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Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 22:23

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The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him,

Conversation of Jesus with the Sadducees respecting the resurrection – See also Mar 12:18-27; Luk 20:27-38.

Mat 22:23

The same day came the Sadducees – For an account of the Sadducees, see the notes at Mat 3:7.

No resurrection – The word resurrection usually means the raising up the body to life after it is dead, Joh 11:24; Joh 5:29; 1Co 15:22. But the Sadducees not only denied this, but also a future state, and the separate existence of the soul after death altogether, as well as the existence of angels and spirits, Act 23:8. Both these doctrines have commonly stood or fallen together, and the answer of our Saviour respects both, though it more distinctly refers to the separate existence of the soul, and to a future state of rewards and punishments, than to the resurrection of the body.

Mat 22:24

Saying, Master, Moses said … – Deu 25:5-6. This law was given by Moses in order to keep the families and tribes of the Israelites distinct, and to perpetuate them.

Raise up seed unto his brother – That is, the children shall be reckoned in the genealogy of the deceased brother; or, to all civil purposes, shall be considered as his.

Mat 22:25-28

There were with us seven brethren – It is probable that they stated a case as difficult as possible; and though no such case might have occurred, yet it was supposable, and in their view it presented a real difficulty.

The difficulty arose from the fact, that they supposed that, substantially, the same state of things must take place in the other world as here; that if there is such a world, husbands and wives must be there reunited; and they professed not to be able to see how one woman could be the wife of seven men.

Mat 22:29

Ye do err, not knowing … – They had taken a wrong view of the doctrine of the resurrection.

It was not taught that people would marry there. The Scriptures, here, mean the books of the Old Testament. By appealing to them, Jesus showed that the doctrine of the future state was there, and that the Sadducees should have believed it as it was, and not have added the absurd doctrine to it that people must live there as they do here. The way in which the enemies of the truth often attempt to make a doctrine of the Bible ridiculous is by adding to it, and then calling it absurd. The reason why the Saviour produced a passage from the books of Moses Mat 22:32 was that they had also appealed to his writings, Mat 22:24. Other places of the Old Testament, in fact, asserted the doctrine more clearly Dan 12:2; Isa 26:19, but he wished to meet them on their own ground. None of those scriptures asserted that people would live there as they do here, and therefore their reasoning was false.

Nor the power of God – They probably denied, as many have done since, that God could gather the scattered dust of the dead and remould it into a body. On this ground they affirmed that the doctrine could not be true – opposing reason to revelation, and supposing that infinite power could not reorganize a body that it had at first organized, and raise a body from its own dust which it had at first raised from nothing.

Mat 22:30

Neither marry … – This was a full answer to the objections of the Sadducees.

But are as the angels of God – That is, in the manner of their conversation; in regard to marriage and the mode of their existence.

Luke adds that they shall be equal with the angels. That is, they shall be elevated above the circumstances of mortality, and live in a manner and in a kind of conversation similar to that of the angels. It does not imply that they shall be equal in intellect, but only in the circumstances of their existence, as that is distinguished from the way in which mortals live. He also adds, Neither do they die any more, but are the children of God; being the children of the resurrection, or being accounted worthy to be raised up to life, and therefore sons of God raised up to him.

Mat 22:31, Mat 22:32

As touching … – That is, in proof that the dead are raised.

The passage which he quotes is recorded in Exo 3:6, Exo 3:15, This was at the burning bush (Mark and Luke). Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had been dead for a long time when Moses spoke this – Abraham for 329 years, Isaac for 224 years, and Jacob for 198 years – yet God spake then as being still their God. They must, therefore, be still somewhere living, for God is not the God of the dead; that is, it is absurd to say that God rules over those who are extinct or annihilated, but he is the God only of those who have an existence. Luke adds, all live unto him. That is, all the righteous dead, all of whom he can be properly called their God, live unto his glory. This passage does not prove directly that the dead body would be raised, but only by consequence. It proves that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had an existence then, or that their souls were alive. This the Sadducees denied Act 23:8, and this was the main point in dispute. If this was admitted – if there was a state of rewards and punishments – then it would easily follow that the bodies of the dead would be raised.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Mat 22:23-33

For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage.

The joys of heaven

The Gauls, an ancient people of France, after they had once tasted of the sweet wine of the grapes that grew in Italy, inquired after that country where such pleasant liquor was, and understanding of it, they made towards that place, and never rested till they came thither where such pleasant things grew. Could we only realize something of the joys of heaven, should we not more earnestly set ourselves to find the way? This thought often sustained Christian martyrs in their sufferings.

The angelic life

We must all of us develop one way or the other; manhood here is but the corn in the ear.

I. In what respects are these saints who have passed the stream of death like unto the angels.

1. The saints of God are like unto the angels as to the qualities of their persons. Sex is obliterated not in mental characteristics, but in bodily frame. Alike in their immortality they cannot die. Like the angels in the maturity of their being, the body is raised in glory. Resemble the angels in beauty, and equal them in strength. What a blessed personality will be yours when the present age is past.

2. There will be likeness between the angels and glorified saints in the matter of character. No inbred sin. Purity and perfection.

3. The souls of the blessed are like to angels as to their occupation. Adoration; wondering study; gazing upon God; untiring service-these their occupations.

4. We shall be like the angels in heavenliness. Here we want externals; eat and drink: there no desires of an earthly kind.

5. Like the angels as to our happiness.

II. The angelic life on earth. We may be like angels here below.

1. Be it ours, as it was theirs, to declare the word of God.

2. For fighting a good fight. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon.

3. In setting free those who are the prisoners of hope. The angel came to Peter in prison.

4. In ministering comfort to those who are saved. An angel said to Paul, Fear not.

5. In watching our souls. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Ignorance of Holy Scripture the source of error in religion

I. To establish the fact that ignorance of holy scripture is the source of error in religion. Holy Scripture is the truth from which error is the deviation. The Sadducees erred because they knew them not: they denied the resurrection of the dead. They substituted tradition for them: hence their error.

II. That misrepresentation of scripture leads to sinful consequences. Destroy the temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Upon this false witnesses accused Christ. See how the misinterpretation of Christs words led to sin. Education that falls short of knowing the Scriptures will end in error. (C. Cator, M. A.)

A resurrection emblem

The churchyard at Oberhofen, Switzerland was beautiful, and the simplicity of the little remembrance-posts set upon the graves very pleasant. One who had been too poor to put up an engraved brass plate, or even a painted board, had written with ink on paper the birth and death of the being whose remains were below, and this had been fastened to a board, and mounted on the top of a stick at the head of the grave, the paper being protected by a little edge and roof. Such was the simple remembrance, but Nature had added her pathos, for under the shelter by the writing a caterpillar had fastened itself, and passed into its death-like state of chrysalis, and having ultimately assumed its final state, it had winged its way from the spot, and had left the corpse-like relics behind. How old and how beautiful is this figure of the resurrection! Surely it can never appear before our eyes without touching the thoughts. (Life of Faraday.)

Creation is more inexplicable than resurrection

For it is not the same thing to rekindle an extinguished lamp, as to show fire that has never yet appeared. It is not the same thing to raise up again a house that has fallen down, and to produce one which has never had an existence. (Chrysostom.)

The intermediate state

I. The soul of man subsists after death, and hath some place of abode allotted to it at the resurrection.

II. This intermediate state is, in all probability, not a state of insensibility to the souls of the righteous; but of thought and self-consciousness, and consequently of content and of happiness, in a certain degree. (John Jortin.)

Things said not to be in heaven, which yet are in heaven

There are many things said not to be in heaven, and yet, in another sense, said to be there. There is no temple in heaven; but the Lord God and the Lamb are the temple thereof. There is no sea in heaven; but there is a glassy sea proceeding from before the throne, not a tumultuous angry sea, but a translucent one whose, kindly waves are gently flowing. There is no night in heaven, but there are stars there: for they who turn many to righteousness shall shine as stars in the kingdom of heaven; and one star differeth from another star in glory. So there is no marriage in heaven, and yet heaven is one marriage, and its happiness is represented by a marriage festival, God Himself being the universal husband, and all the redeemed being to Him as one endeared wife. So we may be very sure that if marriage, as it exists here, be not the pattern of things to come, it is the parable of things to come. We may be very sure of this, that if relationships on earth shall not be entanglements hereafter, yet that whatever we enjoy now we shall enjoy then in a transfigured way; we may be very sure that in a world where there is no death, and therefore where there needs to be no birth, there shall be those varieties of life for which birth here provides. No death, therefore no birth, therefore not the ordinary terrestrial necessity for marriage as it exists around us. But marriage is an intimate delightful companionship; and shall the joy of companionship fail for ever? Nay; has not the one Lord-if we think deeply, and purify ore thoughts from sensual relation-has not the one Lord a married nature? Can we think of Him otherwise than as having in Himself the perpetual joy of companionship, and, with a motherly heart and a fatherly heart blended in the one great heart of supreme love, giving forth to us, as the expression of Hit maternity and His fatherhood, His Son-the Lord Jesus Christ-so womanly in His tenderness, so manly in His strength. (T. T. Lynch.)

Voices from heaven

I was reading the other day that, on the shores of the Adriatic Sea, the wives of fishermen whose husbands have gone out on the deep are in the habit, at eventide, of going down to the sea-shore, and singing, as female voices only can, the first stanza of a beautiful hymn. After they have sung it, they listen till they hear, borne by the wind across the desert-sea, the second stanza, sung by their gallant husbands, as they are tossed by the gale upon the waves; and both are happy. Perhaps if we could listen, we, too, might hear on this desert-world of ours some sound, some whisper, borne from afar, to remind us that there is a heaven and a home; and, when we sing the hymn upon the shores of earth, perhaps we shall hear its sweet echo breaking in music upon the sands of time, and cheering the hearts of them that are pilgrims and strangers, and look for a city that hath foundations. (J. Cumming, D. D.)

As the angels

The blessed in heaven after the resurrection shall be like the angels, not by nature; but

(1) by purity;

(2) by spiritual life, for they live by spiritual not corporeal food:

(3) by incorruption and immortality;

(4) by happiness and glory, in which, like the angels, they will continue for all eternity. (Lapide.)

The functions of mans animal nature not operative in heaven

Well, how is that? He did not say. He likened them to the angels, but did not tell us how the angels were. It was rather negative. He declared that one potential, universal part of the economy of human life, with all its incidents and concomitants, stopped at the grave. This is the part of man out of which multitudinous history, good and bad, is derived. But useful as it is, it ceases and does not go on into the other life; and it seems very natural, since man is a double being, born for this lower life, in transition and formation for a life to come, that a portion of the powers or faculties which fit him especially for this lower life, when they shall have performed their function, will, as it were, like the calyx of a flower, wither and fall back, and that into the other life we shall carry only those parts of our nature which are highest and noblest, and which have relation to the spiritual rather than to the physical. (H. W. Beecher.)

Heaven vaguely revealed yet a comfort to the human heart

I have sat on the summit of Mount Holyoke, and looked out over the Connecticut valley, and seen as entrancing views as ever comforted the heart of man, poet though he might be; and yet, if you had asked me, What is in that field? I could not have told you whether it was wheat, or rye, or grass, or corn. If you had asked me, What is that village? I could not have told you. I could just see a white glimmer among the green trees, but that was all. If you had asked me, Who are those men working yonder? or What are they doing? I could not have told you. I could see men that seemed to be about the size of ants crawling over the surface of the ground; but whether they were mowing, or hoeing, or walking, or running, I could not tell. The whole picture lay before me, magnificent, and quickened every spring of fancy, and comforted my heart; but I could not give much idea of its horticulture, or agriculture, or anything that went to make up the interior of its life. (H. W. Beecher.)

Gods power a guarantee for the care of men who have departed this life

The argument Christ uses so convincingly is really this, and it is very simple: God said, I am the God of your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-not i was, but I am-meaning, that these had been dear to Him, and still were. Now, if these were Gods children, and God loved them, why should they die? All live unto Him, says Christ-as He pleases, and as long as He pleases. If he speaks of your fathers as caring for their life, why should you think them dead? They lived from Him, and they lived for Him, and therefore they live still. If they lived from Him, and no power could take their life away without His permission; if they lived for Him in such a sense that they were endeared to Him-why should the) die? Would we let any one dear to us die, if we had an absolute control over life, as God has? Leave the thought of persons, and take the baser case of money. If a man keeps his money upon his table, and has a sufficient watch over his house, why do we feel sure that the bags of money are safe? Because we know that, being in his power, he not only is not likely to throw them out of the window-he loves them too well for that-but that, having power also to keep them from the thief, his love answers for their security. If he could not keep them, it is likely enough that they would be lost, for there are other people that desire to have them. The fact of his having them would be no obstacle to their having them, if only they could lay hands on them. But if, in the ease of money, where a man has power to keep it, he certainly will, what shall we say of the soul-the soul on which God has bestowed His Fatherly care? If no one-no devouring lion-can pluck Abraham out of Gods hand, will God throw him away and say He cares for him no longer? If no one could destroy the lives of these fathers but God, was He likely to do it? (T. T. Lynch.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 23. The same day] Malice is ever active; let it be defeated ever so often, it returns to the charge. Jesus and his Gospel give no quarter to vice; the vicious will give no quarter to him or it.

The Sadducees] For an account of these see on Mt 16:1.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Mark thus repeats the same history, Mar 12:18-22. So doth Luke, Luk 20:27-33. Concerning the Sadducees we have before spoken; they were a sect amongst the Jews much differing from the Pharisees, as may be seen, Act 23:8. Amongst other erroneous tenets, they denied the resurrection, as may be seen in that text, as well as this; and (which indeed was their fundamental error) they denied spirits, and consequently the immortality of the soul in its separate estate. Their design seemeth not so much to have been to have drawn out a discourse from our Saviour which might have touched his life, (which was the Pharisees design), as to have exposed him, by bringing him to an absurdity. To this purpose they put a case to our Saviour upon the law, Deu 25:5, where God had ordained, for the preservation of the inheritances of the several tribes and families distinct, That if brethren dwelt together, and one of them died leaving no issue; the wife of the dead should not marry unto a stranger; her husbands brother should go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, &c. Now they either knew of, or else supposed, a ease of seven brethren, successively marrying the same woman; they desire to know whose wife of the seven this woman should be in the resurrection. Instead of discovering their acuteness, and putting our Saviour upon a difficulty, they did but betray their own ignorance as to the state of the resurrection.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

Ver. 23 The same day came to him the Sadducees, ] Quickly after the Pharisees and Herodians had left him and which shows, that the Herodians and Sadducees were not the same; but that the Sadducees were a distinct sect, both from the Pharisees and the Herodians. These understanding that the former had not succeeded, came with a knotty question, with which they had often puzzled the Pharisees, and hoped they should nonplus Christ with it, showing the absurdity of the doctrine of the resurrection, an article which they denied; as it follows,

which say, that there is no resurrection of the dead: they denied that there were angels and spirits, and the immortality of the soul; they affirmed, that the soul died with the body, and that there was no future state: the rise of this sect, and of these notions of their’s, was this, as the Jews relate w.

“Antigonus, a man of Socho, used to say, be not as servants, that serve their master on account of receiving a reward, but be as servants that serve their master, not on account of receiving a reward; and let the fear of heaven (God) be upon you, so that your reward may be double in the world to come: this man had two disciples, who altered his words, and taught the disciples, and the disciples their disciples, and they stood and narrowly examined them, and said, what did our fathers see, to say this thing? Is it possible, that a labourer should work all day, and not take his reward at evening? But if our fathers had known that there is another world, and that there is , “a resurrection of the dead”, they would not have said thus: they stood and separated from the law, and of them there were two parties, the Sadducees and Baithusites; the Sadducees on account of Sadoc, and the Baithusites on account of Baithus.”

The Syriac version reads, “and they said” and the Ethiopic version also, “saying, there is no resurrection of the dead”; taking the sense to be, that they at this time declared their sense of this doctrine, and according to a settled notion of their’s, affirmed before Christ, that there was no such thing; that never any was raised from the dead, nor never will; and they were desirous of entering into a controversy with him about it:

and asked him; put the following question to him, in order to expose the weakness and absurdity of such a doctrine.

w Abot R. Nathan, c. 5. fol. 3. 1.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

The Question Respecting Marriage.

23 The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him, 24 Saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. 25 Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother: 26 Likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh. 27 And last of all the woman died also. 28 Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her. 29 Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. 31 But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, 32 I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. 33 And when the multitude heard this, they were astonished at his doctrine.

We have here Christ’s dispute with the Sadducees concerning the resurrection; it was the same day on which he was attacked by the Pharisees about paying tribute. Satan was now more busy than ever to ruffle and disturb him; it was an hour of temptation, Rev. iii. 10. The truth as it is in Jesus will still meet with contradiction, in some branch or other of it. Observe here,

I. The opposition which the Sadducees made to a very great truth of religion; they say, There is no resurrection, as there are some fools who say, There is no God. These heretics were called Sadducees from one Sadoc, a disciple of Antigonus Sochus, who flourished about two hundred and eighty-four years before our Saviour’s birth. They lie under heavy censures among the writers of their own nation, as men of base and debauched conversations, which their principles led them to. They were the fewest in number of all the sects among the Jews, but generally persons of some rank. As the Pharisees and Essenes seemed to follow Plato and Pythagoras, so the Sadducees were much of the genius of the Epicureans; they denied the resurrection, they said, There is no future state, no life after this; that, when the body dies, the soul is annihilated, and dies with it; that there is no state of rewards or punishments in the other world; no judgment to come in heaven or hell. They maintained, that, except God, there is not spirit (Acts xxiii. 8), nothing but matter and motion. They would not own the divine inspiration of the prophets, nor any revelation from heaven, but what God himself spoke upon mount Sinai. Now the doctrine of Christ carried that great truth of the resurrection and a future state much further than it had yet been revealed, and therefore the Sadducees in a particular manner set themselves against it. The Pharisees and Sadducees were contrary to each other, and yet confederates against Christ. Christ’s gospel hath always suffered between superstitious ceremonious hypocrites and bigots on the one hand, and profane deists and infidels on the other. The former abusing, the latter despising, the form of godliness, but both denying the power of it.

II. The objection they made against the truth, which was taken from a supposed case of a woman that had seven husbands successively; now they take it for granted, that, if there be a resurrection, it must be a return to such a state as this we are now in, and to the same circumstances, like the imaginary Platonic year; and if so, it is an invincible absurdity for this woman in the future state to have seven husbands, or else an insuperable difficulty which of them should have her, he whom she had first, or he whom she had last, or he whom she loved best, or he whom she lived longest with.

1. They suggest the law of Moses in this matter (v. 24), that the next of kin should marry the widow of him that died childless (Deut. xxv. 5); we have it practised Ruth iv. 5. It was a political law, founded in the particular constitution of the Jewish commonwealth, to preserve the distinction of families and inheritances, of both which there was special care taken in that government.

2. They put a case upon this statute, which, whether it were a case in fact or only a moot case, is not at all material; if it had not really occurred, yet possibly it might. It was of seven brothers, who married the same woman, v. 25-27. Now this case supposes,

(1.) The desolations that death sometimes makes in families when it comes with commission; how it often sweeps away a whole fraternity in a little time;: seldom (as the case is put) according to seniority (the land of darkness is without any order,) but heaps upon heaps; it diminishes families that had multiplied greatly, Psa 107:38; Psa 107:39. When there were seven brothers grown up to man’s estate, there was a family very likely to be built up; and yet this numerous family leaves neither son nor nephew, nor any remaining in their dwellings, Job xviii. 19. Well may we say then, Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. Let none be sure of the advancement and perpetuity of their names and families, unless they could make a covenant of peace with death, or be at an agreement with the grave.

(2.) The obedience of these seven brothers to the law, though they had a power of refusal under the penalty of a reproach, Deut. xxv. 7. Note, Discouraging providences should not keep us from doing our duty because we must be governed by the rule, not by the event. The seventh, who ventured last to marry the widow (many a one would say) was abold man. I would say, if he did it purely in obedience to God, he was a good man, and one that made conscience of his duty.

But, last of all, the woman died also. Note, Survivorship is but a reprieve; they that live long, and bury their relations and neighbours one after another, do not thereby acquire an immortality; no, their day will come to fall. Death’s bitter cup goes round, and, sooner or later, we must all pledge in it, Jer. xxv. 26.

3. They propose a doubt upon this case (v. 28); “In the resurrection, whose wife shall she be of the seven? You cannot tell whose; and therefore we must conclude there is no resurrection.” The Pharisees, who professed to believe a resurrection, had very gross and carnal notions concerning it, and concerning the future state; expecting to find there, as the Turks in their paradise, the delights and pleasures of the animal life, which perhaps drove the Sadducees to deny the thing itself; for nothing gives greater advantage to atheism and infidelity than the carnality of those that make religion, either in its professions or in its prospects, a servant to their sensual appetites and secular interests; while those that are erroneous deny the truth, those that are superstitious betray it to them. Now they, in this objection, went upon the Pharisees’ hypothesis. Note, It is not strange that carnal minds have very false notions of spiritual and eternal things. The natural man receiveth not these things, for they are foolishness to him. 1 Cor. ii. 14. Let truth be set in a clear light, and then it appears in its full strength.

III. Christ’s answer to this objection; by reproving their ignorance, and rectifying their mistake, he shows the objection to be fallacious and unconcluding.

1. He reproves their ignorance (v. 29); Ye do err. Note, Those do greatly err, in the judgment of Christ, who deny the resurrection and a future state. Here Christ reproves with the meekness of wisdom, and is not so sharp upon them (whatever was the reason) as sometimes he was upon the chief priests and elders; Ye do err, not knowing. Note, Ignorance is the cause of error; those that are in the dark, miss their way. The patrons of error do therefore resist the light, and do what they can to take away the key of knowledge; Ye do err in this matter, not knowing. Note, Ignorance is the cause of error about the resurrection and the future state. What it is in its particular instances, the wisest and best know not; it doth not yet appear what we shall be, it is a glory that is to be revealed: when we speak of the state of separate souls, the resurrection of the body, and of eternal happiness and misery, we are soon at a loss; we cannot order our speech, by reason of darkness, but that it is a thing about which we are not left in the dark; blessed be God, we are not; and those who deny it are guilty of a willing and affected ignorance. It seems, there were some Sadducees, some such monsters, among professing Christians, some among you, that say, There is no resurrection of the dead (1 Cor. xv. 12) and some that did in effect deny it, by turning it into an allegory, saying, The resurrection is past already. Now observe,

(1.) They know not the power of God; which would lead men to infer that there may be a resurrection and a future state. Note, The ignorance, disbelief, or weak belief, of God’s power, is at the bottom of many errors, particularly theirs who deny the resurrection. When we are told of the soul’s existence and agency in a state of separation from the body, and especially that a dead body, which had lain many ages in the grave, and is turned into common and indistinguished dust, that this shall be raised the same body that it was, and live, move, and act, again; we are ready to say, How can these things be? Nature allows it for a maxim, A privatione ad habitum non datur regressus–The habits attaching to a state of existence vanish irrecoverably with the state itself. If a man die, shall he live again? And vain men, because they cannot comprehend the way of it, question the truth of it; whereas, if we firmly believe in God the Father Almighty, that nothing is impossible with God, all these difficulties vanish. This therefore we must fasten upon, in the first place, that God is omnipotent, and can do what he will; and then no room is left for doubting but that he will do what he has promised; and, if so, why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead? Acts xxvi. 8. His power far exceeds the power of nature.

(2.) They know not the scriptures, which decidedly affirm that there shall be a resurrection and a future state. The power of God, determined and engaged by his promise, is the foundation for faith to build upon. Now the scriptures speak plainly, that the soul is immortal, and there is another life after this; it is the scope both of the law and of the prophets, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and of the unjust,Act 24:14; Act 24:15. Job knew it (Job xix. 26), Ezekiel foresaw it (Ezek. xxxvii.), and Daniel plainly foretold it, Dan. xii. 2. Christ rose again according to the scriptures (1 Cor. xv. 3); and so shall we. Those therefore who deny it, either have not conversed with the Scriptures, or do not believe them, or do not take the true sense and meaning of them. Note, Ignorance of the scripture is the rise of abundance of mischief.

2. He rectifies their mistake, and (v. 30) corrects those gross ideas which they had of the resurrection and a future state, and fixes these doctrines upon a true and lasting basis. Concerning that state, observe,

(1.) It is not like the state we are now in upon earth; They neither marry, nor are given in marriage. In our present state marriage is necessary; it was instituted in innocency; whatever intermission or neglect there has been of other institutions, this was never laid aside, nor will be till the end of time. In the old world, they were marrying, and giving in marriage; the Jews in Babylon, when cut off from other ordinances, yet were bid to take them wives, Jer. xxix. 6. All civilized nations have had a sense of the obligation of the marriage covenant; and it is requisite for the gratifying of the desires, and recruiting the deficiencies, of the human nature. But, in the resurrection, there is no occasion for marriage; whether in glorified bodies there will be any distinction of sexes some too curiously dispute (the ancients are divided in their opinions about it); but, whether there will be a distinction or not, it is certain that there will be no conjunction; where God will be all in all, there needs no other meet-help; the body will be spiritual, and there will be in it no carnal desires to be gratified: when the mystical body is completed, there will be no further occasion to seek a godly seed, which was one end of the institution of marriage, Mal. ii. 15. In heaven there will be no decay of the individuals, and therefore no eating and drinking; no decay of the species, and therefore no marrying; where there shall be no more deaths (Rev. xxi. 4), there need be no more births. The married state is a composition of joys and cares; those that enter upon it are taught to look upon it as subject to changes, richer and poorer, sickness and health; and therefore it is fit for this mixed, changing world; but as in hell, where there is no joy, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride shall be heard no more at all, so in heaven, where there is all joy, and no care or pain or trouble, there will be no marrying. The joys of that state are pure and spiritual, and arise from the marriage of all of them to the Lamb, not of any of them to one another.

(2.) It is like the state angels are now in in heaven; They are as the angels of God in heaven; they are so, that is, undoubtedly they shall be so. They are so already in Christ their Head, who has made them sit with him in heavenly places, Eph. ii. 6. The spirits of just men already made perfect are of the same corporation with the innumerable company of angels, Heb 12:22; Heb 12:23. Man in his creation was made a little lower than the angels (Ps. viii. 5); but in his complete redemption and renovation will be as the angels; pure and spiritual as the angels, knowing and loving as those blessed seraphim, ever praising God like them and with them. The bodies of the saints shall be raised incorruptible and glorious, like the uncompounded vehicles of those pure and holy spirits (1 Cor. xv. 42, c.), swift and strong, like them. We should therefore desire and endeavour to do the will of God now as the angels do it in heaven, because we hope shortly to be like the angels who always behold our Father’s face. He saith nothing of the state of the wicked in the resurrection but, by consequence, they shall be like the devils, whose lusts they have done.

IV. Christ’s argument to confirm this great truth of the resurrection and a future state; the matters being of great concern, he did not think it enough (as in some other disputes) to discover the fallacy and sophistry of the objection, but backed the truth with a solid argument; for Christ brings forth judgment to truth as well as victory, and enables his followers to give a reason of the hope that is in them. Now observe,

1. Whence he fetched his argument–from the scripture; that is the great magazine or armoury whence we may be furnished with spiritual weapons, offensive and defensive. It is written is Goliath’s sword. Have ye not read that which was spoken to you by God? Note, (1.) What the scripture speaks God speaks. (2.) What was spoken to Moses was spoken to us; it was spoken and written for our learning. (3.) It concerns us to read and hear what God hath spoken, because it is spoken to us. It was spoken to you Jews in the first place, for to them were committed the oracles of God. The argument is fetched from the books of Moses, because the Sadducees received them only, as some think, or, at least, them chiefly, for canonical scriptures; Christ therefore fetched his proof from the most indisputable fountain. The latter prophets have more express proofs of a future state than the law of Moses has; for though the law of Moses supposes the immortality of the soul and a future state, as principles of what is called natural religion, yet no express revelation of it is made by the law of Moses; because so much of that law was peculiar to that people, and was therefore guarded as municipal laws used to be with temporal promises and threatenings, and the more express revelation of a future state was reserved for the latter days; but our Saviour finds a very solid argument for the resurrection even in the writings of Moses. Much scripture lies under ground, that must be digged for.

2. What his argument was (v. 32); I am the God of Abraham. This was not an express proof, totidem verbis–in so many words; and yet it was really a conclusive argument. Consequences from scripture, if rightly deduced, must be received as scripture; for it was written for those that have the use of reason.

Now the drift of the argument is to prove,

(1.) That there is a future state, another life after this, in which the righteous shall be truly and constantly happy. This is proved from what God said; I am the God of Abraham.

[1.] For God to be any one’s God supposes some very extraordinary privilege and happiness; unless we know fully what God is, we could not comprehend the riches of that word, I will be to thee a God, that is, a Benefactor like myself. The God of Israel is a God to Israel (1 Chron. xvii. 24), a spiritual Benefactor; for he is the Father of spirits, and blesseth with spiritual blessings: it is to be an all-sufficient Benefactor, a God that is enough, a complete Good, and an eternal Benefactor; for he is himself an everlasting God, and will be to those that are in covenant with him an everlasting Good. This great word God had often said to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and it was intended as a recompence for their singular faith and obedience, in quitting the country at God’s call. The Jews had a profound veneration for those three patriarchs, and would extend the promise God made them to the uttermost.

[2.] It is manifest that these good men had no such extraordinary happiness, in this life, as might look any thing like the accomplishment of so great a word as that. They were strangers in the land of promise, wandering, pinched with famine; they had not a foot of ground of their own but a burying-place, which directed them to look for something beyond this life. In present enjoyments they came far short of their neighbours that were strangers to this covenant. What was there in this world to distinguish them and the heirs of their faith from other people, any whit proportionable to the dignity and distinction of this covenant? If no happiness had been reserved for these great and good men on the other side of death, that melancholy word of poor Jacob’s, when he was old (Gen. xlvii. 9), Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, would have been an eternal reproach to the wisdom, goodness, and faithfulness, of that God who had so often called himself the God of Jacob.

[3.] Therefore there must certainly be a future state, in which, as God will ever live to be eternally rewarding, so Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, will ever live to be eternally rewarded. That of the apostle (Heb. xi. 16), is a key to this argument, where, when he had been speaking of the faith and obedience of the patriarchs in the land of their pilgrimage, he adds, Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; because he has provided for them a city, a heavenly city; implying, that if he had not provided so well for them in the other world, considering how they sped in this, he would have been ashamed to have called himself their God; but now he is not, having done that for them which answers it in its true intent and full extent.

(2.) That the soul is immortal, and the body shall rise again, to be united; if the former point be gained, these will follow; but they are likewise proved by considering the time when God spoke this; it was to Moses at the bush, long after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were dead and buried; and yet God saith, not, “I was,” or “have been,” but I am the God of Abraham. Now God is not God of the dead, but of the living. He is a living God, and communicates vital influences to those to whom he is a God. If, when Abraham died, there had been an end of him, there had been an end likewise of God’s relation to him as his God; but at that time, when God spoke to Moses, he was the God of Abraham, and therefore Abraham must be then alive; which proves the immortality of the soul in a state of bliss; and that, by consequence, infers the resurrection of the body; for there is such an inclination in the human soul to its body, as would make a final and eternal separation inconsistent with the bliss of those that have God for their God. The Sadducees’ notion was, that the union between body and soul is so close, that, when the body dies, the soul dies with it. Now, upon the same hypothesis, if the soul lives, as it certainly does, the body must some time or other live with it. And besides, the Lord is for the body, it is an essential part of the man; there is a covenant with the dust, which will be remembered, otherwise the man would not be happy. The charge which the dying patriarchs gave concerning their bones, and that in faith, was an evidence that they had some expectation of the resurrection of their bodies. But this doctrine was reserved for a more full revelation after the resurrection of Christ, who was the first-fruits of them that slept.

Lastly, We have the issue of this dispute. The Sadducees were put to silence (v. 34), and so put to shame. They thought by their subtlety to put Christ to shame, when they were preparing shame for themselves. But the multitude were astonished at this doctrine, v. 33. 1. Because it was new to them. See to what a sad pass the exposition of scripture was come among them, when people were astonished at it as a miracle to hear the fundamental promise applied to this great truth; they had sorry scribes, or this had been no news to them. 2. Because it had something in it very good and great. Truth often shows the brighter, and is the more admired, for its being opposed. Observe, Many gainsayers are silenced, and many hearers astonished, without being savingly converted; yet even in the silence and astonishment of unsanctified souls God magnifies his law, magnifies his gospel, and makes both honourable.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

Mat 22:23

. The same day came to him the Sadducees. We see here how Satan brings together all the ungodly, who in other respects differ widely from each other, to attack the truth of God. For, though deadly strife existed between these two sects, (66) yet they conspire together against Christ; so that the Pharisees are not displeased to have their own doctrine attacked in the person of Christ. Thus in the present day, we see all the forces of Satan, though in other respects they are opposed to each other, rising on every hand against Christ. And so fierce is the hatred with which the Papists burn against the Gospel, that they willingly support Epicureans, Libertines, and other monsters of that description, provided that they can avail themselves of their aid for accomplishing its destruction. In short, we see that they come out of various camps to make an attack on Christ; and that this was done, because all of them alike hated the light of sound doctrine. Now the Sadducees propose a question to Christ, that by the appearance of absurdity they may either lead him to take part in their error, or, if he disagree with them, that they may hold him up to disgrace and ridicule among an uneducated and ignorant multitude. It is no doubt possible, that they had been formerly accustomed to employ this sophistry for harassing the Pharisees, but now they attempt to take Christ in the same snare.

Who say that there is no resurrection. How the sect of the Sadducees originated we have explained under another passage. Luke assures us that they denied not only the final resurrection of the body, but also the immortality of the soul, (Act 23:8.) And, indeed, if we consider properly the doctrine of Scripture, the life of the soul, apart from the hope of the resurrection, will be a mere dream; for God does not declare that, immediately after the death of the body, souls live, — as if their glory and happiness were already enjoyed by them in perfections — but delays the expectation of them till the last day. I readily acknowledge that the philosophers, who were ignorant of the resurrection of the body, have many discussions about the immortal essence of the soul; but they talk so foolishly about the state of the future life that their opinions have no weight. But since the Scriptures inform us that the spiritual life depends on the hope of the resurrection, and that souls, when separated from the bodies, look forward to it, whoever destroys the resurrection deprives souls also of their immortality.

Now this enables us to perceive the dreadful confusion of the Jewish Church, that their rulers (67) in religious matters took away the expectation of a future life, so that, after the death of the body, men differed in no respect from brute beasts. They did not indeed deny that our lives ought to be holy and righteous, and were not so profane as to consider the worship of God to be superfluous; on the contrary, they maintained that God is the Judge of the world, and that the affairs of men are directed by His providence. But as the reward of the godly, and likewise the punishment due to the wicked, were limited by them to the present life, even though there had been truth in their assertion, that every man is now treated impartially according to his merit, (68) yet it was excessively absurd to restrict the promises of God within such narrow limits. Now experience plainly shows that they were chargeable with the grossest stupidity, since it is manifest that the reward which is laid up for the good is left incomplete till another life, and likewise that the punishment of the wicked is not wholly inflicted in this world.

In short, it is impossible to conceive any thing more absurd than this dream, that men formed after the image of God are extinguished by death like the beasts. But how disgraceful and monstrous was it that while, among the profane and blind idolaters of all nations, some notion, at least, of a future life still lingered, among the Jews, the peculiar people of God, this seed of piety was destroyed. I do not mention that, when they saw that the holy fathers earnestly aspired to the heavenly life, and that the covenant which God had made with them was spiritual and eternal, they must have been worse than stupid who remained blind in the midst of such clear light. But, first, this was the just reward of those who had split the Church of God into sects; and, secondly, in this manner the Lord avenged the wicked contempt of His doctrine.

(66) “ Combien que ces deux sectes se fissent tous les jours la guerre l’un contre l’autre;” — “though those two sects were every day making war against each other.”

(67) “ Une partie des principaux chefs de la religion;” — “a part of the chief leaders in religion.”

(68) ” Que Dieu traitte yei un chacun selon qu’il a merite;” — “That God here treats every one according as he has deserved.”

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

CRITICAL NOTES

Mat. 22:23. The Sadducees.The article is properly omitted in the R.V. See note on Mat. 3:7. That the Pharisees had an understanding with them also seems likely from what is said both in Mat. 22:15, which seems a general introduction to the series of questions, and in Mat. 22:34, from which it would appear that they were somewhere out of sight waiting to hear the result of this new attack. Though the alliance seems a strange one, it is not the first time that common hostility to the Christ of God has drawn together the two great rival parties (see Mat. 16:1). If we are right in supposing them to be in combination now, it is a remarkable illustration of the deep hostility of the Pharisees that they should not only combine with the Sadducees against Him, as they had done before, but that they should look with complacency on their using against Him a weapon which threatened one of their own doctrines (Gibson).

Mat. 22:24. Moses said.See Deu. 25:5-10. These were called levirate marriages, from the Latin word, levir, a brother-in-law. His brother shall marry his wife.The root of the obligation here imposed upon the brother of the deceased husband lies in the primitive idea of childlessness being a great calamity, and extinction of name and family one of the greatest that could happen (Speakers Commentary). The law on this subject is not peculiar to the Jews, but is found amongst various Oriental nations, ancient and modern (ibid.). Raise up seed unto his brother.This indicates that the child, which might be the issue of the second marriage, would be entered in the genealogical register as the child, not of the natural father, but of the deceased brother, and would thus become his heir (Morison).

Mat. 22:28. In the resurrection.The puzzle of the Sadducees had no special relation to what may be involved in the resurrection of the body as contra-distinguished from what is involved in the immortality of the soul. Their objection was, generically, against the idea that men are to exist at all in the future. The doctrine of the Sadducees says Josephus, is, that souls die with the bodies (Antiq., XVIII. i. 4) (Morison). Whose wife shall she be?Stress is laid on the childlessness of the woman in all the seven marriages, in order to guard against the possible answer that she would be counted in the resurrection as the wife of him to whom she had borne issue (Plumptre).

Mat. 22:29. Ye do err.This is, it may be noted, the one occasion in the Gospel history in which our Lord comes into direct collision with the Sadducees. On the whole, while strictly condemning and refuting their characteristic error, the tone in which He speaks is less stern than that in which He addresses the Pharisees. They were less characterised by hypocrisy, and this was that which called down His sternest reproof (ibid.).

Mat. 22:31. Spoken unto you by God.In Exo. 3:6. The Sadducees while recognising the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures generally, seem to have attached supreme importance to the Pentateuch. Dean Alford says, The assertion of the resurrection comes from the very source whence their difficulty had been constructed.

Mat. 22:32. The dead.The word has here its lowest Sadducean import, denoting those who have ceased to be (Morison).

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Mat. 22:23-33

A sceptical snare.After the Pharisees have been disposed of, the Sadducees appear on the scene. They also have a question to ask. It is one connected with their avowed disbelief in the doctrine of the resurrection (Act. 23:8), and calculated, as they hope, to bring equal discredit both on that doctrine and on Christ. It will be well, therefore, to consider, first, the exact nature of the question propounded; and so to pass, secondly, to the exact nature of the reply it received.

I. The question propounded.This turned, in the first place, on three separate points connected with the question of marriage. The first of these was that well-known Mosaic enactment on this subject which pronounced the marriage tie to come to an end on the death of either party concerned; and therefore fully allowed the survivor, if so disposed, to contract marriage again. The second was the injunction, in the same quarter, which commanded any man whose married brother should have died without issue to take that brothers widow to wife. And the third was the alleged occurrence among them of a most remarkable and highly exceptional contingency of this kind; even of a case in which it came to pass that as many as seven brothers in succession, under this rule, had the same woman to wife (Mat. 22:24-27). On these three points, three inferences were, next, drawn virtually by these Sadducean inquirers. The first, that each of those seven brethren had really and truly, in his life-time, been married to that woman. The next, that each of themin the resurrectioncould therefore claim her for his. And the last was this, that, such being so, there could not possibly be a resurrection at all. That was the only way, according to them, of solving the difficulty involved (Mat. 22:28). How could a doctrine, therefore, which led to so absurd a result be a doctrine of truth? At any rate, if there was another solution, let that solution be given. They had the right to ask this from such a teacher as Jesus was now professing to be.

II. The Saviours answer to this subtle and insidious question was of a three fold description. In the first place, it completely disposed of the difficulty advanced. There was another and better solution than that insinuated by them. In that higher and better sphere to which their inquiry referred, there was, in reality, no room for putting such a question at all. And it was simple ignorance on their part to suppose anything else (Mat. 22:29-30). The question, therefore, Whose wife shall she be? was so far from being insoluble, that it was only unnecessary, and such as ought not be asked. In the next place, the Saviours answer fully vindicated the doctrine disputed. Taking the Sadducees on their own ground, referring only to those Books of Moses in which alone they professed to believe, and dealing only with one of the names of God ascribed to Him there, there was proof enough of its truth. What did God mean when He described Himself there as the God of certain men who were dead? (Mat. 22:32). Did He not mean that these men were still alive unto Him? Still alive, that is to saythough, for a time it may bein a different way from before? And therefore, further, to be alive again afterwards in the same way as before? Where would be the comfort, where the value, where the sense, of meaning anything less? Why should these men have been named at all if they had ceased to exist? The living God, in a word, was the God of the living, and not of the dead (end of Mat. 22:32). Finally, the answer thus given fully vindicated the Teacher Himself. All who heard His answer acknowledged it by their conduct to be of a simply unanswerable description. The multitude were astonished, the Sadducees silenced, by such flashes of truth (Mat. 22:33-34).

This old-world battle may teach us much in these new-world times. It may show us:

1. How great was the authority in old days of the Old Testament Scriptures!How great especially of that portion of them which by some in these days is cavilled at most. Is it not worthy of notice that the most unbelieving of men in those days believed in this portion to the full? Also that the Saviour, in answering them, appealed to this only? Also that, before then, in dealing with a still greater adversary, He had done the same thing (Mat. 4:1-11)? Also yet, that, in this way, He silenced them all!

2. How great their fulness and depth!See here how much is covered by one single expression! How much can be learned from it, as it were, by the way,! Little less, as a matter of fact, than the whole world of the unseen!

3. How equally great, therefore, the evidence given of the fulness and wisdom of Christ!Ages of study and strife had never shown previously in these words of Moses what He sees in them at a glance. No contradiction of sinners, also, can help seeing it when once it is shown! Is it possible, in the way of teaching, to surpass this double Success?

HOMILIES ON THE VERSES

Mat. 22:25-28. Christ and the Sadducees.

1. The conceiving of spiritual things in a fleshly manner is the ground of mistaking the truth and setting up of errors and heresies, as appeareth in these Sadducees; they apprehend the doctrine of eternal life to be this, that the course of this temporary life shall be renewed and made perpetual.
2. No man seemeth wiser in his own eyes than the blindest heretics do; they conceive that Christ Himself cannot answer their objections against the truth; and this emboldeneth these Sadducees to dispute.David Dickson.

Mat. 22:29-30. The Sadducees confuted.

1. If the Scriptures be not understood and believed, it cannot miss but errors will arise, for nothing else but this light can prevent or remove errors. They erred, not knowing the Scriptures.
2. It is necessary for quieting of our minds in the truth of Gods word that we look only to the promise of God, and to His ability to perform all He hath promised.
3. After the resurrection we shall be set free from the infirmities whereunto now we are subject; and shall neither need meat nor drink nor marriage, but shall be upholden immediately of God, without means, as angels are, and shall be employed only in the immediate service of God.Ibid.

Christs reply to the Sadducees.I. He charges them with error.Concerning:

1. The fact of the resurrection.
2. The nature of the future state.

II. He corrects their mistake.Implying:

1. The existence of a high order of intelligences.
2. Social elevation of humanity in the future state.

III. He convicts them out of their own Scriptures.Showing:

1. That the highest property an intelligent being can possess is God, and this property is possessed by the good.
2. Its possession implies conscious existence.
3. The Scripture teaches that this highest property is possessed by departed men.D. Thomas, D.D.

Mat. 22:29. Sources of unbelief.

I. Want of Scriptural knowledge.
II. Want of spiritual experienceJ. P. Lange, D.D.

Mat. 22:30. The beautiful idea of the future life.

I. Elevated above temporal transitoriness.
II. Like the angels of God.
III. A life in heaven.J. P. Lange, D.D.

Life in heaven.Will there, we ask, be no continuance there of the holiest of the ties of earth? Will the husband and the wife, who have loved each other until death parted them be no more to each other than any others who are counted worthy to obtain that life? Will there be no individual recognition, no continuance of the love founded upon the memories of the past? The answer to all such questionings is found in dwelling on the power of God. The old relations may subsist under new conditions. Things that are incompatible here may there be found to co-exist. The saintly wife of two saintly husbands may love both with an angelic, and therefore a pure and unimpaired affection. The contrast between our Lords teaching and the sensual paradise of Mahomet, or Swedenborgs dream of the marriage state perpetuated under its earthly conditions, is so obvious as hardly to call for notice.E. H. Plumptre, D.D.

Mat. 22:31-32. Interpreting Scripture.

1. No sufficient silencing of error can be till the contrary truth be made clear by Scripture.
2. Whatsoever is said in the Scripture should be taken as spoken unto us, and that by God.
3. Whatsoever the Scripture doth import, by good consequence is to be accounted for Gods speech. Concerning the resurrection, have ye not read? saith He; for the Scripture doth not stand in letters or syllables, but in the sense of the words, and in the truly inferred consequences from thence.
4. Whosoever are within the covenant of grace, whose God the Lord is by covenant, are sure to live in heaven with God after this life, and to have their bodies raised at last unto immortal life; because God is the Saviour and Redeemer not of the soul of His elect only, but also of the body. Therefore there must be a resurrection of the body, for God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.David Dickson.

Mat. 22:32. God and Immortality.Our Lords answer suggests the best way of assuring ourselves of this glorious hope. Let God be real to us, and life and immortality will be real too. If we would escape the doubts of old Sadducee and new Agnostic, we must be much with God, and strengthen more and more the ties which bind us to Him.J. M. Gibson, D.D.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

B. THE QUESTION OF THE RESURRECTION

(Parallels: Mar. 12:18-27; Luk. 20:27-39)

TEXT: 22:2333

23 On that day there came to him Sadducees, they that say that there is no resurrection: and they asked him, 24 saying, Teacher, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. 25 Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first married and deceased, and having no seed left his wife unto his brother; 26 in like manner the second also, and the third, unto the seventh. 27 And after them all, the woman died. 28 In the resurrection therefore whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her. 29 But Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as angels in heaven. 31 But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, 32 I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. 33 And when the multitudes heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS

Why do you suppose that these Sadducees, whose normal interest is politics, should pose Jesus a religious question? What advantage could they hope for in such an attempt?

Do you think this story about the wife and seven husbands had been used before this, or was it freshly invented to make Jesus and His doctrine look ridiculous?

If you believe this story to be a stock Sadducean argument used with success against the Pharisees, how would you account for Pharisean failure to answer it once and for all?

Is it ever a good idea to tell people frankly that they are wrong? Jesus did so here. And yet, does it not close peoples minds to any further dialogue to make such a statement?

Was it literally true that the Sadducees did not know the Scriptures? In what sense does Jesus mean His accusation of their ignorance? Were they (1) unlearned, (2) ignoring obvious truth, or (3) what? What did the Sadducees theological position have to do with their ignorance?

How does the power of God resolve the question posed by the Sadducees?

What had the Old Testament indicated about the resurrection from the dead? Did the Old Testament furnish any reasons to believe in resurrection? If so, what are they? And, if so, what does this fact reveal about the Sadducees attitude toward the Old Testament?

What does the fact that in the resurrection marriage does not exist tell us about this present world, if anything?

Since the text Jesus cited merely refers to God as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and never mentions resurrection, how can Jesus correctly conclude that the passage teaches resurrection from the dead? Is this a legitimate use of Scripture texts? On what basis can He affirm that God is not a God of the dead, but of the living, since the text cited does not say so? What is Jesus thrust behind His quotation of Exo. 3:2-6? Is it (1) the verb? I am (present tense, see Luke), or (2) the predicate nominative: the God of Abraham, etc.? How does Lukes addition, For all live to him furnish additional explanation that clarifies Jesus point?

Since the actual text in question is a quotation of words God directed to Moses, how can Jesus affirm: . . . have you not read what was said TO YOU by God . . .? There were nearly 1500 years of history intervening between the voice of God in the burning bush and Jesus Sadducean listeners! In what sense did God say this expressly for these hearers?

What do you think Jesus was trying to teach those Sadducees by affirming that it was God who was the author of the words cited from the pen of Moses? How does this revelation of Jesus resolve some modern doubts and scholarly uncertainties about Exodus authorship?

Since the Sadducees disbelieved in angels, how can Jesus safely allude to angels as He does, without fear that the Sadducees would reject His argument? Why do you think they dropped the subject of angels without debating it with Him? (What evidence could He have used from the Pentateuch to defend the truth they rejected?)

What does it mean to be like the angels in heaven? What characteristics are to be shared with them? What information does Luke (Luk. 20:36) provide to answer this?

Why did not Jesus simply say, Have you not read Exo. 3:6?? Why did He have to identify the desired passage by calling it the passage about the bush? (Cf. Mar. 12:26; Luk. 20:37.)

What does this incident teach us about the importance of understanding the Bible correctly?

How does this incident describe the life beyond the grave? Explain why, according to Luk. 20:36, the resurrected dead can die no more. In what sense are the redeemed the sons of God? In what sense are they sons of the resurrection?

PARAPHRASE AND HARMONY

That same day there came to Him some Sadducees. These people were saying they did not believe in life after death. They put the following question to Him, Teacher, Moses gave us a law: If a man dies, leaving a wife, but no heir, his brother must marry the widow and raise up a legal posterity for his dead brother. Now there was a case in our community involving seven brothers. The first brother married a wife, but died, having no heir, thus leaving his wife to his brother. The same thing happened to the second brother. He married her, but died childless too. This was also the case with the third. Eventually all seven died leaving no posterity. Last of all, the woman herself died. In the resurrection-when the dead come back to lifeto which of the seven brothers will she be wife? For they all had been married to her!
If not this why you are mistaken? answered Jesus. You do not understand either the Scriptures nor what God can do! Marriage is an institution limited to this world. But the men and women who are judged worthy to live in the next world (which implies their rising from the dead) will not marry but are like the angels in heaven. In fact, they cannot die anymore, because they are like heavens angels. Reborn in the resurrection, they are Gods sons!
On the other hand, even Moses himself indicated that there is life after death. Have you never read in the book of Moses in that passage about the burning bush what God said to you when He spoke to Moses, saying, I am the GOD of Abraham, the GOD of Isaac and the GOD of Jacob? This means that He is not the GOD of corpses but the GOD of living people! So, as far as God is concerned, they are all alive. You are quite mistaken!
Even some of the theologians admitted, Well said, Rabbi! The common people who heard His teaching were deeply impressed by it.

SUMMARY

The materialistic Sadducees who deny the world of the spirit and life after death approached Jesus with their stock catch-question seemingly based on Mosaic authority. Jesus revealed the fallacy of their presupposition that the after-life must simply continue this one in all respects, then expounded the meaning of Exo. 3:6 to show the reality of the spirit-world and mans intimate participation in it.

NOTES
I. THE PROBLEM: IS THERE LIFE AFTER DEATH?

(22:2328)

Mat. 22:23 On that day there came to him Sadducees. On that day definitely connect this Sadducean assault with the foregoing attack. In contrast to the previous Pharisean strategy, the Sadducees now approach Jesus by themselves, since they alone denied the resurrection, The company of other sectarian groups would only frustrate their intention to subdue Jesus on a point He shared with the others.

Sadducees, they that say that there is no resurrection. On the views of these sectarians, see notes in Vol. III, 430440; cf. Act. 23:6-8; especially Josephus, Ant. XIII, 10, 6; XVIII, 1, 4; XX, 9, 1; Wars II, 8, 14. The Sadducees were a priestly party (cf. Act. 4:1-2; Act. 4:6; Act. 5:17) that demanded that everything be understood rationally and not based on hearsay oral tradition. (Cf. Sepher Yosippon, Aboth de Rabbi Nathan, Bab. Talmud Pes. 57a; Meg. Taan. Tebeth 28, cited by Bowker, Jesus and the Pharisees.) The basic attitude of this small but powerful faction was what might be termed ecclesiastical opportunism, using religion for private gain. They apparently prided themselves on being no-nonsense, realistic people who based their philosophy on the common-sense view of this material world while considering anything metaphysical as a hypothetical superstition. They ended up with a religion without the supernatural.

But why would Matthew need to explain the particular belief of the Sadducees especially to his Jewish readers? Merely to clarify the point of the following contest of wits? Or had the Sadducees aristocracy as a theological force in Israel disappeared by the time of the writing of Matthews Gospel, a hypothesis calling for this historical note? Would not this, then, argue for a date after Jerusalems fall for the compilation of Matthews Gospel? This deduction is not necessary, if the following considerations be thought important:

The theological tenets of the less numerous Sadducees may not have been well-known among the common people in Israel, due to the superior hold on the popular mind enjoyed by the more orthodox Pharisees.

Further, if the Sadducees were interested in political power and the personal wealth that came with it far more than in influencing the people through teaching their personal views, their skeptical views may have been only vaguely known by those outside political and academic circles.

So, Matthew reviewed their position briefly, in order to make the following conversation clear to the common reader, and this fact need not decide the question as to when it was written or argue for dating the book late in the first century after 70 A.D., or even later.

Their affirmation that there is no resurrection does not begin to exhaust Sadducean theology, as if they believed nothing more. In fact, this emphasis on the one point appears badly one-sided, since their fundamental problem was not only denial of resurrection per se, but also denial of every phase of the world of the spirit. Apparently, they reasoned that to deny resurrection is to be rid of the entire question of the spirit world, since resurrection is conceivably the door into that world. Deny the door and you deny what is on the other side. Jesus answer, then, consisted essentially in showing that those living people who are on the other side of deaths barrier really exist, and that those involved in that life must have gotten there somehow, a fact that argues for the existence of the door. That is, once one admits the world of the spirit, resurrection is no longer impossible, because an Omnipotent God can work it all out with ease. So, the Sadducean belief that there is no resurrection is so much an intermediate issue that it is practically a side issue in contrast to the more fundamental question, the world of the spirit. But where did the Sadducees (and their modern counterparts) go wrong?

As with most controversies, not all the opposition is raised by plain fools. Sadducean debaters could have cited texts that seem to deny life after the grave, like Psa. 6:5; Psa. 88:10 f; Psa. 115:17; Ecc. 9:4-10; Isa. 38:18 f. These seem to counterbalance other texts in its favor. However,and more central to this discussionthe Sadducees held seriously defective view of much of the Old Testament. On Sadducean principles, only what was clearly stated in the written Law was held to be of binding authority, hence nothing could be cited outside the Pentateuch. Two reasons for this may be suggested:

The Mosaic code confirmed the authority of the priesthood. So the Law would be especially dear to the Sadducean priesthood. Because the prophets exposed the perversion of the hierarchical aristocracy and preached the uselessness of ritual without righteousness, their writings would be particularly unwelcome.

A concomitant reason may be that Pharisean glorification of hearsay evidence for doctrine had so elevated oral tradition to the level of divine law (cf. Mat. 15:6) that even men like the Sadducees instinctively felt they must be stopped. But how? The Sadducean reactionaries wrongly opted for strict adherence to Moses at the expense of the prophets. Their blunder consisted, then, in rejecting those divine messengers who revealed more of Gods will than Moses included in the Law. Thus, all prophetic revelations after Moses were demoted to merely sanctified opinion and their information ignored.

Although many texts suggest resurrection or express the hope of life after death, it is not explicitly at the center of Judaism as a clearly defined doctrine until late in the prophets. But the erudite presumption often repeated that the concept of resurrection was not known in Israel until just a century or so prior to the appearance of Jesus must be abandoned. It simply ignores Abrahams bold faith, who stedfastly confided in the power of God to raise Isaac from the dead, rather than disbelieve Gods promise of descendants through this his only son (Gen. 21:12; Gen. 22:1-18 interpreted by Heb. 11:19). Where did Abraham get that option? Does not this argue that resurrection was not only conceivable in Abrahams time but the very content of his hope nearly 2000 years before Christ? Let the scholars argue with Abraham!

It may also be that the Sadducees conceived of this theological development in Israel as wrong-headed because of the Pharisees gross literalism which obscured the true glory of a resurrection concept. The Liberals went wrong by failing to recognize divine authority behind the prophets who revealed resurrection and by letting the Traditionalists misunderstandings blind them to its truth.

So, because the resurrection doctrine was not explicitly stated in the Pentateuch and because the prophets writings were abased to the level of questionable oral tradition, the Sadducees felt safe in declaring life after death to be without final authority. For them it was but a bad hypothesis not to be taken seriously.

Were these inquirers before Jesus simply ignorant, however sincere, men seeking to know truth from him? No, the spirit of their story is one of scoffing and their intent is to make the resurrection doctrine laughable and Jesus ridiculous with it. Why were they so embittered by Jesus ministry that they too should now commit their forces to attack Him?

Being largely priests and responsible for the Temple, the Sadducees association was a sacerdotal aristocracy. They lost prestige when Jesus purified the Temple and felt personally flayed by His exposure of their corruption.

Similarly, their hostility was aroused because He had disturbed their profitable monopoly over the temple market. He had touched their purse!

These skeptics, whose one claim to fame was their denial of the world of spirits, supernatural messengers and life after death, were galled that the Galilean Prophet resurrected people from the dead in support of His claim to supernatural authority. (Study Joh. 11:45-53, the ironic sequel to Jesus resurrection of Lazarus: Joh. 11:1-44; then note Mat. 12:9-11!)

The embarrassment and apparent incompetence of the Pharisees may have spurred the Sadducees to try their hand at stopping Jesus. Edersheim (Life, II, 397) analyzes their motives:

Their object was certainly not serious argument, but to use the much more dangerous weapon of ridicule. Persecution the populace might have resented; for open opposition all would have been prepared; but to come with icy politeness and philosophic calm, and by a well-turned question to reduce the renowned Galilean Teacher to silence, and show the absurdity of His teaching, would have been to inflict on His cause the most damaging blow.

Mat. 22:24 Saying, Teacher, they mock respect. By addressing Him thus, they exalt Him to a level of superiority, but they really intend to expose Him as sadly deficient, as an incompetent, a teller of tales and unworthy of Israels following.

Moses said: they intend to establish their diabolical doctrine of no less a basis than the universally acknowledged law-giver himself. So doing, they state Israels nation-wide acknowledgment of the Mosaic paternity of the passages involved. Although the Sadducees quotation loosely follows the LXX of Deu. 25:5 f., it freely borrows wording from Gen. 38:8, which shows that they clearly had the case of Onan definitely in mind.

If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up seed unto his brother. (Cf. application in Ruth 4.) The law of levirate (or brother-in-law) marriage was designed to preserve the family line and heritage by continuing the principle of family lineage and by blocking the dispersion of the family patrimony. The children received the dead brothers property and in the genealogical record carried on his name rather than that of their physical parent.

By citing Moses, the Sadducees attempt to reinforce their argument, because, granted that the so-called future world is but the extension of this lifes relationships, it is mans obedience to this Mosaic ( = divine) ordinance that creates a situation that must necessarily lead to the absurdity of heavenly polygamy. Because the Sadducees cited not only Moses but also the language of Jacob himself, they doubly reinforce the implication that the Law and the patriarchs hold a view which must render absurd the resurrection concept, because of the heavenly conflict ensuing from its observance. Obviously, in their view, God would have to make an arbitrary choice, pleasing only one brother and turning heaven into hell for the rest!

Mat. 22:25 Now there were with us seven brethren. Although this hypothetical case may sound fictitious, real life provides some most remarkable and highly exceptional cases, so who can successfully deny that the Sadducees had a real case in mind? Although debate had arisen in Judaism whether to apply the law in question beyond the third marriage (see Edersheim, Life, II, 400 note 2), some stricter (Pharisean?) family may have actually carried out the law to its logical conclusion, even though some strange twist of fate doomed each of the womans husbands, leaving her alone to live. Seven brethren: the problem would have been real with even fewer brothers, but seven serves to underline the problem more vividly. The first married and deceased, and having no seed left his wife unto his brother. Their having no seed is critical for the law, since the difficulty would have instantly been removed at any one of the levirate marriages to which a legal heir were born to continue the lineage of the first brother who died, leaving his wife and house without continuance. It also forestalls the possible answer that she would have been considered wife of the man to whom she had borne an heir.

Mat. 22:26 in like manner the second also, and the third, unto the seventh. 27 And after them all, the woman died. Her death and consequent entrance into the realm of the dead is essential to the Sadducean argument, to create the domestic confusion they foresee as a necessary consequence of the resurrection doctrine.

Mat. 22:28 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her. Their rationale behind this resulting conundrum is simple: how could a belief that produces so ridiculous a result be pronounced true? Because the Sadducees derided the resurrection doctrine, they were not really concerned whose wife the woman would be. But because Jesus believed in the resurrection, they pose Him a problem that would expose the disgusting extreme to which His position must lead, force Him to face it and declare them right.

What could the Sadducees have foreseen as Jesus possible options?

In the resurrection she would be the wife of all seven. In this case they could point out that this response teaches polyandry and creates confusion in Gods original design for man, as Moses wrote in Gen. 2:16 f. and Gen. 2:23 f. Further, it contradicted His own teaching (Mat. 19:3-9).

She would be the wife of the first brother alone for whom she raised up children. But they could answer, But all the others had married her, therefore, she was wife also of each of them and they would have equal rights.

There is no resurrection, so the difficulty does not exist. They would cheer, because He would have abandoned His own position and declared theirs valid.

Nor could He repudiate the law of levirate marriages, for it was the decree of God. To put it in doubt would cost Him His following among Bible-believing Israelites.

He could not reject the continuation of individual personality and personal relationships either, because these were an integral part of the commonly accepted resurrection doctrine.

Because they, like the Pharisees, could not envision a world to come different from the mere extension of this life and its relationships, they were arguing from wrong premises and expected Him to do the same. Their surprise came when He simply exploded their commonly accepted world of tomorrow concept. The Jews had imagined resurrection life in its crudest form, a caricature of the true. Jesus now explains it in a superior form, commending it for their reevaluation.

II. THE SOLUTION: JESUS EXPOSES MATERIALISTS IGNORANCE (22:2932)

Mat. 22:29 But Jesus answered and said unto them. The marvel is that He should condescend to respond to these perverse, frivolous triflers, It never escaped Him, however, that within learning distance there were open, sincere disciples. So He meekly taught these shallow theologians and furnished His students another model of excellence under fire. But Jesus did not answer their immediate question as formulated. Looking beyond that, He perceived a deeper condition of heart, an unrecognized, underlying need that could not be met simply by stopping with the answer to their specific test question. Their fundamental problem did not consist in learning whose wife the lady would be. It was rather their thinking it strange that God should raise the dead (cf. Act. 26:8).

He did not answer their question exactly as formulated, further, because had He done so, they would not have been one step closer to faith in the resurrection than they were before. Although their attack was open, without the flattering preliminaries others had used (Mat. 22:16), the Sadducees dishonesty and cunning really attempts to discredit Him. They came not to learn the truth by seeking honestly to remove what seemed to them an insurmountable objection to faith. In fact, when Jesus later arose from the dead, forever and personally proving the falsity of their reasoning, they not only did not repent, but proceeded to murder the fearless, unimpeachable witnesses to that fact, while totally discounting the evidence of the empty tomb (Act. 4:1 f., Act. 4:5 f.; Act. 5:17-40; Act. 7:1, Act. 7:54 to Act. 8:1; Act. 9:1 f.)!

Their theological rationalism was not a matter of indifference that could safely be ignored. Their rejection of penalties and rewards in an afterlife and their disbelief in the continuance of the spirit after death (cf. Wars, II, 8, 14) WIPED OUT GODS JUDGMENT ON MENS SINS AND OFFERED NO REAL INCENTIVE TO BE RIGHTEOUS BY GODS STANDARDS. These materialists anti-resurrection stance is deeply serious, because no one can form a proper judgment about his relationships and responsibilities in this life, unless he takes into serious account the life to come. It makes a big difference whether we think the grave ends it all or not. Belief in a fuller life after death cannot fail to influence character in every way, every decision, every thought. (Study Mat. 10:26-33.) This antisupernaturalism was no unimportant heresy for it is a belief that weakens mans fear of God and His judgment, destroys his character, undermines his sense of honor and truth and freezes his warmth and humanity. If the grave ends all, people no longer really matter and can be manipulated to achieve ones own ends.

Jesus well knew His opponents also denied the doctrine of an all-ruling Providence. Josephus (Wars, II, 8, 14) reports that the Sadducees suppose that God is not concerned in our doing or not doing what is evil in contrast to the Pharisees who ascribe all to fate and to God, and yet allow that to act what is right, or the contrary, is principally in the power of men, although fate does cooperate in every action. The Sadducean view of Gods disinterest in human behavior would definitely affect their view of Gods power to transform human natures body after death.

Is it any wonder, then, that Jesus countered instantly with Ye do err! Those who feel that Jesus answer only offers quiet, patient instruction to sincere, but ignorant, men, must remember Jesus understanding of their malignant purpose. Even if His total answer seems less severe, nothing can soften His blunt judgment: YOU ARE WRONG . . . QUITE WRONG! (Mar. 12:27; Mat. 22:29). How could Sadducean priests, charged with the high duty of knowing and teaching Gods Word in Israel, be anything but shaken and deeply humiliated by this charge of fundamental ignorance of GOD?

He incriminates them on two counts: Ye do err . . .

Not knowing the Scriptures which you pride yourselves on knowing so well! The Sadducees whose severest, unrelenting critics were the sharp-eyed, hard-nosed Pharisees, HAD to be ready to debate a Scriptural point at any moment. So how could it be truly asserted that they did not know them?

They did not know their true meaning, because they wrongly interpreted them.

They did not accept the Scriptures which they could correctly decipher, because they did not welcome them as the royal decree of an Almighty God who could command and expect their loyal submission.

In opposition to the plain meaning of Scripture, they set up their own mistaken philosophy, refusing to believe anything they held to be irrational, intangible or unempirical.

The Sadducees position was that no text of Scripture demanded belief in life after death. Beyond the text cited by Jesus, the Sadducees showed ignorance of texts like Gen. 21:12; Gen. 22:1-18 (= Heb. 11:19; Heb. 11:35); Job. 19:25 f.; Psa. 16:9-11 (= Act. 2:27-31); Psa. 17:15; Psa. 23:4; Psa. 23:6; Psa. 49:13-15; Psa. 73:23-28; Ecc. 12:5-14; Isa. 26:19; Isa. 53:10-12; Dan. 12:2-3; 2Sa. 12:20-23. True, scholars differ on whether they considered all the Old Testament to be Gods Word or only the Pentateuch. So, if these Jewish liberals did not consider the historical and poetic writings of authority equal to that of Moses Law, then they would not have been persuaded by citations from these texts.

In fact, they show amazing ignorance of the translation of Enoch (Gen. 5:24; Heb. 11:5), because Moses record of this mystifying experience raises the possibility of a deathless life with God in another realm. They also ignored Elijahs marvelous rapture (2Ki. 2:11). Was this not true history? And what of the other actual cases of literal resurrection from the dead (1Ki. 17:22; 2Ki. 4:35; 2Ki. 13:21)7 Was this fiction or unbelievable legend? What of the unyielding hope for the future life affirmed of other Old Testament heroes? (Cf. Heb. 11:13-16; Heb. 11:35.) Were these all misguided dupes? Perhaps the Sadducean rebuttal would argue that the former were but cases of resuscitation, in that the resurrected died again later, whereas real resurrection at the Last Day must be to immortality and incorruption. It could be argued, further, that because Enoch and Elijah did not die, they constitute no evidence for resurrection from the dead.

Not knowing the power of God. But in what sense were they expected to know it? Could they have known what Jesus reveals here? How does a correct estimate of the power of God resolve the question about the resurrection life? Gods unlimited ability to create a universe in which neither death nor marriage are necessary components is ignored by men whose entire worldview is too small and whose appreciation of God reduces His true powers potential to the creation of what is. They have no sanctified imagination to believe He could create a world somehow different from the present age. This severely limits their concept of Gods power. They ignore His power to conquer and eliminate death from human existence. Even if no Bible text ever implied it, they should have seen that an adequate concept of Gods power to effect it could also foresee it.

Even if Sadducean proponents rejected great texts like Isa. 25:6-8; Isa. 26:18 f.; Eze. 37:1-14; Hos. 6:1 f. and others, arguing that physical resurrection to permanent life is not unequivocally taught in them, on the other hand, these texts should have led them to recognize that the same mighty, creative, life-giving power of God who had been able to redeem Israel from Egyptian slavery and Babylonian exile, should be more than ample to bring about the total, physical resurrection of His people. If God is truly Giver of life, breath and all things, can He be thought to be unable to grant His children to share in His own life eternal through resurrection.

But the Sadducees had such a low view of God, because their denial of life after death was consistent with and bolstered by their rejection of the existence of angels and spirits (Act. 23:8). In fact, if spirits do not exist, how could there be a God who is Spirit (Joh. 4:24; they must have dismissed Isa. 57:15; Zec. 12:1)? And could not such a Spirit really reveal Himself by supernatural messengers such as angels? Rationalists all, these shallow, dogmatic men simply took for granted that what to them was inconceivable or incomprehensible must also be dismissed as incredible. Nevertheless, THEIR ABILITY TO CONCEIVE IT DOES NOT DIMINISH GODS POWER TO EFFECT IT! Their view is typical of modern rationalists who would deny the resurrections truth because they cannot conceive how it could occur: To presuppose a resurrection is to involve incredible or impossible conditions. The plain answer of Jesus meets all these objections: Gods power is sufficient! The Jewish materialists had surrendered the clearly Bible doctrine of the omnipotence of God for whom nothing is impossible! Could they have so easily forgotten Deu. 3:24; 1Ch. 29:11 f.; 2Ch. 20:6; Psa. 66:7; Jer. 32:17? These had not the faith of Abraham! (Cf. Rom. 4:18-22.) Cannot the Creator of Adam, who originally gathered the scattered, unliving dust and made man live, regather all the particles of all the dead and raise them to eternal life? What kind of a god do these unbelieving priests have anyway?!

Jesus debating tactic involved two steps: He first refuted the Sadducees objection by showing the fallacy upon which it was founded, i.e. their underestimating Gods power to transform everything in the new world (Mat. 22:30). He then furnished positive proof of the resurrection by citing Scripture (Mat. 22:31 f.). In so doing, He showed how their citation does not prove what they supposed it did, and demonstrated that Moses doctrine, given elsewhere, completely and truly disproved their notion. They had constructed an invalid argument, because it was established on false assumptions foreign to Moses.

The Sadducees presupposition that gave meaning to their question is this: If there is a world beyond this life, it must necessarily resume or extend common characteristics, categories and elements typical of the good life here, including this lifes relationships, especially marriage. As with other uniformitarians who assert that the past is the measure of the present, these argued that the past and the present is the measure also of the future for all time and eternity,

They further assumed that our present, natural body, with all its present, fleshly, earth-life needs and appetites, must be identical to that glorious, future, spiritual body with which we will be raised. (Study 2 Baruch 4951; contrast 1Co. 15:35-38.) They undoubtedly eliminated some of the negative features, but the basic assumption remained.

Worse yet, apparently the Pharisees too shared this view, even perpetuating it. This would explain why they had been so spectacularly unsuccessful in refuting the Sadducees. Only someone who knows infallibly that marriage is not to be continued in the future world could definitively confute it. And yet their presupposition is clearly not taught by Moses, but merely added to their understanding of the Bible, as if it too were undoubted truth. The absurdity lay, therefore, not in what the Bible actually affirmed, but in this false assumption. No Bible text ever asserted that ALL relations and categories of this present age must extend over into the future world. Jews of Jesus day argued that full recognition of the resurrected dead depended on their being in every respect like themselves in this life, including every physical trait and every social relation they bore before death. The same old warts and the same old wife for ever and ever! (Cf. Edersheim, Life, II, 399 However, 2 Baruch 4951 sees a transformation to glory after the resurrection.)

MORMONS TOO ARE IGNORANT OF GODS POWER

The basic presupposition behind the Mormon temple marriages for time and eternity is essentially the same as that of the Sadducees. They too see eternal life as continuing the marriage relation contracted in this life, and the multiplication of the human race exalted by the special LDS formulas. Hence their invention of temple marriages wherein earthly relationships are solemnized for eternity either with the same earthly marriage partner or with a number of others with whom earthly marriages was not possible because of civil legislation against polygamy. (Cf. Doctrine and Covenants, 132. See also MormonismShadow or Reality? 455ff.; 475, on the temple ceremonies involved.) This simply discounts Gods ability to create an entirely new and better reality where marriage and present earthly family has no significance.

To the Mormons and the Sadducees and anyone else like them, Jesus answered as follows:

Mat. 22:30 For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as angels in heaven. These materialists had imagined a situation that cannot exist, so their illustration collapsed because inapplicable. Their use of Scripture was mistaken on the ground that they had quoted a text that addressed a problem limited to this life, but were attempting to use it to establish conclusions concerning life after death in which marriage and reproduction have no meaning. Their proof-text did not even contemplate, much less deny, the possibility of a future change in human mortality effected by a resurrection to eternal life and immortality. So, quite different rules would govern that entirely new, transformed life, not the old regulations concerning succession and inheritance intended to regulate affairs in this mortal, corruptible existence. In fact, as Luke put Jesus words: The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage (Luk. 20:34 ff.). Evidently God instituted marriage for the multiplication and consequent preservation of a human race cursed by death. Rather than create a fully populated earth, He created only two human beings. Sexual multiplication by the marriage of these two and by that of their children was His design for populating it (Gen. 1:28; cf. Gen. 9:1; cf. Gen. 9:7). Foreseeing that man would sin and bring death upon himself, God was thus providing for the preservation of the race beyond the death of its individuals. Thus, children are born of marriage to outlive their parents and so continue humankind, providing a plan for succession through inheritance, as contemplated by the Mosaic text cited by the Sadducees. So far, this is our state of being. But what does that affirm about a DEATHLESS society already fully developed numerically to the full extent God desires. In fact, the redeemed who rise again, never to die again, are already a fully developed society where the need for numerical growth and primitive replenishing would not necessarily exist. Hence, there would be no need for that earthly institution that guaranteed these two results. This is why Jesus reveals that marriage is a foundational institution of this world, but not of the eternal world.

Although Jesus did not touch other questions specifically, like: In the next world do we expect to hunger and thirst? (cf. Joh. 6:35; Joh. 6:39; Joh. 6:51-58; Joh. 6:63-68 f.), His reply provides a clue to other things that puzzle us about eternity, such as our fleshly kinships. If some of our loved ones die without Christ, would not our joy in Gods presence be marred? To deal with this, Jesus refers us to two glorious realities (Luk. 20:34-36):

The power of God to create a world of reality so new and different from this earths present reality and relationships (marriage, birth or other) is such that we can scarcely conceive of it any more than we can imagine a world where marriage is not necessary because death will be no more. And yet it is His projected plan. He can also make us forget earthly ties in the blinding glory of greater ones. Earthly families are not eternal; only their individuals.

The other reality is Gods great family: They cannot die anymore because they . . . are sons of God (Luk. 20:36). This new family must so overpower our present vision that we do all in our power to bring our loved ones into it by faith. But we may rejoice in that vision, knowing that Gods will shall have reunited into His house all those who love Him. Who would WANT to spend eternity with those who know not God nor love our Lord Jesus Christ?! Whatever else it means to be sons of God, this glorious relationship shall so supersede and so transform all other kinships as to remove all sorrow or sense of loss when our ungodly, earthly kin shall not have been saved. HOWEVER, in no way must this comfort compromise our concern for their salvation any more than it compromise the stability of our earthly marriages. The present rightness and permanence of our earthly marriages must be as real as our deep concern for the salvation of our loved ones. But once this earths testing is over and death has come, resurrection (and all that it entails) is next! The revelation of the sons of God at last and the chance to be at home with our Father forever will more than compensate any sense of loss of the temporary things of the past earth-life.

They . . . are as angels in heaven. Two preliminary observations must be made:

He does not say, They are in heaven, as the angels, nor as angels: in heaven. This would have required a different construction in Greek. (Alford suggests: en t ouran eisin, hs ngeloi.) Punctuated differently, Matthews text could be ambiguous (allhs ngeloi, en t ornan eisn: note the comma: but as angels, in heaven they are.). Luke, however, removes the ambiguity by reducing the longer expression to one word, isngeloi, equal to angels, thus eliminating in heaven. So, being in heaven is not the major consideration, but similarity to angels. Rather, in heaven describes the angels, not the place where the saints dwell. But so saying, Jesus points to an entirely different manner of life in that reality which even now exists in heaven, just as real as, if not more so than, that which materialists insist is the only true one here on earth.

In the face of Sadducean disbelief Jesus dares affirm the true existence of the angels in heaven. He knew He stood on unassailable ground because this truth can be sustained even on Sadducean principles. Angels appear constantly in writings of unquestionably Mosaic authorship. (Gen. 16:7-11; Gen. 18:1 to Gen. 19:1, Gen. 19:15; Gen. 21:17; Gen. 22:11; Gen. 22:15; Gen. 24:7, Gen. 24:40; Gen. 28:12; Gen. 31:11; Gen. 32:1; Gen. 48:15 f.; Exo. 3:2; Exo. 14:19; Exo. 23:20; Exo. 23:23; Exo. 32:34; Exo. 33:2; Num. 20:16; Num. 22:22 ff.) Angels appeared at great signal events in Hebrew history which reflected the very reason for the nations existence, its call from God, its blessing and protection during its wilderness pilgrimage. Could they doubt this?

But what is Jesus basic thrust in saying they . . . are as angels in heaven? This state of being is, according to Jesus, the antithesis of marriage. But this question is complicated by the fact that, while Matthew and Mark contrast earthly marriage and our future likeness to angels, Luke contrasts our equality with angels and earthly mortality: they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection (Luk. 20:36). Both are unquestionably true, but is there something to learn here about angels and our future nature as well as about our selves even now? If so, what? Jesus affirms that . . .

We will be marriageless. The future life is not just a repetition of this age. He urges us to rethink, because there CAN be something richer and fuller, more deeply satisfying to the soul than even marriage and family as we now know it. Marriage is an institution of this cursed earth populated with mortals. But where a redeemed society is already numerically complete and lives deathlessly with God, the primitive needs of a mortal race would also become obsolete along with their solution, marriage. Marriages joy of close, intimate and lasting fellowship will not be replaced by solitude. Rather, it will be replaced by fellowship far closer, more intimate and longer lasting than anything we can now imagine. The Lords point is that we will have no more need to reproduce our kind in the future world, than the angels to reproduce theirs. Succession is not needed where death is no more.

Some Jews believed that 200 angels, by marriages with human women, brought on the flood. (Cf. Enoch 6:1ff.; 12:4ff.; 15:37; 19:1f.; 2 Baruch 56:12; Jubilees 5:1, traditions attempting to interpret Gen. 6:1-4.) However, Jesus affirmation that angels do not marry corrects this mistaken concept, and leaves viable the interpretation that sees the sons of God as descendants of Seth and the daughters of men as Cainites, in any case fully human. (For other arguments against that theory, see Keil & Delitzsch, Pentateuch, I, 127ff.)

We will be deathless. This eliminates the need to perpetuate the race through marriage and procreation, since the resurrected saints cannot die anymore (Luk. 20:36). Angels furnish, therefore, an appropriate model by which to understand human nature after the resurrection, i.e. after deaths effects shall have been removed. Jesus refers not to the absence of passions or sensitivity to earths pleasures, but to angels immortality to illustrate our own after the resurrection.

We will be sons of God (Luk. 20:36). Even this trait explains mans deathlessness:

As creatures of God, angels too are called sons of God (Job. 1:6; Job. 38:7; Psa. 89:6 f.). The redeemed too are properly called sons of God being created, like the angels, to share in the glorious happiness of the direct presence of their common Creator. So, created deathless to live in Gods presence, redeemed mankind also will rise immortal, dependent on God, enjoying the fellowship of His presence. (Cf. 1 Enoch 69:4f., 11.) So, redeemed man will be restored to his original immortality, lofty glory and divine fellowship in Gods family which he enjoyed before the fall into sin in Eden. But his new creation will occur at the resurrection: they are . . . sons of God, being sons of the resurrection, (Luk. 20:36), i.e. produced by the resurrection, finding their new life or origin in it.

Further, they are sons of God, because, having risen, they share the immortal divine nature, made like the Lord Himself (1Jn. 3:1-3; 2Pe. 1:3-4; Php. 3:20 f.; Rom. 8:28 ff.). They will have been made partakers of the divine nature more fully than ever before in this life, because they will then be finally and fully in possession of the full privileges of their adoption, their inheritance and their final liberation from all of sins effects on their spirit (Rom. 8:21 ff.).

People take part in this age by natural birth. In that age, by resurrection. In this world babies are born as sons of men. In that world each will receive his new spiritual body directly from God Himself by the stupendous transformation that will occur at the resurrection. All, like the angels, will be considered sons of God, a fact already reflected in the new birth (Jas. 1:18; Joh. 1:12 f.; 1Jn. 3:1 ff.).

MORMONS ARE IGNORANT ALSO OF SCRIPTURE

They . . . are as angels in heaven (Matthew and Mark) and they are equal to angels and are sons of God (Luke) are Scriptural affirmations contradicted by Mormons affirmation that Mormons who are eternally married by the proper solemnities in their temples are SUPERIOR to angels and gods (Doctrine and Covenants, 136:16ff.) whereas those married only for this life are appointed [to be?] angels. The eternally married Mormons become gods, because they have no end (ibid., v. 20). In saying They neither marry nor are given in marriage. . . . They cannot die anymore, Jesus contradicts Mormon theology, because He implies that deathlessness eliminates the need for marriage since immortals have no need to multiply themselves in marriage. But Mormons teach that polygamous Mormon priests eternally married in the eternal worlds are to bear the souls of men (Doctrine and Covenants, 132:63; cf. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, VI, 275; VIII, 208).

From the standpoint of these materialists, Jesus revelation of the power of God does not answer the Sadducees doubt. True, it conclusively replied to their false presupposition by furnishing a reasonable alternative to their grossly materialistic view of the question. Now, however, He must answer their doubt by furnishing positive proof that they would be compelled to admit: the authoritative Word of God through Moses! Not satisfied to win a debate against His enemies, He remembers that error entangles their mind. So He seeks to free them by teaching what they had not yet learned. Now He must say, Your ignorance of Gods Scripture blinds you to that text of all texts that reveals that God is still worshipped by living men.

Mat. 22:31 But as touching the resurrection of the dead, i.e. that the dead do rise (Mark and Luke), is to be proved by their own Bible of which they were sadly ignorant. Jesus knew His Bible and understood its implications better than they did. He depends not only upon His own authoritative revelation or personal understanding of the after-life, but leads them to the already well-attested revelation of God in the Old Testament, the source whence any ordinary Jew could have argued the greatness of God and His power to eliminate death and bless man with an eternal life different from this one in all significant respects.

Have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God? This one question alone hammers home three massive truths useful in our defense of the faith:

Jesus emphatically vindicated the Mosaic authorship of Exo. 3:6 furnishing solid proof that rings like iron: Moses showed (Luk. 20:37) in the book of Moses (Mar. 12:26). Clearly, the Sadducees themselves accepted this fact. Otherwise, they could have objected that no doctrine was to be accepted as final or authoritative except what was of undoubted Mosaic authorship. The Sadducees rejected the Pharisees position that the oral law was also binding. Both, however, agreed that Moses Law was the definitive voice of God. So Jesus quoted Moses, and by so doing, confirmed his authorship in the presence of Jewish authorities dedicated to destroy Him, should anything He said prove vulnerable. Obviously, then, for the rulers of Judaism, the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, especially Exodus, was a long-settled issue.

Moses writing was the Word of God: that which was spoken unto you by God (Mat. 22:31). As such, it commands attention and obedience by all men under its authority. What the Old Testament Scripture says is the voice of God speaking to us. Man does not need a mystical illumination or special inspiration to receive Gods message. Jesus proves conclusively here that empathetic study of the written text of the Bible will communicate Gods message to the reader as truly as if God Himself were addressing directly from heaven. That such truth was first revealed to an ancient people living thousands of years ago, does not lessen any of its force for us. In fact, Jesus expected the Sadducees to have learned from what God said to Moses! For Him, the Old Testament was no dead letter, but the living voice of God.

The Sadducees had cited Moses as their supreme authority (Mat. 22:24). So, rather than quote the Psalms, Isaiah or Daniel, Jesus goes all the way back to Moses, the source of the supposed refutation of the resurrection. From this two more points are gained for our instruction:

He began on common ground with His opponents: their shared belief in the Pentateuch. He proceeded to demonstrate that His own position was both implicit in and demonstrated by what they accepted, but that their position was disproved by that same source.

Contrary to modern critics who see Israels concept of resurrection or of life after death as gradually learned from Egypt, Mesopotamia or Greece, Jesus leaves no room for a late discovery of the resurrection idea. Rather, He traces its origin to GOD and in that which was spoken unto you by God! In so doing, our Lord exploded the hypothesis of the evolutionary development of this concept, citing one of the earliest writings of the Old Testament. While Israels understanding of it certainly developed over the centuries, the objective concept itself had already been revealed by God.

So, by tracing the resurrections truth to God, Jesus appealed to every wavering bit of faith in God that each Sadducee present could muster to be persuaded by the truth.

How could it be truly affirmed that God addressed the Sadducees of Jesus day, when Exo. 3:6; Exo. 3:16 is Gods conversation with Moses? Gods statement to Moses contained a true principle that held implications not merely for Moses and his age, but for every age. It was a truth about God and man just as true in Jesus day as when God first said it to Moses, and especially in this case, will be true and significant until the judgment.

CAUTION should be used, however, in seeking to apply to Christians the message of the Old Testament. Christians are not subject to the old covenant made with Israel, hence may not properly claim every promise or consider themselves obligated to obey every statute of the Old Covenant Scriptures. What was required of old Israel is NOT NECESSARILY required of the new Israel of God, the Church. (Cf. Rom. 6:14, a summary of Romans, Galatians and Hebrews, the major epistles that discuss and clarify this important hermeneutical distinction.) But with this caution clearly in view, we must scan the Old Testament as well as the New Testament for truth that God intends men of every age to learn, regardless of the particular covenant under which they serve Him.

Mat. 22:32 I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob (Exo. 3:6; Exo. 3:16). Our Lord could not have selected a more familiar text. There was no phrase dearer to the heart of all Judaism, no language more expressive of the old covenant. This is no text taken out of context for a pretext, but one of the highest revelations of God! According to Jesus, this most famous title for God, this name that expresses His covenant with Israel through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, fairly SINGS the necessary truth of the resurrection.

And yet, there is no reason to doubt that Jesus would have laid before these enemies the most convincing passage possible. Surprisingly, however, His choice falls upon a passage that merely implies life after death from which the resurrection could only be inferred. In fact, without penetrating beneath this texts surface, the whole point that Jesus sees there would be missed entirely. Most readers who pass over this Bible statement would conclude that the only message conveyed there is the fact that the God who appeared to Moses is to be identified with the God who was worshipped by the patriarchs. This much it does say. But Jesus sees something else in this text as yet unrecognized by all its usual interpreters in Israel.
According to the Son of God, to say I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob must lead irresistibly to the conclusion that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. How did Jesus arrive at this conclusion? What does He mean?

Is Jesus arguing, as would any rabbi, that the verb in Exo. 3:6 must be interpreted in the present tense? No, because Mark and Luke both reflect the Hebrew original by omitting this verb. It is highly unlikely that any argument can be established on a verb that can be omitted. The point then, is the title God of Abraham, not so much the verb I am. It is pointless, therefore, to argue that God would have had to say, I used to be the God of your forefathers back when they were alive. It is not a question of tense but of title. To base the true conclusion on the present tense is coming at the question the wrong way.

The main question is: what does it mean to be the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob?

Consider Who said this: God. Jesus is arguing on the basis of the very nature of God. But God is Spirit (Joh. 4:24), the central figure of the very spiritual world these materialists deny. But if you Sadducees dare admit this one Spirit, your wholly materialistic world-view is already compromised, because where there is one undeniable spirit, there can be more than just one, in fact, a whole spiritual universe inhabited by spirits of just men made perfect (Heb. 12:23).

This God is Abrahams God. This is not the same as Creator or Owner. Although these words correctly describe what may once have been true, they are nonetheless irrelevant to prove the present existence of the creature after death. On the other hand, if in some true sense God is still the covenant-keeping God of Abraham, then Abraham is still worshipping Him, still experiencing a covenantal communion with God in a way that is intimate and abiding, hence a LIVING being. If, on Sadducean principles, the patriarchs died and were consequently annihilated, this would mean the termination of Gods association with them as their God. In fact, the relationship of worshipper to worshipped is one that is chosen by the worshipper. But, if God can describe Himself meaningfully as the God of Abraham, then, Abraham must be alive in the time of Moses, long after the patriarch had been gone from his body for centuries.

To ask what it means to say the God of Abraham in its highest, truest, richest significance is to recall what God had been to Abraham. If He had been Abrahams highest shield and greatest reward for a life of faithful obedience (cf. Gen. 15:1), what special happiness, dignity or distinctions marked the lives of these patriarchs, that would justify such high promises God Almighty made to them? Were these limited only to this life, and not rather something projected beyond it? (Contrast Gen. 47:9; see also Heb. 11:13 ff.) If God had provided them nothing more than the usual miseries attendant upon this life, He should have been ashamed to be called their God. But He was not ashamed (Heb. 11:16). Rather, His faithfulness and lovingkindness demand that He actually do for them the very thing that fully justifies His highest promises to them. But without another life after death, how could He fulfill the true purpose and full measure of His obligations sworn to them? But, if God really blessed Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in harmony with the highest intent of His word to them, there must be a state of rewards, and its corollary, a state of punishments. Since it is incredible that all of Gods rewards or punishments are meted out upon their recipients in this life, it would logically follow that there must be another life after this one. In short, The God of Abraham needs more time, time beyond this life, to fulfill all His good promises to Abraham, to the full extent of their intended meaning.

Jesus argument implies that, if the patriarchs are forever to remain lifeless handfuls of crumbling dust in the Macpelah cave, then the Sadducean uniformitarian argument must conclude that ALL qualities of this earth must continue forever, even death itself. But is annihilation greater than GOD?! Must the Almighty continue to surrender to extinction hence lose, His godly children who trust him? Will death never be conquered? Is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that name upon which Israels covenant with God hinged by virtue of their physical connection with these very patriarchs, at last discovered to be meaningless phrase? No, cries Jesus, this glorious title of God means something! God is not the (losing) God of the dead, but the (victorious) God of the living! Is it thinkable that the great God Almighty should deign to entitle Himself: The God of molding bones, dust and ashes?! Worse, for the Sadducees, the dead no longer existed. Accordingly, from their point of view, to say, I am the God of the long-dead patriarchs, is equivalent to: I am the God of non-existent things, the God of nothingan obvious absurdity. (The Lord is using dead in the sense intended by the Sadducees.) But put this way, not even these liberals themselves would accept the logical conclusion of their argument and must agree with Jesus that God is the continuing object of worship of really existing people, even if these have already passed through deaths door into the realm of the spirit.

In fact, if God meant no more than I am the God of dead, senseless ashes, when calling Moses to the herculean enterprise of Israels liberation from Egyptian bondage, how could such an ill-chosen reference have inspired Moses to rise to the challenge with the necessary trust and courage? For, if death ends all, to what purpose had the patriarchs themselves trusted God? Indeed, the hope of life after death is guaranteed not merely for the ancient fathers with whom Gods covenant had originally been sealed, but really extended to all the people who respected that covenant. The proclamation at the head of the Ten Commandments reads: I am the Lord YOUR GOD (Exo. 20:2). Is He to be Israels God for only so long as each Israelite shall live, and not, rather, forever? Only this latter, high view does justice to God and gives sense to the Old Testament which, without victory over death, would be like so many other ancient texts: just the dusty chronicle of the past struggles, victories and defeats of an ancient people and their god, but not the history of genuine redemption from all the losses of Eden, including death!

To be the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob is not something that can be affirmed of now-extinct historical figures, except by historical allusion or wistful memory. How could these names in any meaningful sense refer to dead, senseless ashes? These are the names of people who are alive somewhere. And by repeating each single name, linking each man to God, Jesus is not reverting to a mere archaic form of speech. Rather, He intends to underline the personal relationship enjoyed by God with each individual patriarch.

But how does Jesus citation of Moses prove something about resurrection? Since the quotation does not mention it directly, and since He argues by inference, is He not arguing, rather, for an intermediate state of existence between death and resurrection, rather than for resurrection directly, as He claimed in Mat. 22:31? To answer this question correctly, it must be understood by approaching it from the Sadducees standpoint.

The Sadducees taught that souls die with the bodies (Josephus, Ant. XVIII, 1, 4). With this Jehovahs Witnesses agree (Harp of God, 4148; Let God Be True, 6675). A Sadducee could have written, Death is the loss of life, the end of existence, the complete cessation of conscious physical or intellectual activity . . . although a Jehovahs Witness authored this definition (Make Sure of All Things, 86). The fundamental confusion shared by the ancient Sadducees and their modern counterpart is their confusion of soul with spirit, so that all that may be affirmed of the one must also be true in all respects of the other. It is not impossible that Sadducean thought, like that of the Watchtower, was influenced by texts that affirm the similarity of human souls with those of animals (Psa. 49:12; Ecc. 3:18 f.), by texts that affirm the mortality of souls (Eze. 18:4; Jos. 10:28-39 ASV; Psa. 22:20; Psa. 22:29; Psa. 89:48 ASV; Isa. 53:10-12) or by texts that speak of the unconsciousness of the dead (Psa. 13:3; Psa. 146:4 ASV; Ecc. 8:5 f., Ecc. 8:10). Bible statements that rightly describe a mortal living on earth they mistook for information that must only be understood of the state of the spirit of man after this life. Hence, they discounted texts that teach that every person shall really survive death. True, death dissolves that unique combination of body and spirit called soul in most texts. In this sense, of course, the soul dies, the body sleeps in the dust. But THE SPIRIT neither dies nor sleeps, but, rather, returns to its Maker and is alive unto God and returns with Him at the resurrection (Ecc. 12:7; Luk. 20:38; 1Th. 4:14). The popular confusion of soul and spirit for all that there is to man makes the interpretation of many texts difficult. This is not so much because the texts are unclear, but because the interpreter unconsciously brings his own understanding of soul or spirit to the text, then tries to fit it into his preconceived scheme of reality.

Further, it is also apparent from Jesus mode of reasoning that the Sadducees shared the general Hebrew idea that Gods love and concern for man involves His interest in the whole man, body and soul. Rather than consider the body the prison of the soul, as did Romans and Greeks, the Hebrews were taught to conceive of the human spirit as originally formed to express itself through a body.

While it may be argued that nothing can be concluded about the resurrection body by comparing it with our first creation (Adams body), it should be noted that there is no Scriptural evidence that there has been or will be a change in our spirits mode of expressing itself, i.e. in some form of expression other than in a body. Rather, our long-awaited perfection through transformation at the resurrection will complete our redemption by furnishing us a glorious, immortal BODY (Rom. 8:23; 1Co. 15:44; 1Co. 15:49; 1Co. 15:53; Php. 3:21). So this divine choice evidences His desire that our spirits continue to express themselves by means of a new body like that of Jesus.

1Th. 5:23 turns out not to be a new revelation so much as the confirmation of this ancient view. (Cf. also psuch in Act. 2:27, an Old Testament concept where soul = the entire person is the parallel.)

The Sadducees apparently turned this concept against resurrection by questioning the immortal duration of the soul (cf. Wars, II, 8, 14), since, if the body apart from the spirit is dead, the spirit apart from the body must be dead too! The one has no independent existence without the other. There could be no life after death, except that life realized in some kind of a body, since there could be no life but that in a body. Implicit in their argument, then, is the practical equation of resurrection and life after death. Thus, to prove the truth of the one is to establish the other also.

To refute their position, all Jesus had to demonstrate was that spirits have an existence separate from the body. This He did by proving from Scripture that the great patriarchs of the Hebrew faith are still alive centuries after leaving their bodies, that they returned to their Maker and God, hence are not totally extinct at all. Death did not extinguish their spirits. They were even then living in the sphere of God. (Cf. the New Testament doctrine; 2Co. 4:16 to 2Co. 5:9; Rev. 6:9; Mat. 17:3; 1Th. 4:13-18, esp. 1Th. 4:14.) Jesus did not affirm the resurrection of these Old Testament worthies; only their survival after the death of their bodies. But given the Sadducees (Hebrew) view of mans wholeness of soul and body, the soul and body, the resurrection of the body was no longer impossible, but must necessarily follow.

III. THE RESULT: JESUS MASTERFUL REBUTTAL INSPIRES PRAISE (22:33)

Mat. 22:33 And when the multitudes heard it, they were astonished at his teaching. Not only were the crowds deeply impressed by the penetrating insight of Jesus wisdom and instruction, but even some of the theologians in that group had to admit, Teacher, you have spoken well (Luk. 20:39). Rather than beat Him, the Sadducees attempt had only succeeded in establishing Him more securely in the crowds admiration. Should not the crowd be astonished that only this young preacher could with such marvelous ease unravel the ancient problem with so indisputable a text?

Undoubtedly some Pharisees too had seen the crowd and joined in to listen. They had been crushed endlessly by their personal failure to answer that old Sadducean trick question many times before. Could they do anything but rejoice to have this thorn in their side removed by the sound defence of the resurrection now completed by Jesus? Even in this moment charged with tense emotion, it must have required no little courage so quickly and so publicly to announce their concurrence with Jesus deeply satisfying spiritual victory over the unbelief which their own best answers could not eradicate. He had used their own familiar weapons with a mastery they could not equal! One of these Pharisees could hardly wait to inform his cohorts of the Sadducean debacle (cf. Mat. 22:34).

THE EFFECTS OF JESUS DOCTRINE

THE DOCTRINE OF MATERIALISM IS PROVEN FALSE. Jesus principles establish the reality of the human spirit, because it survives the death of the material body. Therefore, man is more than matter. At death his spirit survives alive in the spiritual realm of the living God and must answer to Him!

THE PROPHETIC DIGNITY OF JESUS RECEIVES FURTHER CONFIRMATION. How could Jesus answer with such certainty that marriage does not exist in the spirit world? While some might suppose this statement to result from His careful meditation, He simply stated the truth the way He who came from heaven knew it to be.

THE RESURRECTION WILL NOT MERELY RESUME THIS LIFE, BUT INTRODUCE A NEW LIFE FAR BETTER. There will be no death in the new family of God. The frontiers of this new life are limited only by the unlimited creative power of God who makes it possible.

THE AUTHORITY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES IS FURTHER VINDICATED. What a tremendous impact the Old Testament had on Israel, particularly that section of the Scriptures the scholars of today question as non-Mosaic! Is it not instructive that these rankest unbelievers in Israel (the Sadducees) wholeheartedly embraced precisely this part of the Scriptures, and that our Lord, while informing their ignorance, founded His argument exclusively on it? Can theologians escape the Lords condemnation, if they deny what Jesus affirms concerning the validity of the Old Testaments witness as specifically from Moses?

THE GREATNESS OF GODS POWER TO PERFORM ALL HE PROMISED AND MORE (Rom. 4:21; Heb. 11:19). All is well with those who trust God. Death holds no terrors for His people.

GODS JUDGMENT IS A DECIDED CERTAINTY! Hitting hard at Sadducean denial of Gods judgment (cf. Wars, II, 8; 14), Jesus proved that Gods menace to destroy the wicked and unbelieving in eternal punishment is no idle threat. If no one had survived physical death, it might have been assumed that death were but a freak accident of human evolution, not a divine judgment. It might have been assumed, further, that the ancient story of Gods punishment of Adam and his descendants with bodily death were but an ancient legend attempting to explain a natural phenomenon. But, because Jesus conclusively proved that men really do survive death to live in another world, He proved thereby that the ancient record was no myth. Rather death meted out to Adam and his children is really a divine judgment. So, if men really survive their personal punishment for Adams sin (= death), they must answer for their own personal conduct before God in that immortal world. So, by punishing men with death for Adams transgression, God gave assurance of His future justice to be faced by a race entirely resurrected. Death is Gods assurance to all that He means business. Resurrection is His assurance that divine justice has not been totally satisfied by the physical death of each individual child of Adam. Rather, judgment must yet be faced, because there is life after death!

THE COMMUNION OF THE SAINTS IS REAL. If Abraham, Isaac and Jacob live, what of the rest of the Old and New Testament saints, yes, and all those who have died since? Duckworth (P.H.C., XXIII, 445) reminds us of . . .

. . . the indestructible bond that knits in holy communion and fellowship the whole redeemed family of God. We talk and act as though we on this side of the veil constituted the whole Catholic Church; we forget that the majority is elsewhere, that we are but a fraction of it: we forget the great cloud of witnesses gathered during the ages growing day by day, the unseen multitude which no man can number; we think but seldom of that paradise of God, that land of the living, where loyal hearts and true stand ever in the light. Ah brethren, it is we who are in the shadows and the darkness, not they. . . .

FACT QUESTIONS

Who were the Sadducees? What did they believe? Describe their position in the religio-political spectrum in Israel. What else does the New Testament say about them? In what major points did they differ from the Pharisees?

What was the law they cited? What practical problem in Israel was this law intended to solve? Why underline the childlessness of each marriage?

Show how the Sadducees practical case seemed to them to enjoy Mosaic sanction for their position regarding the resurrection.

What is the importance of Jesus remark about their ignorance? Show how this is no mere jab to hurt them but an integral part of His answer.

Show in what way the Sadducees were signally ignorant of the power of God.

Why is Jesus allusion to angels particularly significant in this conversation with Sadducees?

In what way are resurrected humans like angels in heaven? What additional light does Luke throw on this question?

In what way does marriage have only to do with this life?

In what way were the Sadducees tragically ignorant of the Scriptures, according to Jesus?

10.

What Bible text did He cite in proof of the resurrection? What other Old Testament texts COULD He have cited with equal force?

11.

Show how the text cited actually proves the truth of the resurrection. Show how the same text could be used to deal with other Sadducean disbelief.

12.

Why did Jesus choose to cite a text out of the Pentateuch for the Sadducees?

13.

Show how Jesus defended the divine and human authorship of the text cited. (Cf. Mark and Luke.)

14.

What was the crowds reaction to Jesus answer?

15.

According to Luke, what was the reaction of the theologians present?

C. THE QUESTION OF THE GREAT COMMANDMENT IN THE LAW

(Parallel: Mar. 12:28-34; cf. Luk. 10:25-28 not parallel)

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(23-28) The Sadducees.(See Note on Mat. 3:7.) These, we must remember, consisted largely of the upper class of the priesthood (Act. 5:17). The form of their attack implies that they looked on our Lord as teaching the doctrine of the resurrection. They rested their denial on the ground that they found no mention of it in the Law, which they recognised as the only rule of faith. The case which they put, as far as the principle involved was concerned, need not have gone beyond any case of re-marriage without issue, but the questioners pushed it to its extreme, as what seemed to them a reductio ad absurdum. Stress is laid on the childlessness of the woman in all the seven marriages in order to guard against the possible answer that she would be counted in the resurrection as the wife of him to whom she had borne issue.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

ENCOUNTER WITH THE SADDUCEES, Mat 22:23-33. (See note preceding Mat 22:14.)

23. Say that there is no resurrection And their intention is to show from Moses, that the doctrine of the resurrection involves an inexplicable difficulty.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘On that day there came to him Sadducees, those who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him,’

Note the emphasis that it was ‘on the same day’. Thus the Pharisees, the Herodians and the Sadducees all approached Him to test Him on that day. All were out to bring Him down. We know little about the Sadducees for everything written about them was written by their opponents and therefore unreliable. But Matthew tells us that they did not believe in the resurrection. Josephus amplifies that by saying that they did not believe in the survival of either the soul or the body. It would seem that they also laid great emphasis on the Law of Moses (which was natural to a priestly party), although also recognising the prophets suitably interpreted. They did not believe in angels or spirits. Their emphasis was on the cult. The question that they approached Him with concerned the resurrection, and was probably a standard question with which they tripped up their opponents. It was based on the law of levirate marriage (Deu 25:5-10). Under that law if a man died childless his brother (or kinsman) was required to take his wife and produce children who would inherit the dead man’s name, and his property. It was certainly practised early on for we have examples in Gen 38:8 and in Rth 1:11-13; Rth 4:1-22 (the Greek rendering of Gen 38:8 is reflected in Matthew’ treatment of the subject), but we do not know how much it was actually practised in the time of Jesus. However, being in the Law it was certainly possible for it to be practised, and there is no reason to doubt that it was, especially if the wife was especially attractive or the inheritance large.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Jesus Confirms The Truth About The Resurrection And The Secondary Nature of Marriage (22:23-33).

Jesus was now faced with the Sadducees. The Sadducees were mainly of the ruling parties and included the Chief Priests, and many of the aristocratic Elders. But here the ones who were sent were probably deliberately chosen from among those who had previously been ‘con-combative’. As with the approach of ‘the disciples of the Pharisees’ it was an attempt to challenge Him at another level. Their approach underlined that He had been challenged by, and had answered, all the leading groups in Israel

The question that they approached Jesus with was probably a standard one used by the Sadducees in defence of one of their own main teachings, the fact that there would be no resurrection. They also did not believe in spirits and angels. They probably based their view (as did the Samaritans, who only accepted the Pentateuch) on the fact that there is no mention of the resurrection in the Law of Moses. Jesus’ reply was that they neither knew the Scriptures nor the power of God. For if they were but to consider these they would see things differently

Analysis

a On that day there came to him Sadducees, those who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him, saying (Mat 22:23).

b “Teacher, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed to his brother. Now there were with us seven brothers, and the first married and deceased, and having no seed left his wife to his brother, in like manner the second also, and the third, to the seventh, and after them all, the woman died” (Mat 22:24-27).

c “In the resurrection therefore whose wife shall she be of the seven? For they all had her” (Mat 22:28).

d But Jesus answered and said unto them, “You go astray, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God” (Mat 22:29).

c “For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as angels in heaven” (Mat 22:30).

b “But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?’ God is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Mat 22:31-32).

a And when the crowds heard it, they were astonished at his teaching (Mat 22:33).

Note that in ‘a’ Jesus was questioned about the resurrection, and in the parallel all were astonished at His reply. In ‘b’ seven brothers sought to ‘raise up’ seed, and all died. In the parallel concerning the raising up of the dead God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. In ‘c’ the question concerns the resurrection, and in the parallel Jesus’ answer is given. Centrally in ‘d’ the Sadducees are revealed as not knowing the Scriptures or the power of God.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The Question of the Sadducees.

v. 23. The same day came to Him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked Him,

v. 24. saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.

v. 25. Now there were with us seven brethren; and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother;

v. 26. likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh.

v. 27. And last of all the woman died also.

v. 28. Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife shall she be of the seven? For they all had her.

The Herodians and the disciples of the Pharisees had been silenced. But this fact seemed like a challenge to the Sadducees who prided themselves upon their cleverness. It was not merely in a spirit of mischief that these men came, but with the intention of making Christ appear ridiculous. For they themselves, as Matthew remarks, did not believe in the resurrection, and incidentally accepted only the five books of Moses as authentic words of God. Both of which was well known to Jesus, and He here made use of His knowledge to their utter discomfiture. They relate a story which has all the ear-marks of having been invented for the occasion, and cite Moses, Gen 38:8; Deu 25:5-6, in support of their question. It was the so-called Levirate marriage to which they had reference, according to which it was ordered, for the preservation of families, that if a man died without male children, his brother should marry the widow, and that the first-born son should be held in the registers to be the son of the dead brother. The Sadducees purposely tell the story in such a way as to bring out the foolishness of the ensuing situation after the resurrection, in their opinion: Whose wife will she be? All of the brothers have equal rights.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Mat 22:23. The same day came to him the Sadducees It is generally known that Sadoc, the master of this sect, and from whom the Sadducees took their name, thought that God was not to be served from mercenary principles; that is to say, as he crudely explained it, from the hope of reward, or fear of punishment. His followers interpreted this as an implicit denial of a future state, and so imbibed that pernicious notion of the utter destruction of the soul at death;equally uncomfortable and absurd. The story which they mention here seems to have been a kind of common-place objection, as we meet with it in the old Jewish writers. Some are of opinion, that by the resurrection which the Sadducees denied, is to be understood the resurrection of the body; others contend, that it signifies simply the existence of men in a future state: properly speaking, however, the two notions coincide, for as the Sadducees denied the immateriality of the soul, a future state, according to their conceptions of it, could mean no thing else but the resurrection of the body; and their denying the resurrection of the body, was the same thing with their denying a future state. Farther, as they had no idea of spirit, they were obliged to make use of terms relative to the body, when they spoke of a future life. Hence came the familiar use of the word resurrection in their disputes, to denote a future state simply; and this sense is notmore unusual than the meaning which they affixed to the worddead, when they made it to signify persons annihilated, or who have no existence at all. See Luk 20:38. Our Lord’s reasoning in behalf of a future state, placed in this view, is clear and conclusive. See Drusius, and Lightfoot on the place.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Mat 22:23 . Comp. Mar 12:18 ff.; Luk 20:27 ff.; Matthew condenses.

.] who assert , etc., serving to account for the question which follows. On the necessity of the article, inasmuch as the Sadducees do not say to Jesus that there is no resurrection, but because their regular confiteor is here quoted, comp. Khner ad Xen. ii. 7. 13; Mar 12:18 : .

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

C. The Attack of the Sadducees, and the Victory of the Lord. Mat 22:23-33

(Mar 12:18-27; Luk 20:27-40.)

23The same day came to him the20 Sadducees, which [who] say that there is no resur- rection, and asked him, 24Saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. 25Now there were with us seven brethren [brothers]: and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue,21 left his wife unto his brother: 26Likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh [unto the seven, . 27And last of all the woman died also. 28Therefore in the resurrection, whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her. 29Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err [Ye err, go astray, ], not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. 30For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God22 in heaven. 31But as touching [concerning] the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which wasspoken unto you by God, saying, 32I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob (Exo 3:6)? God is not the God23 of the dead, hut of the living 33And when the multitude heard this, they were astonished at this doctrine

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Mat 22:23. Sadducees.See Exeg. Notes on Mat 3:7, p. 71, and Winers article upon them.

Who say (teach).The before must not be given up, though wanting in B., D., and other codices. See de Wette,

There is no resurrection.It may be asked, how far and in what sense we are to regard the question of the Sadducees as a temptation; for, doubtless, their question also, like that of the Pharisees, was framed with a view to entangle our Lord in some matter of accusation; and therefore we may assume that their malice was the counterpart of the malice of the Pharisees. It was the last consequence of Pharisaismwhich no Pharisee, however, would openly express)that no tribute was to be given to Caesar, but that his government was to be overturned. Now, this was the position to which they wished Jesus to commit Himself. And so also the Sadduceesthough they did not come forward with an outspoken denial of the resurrectionhoped that they would make the Lord appear nothing but a Sadducee, and thereby effectually rob Him of all His influence and authority with the people. Should they not thus get the better of Him before the multitude, it was probable that Jesus would give some interpretation of the passage and of the doctrine which would bring Him into collision with Moses and the law. But they scarcely expected such a solution as Jesus gave; it never entered their thoughts that He would make so clear and definite a distinction between this life and the next. They hoped that they should constrain Him publicly to tow their secret doctrine, even as the Pharisees had hoped that they might make Him declare Himself a consummate Pharisee.

Mat 22:24. Master, Moses said.Deu 25:5. They freely quoted the Mosaic law concerning the Levirate marriage. It was ordained, for the preservation of families, that if a man died without male issue, his brother should marry the widow, and that the first born son should be held in the registers to be the son of the dead brother. (Michaelis: Mosaischen Recht, 2. p. 98.) On this passage they construct a startling example, which in all probability was purely fictitious and boldly and unscrupulously carried out: their argument taking it for granted that, if there were ever a resurrection, the marriage must needs be renewed in another world. Thus, their design was to show, out of the law itself, that the doctrine of a resurrection was something untenable, and a gross absurdity.

Mat 22:26. Unto the seven.That is, unto the seventh.

Mat 22:29. Not knowing the Scriptures, etc.There is here a twofold source of knowledge: Holy Scripture, and spiritual experience; or, as the theologian would say, a formal and a material principle. Out of the ignorance of the one source24 or the other spring the Sadducee and the Rationalist tendencies to error. It is very observable that our Lord does not confront them with the rebuke, that they did not hold tradition sacred. Pharisaism which stuck to the traditions was no cure for Sadducism. The latter could never be set free from its negations, without learning more profoundly to study and apply its own positive principles, Scripture and the spiritual life. In what sense, then, was it that they did not understand Scripture ? In so far as they failed to discern in it its own living substance, its peculiar meaning in reference to the doctrine of immortality. But they understood not the power of God, inasmuch as they put no trust in the power of God over death, in His power to raise the dead; and therefore had no ability to conceive of or anticipate the glorification of the present body into a higher state, into a life in which present sexual relations should no longer subsist.

Mat 22:30. In the resurrection.Fritzsche: In the resurrection life. Meyer, on the other hand: In the rising. It does not, however, point merely to the moment of the commencement of the new life; but to the state in which that issues, as in , Mat 19:28.Nor given in marriage.This has reference to the custom of the Jews, that the female members of the family were given in marriage by their father. The resurrection is a higher state of things, in which death is extinguished in the glorification of life, and all things pertaining to marriage and the sexes done away (Luk 20:36; 1Co 15:44).

As the angels in heaven.That is, the angels who are in heaven. Meyer: The risen are not yet in heaven. But compare 2Co 5:1; 1Th 4:17. With the first resurrection begins the transition of earthly nature into the heavenly; and with the general resurrection earth and heaven will have become one in a glorified heavenly domain. We find among the Rabbins similar notions of the future relations of the body and of the sexes (see Wetstein); but also such a low sensual view as this: mulier illa, qu duobus nupsit in hoc mundo, priori restituitur in mundo futuro. Sohar. Meyer.

Mat 22:31. But concerning the resurrection of the dead.Jesus demonstrates the resurrection by the passage, Exo 3:6. They drew their argument from the Thorah, from the books of Moses; and He finds His proof in the same.25 De Wette: From this the erroneous conclusion was deduced, even by the Fathers. (Tertull de Prsc, cap. 45; Hieron, ad loc), and by later divines, that the Sadducees accepted only the five books of Moses as canonical (an error which Olshausen seems to retain). Comp, Winer, art Sadducer. So also Meyer; but both of them have rather too confidently adopted Winers views.26 The remark of Josephus (Contra Apion. i. 8), that the whole of the twenty two books were esteemed divine by the Jews without exception, has no particular weight; for he is speaking only of the Jews generally, and in mass; and it is well known that the Sadducees did not dare to make a public dogma of their rejection of the post-Mosaic Scriptures, and of the doctrine of the resurrection. It is plain that the assertion of Josephus cannot be strictly applied to all parties, in view of the relation of the Essenes to the law of sacrifices, and other matters in the Old Testament. (See the Pseudo Clementines.) The passage, quoted by Winer, from Josephus (Antiq. xiii. 10, 6), declares that the Sadducees taught: , that the holy writings must be honored. But these Scriptures were previously defined to be the law of Moses (so Josephus himself says, Mat 18:1; Mat 18:4). At the same time they rejected the tradition of the fathers. Thus they definitely acknowledged only the Mosaic Scriptures, and definitely rejected only tradition. Their position, meanwhile, toward the remainder of the Scripture, was officially an ambiguous one. That bad antithesis between Mosaic and non Mosaic Scriptures, which Josephus adduces, was attributed to them also by the Talmud: Negarunt legem ore traditam, nee fidem habuerunt nisi ei, quod in lege (the Thorah) Scriptum erat. They certainly did not express any positive rejection of the non Mosaic Scriptures, because they durst not; but their bad antithesis plainly enough disclosed that they did not acknowledge them, but would be disposed to class them with the traditions, which they did reject. The ancient testimonies, among which that of Origen is prominent, will maintain their force, therefore, in spite of Winers view.27

Mat 22:32. I am [not: I was] the God of Abraham.This argumentation has been treated by Hase, Strauss, and others, as a specimen of rabbinical dialectics or exegesis. (Comp. contra Ebrard, Kritik, etc., p. 606.) But a kind of dialectics which dealt in a merely deceptive demonstration we cannot ascribe to the Lord. The nerve of the argumentation lies in this, that God appears in the passage quoted as a personal God, who bears a personal covenant-relation to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The thought here expressed is this: God it the living, the God of the living (major premiss); He then calls Himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (minor); consequently, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are not simply dead, but they must continue to live as those to whom God is a God. The idea of personality is the root of all arguments for the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body. The similar argument in Menasseh, f. Isr. de Resurr. i. 10, 6, appears to have been derived from this passage. Comp. Schttgen, p. 180. Meyer.

[It is certain that this argument of our Saviour could not have been discovered by any amount of Rabbinical learning and acumen; and yet being once presented to our mind, it strikes us, not as an arbitrary imposition (like most of the Rabbinical, and many of the patristic allegorical interpretations), but as a real exposition of the true meaning of the passage quoted; throwing a flood of light over it, and filling us with wonder at the hidden depths and comforts of the Scriptures. But strictly taken, the argument of Christ avails only for those who stand in personal covenant relations with the God of Abraham, and are thus partakers of the Divine life which can never be destroyed, and implies an admonition to the Sadducees to enter into this relation. The immortality and resurrection of the wicked, which is as terrible a doctrine as the resurrection of the just is comfortable, is not denied here, but must be based on other passages of the Scripture.P. S.]

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The Temptation.See above. The Sadducees hoped that either the Lord would publicly sanction their petty and frivolous denial of the doctrine of the resurrection, or contradict the law of Moses. To this we may add the following consideration:If the Sadducees already knew of the prophecy of Jesus, that He would rise from the dead (and probably Judas had revealed this to them, see chap, Mat 27:63), then their temptation would have a special significance: it would be a hint that His hope of the resurrection was delusive enthusiasm, that He might well pause, and, before the determination of the highest authorities should take effect in His death, retreat from His pretensions and His whole work. Caiaphas and many of the Sanhedrin were Sadducees. Probably, therefore, there was here a concealed threatening of death, and a temptation to renounce and retract.

2. They professed to be those who knew,the illuminated in Israel. But their knowledge was delusion; and a delusion which rested on a twofold ignorance.

3. The Lord speaks, according to Luke, of an attaining unto the resurrection. This is the more precise representation of the resurrection of the glorified, which, however, presupposes the basis of the general resurrection, of which Matthew speaks.

4. He incidentally showed the Sadducees, who opposed the doctrine of angels (Act 23:8), how little He thought of their rejection of it; for He designedly referred to the angels in heaven as persons, whose personal existence in heaven we may confidently assume.

5. The Sadducees had changed the positive law of God into an abstract law of ethics; turn being in a double sense like the Stoics; in their one-sided morality, and in their denial of the personal fundamental elements and relations of life.28 The consequence of their system was heathen pantheism. Thus, the question here was not merely the evidence for the resurrection, and that as taken from the law of Moses; a demonstration was to be given which should exhibit the very roots of the doctrine of the resurrection, that is, the doctrine of a personal God, and of His personal bond with human persons, as the foundation of their eternal personal life. And in this case also Christ proved Himself the supreme Teacher, by the quotation which He adduced in proof. The astonished people felt the power of His argument.

6. The doctrine of Paul, 1 Corinthians 15 (comp. Mat 6:13), is in obvious harmony with this resurrection-doctrine of the Lord, which exhibits the second life as a state of imperishableness, sublimely elevated above death, and birth, and procreation, and thus above all the state of becoming.

7. We must be on our guard against the common unhistorical parallel drawn between the Sadducees and systems of Epicurean, selfish, sensual, and immoral tendency. They are to be regarded, however, as worldly-minded secularists in a more refined sense, who had fallen into a heathen view and estimation of this world.

[8. The Bible, viewing man in his completeness and integrity as a being consisting of body, soul and spirit, teaches the doctrine of immortality of the soul in inseparable connection with the resurrection of the body, and not in the abstract, unreal and shadowy form of naturalistic and rationalistic theology which would maintain the first and deny the second. Nast: That the Scriptures attach more importance to the resurrection of the body, than to the mere self-conscious existence of the soul in its disembodied state, arises from the fact that the disembodied state of the soul is considered in the Scriptures as something imperfect, abnormal, so much so that even the souls of the just look forward with intense desire to their reunion with their bodies (Rom 8:11; Rom 8:23). Without the body man has not his whole full life.P. S.]

[9. Lavater, Stier and Alford justly regard the Lords answer, Mat 22:32 (comp. in Luk 20:38), as implying a conclusive argument against the doctrine of psychopanychia, or of the sleep of the soul in the intermediate state between death and the resurrection. The first theological treatise of Calvin was directed against this error, then entertained by the Anabaptists.P. S.]

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The Sadducees and Phariseesthe unbelievers and the legalistsleagued against Christ in the temple.The Sadducees attack, a perfect type of the style of infidelity: 1. Supposing themselves free, they further tradition; 2. seemingly unprejudiced, they are inwardly bitter; 3. prating about the spirit, they are entangled in sensual notions; 4. pretending to be inquirers, they are only fabling misleaders, doubly ignorant; 5. proud and confident, with nothing but stupidity in art and weapons.Ignorance the main source of unbelief: 1. Want of scriptural knowledge, or of honest perseverance in seeking it; 2. want of spiritual experience, or at least of sincerity in purpose.Ignorance in spiritual things the guilt of life.Christ the great witness of the resurrection.The roots of that doctrine in the Old Testament.The bond of believers with the living God a pledge of their resurrection.The beautiful idea of the future life: 1. Elevated above temporal transitoriness; 2. like the angels of God; 3. a life in heaven.God not the God of the dead, but of tin living.The life of believers as secure as the life of God, according to the testimony of Christ.God the eternal pledge of the resurrection.Our bond with God abolishes death as well as sin.The absolute and indissoluble connection between the doctrine of immortality and the doctrine of the resurrection: 1. The former requires the latter; 2. the latter presupposes the former.Have ye not read what is written? Or: There is a reproving and correcting word for every form of unbelief in the Scripture.Christ the conqueror of unbelief.Christ the glorifier of this world and the next: 1. He illustrates to us this world by the next, and the next world by this; 2. He brings to perfection this world and the next.In the controversy between faith and unbelief, the people usually side with faith.

Starke:When Christ is to be persecuted in His people, those combine together who are not agreed in anything else.Canstein: Satan never ceases to lay snares for Christ and His Church.Hedinger: The mockers are many who deny the resurrection.Zeisius: The ground of all errors and contentions among converted people is their ignorance of Holy Scripture: not so much of its letter, as of the living and blessed apprehension of the mind of the Spirit,Canstein: Gods word is not merely what is written there in express letters, but also all that may be deduced therefrom by sound reasoning.Quesnel: God knows how to bring good out of evil, light out of darkness, and the glory of truth out of false doctrine and maliciousness.

Heubner:Quoting from Lavater: The Sadducees and Pharisees are the two great parties in misleading the human race; they change their position in succeeding ages, one of them ordinarily being pre-eminent. These spirits are always to be contended against, even now: sometimes superstition united with hypocrisy; now unbelief united with the semblance of wisdom and illumination. Against both Christ protests continually; and against both the Church teacher must protest. The former appeal to authority, antiquity, tradition, the sanctity of the letter; the latter, to reason, doubt, freedom.The same (Lavater as quoted by Heubner): The angel who appeared in the burning bush in the name of God, is a pledge of that which ye deny: he was a symbol that God can preserve what nature seems to destroy.Christ shows how we must read the Scripture, and use the key for the true knowledge of God.

Footnotes:

[20] Mat 22:28.[The article is wanting In Greek and should be omitted in the trsl.P. S.]

[21] Mat 22:25.[Literally: and the first, hating married, died (or: married and died), and having no teed, left his wife to his brother, , , …P. S.]

[22] Mat 22:17. is omitted in B., D., etc., according to Meyer on account of Mar 12:36 [ ].

[23] Mat 22:32.The second [before is stricken out by Lachmann on the authority of B., L., and other ancient MSS. But here, too. Meyer defends it, and explains the omission from the desire of copyists to conform to Mark and Lake. [Omitted in Cod. Sinait]

[24][The Edinb. trsl. omits the igorance of (aus dem Eichtwissen der eineti Quelie, etc.), and thus makes the errors of Sadducism and Rationalism actually spring from the Holy Scriptures and spiritual experience!P. S.]

[25][The passage occurs in connection with the appearance of Jehovah to Moses in the burning bush, which wits itself striking symbol of the power of God to preserve what in the course of nature must perish. Alford: Our Lord does not cite the strong testimonies of the Prophets, as Isa 26:19; Eze 37:1-14; Dan 12:2 but says, as in Luke (Luk 20:37), even Motes has shewn, etc., leaving those other witnesses to be supplied. The books of Moses were the great and ultimate appeal for all doctrine: and thus the assertion of the Resurrection comes from the very source whence their difficulty had been constructed. Thus the burden of the law, I am the Lord thy God, contains the seed of immortality and the promise of the resurrection. The law Is the bard shell which contains and protects the precious kernel of the gospel.P. S.]

[26][So has Alford in loc.: The Sadducees acknowledged the prophets also, and rejected tradition only (see this abundantly proved by Winer, Realworterbuch, saddueder). P. S.]

[27][In German: Anffassung, which the Edinb. trsl. falsely jenders incorrect statements; thus doing injustice to the late Dr. Winer, who is one of the most conscientious, accurate, and reliable writers in all quotations and statements of facts- P. S.]

[28][It seems to me that the Pharisees rather correspond to the Stoics, the Sadducees to the Sceptics and Epicureans, the Essenes to the Platonists; the first representing the error of orthodoxism and legalism, the second that of rationalism and worldly indifferentism, the third that of mysticism. No doubt many of the Greek and Roman Sceptics and Epicureans, as well as the Sadducees, maintained a respectable show of outward morality and decency.P. S.]

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

“The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him, (24) Saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. (25) Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother: (26) Likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh. (27) And last of all the woman died also. (28) Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her. (29) Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. (30) For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. (31) But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, (32) I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. (33) And when the multitude heard this, they were astonished at his doctrine.”

It is worth observing, how the malice of both Sadducees and Pharisees was over-ruled to the Lord’s glory and the comfort of his people. For had not those men brought forward this question, the Church would not have had the explanation, which it now hath, of this precious doctrine in this place; neither should we, most probably, have had those discoveries the Lord Jesus hath here given concerning himself at the bush of Moses. But what a blessed confirmation our Lord’s answer to those men in this place is, to all the other unanswerable testimonies on this great-point of the resurrection. Jesus hath put it on its own basis, and, from the covenant relation between Christ and his people, most fully shewn that God, that is (God in Christ) is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him; their souls among the spirits of just men, made perfect, and their bodies, from an union with Christ, resting in this covenant hope of being raised at the last day. For if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead, dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Rom 8:11 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

23 The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him,

Ver. 23. The same day came to him the Sadducees ] Vulpium capita possunt esse aversa, quorum tamen caudae in face eadem coeunt. Heretics may differ as much from one another, as they all do from the truth. Both Pharisees and Sadducees can conspire against Christ, though they cannot consent among themselves. These Sadducees were a brutish sect and sort of Jews, that held many monstrous opinions. Some of them are set down, Act 23:8 . Various others more gross may be read of in Josephus, who also tells us that they were but few of them, yet of the chief among the people. (Ant. 18, 2; B. J. 2, 7.) And no wonder, for even at this day atheists and epicures are rife; and among the great ones especially, who either think or could wish at least, there would be no resurrection, &c.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

23 33. ] REPLY TO THE SADDUCEES RESPECTING THE RESURRECTION. Mar 12:18-27 . Luk 20:27-40 . From Act 23:8 , the Sadducees denied resurrection, angel, and spirit ; consequently the immortality of the soul, as well as the resurrection of the body . This should be borne in mind, as our Lord’s answer is directed against both errors. It is a mistake into which many Commentators (including Wordsw. on the authority of Jerome) have fallen, to suppose that the Sadducees recognized only the Pentateuch: they acknowledged the prophets also , and rejected tradition only (see this abundantly proved by Winer, Realwrterbuch, Sadducer).

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

23. . ] In Luke, . = Mark. Here, the art. being absent, we must understand that they came, saying that there was no resurrection: i.e. either, in pursuance of their well-known denial of that doctrine, or, which is more probable, actually saying, maintaining it against our Lord: viz., in shape and manner following.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Mat 22:23-33 . The Sadducaic puzzle (Mar 12:18-27 , Luk 20:27-38 ).

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Mat 22:23 . , approached, but with different intent, aiming at amusement rather than deadly mischief. Jesus was of no party, and the butt of all the parties. , with , introduces the creed of the Sadducees; without it, what they said to Jesus. They came and said: We do not believe in the resurrection, and we will prove to you its absurdity. This is probably Mt.’s meaning. He would not think it necessary to explain the tenets of the Sadducees to Jewish readers.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mat 22:23-33

23On that day some Sadducees (who say there is no resurrection) came to Jesus and questioned Him, 24asking, ” Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother as next of kin shall marry his wife, and raise up children for his brother.’25″Now there were seven brothers with us; and the first married and died, and having no children left his wife to his brother; 26so also the second, and the third, down to the seventh. 27Last of all, the woman died. 28In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had married her.” 29But Jesus answered and said to them, “You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God. 30For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven. 31But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God: 32’I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.” 33When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at His teaching.

Mat 22:23 “Sadducees” See Special Topic at Mat 2:4.

“questioned Him” This question also was meant to force Jesus to deal with a controversial topic, and thereby, alienate Himself from a segment of the Jewish population.

Mat 22:24 “Moses said” This is a reference to Deu 25:5-6.

“if” This is a third class conditional sentence, which meant potential future action.

“his brother as next of kin shall marry his wife” This dealt with the concept of “Levirate marriage” (cf. Deu 25:5-6; Rth 4:1-2). This term comes from the Latin term for ” brother-in-law.” In ancient Israel the land was a major theological emphasis (cf. Gen 12:1-3). God had divided the land by lot under Joshua into tribal allocations. When a male descendant died without an heir the question arose about the fate of his land. The Jews developed a way for the widow to have a child, if possible, by a near relative so that the deceased man’s property would go to an heir. This child would be considered the child of the deceased brother (cf. Numbers 27 and Ruth 4).

Mat 22:25 “seven brothers” This shows that the Sadducees did not really want theological information but grounds for accusations! No doubt they had used this theological argument many times to confuse and embarrass the Pharisees.

Mat 22:29 “You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God” This accusation must have really embarrassed these religious leaders (cf. Mat 21:42)! However, it is uncertain to which OT Scripture Jesus was referring to provide this information.

Mat 22:30 “For in the resurrection” Jesus was asserting His agreement with the Pharisees concerning a future resurrection (cf. Dan 12:1-2 or possibly Job 14:7-15; Job 19:25-27).

“they neither marry nor are given in marriage” This was a new truth not disclosed elsewhere in Scripture. It implies that sexuality is only an aspect of time. It was part of God’s will for creation (cf. Gen 1:28; Gen 9:17), but not for eternity! This seems to imply that the wonderful one flesh fellowship between a man and wife will be superseded by an even closer fellowship between all of God’s children in eternity.

“but are like the angels in heaven” This states that angels do not have a sexual aspect to their existence. They do not reproduce themselves in this way. Many commentators have used this verse to interpret Gen 6:1-4 as not referring to the sexual activity of angels, but rather a special group of angels mentioned in Jud 1:6 and possibly 1Pe 3:19-20, who are kept in prison (Tartarus, which was the name for the wicked part of hades).

Mat 22:32 “I am the God of Abraham” Jesus was using a rabbinical word play on the implied present tense of the supplied Hebrew verb “I Am”of Exo 3:6 to assert that God was and is still Abraham’s and the Patriarchs’God. Abraham still lives and God is still his God! Jesus used a text from the Pentateuch (Genesis – Deuteronomy) in which the Sadducees claimed to be authoritative.

Mat 22:33 They were astonished because Jesus used the OT without reference to the rabbinical traditions (cf. Mat 7:28; Mat 13:54). He was His own authority (cf. Mat 5:21-48).

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

The same day = On (Greek. en. App-104.) that same day.

the Sadducees. No Article. See App-120.

is no resurrection = is not a resurrection.

no. Greek. me. Denying subjectively not the fact, but asserting their disbelief of the fact.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

23-33.] REPLY TO THE SADDUCEES RESPECTING THE RESURRECTION. Mar 12:18-27. Luk 20:27-40. From Act 23:8, the Sadducees denied resurrection, angel, and spirit; consequently the immortality of the soul, as well as the resurrection of the body. This should be borne in mind, as our Lords answer is directed against both errors. It is a mistake into which many Commentators (including Wordsw. on the authority of Jerome) have fallen, to suppose that the Sadducees recognized only the Pentateuch: they acknowledged the prophets also, and rejected tradition only (see this abundantly proved by Winer, Realwrterbuch, Sadducer).

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Mat 22:23. , Sadducees) Towards the close of His earthly career all rise together against Jesus. The Sadducees are seldom mentioned by the Evangelists; on that day not even the Sadducees remained quiescent.-, resurrection) It is clear that this article of faith was well known at that time, from the Evangelist not having added the words, of the dead. And the adversaries of this article contravene it in various degrees, some by denying[962] altogether the immortality of the soul, others, its being joined again to its former body. And there may also have been a variety of error among the Sadducees themselves.

[962] The Wisdom of the world, like the barren figtree, fruitless and most beggarly, is in fact for the most part occupied in negations.-V. g.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Mat 22:23-46

5. SADDUCEES AND THE RESURRECTION;

OPPOSITION OF PHARISEES

Mat 22:23-46

23-33 On that day there came to him Sadducees.-Parallel records of this are found in Mar 12:18-27; Luk 20:27-38. Jesus has been tested already by the Pharisees and the Herodians, and now is subjected to the shrewdness of the Sadducees. The Sadducees were hostile to the Pharisees, and came to Jesus, supposing that he would side with them, as he had just exposed to contempt the treachery of their adversaries. They proceeded on the common fallacy that since Jesus was opposed to their adversaries, he was with them; they did not think that he was able to stand alone, without seeking the favor of some religious party. The Sadducees were opposed to the belief of the separate existence of spirits, and hence opposed to the resurrection. (Act 23:7-8.) They asked Jesus a question which, they thought, was an argument against the resurrection. They referred him to Deu 25:5, where Moses said, “If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.” This law ceased with the close of the Jewish dispensation. The Jews were legally obligated to perpetuate the family, and since the older brother received the birthright and inheritance, together with the family name, if he died without children, this would end that family; hence a brother was required to take the widow of a dead brother and raise children by her in the name of his dead brother.

These Sadducees related this imaginary case to Jesus: “The first married and deceased, and having no seed left his wife unto his brother; in like manner the second also, and the third, unto the seventh.” Then after she had had the seven brothers in succession as her husbands, “the woman died.” They then asked Jesus, “In the resurrection therefore whose wife shall she be of the seven?” All seven of the brothers had her as a legal wife, now in the resurrection whose wife shall she be? Jesus answered this question by saying, “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.” Three things united in their error and the same three things cause people to err in matters of faith today. First, they did not understand the scriptures (Dan 12:2; Isa 26:19);second, they did not understand that the power of God can do all things; and third, they erred in supposing that the future world would be in all things like the present world. After rebuking for their ignorance Jesus said, “In the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as angels in heaven.” The objection of the Sadducees is without force, since it was based upon a misunderstanding of conditions. Marriage bears a necessary relation to death, since it was designed by God to perpetuate the human family; but after the resurrection, there is eternal life, and no need for the institution of marriage as there will be no death to destroy the being. Their question was based on the supposition that “in the resurrection” all human relationships on earth would be perpetuated in heaven. There are no males and females in the spirit world, and those who inherit eternal life are as “angels in heaven”; that is, they have all of those qualities of spirit that belong to angels, and have dropped all those human relations and propensities; they are without the passions of the flesh and are pure celestial and immortal beings.

Again Jesus rebuked them for their ignorance concerning the resurrection and asked if they had not read “that which was spoken unto you by God” where he said to Moses, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” (Exo 3:6.) He then added that “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” Jesus answered the Sadducees according to their peculiar theories; they had only the book of Moses from which they had cited the scripture about the brother taking his dead brother’s wife. Jesus did not explain the resurrection to them, as they would not have understood it; the resurrection was fully explained after Jesus was raised from the dead. If there had been no resurrection, Jehovah would have said to Moses, “I was the God of Abraham,” etc., but “I am the God of Abraham,” etc., is what he said to Moses. Jehovah is not “the God of the dead, but of the living,” and since he is “the God of Abraham,” etc., these patriarchs are living, and if living, there is a life after death; hence a resurrection. Luke records this as follows: “Now he is not the God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him.” (Luk 20:38.) Again when the people heard how he had answered the Sadducees, “they were astonished at his teaching.” Indeed he taught them, not as their scribes, but as one who could speak with authority. Jesus brought new truths from the Old Testament which the Jews had not seen nor understood.

34-40 But the Pharisees, when they heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence.-The Pharisees take another turn in opposing Jews. We are in the midst of the last week of his earthly ministry; Jesus is teaching in the temple. The Pharisees sought first to ensnare him, but he answered and rebuked them; then the Herodians joined the Pharisees in attempting to ensnare him; next the Sadducees attacked him; and now the Pharisees seek again to entangle. Parallel records of this are found in Mar 12:28-34 and Luk 20:39-40. The Pharisees were standing near by and heard that Jesus had put to silence the Sadducees. To put “to silence” here comes from the Greek word which strictly means “to muzzle,” as one would put a muzzle on a beast. Perhaps the Pharisees enjoyed seeing Jesus thus “muzzle” or put to silence their adversaries, the Sadducees. They are emboldened to make another attack, and this time select one of their number whom they thought would be successful in this attempt to entrap him. They selected “a lawyer,” that is, a teacher or doctor of the law; he was not “a lawyer” in our modern use of that term. This question was put to try Jesus. It may be that the lawyer himself asked for information, but he was the tool of the Pharisees. Mark calls this man a “scribe” who asked the question and says that “thou art not far from the kingdom of God.” (Mar 12:34.) This leads us to think that probably the man himself was sincere in asking the question, but being the tool of the Pharisees he was trying to ensnare Jesus. His question was, “Which is the great commandment in the law?” He meant by this which one law must be kept above all others? The teachers among the Pharisees had decided that no man could observe perfectly all the commandments of the law delivered by Moses they were sticklers for perfect obedience; but they saw in their own lives that no one kept perfectly all the commandments of the law; therefore they had decided that if one man kept perfectly one commandment his obedience to this one would be accepted as obedience to all of the laws. However, the question arose among themselves as to which one was the most important, or which one should be selected to be kept. Some of them exalted one law above the other; some thought the law regulating the Sabbath was the more important, others thought that the law regulating conduct with respect to human life the most important.

This lawyer was skilled in the niceties and peculiar phases of the theory of the Pharisees, and perhaps they thought that he was able to argue his point with great ability. Jesus answered him, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” That is, one must love God with his best, highest faculties, with the heart; that is, one must love God with all of his affections and have his desires fixed on him. “With all thy soul” includes all of one’s spiritual nature; “with all thy mind” means that all of the intellectual powers must be brought into subjection to the truth of God. It may be that Jesus meant to make no distinction between “heart,” “soul,” and “mind”; that he meant that one must surrender his entire being to the will of God and use the combined powers and faculties of his being to promote the honor and glory of God. This statement of the law includes the four commandments which were inscribed on the first table of stone, which regulated man’s conduct toward God. Man’s duties to God come first; they are supreme and must have the right of way in every life that would enjoy God. Jesus did not stop with that commandment, but added that “a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” This is a summary of the six commandments on the second table of stone of the Decalogue, which describe and regulate man’s conduct toward his fellow man. In these two summaries Jesus covers the entire law, and said, “On these two commandments the whole law hangeth, and the prophets.” All things in the Old Testament dispensation proceed from these two laws all things that Moses and the prophets wrote were intended to bring men to the supreme principle of love to God anti to man. In one sweep Jesus includes the entire will of God as revealed to man, and shows that no one section or clause of it can be disregarded or exalted above another. They recognized that Jesus had answered “discreetly” and no one of them asked him any more questions. (Luke 20 40.)

[Love is the fulfilling of the law. The soul that hungers and thirsts to do the will of God loves God. It is deception and folly to talk of loving God while we fail to obey him or do his commandments. This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. When people do not with the soul desire above all things to do the will of God, they do not love him. To love thy neighbor as thyself is not to feel a magnetic attraction toward him, but it is to have the purpose of heart, soul, and mind to do him good, to work for his happiness and well-being as we labor for our own wellbeing and happiness. He is a true child of God who is willing to sacrifice every fleshly feeling and impluse and bear all things to do the will of God. He loves his neighbor as himself who can choke back the angry feeling and forget wrongs suffered in order to benefit and help him. We can wisely love self only by loving the neighbor, the enemy.]

41-46 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together.- Parallel records of this are found in Mar 12:35-37 and Luk 20:41-44. Before the Pharisees had separated, and while they were still in the temple that day, Jesus asked them a question. He had answered all their questions one by one as they had produced them, and now he proceeds on another line of opposition to them. They have been defeated and stand condemned before the people and in their own sight; so Jesus propounds to them this question, “What think ye of the Christ? whose son is he?” He does not ask them if they think that he is the Messiah, but he calls for their opinion as to whom the Messiah is; that is, “whose son is he” or through whose lineage should he come? They knew the scriptures on this point and answered promptly, “The son of David.” They knew that the scriptures taught that he was to be a descendant of David. (Psa 132:11.) When they answered this question, Jesus propounded another, “How then doth David in the Spirit call him Lord?” That is, how could David call one of his descendants Lord? David in speaking was guided by the Holy Spirit. Upon what principle could David call him Lord? Mark states that David did this by the Holy Spirit, and Luke adds that it was “in the book of Psalms” that David called him Lord. (Psa 110:1.) Jesus then quotes from Psa 110:1 and applies the language to David and says that he spoke by the Holy Spirit and called the Messiah Lord. It seems in order to further confuse these Pharisees that Jesus added another question, “If David then calleth him Lord, how is he his son?” Here was the point for them to explain. They cannot admit it without acknowledging that while he is human as descended from David, so he is divine as the right Messiah sent of God; it shows that his royalty is not on earth, but in heaven. It also shows that the Messiah on earth was to have a twofold nature-fleshly and divine. They were unable to answer him; it is not recorded that they even attempted to answer. They did not ask him any more questions; this closed his debate with them. He had answered and confounded the various sects of the Jews by answering and asking questions. They had failed to catch him in his words; they now resort to violence; next he is brought before their judgment seat; and last they are to be brought before his judgment bar.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

the Scriptures Teach the Resurrection

Mat 22:23-33

The Sadducees professed themselves to be bound by the Pentateuch, and to have searched in vain for evidences of a life beyond. They were greatly startled, therefore, when our Lord proved human immortality from the book of Exodus. He had never passed through their schools and sat at the feet of their great teachers, but He showed them that at the Bush the voice of God attested eternal life.

The great I AM would never have spoken of Himself as the God of the patriarchs, centuries after their earthly career had closed, unless they had been living somewhere still. It was certain that they were all alive; otherwise God would have said, I was their God. Death is not a chamber, but a passage; not an abiding-place, but a crossing over; not a state, but an act, an experience, a crossing of the bar, a going within the veil. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the myriads who have warred and stormed over the earth, are living as intensely as ever.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

The King and the Sadducees

Mat 22:23. The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him,

The same day: there was no rest for Jesus; as soon as one set of enemies was driven away, another company inarched up to attack him. He had silenced the Pharisees and the Herodians; now there came to him the Sadducees, the broad churchmen, the rationalists of our Saviour’s day: which say that there is no resurrection. They rejected a great deal more of the teaching of the Scriptures than this one point of the resurrection; but this is specially mentioned here as it was the subject on which they hoped to entrap or confuse the Saviour. The Sadducees “say that there is no resurrection”; yet they came to Christ to ask what would happen, in a certain contingency, “in the resurrection.” They evidently thought that they could state a case which would bring into contempt the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. They might have taken warning from the experience of the Pharisees and the Herodians; but doubtless they felt so sure of their own position that they expected to succeed though the others had so conspicuously failed.

Mat 22:24. Saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother

“Master”: they came with affected respect for the great “Teacher.” They were as polite as the previous company of assailants; but, like them, though the words of their mouth were smoother than butter, war was in their heart: though their words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords (Psa 55:21).

“Moses said1′: they gave the substance, though not the exact words recorded in Deu 25:5. The law of Moses, in this as in many other matters, recognized existing customs, and imposed certain regulations upon them. For a man to die without leaving a child to bear his name, and enter upon his inheritance, was regarded as so great a calamity that the Jews judged that every possible means must bo taken to prevent it. The practice here described prevails among various Oriental nations even to this day.

Mat 22:25-28. Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother: likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh. And last of all the woman died also. Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her.

These Sadducees may have known such a case as they stated, though it is extremely unlikely; more probably, this was one of the stock stories they were in the habit of telling in order to cast ridicule upon the resurrection. They had no belief in spiritual beings; therefore, they supposed that, if there were a future state, it would be similar to the present. Having stated their case, they put to the Saviour this perplexing question: “In the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her.” They doubtless thought that this question, would puzzle Christ, as it had puzzled others to whom it had been put; but he had no more difficulty in answering this than he had with the previous enquiries.

Mat 22:29. Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.

Jesus answered and said unto them, “Ye do err: ” the error was not with him, but with them. Their supposed argument was based on their own erroneous notions about the unseen world; and when the light of God’s “Word was poured upon their seven men of straw, they vanished into thin air. The answer to objectors, sceptics, infidels today, may bo given in our Lord’s words: “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.” These Sadducees thought that they had found a difficulty in the Scriptures; but their error arose from their ”not knowing the Scriptures.” This is the root of almost all error, ignorance of the Inspired Word of God. These men were acquainted with the letter, but they did not really know the Scriptures, or they would have found there abundant revelations concerning the resurrection.

Their error arose, also, from ignorance of “the power of God.” The resurrection of the dead is one of the greatest proofs of the power of God, with whom all things are possible. These Sadducees limited the Holy One of Israel in their ignorance or denial of his power. What is there about the resurrection that is incredible to the man who knows “the power of God”? Surely, he, who created all things by the word of his power, can, by that same power, raise the dead in his own appointed time.

Mat 22:30. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.

“In the resurrection”: our Lord implied that there is a resurrection; he did not even stay to prove that truth, but went on to speak of the resurrection life as being of a higher order than our present natural life: “they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.” Our Saviour’s answer struck at another Sadducean error; his questioners did not believe in angels. Jesus did not attempt to prove the existence of angels; but took that fact also for granted, by saying that, “in the resurrection “men “are as the angels of God in heaven.” He did not say that they are changed into angels; but, as Luke records his words, “they are equal unto the angels.” They are spiritual beings, as Paul explains in 1 Cor. xv.

Mat 22:31-32. But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

Our Saviour now gives these Sadducees further instruction “as touching the resurrection of the dead.” He used the formula he so often employed in speaking to those who professed to road the Scriptures: “Have ye not read?” “You reject the oral traditions which the Pharisees accept and teach in place of the commandments of God, have you not read that which was spoken unto you by God?” Jesus always manifested the utmost reverence for the revealed “Word of God. He here showed that the truth made known in the Scriptures is a very personal matter. This message was spoken unto these Sadducees, although they knew it not; it was spoken by God, yet they received it not.

How necessary it is that we should search the Scriptures, lest there should be divinely-revealed truths that wo have not even read! How needful, also, is the teaching of the Holy Spirit, lest we should read, as these Sadducees did, and yet not know the Scriptures!

Jesus might have referred to many passages in the Old Testament about the resurrection; but as the Sadducees regarded the Pentateuch with special honour, he quoted what Moses had recorded in Exo 3:6 : “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob;” and then added his own comment and exposition: “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had long been dead when the Lord spoke to Moses out of the burning bush. His words implied that the patriarchs were still living. His covenant was made with those who still existed.

There is much teaching in this truth, that “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” Some suppose that, until the resurrection, the saints are virtually non-existent; but this cannot be. Though disembodied, they still live; Jesus does not argue about it, but he states the fact as beyond all question. The living God is the God of living men; and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are still alive, and identified as the same persons who lived on the earth. God is the God of Abraham’s body as well as of his soul, for the covenant seal was set upon his flesh. The grave cannot hold any portion of the covenanted ones; God is the God of our entire being, spirit;, soul, and body.

Mat 22:33. And when the multitude heard this, they lucre astonished at his doctrine.

Our Lord’s reply to the Sadducees was so complete that they were “put to silence” (Mat 22:34). They did not attempt any further assault upon him, for they must have been convinced of their own impotence. Those who had stood by as listeners, the multitude, that had gathered as crowds delight to do when there is a public discussion, were astonished at his doctrine. They were “astonished “both at the matter and the manner of Christ’s teaching. This is an expression that we often find in the life of our Lord; but apparently those who were “astonished” did not accept his teaching. They talked to one another about the marvellous way in which he answered all questions; but they did not admit that such a Teacher could be none other than the long looked-for Messiah. Even the scribes, who complimented Christ upon his answer (Luk 20:39), saying, “Master, thou hast well said,” did not follow up that confession by becoming his disciples.

Fuente: Spurgeon’s The Gospel of the Kingdom

same: Mar 12:18-27, Luk 20:27-40

the Sadducees: Mat 3:7, Mat 16:6, Act 4:1, Act 5:17, Act 23:6-8

which: 1Co 15:12-14, 2Ti 2:18

Reciprocal: Gen 38:8 – General Psa 62:4 – consult Isa 52:14 – many Mat 16:1 – Sadducees Mar 8:11 – Pharisees Joh 11:24 – I know Act 23:8 – General Heb 6:2 – resurrection

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

2:23

See at Mat 16:12 for more complete details on the doctrine of the Sadducees. The same day was the day the Herodians failed in their attempt to entrap Jesus, and the Sad-ducees thought they would try it. It is a proper argument to confront a man with an actual inconsistency that comes from his teaching, for whenever a man is inconsistent he is bound to be wrong, but the Sadducees either- misunderstood or wilfully misrepresented the Lord’s position concerning the resurrection. He did not teach that men would resume their earth life after they came from the grave. Neither did he teach that the resurrected righteous (and they are the only ones being considered here) could engage in such a manner of life even if they desired.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him,

[The Sadducees, who say that there is no resurrection.] “The Sadducees cavil, and say, The cloud faileth and passeth away; so he that goeth down to the grave doth not return.” Just after the same rate of arguing as they use that deny infant baptism; because, forsooth, in the law there is no express mention of the resurrection. Above, we suspected that the Sadducees were Herodians, that is to say, courtiers: but these here mentioned were of a more inferior sort.

Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels

THIS passage describes a conversation between our Lord Jesus Christ and the Sadducees. These unhappy men, who said that there was “no resurrection,” attempted, like the Pharisees and Herodians, to perplex our Lord with hard questions. Like them, they hoped “to entangle Him in His talk,” and to injure His reputation among the people. Like them, they were completely baffled.

Let us observe, in the first place, that absurd skeptical objections to Bible truths are ancient things. The Sadducees wished to show the absurdity of the doctrine of the resurrection and the life to come. They therefore came to our Lord with a story which was probably invented for the occasion. They told him that a certain woman had married seven brothers in succession, who had all died and left no children. They then asked “whose wife” this woman would be in the next world, when all rose again. The object of the question was plain and transparent. They meant, in reality, to bring the whole doctrine of a resurrection into contempt, They meant to insinuate, that there must needs be confusion, and strife, and unseemly disorder, if, after death, men and women were to live again.

It must never surprise us, if we meet with like objections against the doctrines of Scripture, and especially against those doctrines which concern another world. There never probably will be wanting “unreasonable men,” who will “intrude” into things unseen, and make imaginary difficulties their excuse for unbelief. Supposed cases are one of the favorite strongholds in which an unbelieving mind loves to entrench itself. Such a mind will often set up a shadow of its own imagining, and fight with it, as if it was a truth. Such a mind will often refuse to look at the overwhelming mass of plain evidence by which Christianity is supported, and will fasten down on some one single difficulty, which it fancies is unanswerable. The talk and arguments of people of this character should never shake our faith for a moment. For one thing, we should remember that there must needs be deep and dark things in a religion which comes from God, and that a child may put questions which the greatest philosopher cannot answer.-For another thing, we should remember, that there are countless truths in the Bible, which are clear, and unmistakable. Let us first attend to them, believe them, and obey them. So doing, we need not doubt that many a thing now unintelligible to us will yet be made plain. So doing, we may be sure that “what we know not now we shall know hereafter.”

Let us observe, in the second place, what a remarkable text our Lord brings forward, in proof of the reality of a life to come. He places before the Sadducees the words which God spake to Moses in the bush: “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” (Exo 3:6.) He adds the comment, “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” At the time when Moses heard these words, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had been dead and buried many years. Two centuries had passed away since Jacob, the last of the three, was carried to his tomb. And yet God spoke of them as being still His people, and of Himself as being still their God. He said not, “I was their God,” but “I am.”

Perhaps we are not often tempted to doubt the truth of a resurrection, and a life to come. But, unhappily, it is easy to hold truths theoretically, and yet not realize them practically. There are few of us who would not find it good to meditate on the mighty verity which our Lord here unfolds, and to give it a prominent place in our thoughts. Let us settle it in our minds, that the dead are in one sense still alive. From our eyes they have passed away, and their place knows them no more. But in the eyes of God they live, and will one day come forth from their graves to receive an everlasting sentence. There is no such thing as annihilation. The idea is a miserable delusion. The sun, moon, and stars,-the solid mountains, and deep sea, will one day come to nothing. But the weakest babe of the poorest man shall live for evermore, in another world. May we never forget this! Happy is he who can say from his heart the words of the Nicene Creed, “I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.”

Let us observe, in the last place, the account which our Lord gives of the state of men and women after the resurrection. He silences the fancied objections of the Sadducees, by showing that they entirely mistook the true character of the resurrection state. They took it for granted that it must needs be a gross, carnal existence, like that of mankind upon earth. Our Lord tells them that in the next world we may have a real material body, and yet a body of very different constitution, and different necessities, from that which we have now. He speaks only of the saved, be it remembered. He omits all mention of the lost. He says, “In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.”

We know but little of the life to come in heaven. Perhaps our clearest ideas of it are drawn from considering what it will not be, rather than what it will be. It is a state in which we shall hunger no more, nor thirst any more. Sickness, pain, and disease, will not be known. Wasting, old age, and death will have no place. Marriages, births, and a constant succession of inhabitants, will no more be needed. They who are once admitted into heaven shall dwell there for evermore.-And, to pass from negatives to positives, one thing we are told plainly,-we shall be “as the angels of God.” Like them, we shall serve God perfectly, unhesitatingly, and unweariedly. Like them, we shall ever be in God’s presence. Like them, we shall ever delight to do His will. Like them, we shall give all glory to the Lamb. These are deep things. But they are all true.

Are we ready for this life? Should we enjoy it, if admitted to take part in it? Is the company of God, and the service of God pleasant to us now? Is the occupation of angels one in which we should delight? These are solemn questions. Our hearts must be heavenly on earth, while we live, if we hope to go to heaven when we rise again in another world. (Col 3:1-4.)

Fuente: Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels

Mat 22:23-33. THE ASSAULT OF THE SADDUCEES.

Mat 22:23. Sadducees. See note on chap. Mat 3:5.

Saying, the correct reading points to what was said at that time.

There is no resurrection. Comp. Act 23:8, where their views are shown to include a denial of the immortality of the soul as well as of the resurrection of the body. They correspond to the Skeptics and Epicureans among the Greek philosophers.

And they asked him. A scoffing question, in ridicule of the doctrine and of Christ Himself. This sneering spirit is prominent in Sadducees of every age. Afterwards they became earnest enough. It is possible they hoped for an answer that might show sympathy with them. Errorists often think that opposition to their opponents is agreement with them. But truth must always oppose two contrary errors. In this case first the Pharisees, then their antagonists the Sadducees.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Our blessed Saviour having put the Pharisees and Herodians to silence, next the Sadducees encounter him. This sect denied the immortality of the soul, and the resurrection of the body, and as an objection against both, they propound a question to our Saviour, of a woman that had seven brethren successively to her husbands; they demand, Whose wife of the seven this woman shall be at the resurrection? As if they had said, “If there be a resurrection of bodies, surely their will be a resurrection of relations too, and the other world will be like this, in which men will marry as they do here. And if so, whose wife of the seven shall this woman be, they all having and equal claim to her?

Now our Saviour for resolving of this question, 1. Shews the different state of men in this world, and in the other world. The children of this world, says Christ, marry, and are given in marriage, but in the resurrection they do neither. As if our Lord had said, “After men have lived a time in this world, they die, and therefore marriage is necessary to maintain a succession of mankind; but in the other world, men shall become immortal, and live forever; and then the reason of marriage will wholly cease. For when men can die no more, there will be no need of any new supplies of mankind.”

2. Our Saviour having got clear of the Sadducees objection, by taking away the ground and foundation of it, he produceth an argument for a proof of the soul’s immortality, and body’s resurrection. Thus, “Those to whom Almighty God pronounced himself a God are alive; but God pronounced himself a God to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, many hundred years after their bodies were dead; therefore their souls are yet alive, federally alive unto God; their covenant relation lives still, otherwise God could not be their God; for he is not God of the dead but of the living. If one relation fails, the other necessarily fails with it; if God be their God, then certainly they are in being, for God is not the God of the dead; that is, of those that are utterly perished.

Therefore it must needs be, that although their bodies be naturally dead, yet do their souls still live, and their bodies shall also live again at the resurrection of the just.

From the whole, Note, 1. That there is no opinion so absurd, no error so monstrous, that having had a mother, will die for the lack of a nurse. The beastly opinion of the mortality of the soul, and the annihilation of the body, finds Sadducees to profess and propagate it.

Note, 2. The certainty of another life after this, in which men shall be eternally happy or intolerable miserable, according as they behave themselves here; though some men live like beasts, they shall not die like them, nor shall their last end be like theirs.

Note, 3. That glorified saints in the morning of the resurrection, shall be like unto the glorious angels; not like them in essence and nature, but like them in their properties and qualities, in holiness and purity, in immortality and incorruptibility, and in their manner of living; they shall no more stand in need of meat or drink, than the angels do; but shall live the same heavenly, immortal, and incorruptible life, that the angels live.

Note, 4. That all those that are in covenant with God, whose God the Lord is, their souls do immediately pass into glory, and their bodies, at the resurrection, shall be sharers in the same happiness with their souls. If God be just, the soul must live, and the body must rise: for good men must be rewarded, and wicked men punished: God will most certainly, some time or other, plentifully reward the righteous, and punish the evil-doers; but this being not always done in this life, the justice of God requires it to be done in the next.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Mat 22:23. The same day came to him the Sadducees Concerning whose doctrines and conduct see note on Mat 3:7; which say, there is no resurrection Nor indeed any future life at all, as the word , here rendered resurrection, is considered by many learned men as signifying; their doctrine being, that when the body dies the soul dies with it, and that there is no state of rewards or punishments after death, and no judgment to come. The word , says Dr. Campbell, is indeed the common term by which the resurrection, properly so called, is denominated in the New Testament; yet this is neither the only nor the primitive import of it. When applied to the dead, the word denotes properly no more than a renewal of life to them, in whatever manner this happens. The Pharisees themselves did not universally mean by this term the reunion of soul and body, as is evident from the account which the Jewish historian gives of their doctrine, as well as from some passages in the gospels. To say, therefore, in English, that they deny the resurrection, is to give a very defective account of their sentiments on this topic, for they denied the existence of angels and all separate spirits; in which they went much further than [many of] the pagans, who, though they denied what Christians call the resurrection of the body, yet acknowledged a state after death wherein the souls of the deceased exist, and receive the reward or punishment of their actions. The doctor therefore renders the clause, Who say there is no future life, which version, he observes, not only gives a juster representation of the Sadducean hypothesis, but is the only version which makes our Lords argument appear pertinent, and levelled against the doctrine which he wanted to refute. In the common version they are said to deny the resurrection: that is, that the soul and the body of man shall hereafter be reunited; and our Lord brings an argument from the Pentateuch to prove What? Not that they shall be reunited, (to this it has not even the most distant relation,) but that the soul subsists after the body is dissolved. This many would have admitted, who denied the resurrection; yet so evidently did his argument strike at the root of the scheme of the Sadducees, that they were silenced by it, and, to the conviction of the hearers, confuted. Now this could not have happened, if the fundamental error of the Sadducees had been barely the denial of the resurrection of the body, and not the denial of the immortality of the soul, or of its actual subsistence after death. If possible, the words, Luk 20:38, , all live to him: (namely, the patriarchs and all the faithful dead,) make it still more evident that our Lord considered this, namely, the proving that the soul still continued to live after a persons natural death, was all that was incumbent on one who would confute the Sadducees. Now if this was the subversion of Sadducism, Sadducism must have consisted in denying that the soul continues to live after the body dies. Certainly our Lords answer here, and much of St. Pauls reasoning, 1 Corinthians 15., proceeds on the supposition of such a denial. Thus, 2Ma 12:42-44, the author proves that Judas believed a resurrection, from his offering sacrifices for the souls of the slain, which shows that by a resurrection he meant a future state.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

CIX.

JEWISH RULERS SEEK TO ENSNARE JESUS.

(Court of the Temple. Tuesday, April 4, A. D. 30.)

Subdivision B.

SADDUCEES ASK ABOUT THE RESURRECTION.

aMATT. XXII. 23-33; bMARK XII. 18-27; cLUKE XX. 27-39.

a23 On that day there came {bcome} unto him ccertain of the the Sadducees, they that {bwho} say there is no resurrection [As to the Sadducees, see Deu 25:5, Deu 25:6. The object of this law was to preserve families. But the custom was older than the law– Gen 38:6-11], cthat bIf a man’s brother die, chaving a wife, and he be childless, {band leave a wife behind him, and leave no child,} that his brother should take his {cthe} wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. aMoses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. 25 Now there were ctherefore awith us seven brethren: and the first ctook a wife, amarried and deceased, band dying left no seed; {cand died childless;} aand, having no seed left his wife unto his brother: b21 And a26 In like manner the second also, btook her, and died, leaving no seed behind him; and the third likewise: ctook her; aunto the seventh. cand likewise the seven also left no children, {bleft no seed.} cand died. 32 Afterward [600] bLast of all a27 And after them all, bthe woman also died. a28 In the resurrection therefore whose wife shall she be of the seven? {bof them?} for the seven aall had her. bto wife. [This was evidently a favorite Sadducean argument against the resurrection. On the assumption that the marital state is continued after the resurrection, it makes the doctrine of a resurrection appear ridiculous, because, seemingly, it involves difficulties which even brothers could hardly settle amicably, and which even God would have in a sense to settle arbitrarily.] c34 And {a29 But} Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do not err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. bIs it not for this cause that ye err, that ye know not the scriptures, nor the power of God? [The relevancy of these statements will be discussed in the treatment of Act 23:8), but the basal principle of their infidelity was the denial of spirits. It was, as it were, the tree trunk from which their other errors sprang as branches. If there were such things as spirits, it was not worth while to deny that there was an order of them known as angels. If man had a spirit which could survive his body, it was reasonable to believe that God, having so fashioned him that a body is essential to his activity and happiness, would in some manner restore a body to him. Jesus therefore does not pursue the argument until he has proved a resurrection; but rests when he has proved that man has a spirit. Jesus proves that man has a spirit by a reference from the Pentateuch, that part of Scripture which the Sadducees accepted as derived from God through Moses. The reference shows that God was spoken of and spoke of himself as the God of those who were, humanly speaking, long since dead. But the Sadducees held that a dead man had ceased to exist, that he had vanished to nothingness. According to their view, therefore, God had styled himself the God of nothing, which is absurd. The Sadducees could not thus have erred had they known or understood the significance of this Scripture, and they could not have doubted the resurrection had they known the absolute power with which God deals with material such as that of which the body is formed. See verses 24 and 39 supra.] a33 And when the multitude heard it, they were astonished at his teaching. c39 And certain of the scribes answering said, Teacher, thou hast well said. [Some of the scribes of less bitter spirit could not refrain from expressing their admiration at the ease with which Jesus answered an argument which their own wisdom could not refute.] [602]

[FFG 600-602]

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

THE RESURRECTION

Mat 22:23-33; Mar 12:18-27; Luk 20:27-40. And certain ones of the Sadducees coming to Him, who deny that there is a resurrection, interrogated Him, saying, Teacher, Moses wrote to us [Deu 25:5], If the brother of any one may die, having a wife, and he may die childless, that his brother must take his wife, and raise up seed to his brother. Then there were seven brothers; the first taking a wife, died childless. And the second. took the wife, and he died childless. And the third received her; and likewise also the seven; and they left no children, and died. And last of all the woman also died. Therefore in the resurrection whose wife is she? for the seven had her a wife. And Jesus, responding, said to them, The children of this age marry and are given in marriage; but those considered worthy to reach that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are they given in marriage; for they are not able to die any more: for they are equal to the angels, and they are the sons of God, being the sons of the resurrection. And that the dead rise, Moses mentioned at the bush, as he says the Lord is 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; for all live unto Him. And certain ones of the scribes, responding, said, Teacher, you spoke well. And no one any more dared to ask Him anything. While the Sadducees were the richest denomination of the Jewish Church, they leaned much to materialism, being heterodoxal on the resurrection, as well as the great spiritual truths of the Bible generally. The Pharisees, boasting of their orthodoxy, were rivals and antagonists of the Sadducees, as well as the Herodians. While these three parties were all antagonistical, either to other, it is remarkable how they united and cooperated in their constant and uncompromising opposition to Jesus. They felt that in the case of the woman surviving the seventh husband, they certainly. would get Him into a puzzle. But while in this they were signally mistaken, the multitude are astounded over the deep truths brought out in His answers to their questions.

a. He here corroborates the Scripture with reference to another age following this, as He says, The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage; but those being found worthy to attain unto that age, indeed the resurrection which is from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; showing up the/act that the present probation and the resurrection state constitute two distinct ages, yet contrastive either with other, the resurrection age beginning at the second coming of Christ, when He will raise the saints, who shall reign with Him during the millennium. (Revelation 21.)

b. We see from these utterances of our Lord that matrimony is peculiar only to these material bodies in this probationary age, there being no such thing as sexual distinction in the kingdom of grace and glory. In Him there is neither male nor female. (Gal 3:26.) Consequently the matrimonial state does not survive the present probationary, age.

c. Our Lord also says that in the resurrection state, we are isaggeloi, from isos, equal, and aggelos, an angel. Therefore you see that the glorious resurrection confers on us angelic perfection. Angels have often been seen upon the earth. Hence they must have some kind of a body or form. While in the resurrection we will receive these identical bodies in which we now live, yet they will be perfectly free from matter or anything like physical organism. They will be pure spiritual entities, yet identical with themselves in the present life, but having all ponderable matter eliminated away. Hence you see that in the resurrection age we will be like the angels, and immortal forever.

d. How beautiful, and yet how conclusive, His argument deduced from the burning bush, proving the resurrection in a way never thought of by mortal man, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob! Now, as He says, He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. God does not do a fragmentary work, but solid and complete. Hence these patriarchs, as well as all the rest of us, must have bodies in order to completion in the highest sense. In the Divine estimation, the future is all present and under His eye. Hence He looks upon Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the resurrection state. It is equally true that He thus contemplates all. Here, again, we see His critics so dumfounded that they interrogate Him no more.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

Mat 22:23-33. The Question of the Resurrection Life (Mar 12:18-27*, Luk 20:27-40).Mt.s changes are mostly in the direction of simplicity. As regards the question of the Sadducees, while Lev 18:16; Lev 20:21 forbid marriage with a dead brothers wife, Deu 25:5-10 enjoins it in certain circumstances. The answer of Jesus (Mat 22:29 ff.) to their attempt to argue against resurrection by an imaginary complication of this kind is twofold. First, they were deficient in knowledge, or they would have recognised that their Scriptures at least implicitly taught the doctrine; secondly, they were deficient in faiththe Divine power could solve all such problems. Rabbinical writings show that there was considerable difference of opinion among the Jews of Christs day as to the scope of the Resurrection; the belief itself had become general (except for Sadducees and Samaritans) since the second century B.C., and was largely due to Persian influence. With Jesus argument from Exo 3:6 cf. the Rabbinic tract Sank. 90b, where R. Jochanan deduces the perpetual life, and so the resurrection of Aaron, from Num 18:28. The comparison of the risen life with angelic existence goes against the idea of reanimated bodies, and is in line with Pauls teaching (1 Corinthians 15, 2 Corinthians 5) of a spiritual body.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

22:23 {6} The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him,

(6) Christ affirms the resurrection of the flesh, as opposed to the Sadducees.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

4. Rejection by the Sadducees 22:23-33 (cf. Mar 12:18-27; Luk 20:27-40)

Sometime later that day another group of leaders approached Jesus with another question but with the same purpose: to trap Him in a theological controversy that would destroy His reputation.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

The Pharisees believed in resurrection from the dead (Isa 26:19; Dan 12:2). The Sadducees did not because they did not find it explicitly taught in the Pentateuch. They believed that both the material and the immaterial parts of man perish at death (cf. Act 23:8). [Note: Josephus, Antiquities of . . ., 18:1:3-4; idem, The Wars . . ., 2:8:14.] There was much diverse opinion concerning death and the afterlife in Jesus’ day. [Note: Cf. G. W. E. Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortality and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

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