Mark 12:25 — Community Reflections

MARK 12:25 — KING JAMES VERSION 0

“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.”

When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven — the resurrection state is not the resumption of the current order but a transformed existence. Neither marry nor be given in marriage: the institution of marriage belongs to this age's conditions (procreation, companionship in mortality, the continuation of family lineage). In the resurrection age, these conditions are transcended. Like the angels in heaven: the resurrection state is comparable to the angelic, not in the sense of becoming angels, but in the sense of a transformed existence beyond the current age's categories.

Church Fathers on Mark 12:25

A certain heretical sect of the Jews called Sadducees denied the resurrection, and said that there was neither angel nor spirit. These then coming to Jesus, craftily proposed to Him a certain tale, in order to shew that no resurrection should take place, or had taken place; and therefore there is added, 'And they asked Him, saying, Master.' And in this tale they lay down that seven men had married one woman, in order to make men draw back from belief in the resurrection.
Theophylact · 11th century

And fitly do they frame such a fable in order to prove the madness of those who assert the resurrection of the body. Such a thing however might really have happened at some time or other among them.
Bede · 8th century

But in a mystical sense: what can this woman, leaving no seed to seven brothers, and last of all dying, mean except the Jewish synagogue, deserted by the seven-fold Spirit, which filled those seven patriarchs, who did not leave to her the seed of Abraham, that is, Jesus Christ?
Pseudo-Jerome · 5th century

Read all 11 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain

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