Neither male nor female in the resurrection for some?

[GoCeltics]

Could someone explain this teaching from Doctrines of Salvation.

PROCREATION LIMITED TO CELESTIAL BODIES. Some will gain celestial bodies with all the powers of exaltation and eternal increase. These bodies will shine like the sun as our Savior's does, as described by John. Those who enter the terrestrial kingdom will have terrestrial bodies, and they will not shine like the sun, but they will be more glorious than the bodies of those who receive the telestial glory.

In both of these kingdoms there will be changes in the bodies and limitations. They will not have the power of increase, neither the power or nature to live as husbands and wives, for this will be denied them and they cannot increase.

Those who receive the exaltation in the celestial kingdom will have the “continuation of the seeds forever.” They will live in the family relationship. In the terrestrial and in the telestial kingdoms there will be no marriage. Those who enter there will remain “separately and singly” forever.

Some of the functions in the celestial body will not appear in the terrestrial body, neither in the telestial body, and the power of procreation will be removed. I take it that men and women will, in these kingdoms, be just what the so-called Christian world expects us all to be -- neither man nor woman, merely immortal beings having received the resurrection.

Matthew 22:30 says “For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.”

Joseph Fielding Smith appears to suggest the “so-called Christian world” believed individuals who do not bear children after the Resurrection would cease to be regarded as male or female.

Which, if any, Christian theologians or traditions have actually taught such an interpretation? Are angels understood to be without sexual orientation?

[InCognitus]

5 minutes ago, GoCeltics said:

Could someone explain this teaching from Doctrines of Salvation.

PROCREATION LIMITED TO CELESTIAL BODIES. Some will gain celestial bodies with all the powers of exaltation and eternal increase. These bodies will shine like the sun as our Savior's does, as described by John. Those who enter the terrestrial kingdom will have terrestrial bodies, and they will not shine like the sun, but they will be more glorious than the bodies of those who receive the telestial glory.

In both of these kingdoms there will be changes in the bodies and limitations. They will not have the power of increase, neither the power or nature to live as husbands and wives, for this will be denied them and they cannot increase.

Those who receive the exaltation in the celestial kingdom will have the “continuation of the seeds forever.” They will live in the family relationship. In the terrestrial and in the telestial kingdoms there will be no marriage. Those who enter there will remain “separately and singly” forever.

Some of the functions in the celestial body will not appear in the terrestrial body, neither in the telestial body, and the power of procreation will be removed. I take it that men and women will, in these kingdoms, be just what the so-called Christian world expects us all to be -- neither man nor woman, merely immortal beings having received the resurrection.

Matthew 22:30 says “For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.”

Joseph Fielding Smith appears to suggest the “so-called Christian world” believed individuals who do not bear children after the Resurrection would cease to be regarded as male or female.

Which, if any, Christian theologians or traditions have actually taught such an interpretation? Are angels understood to be without sexual orientation?

For a general Christian point of view from the Got Questions website article:  Are angels male or female?

Quote

The question of whether angels are male or female is likely moot. Angels are spirit beings (Hebrews 1:14), and therefore assigning them a gender is pointless. The most we can say is that Scripture depicts angels as if they were male.

It goes on to explain that God doesn't have any gender either:

Quote

God is spirit (John 4:4) and does not have a “gender” any more than the angels do. At the same time, God almost always refers to Himself in masculine terms. The exceptions are in certain metaphors and in a couple of constructions in which the Holy Spirit is referred to with a neuter intensive pronoun, in grammatical agreement with the neuter noun pneuma (“spirit”). In like manner, Scripture refers to angels, which are spirit beings, using masculine terminology.

And that seems to be the general consensus outside of Latter-day Saint thinking.

[Benjamin McGuire]

10 minutes ago, GoCeltics said:

Joseph Fielding Smith appears to suggest the “so-called Christian world” believed individuals who do not bear children after the Resurrection would cease to be regarded as male or female.

Which, if any, Christian theologians or traditions have actually taught such an interpretation? Are angels understood to be without sexual orientation?

In LDS theology, Joseph Fielding Smith's opinion has been superseded by the proclamation on the family:

Quote

Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.

This is current LDS theology on the issue. Gender is viewed as an eternal trait, and cannot be lost in a post-mortal state.

I also think that current LDS thought also leans away from the idea that some sort of biological process is the mechanism for creating spirit children.

Finally, there is a historical dispute among LDS leaders over the issue of progression ending with the resurrection. As President J. Reuben Clark noted:

Quote

I am not a strict constructionalist, believing that we seal our eternal progress by what we do here. It is my belief that God will save all of His children that he can: and while, if we live unrighteously here, we shall not go to the other side in the same status, so to speak, as those who lived righteously; nevertheless, the unrighteous will have their chance, and in the eons of the eternities that are to follow, they, too, may climb to the destinies to which they who are righteous and serve God, have climbed to those eternities that are to come. - J. Reuben Clark, Church News, 23 April 1960, p. 3

In other words, we have leaders who have believed that Celestial glory may become available to all of God's children who inherit a kingdom of glory as they progress. You can see how these issues all work together. If progression remains open, then there is reason to believe that gender could not/should not be removed. Only if you believe that progression ends for some does it make sense that these characteristics might be lost.

[CV75]

2 hours ago, GoCeltics said:

Could someone explain this teaching from Doctrines of Salvation.

PROCREATION LIMITED TO CELESTIAL BODIES. Some will gain celestial bodies with all the powers of exaltation and eternal increase. These bodies will shine like the sun as our Savior's does, as described by John. Those who enter the terrestrial kingdom will have terrestrial bodies, and they will not shine like the sun, but they will be more glorious than the bodies of those who receive the telestial glory.

In both of these kingdoms there will be changes in the bodies and limitations. They will not have the power of increase, neither the power or nature to live as husbands and wives, for this will be denied them and they cannot increase.

Those who receive the exaltation in the celestial kingdom will have the “continuation of the seeds forever.” They will live in the family relationship. In the terrestrial and in the telestial kingdoms there will be no marriage. Those who enter there will remain “separately and singly” forever.

Some of the functions in the celestial body will not appear in the terrestrial body, neither in the telestial body, and the power of procreation will be removed. I take it that men and women will, in these kingdoms, be just what the so-called Christian world expects us all to be -- neither man nor woman, merely immortal beings having received the resurrection.

Matthew 22:30 says “For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.”

Joseph Fielding Smith appears to suggest the “so-called Christian world” believed individuals who do not bear children after the Resurrection would cease to be regarded as male or female.

Which, if any, Christian theologians or traditions have actually taught such an interpretation? Are angels understood to be without sexual orientation?

RE: the teaching in Doctrines of Salvation, the operative phrase in his conclusion is, "I take it that..." indicating it is his opinion, specifically his understanding that if someone lacks marriage or the power of procreation, they are [effectively] neither male nor female in that narrow regard. We can assume his beliefs allow for a resurrection of the proper and perfect form and perfect frame, if not the full powers of perfect function according to the glory by which we are quickened.

It is correct that the "so-called Christian world" concludes that resurrected people are unmarried and neither male and female because: 1. the scripture states (a) there is no marriage and (b) the former spouses are as angels. 2. their interpretation of an angel is that of a spiritual being. 3. their conceptualization/philosophy of spiritual renders the angels neither male nor female. The dead former spouses are as the angels (spiritual according their concept) regardless of their resurrection theology. Some of this seems to have its roots in pre-Christian beliefs in natural and/or supernatural forces, which have no material form or humanity about them whatsoever, being explained in terms of angels doing God's (or the devil's) work.

[Calm]

4 hours ago, GoCeltics said:

Joseph Fielding Smith appears to suggest the “so-called Christian world” believed individuals who do not bear children after the Resurrection would cease to be regarded as male or female.

Quote

is correct that the "so-called Christian world" concludes that resurrected people are unmarried and neither male and female because

Just be aware that there are a variety of views in Christianity and the “cease to be regards as male or female” is a minority view, though I have no clue if it is more of an exception or common, if still a minority, so it’s not correct.  There is more to biological sex than intercourse or reproduction.

Catholic thought definitely is not that biological sex loses meaning in the resurrection.  Short on time, so using AI to find the reference:

Quote

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 999–1004) states the body that rises is the same one we have now, transformed and perfected.

Orthodox:

Quote

St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Maximus the Confessor, and many modern Orthodox theologians teach that human nature is resurrected with its distinguishing characteristics, including sex, though without procreation

If interested, I can get references/links late.

Between the two, with just the Catholic view even, one has the majority view (62%)

Edited November 25, 2025 by Calm

[Rock_N_Roll]

If you believe that the "sons of God" mentioned in Genisis are angels, and many do, then yes angels can have children. 

2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

Edited November 25, 2025 by Rock_N_Roll

[JAHS]

5 hours ago, GoCeltics said:

I take it that men and women will, in these kingdoms, be just what the so-called Christian world expects us all to be -- neither man nor woman, merely immortal beings having received the resurrection.

Matthew 22:30 says “For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.”

When he says, "I take it " appears to be a guess rather than a statement of fact.
The Matthew scripture just mean that  no one can get married in heaven. It does not mean we can't be married in heaven which is true for those in the lower kingdoms.
During the time of Jesus the terms "marry" and "given in marriage" would mean the same thing. A man married a woman, and the woman was given to the man for marriage. The tradition being that a father gives his daughter to marry the man. This happens in this life. So it is possible to be married in heaven for those in the celestial kingdom.

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, Rock_N_Roll said:

If you believe that the "sons of God" mentioned in Genisis are angels, and many do, then yes angels can have children. 

2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

And as the people of Sodom learned trying to rape angels gets you blasted.

Edited November 25, 2025 by The Nehor

[GoCeltics]

On 11/25/2025 at 3:06 PM, Calm said:

If interested, I can get references/links late.

Between the two, with just the Catholic view even, one has the majority view (62%)

Thanks if you could provide a few.

[GoCeltics]

On 11/25/2025 at 11:18 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

This is current LDS theology on the issue. Gender is viewed as an eternal trait, and cannot be lost in a post-mortal state.

Is gender eternal or gained in the pre-mortal world when as is taught, people are begotten and born of heavenly parents before coming to earth?

[GoCeltics]

On 11/25/2025 at 11:05 AM, InCognitus said:

For a general Christian point of view from the Got Questions website article:  Are angels male or female?

It goes on to explain that God doesn't have any gender either:

And that seems to be the general consensus outside of Latter-day Saint thinking.

Drawing upon the terminology Joseph Fielding Smith used and within LDS thinking, what functions of the celestial body enable the power of procreation for Heavenly Father and Mother?

[Calm]

20 hours ago, GoCeltics said:

Thanks if you could provide a few.

Sorry I couldn’t get to it today…kept getting interrupted and then now too tired to dig too deep, so early church fathers will have to wait.  I will try tomorrow, but it may be Sunday as family is visiting and the references with actual quotes and not paraphrasing aren’t as easy to find as I thought.  Apparently there is debate on interpretation of early church fathers, surprise, surprise.  
Modern is easier to find, but not necessarily authoritative.

Hopefully this works for it from His Eminence Metropolitan Maximos of Pittsburgh:

Quote

The resurrection of the dead is a miracle that will happen at the second coming of the Lord. According to the Creed: "I await the resurrection of the dead." This resurrection will be a new creation. However, our physical bodies as we know them now will be restored, in a spiritualized existence like that of the Lord after His Resurrection.

https://www.goarch.org/-/the-dogmatic-tradition-of-the-orthodox-church

 

Quote

In Christ’s resurrection, He guarantees and models our resurrection. In understanding the state of resurrected humanity in the Kingdom of God, and how that relates to marriage, it is helpful to think in terms of continuity and discontinuity.

On the one hand, there is an essential continuity between our earthly, mortal bodies, and our bodies after the resurrection, just as there is between Christ’s body before and after His resurrection. The scars from the nails and spear were still visible. The body that died on the cross was the same body that was raised. Our human nature remains human nature, even after the attributes are changed (vs. a strictly Gnostic conception of purely spiritual bodies, with no continuity with the mortal ones).…

When the Lord spoke to the Sadducees about marriage in heaven (Mt. 22:23-33), He made it clear that “in the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage.” That is, the earthly purposes of marriage, to suppress man’s licentiousness and to procreate, are irrelevant in the Kingdom. All the earthly concerns of a married couple: sexual intercourse, birth-giving, possessions, etc., are part of the “form of this world” which is passing away. “They are like the angels in of God heaven” (Mt. 22:30).

But there is one aspect of marriage that is eternal: “Love never ends” (1 Cor. 13:8). St. John Chrysostom reminds us that married Christians are known to be such in the Judgment and in the Kingdom. We will recognize and delight in our spouses and in our children. We will be restored, not to marriage, but to something better, a union of souls, rather than bodies, a union that begins in marriage and reaches a far more sublime condition (cf. Chrysostom’s Letter to a Young Widow).

This is why the Orthodox Church discourages (but does not prohibit) re-marriage after the death of a spouse. 

https://orthodoxbridge.com/2014/05/16/concerning-eternal-marriage/

Edited November 28, 2025 by Calm

[The Nehor]

17 hours ago, GoCeltics said:

Is gender eternal or gained in the pre-mortal world when as is taught, people are begotten and born of heavenly parents before coming to earth?

No one knows just like no one knows what happens during the gender interregnum that some intersex people experience. Possibly transgender and non-binary people have it suspended and/or swapped too.

[3DOP]

11 hours ago, Calm said:

Sorry I couldn’t get to it today…kept getting interrupted and then now too tired to dig too deep, so early church fathers will have to wait.  I will try tomorrow, but it may be Sunday as family is visiting and the references with actual quotes and not paraphrasing aren’t as easy to find as I thought.  Apparently there is debate on interpretation of early church fathers, surprise, surprise.  
Modern is easier to find, but not necessarily authoritative.

Hopefully this works for it from His Eminence Metropolitan Maximos of Pittsburgh:

https://www.goarch.org/-/the-dogm or of being, as a bodyatic-tradition-of-the-orthodox-church
 
 

https://orthodoxbridge.com/2014/05/16/concerning-eternal-marriage/,  

Maybe this will help, (maybe not):

"...the original and fundamental significance of being a body, as well as being, by reason of the body, male and female--that is precisely that nuptial significance--is united with the fact that man is created as a person and called to a life in communione personarum. Marriage and procreation in itself do not determine definitively the original and fundamental meaning of being a body or of being, as a body, male and female. Marriage and procreation merely give a concrete reality to that meaning in the dimensions of history.

 The resurrection indicates the end of the historical dimension. The words, "When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage" (Mk. 12:25), express univocally not only the meaning which the human body will have in the future world. But they enable us to deduce that the nuptial meaning of the body in the resurrection will correspond perfectly both to the fact that man, as a male-female, is a person created in the "image and likeness of God", and to the fact that this image is realized in the communion of persons. That nuptial meaning of being a body will be realized, therefore, as a meaning that is perfectly personal and communitarian at the same time.

---The Theology of the Body, Human Love in the Divine Plan, John Paul II, Daughters of St. Paul, (1997), pp. 247, 248, General Audience of Jan. 13, 1982

If it is difficult to immediately plumb the depths of the pope's thought, we can at least show that the Catholic Church resolutely believes in the eternality of the body and its gender. The nuptial meaning of the body requires an appreciation of the profundity of marriage and procreation in this life. But wonderful as it may have been, matrimony will always be remembered as a temporal foreshadowing of an even greater eternal gift and meaning. 

[InCognitus]

On 11/27/2025 at 8:45 AM, GoCeltics said:

Drawing upon the terminology Joseph Fielding Smith used and within LDS thinking, what functions of the celestial body enable the power of procreation for Heavenly Father and Mother?

Why do you think it requires "functions of the celestial body" for the procreation of spirit children? 

[JAHS]

On 11/28/2025 at 12:18 PM, InCognitus said:

On 11/27/2025 at 7:45 AM, GoCeltics said:

Drawing upon the terminology Joseph Fielding Smith used and within LDS thinking, what functions of the celestial body enable the power of procreation for Heavenly Father and Mother?

Why do you think it requires "functions of the celestial body" for the procreation of spirit children? 

After Eve took the forbidden fruit and became mortal, God said to her:
"I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children;" (Gen 3:16).
If God is going to "greatly multiply" the sorrow(pain) associated with child-birth, does this not suggest that perhaps before becoming mortal, there was a way to do it without all the pain associated with a mortal life?
I doubt there is any pain at all and can't see how it would involve a process similar to mortal birth; although it apparently does involve participation of both heavenly parents to create the spirit children. But not endless celestial sex as some critics like to call it. 

[CV75]

10 minutes ago, JAHS said:

After Eve took the forbidden fruit and became mortal, God said to her:
"I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children;" (Gen 3:16).
If God is going to "greatly multiply" the sorrow(pain) associated with child-birth, does this not suggest that perhaps before becoming mortal, there was a way to do it without all the pain associated with a mortal life?
I doubt there is any pain at all and can't see how it would involve a process similar to mortal birth; although it apparently does involve participation of both heavenly parents to create the spirit children. But not endless celestial sex as some critics like to call it. 

Since the sensations of pain, pleasure and the absence of pain are processes occurring in the same brain region, and the same neural networks that register pain can be trained to register pleasure or painlessness, I think it plausible that the process can be the same without the sorrow. But since it is also plausible that the creation of spirit children by heavenly parents occurs differently than mortal reproduction, those neural networks might trained or applied for different purposes.

[GoCeltics]

On 11/28/2025 at 3:18 PM, InCognitus said:

Why do you think it requires "functions of the celestial body" for the procreation of spirit children? 

Joseph Fielding Smith might have concluded procreative functions of the mortal body continue with resurrection into a celestial body. I don't know why resurrected bodies (physical) of flesh and bones (Heavenly Father and Mother) had children with spirit bodies.

[GoCeltics]

17 hours ago, JAHS said:

But not endless celestial sex as some critics like to call it. 

Don't view sex (procreation) as a bad thing when done in the confines of matrimony. He created it for us. 

[JAHS]

29 minutes ago, GoCeltics said:

Don't view sex (procreation) as a bad thing when done in the confines of matrimony. He created it for us. 

It's not a bad thing but I just can't imagine how a resurrected couple of exalted beings with bodies of flesh and bone can create spirits instead of flesh and bone children the same way mortals create children with physical bodies. Somehow they have to take a pre-existing intelligence and change it into a spirit child that has a male or female gender.

[Stargazer]

On 11/25/2025 at 4:18 PM, Benjamin McGuire said:

In LDS theology, Joseph Fielding Smith's opinion has been superseded by the proclamation on the family:

This is current LDS theology on the issue. Gender is viewed as an eternal trait, and cannot be lost in a post-mortal state.

@JLHPROF menitoned in another thread that our understanding of the nature of the Godhead (and indeed, our theology in general) has progressed over time. Joseph Smith will certainly not have revealed in public everything he had learned through revelation, just as Paul, in 2 Cor 12:2-4 stated that he had been caught up to the third heaven, where he "heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter." I feel that much of what Paul was forbidden to utter has been uttered in this dispensation -- here I'm pointing to D&C, PofGP, and such things as the King Follett Discourse. 

On 11/25/2025 at 4:18 PM, Benjamin McGuire said:

I also think that current LDS thought also leans away from the idea that some sort of biological process is the mechanism for creating spirit children.

I'm actually puzzled that anyone could even consider the idea of a biologic process as a mechanism for creating spirit children. But there have been many things believed by the Saints that turned out to be incorrect, or at least misunderstood. Blood Atonement, for example. 

In King Follett Joseph made it extremely clear that there was no biologic mechanism in creating spirit children. It happens that King Follett is not canonized scripture, but there is canonized scripture that backs it up. D&C 93:29 states

29 Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.

Of course, this doesn't say "no biologic process," but it does say we are all co-eternal with God. Which Joseph in King Follett affirmed:

Quote

All the fools, learned and wise men, from the beginning of creation, who say that man had a beginning, proves that he must have an end and then the doctrine of annihilation would be true. But, if I am right I might with boldness proclaim from the house tops, that God never did have power to create the spirit of man at all. God himself could not create himself: intelligence exists upon a self existent principle, it is a spirit from age to age, and there is no creation about it. 

On 11/25/2025 at 4:18 PM, Benjamin McGuire said:

Finally, there is a historical dispute among LDS leaders over the issue of progression ending with the resurrection. As President J. Reuben Clark noted:

Quote

I am not a strict constructionalist, believing that we seal our eternal progress by what we do here. It is my belief that God will save all of His children that he can: and while, if we live unrighteously here, we shall not go to the other side in the same status, so to speak, as those who lived righteously; nevertheless, the unrighteous will have their chance, and in the eons of the eternities that are to follow, they, too, may climb to the destinies to which they who are righteous and serve God, have climbed to those eternities that are to come. - J. Reuben Clark, Church News, 23 April 1960, p. 3

In other words, we have leaders who have believed that Celestial glory may become available to all of God's children who inherit a kingdom of glory as they progress. You can see how these issues all work together. If progression remains open, then there is reason to believe that gender could not/should not be removed. Only if you believe that progression ends for some does it make sense that these characteristics might be lost.

The family whose son brought me into the church believed that progression was possible, and I believed that as well at the time. The matter didn't really come up in my mind until recent years after a closer study of D&C 76. I've argued here before that there can be no progression between the kingdoms, for reasons which seemed to me decisive -- and I recall being told that if J. Reuben Clark said that there was progression between the kingdoms, being just a flea in spiritual comparison, who was I to contradict him? LOL! To which I pointed out that President Clark's statement is an opinion, not canon doctrine (if there can be said to be such in the Church). 

But I've since then modified my understanding, because you, @Benjamin McGuire, made me think it over further. Now I feel that while the Telestial Kingdom is a dead end in progression, one might be able to progress from the Terrestrial to the Celestial. But not to the highest level of the Celestial. I have what I feel are good reasons for believing this, but this might not be the thread to go over it.

It's possible, however, that I could be persuaded to believe as Pres. Clark believed. I find that belief to be comfortable, even if I feel it is incorrect.

Edited December 1, 2025 by Stargazer

[InCognitus]

6 hours ago, GoCeltics said:

Joseph Fielding Smith might have concluded procreative functions of the mortal body continue with resurrection into a celestial body. I don't know why resurrected bodies (physical) of flesh and bones (Heavenly Father and Mother) had children with spirit bodies.

Unless, of course, being the offspring of God (making humans the same kind of being as God, as the Bible teaches) has nothing to do with God begetting us through physical functions as you suppose.

[california boy]

Given the choice of having every hair on my head restored and loosing reproductive parts, I will choose the latter 

[The Nehor]

4 hours ago, Stargazer said:

But I've since then modified my understanding, because you, @Benjamin McGuire, made me think it over further. Now I feel that while the Telestial Kingdom is a dead end in progression, one might be able to progress from the Terrestrial to the Celestial. But not to the highest level of the Celestial. I have what I feel are good reasons for believing this, but this might not be the thread to go over it.

I’m not convinced there are three separate degrees with the Celestial and the one revelatory statement about three degrees probably just refers to the three general kingdoms.

[The Nehor]

6 hours ago, california boy said:

Given the choice of having every hair on my head restored and loosing reproductive parts, I will choose the latter 

I am going to assume that I can cut the hair off again if it is annoying.