In Matthew 22:23-33, the scriptures report a confrontation between Jesus and the Sadducees, the theological liberals of that day. They were trying to trick Him, so they described a woman who had married a succession of brothers, each of whom died without issue. In the resurrection, they asked, whose wife would she be, since she had married all of them? His answer, in part, was (verse 30), “in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.”
As most of my readers will know, the Mormons hold to a type of marriage that they call “celestial marriage,” a doctrine that they seem to have adopted from the Swedenborgians. This doctrine holds that a couple
married in this way will spend eternity as a married couple. They believe that our Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother [sic] are married in this way.
But I would suggest that the Scriptures teach that there is no marriage after this life. First, we have Jesus’s words to the Sadducees quoted above. Second, we have Romans 7:3, where Paul tells women, “if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.” He repeats that thought in I Corinthians 7:39: “A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.”
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In addition to the words of Jesus that there is no marriage in the eternal state, we also have Paul, twice, telling us that death cancels the marriage commitment. Those three verses give a convincing case for believing that the Mormons hold to a manmade doctrine that is contrary to Scripture. They have bound their members contrary to the teachings of Christ, and, therefore, their doctrine must be held to be false.
