Luke 20:36

Luke 20:36, in plain English

They can't die anymore — they're like the angels. And as children of the resurrection, they are children of God. Death is gone, and so is everything death made necessary.

Why it's here

Marriage was partly about continuing life in the face of death. When death is defeated, the whole equation changes. You don't lose something in heaven — you gain something beyond imagining.

Who's speaking

Jesus explains why resurrection life is so fundamentally different from what the Sadducees assumed.

Where it sits in the story

No more death, no more loss, no more need to fight for survival or continuation. The resurrected are like angels — deathless, fully alive, fully God's children. The Sadducees' puzzle was missing the biggest piece.

The scholarly reading

The resurrected can no longer die (oute gar apothanein eti dynantai) because they are 'like the angels' (isangeloi) and are 'sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.' Immortality eliminates the need for marriage's procreative function.

Language and setting

The comparison to angels addresses the Sadducees' denial of angels (Acts 23:8) as well. 'Sons of the resurrection' is a unique phrase indicating that participation in resurrection defines their identity. The argument is that immortality renders procreation — and therefore marriage — unnecessary.

Voice

Jesus explains why marriage is absent in the resurrection: immortality changes everything.

Significance

Jesus explains the logic: death created the need for marriage and children; remove death, and the equation changes. The resurrected are like angels — immortal, full children of God. The Sadducees' question was built on mortality; resurrection eliminates it.

34Jesus answered, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage.

35But those who are considered worthy to share in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage.

36In fact, they can no longer die, because they are like the angels. And since they are sons of the resurrection, they are sons of God.

37Even Moses demonstrates that the dead are raised, in the passage about the burning bush. For he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’

38He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to Him all are alive.”

Read all of Luke 20 — The religious leaders challenge Jesus' authority. He answers with a parable about murderous tenants that leaves them furious and afraid.