The Objections

I am not concerned if most teachers disagree, unless there is a biblical argument beyond "the Bible does not really say." A lot of people can hold a reading because it is true, or because it is the only one they were ever taught. What would change my mind is a verse that actually contradicts this, or a real hole in the logic. Here are the strongest arguments against it, put the way someone who believes them would put them.

"Gender was only for having children"

The argument: Luke says they can no longer die and are like the angels, who do not have children. If male and female were only there to replace the dead, that reason ends, so the difference should end too.

My answer: being fruitful is a blessing God gave the pair. Genesis 1:28 It is not the reason Genesis gives for making the woman. The reason given is that it was not good for the man to be alone, and that among the animals “no suitable helper was found” Genesis 2:20. Jesus ties the end of marrying to the end of death. That fits heirs, the brother-in-law law, and a family name that has to carry on. It fits the institution. It does not rewrite Genesis 2.

Galatians 3:28

There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28

Look at the pairs in that verse. Jews and Greeks still existed in the churches Paul wrote to. Slaves and free men still existed. Paul sent Onesimus back to Philemon “no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a beloved brother” Philemon 1:16. That only means something if both the old standing and the new brotherhood are real. The verse is about who shares in the promise. Paul keeps writing to men and women as men and women in the same letters, so this verse cannot be doing away with the creation.

"The church is the only bride"

The argument: the church is the bride of the Lamb, so every human pairing is replaced. Revelation 19:7

My answer: that was already true while believers were married. Paul told husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church, in the same passage where he calls one flesh a mystery about Christ and the church. Ephesians 5:25-32 He never told them the bigger union made their wives unnecessary. If both were true at the same time in Ephesus, the end of marrying in the age to come does not prove the smaller union was only a sketch.

"A spiritual body has no gender"

Paul says, “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.” 1 Corinthians 15:44 Earlier in the same letter he uses those same two words for people: “The natural man does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God.” 1 Corinthians 2:14 and “The spiritual man judges all things” 1 Corinthians 2:15. A spiritual man in chapter 2 still has a body. Spiritual, the way Paul uses it, means led and given life by the Spirit, not made out of spirit instead of flesh. The whole point of chapter 15 is that the body is raised, and the risen Jesus has “flesh and bones” Luke 24:39.

"Desire would bring sin back"

The argument: if men and women remain, and some kind of union remains, desire comes back, and jealousy and shame come with it.

My answer: desire is not the fall. Shame came after the fall. Before it, “the man and his wife were both naked, and they were not ashamed” Genesis 2:25. In the new earth “there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the former things have passed away” Revelation 21:4. Taking away sin is not the same as taking away something good God made before sin.

I still will not try to describe it. No verse tells us what closeness is like for the raised, and I do not have that answer.

The Seven Brothers

Nothing in Scripture says the person you marry here is the one you will be in union with in the new heavens and new earth. We are given only thin pieces of what that life will be, and the clearest ones we have are who God is and how He made the first creation. So whose wife this woman would be is simply unknown. If I had to guess, many who are married here probably will be together there, but I trust God with that, because He knows the right union for everyone. I do agree that marriage ends at death. I just do not think that means there is nothing better on the other side, where sin no longer corrupts us. Marriage now is a dim reflection of that union, and getting married here does not lock two people together forever. Think of a believer married to someone who never comes to Christ. Would that believer be joined forever to someone who is lost? That makes no sense.

The Sadducees did not ask because they wanted to know. They built a ridiculous case to poke holes in Christ, and He gave them the answer that was right for that moment. He did not explain everything, and part of the reason is that we could not take it all in. “Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face” 1 Corinthians 13:12. When we look at marriage now, we are looking at that dim reflection, not yet at the real thing without sin.

What Would Actually Tear It Down

A verse that said the raised are no longer male and female. A verse that said the woman was only made to deal with death, and is no longer needed once death is gone. A verse that said "like the angels" means we are no longer the people of Genesis 1. Any of those would tear this down. I have not found them.

What I have is a conclusion, drawn past a true verse, held because the other conclusion throws away more than Jesus named. Most teachers agreeing is not the missing verse.

Back to the lesson: Marriage and Union