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Marriages
Sermon by
Rev. Dr. Erik E. Sandstrom
“Are you not therefore mistaken, because you do not know the
Scriptures or the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither
marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven… He is not the
God of the dead, but the God of the living.” Mark 12.24, 25, 27
The teaching that there is
no marriage after death has confounded people through the ages. For elsewhere
in the Word the Kingdom of heaven is compared to a marriage of a King’s son,
and a wedding feast in the parable of the 10 virgins. And “they twain shall
be one flesh, joined by God.” With such words as reminders, we think surely
there must be marriages in heaven! Who does not think of their beloved, and
meeting again, or first off?
And so “in heaven they
neither marry nor are given in marriage” jars with us. Why did the Lord speak
such words?
The simple answer is
already part of Gospel truth: the Lord spoke in “parables.” "Without a parable
did He not speak to them." “There is a spiritual meaning in all that He
spoke,” (Conjugial Love 41e). People at that time would in fact profane
the genuine truth if they had been given to see it openly (Lord 61, Heaven and
Hell 593). The aversion against spiritual truth is what the Sadducees stood
for: they did not believe in the resurrection. They took the Scriptures
literally, for the fulfilment of a Messiah of this world only. So when they
asked about the seven brothers and one woman, and “in the resurrection, whose
wife will she be” for all seven had her as wife,” – they went against their
own belief. The only answer the Lord could give, to protect the precious jewel
of conjugial love from profanation was to give the words of our text, both
protecting the Sadducees and also the ideal of marriage, from profanation. So
our text gives the truth by negating it, giving us the negative of the
picture; it has to be developed before we see it in full colour. As the Lord
said to the Sadducees, they “did not know the Scriptures” because they could
not see the “power of God” i.e. the spiritual sense, contained in it. The
internal meaning of being like angels is to be married as husband and wife, a
conjugial couple forever.
The Writings explain that
the entire context of these two answers means that marriage between one man
and one woman begins on earth, and that is also why physical offspring are
born only here. The Writings explain that “Marrying and given in marriage”
means to appropriate evil and falsity to oneself, and thus to be conjoined
with hell (Arcana Coelestia 4334:4). That certainly does NOT happen in
heaven, - how could it? - Consequently the Lord had to say the words “In the
resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage.” In parable, He
answered the infernally instigated question of “whose will she be?” with “What
are you saying? In heaven no one is conjoined with hell!” But that is what
their question claimed.
The parabolic to be given
in marriage means to be conjoined with hell, because the custom of giving your
daughter away in marriage was a merely natural one, with no genuine spiritual
reason for it. It was like getting married from a natural desire, to provide
a legitimate inheritance for offspring, involved in ensuring wealth. And we
read on this, “children can be loved also by the evil, but a married consort
can be loved only by the good” (Arcana Coelestia 2730). Yes an evil person can
certainly love their children. Very different is a good parent’s love of
children. But the spiritual love of one’s spouse can by definition only exist
with good people. Now we know.
If the love of one’s
offspring is evil, it is like a bear protecting her cubs! Beware of coming in
between! It is meant by the words "For if you love them that love you,
what thank have you? For sinners also do the same” (Luke 6:32-35). By
contrast, doubly so, to love children or others spiritually, is means by the
next words “But rather love your enemies” (ibid.). This is to love and be
friends with people outside beyond self-interest, which is
internally to recognize that all good is from the Lord (True Christian
Religion 439). The evil love of children is internally abusive of all others.
The deepest core of such evil is the abuse of children, and here the Lord
says, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it
would be better for him if a mill-stone were hung around his neck and he were
drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18:6). It means to be cut off from
truth and cast into hell. The warning here is against deliberate spiritual
abuse, such as domineering in marriage; deliberately abusing the innocence of
children, which is similar to the evil of profanation (Cf. Apocalypse
Explained 1182:3), which involves a sundering of one’s very soul, reducing
one’s very existence. It is also a warning against the “forcing a betrothed
woman” or raping a marriageable woman, which is abominable and in Deuteronomy
is compared to killing the neighbour. “For as when a man rises against his
neighbour and slays him, even so is this matter” (Deut. 22:25, 26). The damsel
cried, and there was none to save her. These are instances of spiritual
murder. All people have inherited tendencies to such evils, and all must shun
them as sins against the Lord, and punish the evil-doer for his deeds.
Part of that inherited
tendency is to love one’s own offspring in only a natural way. “Children can
be loved also by the evil.” But it is part of a good person to be able to love
the person they have married. “A married partner can only be loved only by the
good.” It is a spiritual love that desires monogamous marriage. It is a
spiritual love that falls in love. This spiritual love after marriage, then
transfers to the love of the offspring born in such a marriage, and a love of
all children. In fact, such a love of the children being also spiritual is
conjoined with the love of marriage (cf. Conjugial Love 387, 404). Parents of course love their children, in a spiritual way as well as
naturally: they love to protect what has been procreated, for the Lord’s
sphere is in these loves, and good people love to enter into them.
So how can we know about
that sphere? A real token of going to heaven is just that a consort can be
loved only by the good. No one who is evil can truly love their consort, but
they can if they are good. Here is an early sign of where people are heading.
And yet grave problems do arise especially in marriages, involving a conflict
between partners and their children. People in close proximity create
friction, and are the “enemies of one’s own household.” However, this means
the temptations involving the states of the Church (Arcana Coelestia 4843),
which lie at the core of such conflicts. We all may know there is some
distance between where our marriage is and the reality in heaven, where two
spouses live together “forever,” not only in the same society, but in the same
house, no in the same room, no in the same bed, forever, but only, we read,
if “they are in complete harmony” (Conjugial Love 50). Clearly then,
just a few years on earth are worth a great deal of time and effort to really
work out that harmony. Good people strive to love their partner in this way.
Angels live as husband and
wife in the same house forever. This is meant by “They are angels in heaven,”
as the Lord said, but thinking about the spiritual sense which He said “were
many things He had to say, but they could not bear them now,” at that time.
(John 16:12). Hidden within the Lord’s answer to the Sadducees, hidden perhaps
by the knowing smile with which the Lord spoke the words, lay the truth that
marriages in heaven produce no children, because offspring are born here on
earth, for “the end of creation is a heaven from the human race.” Angels come
from people, so offspring can only be born here on earth. Angels are not
created from the beginning, but babies are created by the Lord and have their
beginning here. Foetuses receive innocence and peace from the Lord’s presence
with celestial angels, from conception right through birth. We could say the
womb is holy ground. The guardian angels protect the formation of the will and
understanding of the future individual, before birth, and then from the Lord,
after birth and onwards fill them with remains or loves of good and truth.
Those gifts or remnants which let us know what is genuinely truth, are meant
by the spirit of God hovering over the abyss, and the words, “Let there be
light” (Arcana Coelestia 19,20). Without remains, those heavenly loves granted
to us, “man is not a man” (Arcana Coelestia 530). A human being is not a human
being without secret gifts from God, given unbeknownst to us. Those gifts show
up as what is wrongly assumed to be an innate goodness of man. But it is not
inborn. It is given after birth.
Now how could the Lord
tell the Sadducees all these secrets? He could not reveal them, because such
truths would have been profaned, and profanation is a worse fate than hell.
But since they asked, He concealed the truth by parable: “When they rise, they
neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as angels of heaven.”
So now we see that this
parable means that angels are in a “spiritual marriage …because they cannot
die any more and are like angels, children of God and children of the
resurrection” (Conjugial Love 41). Thus, “No other marriages are meant
here than spiritual marriages. By them…conjunction with the Lord is meant, and
this is effected on earth; for then it has been effected in the heavens also;
therefore they are not married and given in marriage again, in the heavens”
(Ibid.).
Marriage begins here on
earth, and continues in heaven. Now we see what is meant by “They neither
marry nor are given in marriage.” Even single people who may not find their
partner here, for whatever reason, or who have yet to meet a true partner,
they too begin their marriage here on earth: for we read, “Conjugial or
marriage love stems from religion, and is formed by religion” (Conjugial
Love 444:3) and “exists in the same degree as the Church with man” (Conjugial
Love 63, 141, 240). Conjugial love and the Church “are constant
companions” (Conjugial Love 156, 238:2). Church and religion clearly
support the growth of conjugial or marriage love, more fully with people who
marry, because in marriage, the souls of the partners actually touch, but also
with all single people. Religion and Church with single people are inward
marriages, and they just await partners to fulfil that quality to completion.
That is also why everyone
can look forward to a marriage in heaven, either one that continues after
death with their present partner, or being fulfilled then with a partner
provided by the Lord, who they could have met here. Or it may be a love that
develops for the first time after death, once you meet. And some elderly
people who are separated by death, their souls commune for years until their
reunion. Their earth-marriage prepared them as individuals for this final
happiness, even if with another partner by then. This is because the love of
marriage or Conjugial love may exist with one partner, but not with the
other. And so the promise is: start here, and continue forever, together. We
read: “Unions like this are provided on earth…in the case of people who from
their youth have loved, desired and sought from the Lord a lawful and lovely
partnership with one, and who spurn and reject roving lusts (that is sexual
indulgence with many) as an offence to the nostrils” (Conjugial Love
49e). One might translate the last part as promiscuity stinks.
There is always a road to,
or a return to that lovely ideal, marriage, however difficult our life may
seem. The Holy Supper is a universal gate to heaven, thus also to conjugial
love, and it can be taken singly, or as married couples, in which case the
elements are given to both at the same time.
How do we reach the ideal
of married happiness, first here and then forever? The answer is: by the path
of meeting many, courtship of one, betrothal and a wedding. But along the way,
and apart from any ceremonies, it comes with shunning evils, especially of
abusing children, who are angels-to-be, and shunning the abuse of women, who
are guardians of the birth process whereby new individuals come into
existence, and the abuse of men by domineering. We shun these evils of abuse,
which may be comparable to murder or profanation. A chaste God-fearing
approach to marriage makes progress, and has what is “eternal” in it when it
looks to truth, Church or religion as companions in the journey. For then it
can continue forever, and men and women are then husband and wife forever, and
that is to be “as angels of God in heaven.”
Amen
Lessons:
Deuteronomy 22.23-26
Mark 12.18-27
Conjugial Love 41, 49 parts.
Conjugial Love 41
There is a spiritual meaning in all the words…the Lord spoke… (7) Spiritual
marriage is meant by the Lord's words, that after the resurrection they are
not given in marriage…, He is not God of the dead but of the living, for all
live to Him." (Luke 20:27-38; cf. Matthew 22:23-32, Mark
12:18-27)
The Lord taught two things
by these words. First, that a person rises again after death. And secondly,
that people are not given in marriage in heaven. He taught that a person rises
again after death by saying that God is not God of the dead but of the living,
and that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are still alive. … [2] Secondly, He taught
that people are not given in marriage in heaven by saying that those who are
held worthy to attain the second age neither marry nor are given in marriage.
The only kind of marriage meant here is spiritual marriage, and this clearly
appears from the words that immediately follow, that they cannot die any more
because they are like the angels and are children of God, being children of
the resurrection. By spiritual marriage, conjunction with the Lord is meant,
and this is achieved on earth. And when it has been achieved on earth, it has
also been achieved in heaven. Therefore in heaven the marriage does not take
place again, nor are people given in marriage. This, too, is meant by the
words, "The children of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those
who are held worthy to attain the second age neither marry nor are given in
marriage." … [3] To marry means to be conjoined with the Lord, and to go to a
wedding means to be received into heaven by the Lord.
Conjugial Love 49
Unions like this were provided on earth, which happens in the case of people
who from their youth had loved, desired and sought from the Lord a lawful and
lovely partnership with one, and who spurn and reject roving lusts as an
offence to the nostrils.
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