Didn’t Jesus Say There’s No Marriage in Heaven?

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Matt 22:30 is certainly a difficult passage to understand outside of the traditional reading. Some have suggested that Jesus does not refer to an abolition of marriage but rather a change in how it functions and comes about socially.

John J. Kilgallen a catholic scholar has held for a long time, there would be “marriage” in the resurrection:

“Though Jesus does not say whose wife the widow will be in the next life, it is reasonable to assume she will be the wife of the first husband, whose life was ended here, but will continue forever (with her) in the resurrected life. “The woman who was the wife of the seven brothers did not marry the seven brothers. He married the first and was given to the six in order to procreate children in the name of the first. All of her children will be credited to her first husband, who was her true love and spouse”.

What do you think?
 
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A personal opinion which is worth every penny you paid for it. He sounds to me exactly like the Sadducees who were testing Jesus about the woman who had seven husbands.
 
Jesus said there isn’t and that’s good enough for me. No need for scholars’ opinions.
 
In Heaven they do not marry nor are given in marriage, for they are like the angels.
No. There is no marriage in Heaven.
 
Jesus said there isn’t an that worries me sometimes
But I do my best to trust Heaven will make it so that isn’t an issue

Heaven will be good and we won’t be able to feel bad (this isn’t brainwashing by God either)

There also may be a alternative to intimacy that marriage gives because Jealousy is gone

But in short
Heaven is great marriage or not
Even if it’s scary
 
The use of the terms [marry] and [given in marriage] is important, for these terms refer to the gender-specific roles played in early Jewish society by the man and the woman in the process of getting married.
The resurrected people will not die, so the levirate marriages to a brother in-law performed after the resurrection becomes redundant. Where there is resurrection, there is no death; where there is no death, there is no need for birth; where there is no birth, there is no need for levirate marriage. Marriage as companionship in the resurrection is not what Jesus was asked about.
 
I don’t see any point in trying to imagine stuff beyond what Jesus said, and whatever you come up with, it’s just your opinion, or John Kilgallen’s opinion. That and a couple dollars will get you a cup of Mcdonalds coffee.
 
Tony said:
where there is no birth, there is no need for levirate marriage.
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And no need for sexual intercourse.

People in Heaven will love one another. Those who were married in this life are no exception. But the issue raised by the Herodians does not apply in Heaven.
 
I have no idea, I do think the scripture passage is open for interpretation since Jesus specifically talks about being getting married in heaven and not about being married. On the other hand, he does say in this regard we will be like angels. I lean to the traditional interpretation that there is no marriage in heaven, but I can see the counter argument.
I did come across this quote from St. John Chrysostom about how a husband should feel about their wife:
I have taken you in my arms, and I love you, and I prefer you to my life itself. For the present life is nothing, and my most ardent dream is to spend it with you in such a way that we may be assured of not being separated in the life reserved for us.
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To my knowledge, the Church has not ever issued a formal teaching on this.
 
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Yeah, the whole point of getting to heaven for many of us is to hopefully see our loved ones again, and we pray for them too to help them get there in hopes of this happy reunion.

It’s true the Church has not issued a formal teaching on our relationships with our loved ones including spouses in the hereafter, but various theologians (I posted something by a Dominican the last time this came up) have suggested that we continue to have a connection with our loved ones after death, which would include spouses we were married to on earth. Presumably also since everyone in Heaven lives in perfect charity, there is no jealousy, so if you have more than one spouse you loved or more than one significant relationship in your lives, then you can be close with all of those people in heaven without causing any problems, which is not possible on earth.

I have always thought of earthly marriage as intended to maintain the social order and ensure that children will have stable homes and be properly cared for. In Heaven, since we’re not having sex and propagating and since there is no jealousy - people won’t be stealing each other’s spouses or conceiving a lot of children and not supporting them - a lot of the need for an institution of marriage goes away. Love will still exist though so I don’t think my love for my husband would go away, we just wouldn’t need to be married.
 
This is all speculation on my part…
Tis_Bearself said:
Presumably also since everyone in Heaven lives in perfect charity, there is no jealousy, so if you have more than one spouse you loved or more than one significant relationship in your lives, then you can be close with all of those people in heaven without causing any problems, which is not possible on earth.
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Yes, no jealousy, but that is not too say that all relationships will be equal in heaven.
Tis_Bearself said:
I have always thought of earthly marriage as intended to maintain the social order and ensure that children will have stable homes and be properly cared for. In Heaven, since we’re not having sex and propagating and since there is no jealousy - people won’t be stealing each other’s spouses or conceiving a lot of children and not supporting them - a lot of the need for an institution of marriage goes away.
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A couple of thoughts come to mind. I suppose there will be a social order in heaven. Was earthly marriage intended by God just to maintain our social order? There was no jealousy on earth before the fall. And without the fall, there would have been none even as we multiplied in population. Yet there still was marriage. I agree that the marriage laws, since the fall, exist to a large extent protect our social order. I just disagree that was God’s original intent in establishing marriage.

“The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator” CCC 1603
 
tafan2 said:
Yes, no jealousy, but that is not too say that all relationships will be equal in heaven.
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This often seems to be a point of contention on the forum. People - and it seems like these are often people who haven’t yet lost a spouse - sometimes will say, “In Heaven you’ll be joined to everybody and love everybody just the same.” I struggle with the idea that I will love a stranger in Heaven in the same way as I love my husband in Heaven (or my mother, father, very close friends, etc.) Since there is no definitive Church teaching, we just have to rely on God that he will let some relationships be “special” in some way that doesn’t disturb our perfect charity. I find it telling that when people have NDEs, they often meet their deceased family members. They don’t just meet random deceased souls, “Hi, I’m Joe Deadperson, welcome to Heaven.”
Was earthly marriage intended by God just to maintain our social order? There was no jealousy on earth before the fall. And without the fall, there would have been none even as we multiplied in population. Yet there still was marriage. I agree that the marriage laws, since the fall, exist to a large extent protect our social order. I just disagree that was God’s original intent in establishing marriage.
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God’s original intent was completely disrupted by the Fall. Obviously if man had not fallen, then there would be no jealousy, there would be no concern about children not being cared for, there would be no issues of a man being forced to care for offspring that weren’t his own, or the most powerful man being able to take all the women so no other men could have wives and families, etc. Marriage might have taken on a completely different meaning and form and shape than the legalistic one it ended up assuming for the protection of the persons in it.

When God creates the new world someday in the far distant future after the Second Coming, we’ll be able to comprehend his plan then, if we’re part of it then.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
…"In Heaven you’ll be joined to everybody and love everybody just the same.” I struggle with the idea that I will love a stranger in Heaven in the same way as I love my husband in Heaven (or my mother, father, very close friends, etc.)
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I do not see why, even though we will love each other perfectly, that implies we will love each other the same. Just as was we will all be perfectly happy, we will not all be equal. We may even have different degrees of happiness, we may still have different degrees of intelligence, of emotional capability, etc. Indeed, it seems to me that if we were all perfectly the same in all aspects, it would lead to a pretty boring social existence. And if I expect anything from heaven, it is certainly to never be bored.
Tis_Bearself said:
God’s original intent was completely disrupted by the Fall. Obviously if man had not fallen, then there would be no jealousy, there would be no concern about children not being cared for, there would be no issues of a man being forced to care for offspring that weren’t his own, or the most powerful man being able to take all the women so no other men could have wives and families, etc. Marriage might have taken on a completely different meaning and form and shape than the legalistic one it ended up assuming for the protection of the persons in it.
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I agree with all of this except the part about marriage taking on a completely different form and shape. It is clear that God intended the form of marriage to be the joining of one man and one woman.
 
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Except what He said is not just a little ambiguous. He was addressing a trick question. Its not the only time he did so, (eg. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar, give to God what is God’s”) without giving an absolutely clear answer. And he never explicitly said there was no marriage in heaven, he said that no one gets married.
In general, I agree, there will be no marriage in heaven in the exact way we understand it today. Indeed, it does exists for procreation. But I certainly see how we could have a special type of relationship, indeed union, with our spouse. Again, pure speculation. But I do think that people read too much into that passage of scripture, namely they use it to imply exactly what @TisBearself quoted others as saying: “we will love everyone just the same”.

Again, all speculation on my part. If there has been any definitive Church teaching to the contrary of what I am saying, please disregard.
 
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The religious tradition that I was raised in (Classical Pentecostalism; I still have a foot there, especially when it comes to singing and playing the old songs) is really big on the idea of Heaven as being one big, on-going family reunion, and that is reflected in many of the song lyrics, such as:
We’ll soon be done with troubles and trials
In that home on the other side.
I’m going to shake glad hands with the elders,
Tell my kindred good morning,
Then I’m going to sit down beside my Jesus,
Sit down and rest a little while.
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(YouTube link below so you can hear how that sounds when sung by people who believe it.)

However, even when I was in the middle of that religious culture, I saw Jesus’ comments in Matt. 22:30 as a contradiction of that line of thought.

Here is my take on the subject. First, Jesus’ comment in its entirety is, “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven.” (NKJV)

I see this as a small detail (art term – small part of a large picture) in the overall portrait of how relationships in heaven are different from things on earth. Here on earth (i.e., in the physical universe), our relationships are largely horizontal: " But I want you to be without care. He who is unmarried cares for the things of the Lord—how he may please the Lord. But he who is married cares about the things of the world—how he may please his wife. There is a difference between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman cares about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But she who is married cares about the things of the world—how she may please her husband." (I Cor. 7:32-34) Our conversations among each other, even when we’re ascending the steps to the front door of the church, are on horizontal topics: how things are going in business, who is ill and who is getting better, what college our kids won admission to, who’s going to win the World Series this year – the list goes on and on.

However, Jesus said that after the Resurrection, we shall be like the angels. Clarence Goodbody and Jonathan Smith to the contrary, this does not mean that we will actually be angels. Rather, I believe this to be a depiction of our focus as being vertical (on Him who sits on the throne), rather than horizontal (shaking hands with the elders, telling our kindred good morning, etc.).

People who have loved ones whom they believe to be in Heaven and whom they are looking forward to seeing again will not like this, because the ties of affection are so strong that they cannot imagine anything overcoming them. However, I believe that those ties can be pushed far into the shadows by the overcoming power derived from the experience of being in the physical presence of the Holy Trinity.

D

Edit: Forgot the song link:

 
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But even without procreation penile-vaginal intercourse is unitive. Song of Songs contains no reference to the procreative function of sexuality. Lovemaking for the sake of love, not procreation, is the message of the Song.
 
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I’m sure there is some degree of relationship somewhere between “my focus is on pleasing my husband on earth” and “he means no more to me than some stranger from Boise in heaven”. I will leave it to God to sort out.

I do not find the speculations of other people the least bit helpful in dealing with this topic, so I think I’ll go on mute.
 

" While the lovers in the Song are clearly human figures, both Jewish and Christian traditions across the centuries have adopted “allegorical” interpretations. The Song is seen as a beautiful picture of the ideal Israel, the chosen people whom the Lord leads by degrees to a greater understanding and closer union in the bond of perfect love. Such readings of the Song build on Israel’s covenant tradition. Isaiah (Is 5:1–7; 54:4–8; 62:5), Jeremiah (Jer 2:2, 3, 32), and Ezekiel (Ez 16; 23) all characterize the covenant between the Lord and Israel as a marriage. Hosea the prophet sees the idolatry of Israel in the adultery of Gomer (Hos 1–3). He also represents the Lord speaking to Israel’s heart (Hos 2:16) and changing her into a new spiritual people, purified by the Babylonian captivity and betrothed anew to her divine Lover “in justice and uprightness, in love and mercy” (Hos 2:21). Similar imagery has also been used frequently in Jewish mystical texts. The Song offers a welcome corrective to negative applications of the theological metaphor of the marriage/covenant in some prophetic texts. It frequently proclaims a joyous reciprocity between the lovers and highlights the active role of the female partner, now a pure figure to be cherished rather than an adulterous woman to be punished and abused. See also Is 62:3–5.

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Christian tradition has followed Israel’s example in using marriage as an image for the relationship with God. This image is found extensively in the New Testament (Mt 9:15; 25:1–13; Jn 3:29; 2 Cor 11:2; Eph 5:23–32; Rev 19:7–9; 21:9–11). Thus the Song has been read as a sublime portrayal and praise of this mutual love of the Lord and his people. Christian writers have interpreted the Song in terms of the union between Christ and the Church and of the union between Christ and the individual soul, particularly in the writings of Origen and St. Bernard."
 
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