5 Reasons “Eternal Marriage” is a False LDS Teaching

Mormonism teaches that marriage can be eternal. This is probably one of the most alluring parts of the LDS church for many people and understandably so. But is it true? Here are five reasons that marriage is not eternal. The Sadducees who were a sect of Jews who denied a future resurrection once approached Jesus and tried to trap him with a question that they perceived to be really difficult to answer. They asked him, "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 to the second and third, down to the seven. After them all, the woman died. In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her." Now, the Sadducees were referring to an old covenant practice known as leverit marriage. According to this practice, a man was responsible for marrying his deceased brother's wife in order to have children for the sake of preserving that family's inheritance. They said, "If this happened with seven brothers in the resurrection, whose wife would she be?" The Sadducees aimed to humiliate Jesus by asking him a difficult question that would either have an unsatisfactory or uncomfortable answer.

But if the LDS understanding of eternal marriage is true, then this was not a tricky question for Jesus to answer, the LDS answer to the proposed question of verse 28, whose wife will she be would simply be, she'd be the wife of whoever she was sealed to in a temple. But notice what Jesus's response is. 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." For Christians, this passage is really simple. Jesus teaches that there will not be marriage in heaven.

Matthew 22

Some Latter-day Saints, however, have understood Jesus to be teaching that there will not be marriages performed in the resurrection. But think about the question that the Sadducees asked Jesus. They weren't asking about weddings or getting married or ceilings in the afterlife. Their question was in the resurrection, whose wife will she be? And Jesus answered, "No one's because she'll be like the angels in heaven. Angels don't have husbands. Angels don't have wives because they're not married." If Jesus was only saying that she can't get married after death, then he never actually addressed the Sadducees original question.

Number two, the absence of any contrary teaching. If the LDS teaching is true, then Matthew 22 would have been the ideal moment for Jesus to clarify and explain this essential ordinance. Joseph Smith himself stated, "Except a man and his wife enter into an everlasting covenant and be married for eternity while in this probation by the power and authority of the Holy Priesthood, they will cease to increase when they die." But Jesus makes no mention of this practice here. In fact, if we scour the Bible from beginning to end, the only text that even kind of references marriage in the afterlife is right here in Matthew 22.

And instead of affirming it, Jesus patently rejects eternal marriage. The Apostle Paul did not teach that marriage was an essential part of receiving the fullness of the gospel. Instead, he actually said it was better to remain single. To the unmarried and the widows, I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion. If being married for eternity really is an essential prerequisite for exaltation, as Latter-day Saints claim, then this statement by Paul is absurd. It would be leading people away from obedience to gospel ordinances.

Romans 7

But Paul taught that some people who are able to control their passions and desires should remain single for the sake of Christ, especially given the tumultuous nature of the early church. Later in that same chapter, he again states, "It's better to stay single. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. But if you do marry, you have not sinned. And if a betrothed woman marries, she has not sinned. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles. And I would spare you that. I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord.

But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. So then, he who marries his betrothed does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better. These statements by Paul make no sense if the eldest understanding of eternal marriage is true. Number four, the marriage covenant ends at death. In Romans 7, Paul uses marriage to illustrate the Christian's relationship to the law. He says, "For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive.

But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man, she is not an adulteress." The marriage covenant lasts until death. After that, it no longer applies. Paul's illustration would be misleading if Christians were taught that marriage is forever. We have no reason to think that Paul thought of marriage as an essential ordinance of the gospel. Every time he speaks about the issue, he acknowledges that the marriage relationship is dissolved after death. So why does marriage exist? In an LDS framework, marriage is arguably the most essential relationship of the eternities.

Many Latter-day Saints believe that heavenly father is married, that we have a heavenly mother, and that someday we can become like them. But the Bible teaches that God invented marriage to illustrate something. Paul talks about this in Ephesians chapter 5. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body. and is himself its savior. 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.

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. Marriage is a mystery and God invented it to point to Christ's love for the church. It serves as an illustration. Just as a husband and a wife are made one flesh when they get married, we can be united to Christ through faith. Just as a husband leads shepherds and sacrifices himself for his wife, Christ leads shepherds and sacrificed himself on the cross for his bride, the church. And as a wife submits to her husband, the church submits to the headship of Christ.

Marriage is not an eternal institution. And it's not a necessary prerequisite for our exaltation. God invented it in the Garden of Eden to be an illustration for the love that Jesus has for his people. When Christ returns and we are with him for eternity, the purpose of marriage will have been fulfilled. Christians will experience the fullness of joy in the presence of God for all time. Jeffrey Holland, an apostle in the LDS church, once said this. I don't know how to speak about heaven in the traditional lovely paradiscal beauty that we speak of heaven. I wouldn't know how to speak of heaven without my wife or my children.

Psalm 73

It would it would not be heaven for me. But Psalm 73 says this, "Whom have I in heaven but you?" And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. Holland says that he can't speak of heaven without his wife or his children being there. But Psalm 73 says the exact opposite. Heaven is heavenly because it's where God is. When I get to heaven, I won't only have my wife. I will dwell with and be united to all Christians from every era of history. We're not thinking about it as the loss of an earthly relationship, but as the gain of everything that we were created to enjoy. When a couple first gets engaged, there's joy and delight and satisfaction in that relationship.

But the point of an engagement is to point forward to a greater joy, the joy of marriage. So when a couple gets married, that earlier joy and delight in the engagement is replaced with the greater, more profound joy of the marriage relationship. So too will eternity replace the anticipatory joy of the marriage relationship with something even greater. The God who invented marital bliss will be the fulfillment of our every longing. In Christ, we can be fully and eternally satisfied. That's why David writes, "In your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forever more." For Christians, the presence of God is enough.