New Testament · Gospel

Mark 12:25

The Widow's Offering

When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. Instead, they will be like the angels in heaven. Mark 12:25 · Berean Standard Bible
What It Means

Mark 12:25, in plain English

Jesus explained that in the resurrection, people won't marry or be given in marriage. Instead, they'll be like the angels in heaven — it's a whole different kind of existence.

Why it's here

The Sadducees were imagining heaven as just a continuation of earth. Jesus said no — what's coming is something far beyond what we can currently picture.

Who's speaking

Jesus teaches about what life after resurrection will be like.

Where it sits in the story

This changes everything about the question. The afterlife isn't a rerun of this life — it's a complete transformation. No wonder the old categories don't apply.

A Closer Look

The scholarly reading

Jesus reveals that resurrected existence transcends earthly institutions like marriage, with the redeemed becoming 'like the angels' in their immortal, non-procreative state.

Language and setting

This teaching reframes resurrection not as a mere continuation of earthly life but as a qualitatively different mode of existence — transformed life in God's immediate presence.

Voice

Jesus teaches about the nature of resurrected life.

Significance

Jesus dismantles the Sadducees' riddle by correcting their fundamental assumption: resurrected life is not a carbon copy of earthly life but something gloriously new.

In context

Mark 12:23–27

23In the resurrection, then, whose wife will she be? For all seven were married to her.”

24Jesus said to them, “Aren’t you mistaken, because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?

25When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. Instead, they will be like the angels in heaven.

26But concerning the dead rising, have you not read about the burning bush in the Book of Moses, how God told him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?

27He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!”

Read all of Mark 12 — Trick questions from every direction, a scribe who almost gets it, and a poor widow who gives everything — two small coins that outweigh them all.

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