Our Gospel reading this week from the Lectionary of the Book of Common Prayer tells the account of a group of people who tried to entrap Jesus with a rather outlandish question they had asked. Let’s take a look at their question, and how Jesus answered them.
At the time of Jesus, the Jewish religion had two main sects, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. (There were a few other, much smaller sects, but these two were the primary ones.) The Sadducees were a theologically liberal sect, who rejected belief in the supernatural. They particularly did not believe in angels, nor in the resurrection of the dead. They rejected all the books of the Old Testament except for the Torah, the first five Books of Moses. They tended to be an intellectual group. The Sadducees also pretty much controlled the high priesthood and the Sanhedrin at the time of Jesus, and were basically opposite in beliefs and practices to the Pharisees.
As our Scripture begins, a group of Sadducees approached Jesus with a question. As mentioned, this religious sect of Judaism did not believe in any resurrection of the dead, and their question was for the purpose of entrapping Jesus and proving their point in denying any resurrection. The group came up with a ridiculous hypothetical situation of a family with seven brothers. The first brother married a woman, but then soon after died without any children. The second brother then married that woman, and also quickly died without any children. So the third married her, and on down to the seventh, each dying without any children. So, they asked Jesus, if there is a resurrection in heaven, whose wife is she going to be, as all the brothers had her? (vs. 28-33).
What these Sadducees were describing was a levirate marriage, which was instituted in Deuteronomy 25:5. The term levirate comes from the Latin levir, which means “husband’s brother”. When a married man died without any children, an unmarried brother would take his brother’s widow to be his wife, and their first child would be counted as the dead brother’s child, thus continuing his line. This was frequently done by many societies who had a very strong clan structure, some even practicing this today.
Let’s look at Jesus’ answer to the Sadducees. Jesus acknowledged that people, back then and today, get married (vs. 34). The marriage relationship, when done Biblically and to honor God and spouse, is a gift God gave to man for here on earth. The marriage relationship is not in heaven (vs. 35-36). Our life in heaven is not the same kind of life as it is here on earth. This does not mean that our earthly, family relationships are lost in heaven. However, heaven is not just an extension of our life here on earth. Relationships will be different from what we are used to here. The resurrection state is a life different from what we know now here on earth. It is something incomprehensibly superior to our present life.
Also, Jesus is not saying that we become angels when we are in heaven, because we do not. Sometimes we hear some people say that some dear departed relative or friend is now “an angel in heaven”. They may be well-meaning, but they are completely wrong. No one becomes an angel when they die. Angels are a completely different type of being than human people.
Jesus continued His answer to the Sadducees, proving that they were wrong in denying the resurrection (vs. 37-38). He quoted to them Exodus 3:6. God said to Moses that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not that He was their God. This was indicating that these patriarchs were still alive and present with God, some 400 years after their earthly death. They were presently alive and well with God in His Kingdom, not non-existent following death, as the Sadducees (and even many today) claimed. God has a relationship with all departed believers. They are not truly dead, but are eternally present with Him in glory.
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