Unmarried in Heaven
I love being married, and I love being married to Aileen. In fact, at this point, I really can’t imagine life any other way. I was just 18 when we got together and just 21 when we exchanged vows, which means that the two of us have lived pretty well our entire adult lives together. As we near three decades of married life, I’m not convinced we’d even know how to live apart. Nor would we want to.
I don’t think we are the only ones who find it hard to take joy in Jesus’s words that “in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Matthew 22:30). If it is true that there is no marriage in heaven, then I may get a few more decades with Aileen as my wife but will then spend the rest of eternity without her being my wife. In all honesty, I struggle to see how this can be a good thing. We experience such joy together, such pleasure, such friendship, and such unity, and each of these is growing with time rather than diminishing. So how can heaven be better than earth if we are married on earth but unmarried in heaven? And then doesn’t it seem just a bit unfair that after all these years of living out a good but imperfect marriage, we will never get to experience a perfect and sinless marriage—the kind that Adam and Eve had until they messed it up for all of us?
But actually, the good news is that we do get to enjoy a perfect marriage. It may just not be exactly as we expect.
In the New Testament we learn that there is a mystery to marriage—a meaning that was only made clear after the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Ephesians 5:32). The mystery is that marriage is a kind of miniature, a kind of model of a higher reality. The higher reality marriage portrays is the relationship of Christ to his church. Marriage, then, is a representation of the gospel that is meant to teach us about Christ’s love for his church and his church’s love for its Savior.
With that in mind, here is something to consider: if I show you a painting of the best view in all of the Swiss Alps, is that painting more or less awe-inspiring than actually standing in the middle of that spot in the Swiss Alps? If I hum for you the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah, is it better or worse than hearing an orchestra perform it and a great choir sing it? If I show you a plastic model of a rocket, is that more or less impressive than seeing a real rocket launch into space? The reality is always better than the mere representation. And if that’s the case, then when Christ returns and we are no longer married to one another, will that reality be better or worse? It will be better, obviously! Why? Because our marriages won’t be dissolved as much as fulfilled. The imitation will give way to the real thing, and the real thing is always better. It’s inconceivable that God would give us anything in heaven that’s a downgrade from what we experience on earth, or that in eternity we will lament anything we lost in time. That’s just not God’s way.1
It’s inconceivable that God would give us anything in heaven that’s a downgrade from what we experience on earth, or that in eternity we will lament anything we lost in time.
While we will no longer be married after the resurrection, I am convinced that we will still know, love, and delight in one another. I am convinced that what we experienced on earth will not be meaningless or forgotten in heaven. We will still be the ones who experienced joys, endured sorrows, and lived life together. We will still be the father and mother of the children we raised. That won’t all just be lost or obliterated. Rather, it will all be fulfilled, completed, and transformed into something even better. Our relationship when we’re no longer married will be better, more special, more fulfilling, and more enjoyable. I may not understand it any more than you do, but I believe it.
So, can we have a delightful marriage now and still be joyful that the time will come when we will no longer be married to one another? Yes, when we elevate our gaze, when we realize that marriage is not the reality but the model, the promise, the demonstration. We will come to understand that the two of us have the privilege of being together for a few decades in what is merely a sign and foretaste of full fellowship between God and his people, before the model is replaced by the real thing and the demonstration gives way to the actual. Then the two of us will no longer be married but instead be swept up into something even better.
Whatever we enjoy now will be far greater then. Whatever satisfaction we find now will pale in comparison to what we experience then. Even the relationship we share now, the romance, the fun, the friendship, the intimacy, and the till-death-do-us-part commitment, will be replaced by something superior. We will still know and love one another, but as part of something that transcends marriage in the way the Matterhorn transcends a foothill, in the way the Pacific transcends a puddle, in the way the prairies are so much grander and more impressive than my front lawn. When marriage someday ends, we will agree that God has not subtracted anything but only added. He has not divided us but united us in an even deeper way. We will give thanks in that day that God, in his wisdom, determined that our marriages should end.
Though it’s a bit outside the scope of this article, this is also why those who never marry on earth can know that they will not miss out on anything in eternity—they may not experience the model, but they will experience the reality.
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