Why is Marriage not considered to be eternal?

[Blackout]

I still don’t understand the “till death do us part” of the wedding vows. I know the usual explaination is Luke 20:27-35 (biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2020:27-35&version=ESV) but no one really looks into this very much:

• firstly, the words our Lord uses are **not **talking about the status of being married (i.e a couple married in this life) but the *act *of marriage itself, Jesus does not say that spouses will be seperated in this life at any point.

-secondly, If we look deeper, we can understand what *may *be really meant by marriage here: the saducees, not believing in the afterlife, probably saw marriage as society giving property rights over a woman to her husband, which is supported by the old testament perspective of seeing women as property and marriage being more a form of ownership. Jesus however clearly saw that true marriage was actually a spiritual bond formed of love, and so by stating that “they shall neither marry nor be given in marriage”, he was just simply rejecting the saducees idea of marriage and didn’t want to subject the beauty of true, eternal, spiritual marriage to the lustful minds of the saducees.

-thirdly, to imply that marriage is inexistant in heaven would imply that there is no spiritual bond between husband and wife, which is untrue as stated by Matthew 19:6: "So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”.

-fourthly, while never explicitly mentioned, many passages in scripture seem to make out that marriage is eternal: as mentioned above- Matthew 19:6, Ecclesiates 3:14, Malachi 2:16, etc.

-fifthly, why would God seperate spouses in death if he hates divorce in life?

-sixthly, the relationship between Christ and the church -which is of course, eternal- is compared to a marriage, it would seem a little odd that God would mirror his eternal covenant with us in something temporary?

-seventhly, if marriage is a very good thing (Genesis 1:31) what possible reason is there to not continue it in the ressurection?

-eighthly, marriage isn’t really the subject here, the resurection is. also it seems silly to base an entire theology on marriage based on one set of verses.

-ninethly, people seem to be implying by the notion of marriage not being eternal that marriage, romantic/sexual love or even sex itself is sinful or iniquotus (amazingly, some people *do *believe such heresy), which of course is ridiculous and the Bible sates the exact oppsite (see the Song of songs, and just about every passage about marriage the Bible has to offer!)

-tenthly, why would you *possibly *, in the entire creation want to believe that marriage is not eternal anyway? and why would you possibly want to convince happily married, loving couples of the same?

-elleventhly, (and lastly, though I could go on) is a Simple common sense argument: Why? why would a loving God, who was prepared to sacrifice his Son to save us from our own sin, have a problem with couples being married after death? why would he do it? surely it would be an incredibly cruel thing to do for a God of love? say for example a loving husband looses his wife to a disesase a few years after their marriage, can we say from our hearts that a God of love, mercy and compassion would deny him the right to be reunited with his wife in the kingdom of God? I really doubt it. besides, what kind of cruel person would want to make him belive that they won’t be together again one day, certainly not God!

like I said, I could go on. apologies for the long block of text, or any errors or omissions, but I had a lot to say as you can see.

please refer to these links for more information:

whatthebiblesays.info/Marriageinheaven.html

catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=3793

God Bless you and your marriage!

Pax Christi.

 

[Justin_Mee]

I have wondered some of the same things myself. However, I am comforted in knowing that there will be NO sadness or regrets in Heaven. You will not want for anything or have any discomfort. I will trust in God to sort it out. +

 

[catharina]

I still don’t understand the “till death do us part” of the wedding vows. I know the usual explaination is Luke 20:27-35 (biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2020:27-35&version=ESV) but no one really looks into this very much:

• firstly, the words our Lord uses are **not **talking about the status of being married (i.e a couple married in this life) but the *act *of marriage itself, Jesus does not say that spouses will be seperated in this life at any point.
  Your point???

-secondly, If we look deeper, we can understand what *may *be really meant by marriage here: the saducees, not believing in the afterlife, probably saw marriage as society giving property rights over a woman to her husband, which is supported by the old testament perspective of seeing women as property and marriage being more a form of ownership. Jesus however clearly saw that true marriage was actually a spiritual bond formed of love, and so by stating that “they shall neither marry nor be given in marriage”, he was just simply rejecting the saducees idea of marriage and didn’t want to subject the beauty of true, eternal, spiritual marriage to the lustful minds of the saducees.
In your opinion.

-thirdly, to imply that marriage is inexistant in heaven would imply that there is no spiritual bond between husband and wife, which is untrue as stated by Matthew 19:6: "So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”.
As you say this you are contradicting a known teaching of Our Lord. Why do that?

-fourthly, while never explicitly mentioned, many passages in scripture seem to make out that marriage is eternal: as mentioned above- Matthew 19:6, Ecclesiates 3:14, Malachi 2:16, etc.
Again, in your opinion.

-fifthly, why would God seperate spouses in death if he hates divorce in life?
Guessing then that you have no belief in re-marriage for the widowed?

-sixthly, the relationship between Christ and the church -which is of course, eternal- is compared to a marriage, it would seem a little odd that God would mirror his eternal covenant with us in something temporary?
The marriage of significance is the marriage of Christ and His Church.
Nothing else can compare to that.

-seventhly, if marriage is a very good thing (Genesis 1:31) what possible reason is there to not continue it in the ressurection?
Childbirth is a very good thing. Shall it continue too?

-eighthly, marriage isn’t really the subject here, the resurection is. also it seems silly to base an entire theology on marriage based on one set of verses.
Except the verses quote the words of Christ the Lord.

-ninethly, people seem to be implying by the notion of marriage not being eternal that marriage, romantic/sexual love or even sex itself is sinful or iniquotus (amazingly, some people *do *believe such heresy), which of course is ridiculous and the Bible sates the exact oppsite (see the Song of songs, and just about every passage about marriage the Bible has to offer!)
Do you understand that you are about one inch away from the false doctrine of eternal marriage, a “teaching” invented by the Mormons, similar to the teaching that all married couples will “graduate” to becoming Gods?

-tenthly, why would you *possibly *, in the entire creation want to believe that marriage is not eternal anyway? and why would you possibly want to convince happily married, loving couples of the same?
**Simple. The teaching is based on the words of Christ the Lord. **

-elleventhly, (and lastly, though I could go on) is a Simple common sense argument: Why? why would a loving God, who was prepared to sacrifice his Son to save us from our own sin, have a problem with couples being married after death? why would he do it? surely it would be an incredibly cruel thing to do for a God of love? say for example a loving husband looses his wife to a disesase a few years after their marriage, can we say from our hearts that a God of love, mercy and compassion would deny him the right to be reunited with his wife in the kingdom of God? I really doubt it. besides, what kind of cruel person would want to make him belive that they won’t be together again one day, certainly not God!
**Bolded above: your words are shockingly irreverent. **

like I said, I could go on. apologies for the long block of text, or any errors or omissions, but I had a lot to say as you can see.

please refer to these links for more information:

whatthebiblesays.info/Marriageinheaven.html

catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=3793

God Bless you and your marriage!

Pax Christi.

**Matthew 22:

29 Jesus said to them in reply, “You are misled because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God.
30 At the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like the angels in heaven.
31 And concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God,
32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”

It’s so simple to accept the teachings of Our Lord -
especially when your “questions” lead you to accuse God of “cruelty.”

If you are, in fact, new to Catholicism, whay are you reading sites that are not Catholic?**

 

[catharina]

I have wondered some of the same things myself. However, I am comforted in knowing that there will be NO sadness or regrets in Heaven. You will not want for anything or have any discomfort. I will trust in God to sort it out. +

Wondering about things is natural for all of us.
Trusting God ‘to sort it out’ is a wise statement of the Catholic faith.

 

[Blackout]

acctually that second one is catholic.

 

[catharina]

acctually that second one is catholic.

That’s your entire response?

 

[Blackout]

no, it was just the first thing that came to my head.

the main thing I would say overall is that it’s not so simple just to accept the teaching. why would I? it’s a horrible and really sick idea that there is no marriage in heaven, I cannot believe God would do that. you explain just why he would?

 

[catharina]

no, it was just the first thing that came to my head.

the main thing I would say overall is that it’s not so simple just to accept the teaching. why would I? it’s a horrible and really sick idea that there is no marriage in heaven, I cannot believe God would do that. you explain just why he would?

I am not in the habit of expalining the why-s of God’s actions.
In fact, I can NOT do so. God is not obliged to give us His “reasons.”
He is GOD. We are not God.

What He gives to us is the gift of Faith.
We are to nurture it and tresure it as the pearl of great price.
It is FAITH that enables us to believe and accept the will of God.
It is NOT any understanding of GOD’S “reasoning.”

 

[Blackout]

ok that’s fine! don’t reason with this. your descision. but I simply refuse to accept that there is no marriage in heaven.

 

[JBCatholicRN]

catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=3793

Pontifical Household Preacher on Sunday’s Gospel

ROME, NOV. 11, 2006 (Zenit) - Here is a translation of a commentary by the Pontifical Household preacher, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, on the readings from this Sunday’s liturgy.

---

There came a poor widow
32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (b)
1 Kings 7:10-16; Hebrews 9:24-28; Mark 12:38-44

One day, Jesus was standing before the temple treasury, watching people deposit their offerings. He saw a poor widow come and put in all she had, two copper coins, which make a penny. He turned to his disciples and said, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than the others. All have given from their excess, but she, in her poverty, put in all she had, all she had to live on.”

We might call this Sunday the “Sunday of the widows.” The story of a widow was also told in the first reading, the widow of Zarephath who gave up all she had left to eat (a handful of flour and a drop of oil) to prepare a meal for the prophet Elijah.

This is a good occasion in which to turn our attention toward both the widows and the widowers of today. If the Bible speaks so often of widows and never of widowers it is because in ancient society the woman who was left alone was at a greater disadvantage than the man who was left alone. Today there is no longer this difference. Actually, in general it now seems that women who are alone manage much better than men.

On this occasion I would like to treat a theme that is of definite interest not only to widows and widowers but also to all those who are married, especially during this month in which we remember the dead. Does the death of a husband or wife, which brings about the legal end of a marriage, also bring with it the total end of communion between the two persons? Does something of that bond which so strongly united two persons on earth remain in heaven, or will all be forgotten once we have crossed the threshold into eternal life?

One day, some Sadducees presented Jesus with the unlikely case of a woman who was successively the wife of seven brothers, asking him whose wife she would be after the resurrection. Jesus answered: “When they rise from the dead they will neither marry nor be given in marriage but will be like angels in heaven” (Mark 12:25).

Interpreting this saying of Jesus wrongly, some have claimed that marriage will have no follow-up in heaven. But with his reply Jesus is rejecting the caricature the Sadducees presented of heaven, as if it were going to be a simple continuation of the earthly relationship of the spouses. Jesus does not exclude the possibility that they might rediscover in God the bond that united them on earth.

According to this vision, marriage does not come to a complete end at death but is transfigured, spiritualized, freed from the limits that mark life on earth, as also the ties between parents and children or between friends will not be forgotten. In a preface for the dead the liturgy proclaims: “Life is transformed, not taken away.” Even marriage, which is part of life, will be transfigured, not nullified.

But what about those who have had a negative experience of earthly marriage, an experience of misunderstanding and suffering? Should not this idea that the marital bond will not break at death be for them, rather than a consolation, a reason for fear? No, for in the passage from time to eternity the good remains and evil falls away. The love that united them, perhaps for only a brief time, remains; defects, misunderstandings, suffering that they inflicted on each other, will fall away.

Indeed, this very suffering, accepted with faith, will be transformed into glory. Many spouses will experience true love for each other only when they will be reunited “in God,” and with this love there will be the joy and fullness of the union that they did not know on earth. In God all will be understood, all will be excused, all will be forgiven.

Some will ask of course about those who have been legitimately married to different people, widowers and widows who have remarried. (This was the case presented to Jesus of the seven brothers who successively had the same woman as their wife.) Even for them we must repeat the same thing: That which was truly love and self-surrender between each of the husbands or wives, being objectively a good coming from God, will not be dissolved. In heaven there will not be rivalry in love or jealousy. These things do not belong to true love but to the intrinsic limits of the creature.

 

[JBCatholicRN]

ok that’s fine! don’t reason with this. your descision. but I simply refuse to accept that there is no marriage in heaven.

Good. Read the article I just posted, very good read.

 

[skinny_pumpkin]

This a complex issue. It might help to look at some early patristic teachings on Genesis and also in that light, consider why the Church has always considered virginity or chastity a very high virtue.

The patristic fathers often approached the first chapters of Genesis in a non linear fashion. “Marriage” and procreation is a condescension/or mercy given to mankind because of God’s foreknowledge of man’s fall.

Adam and Eve were seen as chaste, and childlike, innocent in some aspects in Paradise. After the fall, they realized they were naked, and “physical” marriage, pain in childbirth “physical” etc. was the mercy extended by God.

But the higher marriage was “spiritual”, or being one. Christ is the prime example, as well as Mary being supreme in this regard. Part of the redemption of man means a return to the garden, or the restoration of man (it also ultimately surpasses even that extreme state of grace).

It is within this context of following Christ’s example of being the “true” way and manifesting the highest form of humanity, that chastity is a virtue. Even though God has provided marriage, out of mercy, the highest form of existence is a spiritual marriage that was manifested by Christ and the Virgin Mary.

Earthly marriage, to express it crudely, is a training ground or a figure of what is the true marriage to come. This is why in scripture, there are so many descriptions of Christ being the “bridegroom” and the church, as a whole, being His bride.

 

[catharina]

1 Corinthians
Chapter 13

11 When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.
12 At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.
13 So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Since it is God Alone Who taught us this, it’s safe to say that HIS way is best.

Perhaps the greatest singular task of adulthood is recognizing that we are NOT God.
We can NOT understand His ways. We are to accept His ways. That’s adulthood.

To pretend that we could/should understand God’s ways is an exercise in madness.

 

[JBCatholicRN]

I trust what a priest says though. I do not believe that the spritual bond of marriage will be dissolved in heaven, merely transformed. I cannot imagine the love I have for my wife disappearing nor could I imagine an afterlife in which she isnt with me. God gave her to me, I know he won’t take her away.

 

[catharina]

ok that’s fine! don’t reason with this. your descision. but I simply refuse to accept that there is no marriage in heaven.

Are you saying that you refuse to accept a teaching of the Church?
… based on your very human, totally normal inability to understand the ways of God
and the traditional teachings of the Church?

How on earth do you accept the Eucharist?
the Sacrament of Penance?
Baptism?

All depends on faith. Everything is grace. (St. Paul)

 

[catharina]

I trust what a priest says though. I do not believe that the spritual bond of marriage will be dissolved in heaven, merely transformed. I cannot imagine the love I have for my wife disappearing nor could I imagine an afterlife in which she isnt with me. God gave her to me, I know he won’t take her away.

Very well said. I think you’ve got it!
In heaven, life is CHANGED. That means changed for the better!

 

[skinny_pumpkin]

1 Corinthians
Chapter 13

11 When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.
12 At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.
13 So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

.

Great quote. I should ad to my above post, that this is why Paul describes marriage as a “great Mystery”. Earthly marriage is a prefigure of the mysterious union of man and Christ. This is one reason it is held in such high regard, and is a great sacrament. In a way, the selfless love of one to another exemplifies what should be the relationship between the Church and Christ.

As some fathers have stated, marriage is a kind of "micro’ church militant.

 

[Justin_Mee]

I trust what a priest says though. I do not believe that the spritual bond of marriage will be dissolved in heaven, merely transformed. I cannot imagine the love I have for my wife disappearing nor could I imagine an afterlife in which she isnt with me. God gave her to me, I know he won’t take her away.

I am trying to figure out if it will be my first loving wife (God rest her soul), or my second loving wife. +

 

[seagal]

I have wondered some of the same things myself. However, **I am comforted in knowing that there will be NO sadness or regrets in Heaven. **You will not want for anything or have any discomfort. I will trust in God to sort it out. +

I trust what a priest says though. I do not believe that the spritual bond of marriage will be dissolved in heaven, merely transformed. I cannot imagine the love I have for my wife disappearing nor could I imagine an afterlife in which she isnt with me. God gave her to me, I know he won’t take her away.

My darling husband died nearly 3 years ago. My only consolation is that I will see him some day in heaven, even though I know it won’t be the same kind of union we had in our earthly journey. Catharina, you may only be stating Catholic teaching, but you have a remarkably harsh way of putting it.

 

[Blackout]

I think the marriage to Christ is refering to our total reunion with him and oneness in heaven, I don’t belive marriage in this life is *just *a preview of our union with christ, married couples, I think will still be together. it’s the church as a whole that is married to christ.

oh and catharina, this has nothing to do with the other sacraments, I hate this idea that just because we choose to reject one teaching, we automatically to reject all others.