3748 - As the Angels by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · May 7, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 19.

3748 — As the Angels

By Editor

Please explain Mark 12:25, "For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven." A. P. F.

It would seem to us that the text is about as plain as can be. It is the direct statement of our Lord that in that life to come the righteous, who rise from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; and therefore we do not understand, as the question is asked, that there will be families on the earth, and that children will be reared. "Of the increase of His [Christ's] government and peace there shall be no end," reads Isa. 9:7; and that may be true, also, of the increase of subjects in His government. Just as long as eternity shall last, there will be more worlds created and more worlds peopled, and Christ is Lord of all. But we do not gather from this that that increase will come in the new earth as it does in this world, through physical generation.

Isa. 11:8, and other similar Old Testament passages, present before us in the language that people could understand at that time, the glories of the future, when all would be submitted to the Lord Jesus Christ. God would have wrought all those things for the Jews then, even on this earth, if they had all yielded to Him. But they did not. If they had done so, then His righteous rule would have brought final perfection, the poor would be judged with righteousness, and the meek of the earth with equity; but now all those things will be fulfilled in a far larger, greater measure when Christ shall come the second time. We certainly should understand these Old Testament scriptures as not contradictory to the words of our Lord.

Associations in the new earth would naturally have to do with associations here. We do not believe that God will take from those who are saved in the new earth the pleasant, helpful, uplifting associations of this world; and families who have struggled together for God and His truth, will be associated more closely, in the very nature of the case, in the world to come. For all who are saved in this world God will have great work to do. They will reveal to other worlds, yet uncreated, perhaps, and the inhabitants of other worlds, the wonderful glory and love of God. The true, high, holy pleasures of spiritual life will far transcend any of the sensual pleasures of this world.