The first article in this series, “Didn’t Jesus Say There’s No Marriage in Heaven?” responded to a Spiritual Conundrum from a reader named Nita, in which she wrote:
Wedding Rings
I am widow and a believer in Jesus Christ. . . . I am so lonely without my husband of 38 years, we did everything together, even in the ministry. Will we be together in heaven? Jesus told the religious leaders that there will be no marriage in heaven. I miss my husband so much, my life without him has been turned upside down. Many tell me move on with my life and find someone else. He was my soulmate. Please help me understand! Thank you. I still trust God and love him.
Sincerely,
Very Sad Widow
As I said in that first article, contrary to popular belief Jesus did not say that there’s no marriage in heaven!
The second article, “Marriage in the Resurrection: The Deeper Meaning,” goes into much greater depth on Jesus’ teaching about marriage in the afterlife. If you want all the nitty-gritty details, or you’ve been told by your minister or priest that there’s no marriage in heaven and you’re skeptical of anyone who says otherwise, I invite you to read those two articles.
In this third and final article in the series, I’ll simply deliver the good and comforting news to this Very Sad Widow, and to every other widow and widower who dearly loved a partner in marriage—not to mention everyone who is happily married and is deeply troubled by the words in the traditional Christian wedding vows, “till death do us part.” That news is:
Your marriage will continue after death. You will live with your beloved husband or wife forever in heaven. The two of you will continue to grow together in love, understanding, happiness, and joy to all eternity. Death has no power over what God has joined together.
In his book Marriage Love, originally published in 1768, Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) provides a detailed description of what happens for married couples after death. In the rest of this article we’ll quote and expand upon a few key passages from that book about man, woman, and the afterlife, and what happens there for happily married couples.
We are still male and female after death
Traditional Christianity commonly presents angels, and humans after death, as sexless, ethereal beings who no longer engage in interpersonal relationships such as marriage, but instead spend eternity totally absorbed in never-ending rapturous praise and worship of God.
Not so, says Swedenborg:
People live on as people after death, and people are male and female. Maleness is one thing and femaleness another in such a way that one cannot change into the other. Therefore a man lives on as a male and a woman as a female after death, each a spiritual person. (Marriage Love #32)
In modern terms, we would say that our gender identity is a fundamental part of our identity as a person. Being male or female is not just an incidental add-on to our personality. It is central to who and what we are, and to how we think and feel about ourselves. If our gender identity were taken away and we became sexless beings, we would no longer be ourselves.
Swedenborg simply brings that reality to its logical conclusion: if God created us male and female, so that our maleness and femaleness is an essential part of who we are, then we will continue to be male and female after death.
This means that we will have all the same thoughts, feelings, desires, and ideals as we do as men and women here on earth—including the romantic and sexual ones.
Swedenborg goes on to say that the particular kind of love and character that makes us the unique person we are also continues on after death. We continue to be exactly the same person we were before, with the same loves, feelings, thoughts, and beliefs. Nothing about us changes except that instead of having a physical body equipped for life in this material world, we have a spiritual body equipped for life in the spiritual world.
And yet, our spiritual body is so much like the body we have here on this earth that we will hardly be able to tell the difference. It is every bit as solid, warm, alive, and huggable as our physical body. And it has all of the same parts and organs, both external and internal.
This means that men still have a fully male body, and women still have a fully female body. And in case that’s not clear and explicit enough for you, yes, men do still have male genitals and all the rest of the physical parts and organs of a human male, and women do still have female genitals and all the rest of the physical parts and organs of a human female.
In short, after death we remain fully male or female, both psychologically and physically.
Sexual love continues after death
This means that we also continue to feel romantic and sexual love.
Swedenborg writes:
Love for the other sex, especially, continues after death, and so does marriage love for people who come into heaven. These are the ones who become spiritual on earth. Love for the other sex remains with people after death because then men are still male and women are female, and masculinity in a male is masculine in all of him and in every part of him. The same goes for femininity in a female. And every particular—in fact, every little detail—of them offers union. This disposition to unite has been implanted from creation, so it is always there, and this means that the one yearns and longs to unite with the other.
After all, people were created male and female in this way so that the two of them could be like one person, or one flesh. And when they do become one, taken together they are a complete person. Without this union they are two, and each is like a divided or half person. Now, because this attraction hides deep within each particle of a male and each particle of a female, and because the ability and the drive to join together into one is in each particle, a mutual and reciprocal love for the other sex remains with people after death. (Marriage Love #37)
If after death we remain male and female as God created us, how could it be any different? What would be left of our maleness and our femaleness if we did not feel a love and desire to be united together in love?
And so once again, Swedenborg simply takes the reality of our gender identity as a core aspect of our self to its logical conclusion. If we continue to be male or female after death, we will continue to have all the sexual and marriage-related loves, drives, and desires that we feel here on earth.
Furthermore, the type of sexual or marriage love that we choose and grow into here on earth also continues in the afterlife.
If as adults we choose to live a promiscuous life of sleeping around with multiple partners, cheating on our husband or wife, and focusing mostly on our own physical gratification and pleasure when it comes to relationships and sex, we’ll continue to be the same sort of person after death—which means that we will never be in a real, spiritual, eternal marriage.
But if as adults we choose to value love, faithfulness, commitment, and oneness of mind and heart with our partner and soulmate, then our loves and feelings will continue in the same way after death, and we will live eternally in a happy marriage relationship with our soulmate.
If we are married to the wrong person here on earth, or have been married several times, that will all get sorted out so that we end out with the person who is truly one with us in spirit. For more on how this works, please see the article, “If You’ve been Married More than Once, Which One will you be With in the Afterlife?”
True marriage never ends
For people who are happily married to their true spiritual partner here on earth, after death their relationship picks up right where it left off, and continues on to eternity. In fact, when one partner dies before the other, as usually happens, spiritually the relationship is not even interrupted. About such couples whose souls are united, Swedenborg writes:
The two of them are not even separated by the death of one, since the spirit of the deceased husband or wife continues to live with the husband or wife who is not yet deceased. This continues until the other one’s death, when they meet again, reunite, and love each other even more tenderly than before because they are in the spiritual world. (Marriage Love #321)
And so to very sad widows and widowers everywhere, who have lived in a deep, loving, and happy marriage with your partner, I can assure you that your husband or wife is still with you. If you feel his or her presence at times, that is not an illusion or a hallucination. He or she really is still living together with you in spirit.
And when it comes your time to move from this world to the next, you will rejoin your beloved soulmate. Then, as the classic fairy tales all say, the two of you will live happily ever after.
This article is a response to various comments and questions by readers here on the blog, and to a spiritual conundrum submitted by a reader.
For further reading:
- How Can I Be Sure that My Partner will Be Waiting for Me in Heaven?
- How does Marriage Fit In with a Spiritual Life? Is There Marriage in Heaven?
- Didn’t Jesus Say There’s No Marriage in Heaven?
- Marriage in the Resurrection: The Deeper Meaning
- Is There Sex in Heaven?
- Can you Fall in Love in Heaven if you Haven’t Found Someone on Earth?
- If You’ve been Married More than Once, Which One will you be With in the Afterlife?
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Lee Woofenden is an ordained minister, writer, editor, translator, and teacher. He enjoys taking spiritual insights from the Bible and the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg and putting them into plain English as guides for everyday life.
Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life 
Hello. It is me again. I am still struggling and keep thinking of things over and over. The night after my husband passed away, both my daughter and I, in separate rooms, hea.rd a lamb ba – ing. THe next night I woke startled to what felt like Rob stroking my face. The way he did so many times. And recently, I woke to Rob holding my hand. All these are very real to me. I feel as if they are truly my husband. I have have dreams of him and I believe they each have a meaning. I do not dream often or rarely remember a dream, but lately when I have a dream I remember it is of my husband. Very recently, I swear when I walked into my room that I saw my husbands face at my desk. He looked at me over my computer with his big eyes and then vanished. Am I going crazy?
Hi Vikki,
Good to hear from you again.
No, you are not going crazy. I have heard similar stories from other people whose beloved husband or wife had passed into the spiritual world. Clearly your husband is still close to you in spirit, even if he is separated from you in body. And since your thoughts are often with him, and he is in the spiritual world, your spiritual senses are briefly opened from time to time so that you have brief glimpses, and can even feel his hand on yours.
It is not surprising that this happens most often just as you wake up. At that time your mind is not yet fully engaged in the material world. It is a common time for people to have brief experiences of connection with the spiritual world.
In short, all of this makes perfect sense, given how close the two of you were, and still are.
when I read Corinthians about marriage, I thought it described widows as not married to their dead spouse cause that part got me confused because it said to the unmarried and the widows it is better for them to stay unmarried. The ” unmarried” for the unmarried is single while the “unmarried” for the widows is not marrying another person but staying married to your dead spouse, right? because people keep thinking that the “unmarried” for the widows is not being married to their dead spouse which got me so frustrated that it led me to anger. but when I read in Acts about Stephen it said that Stephen said that Jesus will change the customs of the laws of Moses, so this means that when Jesus was talking about the customs of marriage and not marriage itself. I too long for an eternal marriage in heaven with my future spouse that I have in mind. I know that marriages are eternal in heaven a what god joins together is eternal but if the marriage is not joined by him then that marriage won’t be eternal.
Hi Jennifer,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your good thoughts. There is much confusion about many passages in the Bible about marriage due to the mistaken notion that Jesus said there is no marriage in heaven. On that, please see:
Didn’t Jesus Say There’s No Marriage in Heaven?
This article and its sequel deal extensively with that passage and several others. As for Paul’s comments about marriage, to understand them we must keep in mind that there is legal marriage and there is spiritual marriage, and the two are not at all the same. See:
Real Marriage vs. Legal Marriage
The State is not an agent of God. If the State says that two people are married, that marriage has only the authority of the State. It does not have the authority of God. The authority of the State is earthly. It does not extend beyond death into the afterlife. When God joins two people together, it is not merely an earthly legal marriage. It is a spiritual marriage, which is a union of two minds and hearts into one. A legally married couple will remain together to eternity only if God has also joined them together—just as you say.
Thank you Lee your site has given me solice at the most difficult part in my life, I lost my wife a few months back after she battled with Breast Cancer and since her passing my life has been flat. No one apart from those who have experienced the loss of some one who has been a soulmate, friend, someone would back me up even when I was in the wrong and be there for me each night to comfort me and share warmth with me can never understand the feeling of utter depletion of the soul. What pains me the most is having to wait in this life until I get to pass over, for me it is an eternity. I just hope that she will wait for me. I could not imagine life with anyone else. We were together from leaving school for 31 years and we always hated being apart from one another. I have asked god on many occasions to forgive all my sins because I want to go to that same place. I once asked God to come to me and show me the way and I had an imense feeling of warmth, love and safety at that moment so I believe that we have a lord absolutley! The biggest struggle for me is to find purpose for doing all the little jobs like decorating, tending to the garden? It sounds rather petty. I love her so much and I shed tears every night.
Hi Steve,
I’m so sorry to hear about your wife’s death. Losing a wife or husband, even if it is only temporary, is one of the most difficult and painful experiences anyone can go through.
Given how close the two of you were for so many years, I have no doubt that she will be waiting for you on the other side. Marriages are not just a matter of finding the right one, but of growing into being the right one for each other. This happens over the years in a good marriage, such that the two do become one in their soul and life. At that point, nothing, not even death, can separate them. Your wife is still with you even if you can’t see and hear her.
Yes, finding some purpose to keep you going each day here on earth is a hard one when half of you is already in the spiritual world. May I suggest that your greatest purpose is to continue the work on becoming a person who can join your beloved wife in heaven when it comes your time to leave this earth? If God is still keeping you here, I believe that means you still have some work to do.
Also, although it certainly is hard to keep your spirits up, keep in mind that your wife is with you in spirit. She can sense your feelings, and she still wants you to be happy. Anything you can find that lifts your spirits and gives you at least a little joy in the midst of your grieving will touch her as well. You’re not doing it just for yourself, but for her also. And don’t be afraid to talk to her in your mind, or even out loud if you’re alone. She may not hear the exact words you say, but she will know you are thinking of her, and it will bring her closer to you.
Meanwhile, our thoughts and prayers are with you.
Swedenborg says our sexuality stays with us after death. But he also mentions that angels gain “chaste sexual love”. Does this mean that people who were raised to think sex is “dirty” or “obscene” will will be able to not think ill of good sexuality in Heaven? In other words, will prudes cease to be such when it comes to good sexuality, despite the modern world demonizing sex?
Hi K,
When we die, we don’t go immediately to heaven. Rather, we spent a shorter or longer time in the “world of spirits,” which is between heaven and hell. On the short end, some people spend hardly any time there at all before heading to their final home in heaven or hell. But most people seem to stay in that intermediate state for the equivalent of one, two, or even three decades. This allows time for their true inner self to come out, as determined by the “ruling love” that they have chosen on earth. And it gives time for them to gradually let go of mistaken ideas and attitudes that they have picked up along the way here on earth.
Given how central marriage, and marriage love, is to heaven, presumably one of the things people will leave behind is the sense inculcated into them by a corrupted Christian church that sexuality is a merely physical and earthly thing, and is intrinsically dirty and tainted with evil. That is not at all the case, of course. People who come from such a background will have time to unlearn these physical-minded ideas about sex and marriage, and learn the true spiritual and divine origins of sex and marriage in the marriage of love and wisdom in God.
Due to many concepts in the posting not being Bible based, I find much of it to be lacking credibility.
Hi D A,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment. However, like others who have made similar comments, you seem to have ignored the links at the beginning of this article to the first two articles in the series, which take up the biblical basis of marriage in the afterlife in great detail. Since you seem to have missed the very first things I said in the article, I do wonder whether you read the article at all.
I’ve been reading the back and forth between you and Isabella, and I find one thing very interesting. If you examine the belief in no marriage in heaven, it seems to have Catholic origins. And if you read the commentaries and look at the people who promote this belief, they all seem to point back to Augustine and Aquinas. Yet, Protestants and Evangelicals, who broke away from the Catholic church, have picked up that belief. They rejected many things from the Catholic church, such as praying to saints, the elevation of the Blessed Mother as a deified person and lighting candles for dead people, but they clung to no marriage in heaven. There seems to be some kind of motivation for people to want to believe that, maybe some kind of guilt complex that sex is dirty or something of that sort. I really don’t know.
Hi DelphiPro,
Good to hear from you again.
Protestantism is simply a reformed version of Catholicism. The core of Protestant doctrine is the same as Catholic doctrine, because it came from the Catholic Church. For example, the doctrine of the Trinity of Persons and the doctrine of Original Sin are both Catholic doctrines that are key to Protestant theology.
Yes, I think the idea that sex is dirty plays a key role in the rejection of eternal marriage in traditional Christianity. But the idea that sex and marriage are merely worldly and physical, and required only for the reproduction of the human race, plays a greater role, I think. Traditional Christianity believes that marriage ends at death because it believes that marriage is a merely worldly relationship, not a spiritual one. Because it rejects spiritual marriage, it also rejects eternal marriage.
Good day Lee. I’m lost. I recently lost my wife of almost 50 years. We married young at 19 & 20 and had a child 7 months later. We had other children as well as several grandchildren. We were always together and did everything together. My wife was ill for about 40 years with the last 5 more seriously. We always held hands and I opened and closed doors for her.
She asked me several times in life if I ever cheated on her. I told her no. It was a lie. Once after 5 years and another time after around 9 years. A close call around that same time. As a Catholic they were all confessed. I’ve hated myself ever since. I never answered no because I was a coward and afraid of the consequences. I know Jesus has forgiven me but I know I will need to serve time in purgatory when I die. I’m told that since my wife is in a spiritual state of existence that she has no holding onto of ill feelings towards me. I’m concerned that she may forgive but not forget. The same as I would think might have been the consequences if I had the guts not to lie to her. I’m concerned that she may learn of a high school boyfriend that would have been more faithful and turn me away. I miss her so much and I love her so much. Is there the possibility that when I die she could turn me away? My vow breaking was so long ago and as I said I have hated myself for breaking our vows and have no reason to justify what I did 40 years ago.
Hi George,
Thanks for stopping by and telling your story. The short answer is that though your situation is a bit messy, since you repented of what you did, and remained faithful to your wife for forty years afterwards, the fact that you had affairs and did not tell her about it will not destroy your chances of being with her in the afterlife. In the spiritual world, we are married to the person who we are one with in mind and heart. Past sins that we have since repented from will fade into the background. See:
Ezekiel 18: God’s Message of Hope . . . If You Think there’s No Hope for You
Now, I should say that you will probably have to ‘fess up to your wife when you rejoin her on the other side. After we have been in the spiritual world for a while, we lose the ability to put on masks and hide our true thoughts and feelings. If you are still actively ashamed and embarrassed at what you did, and at lying to her about it, she will see that in your face. But if you never did it again, and were a good husband to her for all those years, I believe she will forgive you.
Thank you for the reply. I have told her so many times that I miss her, I love her, & I am sorry. Does she hear me? Does she see the sorrow and pain I am in? I’m kinda confused on all of that. I’m hearing so many different things. I’m hearing that heaven is all loving therefore she has forgiven me. And that since it is all forgiven it is all forgotten. If she hears me she knows how sorry I am. I honestly have no problem telling her when I get to see her. If it is true that she already forgives me I need to learn how to forgive myself. Does she have the option though to choose to not accept me?
The forgive but not forget saying.
Could she meet someone else from her past and find out that they might have been better to her.
I’m told by so many that we had such a beautiful life together and that I did so much for her. That I could not have done anything else. That I was always there for her.
Am I a fraud? Should I not say ‘a love as true as mine’ in the songs we danced to?
Hi George,
Please do read the article based on Ezekiel 18 that I linked for you. It deals with these issues of past sins.
Yes, I think you need to forgive yourself. Unfortunately, since you never told your wife, you didn’t give her the chance to forgive you before she died. And realistically, sometimes it is best to let sleeping dogs lie. But everything does come out in the afterlife. In heaven there will be no more secrets between you and your wife. But also, things we did in the past will fade into the background. I suspect that your wife will be so happy to see you again that she won’t even be interested in hearing about some old flings of yours. In heaven, people look for the good in other people, and when they see something bad, they overlook it and excuse it as long as the person’s heart is good.
Hi George,
About whether she hears you, she probably doesn’t literally hear your words, though sometimes she might. However, she can sense your presence and your feelings, and based on them she’ll have a good sense of your thoughts. She will know that you still love her, and that you are sorry for what you did.
And you know, it’s possible that she already knows that you cheated on her in the first decade of your marriage. If she didn’t suspect it, why would she ask you about it? Maybe she was testing to see whether you would tell her the truth. But then life went on, and it was a good marriage, so she just let it slide, and didn’t make an issue of it.
The most important thing in her mind will not be that you cheated on her when you were young and stupid, but that you then wised up and were faithful to her for forty good years of marriage.
Thank you again for your responses. I hope I am not asking too much of you. I will work on forgiving myself and on hating myself for breaking our vows. The one thing Jesus gave me to do and be I didn’t and wasn’t. That is be faithful and truthful to my wife. You use the word ‘fling’ and it stabs me. And rightfully so. Both unfaithful encounters were a one time thing. The other close encounter almost happened but didn’t was with a work associate. We both stopped it before it became a one time ‘fling’.When you talk about no more secrets in heaven do you think we communicate about the earthly good times and bad times? As I want to apologize to her and get on my knees, if they exist, to beg, if necessary, for forgiveness. Is there any biblical readings that indicate we get to reminisce over good things? When I say my prayers in the morning and evening I talk to Jesus, St Michael and St Theresa. I also talk to my wife. And I cry a lot. Why are we taught to pray to saints and ask other deceased love ones to intercede to The Lord on our behalf?I have read Ezechiel 18 and I am getting the message. I just keep beating myself up for breaking the vows I made to Jesus and my wife. I have no idea what I was trying to accomplish at that time. I was around 25 and 30. The sad part is we were happily married the entire time we were married. Does that make sense? It is so evident that I had a gem. A beautiful looking person who as I learned during our life together was more beautiful inside as a person. What a fool I was. What a stupid dumb … Thank you!
Hi George,
People commonly do foolish and wrong things in their youth. Hence the verse from the Psalm:
And, sometimes it takes our violating God’s gifts, and facing the possibility of losing them, for us to truly value them. The sins of our youth are not good, but God can bring good out of them if we are willing to repent and live a faithful life from then on.
The Bible doesn’t say a lot about the afterlife. But yes, in the spiritual world we keep our memories, and we can reminisce over our good and bad times on earth. Meanwhile, we are having new experiences and making new memories that will be fresher in our mind than the things we did on earth.
Yes, in heaven we have knees, and all the rest of our body, too. Only it is a spiritual body, not a physical body, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:44.
There is no teaching in the Bible that we are to pray to saints and ask them to intercede for us. That is a Catholic belief and tradition, but it is not biblical. In the Bible, all prayer and worship is directed to God alone (see, for example, Revelation 19:10, 22:8–9), and God does not need humans or angels to intercede, since Christ is God’s own mediator::
My belief is that we should pray only to the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom is the Father.
HI, I lost my husband in may 2021 we were very happy together and we have been married for 3 years and are in relationship since 2010 ,will i be able to reunite with him in after life if i kill myself , i am not able to bear this pain and i cant live without him , please reply
Hi Sandy,
I am very sorry to hear about the recent death of your husband, and about your great pain in the aftermath. As for whether you could still be with him if you committed suicide, I can’t answer that question. Only God knows these things for sure. Although it would certainly seem as if you could rejoin him on the other side, suicide is a serious act, and would have consequences even in the other life. Please see:
Does Suicide Work?
Of course, your life is in your own hands. I simply wouldn’t recommend taking it. If God has left you here on this earth, there must be a reason for that.
Also, I doubt your husband would appreciate your cutting off your own life because his life was cut off early. Married couples who have a true inner connection are not separated by death spiritually. Your husband is still with you in spirit, even if he is no longer with you physically. And now that he is in the spiritual world, he is gaining greater knowledge of the meaning and importance of our lifetime here on earth. He is no longer able to take advantage of the opportunities for spiritual formation that are available to us only on earth. You still can. My concern is that if you cut off your own opportunity to form your spirit, you may be cutting off your ability to become the right woman for him spiritually. After all, in the spiritual world, earthly marriage does not matter. Only a oneness of mind and heart matters.
Meanwhile, our prayers are with you as you face your grief at his loss.
This article brought me so much peace. I can hardly wait to reunite with my husband. We had an amazing sexual relationship, and I can hardly wait to resume that relationship with him. We had fun together and we enjoyed being together. He died suddenly and unexpectedly from cardiac arrest. It was a huge shock and very traumatic for me. I’ll really be thrilled to see him again.
Hi Candace,
I’m sorry to hear about your husband’s sudden death, and glad this article brought you some peace. At least you have something to look forward to. Speaking of amazing sex, you might enjoy this article as well:
Is There Sex in Heaven?
Meanwhile, you are in our thoughts and prayers.
The entire population shall be of pairs of male and female? Like male-female twins? Unbreakable? Like kinship?
Hi WorldQuestioner,
It is stronger than kinship, and even than twins. In heaven, a married couple is seen as one angel, even though though the two of them also remain distinct individuals. And yes, it is unbreakable. Family members, including twins, can grow apart over time. But married couples in heaven continue to grow closer together to eternity.
If I understand what Swedenborg said right, “chaste sexual love” is love between spouses that manifests as sexuality. So in Heaven, the only other person a married angel can feel aroused by is the spouse, as their sexuality comes from love (instead of biological instinct like in this life), right?
Hi K,
This is a tricky subject, and the terms Swedenborg uses in talking about it are difficult to translate well. I have in mind to write an article or two about sexual love, marriage love, and so on, to sort all of this out.
It is true that in heaven, the only person an angel can feel aroused by is his or her own spouse. For anyone else, if the idea of having sex with them enters an angel’s mind, the angel immediately grows cold to the bones.
And yes, this is because for angels, sexual intercourse is a physical union that flows from the spiritual union of mind and heart in married couples. There is no biological reproductive drive creating physical urges to mate. Further, a marital union of mind and heart is possible only with one other person. Therefore an angel will feel sexual arousal and a desire to make love only with his or her own wife or husband. It is not possible for angels to feel this for anyone else, because they do not have an inner union of mind and heart with anyone else. That’s why if extramarital sex is suggested to their mind, they instantly become cold as ice.
However, all of this is about marriage love, not about “sexual love” or “chaste sexual love” as Swedenborg uses those terms.
In contrast to marriage love, sexual love is a generalized love and attraction for the other sex, in people who are not married to one another.
In contrast to (genuine) marriage love, which is an inward and spiritual love, sexual love is an outward, “natural” or earthly love. For men, it is an appreciation of and attraction to a woman’s physical beauty and to her feminine mind and behavior. For women it is an appreciation of and attraction to a man’s handsome male body, and to his masculine mind and behavior.
Chaste sexual love, as described in Swedenborg’s writings, is when this generalized attraction to the other sex is a love and affection for people of the opposite sex without a desire to have sexual intercourse with them. This is possible for people who know about and want real, spiritual marriage, and who therefore have no desire to actually have sex with someone to whom they are not married. Of course, in real life here on earth, that’s complicated because we do have a biological sex drive. But this kind of attraction to people of the opposite sex without desiring to have sex with them is still possible for people who have a spiritual mindset.
And to round things out, sexual love (not the “chaste” variety) is a general attraction to and desire to have sex with people of the opposite sex. (Of course, this whole discussion is about heterosexuals.) For people in whom sexual love reigns—which is very common—attraction to people of the opposite sex is inseparable from a desire to have sex with them. This is the human version of the biological sex drive, which we share with lower animals. It’s not so much evil as it is animal.
Back to your overall question, in Swedenborg’s explanation of these things, what a man feels for his wife, and vice versa, if they have a genuine spiritual marriage, is not sexual love, or even chaste sexual love, but marriage love. The relationship may have started out in sexual love or chaste sexual love, because that’s where we all start out. But in the course of becoming married in mind and heart, the couple leaves that type of love behind, and become animated by marriage love. This does also lead to their having sex with one another, but now it is an expression of their inner oneness of mind and heart rather than being a mere expression of their biological sex drives. Outwardly it may look exactly the same, but inwardly it is completely different.
To underscore the difference between chaste sexual love and marriage love, it is possible for a married man or woman to have chaste sexual love, as Swedenborg uses that term, for a friend or acquaintance of the opposite sex, to whom he or she is not married. This type of love is an appreciation of that person’s feminine or masculine body and character, without any desire to have sex with her or him. This makes it clear that “chaste sexual love” is distinctly different from marriage love.
This is also why it’s difficult to translate Swedenborg’s Latin terms into appropriate English. In English, “sexual” is closely tied to sexual intercourse. But in Latin, the word sexus is closer to our idea of “gender,” whereas there are different, unrelated words for sexual intercourse (coitus, copulatio). The Latin word sexus involves our gender differences, which we appreciate in people of the opposite sex without necessarily wanting to have sex with them.
Does this make things any clearer?
Hi Lee.
I recently discovered Swedenborg. I truly believe God led me to all that is Swedenborg.
It all happened after I lost my wife, my everything, a year and a half ago.
I really want to work on my spiritual marriage now. Can you help me with this.
I look forward to hearing from you.
God Bless.
Alex.
Hi Alex,
Good to hear from you. I’m sorry to hear about your wife’s death. It is a hard way to get us on a path of spiritual searching. But God does bring good out of evil.
Working on your spiritual marriage means working on your own spiritual life. And that means learning to love God above all, and our neighbor as much as ourselves.
Practically speaking, it means devoting our lives to serving our fellow human beings as well as we can, especially in our job, or in whatever type of work we spend most of our time doing. If we do this not to get anything for ourselves (as our primary motive—it’s not wrong to draw a salary), but to help other people in useful and practical ways, then we are on the path of developing our spiritual life. It’s not all about prayer and worship. It’s about putting the Lord’s commandments into action in our everyday life.
Here are a couple articles to get you started:
And there are plenty more where those came from!
If you have any further thoughts or questions, please feel free to continue the conversation. Meanwhile, our thoughts and prayers are with you.
My wife and I had a wild and wonderful physical relationship in the early part of our marriage. We were both pure on our wedding night, and I will never regret the deep physical and emotional part of pour marriage. We even held hands in church. However in our thirties my wife was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. We battled it together for 30 years, and I lost a little bit of her each year for the next 30 years, being her 24/7/52 caregiver for her last 4 1/2 years. Our love for each other continued to grow each year, and our friendship ultimately grew exponentially during this time. We were still playfully affectionate long after we were physically able to express our love. I pray we will also be best friends for eternity when I am allowed to rejoin her in heaven.
Hi Kenneth,
Thanks for stopping by and telling your story. It does sound like you have a relationship of true love with your wife. Why else would you stick with her, and she with you, through all these challenges and struggles?
When it comes her time, and yours, to pass on to the spiritual world, all those challenges of physical ill health will be a thing of the past. She will once again be her full, healthy self just as you knew her when you were both younger. In fact, you will both be stronger and healthier than you ever were here on earth.
And yes, you will be able to continue your relationship her just as it was at its best here. That is true on all levels: mental, emotional, and physical. For more on this, please see the articles linked for further reading at the end of this one.
Meanwhile, Godspeed on your spiritual journey.
“If as adults we choose to live a promiscuous life of sleeping around with multiple partners, cheating on our husband or wife, and focusing mostly on our own physical gratification and pleasure when it comes to relationships and sex, we’ll continue to be the same sort of person after death—which means that we will never be in a real, spiritual, eternal marriage.”
Wow, from what I understand is that you’re saying that people who committed adultery can go to heaven too?
Hi Anonymous,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment and question. If you mean the people I am talking about in the section of the article that you quoted, then no, these people will not be in heaven, but in hell, precisely because they are selfish and promiscuous when it comes to relationships and sex. There is no marriage in hell.
However, if a person commits adultery, but then afterwards recognizes that adultery is wrong and against God’s commandments, repents from it, commits himself or herself to never doing it again, and sticks to that commitment, then that person can go to heaven, because that person is no longer an adulterer. See Ezekiel 18 and my article about it.
I hope this helps. Meanwhile, Godspeed on your spiritual journey.
What?? From what I understand from this paragraph is that you clearly said if you chose to sleep around on this earth then you will be the same in heaven. Is that right?
Hi Anonymous,
Not the same in heaven; the same in the spiritual world.
The spiritual world consists of three general areas: heaven, hell, and an area in between them where people first arrive after death, and stay for a longer or shorter time before moving on to their final home in heaven or hell.
People who live selfish and evil lives, including people who engage in a lot of adulterous and promiscuous sex solely for their own pleasure and enjoyment, regardless of any ethics or morals or how it affects anyone else, will remain the same in the spiritual world. However, these people will make their final home in hell, not in heaven. At the time of our death, whatever our inner character is, that’s what it will be forever, and that’s what will determine whether we will spend eternity in heaven or eternity in hell.
Will we be perfect and never do anything wrong again if we go to heaven?
Hi WorldQuestioner,
We won’t intentionally do anything wrong in heaven. But no one is perfect except God. People in heaven, especially in its lower levels, can still make mistakes, and learn from them.
So our personalities are not transformed to perfect?
Does the Bible teach that angels are sinless, or that they always obey God? Is “elect-holy” a Biblical term? Elect-holy angels, confirmed in their righteous state?
What about 1 John Chapter 3, including verses 1, 2, maybe 3?
Hi WorldQuestioner,
Only God is good (Luke 18:19; Mark 10:18). Only God is perfect.
1 John 3:1–10 says that his followers purify themselves, but it does not say that they are pure. It also says they do not sin. This means they don’t intentionally do what is evil and sinful. It doesn’t mean they never make mistakes and fall short of perfection.
Is Luke 18:19 and Mark 10:18 related to the fact that all have sinned (Romans 3:23)? It doesn’t mean all sentient or sapient beings have sinned except God, does it?
Would God transforming us after death be forcing? Would it go against free will?
Hi WorldQuestioner,
Yes, those passages draw on the reality that all have sinned. But the deeper meaning is that all goodness comes from God and is God. Even if we are good or righteous people, our goodness and righteousness is not our own, but is God’s in us. So we ourselves are not good. God is good in us. This same logic would apply to lower animals, even though they don’t have the capacity to sin.
Yes, if God transformed us after death from what we have become to something different, that would destroy our free will and our humanity along with it.
We will never get sick in Heaven will we? I tend to believe there will be no pain or suffering in Heaven. What about the Revelation 21:4?
Hi WorldQuestioner,
For the most part, no, we won’t get sick in heaven, or have any pain and suffering. However, even angels are not perfect. Apparently they sometimes get a little too full of themselves, and as a result fall out of heaven temporarily, experiencing a sense of sadness and loss until they come to their senses and realize that they themselves are nothing, and God is everything. Then they rejoin their companions in heaven, and resume their happy lives.
Just because only God is all-powerful doesn’t mean only God is perfect. Omnipotent (and omniscient and omnipresent) is not the same as perfect.
A being doesn’t have to be all-powerful to be perfect, does it.
Hi WorldQuestioner,
In the abstract, a being doesn’t have to be all-powerful to be perfect. But in the concrete, the reality is that none of us is perfect. We just aren’t.
From what I understand is that sex is only exist between two people that loved each other in heaven right? Like there will be no more people that like to have sleep around?
Hi Anonymous,
In heaven sex will exist only between two people who love each other. In hell there will still be people who like to sleep around. But for the most part, they will not be allowed to sleep around.
Hello Lee
My wife died suddenly a little over 2 weeks ago. I have been trying to find solace by drawing closer to her family and her very close friend. At the end of the day When I am alone I think about how quickly that she was taken away from me. It was in the middle of the night she complained of having a hard time breathing. Within 15 minutes she passed out on me after I called 911. I was told that she had passed away when I arrived at the hospital. The shock was beyond anything I had ever experienced. We were together for 17 years. We got married in 2015. I can honestly say that we were joined at the heart. I am heart broken and feel that a part of me has died.
I have read your articles at the top of this page and some of the comments with those who have shared their experience of losing a loved one. Jesus’ response to the Sadducees has always troubled me. The idea that I will never be with my wife and experience the closeness and intimacy that we had just doesn’t feel right. I talk to her often and I pray that I will get answers and what I should do in order to find her when I pass away.
Your articles have given me some comfort.
Thank you
Cliff
Hi Cliff,
I’m so sorry to hear about your wife’s sudden death. That is a heavy blow to bear. I am glad the articles here have given you some comfort.
Perhaps you have read them already, but there is a series of articles about Jesus’ words to the Sadducees, starting with this one:
Didn’t Jesus Say There’s No Marriage in Heaven?
Short version: Jesus simply didn’t say that there’s no marriage in heaven, as so many Christians claim he did. And he certainly didn’t say that people who are happily married on earth will no longer be married in heaven.
Finding your wife after you pass away will not be a problem. Most likely she will be waiting for you on the other side, and will greet you when you arrive. Even if she isn’t there when you first arrive, your mutual feelings for one another will quickly draw you together. In the spiritual world, mutual love and a desire to be together draws people to each other instantly. There is no space and time of the kind we have here on earth that keeps people apart.
Meanwhile, since she is now living in the spiritual world, anything you do to grow spiritually during your remaining lifetime here on earth will bring you closer to her, and will make it possible for you to have an even closer relationship with her once you are reunited in the spiritual world.
I hope these few words help as you struggle to find your path forward. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.
Thank you Lee. Yes, your sensitivity to the feelings of others is what I recognize as the way Jesus approached those seeking answers. Dee and I always told each other how much we loved each other and how we love our lives. It was almost a daily ritual. Your words are a great comfort. I feel a great part of me has gone but I am determined to find her again so that we can be whole again and go on another adventure together.
Cliff
Hi Cliff,
It will be hard while you are still living here and she is in the spiritual world. But once your work on earth is finished, you and Dee will go on many more adventures together—and even greater ones than here, because you will be in a far greater and more expansive world.
Hi Lee, how are you? 🙂
One thing that sometimes comes to my mind and makes me very anxious, is the concept of eternity and probability (although i firmly believe those thoughts comes from near evil spirits trying to scare me from my spiritual dream, that is an eternal marriage).
So, i used to watch and read a lot of books about relationships, and one thing that almost all of them say is that it’s inevitable that your partner will change with time and that we need to cope and adapt with that if we want a lasting marriage. I’m fine with it, but generally when they say that it’s obvious that they are not talking about an eternal / forever union, but a very small pacing of time, that is our life here on earth and very small changes like hobbies, routines and tastes for example, not bad breakers like morality, love, dreams, etc… Searching about time, infinity and probability only made things much worse for me, since generally those content comes from very materialistic scientists, physics and philosophers and it’s very hard to think and understand in a spiritual terms, specially a marriage. Thinking about the heaven’s time using inner states instead of following events makes things easier to understand, but what i really want to know is, does our Soulmate (the truly one that our Lord provides in afterlife) still suffers from “time and probabilistic effects” like, given enough time (infinity time), there will be a moment that they will not want an eternal relationship with us anymore? or God knows that this will never happens and that’s why he created us one for each other… (I think that makes more sense to be honest). I know it’s a very hard and technical question since there is even a little bit of free will and God’s omniscience. After all of that, i can say firmly too that “my” evil spirits truly, truly knows how to make me scared unfortunately, but i really believe you and Anette can give me some guide or light on those questions. Thank you!
Hi caionsouza,
Thanks for stopping by, telling your story, and asking a good and interesting question.
Yes, your evil spirits are doing their best to wreck your hope for eternal marriage to your soulmate.
Fortunately, this one has a straightforward answer.
The changes that all those books about relationships are talking about are the changes that we go through during our lifetime here on earth as we go through the process of choosing what sort of person we want to be. For many people this changes several times during their lifetime, resulting in their falling in and out of love with people who do not follow the same winding path that they themselves are following.
However, at the point of our death and entry into the spiritual world, our decision has been made. We no longer go through any fundamental changes in our character and personality. In the initial stages of our time after death, we shed any external masks and affectations that don’t match the true inner character we have chosen during our lifetime on earth. We then continue steadily in that character forever. Yes, we learn and grow, but we do not become a different person; only a better and better version of the person we already are.
This is why people in heaven have no fear that their partner in marriage, popularly known here on earth as their “soulmate,” will ever grow away from them. Instead, partners in marriage grow continually closer to each other to eternity.
The Bible gives us the metaphor of the potter and the clay, in which the potter forms and re-forms the pot until it is in the shape that the potter wants. Extending this metaphor, when we die, our pot is fired in its final form, and can no longer change. Any attempt to change the form of an already fired pot will only result in breaking it into pieces.
In more theological language, at the time of our death our “ruling love” becomes settled, and cannot change. Our “ruling love” is whatever we have placed at the center of our being as the thing we love most of all. It may be ourselves and our own greatness. It may be wealth and the physical pleasures it affords us. It may be some form of love for the neighbor. And it may be some form of love for God. If during our lifetime on this earth we have chosen some variation of the first two as our ruling love, then in the afterlife we will make our bed in hell. If we have chosen some variation of the second two, then we will make our home in heaven.
Yet another way of looking at this is that here on earth we have the freedom to choose what sort of person we want to be, whereas in the afterlife we have the freedom to live as the person we have chosen to be, without fear of that life ever being taken away from us.
As I mentioned above, this also means that married partners in heaven have no fear whatsoever that they will ever lose their partner because he or she grows away from them. The two of them are together because during their lifetime on earth they have chosen the same basic ruling love, which is what forms the core of their character. Since they share this common ruling love with one another, and our ruling love never changes after we die, nothing can ever break their oneness with each other.
I hope this helps you to banish those evil spirits from your mind and heart, so that you can have true hope and assurance that in the afterlife you will live with your beloved soulmate forever, never growing apart, but always growing closer and closer to one another.
Meanwhile, Godspeed on your spiritual journey.
This helped me so much and beyond!
Understanding those things makes me feel much better and lighter, the anxiety i was feeling when thinking about my spiritual marriage is finally gone!
And if any of those evil spirits return to make me feel bad again, i already know to repel them very effectively 🙂
Thank you, Lee! 😊
Hi caionsouza,
You are most welcome. I am very glad to hear it!
I like the idea that marriage is eternal. Both of my parents are gone, after 67 years of marriage, and I like to think of them together in heaven, just as I like to think of my grandma in heaven, surrounded by cats, as she was in life here on Earth. However, I do not like to think of us having spiritual bodies in heaven that are basically the same as our physical bodies. You say that our spiritual bodies will have all the same parts as we have here now – genitals and all. No, that’s just wrong. There won’t be any sin in the next life. No temptation. Just peace with God. Some of us have been basically alone here on Earth – and I expect that to be the same “up there”. Just basking in the glory of God, with, in my case, my parents close by, grandparents, and a family of beautiful cats.
Hi Ron,
Thanks again for stopping by, and for your comments. I do understand what you’re saying. And of course, if you prefer to be single, that is allowable in heaven. But from one of your other comments here I gather that you would have married if you could have, not just for sex, but for companionship. And that is a good thing! May I suggest that circumstances will be different for you in the next life, so that what was not possible here will become possible there? But once again, it will be entirely your choice.
As for genitals and sex being sinful, where does the Bible say that? Where do people get that idea? The very first commandment God gave to men and women after creating them in Genesis 1 was, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28). Would God really give us genitals, and command us to use them in being fruitful and multiplying, if our genitals, and having sex, were evil and sinful? I don’t think so!
How did you get on this earth? Were your parents sinning when they conceived you? Were your grandparents sinning when they conceived your parents? I don’t think so!
God created us male and female for a reason. Of course, we can make sex dirty and sinful if our minds and actions are dirty and sinful. But sexuality as God created it is perfectly clean and pure. It is the closest two people who love one another can get to each other physically. It perfectly represents the relationship of love in which two people become one, as God created us to be. See:
Is There Sex in Heaven?
I understand that for you, being single, it is not much of a possibility here on this earth. But please don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Your parents loved each other, and that love produced you and any siblings you may have. Why would that love stop just because they have gone on to live in heaven?