I will never marry in this life, circumstances put me in a position where it hasn't happened and likely would never happen. I have genetic based illnesses that I don't want to pass down so children would be a bad idea even if I want them too. For a long time I deluded myself thinking, well, maybe not this life, but in eternity I can make up for it.
But a nagging feeling kept hitting me, like something I'd been forgetting since it'd been a long time since I'd read the bible, and in my immaturity I always assumed what many people assume about heaven; you get everything you want, no desire of your heart unmet. But the nagging feeling was that not only was that not going to happen, but God never meant it to happen for me, He ALWAYS wanted me to be alone, and He made sure that I would fail every relationship I entered to keep it that way. I couldn't even fornicate, so yes, still a virgin at an embarrassing age to be one by the world's standards. I got in situations where I might have, but something would happen to stop it every time. Just seemingly random events that would break it up. I thought it was bad luck then, now I see it as the Lord telling me no, not even if I wanted to He was going to stop me.
Anyway, there was that dread, that the Lord MEANT for me to be alone, forever. Then I read the scripture that sealed the deal on that fear, and made it reality. Matthew 22:30.
That it wasn't just this life, it was NEVER.
To be told you will NEVER have something you want, but other people find a lot of joy in hurts worse than any physical pain (and I experience quite a bit of that). In fact it hurts so much that all it does is make you want it even more and feel like you're missing out on something awesome forever. It makes you think about what it is you're missing out on, to have a partnership exclusive between you and someone else that is special and nobody else has it with that person, as (relatively speaking anyway) equal partners. You love them more than anything but God, they love you more than anything but God. A person you can keep no secrets from, a person you share everything with, make decisions together with, start a family with, and those children that you love so much that you would die for them, that's something incredible, the only other thing people might be willing to die for is God right? A person you are united in 1 flesh with.
I share these fears and depression with people and they say "oh don't worry it'll be better and more intimate." Which.. to me doesn't make sense, the marriage relationship has you physically naked with each other even bodies inside each other.. and you're going to be more intimate than that at handshake distance as just "brothers and sisters" in Christ? They try to say you aren't missing out on anything, but their actions belie their words, like I said, they'd die for their families, and the only other thing they'd die for is Jesus Christ, and in some cases, they'd die for their family, but NOT Jesus Christ! How am I supposed to feel like I'm NOT missing out on something when it seems to give them that much joy? Why did God single me out to be single? Why is it one of the ONLY revelations I've had from God Himself have to be this one that causes me so much pain? When I ask for revelation in other areas of life.. I get nothing. This one area I got revelation but it's like asking God something in prayer and His answer is not silence, but a definitive, resounding "No."
Why does this verse cause me so much pain every time I think about it? A simple answer from Jesus and it feels like tearing off a scab off a wound that just won't heal.
Genesis 2:18
Why is it good for me to be alone specifically? Why would God create me to desire something that he wanted me to never have? Some people choose to be single and are happy with that, it doesn't hurt them to tell them they'll never be married because they never wanted any part in it in the first place. Why couldn't He create me like that if that's what He wanted for me? At least then it wouldn't hurt.
This single verse, this single thing, is the cornerstone that makes me think I won't even be happy in eternity, and my only way to manage with it is to devalue myself and think my happiness is inconsequential that God is not a genie in the bottle and that if I'm unhappy I just have to accept it and be content. Forever.
It has almost created 2 hells as the potential afterlives. Just 1 Hell where everyone is suffering eternally and 1 where I'm singled out in exclusion but everyone around me is happy.
There are two different resurrections hinted at by Jesus (and which is later clarified better by Paul):
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Matthew 22:30
"For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven."
This is the...
Spiritual Resurrection
This is a resurrection of the spiritual body, i.e. the Pre-Trib Rapture;
Note: Paul says in:
1 Corinthians 15:44, "It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body."
Paul reveals that this is the Rapture or taking up as a new mystery -
1 Corinthians 15:51-53.
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Matthew 22:31-32
31 But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying,
32 I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."
This is the...
Physical Flesh and Blood Resurrection:
(Called: The 1st Resurrection, which is the physical flesh and blood body type resurrection; We learn of this resurrection here in Revelation 20:4 for the time of the Millennium or the 1,000 year reign of Christ):
"And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years." (Revelation 2:4).
We also learn of about this resurrection taking place on the New Earth here: " But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished." (Revelation 21:5).
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Conclusion:
So in the Rapture, Christians will receive a new spirit body and will be like angels and they will not be given in marriage. Believers who currently die go to Abraham's bosom until the Rapture happens. When the Rapture happens, the dead in Christ will rise first, and then they which will remain who are alive will be caught up in the air to meet the Lord in clouds.
After the 2nd coming of Christ, there will be the 1,000 year reign of Christ.
At the beginning of the 1,000 year reign, certain select few of God's people will be physically resurrected from the dead. I believe this to be Abraham to Moses (Who have the land promise), and those who were beheaded for Christ during the Tribulation.
After the 1,000 year reign of Christ, and after the Judgment, there will be a "New Earth" and the city of New Jerusalem will come down from out of Heaven and land on the "New Earth." At some point here, the people of God in the city of New Jerusalem (i.e. Those believers who were taken up in the Rapture and were faithful and not cast out by not having a wedding garment on) will receive their new physical bodies finally. The original plan of God (Where God dwells with man) will be restored.
So yes. I believe that one will be able to have a wife in either the Millennium or the New Earth. It depends on your current faithfulness now. If you live to see the time whereby you are beheaded for Christ during the time of the Antichrist, you will go through the Millennium. If you are faithful to Christ now, you will be a part of the Rapture and be in Heaven for a time until New Jerusalem lands on the "New Earth" after the Millennium (Whereby you will then have a new physical body again). Believers at this point can say that Jesus is truly their "Everlasting Father" literally at this point because they will have been resurrected after the likeness of His resurrection (or based upon His DNA).
Unfortunately, most believers are not going to make it. For Jesus said narrow is the way that leads unto life, and FEW be there that find it. Most today want to justify some kind of sin and still be saved type belief (on some level). So if a believer dies thinking they can turn God's grace into a safety net to sin, they will one day be taken up out of Sheol in the Rapture, but when they face the Lord for the wedding, the Lord will ask them where their wedding garment is at. They will be speechless, and the Lord will cast them into outer darkness. So my encouragement to all believers is stay faithful to the Lord and do not adhere to the popular view of "
Sin & Salvation" as taught in the pulpits today.
