Sexuality In Heaven

But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” …When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined... There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another… So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
- 1 Corinthians 15:35-44

This week we’ve been pondering what it means for us now that Jesus says there will not be marriage in heaven. Mostly we’ve been joining with Jesus this week’s devotions in deconstructing culture’s and the church’s teaching’s around sexuality. Today and tomorrow we’ll work to do some reconstruction in this area.

The passage for today is not an easy one to understand. What’s not not clear is what “a spiritual body” is, not to mention questions like “what do sexuality and gender look like in the new heave and new earth?” But there are a few things that do seem clear in it. First, when heaven is fully realized, there will be some continuation of our current bodies (like a seed which contains the DNA of the tree) and some difference (the tree and the seed sure look different). And heaven will be better, exchanging weakness for power and so forth.

So just going off what we know from this passage and the others we’ve looked at this week, it seems safe to say that our sexuality in this life will share some continuation in the next and will also be changed. Perhaps that’s enough for us to think on today - namely, pondering how we can live out such a godly, healthy sexuality that it becomes a foretaste of the true human flourishing that we’re ultimately called to. Sure, that sounds a bit like a purely intellectual exercise, but if you are willing to, I bet you can make it intensely practice as you think with Jesus about how you live our your sexuality in daily experience.