Why will people neither marry nor be given in marriage in the resurrection (Matthew 22:30)?

The Resurrection. — Accordingly they approached Him with a difficulty professedly based on the Word of God, thus making Holy Scripture a ground for disbelieving an indisputable truth of revelation. A special provision was made in the law for what is called a levirate marriage, by which a surviving brother was bound to marry his brother's widow in the event of that brother having died childless, to preserve the dead man's portion of the inheritance, that his name should not be blotted out of Israel (Deut. 25:5-6). Now a case, they averred, had occurred where seven brothers, one after the other, in observance of this law, had married the same woman. All had died without offspring. At last the woman died also. "In the resurrection, therefore," they asked, "whose wife of them shall she be? for the seven had her to wife." One can well suppose the eagerness with which they waited for the Lord's answer, and their confidence that He could say nothing in support of the doctrine which they denied. But what disappointment must have been experienced when they heard His reply! Ignorance, He gave them clearly to understand, lay at the root of their opposition: ignorance, on the one hand, of the condition of people in the other world; ignorance, on the other, of the Scriptures of truth. The Lord dealt with the first of these before He touched on the second. And though both Matthew and Mark relate the same incident, Luke supplies his readers with particulars unnoticed by them, and which set forth how fully the Lord refuted this special tenet of the sect, the denial of a resurrection.

"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.

With simple, pointed words the Lord exposed their pathetic ignorance. Marriage is only for this world. He did not speak of those who die in their sins and will be raised for judgment at the Great White Throne; but only of those accounted worthy (by grace through faith) to obtain "that world," the glory of heaven, and the resurrection from among the dead. They neither marry nor are given in marriage (v.35). (Those unsaved will certainly not be married either, but will be raised only to be cast into the lake of fire.) Nor can death ever again touch those who have been raised, as at present it terminates the marriage relationship (vs.34-36). Moreover believers are as the angels which are neither male nor female, as we are told in regard to the new creation (Gal. 3:27-28). They are sons of God, having a relationship and dignity higher than all natural relationships, being sons of the resurrection, that is, introduced into a sphere that mere human intelligence has not penetrated.

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 Lord answers their question first, and then rebukes the unbelief which had inspired it. The question He answers with a simple affirmation, in which He contradicts another article of their unbelieving creed, ― that there were no angels (Acts 23:8). It was sufficient to meet a mere argument from their ignorance with His own perfect knowledge. Angels there were, and in the resurrection the saints would be like these, neither marrying nor giving in marriage. They knew not the power of God, and could conceive of nothing else than a mere reproduction of earthly conditions. Their perplexity was but the fruit of their own carnal imaginations.

Here, again, it was merely a difficulty. The Sadducees were the infidel party, and all the apparent strength of infidelity lies in putting difficulties, in raising up imaginary cases which do not apply, in reasoning from the things of men to the things of God. The whole basis is false assumption. The Lord says to them, "Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the Scriptures, neither the power of God." They betrayed, as usual, their ignorance of the Scriptures, spite of much pretentiousness, else they would not have put such a case. As for difficulties, what are they to the power of God, supposing there were difficulties to man? But what is beyond the power and conception of man is very possible to God; all things are possible even to him that believeth. But the truth is that it was total ignorance to suppose that in the resurrection state such a contingency could arise. The question, besides, took for granted the resurrection, which was exactly what they denied. Scepticism is habitually crooked — not less false than superstition. Whose would this woman be who had the seven husbands successively? The answer is, she would belong to none then. There is no such thing as a resumption of earthly ties in the resurrection. People do not rise from the dead as husbands and wives, parents and children, masters or servants. Next, the Lord meets the question, not on the ground of their difficulty or mistake, but on its own merits according to the word of God. "When they rise from among [the] dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels in heaven. And as touching the dead, that they rise, have ye not read in the book of Moses, how, in the [section of the] bush, how God spoke unto him, saying, I [am] the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living."

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."

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.

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.

Since the fact was there in Scripture the Lord, true to His Servant character, appealed to the Scripture and did not assert the fact dogmatically on His own authority. What He did state dogmatically is in verse 25, where he makes dear the state or condition into which resurrection will introduce us, thus going beyond what the Old Testament taught. The resurrection world differs from this world. Earthly relationships cease in those heavenly conditions. We are not to be angels, but we are to be "as the angels which are in heaven." Immortality and incorruptibility will be ours.

Their earthbound minds were not prepared for the simplicity of the Lord's answer. He tells them their very question was in error because of their ignorance of scripture and of the power of God. Marriage was a provision of God only for earth. In resurrection there is no such thing, but people are as the angels. Scripture had told them that "men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, 0 God, beside thee, what He hath prepared for him that waiteth for Him" (Isa.64:4). At least they should have given God credit for the ability to introduce greater things than were seen on earth.