Unpacking Truths
Dive deep into God's word and unpack divine truths for today's life journey. In a world where everyone is seeking, join us as we guide you to find hope and power in God's timeless wisdom. If our discussions spark questions or ideas, reach out to us at UnpackingTruths@LOCChurch.com. Don't forget to Like, Share, and Subscribe, allowing us to continue helping people unpack God's truth for their lives! Hosted by Pastor Kendall Koenig and Pastor Maureen O'Connor of Light of Christ Church in Algonquin, IL.
Unpacking Truths
Marriage, Love, and Eternity: What the Bible Teaches About Relationships in Heaven
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https://youtu.be/o5AzRX_ZiAA
Is marriage only an earthly concept, or does it carry into the divine realm? In this episode of Unpacking Truths, we dive deep into this question, beginning with a lighthearted anecdote before exploring Jesus’ teachings on marriage in the afterlife. By examining his conversation with the Sadducees, we uncover how earthly relationships are transformed in God’s presence, where reuniting with loved ones goes beyond mere connection and into an embrace of heaven’s boundless, unconditional love.
Our journey continues as we ponder the mysteries of resurrected bodies and new understandings that await us in the afterlife. Passages like 1 Corinthians 15 provide hope and comfort, reflecting on healing, restoration, and the ultimate transformation within the divine embrace.
But our exploration doesn’t end there. We also delve into revival movements in modern churches, where the Holy Spirit sparks fresh passion and inspires believers to seek a more profound connection with God. These movements challenge routine, fueling faith journeys that go beyond ritual into genuine spiritual renewal.
Join us in contemplating these profound questions of faith, spirituality, and the afterlife. Don’t forget to visit our website, reach out via email, and share this episode with others on their own spiritual journeys.
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Today, on Unpacking Truths, we are going to be addressing one of your questions, which was is there marriage in heaven? And with such a serious topic, I have to begin us off with a joke, okay.
Speaker 2:Go for it.
Speaker 1:So there was a couple on their way to their wedding day and sadly they got in a car accident. And as they arrived at the pearly gates, st Peter was there and they said you know what? We had a plan to get married. Can we get married here? And St Peter said you know what? Hold on a second, let me check that out. He leaves. They're there for about three months waiting at the pearly gates to get in, and as they're talking, they're like you know, do we really want to do this? Like forever, this is like eternity. We're going to be together. Maybe, I don't know. So St Peter comes back and he's like you know what? The answer is yes, you could get married here. And then they said well, we've been thinking about this, can we get divorced? And his face got red and he looked mad and they said what's going on? And he goes. It took me three months to find a pastor here and now you want me to find a lawyer? Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2:I know, Good one Mo. All right, Good one Mo.
Speaker 1:More seriously, because I know lots of inquiring minds want to know what have you found? What have you discovered with? Is there a marriage in heaven?
Speaker 2:The answer is no, oh, the end of the podcast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you're welcome to those who want to know if you have to continue to pay alimony while in heaven, and to the rest, I'm Pastor Kendall and I'm Pastor.
Speaker 2:Mo. Welcome to Unpacking Truths, where we dive deep into God's timeless truths for our lives today.
Speaker 1:Grab your coffee. Open your hearts and your minds. Come take this journey with us, as we unpack God's truths.
Speaker 2:So no, well, let's unpack that a little bit. I mean, jesus was kind of asked this question, but in a roundabout way. There was this group of Sadducees. Yeah, there was one of the four sort of key religious groupings of Jewish people in Jesus' day, the Sadducees. And well, let me just read it. People in Jesus' day, the Sadducees. And well, let me just read it. That same day, jesus was approached by some Sadducees religious leaders who say there is no resurrection from the dead. So this was one of the groups. There were other Jewish groups that believed in resurrection. The Sadducees didn't, so they tried to create an impossible story. So they posed this question, teacher, to Jesus.
Speaker 2:Moses said if a man dies without children, his brother should marry the widow and have a child who will carry on the brother's name. Well, suppose there were seven brothers. The oldest one married and then died without children. So his brother married the widow, but the second brother also died and the third brother married her. This continued with all seven of them. Last of all, the woman also died. So tell us whose wife will she be in the resurrection? For all seven were married to her. Jesus replied your mistake is that you don't know the scriptures and you don't know the power of God For when the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. In this respect, they will be like the angels in heaven.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm still stuck on how all seven died, because this sounds like a black widow type situation for me. Like one or two husbands die, fine, maybe three, seven, seven. Come on now, girl, like something's going on here. There's one common denominator it's wifey. Yeah, I think the seventh brother is like no way am I taking her on.
Speaker 2:He's like no, no please, please, don't make me marry her. So on some level, the person asked this honest question of us, and so this is one where sometimes there's a simple answer out of Scripture, where Jesus says there is no marrying or giving in marriage.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But that of course raises other questions that maybe we can talk about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think Jesus is implying that our idea of earthly marriage doesn't continue in the afterlife. Right?
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:So our relationships, they become transformed in a new way, like a state of perfection, as we enter full union with God and full union with one another, in a space and a place where we're told there's no more tears or crying, or pain or sorrow or death, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know and Mo, this in some ways goes to something that has, you know, in this pastor's heart and soul, has always kind of troubled me and been unsettled, has always kind of troubled me and been unsettled, that you know, one of the privileges that we have in our roles is to come alongside people at a time of death, when there's been a loss in their family, and you know it is a privilege to walk with people in that time to proclaim God's word of hope and the resurrection and that.
Speaker 2:But it is sometimes felt to me in my conversations with families that the only thing people are looking forward to is being with a relative and in a way like, oh, I just can't wait to be with so-and-so. I'm sure they can't wait to be with their spouse, who had died before, or their mom or their uncle or whatever their favorite. And the place that had always been unsettled for me is going into heaven. It's going into the presence of God and that really is what heaven is about. It's almost like I sometimes feel, like you know God will take or leave him. I just want these people and part of what I hear scripture pointing us is our vision is too small and that how we, that the glimpses, the experiences of love and embracing and warmth and unconditional care that we have experienced in this life is just a teaspoonful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah of the unconditional love of God, and it's like we're going after the teaspoon full when God has a whole big bowl of unconditional love for us.
Speaker 1:So I think we've, sometimes we almost have flip-flopped, flip-flopped, yeah Well but and it makes sense because you know, let's be honest how many of us say like, oh, I'm a Christian, or and yet we do spend more time and energy in relationships, earthly relationships, than we do with God Of course, here's where we live. It's all normal, I think, to say can't wait to see you know my wife that I was married to for 40 years, or can't wait to see you know my child that I lost, or Grandpa Charlie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like because it's the only experience that is not the only, but it's probably the most powerful, I think, experience for them and understanding of love and relationship. Sadly Right.
Speaker 2:So it's not that those relationships are sad. No, no, no, I just wanted to clarify. No, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, unless you didn't like them. I was like no, but no, sadly. If they had, in this world, right in their time here on earth, spent more time with God, they would be so excited to go into the arms of the Lord and experience that kind of union with our Creator right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and when you look at the book of Revelation and the revelation that John had on Patmos and that whole, all the crazy, powerful, weird symbolism in there, most and that whole, all the crazy, powerful, weird symbolism in there, but a lot of that you know, I just think of in Revelation 21,. You know that when he's talking about that, the wall of the city was built on a foundation stones inlaid with precious stones and all these layers of onyx and carnelian and chrysolite and beryl and you know, and the 12 gates were made of a pearl and the main streets were pure gold. I mean, it's not literally that the pavement will be gold. It was that John was trying to describe what he was experiencing in this vision of beauty beyond imagining, and so he was using the most beautiful things he could think of to describe what he was experiencing. That heaven is so beyond our experience that sometimes it's hard for us to get our arms around it.
Speaker 1:Right and Revelation 21 speaks into that. It paints that picture for us. But in 21.3, it's literally stating in heaven, all believers will experience perfect unity with Christ and with one another. So that's the beauty. It's perfect unity, as God had intended from the beginning. And we also get awesome gold paved roads and gates made of pearls and lots of other pretty things. If you're like me and you like the sparkle, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, who doesn't want that? Yeah?
Speaker 2:I mean, I heard a joke and I'll mess it up here because I didn't prepare but something that someone brought a suitcase with them to heaven and they came up to the pearly gates and they opened it because it was their most precious possession. It was just filled with all these gold bullion bars and St Peter looked at them and said, oh, you bought pavement along.
Speaker 1:Oh, nice, I don't know about you, but like, when I do premarital stuff with couples, you know, one of the scriptures that I do use is out of Revelation 19, seven and nine, speaking into how we are the bride of Christ. Right, and so this marital relationship is to, here on earth, point to what our union is like, what our perfect relationship is like with our Savior in heaven, and we're to try to live that out. But it becomes a symbol, right as you, until death, do us part. Right, are you willing to sacrificially love me, whatever that looks like during certain seasons, whether we're sick, whether we're healthy, whether we're poor, whether we're rich? Like, are you willing to walk this life with me, like that, in that beautiful union and that's just a fraction of what it's like in heaven, with God and with others, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, as you were describing, I mean hence that classic traditional marriage vow for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. That sense of that commitment to another human being is a example of God's unconditional love and commitment to us and that we have the chance to experience that in our life today. But as Paul said in uh in uh, first, corinthians 13, we see through a mirror, darkly, but then we will see face to face that we will, that we get glimpses of God's grace, the wonder of you know you're on a mountainside and you just are overwhelmed by the awesomeness, and that's just a glimpse. Mountainside and you just are overwhelmed by the awesomeness, and that's just a glimpse. That's just the feeling you have in that moment, is just a touch of what the embrace and the wonder of God is, or in the hug from the person who loves you unconditionally, and the peace that you feel in that moment is a glimpse of the peace that we will eventually know face to face.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and when I think about the Matthew 22, 30, where Jesus says that you know we won't need marriage, right Like we'll be like the angels in heaven.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, just thinking like, okay, so what is it? We probably won't need it because we'll be experiencing what marriage symbolized here. But I love that. We will be with right, the body of believers. Yeah, we see in Ephesians 2, we are the family of God, we're called members of the household of God and we will be with our body of believers. And you spoke into being. Are we married in heaven? But you started to kind of touch on do we see other people in heaven? Right, are we experiencing other people and what?
Speaker 2:are your thoughts on that? Well, I think here's where I think it's also important and I know we wanted to go there a little bit. Sometimes I think we have more of a Greek or a Platonic understanding of heaven that our body dies and our soul goes to heaven. I think a lot of Christians kind of talk about it in that way, but biblically it talks about the resurrection of the dead, that we will be embodied people in heaven.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's at the second coming, Because when we're in heaven and I think that's where that idea came from like that spirit versus physical body right, Because I think it talks about when we will resurrect like Christ and be in bodily form like Christ, but I don't think we're in body when we die.
Speaker 2:Well, and let me just pause, I mean, this is where we differ.
Speaker 2:See, we're unpacking oh yeah, we're unpacking this and Mo let's just turn and go like we are all moving at the edge of what anyone can fully know. We are basing it on various scriptures and there are contradictory or contradictory is the wrong word paradoxical scriptures in scripture where Jesus says to the thief at his side today you will be with me in paradise, and at other times it talks about and then at the resurrection of the dead. One of the ways that I've made sense of that is I just my one way to put together this. Well, it happened at the end or is it happening immediately? Is that maybe after our death time doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 2:And that that's one way to try and put this mystery together.
Speaker 1:No, it might. No, all my family's up and having having a party waiting for me. You know I got a seat, you know, at the bar there. It's a dance floor ready to go. No.
Speaker 2:Okay, no, I'm wrong, most right. Yeah, come on In her mind. Come on, mo, we're on back in here, yeah.
Speaker 1:Because okay. So when we're talking about the nature of our body, like resurrected or not, I can't. So let's go to like 1 Corinthians 15, 36 to 44. It talks all about how the resurrected body Paul speaks into the resurrected body. It will be real, it will be physical, but it will be imperishable, right, Glorious, free from sickness and weakness and death. But at the time that Christ comes again, right, and our bodies are modeled after his resurrected body. But yet I don't think we need our bodies until we're raised again. Jesus is here. It's a new earth, right? That's the big picture Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus is coming back. It's going to be a new earth. All things will be made new, All things will be made right. Heaven and earth merge. And so we get our bodies back.
Speaker 1:Okay, so your relatives are having a disembodied party in heaven, but then eventually they will have bodies in the resurrection. I like that.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, and here's where.
Speaker 1:They don't need to party, they're in full union with the creator. I mean, nothing's better than that.
Speaker 2:You know, I think this is just one of those places where, as soon as we start talking about what happens after our death, we start entering into an era where there's a woman in our congregation who helped to edit a book by an Indian man who was pronounced clinically dead and came back to life and he talks about his experiences in that time. So the people, those near death and those post-death- so did he say he had a body?
Speaker 2:It's been a while since I read his book, but there are a number of these books that are out there about people have had these experiences and then coming back and they describe things similarly and differently. We have scriptures that describe things like this and like this. I think we are getting to a place where, as I remember, my college religion prof out at Luther College, decorah, iowa, go Norse, said to me Richard Simon Hanson. He said that the role of theology is to clarify where the line is that, the line of what we can know and understand and the line beyond which we can't know. And to me there's a lot in scripture that helps us to understand what we can know. What is beyond that line, and some of that how things work after death, I think, ends up being mystery.
Speaker 2:And so what we can say is we have hope and promise and joy awaiting us. Exactly the timeline, the structure, how that's all going to look. Yeah, a lot of Christians have seen that differently.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm actually thinking of the transfiguration, right, Sure and so? And I'm thinking of how they saw Moses and Elijah, yeah, I mean, and they had to have been in some form of bodily form in order to be seen.
Speaker 2:I mean, Peter wanted to make booths for him tents to be able to live in, so yeah, yeah, so you know when we die, if it's like Christ right here.
Speaker 1:Christ came back when he was resurrected. He's eating, he's, you know, able to touch, he's able to, you know, and walk through walls, and yet he walks through walls, right. So, it's a different kind of body. It is, it's a walk-through wall kind of body.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and I just love some of Paul's words going back to 1 Corinthians 15. It is the same way with the resurrection of the dead. Our earthly bodies are planted in the ground when we die, but they will be raised to live forever. Our bodies are buried in brokenness, but they will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness, but they will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness, but they will be raised in strength. They are buried as natural human bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies. And so exactly what that is like it's just a spiritual body.
Speaker 1:You get to walk through walls. You get to walk through walls.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you still get to eat food.
Speaker 1:So it's worth it. It's a win.
Speaker 2:It's a win. Walls, don't stop you. Food still tastes good, I'm in.
Speaker 1:All right, you know who cares if we're married. Well, I don't know. Is there dating in marriage or in heaven? Like, do we need to? What about the single folk? You know what I mean. Like, what about us?
Speaker 2:Well, here again going back to Jesus, he says for when the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. So Tinder Bumble not needed in heaven. So just you know all you IT developers app developers, you'll be using your skills in different ways. We won't need those.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, there'll be wholeness and fullness of life without the dating, without the marriage, right, Absolutely. That's what it's about. But I do love and I want to note that I think it's just a whole different idea of what it means, Cause there's so many people, like as I've walked alongside them on their deathbed, saying things like you know, how old will I be? Will I be, you know, in my nineties Will I have I want to be back when I was 32 or whatever it is, and it's like, oh, none of that will matter. Like Christ, when he rose, had scars on his body, and to us we have these cosmetic procedures to get rid of the scars. So I think our way of seeing things, of experiencing ourselves, of knowing who God created us to be, I think it'll be so transformed, right and yeah.
Speaker 2:I just think it's important to know that. You bet it, mo. The verse that I hold on to, also from Revelation, is just, and every tear will be wiped away. I've shed plenty of tears in my life and to me, tears are that there will be no more of that sense of loss, of that sense of brokenness, and that we will be restored, we will be renewed, and Jesus finally, as he met with his disciples, while there were scars, there was not weakness or brokenness, but there was still the recognition of what he had gone through. So in that sense, we will take, but it wasn't a wound, it was a scar, it had been healed, and so all of the wounds of our life physically, emotionally will be healed.
Speaker 2:And that is why the tears will be wiped away, because we will be healed and we will be restored and, whether that's 16 or 26 or 86 or however, we experience that and I think it's beyond us to understand that we will be healed and we will be in the presence of the God, whose love is beyond measure.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so, though. We will be with the body of believers and in perfect union with God. We won't need things like a marriage necessarily, right, god. We won't need things like a marriage necessarily Right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, I love that. So yeah, well, you may disagree with that or you may be troubled by that, so put that in the comments and we can wrestle with that with you as we continue to try to unpack God's truth together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but if you would like to share, like this podcast, if you think someone can get something out of it, please do so. This is what it's about and we do know this. There is no alimony in heaven. That's all we know. And your dogs go to heaven. We have one of those podcasts as well and, if you're confused, still, we have a podcast on purgatory, so check that out.
Speaker 2:And if you have other questions you want us to dig into or unpack, please put those in the comment line. Send them in to unpackingtruthscom.
Speaker 1:Next time on Unpacking Truths.
Speaker 2:To me the Protestant Reformation, martin Luther, calling it back to the fact that it's not about what we do to get ourselves right with God. It's that God sent Jesus, that it's, as I like to say, the arrows pointing down. It's not what do I do to get ourselves right with God. It's that God sent Jesus, that it's, as I like to say, the arrows pointing down. It's not what do I do to go up to God. It's that God came down to us, that it's grace is at the heart of it. Great, we are saved by grace, through faith. That's key theological. Some other divisions within Christian churches are maybe not that essential things, but that's what's formed some denominations. Some have been these revival movements. Within that the church seems to have gotten stayed or boring or just sort of ritualistic. And then the Holy Spirit births a revival movement to call people back to a passionate following of Jesus and not just a perfunctory following of Jesus.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining us on this episode of Unpacking Truths. If anything that we discussed sparked any ideas or you have any questions, we would love for you to go to unpackingtruthscom, or you can also email us at unpackingtruths at locchurchcom.
Speaker 2:And don't forget to like, share or subscribe to the podcast, because you doing that allows other people to connect to this content and grow with God as well.
Speaker 1:Until next time, we hope you know that you are loved.
