PMW 2025-032 by Michael Allen

Gentry note:

The following discussion is taken from Michael Allen’s contribution to Michael Whittmer, ed., Four Views on Heaven published by Zondervan and available on Amazon. I found this material on pages 124–25 helpful as I am working on my Two Ages book. I will be dealing with Matthew 22 and Jesus’ rebuke of the Sadducees regarding marriage and eternity. You will have to see the book to get the full text and footnotes.

Michael Allen writes:

It has been asked: How will we relate to our spouses and other family members? Will there be marriage, sex, or family units in our final state? Will we remain gendered, and if so, will we wear clothes? It may be helpful to begin reflection elsewhere, to use this question as a teaching moment for a wider principle. Likely no text has so generated eschatological speculation as has Isaiah 60:5, 9 with its reference to the ships of Tarshish bringing treasures into the storehouse of Zion. Many that here is warrant for confidence that the aesthetic or productive triumphs of society will persist into the eschaton. Labor invested in earthly affairs has value not only for today but bright hope for tomorrow too.

Perhaps so. Yet confidence that we have some concrete sense of what it means for life and its blessings today to persist into the eschaton ought to be chastened. The most basic element of human life that will persist is the interpersonal set of relations that make up our human existence (as brother and sister, as father and mother, etc.). But it is just here that the Bible punctures any sense of clear transference from this life to the next.

Reformed Eschatology in the Writings of Geerhardus Vos
Ed. by Ken Gentry and Bill Boney
This is a collection of several key eschatological studies by the renowned Reformed theologian Geehardus Vos. We have modernized Vos’ grammar and syntax and updated his layout style according to modern publishing conventions (shorter sentences and paragraphs). We did this without changing any of Vos’ arguments.

For more information on this new Vos work or to order it, see:
https://www.kennethgentry.com/reformed-eschatology-in-the-writings-of-geerhardus-vos/

The most fundamental relational building block of our is surely human marriage, wherein companionship and the propagation earthly life of children find their appropriate place. Yet marriage will not occur in the eschaton (Matt 22:30). While the first clause might be read as merely limiting any new marriages (“they neither marry nor are given in marriage”), the adversative presses further to speak of a non-erotic life that no longer expresses itself sexually (“like angels in heaven”). Marriage is not abrogated so much as fulfilled in that the great marriage supper of the Lamb will have occurred and the eschatological union of Christ and his bride will have taken place.

How shall we understand that line from Matthew 22 and its implications for marriage? Interpreting this biting statement (part of Jesus’s polemic against the Sadducees [Matt 22:23– \33]) canonically, we see that marriage does not end in eternity. Rather, marriage is perfected, in as much as the great marriage of the Lamb and his bride is celebrated there and then (Rev 21:9). The fellowship and oneness symbolized so powerfully in the earthly marriage of a man and woman (see Eph 5:25–33, esp. v. 32) need no longer occur because its typological fulfillment has been fully and finally brought to pass in the definitive identification, union, communion, and covenant fellowship of Christ with his church.

Thine Is the Kingdom
(ed. by Ken Gentry)

Contributors lay the scriptural foundation for a biblically-based, hope-filled postmillennial eschatology, while showing what it means to be postmillennial in the real world.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

The perfection of marriage serves as an intellectual prompt for thinking about the social facets of our eschatological hope more broadly. On the one hand, we see the deepest purpose of human marriage being transposed into the ultimate divine-human covenantal fellowship and intimate presence. Thus, our current commitment to marriage has integrity and deserves our concern and commitment (whether directly or indirectly), precisely because it prepares for and is perfected in eternity to come. On the other hand, marriage will no longer exist in its current social form. It will no longer be marked by sexual activity, by procreation as a related end, and so forth. If marriage’s perfection involves such radical changes to its reality, ought we not be humble in our presumptions, much less pontifications, about what other social realities might be like in that new-creational hereafter?

In light of these examples — the bodily nature of human glory (as seen in Jesus) or the social nature of human glory (as foretold with regard to marriage by Jesus) — we do well to keep our eyes on broader theological principles. Our concern to keep first things first need not and should not undermine our simultaneous commitment to be alert to other facets of canonical teaching. Emphases and priorities cannot foreclose awareness of the breadth of scriptural teaching. In this case, understanding the center of our hope as communion with God in Christ (so powerfully typified by that doctrine of the beatific vision) ought not lead to dismissing or denigrating the earthy aspect of our hope as one involving a bodily resurrection and a new creation in its holistic totality. That said, that other aspects of this broad eschatological vision are not at the center but on its edges should prompt a greater appreciation for the epistemological limits of our understanding of their nature. Without undermining the integrity of bodies, of sociWeties, of place, and of other nonhuman creatures, we must remember that there are limits to our grasp of their final form. Eschatology, like other doctrines but in a particularly poignant way, must be pursued by faith and by faith alone.

GOODBIRTH AND THE TWO AGES
I am currently researching a technical study on the concept of the Two Ages in Scripture. This study is not only important for understanding the proper biblical concept of the structure of redemptive history. But it is also absolutely essential for fully grasping the significance of the Disciples’ questions in Matthew 24:3, which spark the Olivet Discourse. This book will be the forerunner to a fuller commentary on the Olivet Discourse in Matthew’s comprehensive presentation. This issue must be dealt with before one can seriously delve into the Discourse itself.

If you would like to support me in my research, I invite you to consider giving a tax-deductible contribution to my research and writing ministry: GoodBirth Ministries. Your help is much appreciated!