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.