Random Guy: “Jesus, you have to help me out. Are you really telling me that there is something better than sex?”
Jesus: Is your imagination really that limited? Your fantasy life is dull and boring. Let me tell you about something far better than sex.
Luke 20:27-40 are sobering and life-giving verses. They are a breath of fresh air that rescues sex from the hype and melodrama of our culture. So what exactly does this passage teach us about sex and heaven?
The passage teaches us that we, like the Sadducees, misunderstand the nature of heaven.
Jesus challenges both the Sadducees and our understanding of the afterlife by saying something utterly shocking. In fact, this is one passage that ought to convince you of the Divine authorship of Scripture. No human author or mere human being would say something like this. Yet Jesus is not a kill-joy. He wants to introduce you to something that is far more joyful and ecstatic than any marriage or sexual experience. Something to which sex points. In so doing, he redeems sex and marriage by putting them in their proper place. Marriage and sex are temporary blessings that pass away with the old order of things when the new heavens and earth are ushered in.
Heaven: Better Than Sex?
No other world religion that affirms an afterlife talks like this, as far as I know. Islam and Mormonism speak of sex in the afterlife. Modern Judaism is vague at best. Eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism speak of heaven as a bodiless impersonal state. The goal in this life is to gain control over one’s desires. Christianity alone speaks of a bodily resurrection and yet says that there will be no marriage or sex in heaven. This is not because Christianity has a negative view of the physical world. The Bible affirms the goodness of marriage, sexual union and pleasure within the context of marriage!
