The point is that the Kingdom of Heaven will be Heaven on Earth–Heaven extended into the earthly realm.  And the same rules will apply. No marriage.  It won’t be needed, or even wanted.  We will be AS angels in heaven.  Not angels IN heaven. 

Jesus may have had a low opinion of marriage as an institution (he had a low opinion of institutions, period).  Yes, some people may be happily married, but there’s great inequality.  Men have more power–both partners can end a marriage, but only one does better as a result, generally speaking–the man, who casts his wife aside for someone younger, prettier, more fertile.  He knows very well how often marriage and family mask dark secrets.  We can only guess what experiences he had that made him feel that way, and with the information we possess, guessing is a bad idea. 

Now does this mean he didn’t think individuals should have special affinities for each other?  That’s a bit harder to say.  I doubt very much that he didn’t have stronger feelings for some than others.  But as we know, he didn’t think he was perfect.  He knew very well he was no angel.  The least in the Kingdom of Heaven would be greater than he (since no man born of woman is greater than John the Baptist). 

It’s not simply that the Kingdom will be composed only of those who led good lives–it’s that entering it, they will shed all their earthly desires.  They will literally be as angels in heaven–only on earth.  Everyone will be perfect. 

Now did he think this way all the time?  How would I know?  Did he make some mental reservations?  Did he say, as Augustine, “God, make me virtuous–but not yet!”?  I know he was human, so I know he had doubts, grey areas, conflicting thoughts desires and emotions, because that is true of every member of our species that ever lived, or ever will.   And he knew that too.  He said that.  He’s not lying to himself about what people are.  He understands them far better than Plato ever did.  He, unlike Plato, was born poor, and had to deal with the full spectrum of humanity.  Maybe Plato was smarter, but Jesus was wiser. 

Like Plato, he’s trying to imagine a stable order that can endure, where all the troubles of this world will end.  Plato’s idea was you take all the children away from their parents, raise them properly, give them a good philosophy (IE, Plato’s), and then everything will be great, forever.  (A bit unclear what happens to the parents, and maybe Plato had some Gehenna of his own in mind for them).  We will have achieved the closest possible approximation of that Ideal Form that he believes exists out in the aether somewhere.

Jesus goes at it from another direction.  He says God will simply remove all the dysfunctional self-seeking personalities, and then take what’s left, and put them in a world where their desires will no longer conflict with their morals (which is a problem even for saints).  Heaven will extend itself to earth, but only to those who prove themselves worthy–which they have to do for its own sake.  God will know who is faking it. 

I think both of them were wrong.  I also think Plato’s idea was more dangerous, since he’s looking for an earthly tyranny, administered by human beings, to impose its will on everyone.  We see too well where that has led.  But Jesus’ idea–act as if the Kingdom is already here–well, as the saying goes, it was not tried and found wanting, so much as it wasn’t wanted so not tried.  Except on a very limited scale. 

To me it seems indisputable that Jesus was NOT saying it would all be as before, that the norms of society would be preserved, but without all their adherent vices.  It may seem odd to say this, but Jesus had too rigorous an intellect to believe such a thing.  The flaws of institutions are inherent to those institutions, and will exist as long as they do.  Marriage is an institution, and as long as it endures, so will the abuses and inequities that come with it.

It’s hard to say much more than that.  Jesus was not, I think, claiming to know exactly how life in the Kingdom would be.  To know that, he’d have had to believe he was himself God, or at least an angel.  He knew that wasn’t true.  I don’t necessarily even think he saw the Kingdom in a vision.  He was simply intuiting what it would be like, based on what he saw (correctly) was wrong with the world around him–and on his belief that these wrongs would not exist in heaven.  However, he’s not talking about people going to heaven when they die.  He’s talking about God’s realm extending itself to earth.  Because it is not tolerable to him that these wrongs continue, even if he can escape them in death.  He will not leave people behind to suffer and sin. 

Have you ever read The Brothers Karamazov?  The parable of the Grand Inquisitor?  Dostoevsky absolutely got what Jesus was saying, and furthermore, that institutional religion never would–or even could. 

Now, important to point out, that’s the Kingdom–until that comes, Jesus still believes marriage to be a necessary evil, that we can make better through love and good will, and this is something he and Paul more or less agree on.  Until the Kingdom comes, we are not as angels in heaven–or anything close–so just do your best to live as God wants you to.

This does beg an interesting question, though–did Jesus know the story of Satan’s rebellion?  In the form we have it now, definitely not.  Jesus knew of The Adversary, but that’s a servant of God, who performs the role God wants him to perform.  For Jesus’ argument to work, angels have to be perfect, willing servants of God, without jealousy or vanity or malevolence.  And it’s entirely plausible that even if there were Jewish writings that questioned this, Jesus either didn’t know them, or rejected them as apocryphal.  He did believe in demons, but not in a Chief Demon.  (So who is tempting him in the desert?  Is this Satan actually sent from God to test him?)

It’s speculation, like almost everything else do to with people from ancient history, but ‘rank’ is pure animus on your part. 

One can have a rigorous intellect, follow ideas to their logical conclusions, and still begin with some faulty premises, and this is basically the history of human thought. 

Why don’t you name someone from ancient history you think had a rigorous intellect, and then let me take a crack at him?

I see what I see.  He thought it out, very carefully.  Just because it doesn’t make sense to you doesn’t mean it didn’t to him, and to others.  And the inability (or unwillingness) to understand how other people think, particularly when you disagree, basically disqualifies you from the study of human history.  

To be very clear, I have attributed ideas to Jesus that in some cases, I wish he had not held.  I am trying to understand him on his own terms, and part of that is accepting that he was, in fact, highly intelligent–perhaps more so than anyone on this forum.  It is amusing to me to see people who have achieved nothing terribly impressive in their lives looking down their noses at the most influential person who ever lived. 

And that wasn’t just an accident.  History isn’t that random.  Was he anywhere near what posterity made him out to be?  Hell no.  Was he nothing but an ignorant bumpkin?  Even less likely. 

tompicard said
To Godspel and Hngertman

 . . .your avatar image (which I’ve loved from the start), 

Why don’t you name someone from ancient history you think had a rigorous intellect,  . .
 

I can’t compete with you physically and you are no match for my brains . . .Let me put it this way, Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates? 

 

 

I will get back on track tomorrow  

Oh, that was good.  And you know, at times, all of them were morons.  Because All Feet Are Clay.  (An ancient axiom I made up years ago.)