Luke 20:27-40 English Standard Version Sadducees Ask About the Resurrection 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 man 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 sons 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.” 39 Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” 40 For they no longer dared to ask him any question. We haven't heard much from the Sadducees yet, but they are also part of the Sanhedrin. They are secular Jews who believe in the Torah, but they deny the power of the resurrection of the dead to either eternal life or eternal damnation. Since they did not believe that there was any life after death, their question they posed to Jesus was not an honest question. They are trying to trick Jesus into admitting that their interpretation of the Scriptures has to be correct, because the Pharisee's interpretation would lead to some logical absurdity (that a man could be married to multiple different woman in the afterlife).
They cite a passage in the Law where Moses commands the people to do everything within their power to make sure that every family has an heir (preferably a male heir so that they keep the family name) to inherit the family's land that was given to them by God. If it was impossible for that woman to bear children, then provisions were made for a close family member to inherit the land and the land would stay in the family because there was an eternal covenant made between God and the Jewish people relating to the Land. So, the Sadducees are reading these verses out of context as if they had to do with some teaching about marriage in general and eternity when it has to do with His preservation of the covenant about the Land to future generations and that God would be responsible to make sure that there would be future generations to inherit the land. So, now that you have context for how this question was a very poor reading of the text and again was a trap being set for Jesus by people that would have been political rivals with the Pharisees (the Sadducees were closely allied with the Herodians and the Roman Empire), then let's look at Jesus' answer to them. He does not answer their riddle but instead addresses the underlying issue that they did not read to try to understand nor did they read the passage in the context of the whole of Scripture to use what was made clear other places to interpret what may have been unclear here. Luke's version of Jesus' answer though when taken out of context and not read alongside the other answers to this question can lead to bad theology. Jesus compares those who will be raised to eternal life to the angels, who are also called "the sons of God" some places in the Old Testament. This does not mean that Christians (New Testament saints) become angels when they die. However, there will be some similarities to our new bodies that we receive in the Resurrection and those of angels. First, it seems from answers given other places that there will not be sexes/genders in our new bodies because our identity and purpose are not sexual in nature. The first command that God gave to man after Creation was to be fruitful and multiply. He made us (and all other sexual creatures) male and female for this purpose and it was part of his good plan for us to procreate, but in that time, procreation will no longer be the goal. Secondly, our goal will not be interpersonal relationships. Though not explained deeply in this passage, we are going to have a very, very deep intimacy with Jesus (and maybe with the rest of the Godhead) that is as intimate as the members of the Trinity have with each other. There will not even be a desire for marriage because that intimacy will pale in comparison to the intimacy that we will have in the perfect union we will have with God and each other (again in a way that is not at all sexual, though it is described in the New Testament epistles as marriage between Jesus and His Church because that's probably the closest intimacy that we can compare it to). We will all be part of the Bride of Christ though that is married to Jesus. If the Sadducees paid any attention to the Prophets (they did not) they would know that God used the husband and wife analogy over and over again to describe His relationship with His people Israel (though it was usually to talk about how they were unfaithful to him like a cheating spouse--sometimes even leading to God saying that He wished He could have a divorce from them, but that His covenant with them was eternal and His name and glory were at stake if He would give up on them and not fulfill the covenant that resulted in what we call the gospel of Jesus Christ coming to pass). Jesus answers the Sadducees question in a way that is a somewhat interesting way. He uses one of the parts of Scripture that He knows they acknowledge and He starts there with them where God revealed Himself to Moses and the people saying, "I AM the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." Jesus points out that God doesn't say "I WAS the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." While we may miss this in our reading of the Old Testament, Jesus states clearly here that this should mean to us that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were still very much alive and that the LORD was still their God even after their physical death. Jesus says that the LORD is the God of the living--that is those who receive eternal life, and that this means that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had life after death. This passage that Jesus quoted back to them with the question "Have you not read...?" would be very insulting to them. Jesus is saying that they should have seen it, and yet they missed this truth in one of their most revered passages. They had to admit that this was a good answer (notice they didn't say that they admitted it was the right answer and that they were wrong in their interpretation--just that they could not argue with the answer that Jesus had given), and they didn't dare to argue with Him or question Him any more because of how foolish He had made them look. Jesus had the nerve to stand up to them and tell them exactly what He thought of their terrible interpretation of Scripture and He used Scripture to explain Scripture, which is what they should have been doing all along. Even if they had only used the first five books of the Bible (the Law) and nothing else, Jesus says that they should have been able to reason their way to a correct answer about there being life after death and that there would be a resurrection of the saints. So then, we too should believe that there is eternity waiting for all of us--either eternal life with God or eternal death this is separation from all the blessings of God as we face the punishment for our sin against an infinite God. Our souls will live one place or the other, though our bodies will be different as they will be designed for the place where we spend eternity. Our bodies now are made for this world and the purposes given to us in this world. We will receive new bodies in the resurrection that will prepare us for that new world that we will be a part of and those bodies may seem similar to the bodies of angels, but we do not become angels. God still gives men and angels very different roles in eternity, but that's something we can study at another time. Comments are closed.
|
Daniel WestfallI will mostly use this space for recording my "journal" from my daily devotions as I hope to encourage others to read the Bible along with me and to leave a legacy for others. Archives
January 2025
Categories
All
|