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Will people get married in heaven?

Question: I lead a Bible study group for teenagers. One recently asked a question: “Will there be marriage in Heaven? And if not, why? God created marriage when He created the perfect earth, so why won’t there also be marriage in the New Earth after the resurrection? Surely the New Earth will be a restored version of the old one – which had marriage!” I think they may be worried about living eternally without sex. How would you respond to this?

Answer: Jesus explicitly taught that there won’t be any marriage in heaven (Mt 22:30). Marriage and procreation seem to have been intended for this epoch only — a way of creating the beings who will populate and rule the eternal Kingdom. The original creation was “good” in that it was without evil, but it wasn’t yet perfect in the sense of complete, just like a child may be innocent, but this doesn’t make her an adult. For creation to attain the goal God has for it (which is centered on love), we have to go through a probationary epoch — which we are now part of. Part of this epoch includes marriage, sex and child rearing, but there apparently will be no further need of this in the Kingdom of Heaven.

But no one should worry that this will make heaven boring for lack of sex. Heaven will be so good sex will seem boring by comparison!

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