Mark 12:25 (NASB):
25 For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.
Does the verse above imply that those who attain eternal salvation will lose their gender and become gender-neutral angelic beings at the resurrection? If so, why were humans not created gender-neutral from the very beginning? Was sexual reproduction designed to last for a period of time and then disappear?
They will neither marry, nor be given in marriage. But there is a marriage union, for the Lamb and his wife are married, a spiritual union that is eternal. Christ and his Bride: the Head and the Body, Revelation 21:9. God dwelling in and among his people, 2 Corinthians 6:16, Revelation 21:3.
For ever.
But what Jesus does not say, precisely, is that there will be neither male nor female. What the resurrection body is, exactly, is not yet known. The subject is left open, for we are yet in the body and we are, for now, in the form that we are in.
God's purpose was ever the same, 'to bring many sons to glory', Hebrews 2:10, through redemption, they being 'chosen before the foundation of the world', Ephesians 1:4.
The whole creation was a means to an end. God's purpose never was in the first man, who is of the earth, earthy, 1 Corinthians 15:47. The Tree of Life was in the midst, in the beginning, Genesis 2:9. The first, earthy, humanity did not partake of it. And, after the transgression, was prevented from ever doing so, Genesis 3:22.
God's purpose ever was 'in the second man, the last Adam, the quickening Spirit, the Lord from heaven', 1 Corinthians 15:44. And ever was in sonship, through redemption, Hebrews 2:10, in a new creation . . . .
. . . . for, 'old things are passed away', 2 Corinthians 5:17.
'Behold, I make all things new'.
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Additional (given as comment, below)
The creation is an expression of whom and what God is. And in it all we can see (if we have an eye to see it) his ultimate purposes, already expressed, but not yet spiritually fulfilled.
In his wisdom, God knew what created creature (serpent, woman and man) would do, It was inevitable. But, despite this, Deity, in unanimous counsel, determined redemption in foreknowledge.
For God's ultimate desire and purpose was to share his glory with sons, corporately, in one body.
This, I find truly breathtaking. The love of God determined to share Himself with others yet [to be] born.
The answer to the question is NOT recorded. What is recorded, according to Jesus' words is that procreation will be unnecessary.
For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. (Mark 12:25)
Whether there will be sex or something even better we do not know. However, we do know that after the resurrection we will have heavenly bodies (whatever that means)
There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. But the splendor of the heavenly bodies is of one degree, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is of another. 1 Cor 15:40
Thus, we will have different bodies which means that our earthly bodies were a temporary design.
A “spiritual body” could just refer to a body of translucent spiritual matter, and have nothing to do with the promised resurrection of the physical body, which is a “house” for that spiritual translucent body.
Furthermore, Heaven is according to Rev 21:1 a planet. If people are going to live forever on this planet, procreation can not exist, because overpopulation would soon occur. A lot of people get born + nobody dies = overpopulation. That doesn’t mean that our bodies have to be different than what they are now. Only that no procreation occur.
Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. (Rev 20:14, NIV)
they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. (Mat 25:46, NIV)
It seems the important point re angels isn't lack of biological sexing (does an angel have a sex? I don't know) but immortality. This exchange between Jesus and the Sadducees is in all 3 synoptic Gospels (starting at Mark 12:18, Matthew 22:23, and Luke 20:27), but Luke gives the most detail. Compare Luke to Mark.
Jesus in Luke says
"The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. But 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. In 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." (Berean Study Bible)
The term translated 'because' here is the ancient Greek word gar, which means
"Strong's Greek 1063: For. A primary particle; properly, assigning a reason."
In Luke, therefore, the logical progression seems to be
In Mark, the logical progression seems to be a bit different.
"When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. Instead, they will be like the angels in heaven."
So Mark is skipping point 2. in Luke, and goes straight to point 3. The point about marriage has to do with immortality, not sexing, at least directly.
Remember that marriage here is Levirate marriage, and has to do with the continuation of the Jewish people. It is in certain aspects different from Christian marriage nowadays.
This is basically all Jesus says about resurrection bodies in the Gospels!
The other evidence we have is Jesus' resurrected body. When Mary Magdalene meets Jesus, nothing is recorded about him not appearing to be male. All the accounts say nothing of this, and all appear compatible with Jesus' body being male.
Having said that, it's possible Jesus' resurrection body will be different from ours, or became different after his ascension. We do not know.
This is a passage that has been tragically misrepresented for millennia, causing intense confusion (to say nothing of immeasurable sadness).
Getting married vs. Being married
The two key verbs are γαμέω (gameo, to marry) & γαμίσκω (gamisko, to give in marriage). These verbs describe the act of getting married, not the state of being married. (In English we could also articulate this difference by saying I got married on X date versus I have been married for Y years).
Marriage is an ordinance carried out on this earth. This passage in Mark--and the parallel passages in Matthew & Luke--indicate that people do not get married in eternity. They say nothing at all against the state of already being married.
To claim from these verses that people in heaven cannot continue to be married to someone they married in this life is grammatically incorrect; this is not what the passage says.
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The Levirate Marriage
The principal reason many have interpreted these verses to rule out the possibility of being married in heaven (contrary to the grammar of the sentence) is the statement (in Matt & Mark) that they are like angels in heaven.
Luke gives more detail and offers greater clarity:
36 Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.
Some conclude that Luke contradicts Matt & Mark here. While that is one possible interpretation, it certainly is not the only one.
The question that sparked this discussion was the hypothetical in which a married man dies, and 6 of his brothers in succession marry his wife (in Levirate marriage). The Levirate marriage is a temporal arrangement only--its purpose is to address temporal matters of this life (including raising up seed)--it has no binding standing in the next life. The 6 brothers who participated in Levirate marriage were not married to the woman for eternity; they will be (presumably) single in eternity and they will be like the angels in heaven (some refer to this as the role of "ministering angels").
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Marriage in God's plan--a relationship that does not end
As already noted by NigelJ, marriage is frequently used as a metaphor for people's relationship with Christ in eternity--a relationship that never ends.
Jesus Himself taught of marriage:
Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. (Matt. 19:6)
God has made them one. They are no more two. There is nothing in scripture that reverses this, God's mathematical axiom of marriage.
Additionally, if marriage were for this life only, any time a married person died at the hand of another person (on purpose or by accident), the perpetrator would be putting asunder what God had joined together, permanently ending a marriage relationship. But it gets worse. Since by man came death (1 Cor. 15:21, speaking of the Fall of Adam), all marriages ending with death are being put asunder by man. Since death is the fate of all mortals, Jesus would effectively be saying "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder...oh and by the way, man does put asunder all which God hath joined together."
The idea that man is forbidden to break a relationship between man & woman put together by God is meaningless if man does in fact break apart every relationship between man & woman put together by God.
Let's turn to Paul.
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. (1 Cor. 15:26)
Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? (1 Cor. 15:54-55)
If death does permanently rob people of the relationship--given by God--that more profoundly effects them, motivates them, and matters to them, than any other mortal relationship...death does take from people something the resurrection cannot restore. That's a pretty nasty victory for the grave.
Finally, Paul's most theologically profound statement on the subject:
Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. (1 Cor. 11:11)
Alone, we cannot be what we have the potential to be. We cannot be what God intends us to be.
The marriage relationship created by God is intended to endure beyond the grasp of death, and is far more than just a convenient means of producing babies. To reduce marriage to making babies and nothing else is to commit the very error Jesus reprimanded the Sadducees for making.
It is a Levirate marriage whose explicit purpose is temporal in nature. The instructions for Levirate marriage (see Deut. 25:5-10) acknowledge the original husband's relationship is superior/transcendent to the brothers' Levirate marriages. The first brother's marriage is not a Levirate marriage, it is not equivalent to brothers 2-7's marriages to the woman.
To put it in a syllogism, if the Levirate marriage is about raising up seed & managing temporal concerns, and the original marriage was more than that, then the original marriage was about more than just raising up seed & managing temporal concerns.
This concept is found in Genesis as well. When God brought Eve to Adam it was to be a help-meet to him:
And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him (Genesis 2:18)
The command to procreate is given in Genesis, but Genesis clearly rejects the misogynstic view that the purpose of women is simply making babies. God made men & women as help-meets to support one another and to supplement each other's abilities. This is a purpose that is more than just the physical vicissitudes of Levirate marriage.
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Gender
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. (Genesis 1:27)
God created humans male & female. He did so before the Fall. He did so before giving the commandment to procreate. There were male and female in this paradisiacal state. There will be male & female, and there will be children, in the paradisiacal state to come (see Isaiah 11:8, Isaiah 49:22-23, Isaiah 52:1-2, Isaiah 54:13, Zeph. 3:14, Zech. 2:10)
The idea that there would be no females in heaven is a Gnostic heresy that appears in the 2nd century (see Gospel of Thomas 114); it is a concept entirely foreign to the Bible.
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Conclusion
Does the verse above imply that those who attain eternal salvation will lose their gender and become gender-neutral angelic beings at the resurrection? No, this is a variation on a 2nd century Gnostic heresy.
If so, why were humans not created gender-neutral from the very beginning? N/A, see previous answer. Gender pre-dates this fallen world and will post-date it as well.
Was sexual reproduction designed to last for a period of time and then disappear? The passage does not address this topic.
Getting married does indeed appear to be an ordinance reserved for this life. Being married is a state God intends to endure for eternity. If people follow God's intended course, the man is not without the woman and the woman is not without the man. They were made for each other. Neither was designed solely for the purpose of procreation.
Happy Fathers Day.
Ye do err, not understanding the scriptures nor the power of God.
The scripture they didnt understand was the part about Moses supposedly telling brothers to marry their sister in law. In reality Moses never said anything of the sort. He commanded brothers to financially support their sister in law if her husband died and she didnt have male children old enough to inherit the property.
Verse 25 is Jesus' attempt to explain what Moses really said and how they werent commanded to get married.
Mark 12:25 For when [at the funeral] from [before] the dead they (his wife and his brothers) rise neither do they marry nor are given in marriage but are like the angels in the heavens.
Many people mistakenly think that verse 25 is about the resurrection of the dead but we know that cant be the case because verse 26 begins with "BUT about the resurrection of the dead". Verse 25 is about people getting married (or rather not getting married) here on Earth.
