What Does Matthew 22:30 Mean?

(30) **They** **neither marry, nor are given in marriage.**—In St. Luke’s report (Luke 20:34-35) our Lord emphasises the contrast in this respect between the children of this world and the children of the resurrection. His words teach absolutely the absence from the resurrection life of the definite relations on which marriage rests in this, and they suggest an answer to the yearning questions which rise up in our minds as we ponder on the things behind the veil. Will there, we ask, be no continuance there of the holiest of the ties of earth? Will the husband and the wife, who have loved each other until death parted them, be no more to each other than any others who are counted worthy to obtain that life? Will there be no individual recognition, no continuance of the love founded upon the memories of the past? The answer to all such questionings is found in dwelling on the “power of God.” The old relations may subsist under new conditions. Things that are incompatible here may there be found to co-exist. The saintly wife of two saintly husbands may love both with an angelic, and therefore a pure and unimpaired affection. The contrast between our Lord’s teaching and the sensual paradise of Mahomet, or Swedenborg’s dream of the marriage state perpetuated under its earthly conditions, is so obvious as hardly to call for notice.