MARRIAGE AN APPRENTICESHIP

⁸ Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. ¹⁹ “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. ²⁰ Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died without leaving any children. ²¹ The second one married the widow, but he also died, leaving no child. It was the same with the third. ²² In fact, none of the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman died too. ²³ At the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”

²⁴ Jesus replied, “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? ²⁵ When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. ²⁶ Now about the dead rising—have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the account of the burning bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? ²⁷ He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!” Mark 12:18-27

Some of the most profound truths that Jesus ever spoke came from the debates He had with His opponents. So much of what He revealed about Himself came out of His altercations with the “Jews” as recorded in John’s gospel. Isn’t it also true to say that a great deal of what we learn of God comes out of our own personal struggles?

On this occasion, it was the Sadducees who were questioning the truth. They rejected belief in the resurrection because they were the political pragmatists of their day. They believed what they saw. Their question about the resurrection was also intended to expose what they thought was false teaching, but instead it exposed their ignorance of God’s word and His ways.

What Jesus revealed in response was profound truth that must be part of the brain power we develop in our thinking. Marriage is an aspect of the earthly apprenticeship we serve in our life from the womb to the grave. It prepares us, if we understand and practise marriage as God intended, for the eternal union of our spirits with God’s Spirit where “all our ecstasies and intimacies then will be with God.” The more we understand and practise that truth in this life, the more prepared we will be for the union we experience and express with God in the life to come.

But what of those who do not experience the union that marriage promises in this life? Do we miss out on a vital part of growing unity in a relationship if we are not or have not been married? Not according to Paul. Mutual submission is the key to unity. In the church, we are called to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. In all our interpersonal relationships, we are to live at peace with one another.

However, it is in our relationship with God Himself, through prayer and submission, that we learn to live in ECHAD with God. This is the ultimate goal of this “marriage” that we have with Him, so that all our ecstasies and intimacies will be with Him.