And Jesus answering said to them, Ye err, not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God.
The Sadducees denied the resurrection, and they brought Jesus a riddle about a woman who married seven brothers in turn. He does not start with their puzzle; He names two things they do not know.
The Sadducees quote Moses as though Scripture ruled their conscience. Yet they deny the very thing they ask about. One writer compares them with the Pharisees:
Unbelief is as false and dishonest as pretended human righteousness. The Pharisees could join with the Herodians and pretend loyalty to Caesar. In the same way the sceptical Sadducees could quote Moses, as if the inspired word had full authority over their conscience! But the Lord laid bare the hypocrisy of those who stood high as religious men. He also saw what the sceptic never suspects. Their difficulties flow not only from overlooking the power of God, but from plain ignorance, whatever their self-conceit may be. Faith, on the contrary, sees clearly, just as it counts on God according to the revelation of Himself in the Word.
The Lord names two failures, and they are not the same failure twice.
He did this and convicted them of their folly; but before doing so He revealed its underlying causes. They did not know the Scriptures — that was ignorance. They did not know the power of God — that was unbelief. These twin pillars held up their unbelieving error. The same two pillars hold up modern unbelief of the Sadducee type. They misquote, misinterpret or mangle Scripture again and again. And they think of God as anything but Almighty — as just a man, though with larger powers than ourselves.
Their puzzle only works if you ignore both halves of the Lord's sentence. Take either half and the trap falls apart:
Suppose Scripture had said that people marry after they rise. Then their invented case might have been a real difficulty. If God had no power, the resurrection itself would be impossible.
Their weapon is an invented case. The same writer sees a fixed pattern in it:
All the apparent strength of unbelief lies in raising difficulties. It invents imaginary cases that do not apply. It reasons from the things of men to the things of God. The whole basis is false assumption... As for difficulties, what are they to the power of God, even supposing there were difficulties to man? What is beyond the power and the imagination of man is very possible to God.
Their question assumed that the next life just carries on this one, with the same ties. The Lord describes something else:
They were wrong, because they knew neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. The Lord reveals the state of those who are raised. That shows the plain ignorance and folly of the Sadducees' reasoning. It is a high and holy state where what is merely earthly will have passed away for ever. Things ordered by God and owned here will have passed away there. What is spiritual alone remains, and the body itself changed into suitable glory.
He said they did not know the Scriptures. Now He proves it from the part they honoured most — the five books of Moses:
The Lord does not quote the clearest Scripture about the resurrection. Here He does something much better. He appeals to what they themselves claimed to honour most... Everyone, their own conscience included, must allow that God is the God, not of the dead, but of the living. Therefore, if God calls Himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it is not a meaningless thing... He speaks as one who was not only in relationship with them. He had made them promises, and those promises were never yet fulfilled.
The rebuke is not locked in the past. One writer ends with a question about our own reading:
With them we find mere human thought pushing into spiritual things. Its own poverty would make heaven poor as well. But they know neither the Scriptures — when did an unbeliever ever know the Scriptures? — nor the power of God. The Lord proves to them that the simplest sayings of God may hold what would enrich us for ever. And we do not find it there. Will we ever wake up and give the rich land God has given us the cultivation it needs?
- Two pillars. Not knowing the Scriptures is ignorance; not knowing the power of God is unbelief. Error stands on both.
- The method. Unbelief builds imaginary cases. It reasons from man's things to God's things. The whole structure rests on a false assumption.
- The power. What lies beyond man's power and imagination is possible to God. Admit His power and the difficulty is gone.
- The state. When the dead rise, earthly ties are gone for ever. What is spiritual remains, and the body is changed into suitable glory.
- The proof. God called Himself the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob long after they died. His promises to them were still unfulfilled. He is the God of the living, not of the dead.
For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as angels of God in heaven.
The Sadducees did not believe in resurrection, and they asked Jesus whose wife a woman would be if she had married seven brothers in turn. His reply says that risen life is not this life restarted, and it raises a question: what carries over from earth?
The men who asked it did not want an answer. One writer notes what lay behind the question, and how much the Lord's short reply overturned at once:
Ignorance, unbelief and sarcasm prompted this question. And what did He answer? He exposes both their ignorance of the Scripture and of the power of God… But the Lord does not try to prove to them that the Scriptures are true. He tells them instead that they are ignorant. Then He continues, "For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven." In a few words the Lord confirms the truth of resurrection and the existence of angels, which they denied. He also shows that their unspiritual imaginings came only from their unspiritual hearts. Our present lowly body will not continue in resurrection, and earthly relations such as marrying and giving in marriage will cease there.
Another writer names their method. They "did not try to prove it false by Scripture, but they opposed it by ridicule" (Hamilton Smith).
Their mistake was to assume that if God raises the dead, He must hand people back exactly the life they had before.
They were limiting God to their own narrow ideas. They assumed that in resurrection God must give man back the same conditions we live under now… He tells them that in the resurrection marriage has no place. Just as among the angels there is no question of difference in sex, so it will be in resurrection life. For resurrection introduces a totally new condition of things.
One writer explains why marriage belongs to earth alone.
Death does not reign there; so marriage, by which the race is continued on earth, has no place on high. Further, they are equal to angels, and all of them are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. The test case, so conclusive to those Sadducees against a resurrection, broke down at once. The condition needed to make it valid will not exist.
One writer marks out how far the likeness goes, and where it stops.
There is not a line in Scripture to say that the relationships of earth will continue in heaven. We shall not rise as husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants. In this respect we shall be like the angels. We shall not be angels, as some people wrongly imagine. We shall be like them only in being free from earthly relationships. The believer will enjoy privileges and heavenly relationships far above angels, and far above the passing relationships of this present life.
Jesus is not describing where the risen will live but what they will be.
In the resurrection everything changes. Marrying and giving in marriage are no longer in question — one is like the angels of God in heaven. The question here is not the position a person may be found in, but the character in which he exists.
Many hear this verse as a threat to the people they love. One writer answers that fear head-on:
Many minds now hold a monstrous piece of unbelief. They think that because earthly ties and relationships end in heaven, people will not be known there, or that our interest in one another will not last. The foolishness of the thought is easy to see. I know and love many who were once my masters or my servants on earth, and they know and love me. The relationship has passed, but thank God the mutual love and esteem our hearts formed in it have not.
What replaces the earthly tie is not emptiness but one greater bond. One writer puts it plainly: "Christ will be our only Bridegroom. We will need nothing more to be completely fulfilled, just as the angels are fully happy with their unique place in God's creation" (Various).
- Wrong measure. The Sadducees judged resurrection by the only world they knew. They boxed God inside their own narrow ideas.
- Wrong marriage. Marriage carries the human race forward on earth. Where death does not reign, that work is done.
- Right likeness. Believers do not become angels. They become like them at one point only: free from the relationships of earth.
- Right change. Resurrection changes not where you are but the character in which you exist.
- Right gain. The tie ends, the love does not, and Christ Himself becomes the one bond that leaves nothing wanting.
But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read what was spoken to you by God, saying,
The Sadducees denied any resurrection. They brought Jesus a riddle about a woman married to seven brothers in turn. He did not answer from the prophets. He answered from one sentence God spoke to Moses at the burning bush. Two things carry the weight of the verse: where He chose to read from, and His claim that these ancient words were said to them.
Jesus does not reach for the clearest resurrection passage in the Old Testament. He goes to the five books of Moses, the part these men honoured above all, and shows the resurrection is already there.
The Sadducees denied the resurrection. They put forward a case that in their own minds raised problems no one could answer... The Lord does not quote the clearest Scripture about the resurrection. He does something far better in the circumstances. He appeals to the very part they themselves claimed to respect above all. For a Sadducee, no part of Scripture carried the authority of the five books of Moses. So it was from Moses that He proved the resurrection.
God said these words to one man at a bush in the desert. Jesus tells a crowd standing there generations later that the words were addressed to them.
The patriarchs had died and left the world of men, but they were living in God's presence, and that guaranteed a resurrection at God's appointed hour... Notice too that the Lord spoke of the statement as "said to you." What God said to Moses holds good for everyone, and for all time.
Luke's account of this same moment names Moses as the writer. Matthew's wording points past him to God.
Luke shows clearly that the human author was Moses, while the parallel passage in Matthew 22:31 adds a word about the divine inspiration of the same words. And notice that it is the written word that this scripture gives authority to. God first spoke the words to Moses, but in their written form Scripture says God spoke them to the hearers, because He preserved them for the good of all.
The question is a rebuke. They did not lack evidence. They had failed to read what was already in their hands — and the writer turns the same test on us.
Christ was showing them that if they had studied these scriptures, they would have found the will of God on the very subjects they were asking Him about. If the Old Testament taught them anything on a subject, that was reason enough for them to accept the teaching as God's own. Is it not reason enough for you too?
The proof hangs on the word "am." A relationship stated in the present tense requires someone on the other side of it.
God says at the bush, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." But if He was in that relationship with them at the time, then they must exist for Him to be so. He could not be the God of the dead — dead in the Sadducee sense, meaning people who no longer exist at all. They must be alive in some sense, alive to Him, and so they are.
The Sadducees asked about bodies. The answer only reaches that far if a living spirit means a coming resurrection. One writer draws the link from what makes a person whole:
The bodies of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob have died, but their spirits live. That fact makes it necessary for God to raise them, because a person is not complete without spirit and soul and body (1 Thessalonians 5:23).
A second thread runs through the answer. God tied His name to three men He had made promises to, and they had not yet enjoyed them.
However low and beaten down the people had fallen, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had not changed. The promises made to the fathers stayed sure, and the fathers were alive, to enjoy those promises later. What was in question was the word and the power of God.
William Kelly presses the point further:
He speaks as One who not only had dealings with them, but had made them promises that were never yet fulfilled. Either God must raise them from the dead to make good His promises to the fathers, or He was not careful to keep His promises. To deny the resurrection is therefore to deny the promises, and God's faithfulness, and in truth God Himself.
- Living text — God spoke at the bush to Moses, yet Jesus quotes the words as "said to you." What God said then holds good for everyone, for all time.
- Living authority — Jesus' "have you not read?" makes the Old Testament reason enough on its own. Had they studied it, they would have known God's will.
- Living God — "I am the God of Abraham" is present tense. He cannot be in relationship with someone who no longer exists.
- Living fathers — The bodies of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob died, but their spirits live. A person is not complete without body as well as spirit and soul, so God must raise them.
- Living promise — God attached His name to men He had made promises to. He must raise them to keep His word.
*I* am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not God of [the] dead, but of [the] living.
The Sadducees denied any resurrection. Jesus answers them with one line from Moses at the burning bush, and everything turns on its tense: God still ties His own name to three men who had lain in the grave for centuries.
Jesus could have quoted a plain resurrection text. Instead He chose the ground His opponents themselves trusted most.
The Sadducees denied resurrection... The Lord does not quote the clearest Scripture about the resurrection. He does something far better here: He appeals to the part of Scripture they themselves claimed to honour most. For a Sadducee, no part of Scripture carried the authority of the five books of Moses. From Moses, then, He proved the resurrection... But there is far more than that. He speaks as One who not only had dealings with them, but had made them promises that were still unkept. So either God must raise them from the dead to keep His promises to the fathers, or He is not careful to keep His promises. To deny the resurrection, then, is to deny the promises, to deny God's faithfulness, and in truth to deny God Himself.
The force of the whole answer sits in one tense.
What God said was, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." And when He said this, these men had been dead for centuries. Had they, then, ceased to exist? No — for then God would have said, "I was their God," since He is not the God of the dead, of people who don't exist, but of the living. In this memorable answer the Lord proved that those who are dead to this present life live in the next. He also stressed that each of them keeps his own identity.
The word "dead" here carries the meaning the Sadducees gave it. (These writers quote an older translation; the ESV reads, "He is not God of the dead, but of the living.")
"God is not the God of the dead [that is, completely and forever gone, which was the sense the Sadducees He was arguing with gave the word] but of the living."
God did not merely mention these men. He named Himself by them.
If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had ceased to exist, could God have still 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 relationship completely unworthy of Him — the God of men who had no more than an animal life. God describes Himself by them; He is not ashamed to be called their God. Could He describe Himself by a dying animal, someone who did not exist at all when He called Himself their God?
The answer settles something about the body too.
Though the bodies of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob have died, their spirits live. So God must raise them in the end, for a person is not complete without spirit and soul and body (1 Thessalonians 5:23). The Lord therefore stressed a second time how great the error of the Sadducees was.
How long does that life last?
Our Lord quotes these words of Moses and adds, "God is not the God of the dead, but of the LIVING." That stresses that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are alive now, long centuries after their bodies died. Nothing puts a limit on their existence.
The answer is simple, and it meets something we already know inside.
Now another kind of unbelief attacks our Lord — that of the Sadducees. Notice the beautiful simplicity of the wisdom of the mind of Christ. He brings them back to the burning bush and the voice of God that spoke from it, telling them that "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." Our natural conscience tells us that He is the God of the living.
- Relationship — God said "I am," not "I was." Everything in the verse hangs on a living link between God and three long-buried men.
- Existence — That link proves they still exist. God cannot be in relationship with someone who is nothing, so the Sadducees' idea of death collapses.
- Resurrection — The link also demands their bodies rise. A person is not complete as spirit alone, so living souls guarantee raised bodies.
- Promises — The same link secures the promises God made to them and never yet kept. God must raise them, or fail His own word.
- You — Jesus argued from Moses, the book His opponents trusted most. The point lands on your conscience: the God who names Himself by His people does not lose them at death.