Luke 20:27-38
Relationships in the Hereafter
Sometimes we are forced to say good-bye to those we love. And in those most trying of times, we hold onto the biblical idea of a great reunion of all believers in a place called heaven. But in today’s scripture Jesus tells us there won’t be marriage as we know it in heaven. That might hit some of you kind of hard. Maybe you wonder why not? If not marriage, then what will there be?
In order to understand the passage I just read, we have to start first with a group called the Sadducees. I pick on the Pharisees a lot, but the Sadducees were another religious political party in Bible times. They were more the aristocratic Jewish party. They controlled the high priests and most of the seats on the presiding Jewish High Council called the Sanhedrin. They liked to argue with the Pharisees, and really only came together over a common enemy, Jesus. “My enemy’s enemy is my friend,” right?
The Sadducees only believed in the first five books of the Bible, the Torah, and there they found no hints of an afterlife, no resurrection from the dead. This was their basic theological difference with the Pharisees, who believed strongly IN a resurrection. You can remember their name and theology if you reflect on this: The Sadducees did not believe in heaven. That is why they were “sad—you see.”
It reminds me of a story I heard. The boss asked one of his employees, “Do you believe in life after death?”
“Yes, sir!” the new recruit replied.
“Well, then, that makes sense,” the boss said, “because after you left early yesterday to go to your grandmother’s funeral, she stopped by to see you.”
The other thing we have to understand besides the Sadducees is the custom of Levirate marriage prescribed in Deuteronomy 25:5. It was an ancient Israelite custom of ensuring a widow with no children could carry on the family name. At the time, it was crucial to the growth of a developing nation. The most famous example in the Bible is that of Ruth. Boaz became her kinsman redeemer and gave her a child Obed, who would become the grandfather of King David. By the time of Jesus, Levirate marriage was no longer practiced.
The story the Sadducees used in today’s scripture is probably a well-worn attack on what they considered the foolishness of resurrection. If there IS an afterlife, and if people practiced Levirate marriage, then who is going to be married to whom in heaven? What a mess! The Sadducees thought it a clever way to make fun of the notion of an afterlife and embarrass Jesus publicly at the same time.
And Jesus used it as an opportunity to teach on the nature of relationships in the hereafter. He contrasted this age—the life we now have in the flesh on earth—with the age to come—the hereafter, particularly for those who are “considered worthy to take part,” i.e., those who have joined God’s family forever through their faith in him. Jesus said of these “resurrection children” in verse 36, “They can no longer die; for they are like the angels.” He didn’t say we become angels; he said, we become LIKE the angels in our immortality. We don’t even have the option of dying, because the whole notion of death will be gone.
Now that could be really good if life in the hereafter is really rewarding. Or it could be really bad if the hereafter is boring or lonely without marriage. To understand better this life ahead, let’s look at some characteristics of our bodies in the hereafter.
For Jewish people, the body was very important; it was part of your soul, your basic identity. The surrounding Greek culture set up an artificial divide between physical and spiritual and suggested the physical was evil but the spiritual was good. Jews believed in a whole person—body, mind, and spirit—all wrapped up into one soul. So what is this soul or living being going to be like in the afterlife? Consider what the Bible tells us:
1. Our new bodies will be physical
We know this because of the first post-resurrection body we see in scripture, that of Jesus himself. Witnesses noted that he ate (Luke 24:43), probably to prove he wasn’t a ghost. And his disciples even touched him (1 John 1:1). Like Jesus we will have physical bodies, but they will differ in some significant ways from our current bodies. And the most notable is,
2. Our new bodies will be permanent
Maybe your Bible says “immortal,” or “imperishable.” Our resurrection bodies will no longer age or decay. They won’t grow weak or feeble. The Apostle Paul contrasts our pre- and post-resurrection bodies in 1 Corinthians 15:42: “So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable.” Our new bodies in heaven will always be healthy, fit, and strong. We will no longer need doctors, nurses, therapists, rehab specialists, surgeons, home health aides, ambulances, or hospitals. No more!
3. Our new bodies will be recognizable
They will be similar in some sense to our old bodies. For example, Jesus had scars after his resurrection (John 20:24-29). These gave proof to his disciples—even to doubting Thomas—that it was really him they were talking with. One time Jesus shared a story about Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-31). Lazarus was in heaven and the rich man was in hell. Somehow, the rich man could see across the great divide. And there, he recognized Lazarus, this poor beggar who had been at his gates, now enjoying paradise. We will be able to recognize each other in heaven! And lastly,
4. Our new bodies will be spiritual.
Even though they are physical, they will have a spiritual aspect to them, characterized no longer by sin but only by the work of God’s spirit. In 1 Corinthians 15:44, Paul continues his contrast by stating, “It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” I’m looking forward to getting to know people in heaven, in a whole new way, with our new physical spiritual bodies, and all of our sin and selfishness stripped away. Won’t that be amazing?
So if we will have physical, permanent, recognizable, and spiritual bodies in the afterlife, why won’t we have marriage? We know by principle that heaven is going to be a perfect place; after all, how could it not be if there are no more tears, sadness, sickness, or sin? So, if there won’t be any marriage in heaven, there must be something better.
Think about it: what is the purpose of marriage? Intimacy, sharing of life, partnership, and pro-creation. And the Bible uses marriage repeatedly as a foreshadow of our relationship with Christ: he is the bridegroom and we are the bride. In fact, our entrance into heaven is marked by the image of a Jewish wedding feast. The long period of betrothal—this present life—is followed by the coming together finally of the bride and groom.
Heaven has no need for pro-creation, since our bodies will last forever. And we won’t need one single emotionally intimate life partner, because somehow, we will all be partnered together in perfect intimacy with our bridegroom, Jesus Christ, worshiping before the throne room of the Father and serving him. For those married to a believer in this life, your honey bunch will become a very close brother or sister in the Lord.
Let’s close with Jesus’ own illustration. For proof of the resurrection, he takes the Sadducees to the example of the burning bush, which is conveniently found within their own sacred texts, the first five books of the Bible. There he points out that God says, “I AM the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” God says, “I AM...” God doesn’t say, “I WAS...”
God IS the Father of ____ and ____. God IS the Father of all those believers we know who have gone on ahead of us to heaven. And God IS your Father and mine, if you have professed Christ.
Jesus concludes, “To [God] all are alive.” Many years ago Billy Graham said, “Someday you will read or hear that Billy Graham is dead. Don't you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into the presence of God.”
Let us pray: “Heavenly Father, thank you for the beautiful picture of what awaits us in heaven. We don’t understand it all, but we know with you it can only be for our very best. Help someone to choose you today, Lord, to enter your holy family as they give their sin to you and ask you to come in and take charge through our Savior Jesus. Comfort those who have lost loved ones with this hope of being with them again in your holy family.
And help us to say with the Apostle Paul (Philippians 3:20-21): ‘But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.’
To you be the glory, honor, and praise forever and ever, amen.
Luke 20:27-38
27 Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. 28 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. 30 The second31 and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. 32 Finally, the woman died too. 33 Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”
34 Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage.35 But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, 36 and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. 37 But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ 38 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”
