Luke 20:27-40 (NLT)
27 Then Jesus was approached by some Sadducees—religious leaders who say there is no resurrection from the dead.
28 They posed this question: “Teacher, Moses gave us a law that if a man dies, leaving a wife but no children, his brother should marry the widow and have a child who will carry on the brother’s name.
29 Well, suppose there were seven brothers. The oldest one married and then died without children.
30 So the second brother married the widow, but he also died.
31 Then the third brother married her. This continued with all seven of them, who died without children.
32 Finally, the woman also died.
33 So tell us, whose wife will she be in the resurrection? For all seven were married to her!”
34 Jesus replied, “Marriage is for people here on earth.
35 But in the age to come, those worthy of being raised from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage.
36 And they will never die again. In this respect they will be like angels. They are children of God and children of the resurrection.
37 “But now, as to whether the dead will be raised—even Moses proved this when he wrote about the burning bush. Long after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died, he referred to the Lord as ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’
38 So he is the God of the living, not the dead, for they are all alive to him.”
39 “Well said, Teacher!” remarked some of the teachers of religious law who were standing there.
40 And then no one dared to ask him any more questions.
The Sadducees were the privileged elite of the Jewish leadership. The Pharisees were the keepers of the Torah; the Sadducees were the keepers of the power. They didn't believe in the resurrection - why? Like many Jewish people today who descended through the Holocaust, the experience of the captivity had jaded many believing that God was reality, and that the after-life was truth. Besides that, they claimed that the Pentateuch, those first five books of the Bible written by Moses claimed no reference to the idea of a resurrection. They claimed the privileged position of the well-to-do...the haves...against all others who were not as well off as they. Snobs, elitists, filled with a pompous sense of their own worth. They stood confidently on their philosophical high horse and denigrated all who believed the Resurrection as reality.
A while ago I was driving to Madison and noticed the billboard sign: "There is no after-life; There is only this life; Live it the way you want to". The Sadducees live on!
When they approach Jesus, it is obvious they wish to expose him with a trick question. They do not. Now, beyond the discussion on marriage - which is interesting enough in itself - Jesus says three things about the immortality of the resurrection:
1) "they are like the angels"
2) "they are God's children"
3) "they are children of the resurrection"
All of these are mutually descriptive...and each phrase describes the other.
Like the angels: Paul says we have been "sown in weakness" but will be "raised in power". Like the angels we will serve God without the temptations and pulls away that come with lack of sight...not just physical sight, but spiritual sight and perception also.
But Jesus' greatest statement,to me, is the logic of referring back to the Patriarchs - the very people the Sadducees claimed were their authority in this - and making it clear, "God the father is the God of the living, not the dead, for they are all alive to him."
Mark's gospel adds an additional phrase to this encounter...he records Jesus saying, "are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?"
This is our great need...not just mentally believe, but have that knowledge that comes from knowing God and his power at work in our lives right now.
Peace
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