Marriage and the Resurrection - Matt 22:23-30; Mark 12:18-25; Luke 20:27-34

The Herodians and the Pharisees have come at Jesus today trying to get him to slip up and either admit that he’s a fraud or commit blasphemy, and so far he’s astounded all with his doctrine.  Now the Sadducees come to him with their own “desert island” scenario trying to entangle Him. They ask about a woman who is married to a man who dies before having a child with her. In ancient Jewish culture, a widow without children will be married to her dead husband’s brother so that he can “raise up seed” for his brother. This used to seem abhorrent to me, but knowing that Jesus only cared for women tenderly, I’m trying to figure out how this rule would have protected the widows. Back then, women had almost no rights, and a widow would often be forced to beg in the streets or even resort to prostitution to support herself. By requiring the extended family to take accountability for the widow’s well being, he’s protecting her from being cast aside. He’s also making the dead man’s brother responsible for providing her with children so that they can care for her in her old age. That really makes sense actually.

In the Sadducees’ scenario, this widow is married to the second brother, but he dies before having children with her too. So she marries the third brother, who also dies before they have children, so she marries the fourth brother, who also dies before they have children, and so on until she married the seventh brother who also dies before having children with her. Finally all alone, the “woman dies also,” and here is their question: “Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? For they all had her.” This seems to me to be a pretty far fetched situation, seven brothers all marrying the same woman and they all die before having children with her? It seems to me to be incredibly unlikely to be a very common situation in which these men would find themselves in.

First, we have to understand that the Sadducees do not believe in the resurrection, so the fact that they are bringing this question to the Savior is a known ruse. But if we were to take out the extremity of the question, it would be much more applicable. It is crazy to ask which dead husband a woman would belong to our of the seven she married, but it’s incredibly common to wonder who a woman would be with in the resurrection when she had just been remarried once or maybe even twice after her first husband died. But the aspect of her not having any children seems to be important here. So does it imply that if she’d had children with one of the men that she would be with him? Or is it purely a logistical explanation as to why this woman would keep marrying the next brother repeatedly?

Jesus answers, “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.” This concept is very difficult for me to understand, especially as a single woman, how are we not married or given in marriage? I thought that we’d all be given an equal chance to accept or reject eternal marriage, but if I can’t be resurrected until I am married, or I can’t be married once I am resurrected, then how does that work? How will I “come forth in the morning of the resurrection” if I am not married and that is a requirement? And what about all those who have died unmarried or as children, what happens to them?

The IM even says “Elder James E. Talmage pointed out that the Savior’s words do not state that marriages will not exist after the Resurrection, but that marriages will not be performed after the Resurrection: ‘In the resurrection there will be no marrying nor giving in marriage; for all questions of marital status must be settled before that time.’” I’m not going to lie, when I read this, I freaked out a little bit, “I can’t be resurrected until some man chooses to marry me?!” I had to talk myself back from the edge for a minute, and then stop and think, “who is Jesus? The Son of God. Who does he love? Me. Who would he punish for something beyond their control? No one, certainly not me.” With that in mind, I was able to move forward and try to understand this encounter for what it really is, not what I freaked out thinking that it might be.

There are a couple of different ways that we can think this through, the first comes from an article on fairmormon.org that discusses this situation with the Sadducees. The article says, “The question posed by the Sadducees was based on a dilemma contrived from the law of Moses. Because the law of Moses constituted a lower law, the law of marriage it contained was for this life only. By contrast, the Lord was teaching the higher law of the gospel which brought with it a higher law of marriage for eternity. In fact, the Sadducees’ question is confirmation that the Lord and others were apparently teaching the eternal nature of marriage. Otherwise, the question would have made little sense.” From this perspective, it would be possible for us to accept the lesson of this account to be that when Jesus was speaking to this particular group of people 2,000 years ago, they were discussing ancient Hebraic law and that we should rely on modern day revelation to understand the concept of eternal marriage. This would be an example of faith.

But if there are other ways to think about this, I would like to explore those, even if it is just speculation on my part. The second perspective comes from the article as well, but it mostly has to do with verbage used by the recorders, namely Matthew. In the article there is a very in depth explanation about the words that are used in the scriptures, the perfect, past, and present tenses, and Greek translations. Basically, the article says that the word for “marriage” that Matthew used in Greek indicates that those who are resurrected will be married because of a previously held marriage ceremony, married will be their status, but the marriage ceremony will not taking place after the resurrection.