Eschatology

Sex in heaven

On Christmas Day, 1998, during an interview on CNN’s “Larry King Live” television broadcast, King interviewed Billy Graham for a full hour. During the course of the interview, King questioned Graham about the afterlife soon after Graham had mentioned he was not afraid to die since he knew he would be with God:

GRAHAM: I’ll know Him. He’ll know me. He will receive me. I believe the moment that I die, an angel comes and takes my hand and leads me into His presence.

KING: In your body or through a soul?

GRAHAM: Both — maybe both, because we have been resurrected. Remember, this body’s coming back together again. Nothing ever disappears ...

KING: All right. You’ll meet Jesus and then what will it be like? What will paradise be like?

GRAHAM: It’s going to be like paradise. It’ll be the -- everything that you ever wanted for happiness will be there. People say that the Bible teaches there’s no sex in Heaven. If sex is necessary for our happiness and fulfilment, it’ll be there. And then, if certain other things that we think are pleasurable will -- it’ll be there.

Confutation

What Billy Graham stated is untrue because the heaven of which the Bible speaks is not a place where men can have sex with women and vice versa because in order to have sex men and women must have a body made of flesh and bones, while those who are in heaven have not a physical body for they are there only with their soul. For John says that he saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained (cf. Rev. 6:9). This applies to our state between death and the resurrection (which is still to take place). However, even after the resurrection of our body things will not change, I mean that neither the resurrected saints will be able to have sex because there will be no more married people, as Jesus said: “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry and nor are given in marriage, nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection” (Luke 20:34-36 – NKJV). It is evident, therefore, that since to have sex is lawful only for married people, according to the plan of God when the resurrection takes place the resurrected people who were married on earth will no longer be able to have sex. As for those men and women whose wife or husband died in her/his sins, and thus whose wife or husband will not be raised at the resurrection of the just, it must be said the same thing, that is, they will no longer be able to have sex because Jesus said that those who attain the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Furthermore, sexual intercourse entails a desire to have children, and between death and the resurrection as well as after the resurrection this desire will no longer exist because the command “be fruitful and multiply” was given only to the human beings who are on earth.

Let me say something else: the teaching according to which there is sex in heaven is the result of a wrong idea, that is to say, it derives from the idea that without sex a person can’t be really happy or fulfilled on earth, which is wrong because Paul, who was not married, said: “I wish that all men were even as I myself” (1 Corinthians 7:7 – NKJV) and he exhorted believers to get married “to avoid fornication” (1 Corinthians 7:2) and not because if they had not married they would not have been really happy. And this is confirmed by the fact that he stated that a widow is happier if she remains as she is (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:40). I believe that the words of Paul shows that he did not attach to sex an exaggerated importance as some do nowadays in the midst of the Church. What I mean is that according to the Scripture a believing man or woman can be really happy even without getting married, if this is the will of God for him or her. Consider Paul, who was happy in the Lord even though he was not married. Therefore, I say that if one can be really happy on earth even without getting married, how much more one can be happy in heaven where we will see God, Jesus, the angels and all the saints. However, I am fully convinced that no one of those who are in heaven wants to have sex, they are so happy and they behold such a glory that they don’t think about sex. On the other hand those who are in heaven are in another dimension, I have read several testimonies of people who died and went to heaven for a while and no one of them has declared that while he or she was in heaven he or she wanted to have sex to be fully happy. A perfect happiness reigns in heaven. Heaven is the Kingdom of God, it is a holy kingdom, a glorious king where the saints don’t need to have sex to be happy, their happiness is so great and glorious in heaven that they don’t think about sex at all.

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