THE TRUTH REVEALED

Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Him with a question. ‘Teacher,’ they said, ‘Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.

‘Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died without leaving any children. The second one married the widow, but he also died, leaving no child. It was the same with the third. In fact, none of the seven left any children. Last of all the woman died too. At the resurrection, whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?’ (Mark 12: 18-23).

First the chief priests and teachers of the law; then the Pharisees and Herodians; and now the Sadducees! Would they ever learn? They all tried to take Jesus on and came away with egg on their faces.

The Sadducees’ question was based on their ignorance and their unbelief and, of course, Jesus would put them in their place and make them look stupid. The Jews had a practice called “levirate marriage”. If a husband died childless, it was up to his brother to marry his widow and have a child for him who would be his heir and carry on the family name.

Their story was a bit far-fetched, but they obviously cooked it up to try to catch Jesus out and make Him look silly. Seven brothers all married the same woman and died childless. This wasn’t about levirate marriage. This was a dig at His teaching on the resurrection. How would He get around this one?

Again Jesus was one jump ahead of them.

Jesus replied, ‘Are you not in error because you do not know the Scripture or the power of God? When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. Now about the dead rising – have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the account of the burning bush, how God said to him, ‘I am 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. You are badly mistaken.’ (Mark 12: 24-27).

In a masterful reply, Jesus dealt with two errors. Firstly, the Sadducees did not understand the purpose of marriage. They thought it was about having children to carry on the family line. Jesus smartly corrected them on that one. If they had known the Scriptures, they would have understood that God intended marriage to be a visual aid of the oneness in the Godhead. This is what the Scriptures had to say:

So God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them (Gen. 1: 27).

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh (Gen 2:24).

Mankind will not need marriage in the life to come because those who follow Jesus will be one with Him in eternity. Believers will be “married” to Jesus in an eternal union of which marriage in this life is a picture. Therefore marriage will fall away in the life to come.

Secondly, when people die, they simply move into another realm where these frail and corrupted bodies will not be able to live. God will raise us up in new and perfect bodies to live with Him in the eternal realm. He spoke of the patriarchs. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as alive, not dead or even asleep as some believe.

On what did the Sadducees base their unbelief concerning the resurrection? Once again it was a human ploy to dodge responsibility and accountability for their lives. They wanted to live their lives as they chose and get away with it. No matter what belief system is developed to evade the truth of God’s Word, it cannot hold up to the scrutiny of God’s truth, and nor can it effectively be used to dodge accountability for the way people live. Simply to deny the truth will not erase it or make it go away.

Of course the resurrection of Jesus was the final proof that He was right and they were wrong.

If it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised . . . And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins . . . But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep (1 Cor. 15: 12, 13; 17; 20).

How much better to submit to the truth, and receive God’s grace to live within its boundaries. This is the only guarantee that we will be a part of the resurrection when Jesus returns to claim His throne and to finish what He started when He came from heaven to reveal the Father and to take us to the Father.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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