What are angelic humans? Is the idea of angelic humans biblical?

There is not a line in Scripture to say that the relationships of earth will be continued in heaven. We shall not rise as husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants, but in this respect shall be as the angels. We shall not be angels, as people vainly imagine, but like them in being free from earthly relationships. The believer will enjoy privileges, and heavenly relationships far above angels, and the passing relationships of the time state.

His answer is most simple, but He presses on them first the error of their own thoughts, due to their ignorance of the word of God and of the power of God. They were limiting God to the confines of their own narrow conceptions, as though in resurrection God must return man to conditions identical with such as prevail at present. Among other Old Testament scriptures, Isaiah 64:4 would have at least reproved their narrow thoughts. He tells them that in the resurrection marriage has no Place. Just as among the angels there is no question of difference in sex, so it will be in resurrection life. For resurrection introduces a totally new condition of things.

"The sons of this world," was His answer, "marry and are given in marriage; but they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. For [as we should read] neither can they die any more; for they are equal to the angels; and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection" (20:34-36). The Sadducees of that day, like many a person in subsequent ages, could conceive of nothing different from that which they had known. Here marriages take place. Hence in their thoughts, if there was a resurrection, marriages must also be contracted on high. Their deduction was fallacious. Marriages do not take place among the saints in heaven. And the Lord gives a reason for that, reported, as we find, only by Luke: "For [this important conjunction has been left out by the A.V.] neither can they die any more." Death reigns not there; hence marriage, by which the race is perpetuated on earth, has no place on high. Further, they are equal to angels, and all of them are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. The test case, so conclusive to those Sadducees against a resurrection, broke down at once. The condition necessitated for its validity will not exist. The Sadducees, trusting to their very limited knowledge, made shipwreck of the faith by denying a fundamental truth, as we now know that of the resurrection to be (1 Cor. 15:13-17). He who came down from heaven here declares the condition of saints in heaven, thereby showing the baselessness of Sadducean ground and the folly of their contention.

281 The same day the Sadducees, who deny the resurrection, came to submit to Him the case of a woman who, according to the law of Moses, had had seven husbands. Whose wife of the seven, demand they, should she be at the time of the resurrection? Here a fundamental truth was in question: also the Lord's answer is formal and precise. To put the resurrection in question was to be ignorant of the scriptures and of the power of God. Death did not terminate the existence of man. If God was the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, He was not the God of those who did not exist. All live for Him, if they are dead for men; and, though life and incorruption are only brought to light by the gospel, the Old Testament sufficed to shew that God had been, and was, and would be, the God of the faithful, in order that they should be with Him, not only as souls but as men, soul and body, even as He had made them; only risen, a thing necessary after death. When God said, I am the God of Abraham, Abraham was a man living for Him and was to be raised. But the Lord treats also the positive side of the question. In the resurrection all is changed it is no question either of marrying or of giving in marriage one is as the angels of God in heaven. It is not the question here of the position one may be found in, but of the character in which one subsists. The resurrection is a foundation of the gospel. Our faith is vain if Christ is not risen: a thing evidently true, for if man rises not, Christ Himself is not risen. He is then dead also without remedy or answer; He is vanquished, not victor. The Sadducees are put to silence, and the two great sects of the Jews have nothing more to say.

This attempt is as blunt as the other was subtle. The Sadducees denied both the resurrection and the existence of angels; it was not at all believed by them what they had asked. There was also a sneer at the Pharisees in their words. The question is based on the divine law as given through Moses in the book of Deuteronomy (chapter 25:5, etc.). However, the law in this respect was far from being practiced in those days, and the interpreters of this law had put all kinds of limitations upon it. There may, of course, be a case possible like the one recited by the Sadducees, but it is unlikely that it was a real case they laid before Him; it was no doubt gotten up for the occasion. Ignorance, unbelief and sarcasm prompted this question. And what did He answer? He lays bare both their ignorance of the Scripture and the power of God. "And Jesus answering said to them, Ye err not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God" (verse 29). They did not believe in the Scriptures as the God breathed Word; they were the "Higher Critics" of their day. But the Lord does not try to prove to them the validity of the Scriptures, but tells them that they are ignorant. Then He continues, "For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as angels of God in heaven." In a few words the Lord affirms the truth of resurrection, the existence of angels, which they denied, and shows that their carnal imaginations were but the result of their carnal hearts. The body of humiliation will not be continued in resurrection and earthly relations such as marrying and giving in marriage will cease there. The Lord of course does not teach about resurrection itself in this passage. His purpose is to answer the Sadducees with their foolish question. What He had stated about the state of resurrection was generally believed by the Jews living at that time. The rabbis declared, as learned from talmudical literature, "that in the world to come there would be neither eating nor drinking, fruitfulness nor increase, business nor envy, hatred nor strife, but that the righteous would sit with crowns on their heads and feast on the splendor of the Shekinah."

Some may be wondering about marriage relationships for those resurrected. God says in Matthew 22:30 that "in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven." Christ will be our only Bridegroom. We will need nothing more to be completely fulfilled in every possible sense, just as the angels are fully happy with their unique place in God's creation.

Some passages in Luke's Gospel may be profitably looked at in this connection. In Luke 14:14 we read, "Thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just." What does this mean if all rise together? Is it not something special, something blessed, that the Lord holds out in this place? Look also at Luke 20:35-36. In the course of His reply to the cavil of the Sadducees the Lord said, "They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world (age), and the resurrection from (from among) the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: neither can they die any more, for they are equal to the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection." Clearly this is not the mere general fact of resurrection. That cannot be a matter of attainment, for no one can shirk it. The most ungodly man must rise again and stand before the throne. Obviously the verse treats of the special portion of the saved when the Lord claims His own. Such will then be raised from among the great mass of the dead and made equal in condition to the angels. Our calling is superior, for we are children and sons, while angels are but servants; our condition until the Lord's coming is inferior, but this He will change then by His mighty power.

People imagine that but one obscure passage (which is not obscure however) in a book of visions is the only one which can be brought forward for a "first resurrection" of the righteous, whereas in fact almost every passage that speaks of resurrection infers it in some shape. There is even a special phrase for it, "the resurrection out from the dead" (ek nekron), as to which the disciples (who knew well the general truth of resurrection) inquired "what the rising from the dead should mean" (Mark 9:10). It was of this special resurrection the Lord spoke, when in answer to the Sadducees He said that "they which shall be counted worthy to obtain that world" — the world to come, — "and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage, neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels: and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection" (Luke 20:34-36). How could people be "counted worthy" to obtain a general resurrection which no one can lose? or be the children of God as being the children of a general resurrection?

We find on another occasion that certain of the Sadducees came to Him, putting a difficulty, because of a woman supposed to be married to seven brethren. In the case reasoned on these seven successively died, and last of all the woman died also. In the resurrection then, they ask, whose wife should she be of the seven? The Lord at once points out that the difficulty was founded on ignorance of scripture or of the power of God. In the resurrection they shall neither marry, nor be given in marriage, but shall be like the angels; that is, like them in that respect, not in all things, for they will judge angels; but like them in so far as this, that there will be no distinction of sex — neither marrying nor given in marriage. "Neither can they die any more." But He adds, "They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, [or rather 'dispensation'] and the resurrection from the dead," etc. This would be an extraordinary expression, if all were raised at the same time. "They that shall be counted worthy to obtain that age;" for the last word does not refer to the material world, but to a special dispensation or age, which the unworthy do not obtain. Weigh the force of the phrase. The resurrection of the saints is in an age peculiar to themselves. "They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that age (the other dead are only raised after it), and the resurrection from the dead." The resurrection of Christ was not merely a resurrection of the dead, but out of the dead. He left them undisturbed in their tombs. There were certain saints who rose with Him, or rather came out of their graves after His resurrection; but the great mass of the dead were so far unaffected by Christ's resurrection. And so is it with the saints in principle. Theirs is to be a resurrection from among the dead. The rest of the dead must rise at another time; but they who shall be accounted worthy shall obtain that age, and the resurrection from the dead. They shall not die any more. Could God show more strongly, than by this language, a distinct and prior resurrection of the saints of God?

One of these passages is Christ's answer to the Sadducees when they sought to perplex Him about the resurrection. He replies (the answer in Mark is similar), "They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that age (not world), and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; neither can they die any more, for they are equal unto the angels, and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection" (Luke 20:35-36). Here the expression used is resurrection from the dead, and does the passage imply a general or an exclusive resurrection? It cannot be a general resurrection, for all those who have part in it are like the angels, are the children of God, are counted worthy to obtain it, and die no more. It must be an exclusive resurrection, then, and observe how it corresponds morally with the "first resurrection," about which it is said that those who have part in it are "blessed and holy," beyond the power of "the second death," and priests of God and of Christ. What, then, is the "age" which these "children of the resurrection" are counted worthy to obtain? Here, again, we see the accuracy of Scripture, for surely this age can only be the period of a thousand years during which they live and reign with Christ.