31  The God of the  Living  (22:23-33)

On that day some Sadducees (who say there is no resurrection) came to Him and questioned Him, saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies, having no children, his brother as next of kin shall marry his wife, and raise up an offspring to his brother.’ Now there were seven brothers with us; and the first married and died, and having no offspring left his wife to his brother; so also the second, and the third, down to the seventh. And last of all, the woman died. In the resurrection therefore whose wife of the seven shall she be? For they all had her.” But Jesus answered and said to them, “You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures, or the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken to you by God saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.” And when the multitudes heard this, they were astonished at His teaching. (22:23-33)

Mankind in general has always anticipated an afterlife of some sort. The idea is built into the heart of man that there must be a continuation of existence when the physical life is over. James Dwight Dana, a nineteenth-century professor at Yale University, said that he could not believe that God would create man and then desert him at the grave. In that statement, Professor Dana summarized the hope that, to one degree or another, has captured virtually every heart in every culture in every time.

The ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead is filled with ideas and stories about life after death. In the tomb of the great pharaoh Cheops, who died some 5,000 years ago, archaeologists discovered a solar boat intended for him to use in sailing through the heavens during the next life. Ancient Greeks often placed a coin in the mouth of a corpse to pay his fare across the mystic river of death into the land of immortal life. Some American Indians buried a pony and bow and arrows with a dead warrior in order that he could ride and hunt in the happy hunting grounds. Norsemen buried a dead hero’s horse with him so he could ride proudly in the next life. Eskimos of Greenland who died in childhood were customarily buried with a dog to help guide them through the cold wasteland of death.

Benjamin Franklin, who did not claim to be a Christian in the biblical sense, nevertheless had the following epitaph inscribed on his tombstone:

The body of
Benjamin Franklin, printer,
(Like the cover of an old book,
Its contents worn out,
And stript of its lettering and gilding)
Lies here, food for worms!
Yet the work itself shall not be lost,
For it will, as he believed, appear once more
In a new
And more beautiful edition,
Corrected and amended
By its Author!

Despite many strange and unbiblical aberrations regarding the subject, men feel the pull of the afterlife. The Jews of Jesus’ day were certainly no exception. Belief in the resurrection of the body is taught throughout the Talmud, the ancient codification of Jewish oral and written tradition. The apocryphal book of 2 Maccabees, written about 100 B.C., describes a Jewish elder named Razis who greatly resented Greek oppression. Rather than be executed by the hated Greeks, he decided to take his own life. Standing on a rock in front of a large crowd, he disemboweled himself with his sword and threw his entrails into the crowd, in vain hope “calling upon the Lord of life and spirit to give [his discarded organs] back to him again” (14:46). In the Apocalypse of Baruch, written nearly 200 years later, the expectation is expressed that when a person dies he will come back to life in the same form in which he died.

The earth shall then assuredly restore the dead, which it now receiveth in order to preserve them. It shall make no change in their form, but as it hath received, so shall it preserve them, and as it delivered them unto it, so shall it restore them. . . . For then it will be necessary to show to the living that the dead have come to life again, and that those who had departed have returned. . . . They shall respectively be transformed . . . into the splendour of angels . . . and time shall no longer age them. For in the heights of that world shall they dwell, and they shall be made like unto the angels, and be made equal to the stars, and they shall be changed into every form they desire, from beauty into loveliness and from light into the splendour of glory. (50:2–51:10)

Much more important and reliable than those writings, of course, were the Old Testament statements regarding life after death. David wrote, “Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; my flesh also will dwell securely. For Thou wilt not abandon my soul to Sheol; neither wilt Thou allow Thy Holy One to undergo decay” (Ps. 16:9-10). Another psalmist declared, “God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol; for He will receive me” (Ps. 49:15), and still another that, “With Thy counsel Thou wilt guide me, and afterward receive me to glory” (Ps. 73:24). Hosea wrote, “Come, let us return to the Lord. For He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us. He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day that we may live before Him” (Hos. 6:1-2). In perhaps the clearest teaching of resurrection in the Old Testament, the Lord promised through Daniel that “many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt” (Dan. 12:2).

For the most part, therefore, Jews not only believed in life after death but in the resurrection of the body. The one exception were the Sadducees, who in that and other ways were at odds with the rest of Jewish theology and culture. It was representatives of that sect who asked Jesus the second in a series of three questions designed to entrap Him (see also 22:15-22; 34-40).

THE APPROACH

On that day some Sadducees (who say there is no resurrection) came to Him and questioned Him, (22:23)

It was still Wednesday, as Jesus continued to teach in the Temple after having driven the merchants out of it the previous day (21:12, 23). Sometime later on that day, after He had put to silence the disciples of the Pharisees and their Herodian co-conspirators (22:16), some Sadducees attempted to succeed where the others had failed.

The Sadducees were the smallest but by far the most wealthy and influential of the Jewish sects, which included the Pharisees, the Zealots, and the Essenes. The Pharisees were the most numerous, the most popular, the most outwardly religious. They held strongly to external customs and practices and were legalistic to the core, firmly believing that their works gained them acceptance with God. For them, the rabbinical traditions had become more authoritative than Scripture, although many of the traditions were devised simply as accommodations to their sinful desires.

The Zealots were political and often military activists, extremely nationalistic and resentful of Roman control of Israel.

The Essenes were a reclusive sect who spent much of their time copying the Old Testament. It was a group of Essenes living at Qumran, on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, who produced what became known as the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Sadducees were the aristocrats of Judaism, being largely in control of the Temple and the operation of the priesthood, and it was primarily through the Temple concessions of money changing and sacrifice selling (see 21:12) that they obtained their wealth. The high priest and chief priests were almost invariably Sadducees, as were most members of the Sanhedrin, the high Jewish council.

Despite their great power and influence, and partly because of it, the Sadducees were not respected by most Jews, especially by the Pharisees. They were aloof from the common people and acted superior to them. But they were also disliked for their theology, the most distinct teaching of which was that there is no resurrection.

Politically, the Sadducees were pro-Roman, because it was only by Roman permission that they exercised not only their religious but their considerable political control over the people. Because they were valuable in helping keep the people under control, the Sadducees were delegated limited authority by Rome, even to the extent of having their own police force in the form of a Temple guard. Because of their complete dependence on Rome for their power, they were understandably strongly supportive of their pagan rulers. And for that they were also hated by the people.

Because their power and wealth were founded in the Temple and its offerings, sacrificial system, and commercial enterprises, when the Temple was destroyed in A.D. 70, the Sadducees, like the entire priesthood, ceased to exist.

Religiously, the Sadducees were in some ways extreme fundamentalists. They interpreted Scripture with great literalism and consequently were even more absolutist and rigid on certain matters than the Pharisees. Josephus reported that in rendering judgments in behalf of the people they were more vicious than any other sect (Antiquities, XX.ix.i). They refused to acknowledge any worth, much less authority, in the oral or written interpretations of Scripture or in the rabbinical traditions. They were fastidious in Levitical purity and prided themselves as being the preservers of the true faith.

But for some reason they gave unique primacy to the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, almost to the exclusion of the rest of Scripture. The other books were considered more or less as commentaries on the five books of Moses. It is therefore because Moses taught nothing directly about the resurrection that the Sadducees denied its reality.

But a person who does not believe in a life after this present life has little motive for living other than he pleases. After death he expects neither penalty nor reward, because he considers the end of this life to be the end of everything. And in spite of the many clear teachings in the Pentateuch about godly living, the Sadducees were perfectly comfortable in their proud and selfish worldliness.

The Sadducees and Pharisees were continually at odds with each other, and it was precisely for that reason that Paul declared his belief in the resurrection when he was on trial before the Sanhedrin. “Perceiving that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, Paul began crying out in the Council, ‘Brethren, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees; I am on trial for the hope and resurrection of the dead!’ And as he said this, there arose a dissension between the Pharisees and Sadducees; and the assembly was divided. For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor an angel, nor a spirit; but the Pharisees acknowledge them all” (Acts 23: 6-8).

When challenged by the Sadducees to prove that the resurrection was taught by Moses, the Pharisees apparently could muster only two or three obscure references. They argued that Numbers 18:28 implied resurrection, in that it spoke of giving “the Lord’s offering to Aaron the priest,” the present tense indicating that Aaron was still alive. An even more obscure text cited was Deuteronomy 31:16, which speaks of the people arising; but their arising was not to a future life but to harlotry. A third text was Deuteronomy 32:39, in which the Lord says, “It is I who put to death and give life,” a reference simply to His sovereign authority over life and death.

The Pharisees and Sadducees had great social and political as well as theological animosity between them. Socially, the Sadducees were aristocratic and the Pharisees were commoners. Politically, the Sadducees were pro-Roman and the Pharisees anti-Roman.

There was one issue, however, that solidly united Pharisees and Sadducees: their intransigent opposition to Jesus.

Until the Lord’s coming to Jerusalem on the previous Monday, the Sadducees had shown little interest in Jesus. The fact that He was popular with the people, believed in resurrection, and was opposed by the Pharisees was of little consequence to them as long as what He said and did had no direct, practical effect on them or their activities. Jesus’ cleansing the Temple, however, immediately got their attention, because the merchants and moneychangers He drove out of the court of the Gentiles were the financial mainstay of Sadducee power. Jesus had now invaded their territory with a vengeance, disrupting their operation at the most lucrative time of the year, when all the Passover offerings and sacrifices were made.

Jesus’ acclamation as the Son of David during His triumphal entry also no doubt had them worried, because any claim to kingship would evoke immediate and harsh repression by the Romans, who would not tolerate the smallest hint of rebellion. Any action against the Jews in general would necessarily threaten the Sadducees’ own privileged position and power under the Romans, who expected those leaders to keep Jewish nationalism and resistance in check. Only a few days earlier, “the chief priests and the Pharisees convened a council, and were saying, ‘What are we doing? For this man is performing many signs. If we let Him go on like this, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.’ But a certain one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, ‘You know nothing at all, nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish’” (John 11:47-50; cf. Mark 14:1-2). “From that day on,” John noted, “they planned together to kill Him” (v. 53).

After Pentecost, the Sadducees continued their strong opposition against Jesus by persecuting His followers. As the apostles “were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple guard, and the Sadducees, came upon them, being greatly disturbed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead” (Acts 4:1-2). According to Josephus, it was the Sadducees who murdered James, the brother of the Lord.

After the Pharisees had failed through their disciples to trick Jesus into making a traitorous statement against Rome, the Sadducees attempted to make Him discredit Himself in the eyes of the Jewish people. By asking Him what they thought was an unanswerable question, they planned to make Him look the fool, as they perhaps had succeeded, on occasion, in doing with the Pharisees.

THE ABSURDITY

saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies, having no children, his brother as next of kin shall marry his wife, and raise up an offspring to his brother.’ Now there were seven brothers with us; and the first married and died, and having no offspring left his wife to his brother; so also the second, and the third, down to the seventh. And last of all, the woman died. In the resurrection therefore whose wife of the seven shall she be? For they all had her.” (22:24-28)

Like the previous group (v. 16), by addressing Jesus as Teacher, the Sadducees thought to put Jesus off guard with condescending flattery, what one commentator has called “polished scoffing.” Their choice of titles was especially duplicitous because it was as a Teacher that they intended to embarrass and discredit Him.

No higher appeal could be made than to Moses, not only for the Sadducees but for any Jew He was the great lawgiver, the supreme spokesman for God in the Old Testament. Because the Sadducees were aware of Jesus’ high regard for Scripture, they knew that He would not contest the validity of the teaching they were about to cite, namely, the provision for levirate marriage.

The term levirate is from levir, Latin for “husband’s brother.” The Mosaic provision is found in Deuteronomy 25:5-6, a summary of which the Sadducees here gave to Jesus. In order that tribal names, families, and inheritances might be kept intact, If a man dies, having no children, his brother as next of kin shall marry his wife, and raise up an offspring to his brother.

The custom of levirate marriage had been practiced for many centuries and was honored by God even before He directed Moses to place it in the law. When Judah’s son Er was killed by the Lord for his wickedness, Judah told another son, Onan, who was unmarried, “Go into your brother’s wife, and perform your duty as a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother.” But Onan resented the fact the children would not be considered his own and “he wasted his seed on the ground.” That act was “displeasing in the sight of the Lord; so He took his life also” (Gen. 38:8-10).

It was in fulfillment of the levirate law that Boaz took Ruth as his wife because her first husband, Mahlon, had died. When a male relative closer to Ruth than Boaz was unable to redeem her, Boaz happily took her as his own bride (Ruth 4:1-10). That beautiful story not only depicts the human preservation of Mahlon’s lineage but also the divine preservation of the lineage of Christ (Matt. 1:5).

Whether or not levirate marriage was still practiced in Jesus’ day, the custom was well known to every Jew and recognized to be a divine provision. To the Sadducees it seemed the perfect means to prove the absurdity of the idea of resurrection.

In saying, “Now there were seven brothers with us,” the Sadducees may have meant they were reporting an actual story, but it is likely they custom-designed it for this occasion. When the first brother married, the six others were unmarried, and therefore when he died . . . having no offspring, he left his wife to his brother. The process was repeated with all seven brothers, and eventually everyone, including the woman, died.

It is not difficult to imagine the glint in the eyes and the smirks on the faces of the Sadducees as they looked at Jesus and propounded their supposedly unanswerable question: “In the resurrection therefore whose wife of the seven shall she be?” If all eight would appear in the resurrection exactly in the condition and circumstances in which they had died—as the Pharisees, and presumably Jesus, maintained—how could their marriage relationships possibly be reconciled? That dilemma proved the idea of resurrection to be patently absurd, as Jesus now would be forced to admit, by His silence if not His words.

THE ANSWER

But Jesus answered and said to them, “You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures, or the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken to you by God saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.” (22:29-32)

The Sadducees probably expected Jesus to say nothing and to walk away in humiliation and disgrace, as they probably had caused the Pharisees to do at times.

But Jesus answered without hesitation and immediately put them on the defensive, saying to them, “You are mistaken.” The Sadducees had succeeded only in putting their own ignorance on display for everyone in the Temple to see and hear. “You are dead wrong,” Jesus said, in effect, “and have no idea what you are talking about.”

from which are mistaken is translated, means to go astray, wander off, or deceive. In its form here it means to lead oneself off course or to stray from the truth. It often carried the idea of being cut loose from reality. Like the false teachers condemned by Jude, the Sadducees were “wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever” (Jude 13).

Jesus next presented the two reasons why the Sadducees were mistaken. They erred in not understanding the Scriptures and in not understanding the power of God. Nothing could have cut them to the quick worse than to be accused of not understanding these two areas in which the proud Sadducees considered themselves most authoritative.

The Lord then explains, in reverse order, how they misunderstood God’s Word and God’s power.

IGNORANCE OF GOD’S POWER

For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. (22:30)

In exposing the Sadducees’ false notion about the resurrection, Jesus also exposed their false notion about angels, whose existence those religious leaders denied. In the heavenly state, He declared, men and women neither marry, nor are given in marriage. The relationship of marriage is beautiful and divinely ordained, but it is an entirely earthly and temporal institution.

Sexual relationships, reproduction, and childbirth have no place in heaven, because there is no death there and no new life born as there is on earth. Nor will there will be any exclusive relationships in heaven, because everyone will be perfectly and intimately related to everyone else, including to the living God Himself. In heaven, men will be like angels, equally spiritual in nature, equally deathless, equally glorified, and equally eternal. Luke reports Jesus’ additional statement that resurrected believers “are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection” (Luke 20:36).

No doubt partly because of the influence of Pharisaic teaching about one’s resurrection body being the same as his earthly body had been, the believers in Corinth were confused about the subject. Trying to explain in terms that those immature and misinformed Christians could understand, Paul pointed out that,

all flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds, and another of fish. There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one, and the glory of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. . . . As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy, and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly. And just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. (1 Cor. 15:39-44, 48-49)

God’s limitless power is easily able to transform the earthly into the heavenly. Why should anyone deny the resurrection because of the foolish idea that God is restricted to raising up bodies in the same form as that in which they died? Such a belief foolishly attacks the power of God.

IGNORANCE OF SCRIPTURE

But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken to you by God saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.” (22:31-32)

Knowing that the Sadducees would not be convinced regarding the resurrection from any part of Scripture but the Pentateuch, Jesus reminded them of a statement spoken . . . by God that is recorded numerous times in the book of Exodus: I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

“That the dead are raised, even Moses showed,” Jesus first told the doubting Sadducees (Luke 20:37). The words about His being the God of the patriarchs were first spoken to Moses by God when He appeared to him in the burning bush at Horeb and called him to lead His people out of bondage in Egypt to the Promised Land (Ex. 3:6). And the phrase was repeated many times after that (see, e.g., Ex. 3:15-16; 4:15). Hundreds of years earlier the Lord had declared to Jacob, “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac” (Gen. 28:13) long after Abraham had died.

Jesus’ excellent exegetical argument is based on the emphatic present tense of the I am used in that passage from the Pentateuch. After Abraham and Isaac and Jacob were long dead, the Lord was still their God every bit as much as when they were alive—in fact, in many ways even more so, because they had become perfectly sinless and their souls were experiencing the fellowship of His eternal presence.

These three patriarchs are singled out, and each is specifically related to God, suggesting His unique personal intimacy with each one. Whether the genitive preposition of refers to God’s belonging to the patriarchs or to their belonging to God, both meanings are true.

The present tense is used because God is not the God of the dead but of the living, and if He is presently the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then those men obviously are still alive in another realm. They would also still have to be living so that God could fulfill His promises to them which were not fulfilled during their lifetimes.

All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them. (Heb. 11:13-16)

Jesus had accomplished what the wisest Pharisee or scribe had never been able to do: unequivocally prove the resurrection even from the Pentateuch. And in so doing, “He had put the Sadducees to silence” (Matt. 22:34).

THE ASTONISHMENT

And when the multitudes heard this, they were astonished at His teaching. (22:33)

The multitudes were accustomed to being astonished at Jesus’ teaching, and Luke reports that even “some of the scribes answered and said, ‘Teacher, You have spoken well’” (Luke 20:39). But the Sadducees “did not have courage to question Him any longer about anything” (v. 40). Tragically, Jesus had not convinced them, because they would not be convinced.

In the Temple that day Christ again magnificently demonstrated His deity, giving an answer to the unanswerable that could have come only from the omniscient mind of God. Christ demonstrated His absolute commitment to Scripture, an infinitely greater commitment than the biased and self-deceptive commitment of the Sadducees. And our Lord divinely affirmed the reality and glory of the resurrection that awaits those who belong to Him.