No Marriage in Heaven?

Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to him, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us, ‘If someone’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother.’ Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman but died childless. Then the second and the third married her, and likewise all the seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be? For all seven had been married to her.” Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise.” 

Luke 20:27-36

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The Virgin Son

What is deified humanity like? Will people in heaven eat, drink, marry, and bear children? The Sadducees could not imagine an existence apart from the earthly model. Jesus clues them in on the divine life by describing the resurrected state as akin to the virginal life of angels.

Before the division of the sexes, Adam (humankind) encompassed the power and receptivity (masculine and feminine potencies) of the divine image in his person. 

God created humankind in his image; 
in the image of God he created them; 
male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:27

The second creation account in Genesis narrates the mystery of marriage through the creation of Eve from Adam’s side (Genesis 2:18-25). From the Garden of Eden into the wilderness of exile, the first couple becomes the foundation and type of God’s courtship of humanity. Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, the Lord pursues Israel as her “husband” and “lover,” climaxing in the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom of Israel and the Church. The Incarnation is the marriage of divinity and humanity in the person of the Son of God.

The Virgin Mother

Christ, the second Adam, ushers in a new humanity created for divine communion. Transfiguring humankind to the fullness of deity, the Son of God and Son of Adam reintegrates the masculine and feminine poles in his divine person. As there is no dyad in the Trinity of Divine Persons, the virginal lives of Jesus, Mary, and St. Joseph mirror the spiritual fecundity of the Godhead. The Blessed Virgin Mary, the human counterpart of God the Father, begets the Son in time as the Father begets the Son in eternity.

The Virgin Father

St. Gregory of Nyssa identifies God the Father, the source and origin of the Son and Holy Spirit, as the archetypal Virgin. All persons (divine, human, and angelic) originating from the Father radiate the splendor of purity, wholeness, integrity, and incommunicability. Each person bears a unique name and identity.

It is comprehended in the idea of the Father incorrupt; and here at the outset is a paradox, viz. that virginity is found in Him, Who has a Son and yet without passion has begotten Him. It is included too in the nature of this Only-begotten God, Who struck the first note of all this moral innocence; it shines forth equally in His pure and passionless generation. Again a paradox; that the Son should be known to us by virginity. It is seen, too, in the inherent and incorruptible purity of the Holy Spirit; for when you have named the pure and incorruptible you have named virginity.

Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity, 2

Children of God and Mary look forward to the angelic, virginal life through Jesus Christ in communion with the Holy and Blessed Trinity. 

“Behold, I make all things new.”

Revelation 21:5

Traditional Chinese Translation

《天堂裡沒有婚姻？》
神化的人類超越二元
如同基督化的處女在三位一體中。