Because Jesus was the ideal and model man, it is understandable that He did not marry or have children during His earthly life. As a hardworking and skilled carpenter, a man with a magnetically good character and winsome personality, and with His years of fame and miracle-working. It is likely that He was approached by more than one woman. There is no direct answer in the Bible to the question of why Jesus never married. Several explanations have been proposed to explain Jesus’ singleness:
- Jesus did not marry because He only had a limited amount of time on earth. His extensive travel and demanding work schedule would have prevented Him from properly fulfilling the roles of husband and father. And having a wife would have been a distraction from Jesus’ main mission. A married Jesus would have had to prioritize the needs of His wife over the needs of the world He came to save (see 1 Corinthians 7:32–35).
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Jesus lived as a homeless healer-teacher for three years (Luke 9:58). He would never ask any woman to share such a life with him. While He waits for His marriage to His betrothed Bride, the Church, He is preparing a heavenly home for her (John 14:2–3), a perfect and eternal place of protection for her.
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Jesus was aware that He had been sent to die (Isaiah 52:13–53:12; 1 Peter 1:19–20; Luke 18:31–33). If He married, He would undoubtedly leave a widow, most likely with small children to raise on her own. He was incapable of causing such unnecessary pain on purpose.
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If Jesus had married, His widow would have been glamorized, idolized, deified, and physically threatened as a result of her relationship with Jesus.
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Another reason Jesus did not marry is that He did not want to produce a blood successor or spark debate about who that successor should be or whether His successor should also be considered the “Son of God.” The goal of Jesus was not to establish an earthly kingdom or dynasty (see John 18:36).
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Because of His uniqueness, Jesus did not marry. “Jesus’ poverty and celibacy have nothing to do with asceticism, but represent, on the one hand, the condescension of His redeeming love, and, on the other, His ideal uniqueness and His absolutely peculiar relation to the whole church, which alone is fit or worthy to be His bride,” writes Philip Schaff in his History of the Christian Church. No single Eve’s daughter could have been an equal partner of the Savior of mankind, let alone the representative head of the new creation” (Vol. III, p. 68). According to Schaff, “While Jesus was fully human, and thus fully capable of perfectly fulfilling all aspects of marriage, He was also fully divine.” As a result, no one with purely human nature could be a suitable mate for Him.”
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Jesus did not marry because He was not on this earth to select one woman over all others. He came to save and restore those who would accept Him. To form a marital relationship with one woman would have inevitably confusing future generations about the meaning of Jesus’ relationship with His spiritual Bride, the Church, to whom He was already betrothed (Ephesians 5:25–27; Revelation 19:7–10; 21:9–22:17; 2 Corinthians 11:2). Jesus set aside Himself for His true, everlasting Bride. He would have contradicted and undermined His ministry to all if He had chosen one woman to elevate above all others.
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Husband and wife become “one flesh” in a human marriage (Genesis 2:24). If the divine Jesus, who knew no sin, married a sinful woman (“for all have sinned,” Romans 3:23), His relationship with His wife would have caused some confusion. Would Jesus have been tainted with sin if He had become “one flesh” with a sinner? What kind of nature would their children have had if they had had children? What kind of relationships would they have had with God the Father as physical children of the Son of God?
These ideas support the New Testament’s portrayal of Jesus as the Ideal Man, the only purely righteous and good One who pointed to eternity clearly and consistently. Because human marriage was not necessary to Jesus’ mission of saving the world, He did not marry.
Although marriage represents Christ’s relationship with the church (Ephesians 5:31–32), it is only a temporary state in comparison to eternity. Those who are included in the Bride of Christ by God’s grace through faith have every reason to eagerly await Jesus’ return to receive them into greater glory and joy than they have ever known on earth.
