Transcript: Lesson 18 - Celibacy and the Life to Come

Welcome, friends, we are thinking in this unit about how celibacy is tied to understanding the  story of Jesus how celibacy in single is put on display, Jesus's love for His church, that just as  the single Jesus was, was wholeheartedly devoted to his mission from God his his  commitment to the people of God to the family of God to His Bride. So in celibacy, so in  singleness, there's this call to be devoted to the kingdom of God to recognize that part of  what it means to to in essence, to impart be free from the responsibility of a spouse or  children is this ability to be fully responsible for devotion to the kingdom of God. And we saw  in the last video about how how marriage and celibacy mutually interpret each other and  how, when we see both married and celibate Christians, working together for the sake of the  kingdom, it helps to enhance our vision of who Jesus is and what it really means for us to, to  give ourselves to enter into that spousal meaning of the body to, to serve in love, as Jesus  serves and loves us. In this last video, for this unit, I want to think just a little bit about  celibacy, and the life to come the resurrection life. In Jesus speaks to this in Matthew 22. In  this passage, Matthew 22:23-33, some people came to him some Sadducees, they were  religious, or they were leaders of the people of Israel, who actually did not believe in the  resurrection. And so they pose a question to Jesus about a woman who is married to seven  different men, each of them keep dying. And so she marries the next brother in line this, this  is what's called Levirate marriage of it's talked about in the Old Testament law. And they  raised this question at the resurrection. "They asked" in Matthew 22:28, "at the resurrection,  whose wife will she be, since all of them were married to her? And Jesus says, You're in error,  because you don't know the Scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection, people will  neither marry nor be given in marriage, they will be like the angels in heaven, but about the  resurrection of the dead, have you not read what God said to you? I'm the God of Abraham,  the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He's not the God of the dead, but of the living." No,  what's, what's interesting here is that Jesus says in the life to come, there will be no marriage, that there's a sense of what marriage is something that God ordained and creation,  something that he renews in redemption, but that if we look ahead to the life of the  resurrection, he says, People won't be married in the way that they are in this earthly life. And so what's interesting about that, is that, I think, to see that single celibate people are actually  a foreshadowing of the resurrection life. That that, excuse me, there's a sense in which, if we  understand even the life and ministry and mission of Jesus, a part of what he's doing is  pointing ahead to this resurrection life to this time when people won't marry or be given in  marriage, as he says, anymore. Well, why is this? Well, partly because what happens here in  in the resurrection is that the covenant side, marriage, including sexual union, the covenant  side, will give way to the divine reality, that part of what marriage is meant to point to, is this  reality of Jesus's love for us, this reality, actually, of this, this life of Father, Son, and Holy  Spirit in perfect and holy communion, and in the communion and connection of saints that we as believers in Jesus have with one another. So that marriages is meant to be in that sense of  foreshadow a sign that points to reality, the reality itself. And so this is where we have to, we  have to be careful here. Because it can be hard for us through our lenses, to think of  something higher than marriage, we often think about marriages as this sort of the height of  communion with another person or we think of sexual union as the height of connection with  another person. But what Scripture teaches us is that marriage and sexual union are this sign  that points to a deeper reality. And so we have to, we have to be careful that we are not  valuing the sign more than the reality to which it points. And so when we think about our  expectations or our hope, for the life to come, it can maybe seem to us as though something  is being taken away, or if we think about marriage as the sign that that is removed. So the  Scripture teaches us I think, not to look at that that way not to see it as something being  taken away. But in fact, to recognize that what's happening is that we're actually entering into the fullness of communion, the fullness of intimacy, the fullness of connection and fellowship,  both with God and with one another. And so in in light of that, it's important, I think, then to  see single celibate people, as giving us a sign of where we're going, that just as Jesus was  single and pointed to God's kingdom, and pointed to the reality of the resurrection life to  come. So single people do the same thing in their life. And they embody this, this hope that  we have for the future. And that even in the present life, part of what they're doing is already 

entering into this, the sense that what's most central here is the communion with God  communion with with one another, that it's not merely marriage, that is the avenue for that.  But even as a single person, you can fully enter into that life and that reality. So it's important  as we think about who we are as married people, as single people, both are called to in our  lives, let the story of Jesus shine through that the Gospel story of God's love for us, is made  evident as we give ourselves whether that's in marriage to giving to our spouse, or whether  that's in singleness to giving and serving and loving our brothers and sisters in Christ. Both of  those are two different ways that we can embody the gospel that we can make the gospel  real that we can make the gospel come alive to people around us. And I can guarantee you  that if we embrace that, if we embrace marriages that look that way, if we embrace  singleness that looks that way, people are going to notice, people are going to notice  something different. And if you think back all the way to one of the earlier units where we  talked about the biblical story. God's intention is to draw people to Himself, through the life of  his people through the distinctiveness to the way that his people operate in new and different  ways that are that are connected with God connected with each other, connected even with  how we care for creation. And so as we think about marriage and singleness, these are things  that are not just ends in themselves, but there are ways that we embody the truth of who God is. And as we do that, we will call others to Jesus to follow him as well. So until next time,  blessings