Bibles is but a tiny sample of all that might have been shared had it been possible to record it all (paper was expensive in those days and few were literate) and provided it was all subsequently preserved. Most of what the Saviour said was probably never written down, was circulated orally (as was the common practice in biblical times), and when those original witnesses died, what they knew - and what the Ruach (Spirit) promised to reveal only to them (what Yah'shua/Jesus had said and done in mortality) - was to all intents and purposes lost, especially if they hadn't recorded it. How do we know that some was lost? Because the Bible refers to scriptural books or letters which are no longer known to exist (e.g. Num.21:14; 1 Cor.5:9).
E5. A Slow Canonisation Process
Just like the development of Christian theology, the canonisation of what became the 'New Testament' was equally slow, taking nearly 300 years to come to its present form at the Council of Carthage. That it came to be in the form that it is because of the providence of Elohim (God) is an assumption and therefore a matter of faith on our part, and on the part of all believers, as the Bible nowhere prophesies that it would come into existence as a single entity. It sometimes speaks of an individual book or prophecy (e.g. Rev.22:18-19) and sometimes a whole collection of scriptural books like the Tanakh (Old Testament) (e.g. 2 Tim.3:16) remembering that whenever the New Testament writers spoke of Scripture it always referred to the Tanakh (Old Testament), which had a fixed canon by then, as there were no canonised New Covenant scriptures at that time. What we cannot do is be dogmatic. As one well-known Baptist minister once wrote to me, "we are not opposed to more scripture in principle; the problem is getting all Christians everywhere to agree" which will now never happen because the Body is too divided. Both the Old and New Testament canons are by the historical agreement of the wisest sages in the several branches of the Messianic Community (Church). It is an error to presume that Yahweh has sealed up His Davar (Word) like a corked bottle or a vacuum-sealed can of sardines thopugh many Protestants believe this man-made dogma. Nevertheless it is the Messianic Evangelical belief that the Protestant canon, which is the smallest in the mainstream denominations, is the most reliable, excluding controversial material of unclear provenance and dubious inspiration such as the Apocrypha which appear in Catholic and Ecumenical Bibles.
E6. Duplicated Scriptural Material
In the four gospels, where we find many duplicated sayings and incidences recorded, we often see different versions of the same event with different details. We already saw three versions of the conversation about marriage and the resurrection between the Sadducees and our Messiah. This is because no two witnesses ever record the same event precisely in the same way, as is well known in a court-of-law. And the fact this happens in the New Testament is one of the strongest pieces of evidence that the record is authentic and not contrived, leading to the conversion of many high-ranking lawyers and journalists over the years. This is in the nature of revelation and scripture which are never always easy to understand. What is important to realise is that the human element in Scripture is almost as important as the divine to Elohim (God), reflecting the interaction between the finite and the infinite, of which the highest expression is the Incarnate Messiah.
E7. Not All Will Die Until You See This
One of the things the Master taught which had gripped the imagination and fired up the hopes of His talmidim (disciples) while He was with them were these words:
"I tell you the emet (truth), some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom" (Matt.16:28, NIV, NRSV).
E8. Seeing the Kingdom in Power
He did not explain what He meant by these words but many back then concluded He was talking about the Second Coming, a belief that lingered throughout the Messianic Scriptures (New Testament) right until that first generation had died out. Even the apostles believed in it, as we shall see. However, the most probable interpretation refers to Messiah's coming to overthrow the old dispensation by the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in AD 70. The decisive phrase is "some who are standing here will not taste death" which obviously excluded the Second Coming and Last Judgment. Since a few months later many of those present would be witnesses of the resurrection, some argue the Master was referring to that. Others believe it points to the Transfiguration, which followed immediately after the saying, because of what Mark wrote but which Matthew and Luke forgot to include:
"I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of Elohim (God) come with power" (Mark 9:1, NIV).
E9. An Unobserved Kingdom Coming
The expression "taste death" was common amongst the rabbis of the day and simply meant "to die". However, it was not thus used in the Tanakh (Old Testament) where "taste death" can have the theological sense of "suffering (pathema) death" as in atonement (also see Heb.2:9), a reason many believe it points to the resurrection. There is no reason why the Master could not have been referring to many different manifestations or events of the Kingdom simultaneously, including the resurrection and the about-to-happen transfiguration. The "some" who would be witnesses of the latter would be Peter, James and John when the Saviour appeared in His glory along with Elijah and Moses. And to "see" doesn't have to be with literal, physical eyes, for 'seeing' is also 'knowing' or 'understanding' to the Hebrew mind. In fact, the Master was at paints to point out that:
"The kingdom of Elohim (God) does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of Elohim (God) is within you (and among you, surrounding you - AmpV.)" (Luke 17:20-21, NIV).
E10. The First Generation Were Expecting the Second Coming
What is clear historically is that the first believers, including the apostles, pretty much concluded Yah'shua (Jesus) was talking about His imminent return after He had died and was resurrected. As with so many of the Master's teachings, they at first probably had little idea of what He meant. Their understanding of many of His sayings would take time to register, and often not until many generations later. We are still coming to new and fresh understandings today of what was poorly or not at all understood in former years.
E11. In AD 95 Yah'shua Was Still 'Coming Soon'
Right at the very end of the Messianic Scriptures (New Testament), in the Book of Revelation, believed to have been written about AD 95, over 60 years after the resurrection and ascension, when the apostle John was a very old man indeed and the last of the surviving apostles, when most of talmidim (disciples) those Yah'shua (Jesus) had addressed in Mark 9:1 (and parallels) were almost certainly dead, the apostle related the mysterious words of Yah'shua (Jesus) given to him on the island of Patmos, "I am coming soon", four times, and then prays it will be so himself, "Come, Master Yah'shua":
"I am coming soon (also KJV, RSV, NRSV, NEB, Barclay, JBP) ('I come quickly' - HRV, ASV; 'I am coming quickly' - KNT, NLT, NKJV, NASB). Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown" (Rev.3:11, NIV).
"Behold, I am coming soon ('I come soon' - HRV)! Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy in this book" (Rev.22:7, NIV)
"Behold, I am coming soon ('I come quickly' - HRV)! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done" (Rev.22:12, NIV).
"He who testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am coming soon. Amen. Come, Master Yah'shua (Lord Jesus)" (Rev.22:20, NIV).
E12. Not Everything has Been Revealed Yet
Whatever the Comforter or Advocate taught the talmidim (disciples) after Yah'shua (Jesus) had left the earth, it was not everything there was to know about the Besorah (Gospel) or the precise timetable of the future, or, for that matter, the deeper truths about eternal marriage, but only the essential doctrines of salvation and discipleship. Plainly, even today the full revelation of everything is not yet available to the qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones) as it is still being unfolded. The fact that believers cannot, for example, agree whether there is a pre-, mid- or post-tribulation 'rapture', or whether the wicked are tortured in eternity, annihilated or finally released (a rather important doctrine, you would think), or whether we are true free agents or helpless before fatalism, or whether the earth is flat or round, is surely more than ample evidence of that. Revelation, and the crying need for it, is an on-going process that we cannot do without.
E13. Some Things are Revealed at Certain Times Only
The consensus amongst the original apostles and the first generation of believers was that Yah'shua (Jesus) would be returning while some of them were yet alive. But they had been wrong just as believers have been wrong about so many different other things over two millennia. We are still waiting for the Second Coming two thousand years later. This is not a blot or stain on the first apostles or on believers in general - it is not a sin to be ignorant or mistaken about some things. It just means that Yahweh has not chosen to reveal everything to us yet, or Satan has deliberately blinded us, or both, and if that is so - as it clearly is - then there must be a reason, not least that there are times and seasons for knowing certain truths. Accordingly, we can all agree with Paul that for now "we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror" (1 Cor.13:12, NIV) because we live by emunah (faith), not by sight. Even Yah'shua (Jesus) does not know the day He is returning to earth! That's a secret Yahweh alone is keeping:
"...that day and hour no one knows, not even the malakim (angels) in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (Mark 13:32, NKJV).
E14. Paul Speculates About Marriage to the Corinthians
We should not therefore be surprised to find the apostles ignorant about many matters and indeed when we come to 1 Corinthians 7, we find Paul speculating about marriage in response to questions that had been asked him in Corinth. The original letter has been lost. Twice he admits he is only giving his opinion and once he expresses uncertainty as to whether he is inspired or not, making this chapter unlike any other he ever wrote and unlike any other in the Messianic Scriptures (New Testament) as a whole. Indeed he forms his answers around the common belief of all the apostles and all the believers that Yah'shua (Jesus) could return at any moment because they were expecting it in their own day!
E15. Paul Recommends Celibacy in the Circumstances
Combining this assumption with the terrible persecutions being rained on the Corinthians and others in the Empire, he recommended that widows and widowers not remarry, if they could bear it, but instead devote themselves entirely to ministry, as he was doing. Yah'shua (Jesus) could come any moment and all the persecution would mean that raising a family would be nigh impossible. So his advice was, "Yes, it is good to live a celibate life" (1 Cor.7:1, NLT) just as he was, at least for now.
E16. Rav Paul Had Been Married
However, Paul was not like the navi (prophet) Jeremiah who was commanded not to marry at all because of the nature of his own mission, and that on account of the national emergency and imminent destruction of the Kingdom of Judah. It was an exceptional command for an exceptional mission because of the importance placed on marriage by the Scriptures and by Israel. Otherwise the default was always marriage once Yahweh had identified those He wanted united! To have been a Pharisee, as Paul had been, there is no question that he had to have been married at some time previously. You could not then be a single Rabbi in first century Palestine in the same way that you cannot be a married priest in the modern Roman Catholic Church today under ordinary circumstances. Whether Paul's wife had died or he was divorced is not spoken of anywhere but there is no doubt he had been married. The other apostles, as good Israelites, were almost certainly married and we know for a fact the apostle Peter was (Mt.8:14-15; Mk.1:29-31; Lk.4:38-41) and that one of the sacrifices the Saviour asked them to make might involve their families by being absent from home on evangelism, for example (Lk.14:26). In those days of poor transportation this could mean long absences.
E17. Using 1 Corinthians 7 to Attack Eternal Marriage
The opponents of eternal marriage are quick to point out that Paul, when he writes of marriage in 1 Corinthians 7, is speaking of it as life-long and inferior to celibacy even though the latter runs against the whole grain of Torah. All these observations are nevertheless correct provided a number of key factors are carefully noted:
- 1. The background is persecution and therefore the difficulty, if not impossibility, of stable married and family life is evident;
- 2. He makes it clear - twice - he is giving his opinion and not a mitzvah or commandment;
- 3. He is not sure if he has the Ruach (Spirit) in what he says but thinks he does; and
- 4. He has himself been living singly for many years and is understandably biased in favour of the benefits of being devoted to evangelism full-time without distracting family responsibilities.
E18. A Very Different Kind of Chapter to Anything Else
What you also have to note is that his language lacks the confidence with which he speaks on other subjects and is very guarded, which is not like him at all. He is usually bold and assertive when he has the fire of the Ruach (Spirit) in him. He speaks with some diffidence or unassertiveness and constantly admits exceptions while he lays down restrictions to meet the peculiar emergency of his day. All of this makes his meaning obscure at times. This very liberal approach is itself consistent with his counsel elsewhere to "not be wise in your own opinion" (Rom.12:16c, NKJV), meaning, "do not think with a proud mind" (v.16b, HRV), especially if you're not sure whether Yahweh is speaking to you or not. (As pastors know very well, sometimes inspiration is not forthcoming to answer a difficult question or need and so various options have to be carefully and undogmatically considered and left up to the choice of the counsellee).
E19. The Spiritual Condition of the Corinthian Believers
Why did Paul cite the old Levitical 'until-death-do-us-part' law of marriage to the wild Corinthians? I suggest there are at least a couple of reasons. Corinth was not only the most important city in Greece under the Roman Empire but it was also the most immature and troublesome to the apostle Paul. He was there the longest (18 months). It caused him immeasurable grief because of the immorality of the first believers there forcing him to treat them like wayward children and to constantly discipline them. His repeated failure to reform them broke his heart (2 Cor.1:23; 2:1 - see chapters 10-13). The congregation was torn and divided by sects and parties (1 Cor.1:10-4:21), there had been a shocking case of immorality involving a son and his father's wife (possibly his stepmother) and the members did not hesitate to go to Roman magistrates with each other over disputes. Sexual immorality was blatant and flagrant (1 Cor.6:12-20). It is not difficult to understand how, in such a spiritual cesspit, Paul would recommend celibacy as the best solution for a segment of these intemperate people, and why his approach to marriage was essentially Levitical provided they did not yoke themselves to unbelievers. Here he is talking specifically to Corinthian widows:
"A wife is bound as long as her husband lives. But if the husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, only in the Master (Lord)" (1 Cor.7:39, NRSV).
But then he adds:
"But in my judgment she is more blessed if she remains as she is. And I think I have the Ruach Elohim (Spirit of God) [but I am not entriely sure - implied]" (v.40, NRSV).
E20. Why Paul Counsels the Widows to Remain Single
If he does have marriage-beyond-the-grave in the next life in mind, then it makes sense that he would counsel the widows to remain single, just as the Eastern Orthodox do today. But if these women are so lusty that they cannot contain themselves sexually, then his advice is that they remarry to preclude sinning. But because this Corinthian crowd is so carnal, Paul makes none of the appeal that he does to the depth, beauty and mystery of eternal echad-type marriage which he expounds to the maturer and more spiritual Ephesian and Colossian qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones) (Eph.5:22ff.; cp. Col.3).
E21. Used to Justify Priesthood Celibacy and Monasticism
Unfortunately 1 Corinthians 7 is just the kind of material, ripped out of context, which is seized upon and spiritually exaggerated by the institution of the Roman Catholic Church, forming as it does part of the basis and justification for their teaching on the superiority of priesthood celibacy and monasticism.
E22. Addressing an Emergency Local Situation
Though Paul is not laying down a universal law in 1 Corinthians 7, but specifically addressing a local situation which he calls "the present distress" (1 Cor.7:26, KJV), it's easy to ignore the context and become theologically careless. Then it can be twisted into a pretext for an unwarranted church-wide doctrinal pronouncement when it actually gives no grounds for such. Like it or not, 1 Corinthians 7 is the apostle Paul's personal opinion, in the absence of a direct instruction from Yahweh, which he is not 100 per cent sure is inspired or not. We are obliged to take him at his word: let opinion remain opinion, and revelation remain revelation. Accordingly, 1 Ciorinthians 7 is exceptional and needs to be discretely bracketed off as local pastoral counsel.
E23. Not a Prooftext Against Eternal Marriage
Marriage was universal not only amongst the Hebrews but the Romans too. Nevertheless when persecution and tribulation strike the Body of Messiah, as it periodically does in all ages, the advice here is sound and has bona fide application. This can not, however, be taken as a prooftext against eternal mariage. It must be viewed situationally to meet a specific need that occasionally crops up again in our own time in places where there is intense persecution, and which more than likely will become global one day during the Great Tribulation (save in the Cities of Refuge).
E24. Conclusions from 1 Corinthians 7
We are therefore forced to conclude, based on:
- (a) the local circumstances of persecution; and
- (b) everyone's false belief that Yah'shua (Jesus) was about to return at any moment
that the apostle Paul made at least one false assumption (about the second Coming) and structured his advice around it. "Since the Messiah could return any day, and since the political and social situation is so bad that raising a family is virtually impossible," Paul argued, stating that this was his opinion and only a suggestion (not a mitzvah or commandment) and that he could not be sure this was the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit), though he thought it was, "it would be better for you to remain single and celibate like me." And based on those two assumptions (and even solely on #1), the advice was still excellent. He expected Elders and Deacons to be married to qualify for office (1 Tim.3:1-2,12; Tit.1:5-6).
E25. Suspended Between Two Worlds
We have to remember in all of this that Paul and the other apostles (but especially Paul, it would seem), like King Saul who was suspended between the old Confederacy and the new (ill-advised) Monarchy, was suspended between the Old and New Covenants - between the Levitical/Mosaic and the Melchizedek/Messianic. Such huge transitions, as mentioned earlier, take time. That's why we find him, for example, cutting his hair off at Cenchrea, according to the Levitical pattern, "because of a vow he had taken" (Acts 18:18, NIV). Does this mean that we are still under obligation to the Levitical ceremonial code, as many messianics claim, or that Paul was still stuck in the old habits that were familiar and comforting to him as a former Pharisee?
E26. Like Comets With Tails
It means that he, like all of us even two millenna later, are in transition from the old to the new as we negociate life and the Besorah (Gospel), attempting to live it out in its fullness. But like comets trailing illuminated tails behind us, we often bring parts of our old life with us - habits, beliefs, and the like - which must vapourise gradually as we get to know Messiah better and as we are bathed in the Sun of Righteousness (Mal.4:2). And sometimes, when we go through seasons of doubt, we unwisely, and sometimes at great risk to our spirituality, drift back to old patterns of thinking and behaviour - to old religious and non-religious beliefs and practices. It took the destruction of the physical temple in Jerusalem, as Yah'shua (Jesus) had prophesied, to finally completely break the connection with the former life, but before that, Yah'shua (Jesus) allowed it to remain for nearly a further 40 years after He had ascended to Heaven. Until then, the first talmidim (disciples) in Jerusalem were still gravitating back to it for one reason or another.
E27. New Challenges in a Pagan World
By the time the Book of Revelation and the Johannine Epistles were written, that old world was well and truly on its way out, save in the memories of the older generation. Yahweh gives us grace to transition because as humans we need that. We are notoriously slow at times. So we should not be surprised to find a mixture of the old and the new in the Messianic Scriptures (New Testament) after the first Messianic Shavu'ot (Pentecost). But equally we should not be surprised to find those early believers meeting new challenges and having to deal with new controversies. This is clearly apparent in the writings of Paul who, along with fellow Israelites, had to deal with the pagan gentile world head-on.
E28. Gnosticism Competes With Hebrew Thought
Within that pagan gentile world, there were ideas that tried to invade the early Messianic Community (Church) which were to later overpower it in all sorts of ways. The pagan view of marriage, the body, and the next life also began to exert pressure on the Messianic Community (Church) which in time became progressively hellenised and paganised itself.
E29. The Pastoral Epistles and the Greek Philosophers
We meet much of this contest between the Greek and Hebrew worlds in the Pastoral Epistles - 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, 2 Peter, Jude, and 1 & 2 John particularly. Greek thought was always suspicious of the human body. Experience had taught them that so many sins and troubles could be traced to the fact that we had a physical body, with all the weaknesses and tendency to sin, which are, so to speak, inherent in the body, what Scripture calls the 'flesh' or the 'Adamic nature'. So Plato would claim that the body was "the prison-house of the soul (spirit)", Epictetus could refer to himself as "a poor soul (spirit) shackled to a corpse" , and Seneca could speak of "the detestible habitation of the body". This line of thought regarded the body, not as something to be saved, but as something to be destroyed, whereas from the very beginning Christian/Messianic thought regarded man as a "body and spirit" (Jas.2:26) - a "living soul" (Gen.2:7; 1 Cor.15:45), both of which had a place in Elohim's (God's) plan, and all of which could be saved. Christian/Messianic soteriology never regarded salvation as being the end of one half of man, the physical half, but as being of the total man .
E30. The Rise of Gnosticism
This line of Greek thought is the basis of Gnosticism. A 'gnostic' was a man, as they claimed, who had gnosis or 'knowledge/wisdom'. Gnosticism is based on a complete dualism, that is to say, a complete opposition of spirit and matter. It held from the beginning that 'spirit' - that is, 'God' - and matter had existed separately. Creation was therefore from this already pre-existing matter (a doctrine borrowed by Mormonism, incidentally). The trouble was, as they saw it, that this matter was essentially flawed, evil and therefore non-recoverable: it was 'bad stuff' and it was out of this 'bad stuff' that the world was created.
E31. Heretics: a. The Cathars
Thus the Cathars, a Christian dualist or Gnostic sect who once thrived in parts of southern France and northern Italy between the 12th and 14th centuries (as well as being heavily persecuted by the Catholics), not only subscribed to reincarnation between the genders, but believed the spirit to be wholly immaterial and sexless. Shedding the material and every last trace sexuality was therefore of the highest priority to them. It is more than possible that some of the ideas inherited by Western Christianity about the spirits in heaven being sexless, and therefore necessarily unmarried, came from gnostic ideas like these.
E32. Heretics: b. The Swedenborgians
The Swedenborgians [7] are a curious monogamy-only gnostic-like sect that believes in 'eternal marriages' but with an interesting twist. Like the Cathars and gnostics in general, they are little interested in physical matter which they view in much the same way (and therefore deny the resurrection). However, the Swedenborgians believe marriage continues after death albeit in an exclusively spiritual form. Though they believe they will be able to have non-material 'spiritual sex' in heaven they do not believe these ever lead to children but are purely for bonding and pleasure. Accordingly they look at the Sadducee texts as meaning that at death all physical unions end because all contractual marriages are over.
E33. Heretics: c. The Mormons
The Mormons, claimed by some to have been influenced by Swedenborg's teachings, have yet another twist. As we have seen, like the gnostics they believe that matter pre-existed but not that it was evil. They also believe that in the resurrection those 'celestially married' will be demi-gods endlessly procreating spirit babies, tabernacling them on new planets and doing all that Elohim (God) does (or did) in the real universe. Their form of 'eternal marriage' is perhaps the best known though not remotely like EEM.
E34. Marriage as Central to Hebrew Thought and Life
In so many important ways, eternal echad marriage, which simultaneously embraces both the physical resurrection and that most physical and spiritual unions, marriage, is the diametric opposite of gnosticism and the very epitome of Hebrew thinking. It's about as anti-gnostic as you can get! For the gnostic, Elohim (God) cannot even touch this vile matter, but to the Messianic Israelite, it's so important that His Only Begotten Son was resurrected with the stuff which He elevated and glorified - eternity is not only full of it but this inseparately-combined spirit-matter compound is what defines the 'best-of-the-best' in creation - it's what every righteous human being and malak (angel) desires above all else - the gnostic's (and devil's) nightmare but the paradise of the qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones). And right in the middle of that mix - central to it, in fact - is marriage, holding it all together, a reflection of Yahweh-Elohim in whose image mankind is made!
E35. Protestantism's Strange Hebrew-Gnostic Mixture
Where, then, does Protestantism fit on this scale between spirit and matter? That, in part, will depend on each denominational position and where they are on the historical timeline. Attitudes and mores constantly change. Modern Calvinists, for example, are very different from their ancestors (their founder, John Calvin, never married, which may in part explain some of the coldness of his theology, and in another his fascination with the Augustinian eternal fires of hell which he took to new levels or morbidity). But in general, it seems Protestants are more like the Hebrews in this life but the Gnostics (in particular, the Cathars) in the next for there they expect to be desexualised or neutered as they imagine the malakim (angels) to be too. Protestants are more-or-less Israelite (in respect to marriage) in this life but Gnostic in the next.
E36. Sartre's Hell - 'L'enfer, c'est les autres'
What, then, is hell like, spiritually-speaking? It's either total isolation - aloneness - or 'households' in which two (or more) people are continually at war with one another, similar, in some ways, to the scene portrayed in Jean-Paul Sartre’s classic existentialist play, No Exit (1944). In Sartre's compact masterpiece, three damned souls are locked in a room with one another in the afterlife for all eternity. What holds them together in their perverse sort of 'anti-marriage' is not any bonds of mutual love and affection, or even locked doors, but their mutual desire to seduce and torment one another — yielding the famous (and cynical) aphorism, 'Hell is other people!' ('L'enfer, c'est les autres!')
E37. Hell is Just the Mirror Opposite of Heaven
For those who are self-absorbed, greedy, lecherous, and power-hungry, hell is 'other people' (and demons) — not to mention their own hellish character. And if we don't do the work here on earth of not being the type of godly person Yahweh has called us to be, by dying to self and acquiring the self-sacrificing nature of Messiah through emunah (faith) and spiritual regeneration, then we will also not be married to anyone in the eternities in any positive or meaningful sense (nor would we want to be), and no one will be waiting for us on the other side to love us and to be loved in return. Why would they even want to, unless the object is malice? And would Yahweh ever permit that? Certainly we know that that is the demonic objective, and if we are going to be 'like' them in one realm (heaven), then why would anyone suppose we wouldn't be like them in the other (hell)?
F. THE GRAND DESIGN AND CLIMAX
F1. Marriage is Fundamental to Being Human
Because marriage, companionship and relationship are so fundamental - so central - to human existence, Yahweh uses the passionate language of marriage to describe the kind of spiritual intensity and commitment involved in that heavenly, millennial and eternal relationship between the redeemed and each other, and individually (literal persons) and corporately (the country or nation of Israel) with Himself, in which every literal, eternal echad human marriage is the driving motor, as it were, a vibrant, living cell in the Body of the allegorical Bride, led by the husband who pursuess and conquers his bride in and by his devoted ahavah (love) and tender chesed (mercy).
F2. Marriage is Inevitable and Irresistable
The picture in Isaiah 62 is unmistakable. There is no hint of impermanency in the allegorical imagery. It is inevitable, irresistable, a fait accomplis. It begins on earth as an appeal by a faithful husband to a wayward wife to return home to him having been unfaithful. What happens has to happen because it is inevitable - as inevitable as the unconquerable and irresistable fire of heavenly-made marriage itself:
"For Zion's sake, I will not keep silence,
for Jerusalem's sake I will speak out,
until her right shines forth like the sunrise,
her deliverance like a blazing torch,
until the nations see the triumph of your right
and all the kings your glory.
Then you shall be called by a new name (Rev.2:17; 3:12)
which Yahweh shall pronounce with His own lips;
you will be a glorious crown in Yahweh's hand,
a kingly diadem in the hand of your Elohim (God),
No more shall men call you Forsaken,
no more shall your land be called Desolate,
but you shall be named Hephzi-bah ('My delight is in her')
and your land Beulah ('Wedded', 'Married');
for Yahweh delights in you
and to Him your land is wedded.
For, as a young man weds a maiden,
so shall you wed Him who builds you,
and your Elohim (God) shall rejoice over you
as a Bridegroom rejoices over the Bride"
(Is.62:1-5, NEB).
F3. 'Can I Come Back to You Again, Please?'
"Can you come back to Me again? says Yahweh" (Jer.3:1, NEB). Though she "played the harlot" and "sat by the wayside to catch lovers"; and though she "defiled the land with [her] fornication and...wickedness" (v.2, NEB), and though she was "resolved to show no shame" (v.3, NEB), and though she wonders if her husband whom she has betrayed will be "angry for ever", and though she asks the question, "Will he rage eternally?"; even though she has "done evil and gone unchallenged" for so long (v.5, NEB), yet, incredibly, He still loves her, and puts in her mind the question: "Can you come back to Me again?" even though His wife "has played the harlot with many lovers" (v.1, NEB).
F4. Repentance Must Preceed Homecoming
His answer to the question she begins to ask herself is unbelievable:
"Come back to Me, [faithless wife], says Yahweh, I will no longer frown on you. For My ahavah (love) is unfailing, says Yahweh, I will not be angry for ever. Only you must acknowledge your wrongdoing, confess your rebellion against Yahweh your Elohim (God). Confess your promiscu[ity]..., confess that you have not obeyed Me. This is the very Davar (Word) of Yahweh" (Jer.3:12-13, NEB).
F5. The Love That is For Ever
This is the kind of ahavah (love) and chesed (mercy) that is eternal. Only marriage that is infused by this kind of fiery agapé-love lasts forever, because it is the love of the Eternal One. It proceeds from His Throne and must constantly be returned to Him in love and devotion. It is divine marital love and if a man loves his wife this way, and if she submits to him this way, then they will never be separated. - not in the temporary holding station or 'travelers' inn' which is the disembodied world of Paradise in Sheol nor in the resurrection world to come afterwards. The whole of Jeremiah 3 is in this vein, as also the beginning of the following chapter:
"If you will but come back, O Israel,
if you will but come back to Me, says Yahweh,
if you will banish your loathesome [idolatry] from My sight,
and stray no more,
if you swear by the life of Yahweh ('as surely as Yahweh lives'),
in emet (truth), in justice and uprightness,
then shall the nations pray to be blessed like you
and in you they shall boast"
(Jer.4:1-2, NEB).
F6. From Master to Husband
We are being given a portal into the eternal heart of the Heavenly Father, our Cosmic Bridegroom, which every man is supposed to imitate. And every man who does so, and every wife who follows him according to the plainly revealed divine tavnith (pattern), will be inseparably joined in eternal echad marriage. It cannot be anything else. There is nothing impermanent about the marriage imagery. Had human marriage with this kind of forgiving, sacrificial love only been for life, Yahweh would have chosen different imagery to depict His own ahavah (love) and foreverness. As the relationship matures into the heavenly kind, so it changes, both between Elohim (God) reconciled with mankind and and between literal husbands and their wives. As the quality of the relationship improves owing to the re-established right relationship, so a deeper union and greater intimacy than ever before result once the bride finally acknowledges to whom she belongs:
"'In that day,' declares Yahweh,
'you will call Me ‘my Husband’;
you will no longer call Me ‘my Master’'"
(Hosea 2:14–23, NIV).
F7. The Grand Celebration of Union
Then eternal sealings made by the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) that take place between Elohim (God) and man, and between man and woman, interpenetrate one another. They are not after the way of the world. Once accomplished, then the moment for celebration has arrived:
"Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready...Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!" (see Rev.19:6–9, NIV).
F8. The Holy City and Marriage of Spirit to Flesh
The cosmic marriage union between the Saviour-Bridegroom and His allegorical uniplural Bride transcends the veil of mortality, just as every marriage between humans which is in Him does. The Cosmic Bride, 'escorted down the aisle' by the Heavenly Father who is giving her away to His Son in marriage, is pictured like a glorious city descending to the earth, depicting another kind of marriage: the union of spirit and matter in resurrection:
"I saw the Qadosh (Holy, Set-Apart) City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from Elohim (God), prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her Husband...One of the seven malakim (angels) who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, 'Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb'" (see Rev.21:1–22:4, NIV).
F9. No Mismatching, No Errors
Why would Elohim (God) liken that which is the greatest and most precious of all (the Kingdom union with Elohim/God) to something which is allegedly impermanent (the marriage union of man and wife)? Yahweh does not make such errors of mismatching.
"Yah'shua (Jesus) spoke to them again in parables, saying: 'The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son'" (Mt.22:2 - see 1–14, NIV).
F10. It Begins and Ends With Love
Anyone who gets married with a view to the marriage one day ending or being replaced by something else does not marry for the right motives. And though Levitical marriage was indeed designed only to be life-long, such was never in the heart of the Creator to be anything more than a temporary arrangement, a shadow of a great reality, like the Levitical Priesthood and Mosaic Covenant that administered it which were not after an "indestructible" or "eternal life". The Covenant of Moses has gone because indestructible, eternal, resurrection chayim (life) is now amongst us, and for us, and in us. It belongs to those who are the true Bride and who prove it by the quality of ahavah (love) and chesed (mercy) that is in their hearts and deeds, who "love Yahweh [their] Elohim (God) with all [their heart and with all [their soul and with all [their mind," as Yah'shua (Jesus) commanded us (Mt.22:37). Eternal echad marriage is in the reality and in the unconscious demonstration of that reality:
"'Righteous Father, though the world does not know You, I know You, and they know that You have sent Me. I have made You known to them, and will continue to make You known in order that the ahavah (love) You have for Me may be in them and that I Myself may be in them'" (John 17:25-26, NIV).
"The man with the experiences [of God] is never at the mercy of the man with the religious theology" (Dr.Bruce Allen).
Endnotes
[1] The Orthodox Faith (Vol.II), 'Worship - The Sacraments - Marriage'
[2] J.R.Dummelow (editor), A Commentary on the Holy Bible (MacMillan, London: 1909), p.698
[3] See, for example, The Seven Wives of David
[4] Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy (St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, Crestwood, NY: 1982)
[5] For a Messianic Evangelical statement on the minority practice of plural wives, see Statement on Plural Marriage
[6] See Ben Witherington III, Women in the Ministry of Jesus: A Study of Jesus' Attitude to Women and their Roles as Reflected in His Earthly Life (Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series, Cambridge University Press: 1984). He is a leading expert in understanding the use of rhetoric in the Scriptures - see his books, New Testament Rhetoric: An Introductory Guide to the Art of Persuasion in and of the New Testament (Cascade Books, Eugene, Oregon: 2009); Conflict & Community in Corinth: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians (Pasternoster Press, Carlisle, UK: 1995). His John's Wisdom: A Commentary on the Fourth Gospel (Lutterworth Press, Cambridge, UK: 1995) is highly acclaimed. He is the author of over 30 books and is Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Asbury Theologial Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky and is frequently featured on the History Channel, the Discovery Channel and other major networks.
[7] Emmanuel Swedenborg (born Swedberg) (1688-1772) was a Swedish Lutheran theologian, scientist, philosopher and mystic made famous by his book on the afterlife, Heaven and Hell (1758). He was a contemporary of both the Methodist founder John Wesley, with whom he was briefly in contact, and the East Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant. Though he himself never founded a church, several denominations were formed in his name after his death based on his writings which are collectively known as 'The New Church' (founded in England in 1787 with a US branch started in 1817) or 'Swedenborgianism' with various groups being known as 'New Christians', 'Neo-Christians', the 'Church of the New Jerusalem' and 'The Lord's New Church'. Amongst Swedenborgianism's peculiar, unorthodox semi-occultic beliefs are, like United Pentecostalism, that Elohim (God) is One Person, 'Jesus Christ' who is one and the same with 'Jehovah'; and, like the Arian Jehovah's Witnesses, believe that this 'Jesus' discarded his human body acquired from Mary when he arose from the dead but (unlike the Witness belief) put on a human body 'from the divinity within him'. They believe that the dead become angels in heaven or hell, both of which are eternal. The denial of Yah'shua's (Jesus') atonement (the cross being viewed as His 'last temptation') is without a doubt Swedenborgianism's greatest heresy. Though the writings of Paul were regarded as inspired, they were viewed as such only in a 'lesser' or 'secondary' sense; given Swedenborgianism's rejection of key Pauline doctrines, we must regard it as essentially anti-Pauline. That Mormonism's founder Joseph Smith's teaching on 'celestial marriage' was influenced by Swedenborg is based on the sole testimony of Edward Hunter, a former Swedenborgian who converted to Mormonism in 1839, and, though supported by Mormon historian D.Michael Quinn, is disputed by historians like William J. Hamblin. It is the opinion of this writer that Swedenborg was a clairvoyant who became deceived by occultism.
(19 March 2019)
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