As you read through any of the Gospels, one thing becomes rather obvious right away, and that is that two groups of people strongly oppose Jesus and His message. The first group was the Pharisees, who opposed Jesus at every turn. They were a prominent religious group in Judaism during the time of the New Testament who strenuously followed the Mosaic Law, along with traditions passed down from historic rabbis and elders. The other group that opposed Jesus might be a little less familiar, as they were not mentioned quite as often in the New Testament. They were the Sadducees, who though a smaller group, were powerful in the Sanhedrin, which was the Jewish legislative and judicial assembly. They accepted only the Torah, first five books of the Bible, rejecting the rest as not authoritative, and did not believe in a resurrection, nor in angels. They, too, opposed Jesus. In our Gospel reading today we have recorded one time when they challenged Jesus. Let’s look at what happened.
The Sadducees seemed to consider themselves rather intellectual, and as our Scripture opens a group of them have come to Jesus and try to trap Him in a religious discussion or debate. They knew that Jesus believed in, and had spoken several times about the resurrection from the dead, which they did not believe in. So the Sadducees came to Jesus with a hypothetical scenario which they thought would trap Him and make Him look ridiculous to the crowds.
In this scenario (vs. 27-33) they describe a Levirate marriage (Deuteronomy 25:5-10) which would involve a deceased man’s brother marrying his widow if the deceased had no children. They describe a man dying, so the second brother takes the widow. He dies, so the third takes her, continuing down through seven brothers, each dying childless. So, they question, if there is a resurrection of the dead, whose wife would she be? This was not a sincere inquiry. They thought they had Jesus in an intellectual or philosophical religious trap. They were mocking the doctrine of the resurrection by making it seem absurd.
Jesus then responded by correcting their faulty thinking about the resurrection (vs. 34-38). First, He distinguished between this life here on earth and the life to come, the resurrection life. As He described, in the resurrection, in the after-life, marriage is no longer necessary. Relationships are not erased, but they will be different. The purpose of marriage no longer exists in heaven. God gave mankind marriage at the beginning for a purpose, which was for procreation and companionship in a fallen world. That purpose is fulfilled in this earthly life, not in the next. Assuming that all seven brothers and the widow are in heaven, their relationship with each other will not be the same as it was on earth.
Jesus also described people in the resurrected life as being “equal to the angels” (vs. 36). They do not become angels, but they are immortal and no longer subject to death, just like angels are. A number of Christians have a false belief that their loved ones become angels when they die. They speak of a beloved dead mother or father as an angel watching over them. They speak of a child who died as now being a little angel in heaven. However, this is not the case. Angels are a completely different heavenly creature than human beings. We do not, never have, and never will become angels after we die.
As Jesus wrapped up His response to the Sadducees, He used Scripture to affirm the reality of the bodily resurrection of believers. Knowing that they only held the first five Books of Moses as authoritative, Jesus quoted from the Book of Exodus, where God identified Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Exodus 3:6). God used the present tense when referring to Himself as the Patriarchs’ God, not the past tense. This proves that the Patriarchs are still alive in God’s presence, affirming the continuity of life after death. Though they are no longer in this world, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are present with God at the time of Moses, at the time of Jesus, and currently today.
As we look at the Lord’s response to the Sadducees' skepticism of any resurrection, we see in His response that resurrection is real and it is bodily. It is not a metaphor or just a philosophical or spiritual idea. It is a literal future event. The Apostle Paul reserved a whole chapter in his letter to the Corinthians about it (I Corinthians 15). Eternal life is not merely a future hope, but a present reality for those who are Christians. We can be assured through this Scripture passage that for those who have accepted Jesus as their Savior, death is not the end but a new beginning. We serve the God of the living!
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