No marriage in the resurrection?

²⁷ Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him ²⁸ and asked him a question, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. ²⁹ Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; ³⁰ then the second ³¹ and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. ³² Finally the woman also died. ³³ In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.” ³⁴ Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; ³⁵ but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. ³⁶ Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. ³⁷ And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. ³⁸ Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.” ³⁹ Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” ⁴⁰ For they no longer dared to ask him another question. Luke 20:27-40

First, Jesus says we will not marry because we “cannot die any more” (Luke 20:35) – since one of the primary reasons for earthly marriage is procreation, in order to continue the human race.

Interestingly, rabbinic teachings affirm this & base their belief in the celibacy of the world to come on the Israelites’ abstinence from marital relations @ Mount Sinai (Now since God, when He revealed himself for only one day, forbade intercourse for three days, in the World-to-Come, when the presence of God [Hebrew shekinah] dwells continuously in Israel’s midst, will not intercourse be entirely forbidden? (Midrash on Psalms 146:4) (133).

Positively – “According to the book of Revelation, the glory of the kingdom of God will not mean the absence of all marriage, but the fulfillment of earthly marriage in the great wedding of Christ and the Church (“for the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready” (Rev 19:6-9)).

Once this piece of the puzzle is put into place, we find that there is no opposition between the idea that there is no marriage in the resurrection and the idea that Jesus is the Bridegroom. Rather, we find that the one idea provides the explanation for the other. The reason there will be no ordinary earthly marriage in the bodily resurrection is that ordinary earthly marriage is a sign that points beyond itself to the true marriage: the union of Christ and the Church. Once the reality of the eternal marriage of God and his people in Christ has been fulfilled, there will no longer be any need for the earthly sign. In the life of the world to come, the goal of all marriage—personal communion and the gift of life—will be completely fulfilled by the union of the bride with Christ and his gift to her of eternal life. 135