Marriage in the Millennium

TILL DEATH DO US PART What YAHSHUA Really Meant When He Said They Neither Marry Nor Are Given in Marriage A Doctrinal Treatise of First Harvest Ministries International For centuries, one statement of YAHSHUA has been repeated as though its meaning were obvious: “In the resurrection they neither marry, nor are giv- en in marriage...” From this single sentence, tradition has drawn a sweeping conclusion: There will be no marriage in the Kingdom of YAHWEH. But that is not what YAHSHUA said. He did not say there will be no families in the Kingdom. He did not say there will be no husbands and wives among mortal humanity. He did not say no children will be born during the reign of Messiah. What He said was far more precise. He was answering a question about resurrection, death, and marital covenant — and He was answering men who believed in none of the things they were asking about. When His words are read in their setting, and when the rest of Scripture is allowed to speak, the traditional reading does not merely weaken. It collapses. I. THE TEXT HAS BEEN MADE TO SAY MORE THAN IT S AYS Begin with the actual words. Three witnesses record them. Matthew: “For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.” — Matthew 22:30 Mark: “For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven.” — Mark 12:25 Luke gives the fullest account, and Luke is the key: “The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage: But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, 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 chil- dren of the resurrection.” — Luke 20:34–36 Read Luke slowly, because every phrase narrows the subject. First — “this world” and “that world.” The word Luke uses is aion: an age. YAHSHUA contrasts the sons of this age with those who obtain that age. He is speaking of a when, not a where. Tradition has quietly turned an age into a place, and then turned that place into a heaven without families. The text knows nothing of it. Second — “accounted worthy to obtain.” YAHSHUA is not describing everyone who will ever live under Messiah’s gov- ernment. He is describing a company that is accounted worthy — a company that obtains something. This is the language of a prize. It is the same thing Paul strained toward: “If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead” (Phi- lippians 3:11). It is “the resurrection of the just” (Luke 14:14), the “better resurrection” (Hebrews 11:35), the “first resurrec- tion” (Revelation 20:6). *Third — “the resurrection from the dead.” Not merely the res- urrection of the dead, but the resurrection out from among* the dead — a rising that leaves others still in their graves. “But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished” (Revelation 20:5). Fourth — He names them. “The children of the resurrection.” Fifth — He defines them. “Neither can they die any more.” So the subject of the sentence is fixed by YAHSHUA Himself. He is speaking of a worthy company, raised out from among the dead, into an age to come, who can never die again. Everything He says about marriage, He says about them. The passage is not about the abolition of family. It is about the condition of resurrected immortality. II. THE QUESTION CAME FROM THE SADDUCEES We cannot understand the answer until we understand the question — and the men who asked it. “For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit...” — Acts 23:8 They did not come to learn. They came to mock. And they came armed with Moses: “Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.” — Matthew 22:24 Then the riddle. Seven brothers. The first marries and dies childless. The second takes her and dies. Then the third — down to the seventh. Last of all the woman dies. “Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her.” — Matthew 22:28 Their argument was this: If resurrection is true, then the Torah of Moses produces an absurdity. Seven men cannot all have one wife. Therefore resurrection is false. It was clever. It set Moses against the resurrection and dared YAHSHUA to choose. But the whole riddle rested on one unspoken assumption: That resurrection restores every previous marriage cove- nant. Notice that their own words betray them. “They all had her.” Past tense. Even the Sadducees could not frame the riddle without admitting that those marriages were over. YAHSHUA destroys the assumption — and He does it with the very Scriptures they claimed to honor. III. TILL DEATH DO US PART The phrase “till death do us part” comes to us from the old English marriage service. It is not a quotation from Scripture. But the law behind it most certainly is. Paul, writing to those who “know the law,” lays down the prin- ciple before he gives the example: “Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?” — Romans 7:1 Then the example: “For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another m a n .” — Romans 7:2–3 And again: “The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will...” — 1 Corinthians 7:39 The principle is unmistakable. The marriage covenant binds the living. Death ends the marriage covenant. This is not a minor technicality. The entire lawfulness of a widow’s remarriage depends upon it. If the first covenant sur- vived the grave, every remarried widow in Israel would be an adulteress. Paul says she is not. Why? Because the covenant is finished. Not suspended. Not sleeping. Finished. Now carry that law into the Sadducees’ riddle — for the riddle cannot even exist without it. How did the woman lawfully marry the second brother? Be- cause the first marriage had ended. How did she lawfully marry the third? Because the second had ended. Seven lawful marriages require six dissolved marriages. The Sadducees needed death to end each covenant in order to build their story — and then demanded that resurrection undo what their own story required. By the time the woman herself died, not one of those cove- nants was in force. So when they asked, “Whose wife shall she be?” the law had already answered, seven times over. Resurrection raises persons. It does not raise expired con- tracts. IV. THEY CHOSE A LAW THAT EXISTS BECAUSE OF DEATH Look at which commandment the Sadducees selected. It was not chosen at random, and it becomes the rope they hang themselves with. “If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife... And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel.” — Deuteronomy 25:5–6 Every clause of that law is about death. One of them die. The wife of the dead. His brother which is dead. That his name be not put out. Boaz stated its purpose plainly when he took Ruth: “...to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheri- tance, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren...” — Ruth 4:10 The levirate law is YAHWEH’s mercy toward a man whom death has robbed of a future. A man dies. His line is about to vanish. Marriage and offspring are the remedy. The law answers a problem that only death creates. Now hear YAHSHUA’s reply again: “Neither can they die any more.” The Sadducees asked about a law built to repair what death destroys. YAHSHUA answered by describing a people whom death can never touch again. No one dies — so no name is cut off — so no brother is needed to raise up seed — so the entire machinery of their riddle has nothing left to operate upon. They brought a death-law into a deathless company and asked why it would not work. V. “FOR NEITHER CAN THEY DIE ANY MORE” Here is the hinge of the whole passage, and the King James reader can easily miss it. In Luke’s Greek, verse 36 opens with the little word gar — “ f o r .” The King James translators left it untranslated. Restore it, and YAHSHUA’s sentence reads: “...neither marry, nor are given in marriage: for nei- ther can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels...” Two “fors.” Two reasons, stacked one upon the other. They do not marry — for they cannot die. They cannot die — for they are equal to the angels and are sons of YAHWEH, being sons of the resurrection. YAHSHUA does not leave us to guess why the resurrected do not marry. He tells us. He does not say, “because marriage is unworthy of the Kingdom.” He does not say, “because fami- ly has been abolished.” He does not say, “because the body is g o n e .” He says: because they cannot die. The reason He gives is the reason we must preach. And that reason applies to one class of beings only — those who have put on immortality. It says nothing whatsoever about mortal men and women living under their government. The Sadducees assumed resurrection was mortal life restarted under the same legal conditions. YAHSHUA corrected them: resurrection is not a return to the old order. It is entrance into a new one. VI. WHAT “NEITHER MARRY NOR ARE GIVEN IN MARRIAGE” MEANS We do not need to invent an exotic idiom here. The words mean what they ordinarily mean. To “marry” is what the bridegroom does. To be “given in mar- riage” is what happens to the bride whose father gives her. Together the two verbs describe the contracting of marriages — weddings taking place. YAHSHUA uses the identical pair elsewhere: “...they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the a r k .” — Matthew 24:38 In the days of Noah, weddings were being held. That is all the phrase means. It describes an activity, not the existence of an institution in the universe. So YAHSHUA’s statement is simple and should be allowed to stand exactly as He made it: Those raised into immortal life do not contract marriages. Put the two truths side by side and the riddle is finished: 1. The old covenants ended at death. (Romans 7:2) 2. The resurrected contract no new ones. (Luke 20:35) Therefore the woman is the wife of none of the seven — and no injustice has been done to any of them. The revelation is not in redefining the words. It is in identify- ing whom the words are about. VII. WHAT “EQUAL UNTO THE ANGELS” MEANS — AND DOES NOT MEAN No phrase in this passage has been stretched further. YAHSHUA does not say they become angels. He does not say they lose their identity. He does not say they become genderless spirits. He does not say they cease to know the people they loved. Luke uses a word found nowhere else in the New Testament — isangeloi, “angel-equal” — and the sentence itself tells us in what respect: “neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels.” The point of likeness is deathlessness. Angels do not die; therefore angels do not raise up heirs to replace themselves. Neither do the sons of the resurrection. And notice the quiet blow YAHSHUA lands. The Sadducees denied the resurrection and denied angels (Acts 23:8). In a single sentence He affirms both. But He goes further than “like the angels.” He says they “are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.” That is more than any angel has been offered. “For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak.” — Hebrews 2:5 “Know ye not that we shall judge angels?” — 1 Corinthians 6:3 The age to come is not placed under angels. It is placed under the sons whom YAHWEH is “bringing... unto glory” (He- brews 2:10). The resurrected are equal to the angels in that they cannot die. They are above the angels in what they inherit. This is the language of a royal family receiving a government — not of family being abolished. VIII. “NOT KNOWING THE SCRIPTURES, NOR THE POWER OF GOD” Before He answered the riddle, YAHSHUA diagnosed the men: “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.” — Matthew 22:29 Two errors. And His answer has two halves — one for each. The power. They could not conceive of resurrection as any- thing but mortal life resumed. So He tells them what the pow- er of YAHWEH actually produces: “It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption... It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.” — 1 Corinthians 15:42, 44 “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” — 1 Corinthians 15:53 Resurrection is not resuscitation. It is transformation. The Scriptures. They had quoted Moses against the resurrec- tion. So YAHSHUA takes them back to Moses: “But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” — Matthew 22:31–32 Luke records His introduction: “Now that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush” (Luke 20:37). Mark this well. YAHSHUA proved the resurrection from the To r a h . YAHWEH bound Himself by covenant to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — and promised them a land in which Abra- ham never received “so much as to set his foot on” (Acts 7:5). If those men stay dead, the covenant fails and YAHWEH is left the Elohim of dead men. Therefore they must rise. The burn- ing bush is a resurrection text. The men who came waving Moses were answered out of Mo- ses. “And when the multitude heard this, they were aston- ished at his doctrine.” — Matthew 22:33 “And after that they durst not ask him any question at a l l .” — Luke 20:40 And yet — many interpreters have unknowingly repeated the Sadducees’ mistake in reverse. The Sadducees forced immor- tal life into the categories of mortal life. Tradition has taken a statement about immortals and forced it onto every mortal in Messiah’s Kingdom. Both errors come from the same failure: refusing to distin- guish the two orders. IX. THE PROPHETS: A KINGDOM FULL OF FAMILIES If YAHSHUA meant that no one marries anywhere in His Kingdom, then the prophets are in serious trouble — because the prophets describe that Kingdom as overflowing with households. There are children, and there is still death: “There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed.” — Isaiah 65:20 “They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of YA H- WEH, and their offspring with them.” — Isaiah 65:23 Infants. Old men. Sinners. Death at a hundred. Offspring. These are not the children of the resurrection, who “cannot die any more.” These are mortals. There are nursing babies in the age of the wolf and the lamb: “...and a little child shall lead them... And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cocka- trice’ den.” — Isaiah 11:6, 8 There are boys and girls in the streets of Jerusalem: “There shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem... And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof.” — Zechariah 8:4–5 There are strangers begetting children and receiving inheri- tance: “...the strangers that sojourn among you, which shall beget children among you: and they shall be unto you as born in the country among the children of Israel; they shall have inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel.” — Ezekiel 47:22 Both houses are sown with the seed of man: “Behold, the days come, saith YAHWEH, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man...” — Jeremiah 31:27 And the nations are still organized as families: “And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, YAHWEH of hosts, even upon them shall be no r a i n .” — Zechariah 14:17 Someone may say, “Children, yes — but the text never actually mentions marriage.” It does. Twice. Explicitly. In the restoration, in the very days when the Branch of righ- teousness grows up unto David and executes judgment in the land (Jeremiah 33:15), this is what is heard again in the cities of Judah: “The voice of joy, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride...” — Jeremiah 33:11 Weddings. In the Kingdom. And in Ezekiel’s temple — the house from which the healing river flows — YAHWEH gives the sons of Zadok a marriage law: “Neither shall they take for their wives a widow, nor her that is put away: but they shall take maidens of the seed of the house of Israel, or a widow that had a priest before.” — Ezekiel 44:22 Priests taking wives. Maidens. Widows — which means hus- bands are still dying. Three verses later those same priests are told for whom they may mourn: “for father, or for mother, or for son, or for daughter, for brother, or for sister that hath had no husband” (Ezekiel 44:25). YAHWEH does not legislate for an institution He has abol- ished. The statement “there is no marriage in the Kingdom” can- not survive contact with Jeremiah and Ezekiel. X. TWO ORDERS IN ONE KINGDOM Here is the distinction that reconciles YAHSHUA with the prophets — and it is not a clever invention. It sits on the sur- face of the text. The Resurrected Saints They have been raised or changed. They are immortal. “On such the second death hath no power” (Revelation 20:6). They do not contract marriages. And they rule. “And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations.” — Revelation 2:26 “...and we shall reign on the earth.” — Revelation 5:10 “And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High...” — Daniel 7:27 “...have thou authority over ten cities.” — Luke 19:17 The Mortal Nations They are governed. They plant and build. They go up “from year to year to worship the King, YAHWEH of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles” (Zechariah 14:16). They can disobey, and they are disciplined with drought when they do. They marry, bear children, grow old, and die. Rulers require someone to rule. Authority over ten cities re- quires ten cities — full of people. One verse that contains both “And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children’s children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince for ever.” — Ezekiel 37:25 “But they shall serve YAHWEH their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them.” — Jeremiah 30:9 David — dead and buried these three thousand years — raised up and ruling. Beneath him, a people with children and grand- children. An immortal prince over mortal generations. Two orders, one verse. The proof from Paul “For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” — 1 Corinthians 15:25–26 Reason it through. Messiah reigns until death is destroyed. Therefore death still exists during His reign. But the children of the resurrection “cannot die any more. Then who is dying? There must be another order of people in the Kingdom — people who are not the children of the resurrection. Paul requires it. Isaiah describes it. And at the end of the thousand years they are so multiplied that the nations in the four quar- ters of the earth are “as the sand of the sea” (Revelation 20:8). Sand of the sea does not come from a world without marriage. XI. OBJECTIONS ANSWERED “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” Correct — and it proves our point. Paul says flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom (1 Corinthians 15:50). To inher- it is to possess it as an heir — to sit in the government. That belongs to the immortal sons alone. But the subjects of a king- dom are not its heirs. The mortal nations live in the Kingdom and under the Kingdom. They do not inherit it until they too are changed. The verse distinguishes the two orders; it does not erase one of them. “Isaiah 65 is about the new heavens and new earth — that is eternity, not the Kingdom age.” Then why are people dying in it? In the final state, “there shall be no more death” (Revelation 21:4). In Isaiah 65:20 a man dies at a hundred and a sinner is accursed. Isaiah is describing an age under Messiah’s government in which mortals still live, sin is still judged, and the last enemy has not yet been de- stroyed. That is exactly the age we are speaking of. “Marriage was given in Eden, before death entered. So mar- riage is not a remedy for death.” Marriage is more than a remedy for death — but it has al- ways belonged to the order of flesh. “They shall be one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). It was given together with the command to “be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth” (Genesis 1:28) — a mandate for a race that was still being filled up. And Adam in Eden was not what the resurrected shall be. Adam was able not to die; he was warned, “thou shalt surely die,” and was barred from the tree of life “lest he... eat, and live for ever” (Genesis 2:17; 3:22). The children of the resurrection are not able to die. Eden was the mortal order unspoiled. The resurrec- tion is another order altogether. Marriage belongs to the first. YAHSHUA says so. “What of the saints who never die?” “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last t r u m p ...” — 1 Corinthians 15:51–52 A husband and wife are both alive at the last trumpet. No grave has parted them. Does their covenant continue? Go back to the principle Paul set down before he gave the example of the widow: “the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth” (Romans 7:1). The marriage law governs a man for the length of his mortal life. Death is the ordinary door out of that jurisdiction. The change is the other door. “This mortal must put on immortality” — and in the twinkling of an eye the mortal life to which that one-flesh covenant was attached is over. YAHSHUA’s words describe the condition, not the route. All who obtain that age — whether raised from the dust or changed in a moment — are “children of the resurrection,” and of all of them He says the same thing. Whether the parting comes by the grave or by the trumpet, the mortal covenant is not broken. It is completed. XII. DOES LOVE END WHEN THE COVENANT ENDS? Here we must be careful to say what Scripture says, and no more. Scripture explicitly teaches that death ends the marriage cove- nant. Scripture explicitly teaches that the resurrected do not contract marriage. But Scripture nowhere says the resurrected cease to love those who were their spouses. It does not say they forget their fami- lies. It does not say a husband and wife will meet as strangers. Identity survives resurrection. Many “shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 8:11) — and Abra- ham is still Abraham. A mother remains the mother of the child she bore. A father remains the father of his son. David is still David when he is raised up to be prince. Knowledge increases in the resurrection; it does not shrink: “then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Corinthians 13:12). And love is the one thing Paul says will never be put away: “Charity never faileth” (1 Corinthians 13:8). The marriage covenant is a legal bond of exclusive responsi- bility, fitted to a mortal world — a world of jealousy, betrayal, abandonment, widowhood, and the grave. The resurrected live where none of those things can reach them. They do not pos- sess less love than they had as husband and wife. They possess love perfected, with nothing left to guard it against. So we preach exactly this much, and we preach it boldly: The legal bond ends. The persons remain. And love never fails. XIII. WHAT YAHSHUA DID NOT SAY Let it be said plainly. YAHSHUA did not say, “There will be no marriage in the King- d o m .” He said, “In the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage.” YAHSHUA did not say, “No children will be born during My reign.” Isaiah, Zechariah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel all describe them. YAHSHUA did not say, “No families will exist.” Zechariah calls the nations of that age “the families of the earth.” YAHSHUA did not say, “Everyone in the Kingdom becomes an angel.” He said the resurrected are equal to the angels in this: “neither can they die any more.” YAHSHUA did not say, “You will forget the husband or wife you loved.” He spoke of covenant, not of memory. We must stop making the verse say more than the One who spoke it. XIV. THE DOCTRINE IN TEN SENTENCES 1. Marriage belongs to the mortal order — the order of one flesh, of multiplying, of generations. (Genesis 1:28; 2:24) 2. The marriage law has dominion over a man as long as he lives. (Romans 7:1) 3. Death ends the marriage covenant. (Romans 7:2–3; 1 Corinthians 7:39) 4. The Sadducees’ riddle required six ended covenants to produce seven lawful marriages — and then demand- ed that resurrection revive all of them at once. 5. Resurrection raises the person, not the expired cove- nant. 6. The children of the resurrection contract no new mar- riages. (Luke 20:35) 7. YAHSHUA Himself gives the reason: “for neither can they die any more.” (Luke 20:36) 8. Mortal nations live under Messiah’s reign, for death is the last enemy destroyed. (1 Corinthians 15:25–26) 9. Those mortals marry, bear children, and hold inher- itance. (Jeremiah 33:11; Ezekiel 44:22; 47:22; Isaiah 65:20–23; Zechariah 8:5) 10. Therefore marriage has not been abolished from the Kingdom. What has changed is the condition of those who rule it. XV. TILL DEATH DO US PART The Kingdom of YAHWEH is not an erasure. It is a resto- ration. Restored Israel. Restored Judah. Restored nations. Restored worship. Restored land. Restored inheritance. Restored gener- ations. The closing promise of the prophets is a promise about households: “And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the chil- dren, and the heart of the children to their fathers...” — Malachi 4:6 The Kingdom does not destroy the family. It heals it. It sets it in order. It places it under righteous government — and that government is staffed by men and women who were once husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters themselves, and who have not forgotten what it was. So the old vow means more than those who first wrote it ever k n e w. Till death do us part. Death ends the contract. Resurrection does not restore the contract. Resurrection restores the person — and restores that person beyond the reach of the only enemy that ever made the con- tract necessary. The Sadducees believed death had created a problem that res- urrection could not solve. YAHSHUA showed them that resurrection solves it by abol- ishing death. “He will swallow up death in victory...” — Isaiah 25:8 “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” — 1 Corinthians 15:26 The love was never the problem. Death was. Those who are accounted worthy to obtain that age and the resurrection from the dead will not marry, will not be given in marriage, will not bury a spouse, will not stand at a grave, will not raise up a name for a fallen brother — because no brother will ever fall again. “Neither can they die any more.” That is not the destruction of family. That is the destruction of death. And that changes everything.