Will women give birth to babies in the Resurrection? Well, since sex in the Resurrection seems highly likely, as I previously discussed here, babies in the Resurrection also seem likely. Why wouldn’t resurrected women have perfectly functional ovaries and uteruses, the same way the resurrected Jesus had perfectly functional arms, legs, tongue, teeth, stomach, etc.? Isn’t the meaning of a perfected body a body whose parts work perfectly? And would these body parts work perfectly to no end?
Form Implies Function – Now and Later
I do not deny that our resurrected bodies will be unchanged from what they are now; evidently, the resurrected Jesus is able to pass through walls (John 10:19-26). But Jesus also shows us that the form of the resurrected body essentially remains intact AND that the body’s physical parts retain their corresponding functions/purposes. For example, the resurrected Jesus walks around using his physical legs. He talks to his disciples and eats food using the physical parts of his body (the mouth, tongue, lips, stomach, lungs, larynx, etc.) that correlate to those physical functions. Jesus proves that while the resurrected body may operate outside certain physical limits, it still retains the functions and purpose of its physicality.
By analogy to Jesus, if women’s resurrected bodies also have perfectly functioning body parts, including uteruses, and the purpose of a uterus is to hold a baby, then it seems that women can and will have babies in the Resurrection.
For Jesus shows us that the resurrected body is not simply “subsumed” into the divine essence or “spiritualized” to such an extent that it lacks physicality or the purpose/function of that physicality. The nuanced terminology Paul uses to describe the resurrected body – a “spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15) – should guide our thoughts here. The reality of the resurrected body with respect to its physical and spiritual components is both/and rather than either/or: we will be both embodied/physical and spiritual. Jesus shows us that the spiritual aspect of his resurrected body does not negate his physical function or the purpose of his physical parts; nor does his physical function and the purpose of his physical parts negate the spiritual aspect of his resurrected body. So shall it be for us and our physical parts, from the mouth to the uterus.
3 Arguments Against Babies in the Resurrection
To clarify, when I speak of babies in the Resurrection, I’m referring to babies resulting from sexual reproduction in the Resurrection. The question of whether babies who die or are aborted in this life are resurrected as babies is an interesting and worthy question to explore, but it’s a separate issue. Here I want to discuss three common arguments against babies in the Resurrection and why they are questionable.
There’s No Marriage in the Resurrection
One of the biggest problems people have with the idea of babies in the Resurrection is Jesus’ statement to the Sadducees, related in various passages such as Luke 20:34-36, where he seems to state unequivocally that there is no marriage in the Resurrection. In my previous post on sex in the Resurrection, I explain – with the help of well-respected Bible scholar Ben Witherington – why these passages have historically been interpreted by the church in ways that Jesus probably did not intend.
I won’t repeat that discussion here, but since these passages do not necessarily negate some form of marriage (and thus sex) in the Resurrection, babies in the Resurrection seem like a viable possibility. There are no other passages in Scripture that directly address the subject.
We Will Have Immortality in the Resurrection
Christians sometimes argue that immortality in the Resurrection renders sex and/or babies a thing of the past. The reasoning goes something like this: we don’t make babies anymore because there’s no death, and sexual reproduction is no longer needed to maintain the human population.
Apart from Jesus’ arguably misunderstood statement to the Sadducees on marriage – is there anything in Scripture indicating, directly or indirectly, that immortality precludes sexual reproduction or diminishes its appeal?
No, but there is Scripture indicating that immortality and sex and babies exist together.
Consider Adam and Eve. They were immortal, at least in the beginning, and God told them to have sex and babies.
Consider the sons of God, the angels, in Gen. 6. They were immortal yet desired women and had sex and babies with them.
Scripture also praises the pleasures of sex apart from baby-making; an obvious example is the Song of Songs. Sex, biblically, isn’t just good for making babies; it’s good by itself. Ergo, sex is a worthy pursuit even in the context of immortality.
Considering the above, Scripture seems to challenge, not support, the idea that immortality puts a stop to sex. Of course, human mortality after the Fall means that sex and babies are broadly essential to our survival as a species. By contrast, all immortality, or the absence of deaths means for sex and babies is they are no longer essential to human survival; immortality does not mean that sex and reproduction can no longer be meaningful, desirable, wonderful, and pleasing to God. Even when making babies is no longer required for human survival, isn’t new human life, immortal or otherwise, cause for celebration and joy? Why shouldn’t there be babies born in the Resurrection?
There Will be “Enough” Humans in the Resurrection
Another stumbling block for Christians considering babies in the Resurrection is the idea that resurrected humanity will comprise a “complete” human community; therefore, procreation is unnecessary and obsolete. This idea often goes together with the immortality argument.
But where does the Bible directly or indirectly support the idea that no more humans will be created after the Resurrection, or that the number of people resurrected constitutes some divinely-ordained human demographic cap? Why would a “cap” even be necessary?
By some projections the Earth as we know it, if perfectly stewarded, is capable of sustaining hundreds of billions of people, a number nearly a hundred times greater than our current population. And those projections just apply to Earth as it is now. They don’t apply to the New Earth, which could presumably be larger. Planets come in various sizes, and when God remakes everything, there’s no reason why he couldn’t create a larger planet Earth.
Even if He didn’t, couldn’t perfected humanity develop a way to responsibly inhabit the oceans? What about human space civilizations? Even in our fallen state, we have now attained the technological expertise to colonize the moon; we only lack capital/resources.
Objecting to babies in the Resurrection because there will be “enough” humans doesn’t make sense and isn’t supported by anything in the Bible. This idea is also plagued by 1) uninformed speculation, i.e., how do we know/why do we assume a certain number of people constitutes “enough”? and 2) a failure of imagination with respect to what is possible.
Don’t Over-Spiritualize the Resurrected Body
When Christians object to sex and thus babies in the Resurrection, what they are really doing is negating the physicality of the resurrected body in a way that does not comport with what Jesus actually shows us about the resurrected body. They want to strip the “body” from the “spiritual body” described by Paul, as if our physicality is somehow “less than” or merely intended to point toward spiritual realities; as if these spiritual realities are really the main thing the body is for, and the body is just a sideshow or means to a spiritualized end. That idea is not Biblically supported – or can only be supported, in my view, if you take Scripture piecemeal and out of context.
In fact, the body-spirit hierarchy that some advocate here contradicts Jewish tradition, in which the body and soul are indivisible and equally vital to our humanity. I understand how Jesus’ statements to the Sadducees on marriage came to be seen as precluding physical intimacy and babies in the Resurrection. But I show here how these passages have historically misunderstood by the Church in favor of (ironically) a more dualistic/pagan eschatology that diminishes what Jesus’ resurrected body actually reveals to us.
In sum: the argument from (church) tradition on this point is weak and collapses under the weight of scrutiny.
That’s really good news for Christian men and women experiencing infertility and sexual suffering in this life. To be clear, I don’t think we should strive to write off our current struggles for the glory that awaits us; I actually criticize that approach here. But it is comforting that the Resurrection is evidently not where our unmet longings will be erased but where they will be perfected and fulfilled. And these longings will not be perfected and fulfilled by their absorption into a greater cosmic unity or by some other cockeyed metaphysical process; they will be perfected and fulfilled in the perfect physical functioning of our resurrected spiritual bodies.
The best evidence for that isn’t found in a fancy theological argument but in the plain truths revealed by Jesus’ own resurrected body.
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