- On one hand, I find this outlook useful. In coming to see marriage as a “living parable”, there’s great motivation for both husbands and wives to live out their calling in a way that proclaims the gospel. Also helpful to those who are frustrated by their singleness or by an ungodly spouse etc., to understand that these things are shadows of something greater.
- On the other hand, I find some of his language very closed; he seems to like to put boundaries around concepts that are perhaps more open or at least ambiguous in Scripture. Imagine approaching your weeding night saying “High romance and passionate sexual intimacy … may come. But hold them loosely — as though you were not holding them”.
- In terms of the overall eschatology, I think that the “narrow way to Paradise” implies too much discontinuity with life as we know it. Redemption is from this age, not from this place. Some of the prophets seem to imply continuity of family etc.

Hey Scot – I want to thank you for bringing this book to my attention. Even these two blogs have really helped to cement some of my own thinking in this area, and I’m hoping to get the book now next time I stumble on a bit of money

The Mark 12 reference is interesting – but seems to me to refer to an ownership aspect of marriage and the importance of marriage for children and the future of one’s family line. This kind of exclusivity and this reason for exclusive relationship will not exist in the resurrection. Thus the idea that romance, sex and children are not permanent is reasonable.
But it seems to me as though Piper is taking this a step further. That in the resurrection we will have exclusive vertical relationships (me-Christ or me-Christ-God) and not horizontal relationships with other people, other Christians. This doesn’t seem right. But perhaps I misinterpret.

To speak of life here as a “shadow” while the “reality” is somewhere else called eternity, sounds more Greek/Platonic/pagan than it sounds gritty Jewish/Bible reality.
I’ve wondered about the soul-ties of sexual intimacy, especially when nurtured for a long time in a covenant marriage, and Jesus’ teaching that there is no marriage in heaven. Mysteries here . . .

Sort of makes me sad…the thought that I would not be married to my wife of 35 years for all eternity. Hard for me to imagine anything higher, although I am sure he is right about that…
Not a theological thought but…

Thanks for including this post. Having been a single adult director, I’ve used these thoughts in giving a “bigger picture perspective” on marriage to help single adults have a greater understanding of marriage and their relationship with Christ. I don’t often hear others speak of it. When speaking to this I find that it allows those of us who are not married to see this life from a different vantage point.
Is it a shadow or a foreshadowing of a greater reality~~an earthly illustration of a heavenly reality?

RJS,
I’m certain that you are misinterpreting what Piper believes; there will indeed be horizontal relationships in the resurrection, but they will be defined by our relationship with God. We will have the best horizontal relationships because of our restored vertical relationship.

This is a good reminder to treat even the most personal aspect of our lives as something that is entirely God’s and not our own. However, at least in this short post, it seems there is a danger to forget Genesis and the creation story. Although having a spouse may in fact be temporary there is incredible significance in the union of a man and a woman. My fear is that Piper may undercut this significance.
Just my thoughts though…

Don’t have time for much comment, but this topic always throws up big red flags for me and I’d like to have a better understanding. What was Jesus addressing exactly? would investigation of the context of his words affect the plain reading? if this cessation of existing marriages is so, why does it feel so wrong to me that I would no longer have a special relationship with my wife!?! Just because one thing foreshadows or types another doesn’t mean it is any less of a reality in and of itself right? If marriage is so permanent that we, with Christ, say “What God has joined together, let not man separate”. do we then suppose that we could finish the sentence with “because God will do that”? I have a hard time seeing marriage as merely a shadow itself – that seems wrong as well. I’m married myself but agree with other posters that marriage falls within a bigger picture and is not the defining attribute of a Christian adult. sorry for the quick blast of questions and concerns – I’m hoping further conversation and Scot’s input will help me become more comfortable with this topic!

If I want platonism, I know where and how to get it undiluted. No thanks. I have no interest in the pure, spiritual realm of the happy philosophers. I didn’t particularly realize there was even a modern Christian perspective like this one on marriage, though I guess I’m not surprised.
Marriage in the Christian sense is a great mystery and is in some sense even a theophany (Ephesians). We are being shaped into the human beings we will be in the fullness of the Kingdom. Yes, there will be something so remarkable that it can only be captured with the language of new creation. But there is no sense that the person I will be will not in some sense also be continuous with the person I am becoming. So too will the bond in the two whom God is making one flesh in the mystery of marriage be fulfilled. We will experience its fullness rather than have it discarded and replaced with … whatever.
Sex and childbearing may very well not be part of the eschaton. We see but dimly now and I won’t hazard a guess. But marriage? That bond is eternal, at least within the context of the Christian narrative.

well, then there’s always the interpretation that there is no marriage in heaven because it’s all about free sex… but I don’t think that would go over well with this crowd. But the sex question does raise the question about resurrected bodies and how they will function.
But I would repeat what RJS said and wonder if Piper’s interpretation of that passage is the only interpretation. Could it be talking about marriage as ownership and not as relationship? Could the relationship of husband and wife continue without the need to belong to the man’s household since we are then part of a bigger community?

Parable of the Grand Canyon: two people stood at the Grand Canyon. One stood near it and proclaimed, “Well, no matter how deep or impressive this little crack is, it is nothing compared to God. So be impressed, but remember that this is really nothing at all.” The other person climbed to the bottom, rafted down the Colorado River, and camped along its banks. At one point he yelled at the top of his lungs “Holy COW! This thing is AWESOME! And yet, it is nothing compared to God!”
High romance and passionate sexual intimacy and precious children may come. But hold them loosely — as though you were not holding them Just as the two guys in my little parable experienced the Grand Canyon differently, so one person might take this be a very deflating approach to romance and marriage, as if the more “spiritual” one is, the less impressed one will be with temporal beauty. A different person might be encouraged to drink deeply of the temporal romance available in his/her marriage and yet realize something else even better is waiting. For some reason, my instinct is to respond to this in the deflated manner. Whether the fault is Piper’s or mine I cannot say. I do know that when I read Bonhoeffer’s statements some years ago I did not have that deflating feeling.

RJS wrote:
“But it seems to me as though Piper is taking this a step further. That in the resurrection we will have exclusive vertical relationships (me-Christ or me-Christ-God) and not horizontal relationships with other people, other Christians. This doesn’t seem right. But perhaps I misinterpret.”
That’s not what Piper says in the quotes above. He writes of “covenant-keeping between Christ and his glorified Church” and “covenant-keeping love between Christ and his people.” “Church” and “people” are plural nouns – in the quotes that Scot chooses, I don’t see any reference to God’s relationship with individual believers. Big difference.

I thought Piper considered wives eternally subordinate to husbands… like Jesus is eternally subordinate in the trinity, is he now saying something different that marriage is only temporal? How can wives be eternally subordinate if marriage is a temporary picture of Covenant?
Piper’s teaching on marriage is offensive to me and confusing.

joanne, I’m pretty sure John Piper does not teach the eternal subordination of wives to husbands. Does anyone know?

With Piper’s firm commitment to the complementarian view of marriage, I’d think that since the Headship of the Father over Christ is viewed as eternal, then the “headship” of the husband over the wife is eternal, too.
From Paul’s pastoral heart in 1 Thessalonians about “those who fall asleep in Jesus,” it seems odd for him to comfort those still alive that because of Jesus’s resurrection our dead loved ones are not eternally gone from us, but a reunion is our hope. I wish he would have gone on to say, “But not the way you know them here. Because Mr. Smith, Mrs. Smith will not be yours in heaven. She’ll be everyone’s. Jesus said so.” I’ve yet to hear that or say that at a Christian funeral.
Whatever the Markan text means, I don’t think it means that Julie and I will not be in a ‘oneness’ union forever. Since “oneness” seems to be the point of any relationship–vertical and horizontal.
Everything is made new in the new creation…including marriage. Made new, not replaced.

RJS, Ben and Scott
I think that you all are tracking on what I hear is the tension to Piper’s view, which interrogatively could be expressed as, “What will our resurrection life be like in regards to marriage?” I think that this is a valuable track to take because what is at stake is what we understand about Jesus’ resurrection and how marriage relates to the Kingdom of God that has not yet been fully revealed.
The Gospels’ narratives and Paul seem to reveal that Jesus’ resurrection life had continuity with his pre-resurrection life in two pertinent ways to the issue at hand. First, the stories that informed Jesus’ identity seemed to be a part of his resurrection life because he re-narrated the stories to the disciples. If we keep in step with Paul’s logic that what has happened to Christ will happen to us (I Cor. 15) then we must believe that our resurrection life has a continuity with our story-formed existence in the here and now. Second, the intimacy that Jesus had with his disciples seems to be evident in that he went to them after his resurrection and how he interacted with them (breaking bread, teaching on the Emmaus road, etc.).
The marriage relationship seems to be a major part of so many disciples’ story-formed existence and it is definitely an intimate relationship in the life of disciples, today. So in light of Jesus’ resurrection life revealed in Scripture, I would think that Piper may have gone a little far in his interpretation of Mark 12.
Will the marriage relationship be transformed in the new creation? I would say yes but what exactly the transformation entails seems unknown. Will it be destroyed in the new creation? I would say no.

As an evangelical living in Salt Lake City, I will admit that I have a knee jerk reaction to the subject of this post. Members of the LDS church cite Mark 12:25 as Biblical support of their beliefs in eternal marriage and the “sealing” of families in this life for togetherness in the next. (Teachings on polygamy in the afterlife and progression to godhood are closely tied into those on eternal families.) Although I personally lean towards the vertical and horizontal relationships scenario commented on above, I have been conditioned by my Christian experience among Mormons to read Mark 12:25 as Jesus teaching that marriage is for our mortal lives only.

John Frye (15) and Scott Morizot (9), what do you do then, with the question that was asked of Jesus? If marriages last into eternity, in the new kingdom will you share your wife with the husband who she marries late in life after you predecease her?
I’m not trying to be flippant. Death and remarriage is a fairly common occurrence. For those who are certain (as I would like to be) of the eternal nature of the marriage relationship, what do you do with this issue (even if we leave aside or explain away Jesus’ seemingly direct answer to the question)?

Is it possible a valid reading of the text and Jesus’ words are that heaven will be a very different place for us and marriage as such is not a part of that new heaven? I do not see a reason why we must imbue heaven with the earthly conditions and values we hold here. Is it not possible there will be perfect relationship?

Bill (#19),
The old error of dualism seems to permeate your questions…making heaven a “very different place for us.” The Bible says the heavens and earth will be “new,” but not different.
Karl (#18),
Interesting push-back. Let’s go with the revelation we do have. The text [Jesus] does not say that there will not be marriage in heaven, but that they “will not be married or given in marriage.” Not that marriage is obliterated, but the systems/actions that create it are obsolete. So, if death breaks the marriage bond of “oneness,” so that if I die and Julie marries another, then she is not married to me. In heaven (wherever that is) Julie will rightfully be married to her husband. The Sadducees were misguided and simply trying to trick Jesus.

John, thanks for the answer and for taking my question seriously. I’m not trying to be glib.
I’m not quite following the second half of your answer though. I understand that the Sadducees were trying to trick Jesus and weren’t really motivated by a desire for an answer. But the question remains a valid one, if one asserts that the marriage bond is eternal.
I don’t understand what you mean by: “In heaven (wherever that is) Julie will rightfully be married to her husband.” In the example given, is “her husband” you, or the person who becomes her husband later after you die, or both? Or are you saying that since the marriage bond is eternal a widow shouldn’t remarry because she’d be committing polygamy? If it makes it easier to put it in the 3rd person and not personalize it, that’s fine. Given the number of Christian widows and widowers who remarry I don’t think it’s an abstract or irrelevant question.

An obvious impediment to “eternal marriage” is the case of those who married again (unless there’s eternal polygyny!). How do we know that Abraham would be with Sarah, and not Keturah?
Marriage is a gift that some get (have?) to experience once, others more.
Then, there are those who wanted marriage, but never received the gift–do we blame them? What if childhood trauma dissuaded them–are they confined to that scenario?

Scot, joanne,
Two articles from CBMW that might be of interest:
http://www.cbmw.org/Resources/Sermons/Manhood-and-Womanhood-Before-Sin authored by Piper , and
http://www.cbmw.org/Journal/Vol-11-No-1/Relationships-and-Roles-in-the-New-Creation
authored by someone else
I get the impression, though I may be misinterpreting, that the complementarian position sees gender-based roles existing before the fall and into eternity. The idea would be that the roles have been “cracked” between the fall and the next life but they were unselfish and good before the fall and will be restored to that after. Not sure if there is a way to unhitch that from hierarchy or not.

Karl (#21),
My death would have broken the marriage bond between Julie and me. She chooses to marry another. She is not obligated to remain a widow. In heaven (or better “In the new heavens and earth= cosmos”), I have no marital claim on Julie for she is rightfully another’s. Will I be sad about this? I don’t know. Maybe that’ll be the tears wiped from my eyes.
But Dave (#22) throws in a monkey wrench. What do we do with seemingly God-sanctioned polygamy in the O.T.? Saints who died with multiple wives not due to levirate marriage, but plain and simple polygamy? In heaven, so to speak, who will Jacob and David, for example, be married to?

As simplistic as this sounds, I have wondered if perfect fellowship in the hereafter won’t be so great and wonderful that it will be better than the most intimate experiences we are capable of here and now. Perhaps physical expressions of intimacy (sex) will be replaced with perfect fellowship and worship.
It is hard for kids in elementary school to imagine life without glue and crayons. It is hard for us to imagine life without the things that dominate our attention. But perhaps things will just be so different that we really can’t imagine it.

John (24), doesn’t your answer only hold true if she and husband #2 both died at the exact same time? Otherwise the death of the first of them to die also “would have broken the marriage bond” between them, just as you say your death broke the bond between you and her.
And if marriage is eternal (the initial assertion that I was pushing back against), then how can death sever the bond in the first place? It’s eternal only if the surviving spouse doesn’t remarry?
I don’t feel compelled to figure it out. I’m content with taking the posture that “whatever it is, God designed it and I trust that it is both good and better than anything I could come up with.” But there seem to be some hard to resolve problems with the “the marriage relationship is eternal” position.

I’m neither a biblical scholar nor a theologian, but I do think the context is important here. The absurd hypothetical situation is posed to Jesus by the Sadducees, who believed neither in the Resurrection of the Dead nor in angels. Jesus is primarily dismissing their question and challenging their core unbelief in two ways. He affirms angels by saying that in the Resurrection, we will share some of the attributes of the angels. (We know elsewhere that in other ways through our participation in the life of God we transcend all that the angels can be.) And he makes the point that God is the God of the living, not the dead. The practice to which they refer, of marrying your brother’s widow in order to preserve his line, is one of many that, within the fullness of Christian revelation, we have grown to understand fall short of the way we are created to be. In a way it does treat the woman as less than human and more like property.
I do take Jesus’ remark to mean in part that the fullness of the kingdom will be such that we will no longer be pursuing the business of marrying and procreating in order to perpetuate a particular lineage or even mankind in general. There will be something different. And so likely we will not be giving in marriage. Or it may be that I misunderstand entirely. I’m not concerned with that.
However, we will still be continuous with who we have shaped ourselves to be. If we have been called to a life of celibacy and unmarried service to God and to other human beings in this life, that will continue to be our identity in the kingdom. Similarly, if we have been called and devoted ourselves to living in union with Christ and a spouse, of growing in oneness and living as an icon of Christ and the Church, that will remain our being in the Kingdom. In both cases, it will be fully realized in ways we can hardly imagine, but it will be more than the present reality, not less.
I certainly appreciate the Orthodox and Roman Catholic emphasis here on the lasting, eternal nature of marriage. I hadn’t actually realized my fellow Protestants (or at least some of them) had a different take. The Orthodox, by the way, discourage widows and widowers from remarriage if they can manage life without it. But that’s not a rule, just an appreciation for the mystery of marriage and a refusal to consider those whose bodies sleep in Christ as truly “dead”.
What impact will multiple marriages have on who we are in whatever the “eschaton” might be? I guess we’ll find out. But I’m sure it will be in some ways continuous with the manner in which they shape our identity and being now.

I always get a bit miffed that Piper thinks this has to have a position–there’s always a position for everything? Come on. I don’t know and I don’t care what is “right” in this context, AND I would be glad to keep it a mystery until I get to heaven and see for myself. I don’t want to be in heaven saying “I told you so” to anyone. Especially not Piper.

There are some cool discussions going here
#23 (Matthew) – Yes, I think your understanding is correct in terms of gender roles being created before the fall. Consider Paul when he refers to Eve being made for Adam as proof of gender roles today — if this makes it valid today, the same concept would have applied initially. Of course, as you said, before the fall this would have been a perfect union without selfishness from either side.
#24 (John) – I’ve heard this before, but I still have yet to find a real OT reference to God actually promoting or accepting polygamy. At best he seems to simply ignores or allows it. Is there someplace specific you’re thinking of? I may have missed something
#27 (Scott) – It’s interesting, but I’ve actually never herd of someone on the side that marriage is eternal. Guess that shows I grew up fully Protestant Is there any texts from that position that actively assert eternal marriage? Then again, if this passage wasn’t about it, then I can’t think of any other texts that would be directly against it either.

Karl (#26),
I prefaced my remarks with the idea “Let’s go with the revelation we have.” I should be more precise. Death, in itself, does not break the marriage bond. If Julie died and I remained unmarried until my death, then “in heaven” we would still be married because neither of us entered into another legitimate “oneness” relationship (marriage). Should I remarry, however, I would not be adding another sequential “oneness” relationship with Julie’s and mine still “binding.” Her death and my remarriage together serve to create a new union. So, death serves to free the widow from multiple onenesses. (Some believe that *porneia* [Matt 5 and 19] and the “willful desertion of the unbelieving spouse” [1 Cor 7] create the same dynamics.) Should either I or my new wife die and neither of us remarry, then “in heaven” the current “oneness” relationship holds. Don’t you just love this stuff?

ChristSpeak (#23),
Maybe sanctioned was too strong. The silence of God on the polygamy of the OT fathers while being blessed by YHWH at the same time seems to serve as an endorsement to their relationships. We get no “Cut that out!” If God “allows” it, to use your word,” then it must be OK. Am I wrong? “Predestining and “permitting” and “allowing” are theological constructs after all, so who knows?

Thanks John. I should mention that you are one of my favorite posters here. I’m not kissing up, just clarifying that I’m not trying to be antagonistic. But on this issue it feels like you’re finding something that (a) isn’t in the text and (b) I can’t see how it would work logically.
I just don’t see scriptural warrant for the proposition that death of one spouse plus remarriage of the surviving spouse ends the first “oneness” relationship and creates a second, which will be eternal as long as it isn’t in turn severed like the first was. At the very least, such a state of affairs should rule out our being able to say that marriage oneness is forever, because the requirement that the surviving spouse not remarry is a pretty big caveat.
I also have a hard time imagining that if I am married to my wife for 40 years and then die, and she remarries and is married for a scant 2 years before either she or her new husband dies – that the “oneness relationship” that will exist in the new heavens and new earth will be that of her and new husband of 2 years, rather than the one created by our 40-year “story” together. IMO it seems like it has to be either both (somehow both marriage relationships carry into eternity), or neither. But even that is extrapolating more than I think can be pulled from the text. I’m happy saying I have no idea but am sure that what God will do will be better than I can imagine.

John (#30), I have heard God’s silence on polygamy likened to his silence on slavery. Permitted but not sanctioned, and the overall Biblical witness, the nature of God and the purpose and nature of human beings (and in this case the nature and purpose of marriage) lead over time to the realization that the practice is not pleasing to God even though not explicitly forbidden and apparently tolerated in scripture.

I’ve never really considered the Markan text as a good one to use for explaining marriage at all. I think I agree with N.T. Wright here and think Jesus was mostly rebuking them and telling them not to ask silly questions — that the fact that they would even ask a question the way they did indicated they really understood nothing about the Kingdom or about God. The above are the really the extent of my thoughts on it today and are really the first time I tried to analyze it in the terms of this particular question.
I think the best text for understanding Christian marriage is the Ephesians text. An Orthodox writing I read somewhere or other points out that if both are actually able to live out what is written, a marriage becomes a union of mutual obedience — almost a perichoresis I would say — to each other together to Christ. And when we do that, our marriage is a great mystery (mysterion in Greek or sacramentum in Latin from what I understand) that reveals or makes known Christ. It becomes almost a theophany like Christ’s baptism and transfiguration. A Christian marriage is sometimes called a martyrdom because both the husband and wife are called to sacrifice themselves in witness to Christ. Finally, this mystery is such that the oneness of the Christian husband and wife reveal the oneness of Christ and his Church.
My question is where in any of that is there any sense of temporality or end in that oneness? Is Christ’s oneness with his Church finite or bounded?
Although we sound more similar than not, I probably do part ways here a little with John. What he describes sounds more like a contractual relationship, a bond that is somehow external to the being of the person and can thus be made, broken, and perhaps remade. I see it as more … existential (for lack of a better word) than that. This “bond” becomes part of who we are in deep and penetrating ways just as our “bond” with Christ reshapes our identity and being. If you ask me who I am, there is no place in my life or being where part of the answer would not be: the husband of Stacey. There is nothing that does not touch. You could not somehow wipe that away and end up with a human being who is continuous with who I am now and who I am ever more deeply becoming. To be sure, that is not all that I am or am becoming, but it is so interpenetrating it cannot be excised. It would be like a spiritual lobotomy. And I don’t see any way you can even attempt to live out Ephesians (I certainly don’t want to make false claims that I actually do it) without that being true.
If you say that Christian marriage is not eternal, then you might as well say that I will not endure, that the mystery of my baptism is not eternal, that the Church will not last. Or so it seems to me.

Karl (#32),
I agree that we are skating off the thick ice of the sacred texts we have and onto some very thin territory. I am working off Genesis 2:24 “the two will become one flesh” and off of “what God has joined together let no one separate.” If the oneness is patterned after Trinitarian oneness and secured by redemptive oneness, then it seems the oneness is an eternal reality. (No verses, just extrapolation.) Now death apparently does create the opportunity for the oneness to be, what?, breached. The remarried widow or widower is not entering into a twoness. It is a marriage of “oneness.” Yes, another oneness. So maybe the marriage of only two years does trump the one of 40 years. That’s why Jesus will have to wipe the ears from my eyes, so to speak.

(#21) John, no dualism intended. My point is that the relationships will be understood in a different way. Besides new by definition does imply changes from what previously existed – granted we don’t know the extent of the changes but surely there will be some difference. Clearly the Kingdom will be fully realized – itself a change if you will and my thought was that it is a possibility that marriage as such will no longer be part of the new heaven and new earth.

Surely there’s both continuity and discontinuity between this life and the life to come.
Hebrews does seem to have Platonic terminology- shadows/reality.
The speculation here just underscores for me that we just don’t know. It will be far richer and greater all the way around, than we can begin to fathom, now.

Mark 12:25 (NIV) When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.”
On a simple reading, the text indicates that people don’t start over – God the Father is not setting his resurrected sons and daughters up for marriage (“marry” referring to the sons, “given in marriage” referring to his daughters). Resurrected men and women are not angels, merely like angels. The text doesn’t address the status of prior relationships, prior memories, prior accumulated life experiences.
Jesus seems to be making a general point to the Sadducees: there is a resurrection, and people don’t start over and build new families. In reference to the woman with seven husbands, Jesus doesn’t seem to indicate that there is a problem with that situation.
Jesus seems to be saying that the woman, the seven husbands and whatever children that are all involved will all be like angels. That doesn’t explain a whole lot. Except that it will be very good.

I have always assumed that Mark 12:25 meant that there would be no marriage in heaven. As someone who has never been married, I have taken great joy and comfort in this idea because for me it means that there will be no more exclusion in heaven. No matter how open any married couple is, there is always a level of intimacy in their relationship enjoyed only by those two and from which others are barred. How can such barriers and exclusion continue into the eschaton?
I suppose I agree more with MattthewS(26)’s description of heaven as perfect fellowship not only with God but also with one another, as an intimacy so great that it surpasses all the greatest forms of intimacy that we currently know (i.e., marriage, sex). Then, I will fully know others and will be fully known just as I long to know and be known now but am prohibited from knowing. No more barriers will exist from this communion, and we shall all share in it together.
The idea of marriage as an eternal state between two people to me sounds like a state of permanent exclusion to others and from knowing others. To me, that sounds more like hell than heaven.

Hmmm. Neither Jesus nor Paul considered their unmarried state a lesser state or calling than marriage, but rather a different call. Marriage is not easier or better. In some ways a Christian marriage can be more difficult, in other ways less. It seems to me that, in general, Protestants seem to have a pretty unbalanced view of marriage — perhaps because they have no monastics?

I was just beginning to really enjoy this thread and suddenly it stopped. Why? Where did everybody go? Well, I am here and looking for someone on the horizon to give me some insight. I too have been puzzled by Jesus’ answer and wonder if Christianity has built a doctrine on a false premise. And should a doctrine such as this which affects everybody on this planet be built on one statement by Christ which was, after all, spoken in the form of a parable? Was Christ able to teach the truth about marriage in Heaven at a time when His disciples could not even understand some of the basics of the Kingdom? If I had the ability I would like to write a Theology of Sexuality in Heaven (or should it be of the New Earth?). Surely that theology would have to consider the Creation design of a male and a woman and their union which was “very good” and consider why if there is no marriage in heaven it should suddenly not remain very good? Are Christians justified in making the redeemed asexual beings and even God Himself asexual?

So many questions but. . . excuse me, anybody there?