If the rapture happens, will we still be able to marry and have children?
Question:
I've been wondering a lot lately. Since the rapture is just around the corner, it probably won't give most people my age who will be going to heaven during the time to get married and start a family. Do you think two people will still be able to get married when they get there? Will they still be able to have sex and conceive children? I am a bit concerned about this (assuming I go along with all those people during that rapture) because I have plans to have children when I get married, assuming my wife agrees.
Answer:
Despite Jesus saying that no one knows when the end of the world will be, people of every age have often been convinced that the world would be ending soon. "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only" (Matthew 24:36).
When the world does end, we will be given different bodies. The bodies we currently have are mortal. They get old, they wear out, and eventually, we die. "As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed -- in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory"" (I Corinthians 15:48-54). "For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven" (II Corinthians 5:1-2).
There are going to be differences between our physical bodies and our eventual spiritual bodies. Mankind had to populate the earth because we do not live forever. "Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it" " (Genesis 1:28). That would cause problems for eternal beings, which we will become -- talk about a population explosion! Jesus, though gives a hint, "For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven" (Matthew 22:30). Male and female is a concept from the physical world that has no equivalent in the spiritual world.
Now, in regards to the rapture, the concept that popularly promoted is not found in the Bible. See: What is the Rapture? and The Ruse of the Rapture.
I'm glad you are looking forward to marriage and raising a family of your own. Since having children is a priority with you, this should be one of the qualities you look for in someone to marry.
