December 10, 2007 Mark 12:19

12/10/2007

Mark 12:19 - 25 (HCSB)

¹⁹“Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaves his wife behind, and leaves no child, his brother should take the wife and produce offspring for his brother. ²⁰There were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and dying, left no offspring. ²¹The second also took her, and he died, leaving no offspring. And the third likewise. ²²The seven also left no offspring. Last of all, the woman died too. ²³In the resurrection, when they rise, whose wife will she be, since the seven had married her?”

²⁴Jesus told them, “Are you not deceived because you don’t know the Scriptures or the power of God? ²⁵For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven.

It was considered a disgrace for a man not to have any heirs, specifically male heirs. It was a disgrace for a woman to have no children at all. The Jewish custom was that if a man died failing to produce heirs, that the next brother (if there were any) would take her as a wife so as to produce heirs for the deceased brother.

In the verses above, the Jews produced a story in which 7 brothers all had the same wife, handed one to the next, none of them producing heirs. The question then became “whose wife would she be in the afterlife?” While it was acceptable for a man to have more than one wife, it was not acceptable for a woman to have more than one husband.

However, Jesus pointed out that in the afterlife, she would not be any of their wives because “they neither marry nor are given in marriage.” In other words, the marriages did not persist into the afterlife. If then, no-one is married in Heaven, then what does that do to the idea of the nuclear family?

First off, if we believe the Bible, then we are all descendants of Adam. If we are all together in the afterlife, then would we not then be altogether as “family?”

Secondly, when Jesus says “but [they] are like the angels in heaven.” I believe this to mean that we will still recognize others as father, mother, sister, brother, friend, etc. but that the nature of the relationships will be changed. How are the angels related? If the angels are not in familial groups, then the words of Jesus tell us that we will not be either.

There is also a popular belief that when Jesus says “like the angels” that this implies we will be genderless. I do not concur with this because humans were originally created male and female and I believe that it is this gender that contributes to the sum of who we are. I believe that God created us uniquely from every one else so that through our diversity, we could express our devotion to him in unity. So I believe that in the afterlife, we will essentially be who we are but in a glorified state.

But finally, let us look at one aspect of this teaching. There will be an afterlife. God has promised that we who love Him and worship Him will be with Him in the next life. I believe that whatever our relationships in the next life are, they will pale in comparison to the fact that we will see Him as He is and share in His glory.

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