For. The Lord proceeds first to show the power of God as displayed in the resurrection. The Sadducees would limit and control this power by conceiving that it could not change the qualities of the body or alter the conditions and relations of the human consciousness.
In the resurrection (see on Matthew 22:28). Marry; as men. Are given in marriage; as women. Marriage is an earthly relationship, and can have no place in a spiritual condition. All that is of the earth, all that is carnal and gross, all human passions, all that is connected with sin and corruption, shall pass away.
The risen life is no mere reproduction of the present, but a regeneration, new life added to the old, with new powers, acting under new laws, ranged in a new community. On earth men are mortal, and marriage is necessary to perpetuate the race; no such necessity obtains in the other life, where men are immortal.
As an old Father says, "Where the law of death is abolished, the cause of birth is abolished likewise." Are as the angels of God in heaven; i.e. as the angels who dwell in heaven. The words, τοῦ θεοῦ, of God, are omitted by some manuscripts and editors.
The Vulgate has, angeli Dei in coelo. Thus Christ, in opposition to the Saddueces' creed, admits the existence of angels. Glorified men are like the angels in these characteristics especially. They are immortal, no longer subject to human wants, passions, failings, or temptations; they serve God perfectly without weariness or distraction; they have no conflict between flesh and spirit, between the old nature and the new; their life is peaceful, harmonious, satisfying.
Our Lord says nothing here concerning mutual recognition in the future state; nothing about the continuance of those tender relations which he sanctions and blesses on earth, and in the absence of which we cannot imagine perfect happiness existing.
Analogy supplies some answer to such questions, but they are foreign to Christ's statement, and need not be here discussed.