Tackling Tradition (Part 11) - Angels & Marriage

Matthew 22:29 - 33 - But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.

This text is not about angels & whether or not they marry.  It’s about the attitude & aptitude of angels on Judgment Day.   

Yeshua was in the temple, having brought his lawsuit there. He’d publicly bested them.

The Pharisees’ reply was to ask about Roman taxation, revealing their bigotry & gluttony. The Sadducees’ reply was a question about marriage revealing their gluttony & misogyny, implying they were in the business of robbing women of their rights & dowries even in the Resurrection in which they didn’t believe, revealing their hypocrisy.

Yeshua’s answer isn’t “marriage is abolished in the Resurrection, & angels sexless,”. Rather, He’s comparing the attitude of angels & non-angelic people in the Judgment in light of the manner in which the two major parties within the Sanhedrin had replied to Him.  In the Judgment, trivial responses will fall by the wayside, & we will be as attentive & prophetic as the angels. 

Matthew 24:38 echoes the same sentiment. 

For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away.

Yeshua is alluding to Genesis.   The Flood caught everyone by surprise.  On that day, they were carrying on with the trivialities of daily life & were caught up in an uber-prophetic phenomenon at the time the Covenant expanded.    

The Bible, in Matthew 22:30, isn’t teaching us about angels & their marriage customs.  It’s teaching us that the Resurrection itself is a species of Judgment Day itself, & instead of dwelling on the sort trivia with which the Pharisees & Sadducees responded, we will eventually get with the program in the same manner in which the angels are depicted in the Bible.