What Jesus Said about Eternal Marriage

Every once in a while I run across a Mormon attempt to rationalize away the meaning of Matthew 22:29-30, wherein Jesus tells the Sadducees, "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven." Probably the most common Mormon explanation for this passage is that Jesus meant his statement to apply only to the seven brothers in the Sadducees' hypothetical, whose marriages presumably were not eternal temple sealings. This explanation unfortunately runs aground on the parallel passage in Luke 20:35, wherein the referent of Jesus' statement is more specific; the ones who neither marry nor are given in marriage are "those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead." Nor can Luke be referring only to those people in the story who are worthy of the resurrection, since the opposition of this category to "the people of this age" in verse 34 suggests a broader referent. It seems then that, at least in Luke's interpretation of Jesus' statement, its application is more universal than the Mormon apologist would like to allow.

The second objection that Mormon apologists commonly raise is that Jesus' statement denies only that marriage ceremonies are actually performed in heaven; he does not deny the continuation of marriages from this would to the next. Probably the most obvious problem with this rationalization, which plays on the semantic ambiguities of the text, is that it means that Jesus dodged the question. The Sadducees' question was not about heavenly marriage ceremonies; it was about the continuation of marriage. Do we really want to suggest that Jesus was playing semantic games to avoid answering a difficult question?

Incidentally, this passage comes as the second in a series of "trick questions" that the Sadducees posed to Jesus. In each case he gives two answers: he answers the question that was asked him, and he takes the opportunity to tack on another, related teaching principle. He answers the question about taxes and adds an exhortation to tithe. He answers the question about marriage and also defends the resurrection. He answers the question about the greates commandment and also teaches about the second greatest commandment. These are great teaching moments in Jesus' career: in each case he has a fantastic answer for the question that is asked, and in each case he takes advantage of the opportunity to transmit even more light and knowledge than was solicited. Matthew 22 mirrors this structure: not only did Jesus give a straightforward answer to the question, but he also gave a straightforward answer to the question behind the question (i.e. about the reality of the resurrection).

What about the semantic issue? does not the use of the present tense here suggest a reference to marriage ceremonies rather than to a continuation of marriage? I don't want to belabor this point, because I don't think the New Testament was meant to be picked apart with a fine-toothed grammatical comb, but here's my take. In Greek, and especially in Biblical Greek, tenses do not indicate the time that an action was performed; rather, they communicate something called "aspect." There are three major "aspects" in Greek, but Koine focuses on two of them: present aspect and aorist aspect. Present aspect might be described as ongoing action and shows you action as it unfolds. It emphasizes process. Aorist aspect is like a snapshot, and simply indicates an action. (The other aspect, perfect, emphasizes completed action.)

We might think of the three aspects in visual terms this way:

Present
------------------------->
Aorist
.
Perfect
------------------.

Since "marry" and "be given in marriage" are in the present rather than the aorist tense, they refer to something ongoing rather than to a single, limited event. I think that the most natural reading of this passage, then, is that it applies to the continuation of marriage as well as to the formation of new marriage unions.

Probably more important than semantics for our understanding of this passage is the cultural context in which it comes. Early Christians had a particular fondness for the Book of Enoch, which in fact is quoted as scripture in the epistle of Jude. Enochian logic appears to be what underlies Jesus statement that "they will be like the angels." In Enoch some angels who procreated with the daughters of men are admonished as follows.

"Why have you left the high heaven and the eternal Holy One, and lain with women, and defiled yourselves with the daughters of men and taken to yourselves wives, and acted like the children of earth and begotten giants for sons? But you were holy, spirits that live forever, yet you defiled yourselves with the blood of women, and have begotten (children) by the blood of flesh; and you lusted after the daughters of men and have produced flesh and blood, just as they do who die and perish. It was for this reason I gave them females that they might impregnate them and thus produce children by them, that pregnancy should never fail them upon the earth. But as for you, you formerly were spirits that live for ever and do not die for all generations for ever. And for this reason I did not provide wives for you, because for celestial spirits heaven is their dwellingplace." (1 Enoch 15:2-7)

The assumption here is that since angels are immortal, they are not supposed to procreate. Our texts in Matthew and Luke bear out this logic. Both link the angels to celibacy, and Luke links them also to immortality: "[...] and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels." I think it is a fair assumption that anyone who heard Jesus' teaching would have understood it through an Enochian lens.

To read a debate wherein I go into greater detail on these and other points, click here.