Welcome to Theology Thursday! Theology is the study of God, his relation to the world, and our relation to him; it is "faith seeking understanding." I hope these newsletters help enhance your faith and deepen your love for God and his people, the church.
Today's question:
Will there be marriage in heaven?
Pastor Brady's thoughts:
The last two TTs have dealt with questions related to heaven, so this is kind of a third installment in that series.
Will there be marriage in heaven?
It’s a question that comes up fairly often when Christians think about the resurrection and eternal life, and understandably so. Marriage is one of the most significant relationships God gives us in this life. For those who have experienced a loving marriage, the thought of eternity without that relationship can be difficult to imagine. For those who have lost a spouse, there may be an even deeper question: Will I still know and love my spouse in heaven?
As with many questions about heaven, we need to begin with what scripture actually says rather than what we might wish it said. Thankfully, in this particular case, Jesus gives us a fairly direct answer.
“For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” — Matthew 22:30
If we’re understanding Jesus correctly, it appears there will not be marriage in the resurrection.
That may initially sound disappointing. But when we understand why Jesus says this and what the Bible teaches about marriage, the answer becomes much more encouraging.
The question comes from an encounter between Jesus and the Sadducees in Matthew 22. The Sadducees were a Jewish religious group that denied the resurrection. They approached Jesus with a hypothetical situation involving a woman who had been married seven times. Their question was essentially this: If there is a resurrection, whose wife will she be?
Jesus responded by saying, “You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God” (Matthew 22:29). Their question assumed that life in the resurrection would simply be an extension of life as we currently know it. Jesus tells them that assumption is wrong.
He then tells them pretty plainly: “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (v. 30).
Jesus is not particularly vague here. He doesn't say that marriage will be different in heaven or that some people will remain married while others will not. He says that in the resurrection people “neither marry nor are given in marriage.”
So if we're going to take Jesus seriously, the basic answer is clear: marriage as we know it belongs to this present age, not to the resurrection.
But that raises an important question. If marriage is such a good gift from God, why would it not continue forever? The answer begins with understanding what marriage is.
Marriage was God's idea. It wasn't invented by human culture, and it wasn't introduced as a temporary solution to the problem of sin. Genesis 2 describes marriage before the fall, when the world was still exactly as God intended it to be. God created man and woman for one another and established marriage as a unique covenant relationship.
That means marriage is a genuinely good thing. It provides companionship, intimacy, partnership, and the opportunity to practice sacrificial love. A healthy marriage can be one of God's greatest earthly gifts.
But we need to distinguish between something being good and something being ultimate and eternal.
There are many good things that belong particularly to this present age. Our physical bodies are good, but they will be transformed in the resurrection. Work is good, but the curse associated with our labor will be gone. Childbearing and raising children are good, but Jesus indicates that there will be no marriage in the resurrection and therefore no continuation of the family structure as we know it.
The fact that something won’t continue forever doesn't mean it isn't good, it means it has a particular purpose. And marriage has a purpose that extends beyond marriage itself.
One of the most significant things the Bible teaches about marriage is that it is a picture of something greater.
In Ephesians 5, Paul gives instructions to husbands and wives, but he ultimately connects the marriage relationship to Christ and the church. A husband is called to love his wife “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). Paul then concludes by saying, “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:32).
In other words, marriage is not merely about two people; it tells a story about Jesus.
Marriage gives us a picture of covenant faithfulness, sacrificial love, intimacy, and belonging. It is a small earthly illustration of the much greater relationship between Christ and his redeemed people.
This helps explain why marriage doesn't need to continue into eternity. A sign is valuable because it points you toward something. But once you arrive at the destination, you no longer need the sign to tell you where you're going.
In that sense, marriage is a signpost pointing toward our redeemer. And in the resurrection, we will no longer need the signpost, we will have the reality.
But what about my spouse? Now we’re getting more personal. We don’t have to pretend this teaching isn’t difficult; it is.
If marriage doesn't continue in heaven, does that mean I won't know my spouse? Will I forget the years we shared? Will the relationship somehow become meaningless?
We need to be careful here because scripture doesn't answer those questions in the detail we might like.
Jesus clearly tells us that marriage will not continue in the resurrection. We should not try to get around his words by redefining marriage into something that scripture doesn't describe.
At the same time, the Bible gives us no reason to believe that resurrection means the destruction of our identity, memories, or relationships. As I wrote last week, the Christian hope is resurrection - not replacement.
God doesn't discard the person he created and replace them with someone else. He raises the dead and makes them new. Paul describes resurrection as the transformation of our bodies, not the erasure of who we are.
We also have no reason to think that heaven will involve forgetting the people we knew on earth. Yet, knowing someone is not the same thing as being married to them.
Your relationship with your spouse in the resurrection will not be a marriage relationship, but that does not mean the relationship you shared was meaningless - our earthly lives are in part preparation for our eternal lives, so God must intend marriage to teach married people something important! - nor does it mean you will somehow become strangers.
Exactly what those relationships will look like is something Scripture does not tell us, and we should be content to leave some questions unanswered.
Perhaps the greatest mistake we could make is to assume that if marriage isn't in heaven, heaven must somehow contain less love, less intimacy, or less relationship. The opposite is true.
Even the best marriage we experience on earth is an imperfect relationship between two imperfect people. We love imperfectly. We misunderstand one another. We hurt one another. We struggle with selfishness, insecurity, jealousy, and fear. Even the healthiest marriage is affected by the reality of living in a fallen world.
The resurrection changes all of that. There will be no sin, no death, no loneliness, no betrayal, no rejection, no fear, no broken relationships, and no unfulfilled longing.
So when Jesus says that people will not marry in the resurrection, he is not describing a world where the good things marriage represents disappear, he is describing a world in which those good things will no longer be confined to one particular earthly institution.
In this life, marriage provides a unique relationship of love and intimacy between one man and one woman. In the resurrection, God's people will experience perfect fellowship with God and with one another.
Heaven will not be less relational than earth, it will be more!
Ok, one more thing. When we imagine heaven, we can sometimes unconsciously think of it as getting all the best parts of this life back, only without the bad parts. We imagine our loved ones, our health, our favorite experiences, our homes, our hobbies, and all the things that brought us joy.
There is certainly nothing wrong with looking forward to seeing loved ones again. Scripture gives us good reason to believe that we will know and fellowship with God's people in eternity. But we should be careful not to make those things the center of our hope.
The center of heaven is God Himself. Revelation 21:3 describes the great promise of the new creation this way: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.” And Revelation 22:4 gives us an even simpler description: “They will see his face.”
That's the goal. We will see God, we will be with God, we will know God, and we will enjoy him forever.
This doesn’t mean the good things of this life are unimportant, it just means they aren’t ultimate. Neither marriage nor family nor friendship nor even (especially!) our own happiness is ultimate. God is ultimate.
And when we finally see him as he truly is, we will not look around heaven and think that something is missing.
Your spouse may be a gift from God, but your spouse is not God. Your marriage is a good gift, but it was never designed to be your ultimate source of fulfillment.
No human being can bear that weight.
Perhaps that's one reason Jesus' teaching about marriage in the resurrection is actually good news. God isn't promising to preserve our earthly relationships forever exactly as they are, he is promising something greater: his presence with his people forever.
May that be our deepest desire.
TO KNOW GOD AND TO MAKE HIM KNOWN!
- Pastor Brady
Have a question for Theology Thursday? Send an email to office@minierchristian.org and we'll respond, or we'll include in a future Theology Thursday Buffet.
Today's question:
Will there be marriage in heaven?
Pastor Brady's thoughts:
The last two TTs have dealt with questions related to heaven, so this is kind of a third installment in that series.
Will there be marriage in heaven?
It’s a question that comes up fairly often when Christians think about the resurrection and eternal life, and understandably so. Marriage is one of the most significant relationships God gives us in this life. For those who have experienced a loving marriage, the thought of eternity without that relationship can be difficult to imagine. For those who have lost a spouse, there may be an even deeper question: Will I still know and love my spouse in heaven?
As with many questions about heaven, we need to begin with what scripture actually says rather than what we might wish it said. Thankfully, in this particular case, Jesus gives us a fairly direct answer.
“For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” — Matthew 22:30
If we’re understanding Jesus correctly, it appears there will not be marriage in the resurrection.
That may initially sound disappointing. But when we understand why Jesus says this and what the Bible teaches about marriage, the answer becomes much more encouraging.
The question comes from an encounter between Jesus and the Sadducees in Matthew 22. The Sadducees were a Jewish religious group that denied the resurrection. They approached Jesus with a hypothetical situation involving a woman who had been married seven times. Their question was essentially this: If there is a resurrection, whose wife will she be?
Jesus responded by saying, “You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God” (Matthew 22:29). Their question assumed that life in the resurrection would simply be an extension of life as we currently know it. Jesus tells them that assumption is wrong.
He then tells them pretty plainly: “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (v. 30).
Jesus is not particularly vague here. He doesn't say that marriage will be different in heaven or that some people will remain married while others will not. He says that in the resurrection people “neither marry nor are given in marriage.”
So if we're going to take Jesus seriously, the basic answer is clear: marriage as we know it belongs to this present age, not to the resurrection.
But that raises an important question. If marriage is such a good gift from God, why would it not continue forever? The answer begins with understanding what marriage is.
Marriage was God's idea. It wasn't invented by human culture, and it wasn't introduced as a temporary solution to the problem of sin. Genesis 2 describes marriage before the fall, when the world was still exactly as God intended it to be. God created man and woman for one another and established marriage as a unique covenant relationship.
That means marriage is a genuinely good thing. It provides companionship, intimacy, partnership, and the opportunity to practice sacrificial love. A healthy marriage can be one of God's greatest earthly gifts.
But we need to distinguish between something being good and something being ultimate and eternal.
There are many good things that belong particularly to this present age. Our physical bodies are good, but they will be transformed in the resurrection. Work is good, but the curse associated with our labor will be gone. Childbearing and raising children are good, but Jesus indicates that there will be no marriage in the resurrection and therefore no continuation of the family structure as we know it.
The fact that something won’t continue forever doesn't mean it isn't good, it means it has a particular purpose. And marriage has a purpose that extends beyond marriage itself.
One of the most significant things the Bible teaches about marriage is that it is a picture of something greater.
In Ephesians 5, Paul gives instructions to husbands and wives, but he ultimately connects the marriage relationship to Christ and the church. A husband is called to love his wife “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). Paul then concludes by saying, “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:32).
In other words, marriage is not merely about two people; it tells a story about Jesus.
Marriage gives us a picture of covenant faithfulness, sacrificial love, intimacy, and belonging. It is a small earthly illustration of the much greater relationship between Christ and his redeemed people.
This helps explain why marriage doesn't need to continue into eternity. A sign is valuable because it points you toward something. But once you arrive at the destination, you no longer need the sign to tell you where you're going.
In that sense, marriage is a signpost pointing toward our redeemer. And in the resurrection, we will no longer need the signpost, we will have the reality.
But what about my spouse? Now we’re getting more personal. We don’t have to pretend this teaching isn’t difficult; it is.
If marriage doesn't continue in heaven, does that mean I won't know my spouse? Will I forget the years we shared? Will the relationship somehow become meaningless?
We need to be careful here because scripture doesn't answer those questions in the detail we might like.
Jesus clearly tells us that marriage will not continue in the resurrection. We should not try to get around his words by redefining marriage into something that scripture doesn't describe.
At the same time, the Bible gives us no reason to believe that resurrection means the destruction of our identity, memories, or relationships. As I wrote last week, the Christian hope is resurrection - not replacement.
God doesn't discard the person he created and replace them with someone else. He raises the dead and makes them new. Paul describes resurrection as the transformation of our bodies, not the erasure of who we are.
We also have no reason to think that heaven will involve forgetting the people we knew on earth. Yet, knowing someone is not the same thing as being married to them.
Your relationship with your spouse in the resurrection will not be a marriage relationship, but that does not mean the relationship you shared was meaningless - our earthly lives are in part preparation for our eternal lives, so God must intend marriage to teach married people something important! - nor does it mean you will somehow become strangers.
Exactly what those relationships will look like is something Scripture does not tell us, and we should be content to leave some questions unanswered.
Perhaps the greatest mistake we could make is to assume that if marriage isn't in heaven, heaven must somehow contain less love, less intimacy, or less relationship. The opposite is true.
Even the best marriage we experience on earth is an imperfect relationship between two imperfect people. We love imperfectly. We misunderstand one another. We hurt one another. We struggle with selfishness, insecurity, jealousy, and fear. Even the healthiest marriage is affected by the reality of living in a fallen world.
The resurrection changes all of that. There will be no sin, no death, no loneliness, no betrayal, no rejection, no fear, no broken relationships, and no unfulfilled longing.
So when Jesus says that people will not marry in the resurrection, he is not describing a world where the good things marriage represents disappear, he is describing a world in which those good things will no longer be confined to one particular earthly institution.
In this life, marriage provides a unique relationship of love and intimacy between one man and one woman. In the resurrection, God's people will experience perfect fellowship with God and with one another.
Heaven will not be less relational than earth, it will be more!
Ok, one more thing. When we imagine heaven, we can sometimes unconsciously think of it as getting all the best parts of this life back, only without the bad parts. We imagine our loved ones, our health, our favorite experiences, our homes, our hobbies, and all the things that brought us joy.
There is certainly nothing wrong with looking forward to seeing loved ones again. Scripture gives us good reason to believe that we will know and fellowship with God's people in eternity. But we should be careful not to make those things the center of our hope.
The center of heaven is God Himself. Revelation 21:3 describes the great promise of the new creation this way: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.” And Revelation 22:4 gives us an even simpler description: “They will see his face.”
That's the goal. We will see God, we will be with God, we will know God, and we will enjoy him forever.
This doesn’t mean the good things of this life are unimportant, it just means they aren’t ultimate. Neither marriage nor family nor friendship nor even (especially!) our own happiness is ultimate. God is ultimate.
And when we finally see him as he truly is, we will not look around heaven and think that something is missing.
Your spouse may be a gift from God, but your spouse is not God. Your marriage is a good gift, but it was never designed to be your ultimate source of fulfillment.
No human being can bear that weight.
Perhaps that's one reason Jesus' teaching about marriage in the resurrection is actually good news. God isn't promising to preserve our earthly relationships forever exactly as they are, he is promising something greater: his presence with his people forever.
May that be our deepest desire.
TO KNOW GOD AND TO MAKE HIM KNOWN!
- Pastor Brady
Have a question for Theology Thursday? Send an email to office@minierchristian.org and we'll respond, or we'll include in a future Theology Thursday Buffet.
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2026
January
Teaching Tuesday: In His Image - Genesis 1:1-2:3Theology Thursday: The Christlike CreedTeaching Tuesday: Right Relationship - Genesis 2:7-9, 15-25Theology Thursday: Stop Reading the NewsTeaching Tuesday: The Fall - Genesis 3Theology Thursday: Is eternal conscious torment biblical? Teaching Tuesday: First Family Feud - Genesis 4Theology Thursday: Praying for the persecuted church
February
Teaching Tuesday: First Family Feud - Genesis 4 CopyTheology Thursday: Does James 2:24 contradict justification by faith?Teaching Tuesday: The Promise - Genesis 9:8-17Theology Thursday: Her desire will be for her husband?Theology Thursday: What's the deal with speaking in tongues?Theology Thursday: Buffet 5
March
April
Theology Thursday: Why do Christians oppose abortion?Theology Thursday: What's this about revival?Theology Thursday: Would you consider coming back to church?Theology Thursday: How should Christians think about gambling?Theology Thursday: What’s the difference between “conservative” and “progressive” theology?
May
2025
January
Theology Thursday: What is the purpose of Scripture?Teaching Tuesday: What Are We Doing Here? - God's BlessingTheology Thursday: Son of God, Son of ManTeaching Tuesday: What Are We Doing Here? - Knowing GodTheology Thursday: Buffet 2Teaching Tuesday: What Are We Doing Here? - Alive in ChristTheology Thursday: Murder is wrong, but...Teaching Tuesday: What Are We Doing Here? - Unity in ChristTheology Thursday: God and "Natural" Disasters
February
Teaching Tuesday: What Are We Doing Here? - Church MembershipTheology Thursday: Evil and SufferingTeaching Tuesday: What Are We Doing Here? - Experiencing God's LoveTheology Thursday: God Is Into the Details (Exodus 25-30)Teaching Tuesday: What Are We Doing Here? - Church GrowthTheology Thursday: About those Jesus adsTeaching Tuesday: What Are We Doing Here? - Christian Living
March
Teaching Tuesday: What Are We Doing Here? - Christ-centered RelationshipsTheology Thursday: Where We Come FromTeaching Tuesday: What Are We Doing Here? - Spiritual ConflictTheology Thursday: In essentials, unity...and so onTeaching Tuesday: Dying Breaths - Forsaken?Theology Thursday: Christians Only, but Not the Only ChristiansTheology Thursday: Where Scripture speaks...
April
Theology Thursday: No Creed but ChristTeaching Tuesday: Dying Breaths - Mission AccomplishedTheology Thursday: MCC Member ExpectationsTeaching Tuesday: Dying Breaths - Hosanna to the Humble KingTheology Thursday: This is our homecomingTeaching Tuesday: Easter 2025 - The Ragman Theology Thursday: Are all sins the same?Teaching Tuesday: Beyond Belief - "Come, follow me."
May
Theology Thursday: The state of the churchTeaching Tuesday: Beyond Belief - PrayerTeaching Tuesday: ScriptureTheology Thursday: What's wrong with health and wealth?Teaching Tuesday: Beyond Belief - SolitudeTheology Thursday: What's the point of the Old Testament?Teaching Tuesday: Beyond Belief - FastingTheology Thursday: Idols of the Heart
June
Teaching Tuesday: Beyond Belief - ServiceTheology Thursday: Why did the Jews reject Jesus?Teaching Tuesday: Beyond Belief - GenerosityTheology Thursday: Christians have to give...do we have to tithe?Teaching Tuesday: Beyond Belief - SabbathTheology Thursday: Buffet 3Teaching Tuesday: Beyond Belief - CommunityTheology Thursday: Can everyone understand scripture?
July
Teaching Tuesday: Beyond Belief - WitnessTheology Thursday: 5 QuestionsTeaching Tuesday: Bible Stories - JosephTheology Thursday: Who/what were the Nephilim?Teaching Tuesday: Bible Stories - Moses and the burning bushTheology Thursday: The oldest Christian church?Teaching Tuesday: Bible Stories - Joshua, Rahab, and JerichoTheology Thursday: Mike Humphries' TestimonyTeaching Tuesday: Bible Stories - Noami, Ruth, and BoazTheology Thursday: Church Membership - What, Why, Who
August
Teaching Tuesday: Bible Stories - David and GoliathTheology Thursday: The Biblical Support for Church MembershipTeaching Tuesday: Bible Stories - Elijah and BaalTheology Thursday: Church Discipline and ExcommunicationTeaching Tuesday: Bible Stories - Jonah and the Big FishTheology Thursday: MCC's Membership PolicyTeaching Tuesday: Bible Stories - Daniel and the Lions' DenTheology Thursday: Buffet 4
September