Does Marriage End at the Second Coming?
Many Christians believe marriage ends at the Second Coming, based on the following dialogue between Jesus and the Sadducees:
“Then some of the Sadducees, who deny that there is a resurrection, came to Him [Jesus] and asked Him, saying: ‘Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife, and he dies without children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. And the first took a wife, and died without children. And the second took her as wife, and he died childless. Then the third took her, and in like manner the seven also; and they left no children, and died. Last of all the woman died also. Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife does she become? For all seven had her as wife.’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection'” (Luke 20:29–36).
Many commentators interpret this passage as teaching that marriage will end after the Second Coming. But is that really what Jesus meant?
Theologian Don Preston of the Preterist Research Institute made a keen observation about this passage during his debate with Joel McDurmon in 2012. Notice how Jesus contrasts “this age” with “the age to come,” and then says there will be no more marriage in the age to come (Luke 20:34–35). The question is, What age was Jesus living in when he said this in approximately AD 30? Answer: the old covenant age. Specifically, Jesus was living in the last days of the old covenant age (Heb. 1:2). And when would the old covenant age end? Interestingly enough, Jesus’s disciples asked Jesus this very question about a week before his crucifixion: “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” (Matt. 24:3, italics mine). And Jesus replied: It will happen within a generation (v. 34). In fact, Jesus specifically tied the “end of the age” to the destruction of the temple (vv. 2–3, 34).
By AD 60, the writer of Hebrews said the old covenant age was “ready to vanish away” (Heb. 8:13; see also 1 Cor. 10:11 and 1 Pet. 4:7). Clearly, the old covenant age in which Jesus was living–Jesus’s “this age”–ended in AD 70. Therefore, the “age to come”–in which there would be “no marriage”–must have begun in AD 70. Since people are still getting married today (in the new covenant age), then Jesus must have been referring to something other than ordinary, everyday marriage.
What Did Jesus Mean by “No Marriage” in the Age to Come?
What, then, was Jesus referring to? There are at least two plausible options. The first is that Jesus simply meant there would be no marriage in heaven (after we die). Although God’s people live forever spiritually, earthly marriages dissolve when we die because Christians “become like angels [spiritual beings],” which do not marry (Luke 20:36). This interpretation answers the Sadducees’ question: “Whose wife will she be after they [the seven brothers] die?” (Luke 20:29–31). Answer: Nobody’s, because there is no marriage in heaven, even for believers who live forever, because they become like angels–and angels do not marry.
The second plausible option–which is Preston’s view–is that Jesus was simply referring to the end of Levirate marriage law. In the old covenant age (Jesus’s “this age”), if a married man died, his brother was required to marry the widow so that “his family name may not be blotted out of Israel” (Deut. 25:5–6). The Levirate marriage law–along with procreation–ensured that the tribes of Israel would not die out. This kept the old covenant kingdom of God growing and expanding. However, in the new covenant age–Jesus’s “age to come”–the Levirate marriage law is no longer needed because the new covenant kingdom of God expands purely by evangelism and conversion. Bloodlines and genealogies and tribes are no longer relevant in the new covenant age (Titus 3:9). In fact, way back in 700 BC, Isaiah had prophesied that in the new covenant age, even a “dry tree” (sterile male) would be able to produce sons of God (kingdom members) through evangelism (Isa. 56:3–4). And this has happened! Today, in the new covenant age, the kingdom of God expands solely through evangelism. So how does this answer the Sadducees’ question, Whose wife will she be (after the seven brothers die)? Jesus essentially answered, “Your question, Sadducees, is moot because there will be no more Levirate marriage law in the new covenant age.”
Although there are different opinions as to what Jesus meant by “no marriage in the age to come,” we are forced biblically to conclude that it began in AD 70 because that is when Jesus’s “age to come” began.
This is also the Age of “No Males and Females”!
As shocking as it may initially be to hear we are living in the age of “no marriage,” a moment’s reflection should put your mind at ease. After all, notes Preston, this is also the age of “no males and females”! In Galatians 3:28, Paul said: “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:23). Christians have no problem believing there are “no males and females” (in Christ), so why should it be so difficult to believe there is “no marriage” (in Christ)? In fact, doesn’t marriage take males and females?
Furthermore, notice how Paul began the aforementioned Galatians passage: “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28, italics mine). Sons of God. This is the exact term Jesus uses in the “no more marriage” passage:
“The sons of this age [old covenant age] marry and are given in marriage. But those who are counted worthy to attain that age [new covenant age], and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection” (Luke 20:34–36, italics mine).
Jesus and Paul are both talking about sons of God–Christians–in the new covenant age.
Various other Considerations
Consider something else. If God is really going to abolish ordinary, everyday marriage one day, then that means he is one day going to approve sexual relations out of wedlock. Why? Because Isaiah said that in the new heaven and earth–which happens after the second coming–there will be infants and children (Isa. 65:20). But how can there be infants and children without sexual relations? Is God really going to condone sex out of wedlock one day?
Here’s another interesting point Preston makes: Christians all agree that God said he would restore things to the way they were before the fall (before Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit/sinned). And what were conditions like before the fall? One of God’s mandates was to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28). In other words, God wanted people to procreate. See the train coming? If God is really going to abolish marriage someday, yet he is also going to restore things to pre-fall conditions (and mandate people to be fruitful and multiply), then that means God is one day going to approve–in fact, mandate–sex out of wedlock.
To me, it makes much more sense to conclude that Jesus had something else in mind besides the abolishment of ordinary, everyday marriage.
By Alex Polyak, Director of The Bible Fulfilled May 11, 2024
For more about these topics–and a whole lot more–see my book The End is Here: How the New Testament’s Prophecies Were Fulfilled (available summer 2024).
