27 There came to him some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, 28 and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man1 must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died without children. 30 And the second 31 and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died. 32 Afterward the woman also died. 33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife.”
34 And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, 35 but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, 36 for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons2 of the resurrection. 37 But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. 38 Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.”
Section Overview
The next test comes from Sadducees, who pose a question to Jesus by which they hope to show that belief in the resurrection to be ridiculous. They appeal to the practice of levirate marriage, in which a man marries his brother’s wife to produce offspring in the brother’s name. They cite a perhaps hypothetical instance in which a woman married seven brothers but had no offspring. They wonder whose wife the woman will be in the age to come, since seven brothers married her. By this question the Sadducees think they have shown the concept of the resurrection to be absurd. Jesus parries by saying that they do not understand life in the age to come, for it is not like this age, because there is no marriage in the future age. Instead, human beings are like angels in the coming world. Furthermore, the Scriptures themselves declare that God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and is the God of the living, not of the dead.
Section Outline
V. Death and Resurrection in Jerusalem (19:28–24:53) . . .
B. Controversy between Jesus and Leaders (20:1–21:4) . . .
4. The Sadducees and the Resurrection (20:27–38)
Response
One truth we learn from this discussion is that earth and the new creation cannot be equated in every respect. We might begin to expect a heavenly life on earth, but we must remember that life here has joys but is also marked by suffering, sickness, and, finally, death. We can also fall into the trap of thinking that the new creation will be joyful only if it is like life on earth. Some people become sad because they want their dogs to be in the new creation or want to remain married to a spouse or want their children to remain their children. But we must remember that every good blessing on earth will be ours in the future in new and dramatically different ways. We will lack nothing we enjoy in this life, but we will find that those things will return to us in a deeper and richer way. The new creation will be a world of love that far exceeds the love and joy we have now.
We also learn from this passage that God is Lord over life and death. Unless Jesus comes first, we will all die. Our loved ones will all die as well, but those who are sons of God, those who know Jesus, will be raised from the dead, and we will be raised with them (1 Thess. 4:13–18). We will enjoy one another forevermore. Nothing can defeat the love and power of Jesus, even death.