THE FINAL MARRIAGE.
“There is more between heaven and earth than you can see…. Hell is empty. And all the devils are here,” wrote Shakespeare in Hamlet and The Tempest, quite well applicable to year 2025. Just look at Revelation 12: 7: Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back.
That’s why hell is empty: the war in heaven did that when God’s angels drove the devils away. Where did they go? They all landed feet first on earth. And what happened then? A marriage took place then and there, between the devils and those who control the American economy. Just look at Trump and his financial backer, Musk, or Netanyahu and the Palestinian tragedy: their actions are totally in tune with the Devil and his loyal following.
Yes, Trump and the Devil have become partners: That is the most recent marriage, but it gives marriage a bad name.
Is that why Jesus argues against marriage? No, there is a deeper reason.
Jesus and Marriage.
Jesus has something to say about marriage and its future. He was closely questioned on that score by some of his opponents, who were curious about the Hereafter, as I am. They painted a possible scenario: ‘A husband died, and the widow married his brother, who also died. This happened again and again. Their question: In eternity – yes, they believed in a Hereafter – who will this woman be married to?’
Jesus never married. If I see Mother Mary correctly – she was a bit of a pusher – she urged him to do so: all mothers want grandchildren, but Jesus resisted, because he represented the Kingdom. That’s why Jesus’ answer was: “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.” Both Matthew 22: 30 and Luke 20: 36 state this.
That simply means: No more sex!
“I don’t believe that”, a good friend told me.
But there are good reasons: What’s wrong with sex?
I believe that eternity demands full and total equality for men and women! Sex, however, is not an equal matter: there is a giver and a taker. There is a slight degree of coercion in sex, however unintentional. Sex also implies conception, and conception is not immaculate, as Mary’s was when the Spirit ‘overshadowed’ her.
God, in his wisdom, decided that the total of people in the Kingdom to come, will be a fixed number, based on the contributions they made in the arts and sciences, education and manual skills.
Manual Skills?
Exodus 35 refers to ‘hand intelligence’, in connection with the building of the tabernacle: (verse 30). There it says: “See, the Lord has chosen Bezalel….and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with skills, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts… and he has given to him and Oholiab… the ability to teach others.”
It is that sort of talent that is also needed in the new World to come. Frankly I am pretty useless on that score, but given time – and eternity has that – even I can become skilled, but need a teacher.
Jesus already lived ‘the Kingdom Life’, that’s why he remained single, even though women adored him, and largely financed his divine mission. O yes: they fell in love with him: passionately, and, I am sure, Jesus too fell in love: after all, he experienced all human emotions.
And yet…
Still marriage will be maintained! For this I go to Revelation 21: 2, where “I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband….Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them.”
Revelation 21: 9 elaborates: Then the angel said to me: “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” `
So, what did the angel show?
He proudly displayed the New Creation, in all her glory, and also mentioned that in that new habitation for the new humanity, ‘I did not see an altar in the city’.
The usual explanation of this text is that the church will finally come into her own and truly be united with Christ. But that is contra to the mention of ‘no altar’. That, however, indicates the end of organized religion, as ‘the knowledge of God’ is written in the hearts of the new humanity: no more church, no more Bible.
What this new marriage really indicates, is that the new humanity – including Jesus Christ as ‘the primus inter pares’ the first among equals – will be married to the New Creation, The Bride, for which Jesus gave his life: see John 3: 16. Holy Creation married to Holy humanity: The final marriage.