Mark 12:18-27 (NIV): Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and have children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died without leaving any children. The second one married the widow, but he also died, leaving no child. It was the same with the third. In fact, none of the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman died too. At the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?” Jesus replied, “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. Now about the dead rising–have you not read in the book of Moses, in the account of the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!”
The Sadducees, the line from which the priests and high priests had come ever since the rebuilding of the temple (cf. Ezekiel 44:15-16), only accepted as authoritative the first five books of the Bible, called the law, or the Pentateuch: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Since these books did not contain any explicit teaching that there would be a resurrection from the dead, they rejected the concept out of hand.
When they came to Jesus that day, they came with what they believed to be an iron-clad argument against the whole idea of the resurrection from the dead. They approached the idea from a purely logical standpoint: a resurrection would be too confusing, with too many problems that would have to be resolved. In their story, this woman had been legally (and rightfully, according to the Bible’s rules on levirate marriage – Deuteronomy 25:5-6) married to each of seven brothers. So when the resurrection comes, it’s going to be a mess! Each of the seven brothers would have a legitimate claim on her as husband. So whose wife will she end up being?
The Sadducees finished with smug looks on their faces. The best legal minds in their schools had wrestled over this question, and no consensus had been able to be reached. Therefore, they considered the problem unsolvable, and any advocate of a resurrection from the dead (like Jesus) sadly ignorant.
But Jesus was neither ignorant nor mistaken when He promised a resurrection from the dead – first His own, and ultimately everyone else. Instead, it was the Sadducees whose understanding was lacking.
Jesus presented His rebuttal to the Sadducees under two headings: they were ignorant of what the Scriptures really said, and they were ignorant of God’s power and ability to pull off what might seem impossible or illogical to the human mind.
First of all, as far as God’s power, when He raises the dead (which, with his infinite power, is really not difficult), He will not just reanimate what was dead and decayed. Instead, He will actually recreate us, making us new and imperishable (1 Corinthians 15:42-44a), so that our bodies will last forever, without pain, disease, or aging. And the life that we will live in our resurrected bodies will not just be a continuation of the life we have lived here, with our need for things like possessions and spouses. Instead, we will be consumed with our love for God, and completely occupied with serving Him. There will be no marriage to other people, and marriage relationships that we had here on earth will be subsumed into our mutual focus on God.
As far as the Scriptures are concerned, even the five books that the Sadducees accepted as authoritative contain enticing hints that there is more to our lives than this earthly existence. When God identifies Himself to Moses, and through Him to the Israelites, He said, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” This statement is in the present tense, even though all of these had been dead for four hundred years or more. Jesus’ point was that God’s statement indicated that His relationship with these three patriarchs was ongoing and current, not a thing of the past. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, though physically dead and buried for centuries, were still alive in God’s presence. And since their lives continued beyond their physical deaths, contrary to the Sadducees’ view that this life was all that there is, a resurrection from the dead becomes neither impossible nor illogical.
Jesus’ final sentence is very important. The Sadducees’ mistaken notions about the nature of life and of God’s power had caused them to build their spiritual foundation on the wrong stuff. Even though they were the ones entrusted with the holiest things of God, their focus had become completely locked onto the things of this world. They relished material gain and material comforts because, in their worldview, this life was all that existed for human beings. And, because of that, their concept of God had slid into a mode of believing that God’s favor was shown only through material prosperity, a notion that Jesus completely rejected (Luke 12:15).
Father, it is easy for us to sneer at the Sadducees, but at the same time fall into the trap that they were in. How often do we live like this world is all that there is, or at least like it is all that matters now? How often do we paint heaven in our minds as merely the world that we know, except with better weather and a healthier body? How often do we limit our ideas of what is true to the Scriptures that we personally know and believe, instead of constantly allowing the entirety of Your word to stretch us? And how often do we measure Your blessing in our lives or in our churches merely by the material blessings we possess? Help us, Lord, to keep our focus on the things of the Spirit instead of the things of this world. Help us to love You and Your word, so that we are continually learning more of You. Amen.