(Bump)
I’m not understanding your thinking here. Catholics clearly believe in Christ and in the Resurrection, yet you have intimated that we will have a different “status of resurrection” because we don’t believe in “celestial marriages”.
Hi, Jay53,
The Luke passage about “neither marry, nor are given in marriage” is Luke 20:35. As I have noted, “worthiness” does not qualify a person to receive the resurrection, but does qualify what kind of resurrection a person will receive. Luke 20:35 was rendered from the Greek (Textus Receptus) with several choices made by a translator. One choice is the use of the word “world” or “kingdom” or “place” after the word “that”. Another choice is the insertion of a comma (not in the Greek) and the insertion of the word “the” in front of the word “resurrection”. It makes more sense from the Greek to be true to the meaning conveyed in Greek by saying, “worthy to be given that place and resurrection from death, 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 resurrection.” Note the contrast between “children of God” (which Christ says those dead Sadducees are when they are resurrected). Why are they “children of God” in their resurrection but yet were described earlier as “the children of this world”? (v. 34).
1–Because Christ is the Father of their resurrection, and without Him they would not have a resurrection.
2–Because they will find out in the spirit world that there is a resurrection unlike what they had believed on earth, and they will finally repent of their unbelief and accept Christ as their Redeemer. But because they limited their understanding while in mortality, they will have a “place and resurrection from death” that includes no marriages for them.
Now, by going back to Christ’s teaching about marriage and divorce, it would be well to re-read His words in Matthew 19:6: “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” God is an eternal Being with an eternal view of humankind. The Mosaic law allowed man to put marriage–which God had “from the beginning” (v. 8) made an eternal covenant by doing the “joining” that is the joint covenant of marriage itself when done by God–into a lesser contract status, a contract status that allowed for divorce “because of the hardness of [their] hearts.” (v. 8) “…but from the beginning it was not so.”
Now, re-read the words of Christ to the apostles in Matthew 18:18: “Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” This means that they are acting with the authority of God and that what they do with that authority is just as if God were doing it. Add to that the teaching, “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” and it leads to an eternal view of the marriage covenant–not a “for time only” view, not a “for this life only” view, but an eternal view.
Again, this is why the Sadducees came up with their hypothetical example in the first place. They knew of the belief in the endurance of marriage after the resurrection. They were scoffing at both concepts–the idea of a resurrection, and the idea of marriage in the resurrection. They were trying to justify themselves by using the Mosaic law to do it, which they were insisting could not possibly have inferred that there was going to be a resurrection, else why (they thought) would there have been the kind of situation they were hypothetically describing, and yet it be lawful under the Mosaic law and still confirm a belief in resurrection and in marriage in the resurrection?
Laying that groundwork above, I can answer your question by observing that the kind of resurrection that one receives will be based on what laws and commandments they have chosen to live by with all the heart and soul, and by whether they seek out the authority that really does “bind on earth shall be bound in heaven” and desire that their personal marriage covenant with their spouse be placed within that kind of authority from God delegated to the apostles to “bind in heaven.”
At the same time, bear in mind that one of Christ’s purposes was to preserve the complete freedom of choice of humankind even as He taught eternal principles. If one re-reads 1 Corinthians 2 one can discern that not every principle of the gospel was intended to be gleaned and understood through man’s wisdom. Spiritual understanding and wisdom require gaining the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
So this entire set of conditions for differences in the resurrection, although taught by Christ, is not going to jump out at you because He would not do that–He does not force belief nor would He jeopardize the sacredness of the eternal marriage covenant by allowing it to be “copied” by people who would take pure principles and make them less than pure. This is why He taught in a way that “seeing, they see not.” Those things that are spiritually discerned as one is spiritually ready to discern them, will be seen whereas those unready will “see them not.”
Further, the idea of having lasting life-long marriages on earth is also good (as long as it is not forced, and the principle of a “lesser law”–as exemplified by the Mosaic law–is also allowed since marriage in and of itself is a good thing). So Christ accomplished several purposes by knowing all things and allowing that what was going to be done with His teachings, be done. His teachings on marriage allowed for different levels of application, depending on the spiritual preparedness of the receivers of the teachings.
Have a great day, Jay53.
If you want to just ignore me I guess that’s your call. I thought it was a valid question.
