Mark 12:25
Have
you ever noticed some of the funny things that people believe? Superstitions
abound. Even in our age of supposed intelligence and information at a click,
people still believe so many unsupported things. From the dangers of vaccines leading
to autism to multinational corporations developing foods that kill us, the list
could go on and on. Almost all of these beliefs were developed by single
individuals who chose their evidence in a way that supported their theory and
fed on people’s mistrust of anything large. Remember, small was better. Small
farms, small towns, small business, small pox.
Sometimes
our theological beliefs start with a misread Scripture or a fuzzy translation
of the text. Some of this can’t be helped. Anytime you translate from one
language to another, some things have to be filtered out because to convey the
full meaning would turn a single word into many. Each language has concepts
that aren’t contained in other languages in single words. It can take many
words to translate because that word/concept doesn’t exist in both languages.
The
concept “main street” in the phrase “main street USA” is an example. We are not
talking about a physical street with the name Main are we? Is there one street
crossing all the United States called Main Street? Does every town have a Main
Street? It can be difficult to explain that the phrase is talking about every day,
ordinary people’s lives, their choices, their values, their outlooks. Or it
could be the first street you walk on in a Disney theme park. Or it could be
the person is referring to the movement to preserve and revitalize downtown
areas of towns and cities. Or when referring to a target audience of a
marketing campaign.
In
our text we have a good translation of the text, but people still draw a wrong
conclusion about the meaning. I refer to us being “like the angels” when we
rise from the dead. Some people think we will become angels when we die, and they quote this verse in an attempt
to prove it. But they miss one very important word: like.
Angels
don’t marry. In heaven we won’t be married. In this sense we are like the
angels. There is only one point of connection being made my Jesus: marriage. He
isn’t talking about appearance, essence, travel abilities, knowledge, wings, or
any other characteristic. He is talking about marital status. In this way Jesus
silences His Sadducee questioners. They are in error about our essential
natures after the Resurrection.
Heaven
is not an extension of earthly life on steroids. There are some fundamental
changes between here and there. Marriage relationships are one of those
changes. We will know our spouses, but we won’t be married in the same earthly
sense. The purposes of marriage are not longer valid. We don’t need more kids
in heaven. We don’t need to demonstrate to a fallen world the unity of Christ
and the Church in a tangible way. We won’t need to reinforce the social bonds
of marriage and family. We won’t need this kind of pleasure. Heaven has so much
for us.
We
don’t become angels! We will go somewhere after death. When I get there, I won’t need any wings.