And some of the Sadducees, who deny that there is any resurrection, coming up [to him],
The Pharisees have just been silenced. Now another group steps forward, and Luke names their belief before he gives their question. Everything that follows hangs on that: these men came to Jesus already sure that no one rises from the dead.
Luke names the group by what they deny. A survey of the sect fills in the rest of what they held, and points to people who think the same way today:
Next to the Pharisees, the Sadducees were the most prominent sect of the Jews. The Pharisees made converts. The Sadducees were far more exclusive, so they stayed fewer in number. They did not believe in the resurrection, or in angels, or in spirits. They held that the soul died with the body. They were strict about the written law of Moses, but they rejected the traditions of the elders — the oral law. They believed that God punished a man's sins during his life, and that man's will was free, so he had power to hold back his desires. This made them severe judges... The beliefs of modern rationalists have much in common with the Sadducees.
They had just watched the Pharisees fail. One writer explains what they hoped to gain:
This is the first and only time that Luke in his Gospel mentions them... They were the materialists of their day. They denied the resurrection and the existence of angels or spirits (Acts 23:8), and very likely paid little attention to His teaching... On this occasion they saw that the Pharisees had been silenced. They were not sorry, we may believe, that their opponents had been beaten. So they came to the Lord with what we may call a test case, one that settled for them that resurrection was impossible... If they could put a question He could not answer well, how great their triumph would be.
They came with a problem they had built themselves. One writer describes the method behind such objections:
The Sadducees were the party of unbelief. All the apparent strength of unbelief lies in raising difficulties, in inventing imaginary cases that do not apply, and in reasoning from the things of men to the things of God. The whole basis is false assumption... Their question also took for granted the resurrection — the very thing they denied.
Their unbelief did not stop at the resurrection. One writer traces the order of the Lord's answer:
First, the Lord's answer to the Sadducees about the resurrection (Luke 20:27-38). These Sadducees were consistent in their unbelief. Since they denied resurrection, they also denied that the spirit exists on its own after death. It is this last point that the Lord takes up and proves, and by it He proves the resurrection.
Luke's report of the same reply is fuller than Matthew's. One writer lists what Luke adds:
His reply to the Sadducees adds three important things to what Matthew records. First, this is not only about the state of those who are raised, or about the certainty of the resurrection. It is an age which only one class will receive, those counted worthy of it — a separate resurrection of the just (v. 35). Second, this class is made up of the children of God, because they are the children of the resurrection (v. 36). Third, while they wait for this resurrection, their souls survive death. All live to God, even though they may be hidden from the eyes of men (v. 38).
They attacked the one truth the Lord Himself has displayed by rising from the dead:
The difficulty existed only for unbelief — or rather, unbelief made it. What else can unbelief ever claim to do? It imagines difficulties, and nowhere more than about the most certain truth of God. The resurrection is the great truth to which all things turn. The Lord has shown it in its final form in His own person, now raised from the dead... The most active sect among the Jews at that time fought this truth and refused it. They were the most intellectual and, humanly speaking, the best informed. These were the people who set themselves against it most of all.
- Denial first. Luke names them by what they deny: no resurrection, no angels, no spirits, and a soul that dies with the body.
- Denial breeds difficulty. Unbelief's whole strength lies in raising difficulties and imaginary cases that do not apply.
- Difficulty exposes ignorance. Their test case took for granted the very resurrection they denied.
- Ignorance meets proof. The Lord first proves that the spirit lives on after death, and by that He proves the resurrection.
- Proof yields life. Luke adds that those counted worthy receive that age as children of God, and that meanwhile all live to Him.
demanded of him saying, Teacher, Moses wrote to us, If any one's brother, who has a wife, die, and he die childless, his brother shall take the wife and raise up seed to his brother.
The Sadducees denied the resurrection, and here they bring Jesus a test case built from a law in Deuteronomy about marrying a dead brother's widow. Their opening words — "Moses wrote for us" — raise two questions: what was that law for, and can Scripture be used against the truth it teaches?
This is the only place in Luke's Gospel where this group appears. What they denied shaped the question they asked:
They were the materialists of their day. They denied the resurrection and the existence of angels or spirits, and probably took little interest in His teaching. This time they saw that the Pharisees had been silenced, and we may believe they were not sorry to see their rivals beaten. So they came to the Lord with what we may call a test case. To their minds it proved that resurrection was impossible. The Pharisees were looking for a charge to bring against Him in the religious or the civil court. The Sadducees had no such plan. But if they could ask a question He could not answer well, what a triumph that would be!
Notice how they put it. They do not say the law is merely about Moses; they say Moses wrote it:
The New Testament states plainly that Moses wrote the books. In Matthew 22:24 the Jews said to our Lord, "Moses said." In John 8:5 they said, "Moses commanded us in the law." Again in Mark 12:19, and in Luke 20:28, they said, "Moses wrote for us." In His reply the Lord confirms this view of who wrote the law. He says, "Have you not read in the book of Moses?"
The rule they quote is real, and its purpose was specific. It protected a dead man's name and land:
The law made a special provision for what is called a levirate marriage. If a man died childless, his surviving brother had to marry the widow. This preserved the dead man's share of the inheritance, so that his name would not be blotted out of Israel (Deuteronomy 25:5-6).
That provision was an act of mercy for life in this world. The Sadducees turned it into a joke:
In Israel, to be childless was a disgrace. For a man's name to be blotted out — for his family to die out — was seen as a special mark of God's displeasure. The Sadducees, in our Lord's day, might use this merciful provision to mock the truth of resurrection. But they only showed their ignorance of the Scriptures and the power of God. God made this provision for life on earth, not for the life to come.
Look at how the objection is made. It is an invented case, not a real one:
Here again, it was only a difficulty. The Sadducees were the unbelieving party. All the apparent strength of unbelief lies in raising difficulties, in inventing imaginary cases that do not apply, and in reasoning from the things of men to the things of God. The whole thing rests on a false assumption. The Lord says to them, "Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?" As usual, they showed their ignorance of the Scriptures, despite all their big claims. Otherwise they would never have put such a case. Besides, their question assumed the resurrection — the very thing they denied.
They had built their case on the law of Moses. The Lord answered from the same place:
They had quoted from the law of Moses in support of their position. The Lord disproved their view from the law itself, quoting Exodus 3:6. How simply He turned the tables. In their eyes Deuteronomy 25:5 showed how foolish it was to expect a resurrection. Exodus 3:6 plainly implied one. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died long before God spoke this way to Moses; yet He was still their God. So they did exist, for He is not the God of something that does not exist.
- Ignorance — unbelief looks strong when it raises imaginary cases that do not apply. It reasons from the things of men to the things of God.
- Misuse — the law they quoted was a merciful provision for life on earth. It kept a man's name and inheritance from being blotted out of Israel. It said nothing about the world to come.
- Testimony — in saying "Moses wrote for us," they bore witness that Moses wrote the law. The Lord's reply confirmed it.
- Answer — He replied from the law they had quoted. God calls Himself the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob long after they died, so those men still live to Him.
- Result — the case they thought no one could answer fell apart. Their own question assumed the resurrection they were trying to disprove.
There were then seven brethren and the first, having taken a wife, died childless;
A group called the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection, comes to Jesus with a story: one wife, seven brothers, no children. The verse is the opening move of a trap. The question behind it is simple: is life after death anything like life here?
Luke names this group only here. They were the materialists of their day, and they had mostly left Jesus alone until now.
This is the first and only time Luke mentions them in his Gospel... They were the materialists of their day. They denied the resurrection, and they denied that angels or spirits exist (Acts 23:8). They probably took little interest in His teaching. They seem to have been stirred into determined opposition only when the apostles were "proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead" (Acts 4:2). On this occasion the Pharisees had been silenced, and we may believe the Sadducees were not sorry to see their rivals beaten. So they came to the Lord with what we may call a test case. To their minds it settled that a resurrection was impossible.
The story is not random. It rests on a real provision in the law of Moses.
So they came to Him with a difficulty they claimed was based on the Word of God. In this way they made Holy Scripture a ground for disbelieving a truth that God's revelation puts beyond dispute. The law made a special provision for what is called a levirate marriage. If a man died childless, his surviving brother had to marry the widow. This kept the dead man's share of the inheritance and kept his name from being blotted out of Israel (Deut. 25:5-6).
Why seven brothers? One writer points out how few the puzzle actually needed.
They were determined to prove there is no resurrection, so they thought up a case that was very unlikely, to say the least... They imagine seven brothers who each married the same woman in turn, and then died. In the resurrection, they ask, which man would have her? Of course, if only two had married her, they could have asked the same question. But they wanted to make the truth of resurrection look as ridiculous as they could.
Their case only works if the relationships of this life carry on into the next. One writer shows what people do with God's word when it will not fit their ideas.
They present a case that would make the resurrection ridiculous and impossible — if what their folly imagined were true. For they assume that the relationships and conditions of this world carry on in the next. This is what people do. They mix their own thoughts in with God's word. Then, because those thoughts do not agree with it, they decide His word makes no sense and reject it.
There was no real problem here to solve. One writer asks where such difficulties come from.
In the resurrection state there will be no such relationships. The difficulty existed only for unbelief — or rather, unbelief made it. Indeed, what else can disbelief ever claim to do? It imagines difficulties, and nowhere more than with the most certain truth of God. The resurrection is the great truth on which everything turns. The Lord has shown it in its final form in His own person, now raised from the dead — though when He spoke, His rising was still just ahead.
Jesus does not untangle the puzzle. He removes the condition it depends on.
The Sadducees of that day, like many people in later ages, could imagine nothing different from what they had known. Here on earth marriages take place. So in their thinking, if there was a resurrection, people must marry there too. Their conclusion was false... Death does not reign there. So marriage, which keeps the human race going on earth, has no place above... The test case that seemed to those Sadducees to settle the matter against a resurrection broke down at once. The condition it needs in order to hold will not exist.
Their trick question ends up uncovering something greater. One writer asks what it means to be counted worthy of the resurrection.
It was a quibble they raised to test the Lord... Now what does this mean — "considered worthy to attain to... the resurrection from the dead"? You see, it is counted a special favour. If you do get the resurrection from the dead, you will be "equal to angels." It cannot mean that people raised to be condemned are equal to the angels.
- Setup — They quote Moses on marriage law, and use Scripture to argue against what Scripture reveals.
- Sneer — Seven brothers, not two, because the aim was ridicule, not an answer.
- Assumption — Their case only stands if this world's relationships carry on in the next.
- Source — Unbelief did not find the difficulty. Unbelief made it, as it always does with God's clearest truth.
- Surprise — The condition their case needs will not exist. Death is gone there, and those raised are equal to the angels.
and the second [took the woman, and *he* died childless];
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
and the third took her and in like manner also the seven left no children and died;
The third brother here is one step in an argument, not a memory. Why did the Sadducees need seven brothers, and was the law they quoted ever about life after death?
The number seven does no real work in the argument. It is there for effect:
They imagine a case of seven brothers who die after each one in turn has had the same wife. In the resurrection, they ask, which man would have her? If only two had married her, they could have asked the same question. But they wanted to make the truth of resurrection look as ridiculous as they could.
Another writer doubts the case was ever real, and names what drove the question:
A case like the one the Sadducees describe may be possible. But it is unlikely that the case they put to Him was real. It was no doubt made up for the occasion. Ignorance, unbelief and sarcasm prompted this question.
Their case rests on a rule in the law:
The law made a special provision, called a levirate marriage. If a man died childless, his surviving brother had to marry the widow. This kept the dead man's share of the inheritance in the family, so his name would not be wiped out of Israel (Deut. 25:5-6).
The purpose of that law is also what makes their question collapse:
In Israel, to be childless was a disgrace, and for a man's name to be wiped out — his family dying out — was seen as a special mark of God's displeasure. The Sadducees, in our Lord's day, might try to ridicule the truth of resurrection by bringing in this merciful provision. But they only showed their ignorance of "the Scriptures and the power of God." God had made that provision for the earthly life, not the future one.
The Sadducees were a party that had largely left Jesus alone until now. What they denied explains why they asked this:
They believed only in the material world, denying the resurrection and the existence of angels or spirits (Acts 23:8). They very likely paid little attention to His teaching. They seem to have turned into determined opponents only when the Apostles "preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead" (Acts 4:2).
Jesus did not argue with their story; He named what lay underneath it:
They did not know the Scriptures — that was ignorance. They did not know the power of God — that was unbelief. Their unbelieving error rested on these two pillars. Modern unbelief of the Sadducee kind rests on the same two pillars. Those who hold it misquote, misinterpret, or otherwise twist Scripture, again and again. And they think of God as anything but Almighty — as just a man, though with greater powers than ours.
The puzzle was never in the truth itself:
The difficulty existed only for unbelief — or rather, unbelief made it. What else can unbelief ever claim to do? It invents difficulties, and nowhere more than in the most certain truth of God.
Their whole case assumed that the next world would copy this one:
The Sadducees of that day, like many people in later ages, could imagine nothing different from what they had known. Here marriages take place. So in their thinking, if there was a resurrection, there must be marriages in heaven too. Their conclusion was wrong. Marriages do not take place among the saints in heaven... Death does not reign there, so marriage, which carries on the human race on earth, has no place in heaven.
The Lord's answer describes a different order of life altogether:
The Lord reveals the state of those who are raised, and shows how ignorant and foolish the reasoning of the Sadducees was. It is a high and holy state, where what is only earthly will have passed away for ever. Things God set up, and honoured here, will have passed away there.
- Invented — the seven brothers are a made-up case, not a remembered one. Two would have raised the same question, so the number is there only to make resurrection look ridiculous.
- Misapplied — the law they quote guarded a dead man's name and inheritance in Israel. God gave it for the earthly life, not the future one.
- Ignorant — two faults lie behind the misuse, and they still run together. One is not knowing the Scriptures. The other is not believing God has power beyond what we have seen.
- Imagined — the puzzle was never in the truth. Unbelief makes difficulties, and makes most of them where God's word is clearest.
- Answered — where no one dies, marriage has no work to do. Those who are raised belong to an order where what is only earthly has passed away for ever.
and last of all the woman also died.
In the story the Sadducees bring to Jesus, the woman buries seven husbands — and then she dies too. They built the story to sound airtight, so the question is where its reasoning breaks down.
The men behind this story rejected resurrection outright. One writer describes their outlook, their method, and what they missed:
The Sadducees were the materialists of that day. They stood for the unbelief of the flesh. One writer has rightly said, "The strength of unbelief lies in raising difficulties, in inventing imaginary cases which do not apply, and in reasoning from the things of men to the things of God." So here these wicked men try to oppose the truth by ridicule. They invent an imaginary case which they think shows that resurrection is absurd. As usual with unbelievers, they show gross ignorance of Scripture and they ignore the power of God. If Scripture had said that people marry in the resurrection state, their imaginary case might really have raised a difficulty. If God had no power, the resurrection itself would be impossible.
The story leans on a real command in the law of Moses. A man was to marry his childless brother's widow, so that the dead brother would have an heir. But the story itself looks made up:
In this matter people hardly kept the law in those days, and the teachers of this law had added all kinds of limits to it. A case like the one the Sadducees told could of course happen. But it is unlikely that they laid a real case before Him. They almost certainly made it up for the occasion. Ignorance, unbelief and sarcasm prompted this question.
The whole trap rests on one hidden assumption: that the next world runs on the same terms as this one.
They put forward a case that makes the resurrection look ridiculous and impossible — but only if you first grant the foolish thing they imagined. They assume that the relationships and conditions of this world carry on into the next. This is what people do. They mix their own thoughts into God's word, and because their thoughts do not fit it, they decide it makes no sense and reject it.
The difficulty, then, was never in the doctrine. Unbelief manufactured it — "it imagines difficulties, and nowhere so much as in the most certain truth of God" (William Kelly).
Their story repeats one thing and never questions it: everyone in it dies. Jesus takes hold of that. Where death ends, marriage has no purpose left.
The Sadducees of that day, like many people since, could imagine nothing different from what they had known. Here marriages take place. So in their thinking, if there was a resurrection, there must be marriages in heaven too. Their conclusion was false. Marriages do not take place among the saints in heaven. And the Lord gives a reason for that, which only Luke reports: "for they cannot die anymore." Death does not reign there. Marriage keeps the human race going on earth, so it has no place above. The test case, which those Sadducees thought settled the matter against resurrection, broke down at once. The condition it needs to be valid will not exist.
Jesus also speaks of people "considered worthy" of this resurrection. One writer reads that as a favour granted, not a sentence passed on everyone:
You see, it counts as a special favour. If you get the resurrection from the dead at all, you will be "equal to the angels." It cannot mean that people who rise to be condemned are equal to the angels.
Jesus then goes past their example to a bigger fact about death itself.
They have died as far as people are concerned, but as to God, wicked or saints, all live. This is not limited to saints; it is true of every person. Before, He had been speaking of the resurrection of the saints, and only of that resurrection. Now He declares that for God all live. He denies that death is the end of existence, and He does so absolutely and positively.
This pulls away their foundation, not just their example. As one writer puts it, the Lord "destroys the materialistic idea of death held by the Sadducees, the basis of their denial of resurrection." He proved it from the books of Moses, which "they acknowledged, but did not know" (F. W. Grant).
- Invented — The seven brothers were a made-up case, not a report. Ignorance, unbelief and sarcasm produced it.
- Imported — Its only force came from assuming the conditions of this world carry over into the next.
- Ended — Marriage continues the race on earth. Where no one can die, it has no place.
- Given — Jesus calls this resurrection a favour granted, not a fate imposed on everyone alike.
- Living — Death is not the end of existence. For God, saints and wicked alike all live.
In the resurrection therefore of which of them does she become wife, for the seven had her as wife?
The Sadducees denied resurrection. They bring Jesus a test case from Moses' own law: seven brothers, one wife, no children. So whose wife is she when the dead rise? Behind the puzzle lie two real questions. What does Scripture teach about the world to come? Can God raise the dead at all?
Their case rests on a real provision in the law of Moses.
The law made a special provision for what is called a levirate marriage. If a man died childless, his surviving brother had to marry the widow. This preserved the dead man's share of the inheritance, so that his name should not be blotted out of Israel (Deuteronomy 25:5-6). They claimed such a case had happened. Seven brothers, one after the other, had married the same woman, following this law. All had died without children. At last the woman died also.
That merciful law looked at life on earth. That is where their argument goes wrong.
In Israel, to be childless was a disgrace. For a man's name to be blotted out — for his family to die out — was taken as a special mark of God's displeasure. The Sadducees, in our Lord's day, might try to ridicule the truth of resurrection by bringing in this merciful provision, but they only showed their ignorance of the Scriptures and the power of God. God had made that provision for life on earth, not for the life to come.
Their method is still in use. Unbelief invents its difficulties rather than finding them.
The Sadducees were the materialists of that day, and represented the unbelief of the flesh. It has been well said: "The strength of unbelief lies in raising difficulties, in inventing imaginary cases that do not apply, in reasoning from the things of men to the things of God." So here these wicked men try to oppose the truth by ridicule. They invent a case which they think shows that resurrection is absurd… If Scripture had said that people marry in the resurrection state, their imaginary case might indeed have presented a difficulty. If God had no power, the resurrection itself would be impossible.
To ask whose wife she will be, they must first grant the resurrection they deny.
Their question also took the resurrection for granted, and that was the very thing they denied. Whose would this woman be, who had the seven husbands one after another? The answer is, she would belong to none of them then. No one takes up earthly ties again in the resurrection. People do not rise from the dead as husbands and wives, parents and children, masters or servants.
The reason Jesus gives removes the whole basis of their riddle.
The Sadducees of that day, like many a person in later ages, could imagine nothing different from what they had known. Here marriages take place. So in their thinking, if there was a resurrection, there must be marriages on high too. Their conclusion was false… And the Lord gives a reason for it, reported only by Luke: "they cannot die anymore." Death does not reign there. So marriage, which keeps the human race going on earth, has no place on high… The test case seemed final to those Sadducees against a resurrection, but it broke down at once.
His reply does more than settle a question about marriage. His wording points to a rising that is a favour, not a thing given to all.
They raised a quibble, testing the Lord… Now what does this mean — "considered worthy to attain to the resurrection from the dead"? You see, it is counted a special favour. If you do get the resurrection from the dead, you will be "equal to angels." This cannot mean that people raised to be condemned are equal to the angels.
They opened with Deuteronomy. He closed with Exodus — the same books they claimed to stand on.
They had quoted from the law of Moses in support of their position. The Lord answered their belief from the law, quoting Exodus 3:6… How simply He turned the tables. In their eyes, Deuteronomy 25:5 proved the folly of looking for a resurrection. Exodus 3:6 plainly implied a resurrection. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died long before God spoke to Moses in this way; yet He was still their God. So they did exist, for He is not a God of those who do not exist… Where Scripture does not state a truth outright, it may still teach it by implication.
- Law: The seven-brother case rests on a real law. It kept a family's name and inheritance alive on earth. It says nothing about the life to come.
- Trap: The question is an invented case, built to make resurrection look absurd. It also assumes the very rising it denies.
- Ignorance: Unbelief argues from the things of men to the things of God. It shows up its ignorance of the Scriptures and of God's power.
- Answer: She will belong to none of them. No one takes up earthly ties again. Where no one can die, marriage has no purpose.
- Hope: Those considered worthy of that resurrection are equal to angels and sons of God. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is still their God after death.
And Jesus said to them, The sons of this world marry and are given in marriage,
A group who denied any resurrection came to Jesus with a riddle about a woman married to seven brothers in turn. He answered by drawing a line between two ages: marrying belongs to one side, and not everyone reaches the other.
Only Luke gives this name to people busy with everyday life.
Notice this in particular — Luke alone, of all the Gospel writers, here describes men, in the activities of this life, as "the children of this world," or age. They are persons who live merely for the present.
Such people are not fools. They plan ahead — but only for this life.
They look ahead, though only on the earth, for they have a keen sense of their best earthly interests. But it is different when it comes to the soul, to heaven, to Christ's love, to God's nature and will. Men tend to let the smallest present advantage blot out all right thought of the future.
Some translations read "world" here. The word means "age," and the Lord sets two ages side by side.
He contrasted "this world" and "that world," really using the word that means "age." Some will "obtain that age" as living men on earth, without passing through death and resurrection. But those who "obtain that age and the resurrection" will enter altogether new conditions of life. They will be deathless like the angels, and marriage will have no application to them.
One writer names the root of their error, then shows why the riddle falls apart.
Ignorance lay at the root of their opposition, as the Lord made clear to them: ignorance of the condition of people in the other world, and ignorance of the Scriptures of truth. The Sadducees of that day, like many people in later ages, could imagine nothing different from what they already knew. Here marriages take place. So in their thinking, if there was a resurrection, there must be marriages above too. Their reasoning was faulty. Marriages do not take place among the saints in heaven. And the Lord gives a reason for this, reported only by Luke: "neither can they die any more." Death does not reign there. Marriage keeps the human race going on earth, so it has no place above.
Do husbands and wives stay husbands and wives? One writer answers, and clears away a second mistake too.
There is not a line in Scripture to say that the relationships of earth will be continued in heaven. We shall not rise as husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants, but in this respect shall be as the angels. We shall not be angels, as some people wrongly imagine. We shall be like them in being free from earthly relationships. The believer will enjoy privileges and heavenly relationships far above those of angels, and far above the passing relationships of this present state.
That truth about the future is not an excuse for treating present ties lightly.
They are relationships in nature, formed on the earth and to be carried out in daily life. There will be no such relationships in heaven. They do not belong to the resurrection state. They belong to nature, to earth, to our time-condition. We are called to walk in them as Christian men, women and children. We are to glorify God in them by our spirit, our temper, our manner and our whole conduct, from hour to hour and day to day.
Not everyone reaches that age. One writer marks off who is in view, and why "worthy" is not a wage.
Marriage is only for this world. He was not speaking of those who die in their sins and rise for judgment at the Great White Throne. He spoke only of those accounted worthy — by grace through faith — to obtain "that world," the glory of heaven, and the resurrection from among the dead.
Another writer presses the wording itself. It cannot fit one single resurrection of everyone.
How could people be "counted worthy" to obtain a general resurrection which no one can lose? Or be the children of God as being the children of a general resurrection?
- This age. "Sons of this age" describes people who live merely for the present — shrewd about earth, short-sighted about God.
- That age. The word is "age": Jesus divides time in two, and marrying belongs to this side of the line.
- No death. Marriage keeps the human race going where death reigns; where they can die no more, it has no application.
- No merit. Being "accounted worthy" is by grace through faith — a special favour, not a wage earned.
- Meanwhile. Earthly ties end at the resurrection, yet they are ours to honour now, day by day, as the place where we glorify Him.
but they who are counted worthy to have part in that world, and the resurrection from among [the] dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage;
The Sadducees came to Jesus with a riddle about a woman married to seven brothers. His answer reaches far past their puzzle. He splits people into two groups: those who belong to this present age, and those who will reach the next one. Three phrases carry the weight — "that age," "the resurrection from the dead," and "worthy."
Their trap only worked if life after death is life as they already knew it. One writer traces their error to a failure of imagination.
The Sadducees of that day, like many a person in later ages, could conceive of nothing different from what they had known. Here marriages take place. So in their thinking, if there was a resurrection, marriages must also be contracted on high. Their conclusion was faulty.
Older translations read "that world" where the ESV reads "that age." The word does not mean the planet. It points to a coming period of time with its own character.
"They who shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead." This would be an extraordinary expression if all rose at the same time. "They that shall be counted worthy to obtain that age" — that last word does not mean the material world. It means a special dispensation or age, which the unworthy do not obtain.
Marriage fits one age and not the other. And some will reach the coming age without dying at all.
He contrasted "this world" and "that world," using the word which means "age." Some will "obtain that age" as living people on earth, without passing through death and resurrection. But those who "obtain that age and the resurrection" will enter completely new conditions of life. They will be deathless as the angels, and marriage will not apply to them.
Why does marriage end there? Another writer follows the reason the Lord gives.
Marriages do not take place among the saints in heaven. And the Lord gives a reason for that, reported only by Luke: they cannot die any more. Death does not reign there. So marriage, by which the human race is continued on earth, has no place above.
Something no one can lose cannot be an honour.
How could people be "counted worthy" to obtain a general resurrection which no one can lose? Or be the children of God because they are children of a general resurrection?
The word "worthy" does not put the reader back on his own record. One writer ties it to grace received, not merit earned.
Marriage is only for this world. He was not speaking of those who die in their sins and will rise for judgment at the Great White Throne. He spoke only of those counted worthy — by grace through faith — to obtain "that world," the glory of heaven, and the resurrection from among the dead.
The phrase here is not simply "resurrection of the dead." Jesus' first followers noticed that difference too.
[The disciples] clearly distinguished between the resurrection of the dead, and the rising from among the dead ones. It implied that some of the dead would rise, while others still remained in their graves. It was a rising from among the dead ones… Notice that this speaks only of those who will be counted worthy to obtain the resurrection from among the dead ones. I call particular attention to this. It at once sets aside the idea of a general resurrection of the saved and lost.
What happened at the empty tomb sets the shape of it.
The resurrection of Christ was not merely a resurrection of the dead, but out of the dead. He left them undisturbed in their tombs… And it is the same with the saints in principle. Theirs is to be a resurrection from among the dead. The rest of the dead must rise at another time.
The verse is not left as a debating point. One writer turns it straight on the reader.
Is this not a resurrection of great privilege? Will everyone rise together, equal to the angels, the children of God?… Do not rest until you know that this privilege is yours.
- This age — marriage, and the family line it continues, belong to the world we live in now. The Sadducees assumed the next age must copy this one.
- That age — the word is not "planet" but "age": a coming era with its own conditions, which the unworthy do not obtain.
- Worthy — no one is "counted worthy" of what everyone receives anyway. The word marks out a group.
- By grace — that worthiness is grace through faith, not earned merit. No believer need read the verse with dread.
- From among — this resurrection lifts some out from among the dead and leaves the rest. Settle that hope for yourself before you need it.
for neither can they die any more, for they are equal to angels, and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.
The Sadducees denied the resurrection. They put a trick question to Jesus. A woman married seven brothers in turn, so whose wife will she be? His reply does more than dismiss the puzzle. It describes what the risen are like, and why marriage has no place among them.
The Sadducees assumed that any future life must copy this one. One writer points out that only Luke records the reason Jesus gave.
The Sadducees of that day could imagine nothing different from what they had known, and so could many people in later ages. Here marriages take place. So in their thinking, if there was a resurrection, there must be marriages in heaven too. Their conclusion was false. Marriages do not take place among the saints in heaven. And the Lord gives a reason for that, reported, as we find, only by Luke: "for they cannot die anymore." Death does not reign there. So marriage, which keeps the human race going on earth, has no place on high.
The comparison with angels is narrow and exact. It is about death. Some object that God alone has immortality, and one writer answers them.
Even those who misuse the text do not deny that the angels are immortal. Our Lord has certainly stated that this is their condition. The risen saints will be like them in this respect. "They cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels" (Luke 20:36). So God alone having immortality is perfectly consistent with the immortality of angels.
Another writer sees the likeness reaching to the limits of the body itself:
They are equal to the angels: above the conditions of the body in this present life.
Being equal to angels does not mean becoming one. The verse gives the raised a second title, and it marks a relationship angels never hold.
Such people will then rise from among the great mass of the dead, and God will make them equal in condition to the angels. Our calling is higher, for we are children and sons, while angels are only servants. Our condition until the Lord's coming is lower, but He will change that then by His mighty power.
Luke has used this form of words before.
"Sons of the resurrection." This is a Hebrew way of speaking that we have already met. Compare "sons of the bride-chamber" (Luke 5:34), "sons of peace" (Luke 10:6), and "sons of this age" (Luke 16:8).
Another writer joins the two titles, and notes one thing the likeness to angels involves:
Believers are like the angels, who are neither male nor female, as we are told about the new creation (Galatians 3:27-28). They are sons of God. That relationship and dignity stands higher than every natural tie. They are sons of the resurrection — brought into a world that human thinking on its own has never reached.
Not everyone rises for the same reason. One writer marks off the resurrection in this verse from the raising of the wicked.
The wicked will rise to be judged. The others will rise because they have been accounted worthy to obtain the resurrection which Jesus has obtained. This passage proves a resurrection which concerns the children of God alone. They are the sons of God, being the sons of the resurrection. To be a son of God, and to have part in this resurrection, is the title and inheritance of the same persons.
The words "accounted worthy" could sound like something earned. One writer says the opposite:
We must be "accounted worthy" to have part in this resurrection. It is not one that nobody can miss. Grace gives each person his place in it.
The death that follows judgment has no claim on them either.
The terms "first resurrection" and "second death" are opposites. All who have no part in the one will certainly share in the other. The second death is the lake of fire. Into it the raised wicked dead are cast. But this dreadful death — dying, yet never dead in body — has no claim and no authority over those in the first resurrection. They "cannot die anymore." Their bodies are immortal. They can no more die than can angels (Luke 20:36).
- Deathless — marriage ends because dying ends. A world with no death needs no way to carry on the human race.
- Like angels — the likeness is about condition, not nature. God gives them immortality and lifts them above the limits of the body.
- Sons of God — angels are servants, so this title of relationship is never theirs. It stands higher than every natural tie.
- Sons of the resurrection — a Hebrew way of speaking. They belong to a new world, one human thinking has never reached on its own.
- Counted worthy — grace, not effort, gives a place in this resurrection. Those who have it are past the reach of the second death.
But that the dead rise, even Moses shewed in [the section of] the bush, when he called [the] Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob;
The Sadducees denied any resurrection, and had just mocked the idea with a story of one woman married to seven brothers. Jesus answers them from Moses, not the prophets — from the passage where God speaks out of the bush.
The Lord could have quoted many clearer statements about the dead rising. Instead He chose a text His opponents could not wave away, since they honoured the books of Moses above all.
The Lord does not quote the clearest Scripture about the resurrection. In the circumstances He does something much better: He appeals to what they themselves claimed to respect most of all. For the Sadducee no part of Scripture carried the authority of the five books of Moses. So from Moses He proved the resurrection, and in the simplest possible way.
The phrase sounds odd today. It is how people pointed to a place in Scripture before chapters and verses existed.
In those days the books were not divided into chapters and verses as they are now, and this explains several expressions. In Mark 2:26 a quotation comes from "the section of Abiathar the high priest" (1 Samuel 21:1-6). In Luke 20:37, "Moses showed in the section on the bush" (Exodus 3).
The verse names Moses as the one who showed this. Matthew's record of the same reply names God as the speaker.
So in Luke we read, in the same connection, "But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham" (Luke 20:37). This shows beyond doubt that the human author was Moses. The parallel passage in Matthew 22:31 adds a word about the divine inspiration of the same words: "Have you not read what was said to you by God, 'I am the God of Abraham'".
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had been dead for centuries when God spoke at the bush. Yet He did not say He was their God; He named Himself by them in the present.
If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had ceased to exist, could God still have taken their names — the name of nothing — to describe Himself to Israel? He might have said, "I am He who was with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, when they existed." Even that would have been a completely unworthy relationship — the God of men who had no more than an animal existence. God describes Himself by them, and is not ashamed to be called their God. Could He describe Himself by a mere dying animal — by men who, at the moment He calls Himself their God, did not exist at all?
Someone might agree that these three men still live, and stop there. But the argument goes further, because a person is more than a spirit.
Further, though they were dead, their body was an essential part of who they were, for man is made of three parts: spirit, soul, and body. So the body must rise again. Abraham could not be complete without his body. The spirit of Abraham is one thing; the body of Abraham is another. But if we speak of Abraham, we speak of one to whom spirit, soul, and body all belong.
There is a second reason the grave cannot be the end for these three men. God had bound Himself to them by promises still unpaid.
Though dead to this scene, they still live and will rise again to enjoy the promises of God, which, sin having come in, can only be fulfilled on resurrection ground.
Exodus 3 never uses the word resurrection. That is part of the lesson.
In this way Exodus 3:6 taught by implication the very truth the Sadducees denied. From the Lord's use of it we learn this: where a truth is not stated outright, something may still teach it by implication. So we need to weigh the statements of God's Word carefully.
- Text — Jesus answers unbelief from the books His challengers honoured most. He proves the resurrection from Moses, not the prophets.
- Tense — the whole argument hangs on "I am": God names Himself by men long buried, and He is not the God of nothing.
- Person — a man is spirit, soul and body. Abraham without his body is Abraham incomplete, so his body must rise.
- Promise — God made promises to these three men that were never kept in their lifetimes. Only resurrection ground can pay them, so denying the resurrection denies God's faithfulness.
- Method — a truth can be taught by implication as clearly as by direct statement. So weigh every word of Scripture.
but he is not God of [the] dead but of [the] living; for all live for him.
The Sadducees denied any resurrection, and they mocked the idea with a story about one woman and seven husbands. Jesus answered them from the burning bush, where God calls Himself the God of three men long dead.
Everything turns on the tense of one verb, spoken long after Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had died.
When did God say that? Centuries after those men were buried. And He said it through Moses. He did not say, "I was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." That destroys the false idea that the dead have no consciousness, or that they stop existing until the body is raised. God is not the God of the dead but the living. If they had stopped existing for a time, He would have said, "I was their God." If He were looking ahead to the resurrection, He would have said, "I shall be." He said neither.
The force of "not God of the dead" depends on what His opponents meant by the word. For them, to be dead was to be gone.
"God is not the God of the dead [utterly and eternally perished, which was the sense in which the Sadducees used it, with whom He was disputing] but of the living."
If they had truly vanished, God could not still speak of Himself as standing in a relationship with them.
God says at the bush, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." But if He stood in that relationship to them then, they must exist for Him to be so. He could not be the God of the dead — dead in the Sadducee sense, meaning non-existent. They must be alive in some sense, alive to Him, and so they are.
God spoke those words while sending Moses to rescue a nation.
God sent Moses out from "the bush" to be their deliverer. He sent him under that title, "the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob," as the "I am" who had looked on His people and cared for them. The teaching of the Sadducees could never have been the good news of that deliverance, nor its inspiration. A living God in covenant with men meant life, not death; and if death was there, then a life supreme over it. So resurrection was the necessary filling out of such a declaration. The hand God held out to man was not to clasp the limp fingers of a corpse.
Up to this point the Lord had spoken only of the resurrection of the saints. The last clause suddenly widens.
Then He says that even Moses showed this at the bush: God is not "a God of the dead but of the living." Then He lays the foundation of an absolute fact He had not spoken of before at all: "For all live to Him." They have died as far as men are concerned. But as to God, wicked or saints, all live. Before this He had been speaking of the resurrection of the saints, and only of that. Now He declares that for God all live. He denies that death is the end of existence, and He does it in an absolute and positive way.
Two truths stand together here, and they answered a question that troubled Gentiles — the nations outside Israel.
Not only is God not the God of the dead, but of the living; "all live to Him" (verse 38). Two great truths are present here — living to God after death, and future resurrection, when Jesus comes and brings in the new age. This was especially valuable for Gentiles. One of the great problems for them was whether the soul existed after death, let alone the resurrection of the body.
So the argument does not stop with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Luke now adds a few words of universal importance, which deeply concern all men: "For all live to Him." Dead to us here, they live to God. So death does not end any man's existence. This refers of course to all the dead, and therefore concerns all the living.
- Tense — God said "I am" the God of Abraham, not "I was" and not "I shall be." Those men were long buried, so the present tense settles the question.
- Relationship — God cannot hold a living relationship with people who no longer exist. If He is still their God, they still are.
- Covenant — a living God who binds Himself to men means life, and resurrection completes that promise. He did not hold out His hand to clasp a corpse.
- Reach — the last clause moves past the saints He had been describing. For God all live, righteous and wicked alike, and death ends no one's existence.
- Result — Luke's added words give two certainties: life with God after death, and resurrection when Jesus brings in the coming age. What is true of the dead concerns every living reader.