Here are two contrasting cultural beliefs for you to consider:
- Sex is the best thing on the planet
- Heaven is full of the best things we can imagine
So if both of these things are true, why does the Bible tell us there won’t be any sex in heaven?
No Sex in Heaven?
In Matthew 22:30, Jesus says, “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.”
I’ve expounded elsewhere how God designed sex to happen within marriage only, so we can naturally deduce here, as the original listeners would have automatically, that if there is no marriage in heaven, there is also no sex.
No sex in heaven? Many might ask what the other options are at this point!
One of the reasons this news shocks us is because we view sex and heaven selfishly. Culturally, sex has become a selfish act of consumption. And our view of heaven is typically a place of self-centered utopia. We picture beaches and paradise and all the pleasure for ourselves that we can dream of, often not with much thought about God being around at all. This me-centered paradise is a great match for lots of sex for all of eternity. In fact, several of the main world religions promise this (maybe a clue that those religions were made up by a man? But I digress…)
But thank goodness that’s not what heaven, or sex, is meant to be according to the Bible.
Sex is a one-flesh relationship that bonds a man and a woman together in every way possible. It’s why this one-flesh relationship can only function healthily within marriage. The one-flesh bond includes full acceptance and commitment to all a person is, not simply their body parts (Gen. 2:24, Matt. 19:4-6, 1 Cor. 6:15-16). You are one flesh, at all times, in all ways, which can’t be undone.
This sounds pretty amazing, and deep, and night-and-day different from what our culture calls “sex” today. But there’s more. This sex and this one flesh don’t exist for their own end. They aren’t the destination, they are simply another sign post. A sign post pointing to where?
What Sex Really Points To
After giving a treatise on marriage and sex, Ephesians 5 concludes with the following:
“’For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:31-32).
Heyo! The whole time Paul was talking about husbands and wives and marriage and sex in Ephesians 5, it says here he was actually talking about Jesus and us! Marriage and sex are metaphors for the relationship we have with Jesus.
What is a metaphor? It is a sign post. It points to the real thing. It’s something tangible we can look at in order to understand something else. It’s a symbol we can learn from in order to understand and experience the real thing.
The real thing is the one-flesh relationship Jesus desires to have with each of us. It’s the relationship he has with those who call themselves Christians. It’s a relationship of intimate love and acceptance and support and trust, where Jesus is the groom and we are the bride. Earthly marriage and sex are symbols that can help point us toward the real thing.
This is why there is no sex in heaven. You don’t need sign posts when you’ve arrived at the destination!
It’d be like driving to Disney World and parking the car at the green highway sign with the white text of “DISNEY WORLD” and the white arrow pointing to the off ramp. Imagine parking your car there, taking a selfie with the family, and then driving home, telling everyone you’d been to Disney World!
The destination is always better than the sign post.
Heaven Is Not a Perpetual Fast
Some might disagree! But the reason for the disagreement is because we’ve been worshiping the sign post for far too long and we simply don’t have the full experience of the real thing yet. In talking of the perspective that heaven would be a “perpetual fast” from sex in the minds of some, C.S. Lewis had this to say:
“…or else of a perpetual fast. As regards the fast, I think our present outlook might be like that of a small boy who, on being told that the sexual act was the highest bodily pleasure, should immediately ask whether you ate chocolates at the same time. On receiving the answer no, he might regard absence of chocolates as the chief characteristic of sexuality. In vain would you tell him that the reason why lovers in their carnal raptures don’t bother about chocolates is that they have something better to think of. The boy knows chocolate: he does not know the positive thing that excludes it.
We are in the same position. We know the sexual life; we do not know, except in glimpses, the other thing which, in Heaven, will leave no room for it.”
-C.S. Lewis, as quoted in a 1947 Time Magazine article
A boy can’t understand if you try to tell him sex is the highest bodily pleasure, because he is convinced chocolate is and isn’t ready to understand sex. We can’t understand that pure intimacy with God in his direct presence is what makes heaven, Heaven, not that it’s some me-centered place where we eat Bons Bons on the beach, while watching Netflix, and of course, having sex. Nor can we fully grasp that intimacy with God is better than sex, both now and for all eternity. But the truth remains, which we are exhorted to believe and live by.
This is fantastic news. We worship sex on earth, but it’s also our place of deepest longing and brokenness. A single person feels unloved because they don’t have a sexual partner. A married person goes to pornography, an affair, or fantasy, because the sexual partner they do have isn’t satisfying them.
The Answer to Our Longing for Sex
The answer to our longing for sex is not sex! It’s intimacy with Jesus. We get to experience this intimacy on earth. This unconditional love where God adopts us as his sons and daughters and is well-pleased with us and we are fully accepted into his arms because of what Jesus did on the cross for us. But imagine this experience in a fully direct, physical way. Wow! That is heaven.
This gives us reason to not worship sex and it also reminds us we don’t need sex. Whether we experience the sign post or not is somewhat irrelevant. What is relevant is that we take God at his word that the destination will be much better, attuning all of our navigational tools toward that destination, not any metaphor, imitation, or sign post along the way.
Keith Rose , Thanks for your reply, myself and other people worked very hard on those comments and discussions.
Noah , Why are many of the Comments people typed no longer appearing ?
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for your comment. We had a technical issue with an upgrade to our website and comments from the past year disappeared. Our web developers are working hard to figure out what happened and try to restore these if possible.
Blessings,
Keith
Oh. So that explains why I couldn’t find some of our previous comments. Dont blame the techs. Its Satan that’s behind it. He doesn’t want people to know the TRUTH
Ever heard people ask “how far is too far?” Well Heaven might go farther than sex!
Jonathan Dahlin , could you please elaborate when you said
“Ever heard people ask “how far is too far?” Well Heaven might go farther than sex!” Please Explain , also do you think Christians in
Heaven and the New Earth will Watch TV shows or Movies ?
My Mother who passed away in 2014 at the age of 63 loved watching the CBS comedy show
“The Big Bang Theory” Imagine if in Heaven she is watching the prequel series “Young Sheldon” which first aired in
September 2017 , she would Love Young Sheldon as well
In this current Earthly life,
many disabled and healthy Christians alike are often unable to find and get Sex and Love for various reasons. Sometimes they have to go for many years or decades upon decades upon decades without Sex. Especially if they live in a Puritanical Sexually Repressed Nation like America, where people cannot even legally pay for Sex with other consenting adults. They are Forced to endure a Miserable Sexless Existence. Often they Suffer in Silence. The extremely serious painful problem of the many Christians who want Sex, Love, Companionship, Relationships but are unable to get it , that alone is a Very Compelling Reason for why Sexual Intercourse and Lovemaking exists in Heaven and the New Earth for Christians.
In Heaven and the New Earth everyone should have the Sex Lives and Love Lives that they want, need and desire. No one should be left out
Anyone else agree with my above comment of July 5th, 2022 – 6:19pm ? I made a Superb argument for why Sex & Lovemaking exists in Heaven and the New Earth
Mr. Bartling , could you please elaborate on what you mean about sensuality in Heaven, and your other points made in your above post of May 9th , 2022
There is sensuality in Heaven then there is “SEX!” Perhaps there is no procreation in Heaven, but the experience of being intimate with another soul of the opposite sex is what God intends. This is because sex and gender is reflected in the nature of the Godhead. The verse in Genesis says, “Let us make man in our own image, so God made male and female.” There you go.
Christianity always has a problem with sex, and the anti sex stuff said in the context of the new testament should be taken with a grain of salt. Those people who wrote disparagingly about sex, were sexless themselves… the so-called “eunuchs”. Jesus might have been one himself and probably was Paul, and who knows how many others in the new testament.
Think about that.
Can someone answer, One Christian website said “Some argue that
Matthew 22:30 teaches that there will be no “new” Marriage in Heaven. Yet that argument falls apart in light of Romans 7:2-3 which says
“For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. 3 So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man.” That Romans
7:2-3 says Marriage is dissolved at Death
Good to see you guys are still active. Praise the Lord. Well that passage you cited on Romans is self explanatory, don’t you think?
That’s why there will be no need for wedding ceremonies in Heaven or in the World to come, as there will be no need for a temple and the light of the sun, where GOD and the Lamb reigns.
All of these things are just shadows of a GREATER REALITY, just as the marriages on Earth foreshadows the GREATER Marriage of The Bride and the Lamb.
But that doesn’t mean relationships, romance and friendship will cease to exist, just like happiness and a fulfilled life, only because the shadows are gone.
When you see Me in person, do you still want to spend your whole day staring on My photograph or enjoying My company?
Relationships in the World to come is just like that, the pleasure more intense and the happiness gratifying, than the happiness we have here.
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
1 Corinthians 13:9-10 (UKJV)
And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.
And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.
(Revelation 21:22-23 (UKJV)
Jesus said—
At that day all of you shall know that I am in my Father, and all of you in Me, and I in you. (John 14:20 (UKJV)
John 16:23 (UKJV) And in that day all of you shall ask Me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever all of you shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it you.
He said on that Day you will ASK ME NOTHING
WHY?
BECAUSE WE WILL ALREADY HAVE EVERYTHING WE EVER WISHED FOR on THAT DAY WE SHALL SEE HIM AGAIN! (John 16:22)
First fulfillment, when the Apostles saw Him Rise and the Last, when we shall see Him Return and enjoy the happiness and blessings of the NEW heavens and the NEW Earth!
No wonder He said well not ask Him anything because ALL THINGS WILL BE OURS. As GOD has promised on Revelation 21:7 (UKJV)
He that overcomes shall INHERIT ALL THINGS; and I will be his GOD, and he shall be My son.
Now, if you already have ALL THINGS, not just some OR most things you like, is there ANYTHING else you wanna ask for?
Nothing!
There’s nothing more to ask for because you HAVE IT ALL, baby!
Wealth, fame, riches, lovers, houses, romance, families, glory, perfect health, perfect life, perfect relationships in a perfectly beautiful, peaceful and blissful world!
Tell Me what more do you want with that kind of World?
The World to Come where Life is EVERLASTING is where the Words of Jesus gets its FULL MEANING
The thief comes not, but in order to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have LIFE, and that they might have it MORE ABUNDANTLY. (John 10:10 (UKJV)
And what can be MORE Abundant than EVERLASTING LIFE? No not the billions on your bank account, not your husband or your wife, your children, your properties, your dreams and hobbies in this TEMPORAL WORLD but your life, joy and happiness in A WORLD that would NEVER end!
This is why 1 Corinthians 3:21-23 (UKJV) says —
Therefore let no man glory in men. For ALL THINGS ARE YOURS;
Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, OR THINGS TO COME; all are your’s;
And all of you are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.
Be Satisfied
Be Enlightened
GOD Bless
If there is no sex or marriage in heaven then we all got cheated. Only Adam and Eve got to experience that relationship in perfection, everyone else experienced it in a flawed, fallen world where we have imperfection, where we age, where our body rots and decays. God does not create something to be imperfect, or to be experienced imperfectly. If God created something, He meant it to be experienced in its perfection.
If I sold you an old, broken down car and said, “Now you’ve experienced the joy of driving a car” would you be satisfied? If I then took you to a new world where cars would be bran new and said, “Sorry, this world is not for cars” would it make you happy?
To me, resurrecting us to a life of single celibacy is like putting a blind man in a pitch black room and saying you can see now.
EXCELLENT POINT! No comments
I totally agree! My thought exactly!
Or what about computers? If a computer didn’t meet your expectations (whether Windows ME, Vista, 8, or 11)… And then “Sorry, this world is not for computers.”
Or food, like “Sorry, this place is not for food.”
Rai, are you there ? I became worried, I didn’t hear from you in a while, do you have a reply to my comment of
January 10th, 2022 at 9:10pm ?
I would not annoy someone. I would just be patient. In case they’re ignoring me, be silent for a few months or until they reply.
Also would anyone else like to give a reply to my comment of
January 10th, 2022 at 9:10pm ?