Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Luke 20:36
Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.
Verse 36. Equal unto the angels] Who neither marry nor die. See the Jewish testimonies to the resurrection of the human body quoted at length on 1Co 15:42.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
36. neither . . . die anymoreMarriage is ordained to perpetuate the human family; butas there will be no breaches by death in the future state, thisordinance will cease.
equalor “like.”
unto the angelsthatis, in the immortality of their nature.
children of Godnot inrespect of character but nature; “being thechildren of the resurrection” to an undecaying existence(Rom 8:21; Rom 8:23).And thus the children of their Father’s immortality (1Ti6:16).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Neither can they die any more,…. Therefore there will be no need of marrying to procreate children, to keep up a succession of men, any more than there is among the angels:
for they are equal unto the angels; in spirituality, purity and immortality; [See comments on Mt 22:30]
and are the children of God: as they are now by adopting grace; but, as yet, it does not appear as it will then, what they are and will be:
being the children of the resurrection; as Christ was declared to be the son of God by his resurrection, so will they appear to be the children of God by their resurrection to eternal life; for though others will rise, yet not to everlasting life, and thus appearing to be children of God, they will also be heirs of God, and enjoy the inheritance, which they will always live to possess in their persons; and therefore the case being different with them from the children of the world, they will not marry, nor be given in marriage, as they are.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Equal unto the angels (). A rare and late word from , equal, and . Only here in the N.T. Mark and Matthew have “as angels” ( ). Angels do not marry, there is no marriage in heaven.
Sons of God, being sons of the resurrection ( ). This Hebraistic phrase, “sons of the resurrection” defines “sons of God” and is a direct answer to the Sadducees.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Equal unto the angels [] . Only here in New Testament.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Neither can they die any more:” (oude gar apothanein eti dunantai) “For they are not able to die any more,” Heb 9:27, after that resurrection of the body of the just, after they receive a glorified body, like that of Jesus, Eph 1:13-14; Rom 8:11; Rom 8:23; Php_3:20-21; 1Jn 3:2.
2) “For they are equal unto the angels;” (isangeloi gar eisin) “For they are (or exist) at that time, equal to angels,” as immortal or none-dying beings, and having no sex-needs; Thereafter they exist as a-sexual beings, Mat 22:30; Mar 12:25. So their argument was turned not only to affirm that there would be a resurrection but also there would be angels which they denied, Act 23:8.
3) “And are the children of God,” (kai huioi eisin theou) “And they are heir-sons of God,” Rom 8:17, in resurrection bodies, like Him , 1Jn 3:2. Thus men shall be equal to angels in duration of existence, wisdom, knowledge, power, glory, honor, and moral excellencies.
4) “Being the children of the resurrection.” (tes anastaseos huioi ontes) “Being (existing as) heirs of the resurrection,” for which all children of God now await, Rom 8:23; Eph 1:14; Php_3:11; Php_3:20-21. But the resurrection of the wicked will also come, some one thousand years after the completion of the first resurrection; It is the resurrection to damnation, of the wicked, to “shame and contempt,” Dan 12:2; Joh 5:29; Rev 20:5 declares “the rest of the dead”, those who were not in the first resurrection, “lived not again until the thousand years were finished;” Then a definitive account of their resurrection and final judgment, called the Great White Throne Judgment is given, Rev 20:11-15.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(36) Neither can they die any more.The record of this teaching is peculiar to St. Luke. The implied thought is that death and marriage are correlative facts in Gods government of the world, the one filling up the gaps which are caused by the other. In the life eternal there is no need for an addition in this way to the number of the elect, and therefore there is no provision for it.
Equal unto the angels.The one Greek word which answers to the English four is again peculiar to St. Luke.
The children of God, being the children of the resurrection.It is obvious that here the resurrection is assumed to be unto life and to a share in the divine kingdom. The fact that men were counted worthy to obtain that resurrection was a proof that they were children of God, and as such on the same footing as those other sons of God, whom the language of Scripture (Job. 1:6; Job. 38:7, and possibly Gen. 6:12) identified with the angels.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
36. Neither can they die Soul and body are made incapable of separation, and both incapable of disintegration or extinction. Death from violence, either from others or their own efforts, is impossible, and out of their natures.
Equal unto the angels In Mark, are as the angels which are in heaven. Luke’s words might be translated are angel-like. To them, as to angels, is attributed neither death, birth, nor marriage. It is not to be inferred that the angels are, like men even in their glorified state, of a compound nature, body and soul. Angels we understand to be pure spirits, who in becoming visible to bodily eyes invest themselves with a visible vehicle; unless, indeed, we suppose with some that matter is but a denser and solidified sort of spirit.
And are the children of God children of the resurrection Literally , sons of the resurrection. The opposite of this would be son of gehenna, or child of hell, in Mat 23:15. This is in accordance with that Hebrew figure of speech by which a being is said to be a son or child of that to whose nature he is conformed, or to whom he somehow belongs. So son of Belial, son of perdition, son of death. They who attain the resurrection in its glorious side cannot die, because they are now angel-like, and so god-like, resurrection-like.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Luk 20:36. And are the children of God, &c. Our Lord is here speaking of the resurrection of the just, who are called God’s children, on account of the inheritance bestowed on them at the resurrection, and particularly on account of their being dignified with immortality, as well as for many other reasons. See Rom 8:17. Gal 4:7. 1Jn 3:2.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
36 Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.
Ver. 36. Die any more ] That there should be any further use of matrimony, for the propagation of mankind.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
36. ] The . is alleged, not as shewing them to be . (Euthym [108] ), but as setting forth their immortality .
[108] Euthymius Zigabenus, 1116
. is here used, not in its ethical sense , as applied to believers in this world, but its metaphysical sense , as denoting the essential state of the blessed after the resurrection: ‘they are, by their resurrection, essentially partakers of the divine nature, and so cannot die.’ When Meyer says that the Lord only speaks of the risen , and has not here in His view the ‘quick’ at the time of His coming, it must be remembered that the ‘change’ which shall pass on them ( 1Co 15:51-54 ) shall put them into precisely the same as the risen (compare ibid. Luk 20:42 ).
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Luk 20:36 . : marriage, birth, death, go together, form one system of things, that of this world. In the next they have no place. Here Lk. expatiates as if the theme were congenial. , angel-like, here only in N.T. , etc.: sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. This connection of ideas recalls St. Paul’s statement in Rom 1:4 that Christ was declared or constituted Son of God with power by the resurrection.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Neither, &c. For neither. Greek. outs. No more births, marriages, or deaths. 1Co 15:52. Rev 21:4.
equal unto the angels. Greek isangelloi. Occurs only here.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
36.] The . is alleged, not as shewing them to be . (Euthym[108]), but as setting forth their immortality.
[108] Euthymius Zigabenus, 1116
. is here used, not in its ethical sense, as applied to believers in this world,-but its metaphysical sense, as denoting the essential state of the blessed after the resurrection:-they are, by their resurrection, essentially partakers of the divine nature, and so cannot die. When Meyer says that the Lord only speaks of the risen, and has not here in His view the quick at the time of His coming, it must be remembered that the change which shall pass on them (1Co 15:51-54) shall put them into precisely the same as the risen (compare ibid. Luk 20:42).
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Luk 20:36. , neither) They have a body so perfect, that they are subject neither to the law of marriage nor to death, which gave occasion to the succession of brothers in the having to wife the one woman. That shall be a state more firm and lasting than the Adamic state.- , for they are like [equal to] the angels) An tiology (see Append. on this figure), assigning the reason why there shall then be no marriages.- , sons of God) Equally as are the angels.- ) of the resurrection, which comprehends under it immortality. An antithesis to die (), and an instance of the figure Ploce.[219]-) Resolve this into, inasmuch as they are.
[219] See Append. A word employed twice, once to express the simple meaning, and afterwards an attribute of it. first simply, then including immortality in it.-E. and T.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
angels
(See Scofield “Heb 1:4”).
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
can: Isa 25:8, Hos 13:14, 1Co 15:26, 1Co 15:42, 1Co 15:53, 1Co 15:54, Phi 3:21, 1Th 4:13-17, Rev 20:6, Rev 21:4, Rev 22:2-5
they are: Zec 3:7, Mat 22:30, Mar 12:25, 1Co 15:49, 1Co 15:52, Rev 5:6-14, Rev 7:9-12, Rev 22:9
the children of God: Rom 8:17-23, 1Jo 3:2
Reciprocal: Mat 5:9 – for Luk 14:14 – the resurrection Rom 8:23 – waiting Phi 3:11 – attain Heb 11:35 – that they
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE LIFE OF THE WORLD TO COME
Neither can they die any more.
Luk 20:36
It is not to the Lords articulated references to the deathless future that we have to appeal alone. Into the whole tissue and texture of His sacred message enters the thought of that world, and the resurrection of the dead. The same, of course, is the witness of the numberless suggestions in the words of Christ of the sacred significance of the human soul to the heavenly Father.
I. The significance of the victory over death.Looked upon from the high point of sight, the Redeemers own victory over death appears at once as the most necessary and, in a deep sense, the most natural of His works. Setting it apart for the moment from its unspeakable significance for the forgiveness of our sins, we see it in a light most magnificent as the representative glorification of our own immortal nature. The Son of Man challenges the law of death by actually lying down under its iron grasp; but it is not possible that He should be holden of it. He overcomes it. It is a victory whose character as fact is the most historical thing in history; to its actuality there come out as principal witnesses, but only principal, leading a great cloud of testimony, the glory of the Lords Person, and the existence of the Lords universal Church. He Who died lived, to die no more. Transfigured, yet the same; embodied as truly as ever, in a body none the less real because now the perfect vehicle of His Spirit, He walked and talked with His own again. And as the proper, the inevitable sequel (for such it will be seen to be on reflection) of His Resurrection, He passed in Ascension into the light invisible. He went up thither, embodied still, leaving the promise (on His own Divine and human honour) to return again, and meantime lifting the hearts of His mortal brethren towards the heavens where He was gone. He would not, indeed, detach them for one moment from the duties at their feet, but He would invest with an ineffable air of heavenly dignity and heavenly hope the humblest factors, the most corporeal conditions, of their lot to-day. As is the earthy one, such are they also that are earthy; as is the heavenly one, such shall the heavenly ones also be.
II. Man not for time but for eternity.This, in some faint and faltering outline, is the Christian revelation, the revelation by and in the Lord Jesus Christ, of the immortality of man. By word and by deed, by promise and by warning, by appeals to our mysterious personality, and to our awful conscience, by His own astonishing action in taking to Him our whole nature, and in it traversing and transcending death, He bids us men now know, without a doubt, that we are made not for time only but eternity. And He does this, such is the majestic balance and sanity of all He says and does, so as only to accentuate the importance of time. He dislocates no pure human relation. His doctrine, rightly understood, is the keystone of the bliss of the family and its precious charities. It is the law at once of liberty and duty in the social and in the civic and in the national domains of life. The very leaves of His immortal tree are for the healing of the nations, as they bring to Him their wounds (see illustration).
III. The inmost necessity of the future life.In such a Presence and in such a prospect let us think, let us labour, let us pray, let us live and die. And do we ever pause or doubt in view of that amazing future when we, in Christ, shall not be able to die any more? Do we feel a misgiving of the soul, as though that long to-morrow would be too much for us, and we should at last even desire to sink out of ourselves into the dreamless sleep of a personless universe? Such thoughts have crossed the minds even of saints and sages in moments when they have been awfully conscious of the weight of life. But the question is raised almost altogether by imagination, and imagination working where it ought to restin regions unknown to us, but guaranteed to faith by God. And the answer to it lies assuredly in that great Scripture with which we beganNeither can they die any more; I am the God of Abraham. To know Him is the life eternal. To get a glimpse of Him is to see what makes immortality the inmost necessitythe sublime sine qu nonof the living and transfigured soul. It has seen Him; and its being will be dear to itself for ever as the seer of that sight. To anticipate His Presence is the answer to every fear beside the timeless ocean of the coming life. For then, as now, the basis of our immortal personality will lie deep in our relation to the eternal Love. Not for one instant of the heavenly life shall we be asked to float in a void; we shall be borne upon the strong, calm tide of the life of God; we shall repose in all the depth and wonder of our being upon the everlasting arms; Because I live, ye shall live also. God shall be All, and in all; not All in the sense of being the shadowy and silent Sum of the shadows and silence of a Nirvana, but All in all, the innumerable blessed ones who will be themselves for ever, but themselves supremely in this, that they see His face, and His name is on their foreheads.
Bishop H. C. G. Moule.
Illustration
It is Christ Who has been and is the Emancipator of the slave. It is He Who is the one real Giver to woman of her dignity, her prerogative, her glory; the weaker vessel, in His estimate, only because the more delicately perfect, the more sensitive to the lights and voices of the unseen life; and, therefore, how often the stronger, the far more heroic of the two types of the one humanity in holy purity and in the courage of self-forgetting love! It is He Who has sown in mans troubled society the seed of an endless progress in a path of peace by revealing the greatness of man as he is related to God, and then by laying it on every man, in his Makers and Redeemers Name, to study always the rights of others and the duties of himself. It is He Who, by His articulation and embodiment of truth eternal and supernatural, has given to the natural its full significance, so that His followers, because they have seen Him That is invisible, because they have handled by faith the things not seen as yet, see in every concrete instance of humanity around them a thought of God. They look upon men, women, children, with eyes perfectly human in their perception of common needs and sins and tears and joys; but they see these things all the while with the sky of immortality above them, and so with a patience, a tolerance, a reverence, a love, which only Jesus Christ can teach. Yes, it is He, it is only He, blessed be His Name, Who gives to our mysterious existence its true continuity, its unity never to be dissolved, when we see it as re-created in Himself. It is only He Who so unveils eternity as to illuminate to-day.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Luk 20:36. For neither can they die any more. The correct reading (for) introduces the reason they do not marry: there is no more death, hence no more birth. If then all the dead are raised and die no more, the same is true of unbelievers. But in the case of those directly spoken of their altered nature is introduced as a reason why they cannot die any more: for they are equal unto the angels. They are distinguished from the angels, but like them are immortal.
And are sons of God. A second proof that their nature is such that they cannot die: they are not simply sons of God in the moral sense, but are essentially partakers of the divine nature, and hence free from death.
Being sons of the resurrection. Into this state they pass, this change of nature takes place, at the resurrection. And the same change will occur in believers living at that day (1Co 15:51-54). Comp. Rom 8:18-23.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
20:36 Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the {h} children of the resurrection.
(h) That is, men who partake in the resurrection: for as we truly say that they will indeed live who will enjoy everlasting bliss, so do those indeed rise who rise to life; though if this word “resurrection” is taken generally, it refers also to the wicked, who will rise to condemnation, which is not properly life, but death.