Christianity Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for committed Christians, experts in Christianity and those interested in learning more. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
How does falling in love work in heaven? Do we still fall in love?
Is it possible to fall in love with more than one person? Or are we set to love just one person or none at all? Are intimate relationship in allowed heaven at all? Is having sexual relationship allowed in heaven? Or, is heaven just a sexless, harp-playing place?
In other words, what is the role of sex and love between humans in heaven, beyond the place of the love for God?
So, there are passages that are particularly relevant here:
Matthew 22:29 - 32
29 Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. 30 At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. 31 But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’[b]? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”
From this we know that there is no marriage but that doesn't say there isn't love.
1 Corinthians 13:12
12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
Historically there has been an interpretation of this verse that says our current understanding of love is highly limited - our sinful nature is such that we are capable only of a simulcrum of love, one which gets jealous when it reaches more than one, and one which is held back by our fleshly nature. In contrast, in heaven, where there is perfection, we are able to love more deeply more fully than here.
Indeed, C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce explores this theme, suggesting an almost open kind of love that is neither pornographic nor chaste. Mere Christianity picks this up, saying:
The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronising and spoiling sport, and backbiting; the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither.
He develops this further, saying that sex is a second thing, not a first one. InFirst and Second Things, he shows that sex is spiritual, but that made an end unto itself, it loses its meaning. As Peter Kreeft writes:
It could certainly be spiritual intercourse—and, remember, that includes sexual intercourse because sex is spiritual. This spiritual intercourse would mean something more specific than universal charity. It would be special communion with the sexually complementary; something a man can have only with a woman and a woman only with a man. We are made complete by such union: "It is not good that the man should be alone." And God does not simply rip up His design for human fulfillment. The relationship need not be confined to one in Heaven. Monogamy is for earth. On earth, our bodies are private. In Heaven, we share each other's secrets without shame, and voluntarily. In the Communion of Saints, promiscuity of spirit is a virtue.
In short, the idea of heaven in this understanding is that sex will be way more open, the complete perscription to the diagnosis in Genesis that it is not good for the man to be alone.
If this is true, we'll be getting way more, and way better sex up there than down here. Whether or not this is physical, whether or not this is even true, the real point is that anyone who is simply convinced there can't be sex in heaven does have a bit of theology against which to contend.
Your question seems very much to me like the original question asked of Jesus in Matthew 22 (also quoted by Affable Geek) about the the validity of earthly marriages in heaven --a question, it's worth noting, that was asked by the Sadducees specifically to mock the notion of resurrection.
I would argue that we shouldn't interpret Jesus' answer --that in heaven they do not marry --as specifically ruling out a particular heavenly analog to a particular earthy institution, but rather as a general warning that we err by trying to understand heaven as just an extension of our earthly lives. Rather, it is different in ways we cannot understand, and that will make things such as marriage and sex --which are so important here on earth --irrelevant.
As to the question of whether we will love each other, I would venture that in heaven we will all follow the commandment of John 15 --to love each other as God loves us.
As I understand your question and the answers I see here your question is really asking if Eros love exists in Heaven. The love that permeates Heaven is Agape Love. Eros love is the physical love which God gave mankind in order that his command to fill the Earth might come to fruition, and is only inherent in our Earthly bodies.
Our Earthly bodies will not be transported to Heaven as was the Earthly body of Christ.
Gen 3:19 KJV In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Our Earthly bodies will eventually return to dust, and since in Heaven there will be no more procreation there will also be no more need for sex.
As far as the other functions of our genitals since we will no longer have physical bodies we will no longer require nourishment and therefore no need to excrete waste. So why would they even be part of our Heavenly bodies?
In my studies of the Bible I have come to the conclusion that:
Matthew 22:30 At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.
is an indication that we like the Angels will be sexless beings.
The only directly relevant Bible passage I know of is Matthew 22, already quoted by Affable Geek so I won't repeat it here. So there is no marriage in Heaven. We are not given any further information, so it seems to me that there are two obvious possibilities:
There is no marriage and, as God says that sex is only permissible within marriage, therefore there is no sex.
Perhaps the laws that apply to us here on Earth will not be exactly the same in Heaven. For example, as there is no death in Heaven, laws against murder would not apply. God may establish some other relationship in Heaven within which sex is good and appropriate. If there is no marriage, that doesn't necessarily mean that there is nothing that in any way resembles marriage.
People will have bodies in Heaven, but they are different from the bodies we have now. See 1 Corinthians 15:35 ff. Are these bodies male and female? I don't know.
Beyond that, I don't know anything further in the Bible that would help us choose between these two possibilities.
Well matthew 22:30 is interesting because christ said we will be like the angels, its important to note that in genesis 6:1-4 the angels had sex with the daughters of men and produced giants as offspring, therefore angels could have sex and impregnate the women. We in our resurrection bodies will continue being male and the females continue being female, we will still be human beings but on a level of perfection, being partakers of the divine nature, yet still human with physical, resurrected, perfect bodies.
A few things to think about
A) The angels could have sex
B) The angels could impregnate the women
C) There is Christ the husband and the church is the bride, we will all be married in christ.
D) On the New Earth God will have removed the curse of sin, reversed its effects, all things will have become pure. Everything before the fall was good, Adam and Eve enjoyed heavenly sex until the fall when sex became marred by sin.
So a form of heavenly sex does exist and the angels could not only have sex but also impregnate.
For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.... – Byzantine Oct 21 '13 at 18:23