Is There Really No Marriage In Heaven? An Alternate View

A common belief among Christians today is that there is no marriage in heaven, because Jesus seemed to say as much during one of his debates, in pretty straightforward terms. I believe that this understanding of Jesus’ words is incomplete, when taken in the broader context of scripture; he does seem to leave room for some kind of marriage in heaven, just not the kind that we’re used to. I’ll make my case in this article, but be warned that the path I take to resolve my view with Jesus’ words leads us into some pretty weird and uncharted theological territory.

First and foremost, you should know that my views are built on the idea that God (the Father) exists as two persons who are one, the Word and the Spirit. God therefore becomes the foundation of earthly marriage, seen in his creation of Adam and Eve as two persons who are one (Gen 2:24). For those familiar with Christian theology, this model of the godhead differs from the accepted understanding of the trinity (a three-person view), which is often considered a central doctrine of the faith. I disagree, and at this point I believe I’ve made an effective case that the trinity has some biblical problems. But all of that work has been done in earlier articles. If you’re someone who is particularly passionate about the trinity, you may find more value by leaving this subject for a time, and working through the foundational argument that leads to this shift in our understanding of the godhead.

Beyond the trinity issue, this article contains other weird doctrines and beliefs that may make some people queasy. In fact, the weirdness of this article will be a great rhetorical tool for anyone who wants to dismiss my view of the godhead as just another heresy like mormonism. The LDS’ (wrong) view of the godhead leads them to some seriously weird views on the nature of heaven, just like my view of the godhead leads me to some seriously weird views of heaven.

The difference is that I have a high view of the Bible, reading verses in their context, allowing the Bible to interpret the Bible etc. I’m not bringing in any new revelation, I’m arguing against the trinity on biblical grounds, from scripture alone, pointing out what I believe to be flaws in that theological system. And I’m doing my best to resolve those problems, leading me to an alternative theological system. I have no illusion that my work in this regard is flawless, fully expecting and inviting others to measure everything I’ve written against the inerrant, inspired, and infallible word of God.

Concerning the weird conclusions of this article, these are also built upon biblical revelation, but they don’t directly contribute to the foundations of pattern theology. Rather, they help to corroborate or confirm pattern theology, by demonstrating another way in which the Word-Spirit pattern manifests itself in creation. In other words, if there truly is no marriage in heaven, the doctrine of the pattern still stands; it just has one less area of application that confirms it. But if there is marriage in heaven, then the pattern helps to explain why, and what that means.

So if you choose to continue reading, know that you will need a high tolerance for weird theology. Don’t judge a doctrine on the basis of a felt sense of weirdness; orthodox Christianity has all kinds of weird theology that’s simply well-accepted because it’s biblical. Judge all things based on their biblical merit. And be aware that this article will be long, because I have to thoroughly ground all of it in scripture.

Let’s begin by looking at Jesus’ words on the subject.

The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.’ Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no offspring left his wife to his brother. So too the second and third, down to the seventh. After them all, the woman died. In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.”

But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”

And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching. (Mat 22:23-33)

Most people reading this passage will understandably come to believe that there is no marriage in heaven; Jesus’ words are pretty plain. But as we read Jesus on a variety of subjects, it’s important to recognize that he taught many things that would lead people to wrong conclusions if they only considered them on a superficial level. This forced his disciples to think deeply about a subject before they could understand what he was talking about.

For example, at one point Jesus speaks as if anyone with a lust problem should cut off his hands and pluck out his eyes (Mat 5:29-30). But is that really what he was saying? This bizarre statement forces a hearer to think more deeply about his words, and ask, “Is that really what Jesus was saying?” Looking at the context, you see his broader point, that the problem isn’t with your eye or hand or any external thing that the law can regulate. The problem of humanity is the sin of our hearts. So if it were true that your eye caused you to sin, then plucking it out would be the rational solution. But the problem is that we need a new heart, not a new eye, and Jesus has come to provide us with that new nature.

Elsewhere Jesus speaks as if all of his disciples have to hate their parents, spouses, children etc. (Luk 14:26). This strong language would seem inconsistent with his other teaching about honoring parents, so it forces a hearer to either dismiss him entirely, or think deeply about what he said in context, to see that your loyalty must belong to Jesus first, and others second. If parents are cool with you being a Christian, there’s no charge to hate them. But if they make you choose between them and Christ, you choose Jesus every time.

Jesus’ goal as a master rhetorician is to communicate truth to people who have “ears to hear” (a heart open to the things of God), while hiding truth from those who just want to twist everything that he says. He is speaking in such a way to address the pre-existing heart conditions of his hearers. This rhetorical goal is why he often spoke in parables.

Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says: ‘You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive.'” (Mat 13:10-14)

He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything. (Mar 4:34)

So you can’t just take Jesus’ words as a straightforward systematic theology. To understand his doctrine, those with ears to hear will often need to think deeply about the things that he says, to understand their true meaning.

Concerning his answer to the Sadducees, is he really saying that there is no marriage in heaven? Or is there a deeper meaning here? It’s important to note that he’s speaking with his enemies, people who are trying to trap him in his words so that they can find a justification to arrest and kill him, without starting a riot among the people (Mat 21:46). So this fits a situation where Jesus would be strongly motivated to hide truth from his listeners, so that he can win the argument without giving his enemies ammunition against him (ensuring that he would be crucified on Passover, not before).

Jesus therefore performs two rhetorical moves. First, he shows the illegitimacy of the Sadducees’ objection to resurrection on the basis of a conflict in marriage. Second, he shows the inconsistency of their own view by demonstrating that resurrection is implied even in the reduced scriptures that they accepted as authoritative (the first five books of the Bible).

Our concern is the first point, Jesus’ claim that we neither marry nor are given in marriage. The natural understanding of his words would be to conclude that there is no marriage in the resurrection; Jesus doesn’t provide a lot of detail or nuance that would say otherwise. But I believe there’s actually room in his words for additional detail and nuance, such that we can allow for marriage in heaven and the new creation. My claim is that the idea of no marriage in heaven is what he wanted the Sadducees to conclude, not what he would have his disciples believe when we think more deeply on his words.

Does Jesus say that there is no marriage in heaven? No, he actually says that “they” will not marry, nor be given in marriage. This refers to the specific form of marriage that the Sadducees had brought forward, marriage that we received from Genesis two, concerning one man and one woman becoming one flesh. But he doesn’t rule out all marriage in heaven; this would contradict his other teachings.

In particular, we know that there is at least one other form of marriage that we see in the resurrection, the wedding of Christ and his Church. On the very same day, earlier in the same chapter, Jesus also affirmed the marriage of Christ and the Church in a parable (Mat 22:1-14). The parabolic nature reduces the effectiveness of this proof, as someone could simply argue that he was being metaphorical, and not speaking of a literal wedding for the son of God. Also, the interpretation is dependent on long discussions about eschatology, which could derail the entire flow of this article, so I won’t develop it at length. But the point is that we have a concept in accepted, Christian thought that defies the idea that there is no marriage in heaven — and Jesus was just speaking about it a few verses earlier.

The usual response of course is that the marriage between Christ and the Church is simply a metaphor to describe the kind of love and respect that exists between us and him; it’s similar to a bride and groom. If we were to view it as a literal marriage, you would have one man (Jesus) married to an unthinkable number of men and women. Is Jesus a bisexual polygamist? Of course not; clearly there’s a difference between earthly marriage and that of Christ and the Church. And that’s the point; it falls outside of what Jesus claimed would end in the resurrection. There is no marriage in heaven between a man and a woman, but there is an eternal marriage between Christ and the Church. The question is whether or not it’s a real marriage in some sense, or just a metaphor. If it is a real marriage, then this opens the door to the possibility of other forms of eternal marriage that also fall outside the scope of Jesus’ words.

There are many parables and passages that speak about Jesus and the Church having a bride/groom relationship. While many of them could perhaps fit into the category of a simple metaphor, it becomes difficult to completely allegorize it away. Consider for example Paul’s words to the Ephesians.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. (Eph 5:25-33)

We looked at this passage in the last article, but I cite it again here to argue that the relationship between Christ and the Church is a real relationship after which human marriage is patterned. This mystery of two in one is profound, and Paul says that it refers primarily to Christ and the Church. That sounds like a real relationship describing some form of marriage, not just a metaphor that uses earthly marriage to describe how Christ and the Church relate. In other words, the relationship between Christ and the Church is a truer form of marriage than earthly marriage, because it is the relationship after which human marriage is modeled. We have a real marriage to Christ, however that plays out in time and eternity.

The book of Revelation also seems to describe a real marriage between Christ and the city of New Jerusalem. This is complete with a wedding feast that seems to be literal to some degree (Rev 19:6-9, 17-18, Rev 21:1-2, 9-10, 16-17). Furthermore, when Jesus said, “I go to prepare a place for you” (Jhn 14:3), it’s often recognized that he is alluding to to a common Jewish wedding tradition where the groom prepares a room in his father’s house for the wedding consummation. Jesus literally went away; he is literally preparing a place for us in heaven; this seems to indicate a literal wedding of some sort.

Most Bible-believing Christians today will agree that our wedding to Christ is real, so I won’t belabor the point. The main question is what that looks like in terms of physical intimacy. Most assume that it’s a real wedding, but our union is only spiritual in nature, with no physical or sexual component associated with it.

The odd thing about making this a completely spiritual, non-physical marriage is that scripture seems to suggest that Jesus will have children one day. This is found in two places that I’m aware of. One is in Isaiah 53:10, which prophesies that the Messiah will be cut off, and have no generation/children to preserve his line. After he has made his soul an offering for sin, however, he will “see his offspring” and prolong his days.

The other passage is in Psalm 45, a love song directed to Christ and his bride. I’ll quote the entire psalm for context.

To the choirmaster: according to Lilies. A Maskil of the Sons of Korah; a love song.

My heart overflows with a pleasing theme; I address my verses to the king; my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe. You are the most handsome of the sons of men; grace is poured upon your lips; therefore God has blessed you forever. Gird your sword on your thigh, O mighty one, in your splendor and majesty! In your majesty ride out victoriously for the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness; let your right hand teach you awesome deeds! Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king’s enemies; the peoples fall under you.

Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness; you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions; your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia. From ivory palaces stringed instruments make you glad; daughters of kings are among your ladies of honor; at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir.

Hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear: forget your people and your father’s house, and the king will desire your beauty. Since he is your lord, bow to him. The people of Tyre will seek your favor with gifts, the richest of the people. All glorious is the princess in her chamber, with robes interwoven with gold. In many-colored robes she is led to the king, with her virgin companions following behind her. With joy and gladness they are led along as they enter the palace of the king. In place of your fathers shall be your sons; you will make them princes in all the earth. I will cause your name to be remembered in all generations; therefore nations will praise you forever and ever. (Psa 45:1-17)

Most Christians will agree that this Psalm is addressing Christ and his bride, because the king described by this psalm is both God and man; there’s only one god-man in existence, as far as the Bible seems to teach. Also, the charge to make war against and conquer all peoples of the earth fits with the context of Jesus’ second coming, which is the time at which scripture indicates he will marry his Church.

Those who believe there is no marriage in heaven will usually therefore spiritualize the section about the bride having children, viewing this in reference to individual Christians. But this breaks the metaphor, because if the woman in view represents all Christians, then they would be part of the bride, not her sons. Similarly, there are other redeemed people involved in this wedding, including daughters of kings, virgin companions.

Perhaps the greatest issue is that the New Testament takes this psalm very literally in its description of Christ and his authority. The description of Jesus as both God and man in this passage, together with his anointing, is used to describe and justify the ascension of Christ to the throne in Heaven, something which literally happened. So if the first part is literal prophecy, why is the second part very sloppy allegory?

Given that we’ve allowed for some form of marriage in the resurrection, we can interpret this whole psalm in a straightforward, literal way. It isn’t describing Jesus’ spiritual marriage to many people. It is describing a physical marriage to some very lucky woman, and the children that they have as a result.

Does Jesus therefore have two marriages? In a sense, certainly, the same way that a Christian on earth may be engaged to Christ in relationship to spiritual marriage, but individually married to an earthly man or woman. There is no conflict or adultery here; these are two different forms of marriage.

My suspicion is that the bride in Psalm 45 represents the Church as a whole; Jesus is marrying all of us through her. This is supported by the degree of authority that she is given as the bride of Christ. I demonstrated earlier that those in authority represent the people under their jurisdiction, in a way that allows the corporate actions to be ascribed to the individual. To put it simply, Jesus marries the Church corporately by marrying one individual who represents us all.

At this point we’ve seen that there is true marriage of some form in heaven, and in the case of at least one man and wife, it seems to involve sexual intimacy leading to children. At this point we’re going to move into some weird territory as we try to explain this, and understand the implications for the rest of us, so I want to take a minute to demonstrate that this question gets weird no matter what direction you take. Hopefully it’ll help to deter some of the emotional reactions that might prohibit clear, biblical thinking.

Those who believe there is no marriage in heaven face two weird options in terms of understanding what happens to our gender / sex organs in the resurrection. One view is that mankind becomes neuter. A crass, but relevant question in response would be, how do we go to the bathroom? Eating and drinking are still a thing in the new heavens and earth (certainly during the wedding feast of the lamb), so we’d still need systems to dispose of the waste. Whatever solution you present to that question will depart from our current experience significantly, and feel weird to our current sensibilities. That doesn’t make it wrong; it just means that we can’t judge theology by weirdness.

On the other hand, some will say that we keep our sex organs and general body designs, but we just never use them. That seems equally weird to me. If we retain all of our gender differences (body and soul), but never express those differences according to God’s design for us, then it seems more similar to the current period after the fall than a restoration of God’s creation. Jesus regarded such people as “eunuchs” for the kingdom, those who unnaturally refrain from marriage and sex for the sake of the kingdom (Mat 19:11-12). He didn’t seem to view it as God’s original or ultimate design. To have the ability to have sex and create children, but refrain from doing so for all of eternity, seems like an unusual design decision if that’s God’s intended end.

I say all this because my solution is just as weird as these two options, and I want readers to give it a fair evaluation against scripture rather than a gut reaction against it. In my view, because I affirm marriage in the resurrection, I believe gender and sexual organs are very much present in our bodies. But we all become female corresponding to our role as the bride of Christ. That isn’t to say that we’re all women in the current sense of the term; the resurrection turns us into a higher order of being than humankind. We bear the image of the man from heaven (Jesus), rather than Adam, the man from the dust of the earth (1Co 15:48-49). Or, we bear the image of both, which may better represent the union of heaven and earth seen at the end of Revelation. In any case, we know that our new bodies will be a significant departure from our current experience, so receiving new genders along with them (new for men, anyway) isn’t a huge stretch in terms of the presently accepted departure from our old nature. We are new creatures, through and through, and making us all female helps tie together many loose threads of scripture, which we’ll begin to look at in the next section.

The pull to the feminine gender (rather than all of us becoming male, or keeping our existing genders) comes from three pattern-driven implications of our nature. First, as I already noted, our future role is seen as a bride. In a corporate sense, Jesus is masculine, and we are feminine, so it’s fitting (though not necessary) that we would individually correspond to our corporate gender. Additionally, we are originally from the dust of the earth. As demonstrated in an earlier article, the earth seems to be viewed in a feminine sense, and in association with the Holy Spirit rather than the Word. Finally, if masculinity and femininity are patterned after the Word and Spirit respectively, then as Spirit-bearers (earthly temples rather than heavenly temples), it’s appropriate that our bodies would be female, just as it’s appropriate that Christ’s body would be male, as a Word-bearer.

All of those are soft proofs that are contradicted by our current state of affairs. By God’s design, I am a man, even though I’m created from the dust of the ground, filled with the Holy Spirit, and part of the betrothed bride of Christ. Clearly these things do not require an individual, feminine gender. The claim from a patternist is that it’s fitting for our genders to align with these other attributes in the resurrection, but they don’t really form a strong or definitive proof that gender change is necessary in any way.

The primary driver for change comes from the problem of numbers. If we all marry Jesus, and we are all sexual beings, then you have one man marrying innumerable men and women, each with their own sex organs. As we’ve seen, this is expressed individually as him marrying a single woman who represents us all, so the sexual question is answered for her. But what happens with the rest of us? We don’t marry each-other; Jesus already ruled that out.

If the bride is one woman who represents a whole host of earthly creatures, then a parallel would be to have Jesus be one man who represents a host of heavenly creatures. If such an order of being exists, then a natural solution to the numbers problem would be to have Jesus marry all of us through the heavenly hosts that he represents.

These beings would need to be like resurrected humans, in the same way that Eve was like Adam. They would need to be the opposite gender of whoever they married from earth. They would need to bear the Word in the same way that we bear the Spirit. And they would need to be sexually compatible with us, able to have children as Jesus can with his bride.

As it happens, there is such an order of heavenly being described by scripture, one that Jesus actually mentioned in his description of marriage in the resurrection.

But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. (Mat 22:29-30)

In the context of what we will be like in the resurrection, Jesus says that instead of marrying each-other, we will be like angels. More information is brought out in Luke’s helpful account of this discussion.

Jesus answered and said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.” (Luk 20:34-36 NKJV)

Those who believe there is no marriage in heaven will typically say that the reason angels are brought up is because they’re immortal, and they do not marry. We’ll be similar to them in these two regards, therefore Jesus holds them out as a pattern for what to expect. The patternist claim on the other hand is that we will be like angels in a much deeper sense; effectively we will be the same basic species or kind, the female version of what an angel is like. Jesus’ description of this vs the future age is highlighting two different forms of marriage that correspond to each age. Rather than marry each-other, we will be like (marry) the angels. He doesn’t explicitly state that it’s a new marriage relationship, for reasons already discussed. But the implication of his words would seem to lean in that direction, given what we’ve already looked at, and given his rebuke to the Sadducees.

Jesus specifically said that the Sadducees erred in that they knew “neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.” (Mat 22:29) Many commentators will associate this rebuke concerning biblical ignorance with his second point about God being the God of the living. But it seems to be a rebuke specifically about their conclusions regarding marriage. He rebukes them, makes his first point about marriage, then changes subjects to talk about the resurrection.

But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

“And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” (Mat 22:29-32)

Jesus’ rebuke seems to be saying that if the Sadducees knew the scripture well, they would have understood that instead of marrying each-other, human beings are like angels. The trouble is, as far as I’ve read in the Bible and on this issue, you will be hard-pressed to find a scripture passage (especially in the Torah) that teaches this truth, if you operate from a belief that angels don’t marry. If Jesus here is saying that there is no marriage in heaven, because we’ll be like angels, and angels don’t marry, it’s difficult to find an old testament scripture that the Sadducees could have used to learn this truth. But, if Jesus is affirming that angels do marry, and that we will be their future brides, then there is one scripture passage I’m aware of that would lead someone to that conclusion.

The Luke passage above contrasts two different kinds of sons, “sons of this age” vs “sons of God.” The full text of the latter title correlates “sons of God” with our relationship to the angels, “for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.” This gives us a clue to the scripture that speaks of angelic marriage, because angels are also referred to as “sons of God” in some of the earlier texts of scripture. Job for example contains the following three references:

Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them. (Job 1:6)

Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the LORD. (Job 2:1)

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements–surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? 6 On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38:4-7)

While usually the title “son of God” is reserved for humans, because we bear the image of God, in these three places it seems to be referring to some sort of heavenly being. The first two take place in the throne room of God in heaven. The last one was a description of the creation of earth, at a point where no humans existed. This helps to color our interpretation of Genesis 6, which speaks of the origin of giants, such as the one that David fought.

When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim [giants] were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. (Gen 6:1-4)

The interpretation of this passage is debated. Classically it’s been viewed as an instance where angels (sons of God) left their proper domain of heaven, and sinned by taking human wives for themselves (Jde 1:2-7, 2Pe 2:4). This produced a race of giants (Nephilim), which is part of what led to the flood, and surfaced again afterward in the war for Canaan (e.g. David and Goliath).

Some people try to say that the sons of God in this passage are descendants of Seth who fell into sexual sin with the daughters of Cain. I don’t have space at this point to address the full argument, so I’ll leave that for another post. But the sense I have is that it’s primarily motivated by the weirdness of the alternative, and the problems that it brings. In particular, why in the world would God create angels and humans to be sexually compatible? When God created all other creatures in Genesis 1, they were created to reproduce “according to their kind.” Typically when you try to cross two different kinds, it doesn’t work. In rare cases where it does, the result is impotent, never producing a new race of creatures.

This objection works well from an earthly perspective. If there is no marriage in heaven — no good, sanctified sexual engagement between angels and mankind — then God’s creating us to intermarry would be an unusual design decision. However, taking the full scope of what we’ve looked at thus far, the classic interpretation makes perfect sense when you understand the current form of marriage to be a temporary measure, that we were always intended for something greater.

Genesis is showing us a situation where God’s design was used in a corrupt way. Yes, angels were designed to marry us, but they were to wait until our race had sufficiently matured, when we had reached the “time for love” according to God’s timing and standard. They were to wait for our death and resurrection into bodies fit to be a suitable helper unto them. These angels didn’t wait, and they produced through us a race of giants who would hinder God’s purposes on the earth.

Because angels and humans abused God’s design in Genesis, Jesus was right to say that the Sadducees didn’t properly know the scriptures. The abuse of God’s design shows us that there is a design for angels and humans to mate, and when you follow that reasoning out to its logical conclusion, it would lead a careful thinker of Jesus’ day to see marriage in the resurrection.

If there’s no marriage in heaven, passages like Genesis 6 become more challenging to explain. However, there are some legitimate issues on the patternist side that can be raised as well.

First, the general consensus is that humans are by nature greater than angels, since we are created in the image of God. We may be weaker than angels, just like we’re generally weaker than elephants or tigers. But the image of God sets us apart, and gives us the authority to rule (Gen 1:26-28).

I discussed this issue more fully in the article on creation; angels are actually our superiors by nature. It’s only in the resurrection that we become equal to or greater than them (depending on your interpretation of Hebrews 1-2). But to add to that discussion, it’s worth pointing out that when we say that angels are not created in the image of God, that’s an assumption that we’re making, not something that’s directly revealed in scripture. We’re told that humans are in the image of God, but we aren’t actually told that we’re the only ones created in that condition; that’s an assumption that we make. If we consider the idea that angels may also be in the image of God, that helps to tie up some loose ends.

First of all, as argued elsewhere, the title “son of God” is closely tied to the concept of image-bearing. Every other creature given the title “son of God” is a human being created in the image and likeness of God. That isn’t to say that being in the image of God automatically makes you a son; situations like rejection and adoption can change a person’s familial status, despite the line of natural descent. But every other creature described as a son of God is of the same kind, everyone bearing the image of God as our first parent.

So it’s unusual that angels would be the one exception to this. If every other son of God in scripture is of the same kind, the same source image, then why are angels given that title? It could very well be that they too are in the image of God, just not an image created out of dust. To put it in more historic, theological terms, angels may have the same image, but a different substance, and wielding a greater degree of control over nature.

This would explain why they seem to look, speak, and act like humans. The idea of them having wings seems to be a confusion between cherubim/seraphim and angels. Scripture seems to give angels the same basic body structure as humans, whereas other heavenly beings have wings and other non-humanoid phenomena; those are not called angels. For the sake of brevity, I’ll leave an in-depth development of this point to another article. But suffice it to say that granting angels the image of God in a higher, heavenly substance has value in explaining the many similarities they seem to have with humans.

Lastly, it nicely ties together with Jesus’ preincarnate form, known as the Angel of the Lord. In the series on pattern christology, I made the case that this was a truly created nature that permanently belonged to Jesus prior to the incarnation, not just a temporary shell that he took on and put off as needed. He was truly God and truly angel from the moment that God first created light, until the point that he became man. If angelkind and mankind are two expressions of the same image, ultimately destined to unite into one, then this makes the incarnation that much more powerful in that it is the foundation of our union together, the point at which the angel of the Lord became man.

It also establishes a true relationship between Jesus and the angelic hosts. Jesus marries all of us through his bride, because she represents all of redeemed humanity. The bride in turn marries all of the angels through Jesus, because he represents all of angelkind, as the “commander of the LORD’s army” (Jos 5:13-15)

Because of these consideration, the claim that we’re superior to angels on the basis of our image-bearing doesn’t necessarily find grounding in scripture. We assume that we’re the only creatures in God’s image, but scripture isn’t explicit on that point. By nature we are inferior to angels prior to our union with Christ. And there’s good reason to believe that they may actually bear the image of God as well, just along another line, and composed of a different substance.

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